Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the wink,
But spare your censure; Silia does not drink.
All eyes may see from what the change arose,
All eyes may see-a pimple on her nose.

Papilla, wedded to her amorous spark,
Sighs for the shades-"How charming is a park!"
A park is purchas'd, but the fair he sees

All bath'd in tears-" Oh odious, odious trees!"
Ladies, like variegated tulips, shew,

'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe;
Fine by defect, and delicately weak,
Their happy spots the nice admirer take.
'Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarm'd,
Aw'd without virtue, without beauty charm'd;
Her tongue bewitch'd as oddly as her eyes,
Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise;
Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad;
Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create,
As when she touch'd the brink of all we hate.
Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,

To make a wash, would hardly stew a child;
Has ev'n been prov'd to grant a lover's prayer,
And paid a tradesman once to make him stare;
Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim;
And made a widow happy, for a whim.
Why then declare good-nature is her scorn,
When 'tis by that alone she can be borne ?
Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name?
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame:
Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres;
Now conscience chills her, and now passion burns;
And atheism and religion take their turns;

A very Heathen in the carnal part,

Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart.

See sin in state, majestically drunk,
Proud as a peeress, prouder as a punk;
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside,
A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.
What then? let blood and body bear the fault,
Her head's untouch'd, that noble seat of thought:
Such this day's doctrine-in another fit

She sins with poets through pure love of wit.
What has not fir'd her bosom or her brain?
Cæsar and Tall-boy, Charles and Charlemagne.
As Helluo, late dictator of the feast,
The nose of haut-gout, and the tip of taste,
Critiqu'd your wine, and analyz'd your meat,
Yet on plain pudding deign'd at home to eat:
So Philomedé, lecturing all mankind
On the soft passion, and the taste refin'd,
Th' address, the delicacy-stoops at once,
And makes her hearty meal upon a dunce.
Flavia's a wit, has too much sense to pray;
To toast our wants and wishes is her way;
Nor asks of God, but of her stars, to give
The mighty blessing," while we live, to live ;"
Then all for death, that opiate of the soul!
Lucretia's dagger, Rosamonda's bowl.
Say, what can cause such impotence of mind?
A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind.

Wise wretch! with pleasures too refin'd to please
With too much spirit to be e'er at ease;
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common thought:
You purchase pain with all that joy can give,
And die of nothing but a rage to live.

Turn then from wits; and look on Simo's mate, No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate.

Or her, that owns her faults, but never mends,
Because she's honest, and the best of friends.
Or her, whose life the church and scandal share,
For ever in a passion, or a prayer,

Or her, who laughs at hell, but (like her Grace)
Cries, "Ah! how charming, if there's no such
Or who in sweet vicissitude appears

[place!"

Of mirth and opium, ratafia and tears,
The daily anodyne, and nightly draught,
To kill those foes to fair ones, time and thought.
Woman and fool are two hard things to hit;
For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit.

But what are these to great Atossa's mind?
Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind!
Who, with herself, or others, from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth:
Shines in exposing knaves, and painting fools,
Yet is, whate'er she hates and ridicules.
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the world has been her trade,
The wisest fool much time has ever made.
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratify'd except her rage.

So much the fury still outran the wit,

The pleasure miss'd her, and the scandal hit.
Who breaks with her, provokes revenge from hell,
But he's a bolder man who dares be well.
Her every turn with violence pursued,
Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude:
To that each passion turns, or soon or late;
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate :
Superiors? death! and equals? what a curse!
But an inferior not dependant? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live:
But die, and she'll adore you-then the bust
And temple rise-then fall again to dust.
Last night her lord was all that's good and great;
A knave this morning, and his will a cheat.
Strange! by the means defeated of the ends,
By spirit robb'd of power, by warmth of friends,
By wealth of followers! without one distress
Sick of herself, through very selfishness!
Atossa, curs'd with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir:
To heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store,
Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor.

Pictures like these, dear madam, to design,
Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line;
Some wandering touches, some reflected light,
Some flying stroke alone can hit them right:
For how should equal colours do the knack?
Cameleons who can paint in white and black ?

