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Let mine, an innocent gay farce appear,
And more diverting still than regular;
Have humor, wit, a native ease and grace,
Though not too strictly bound to time and place.
Critics in wit, or life, are hard to please;
Few write to those, and none can live to these.
Too much your sex is by their forms confin'd,
Severe to all, but most to womankind;

Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide;
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;
By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame,
Made slaves by honor, and made fools by shame.
Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase,
But sets up one, a greater, in his place :
Well might you wish for change by those accurst;
But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.
Still in constraint your suff'ring sex remains,
Or bound in formal or in real chains:
Whole years neglected, for some months ador'd,
The fawning servant turns a haughty lord.
Ah! quit not the free innocence of life,
For the dull glory of a virtuous wife;
Nor let false shews, nor empty titles please:
Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease.

The gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,
The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate.
She glares in balls, front-boxes, and the ring,
A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched thing!-

Pride, pomp, and state, but reach her outward part; She sighs, and is no duchess at her heart.

But, Madam, if the Fates withstand, and you Are destin'd Hymen's willing victim too, Trust not too much your now resistless charms, Those, age or sickness, soon or late disarms; Good humor only teaches charms to last, Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past. Love, rais'd on beauty, will like that decay; Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day, As flow'ry bands in wantonness are worn, A morning's pleasure, and at ev'ning torn; This binds in ties more easy, yet more strong, The willing heart, and only holds it long.

Thus Voiture's early care still shone the same, And Monthausier was only chang'd in name : By this ev'n now they live, ev'n now they charm, Their wit still sparkling, and their flames still

warm.

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Now crown'd with myrtle on th' Elysian coast, Amid those lovers, joys his gentle ghost; Pleas'd while with smiles his happy lines you And finds a fairer Rombouillet in you. The brightest eyes in France inspir'd his Muse; The brightest eyes of Britain now peruse; And dead, as living, 'tis our author's pride Still to charm those who charm the world beside.

Mademoiselle Paulet

EPISTLE V.

To the same, on her leaving the Town after the Coronation, 1715.

As some fond virgin, whom her mother's care

Drags from the Town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever;
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
Not that their pleasures caus'd her discontent;
She sigh'd not that they stay'd, but that she went.
She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks, and pray'rs, three hours a-day;
her time, 'twixt reading and bohea,

Το

part

To muse, and spill her solitary tea;

Or o'er cold coffee trifle with a spoon,

Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
Up to her godly garret after sev'n,

There starve and pray, for that's the way to heav'n.
Some squire, perhaps, you take delight to rack,
Whose game is Whist, whose treat a toast in sack;

Who visits with a gun, presents you birds,
Then gives a smacking buss, and cries-no words!
Or with his hounds comes hallooing from the
stable,

Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are

coarse,

And loves you best of all things—but his horse.

In some fair ev'ning, on your elbow laid,
You dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
In pensive thought recal the fancy'd scene,
See coronations rise on ev'ry green :
Before you, pass th' imaginary sights

Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter'd knights,
While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!
So when your slave, at some dear idle time,
(Not plagu'd with headachs or the want of rhyme,)
Stands in the streets abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you ;
Just when his fancy points your sprightly eyes,
Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs, rush upon my sight:
Vext to be still in Town, I knit my brow,
Look sour, and hum a tune, as you may now.

EPISTLE VI.

ΤΟ MR. JOHN MOORE,

Author of the celebrated worm-powder.

How much, egregious Moore! are we
Deceiv'd by shews and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All human kind are worms.

Man is a very worm by birth,
Vile, reptile, weak, and vain!
A-while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.

That woman is a worm, we find
E'er since our grandame's evil;
She first convers'd with her own kind,
That ancient worm, the devil.

The learn'd themselves we book-worms name,
The blockhead is a slow-worm ;

The nymph whose tail is all on flame,

Is aptly term'd a Glow-worm.

The fops are painted butterflies,

That flutter for a day;

First from a worm they take their rise,

And in a worm decay.

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