To Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE*. I.. IN beauty, or wit, No mortal as yet To queftion your empire has dar'd; But men of difcerning Have thought that in learning, To yield to a lady was hard. II. Impertinent schools, With mufty dull rules, Have reading to females deny'd: So papifts refuse The Bible to use, Left flocks fhould be wife as their guide. III. 'Twas a woman at first, (Indeed she was curst) In knowledge that tafted delight, * This panegyric on Lady Mary Wortley Montague might have been fupprefled by Mr. Pope, on account of her having fatirized him in her verfes to the imitator of Horace; which abufe he returned in the first Satire of the fecond book of Horace. "From furious Sappho, scarce a milder fate, 66 "F-'d by her love, or libel'd by her hate." A a 3 S. And And fages agree The laws fhould decree To the first of poffeffors the right. IV. Then bravely, fair dame, Which to your whole fex does belong; From a fecond bright Eve, The knowledge of right, and of wrong, V. But if the firft Eve Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she, What a punishment new Shall be found out for you, Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree? The The FOURTH EPISTLE of the FIRST. Book of HORACE's EPISTLES*. What schemes of politics, or laws, 5 10 *This fatire on Lord Bolingbroke, and the praise bestowed on him in a letter to Mr. Richardson, where Mr. Pope says, "The fons fhall blush their fathers were his foes;" being fo contradictory, probably occafioned the former to be fuppreffed. S. Ad ALBIUM TIBULLUM. Albi, noftrorum fermonum candide judex, The lines here quoted occur in the "Effay on Man.” § An tacitam filvas inter reptare falubres? To you (th' all-envy'd gift of Heaven) + What could a tender mother's care Amidst thy various ebbs of fear, In fpight of fears, of mercy spight, Di tibi formam Di tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi. Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, non deficiente crumena? Inter fpem, curamque, timores inter et iras. 15. 20 25 30 Hafte |