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Our bolder Talents in full light display'd;

Your virtues open fairest in the fhade.

Bred to difguife, in Public 'tis you hide;

There, none diftinguish 'twixt your Shame or Pride, Weakness or Delicacy; all fo nice,

205

That each may feem a Virtue, or a Vice.
In Men we various ruling Paffions find;
In Women, two almoft divide the kind;
Thofe, only fix'd, they first or last obey,
The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway.
That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught
Is but to pleafe, can Pleasure feem a fault?
Experience, this; by Man's oppreffion curft,
They feek the fecond not to lose the first.

210

Men, fome to Bus'nefs, fome to Pleasure take; 215 But ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake:

Men, fome to Quiet, fome to public Strife;
But ev'ry Lady would be Queen for Life.

Illuftrations to the Maxims laid down; and though some of these have fince been found, viz. the Characters of Philomedé, Atoffa, Chloe, and fome verfes following, others are ftill wanting, nor can we answer that these are exactly inferted.

VER. 207. The former part having fhewn, that the particular Characters of Women are more various than those of Men, it is nevertheless obferved, that the general Characteristic of the Sex, as to the ruling Paffion, is more uniform.

VER. 211. This is occafioned partly by their Nature, partly their Education, and in fome degree by Neceffity.

VER. 216. But ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake:] "Some men "(fays the Poet) take to bufinefs, fome to pleasure, but every woman would willingly make pleasure her bufinefs:" which being the peculiar characteristic of a Rake, we must needs think that he includes (in his use of the word here) no more of the Rake's ill qualities than are implied in this definition, of one whe makes pleafure his business.

VARIATION S.

VER. 207. in the firft Edition,

In fev'ral Men we fev'ral paffions find;
In Women, two almost divide the kind.

Yet mark the fate of a whole Sex of Queens!
Pow'r all their end, but Beauty all the means: 220
In Youth they conquer with fo wild a rage,
As leaves them fcarce a fubject in their Age:
For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam;
No thought of peace or happinefs at home.
But Wisdom's triumph is well tim'd Retreat,

As hard a fcience to the Fair as Great!
Beauties, like Tyrants, old and friendless grown,
Yet hate repofe, and dread to be alone.
Worn out in public, weary ev'ry eye,

225

Nor leave one figh behind them when they die. 230
Pleasures the fex, as children Birds, pursue,

Still out of reach, yet never out of view;
Sure, if they catch, to fpoil the Toy at most,
To covet flying, and regret when loft:
At laft, to follies Youth could scarce defend,
It grows their Age's prudence to pretend;
Afham'd to own they gave delight before,
Reduc'd to feign it, when they give no more:
As Hags hold Sabbaths, lefs for joy than spight,
So thefe their merry, miferable Night;

235

240

Still round and round the Ghofts of Beauty glide,
And haunt the places where their honour dy'd.

See how the World its Veterans rewards!
A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards ;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Paffion, but their Prize a Sot,
Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot!

Ah! Friend! to dazzle let the vain defign;

245

To raise the thought, and touch the Heart be thine!250

VER. 219. What are the Aims and the Fate of this Sex.I. As to Power.

VER. 231.-II. As to Pleasure.

VER. 249. Advice for their true Intereft.

255

That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring,
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing :
So when the Sun's broad beam has tir'd the fight,
All mild afcends the Moon's more fober light,
Serene in Virgin Modefty fhe fhines,
And unobferv'd the glaring orb declines.
Oh! bleft with Temper, whofe unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;
She, who can love a Sifter's charms, or hear
Sighs for a Daughter with unwounded ear;
She who ne'er anfwers till a Hufband cools,
Or, if the rules him, never fhews the rules;
Charms by accepting, by fubmitting fways,
Yet has her humour most, when the obeys;
Let Fops or Fortune fly which way they will;
Difdains all lofs of Tickets, or Codille;
Spleen, Vapours, or Small-pox, above them all,
And Mistress of herself, tho' China fall.

