She, who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humour most when she obeys;
Let fops or fortune fly which way they will;
Disdains all loss of tickets, or codille;
Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all,
And mistress of herself though China fall.

And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at best a contradiction still.
Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can
Its last, best work, but forms a softer man ;
Picks from each sex, to make the favourite blest,
Your love of pleasure or desire of rest :
Blends, in exception to all general rules,
Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools:
Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied,
Courage with softness, modesty with pride;
Fix'd principles, with fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces-you.

Be this a woman's fame with this unbless'd,
Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care,
Averted half your parents' simple prayer;

And

gave you beauty, but denied the pelf

That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself.
The generous god, who wit and gold refines,
And ripens spirits as he ripens mines,

Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it,
To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.

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270

280

290

EPISTLE III.TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE USE OF RICHES.

That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, avarice or profusion, ver. 1., &c. The point discussed, 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 necessaries, ver. 89 to 160. That avarice is an absolute frenzy, without an end or purpose, ver. 113 to 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 miser acts upon principles which appear to him reasonable, ver. 179. How a prodigal does the same, ver. 199. The due medium, and true use of riches, ver. 219. The Man of Ross, ver. 250. The fate of the profuse and the covetous, in two examples; both miserable in life and in death, ver. 300, &c. The story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339 to the end.

P. WHO shall decide, when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
You hold the word, from Jove to Momus given,
That man was made the standing jest of Heaven;
And gold but sent to keep the fools in play,
For some to heap, and some to throw away.
But I, who think more highly of our kind,
(And, surely, Heaven and I are of a mind)
Opine, that Nature, as in duty bound,

Deep hid the shining mischief under ground:

6

10

1 Epistle III. :' this epistle was written after a violent outcry against our author, on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong taste. He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are these words: 'I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridiculous; and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high places; and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and as the only certain way to avoid misconstructions, to lessen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably, in my next, make use of real names instead of fictitious ones.'-P.

But when, by man's audacious labour won,
Flamed forth this rival to its sire, the Sun,
Then careful Heaven supplied two sorts of men,
To squander these, and those to hide again.

Like doctors thus, when much dispute has pass'd,
We find our tenets just the same at last.
Both fairly owning, riches, in effect,
No grace of Heaven or token of the elect;
Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres,2 and the devil.

B. What nature wants, commodious gold bestows,

"Tis thus we eat the bread another sows.

P. But how unequal it bestows, observe,
'Tis thus we riot, while who sow it starve:
What nature wants (a phrase I much distrust)
Extends to luxury, extends to lust:

Useful, I grant, it serves what life requires,
But dreadful too, the dark assassin hires :

B. Trade it may help, society extend.

11

20

P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend. 30

B. It raises armies in a nation's aid.

P. But bribes a senate, and the land 's betray'd.

In vain may heroes fight, and patriots rave;

If secret gold sap on from knave to knave.
Once, we confess, beneath the patriot's cloak,3
From the crack'd bag the dropping guinea spoke,
And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew,

1 Ward: John Ward of Hackney, Esq., member of Parliament, being prosecuted by the Duchess of Buckingham, and convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House, and then stood in the pillory on the 17th of March 1727.—P. -Chartres:' see a former note. The patriot's cloak: this is a true story, which happened in the reign of William III. to an unsuspected old patriot, who coming out at the back-door from having been closeted by the king, where he had received a large bag of guineas, the bursting of the bag discovered his business there.-P.

'Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.'
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,
Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings;
A single leaf shall waft an army o'er,
Or ship off senates1 to a distant shore;
A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow :
Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen,
And silent sells a king, or buys a queen,

Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see,
Still, as of old, encumber'd villainy!

Could France or Rome divert our brave designs,
With all their brandies, or with all their wines?

338

50

What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the quorum ten miles round?

A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil!

Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;

Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door;
A hundred oxen at your levée roar.'

Poor avarice one torment more would find;
Nor could profusion squander all in kind.
Astride his cheese, Sir Morgan might we meet;
And Worldly crying coals 2 from street to street,

60

Ship off senates:' alludes to several ministers, counsellors, and patriots banished in our times to Siberia, and to that more glorious fate of the Parliament of Paris, banished to Pontoise in the year 1720.-P.- Coals:' some misers of great wealth, proprietors of the coal-mines, had entered at this time into an association to keep up coals to an extravagant price, whereby the poor were reduced almost to starve, till one of them, taking the advantage of underselling the rest, defeated the design. One of these misers was worth ten thousand, another seven thousand a-year.-P.

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 50, in the MS.

To break a trust were Peter bribed with wine,
Peter! 'twould pose as wise a head as thine.

Whom, with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed,
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed.
Had Colepepper's 1 whole wealth been hops and
hogs,

Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?

His Grace will game: to White's a bull be led,
With spurning heels, and with a butting head:
To White's be carried, as to ancient games,
Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,
Bear home six whores and make his lady weep?
Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine,

Drive to St James's a whole herd of swine?

Oh filthy check on all industrious skill,

To spoil the nation's last great trade-quadrille !
Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall,
What say you?

B.

Say! Why, take it, gold and all. P. What riches give us, let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes.

B.

P.

What more?

Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little? would you more than live? Alas! 'tis more than Turner 2 finds they give. Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past) Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!

63

70

80

1 Colepepper: ' Sir William Colepepper, Bart., a person of an ancient family and ample fortune, without one other quality of a gentleman, who, after ruining himself at the gaming table, passed the rest of his days in sitting there to see the ruin of others; preferring to subsist upon borrowing and begging, rather than to enter into any reputable method of life, and refusing a post in the army which was offered him.-P.-2 Turner: a miser of the day.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 77, in the former edition

Well then, since with the world we stand or fall,

Come, take it as we find it, gold and all.