And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at best a Contradiction still.

260

265

270

VER. 253. So when the Sun's broad beam, etc.] One of the great beauties obfervable in the poet's management of his Similitudes, is the ceremonious preparation he makes for them, in gradually raifing the imagery of the fimilitude in the lines preceding, by the ufe of metaphors taken from the subject of it:

while what fatigues the Ring,

Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing.

And the civil difmiffion he gives them by the continuance of the fame metaphor, in the lines following, whereby the traces of the imagery gradually decay, and give place to others, and the reader is never offended with the fudden or abrupt difappearance of it,

Oh! bleft with Temper, whofe unclouded ray, etc.

Another inftance of the fame kind we have in this epistle, in the following lines,

Chufe a firm cloud before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere the change, the Cynthia of this minute.
Rufa, whofe eye quick glancing o'er the Park,
Attracts each light gay Meteor of a Spark, etc.

Heav'n, when it strives to polish all it can
Its laft beft work, but forms a fofter Man;
Picks from each fex, to make the Fav'rite bleft,
Your love of Pleasure, our defire of Reft.
Blends, in exception to all gen'ral rules,
Your Taste of Follies, with our Scorn of Fools:
Referve with Franknefs, Art with Truth ally'd,
Courage with Softnefs, Modesty with Pride;
Fix'd Principles, with Fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces-You.

275

280

Be this a Woman's Fame; with this unbleft, Toafts live a fcorn, and Queens may die a jeft. This Phoebus promis'd (I forget the year) When those blue eyes firft open'd on the sphere; Afcendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care, 285 Averted half your Parents' fimple Pray'r; And gave you Beauty, but deny'd the Pelf That buys your Sex a Tyrant o'er itself. The gen'rous God, who Wit and Gold refines, And ripens Spirits as he ripens Mines, Kept Drofs for Ducheffes, the world fhall know it, To you gave Senfe, Good-humour, and a Poet.

299

VER. 285, etc. Afcendant Phœbus watch'd that Hour with Care,➡ Averted balf your Parents' fimple Pray'r;-And gave you Beauty, but deny'd the Pelf] The Poet concludes his Epiftle with a fine Moral, that deferves the ferious attention of the public: It is this, that all the extravagancies of these vicious Characters here described, a.e much inflamed by a wrong Education, hinted at in ver. 203; and that even the best are rather fecured by a good natural than by the prudence and providence of parents; which obfervation is conveyed under the fublime claffical machinery of Phoebus in the afcendant, watching the natal hour of his favourite, and averting the ill effects of her parents mistaken fondness: For Phoebus, as the god of Wit, confers Genius; and, as one of the aftronomical influences, defeats the adventitious bias of education.

In conclufion, the great Moral from both these Epistles together is, that the two rareft things in all Nature are a DISINTERESTED MAN, and a REASONABLE WOMAN.

MORAL

ESSAY S.

EPISTLE III.

то

ALLEN, LORD BATHURST.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Use of RICHES.

THAT it is known to fer, moft falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profufion, ver. 1, etc. The Point difcuffed, whether the invention of Money has been more commodious or pernicious to Mankind, ver. 21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, Scarcely Neceffaries, ver. 89 to 160. That Avarice is an abfolute Frenzy, without an End or Purpfe, ver. 113, etc. 152. Conjectures about the Motives of Avaricious Men, ver. 121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the ORDER OF PROVIDENCE, which works the general Good out of Extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, ver. 161 to 178. How a Mifer acts upon Principles which appear to him reasonable, ver. 179. How a Prodigal does the fame, ver. 199. The due Medium, and true ufe of Riches, ver. 219. ver. 250. The fate of the Profufe and the Covetous, in two examples; both miferable in Life and in Death, ver. 300, etc. The Story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339.

to the end.

The Man of Rofs,

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