"Yet Chloe sure was form'd without a spot❞— Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot. "With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart. She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought; But never, never, reach'd one generous thought. Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies for ever. So very reasonable, so unmov'd, As never yet to love, or to be lov'd. She, while her lover pants upon her breast, Can mark the figures on an Indian chest: And when she sees her friend in deep despair, Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. Forbid it, Heaven, a favour or a debt She e'er should cancel-but she may forget. Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear; But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear. Of all her dears she never slander'd one, But cares not if a thousand are undone. Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead ? She bids her footman put it in her head. Chloe is prudent-would you too be wise? Then never break your heart when Chloe dies.

One certain portrait may (I grant) be seen, Which Heaven has varnish'd out, and made a queen: The same for ever! and describ'd by all With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball. Poets heap virtues, painters gems at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill. "Tis well-but, artists! who can paint or write, To draw the naked is your true delight. That robe of quality so struts and swells, None see what parts of nature it conceals; Th' exactest traits of body or of mind, We owe to models of an humble kind. If Queensberry to strip there's no compelling, "Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen. From peer or bishop 'tis no easy thing To draw the man who loves his God, or king: Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail) From honest Mah'met, or plain Parson Hale.

But grant, in public men sometimes are shown, A woman's seen in private life alone: Our bolder talents in full light display'd; Your virtues open fairest in the shade. Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide; There, none distinguish 'twixt your shame or pride, Weakness or delicacy; all so nice, That each may seem a virtue, or a vice.

In men we various ruling passions find;
In women, two almost divide the kind;
Those, 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 please, can pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by man's oppression curst,
They seek the second not to lose the first.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake:
Men, some to quiet, some to public strife;
But every lady would be queen for life.

Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens! Power all their ends, but beauty all the means: In youth they conquer with so wild a rage As leaves them scarce a subject in their age: For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam; No thought of peace or happiness at home. But wisdom's triumph is well-tim'd retreat, As hard a science to the fair as great! Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown, Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone; Worn out in public, weary every eye, Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. Pleasures the sex, as children birds, pursue, Still out of reach, yet never out of view; Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most, To covet flying, and regret when lost: At last, to follies youth could scarce defend, It grows their age's prudence to pretend; Asham'd to own they gave delight before, Reduc'd to feign it, when they give no more: As hags hold sabbaths, less for joy than spite, So these their merry, miserable night; Still round and round the ghosts 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 passion, but their prize a sot; Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot!

Ah! friend! to dazzle let the vain design;
To raise the thought, and touch the heart, be thine!
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 sight,
All mild ascends the moon's more sober light,
Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserv'd the glaring orb declines.

Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day:
She, who can love a sister's charms, or hear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;
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, our 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 ally'd,
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 unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest. This Phoebus promis'd (I forget the year) When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere; Ascendant Phœbus watch'd that hour with care, = Averted half your parents' simple prayer; And gave you beauty, but deny'd 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.

EPISTLE III.

TO ALLEN, LORD BATHURST.

Of the Use of Riches.

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: But when, by man's audacious labour won, Flam'd forth this rival to, its sire, the sun, Then careful Heaven supply'd two sorts of men, To squander these, and those to hide again. Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past, We find our tenets just the same at last. Both fairly owning, riches, in effect, No grace of Heaven or token of th' elect; Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil, To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, 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 must 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:

P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend.
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,
From the crack'd bag the dropping guinea spoke,
And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew,
"Old Cato is as great a rogue as you."
Flest 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 senates to some distant shore;
A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes, as the wind 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?
What could they more than knights and squires
confound,

Or water all the quorum ten miles round? [spoil!
A statesman's slumbers how this speech would
"Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;
Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door :
A hundred oxen at your levee 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 from street to street,
Whom, with a wig so wild, and mien so maz'd,
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman craz'd.
Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and
Could he himself have sent it to the dogs? [hogs,
His Grace will game: to White's a bull be led,
With spurning heals and with a butting head.
To White's be carry'd 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 perfum'd 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. What more? P. Meat,
clothes, and fire.

Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give.
Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past)
Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!
What can they give? to dying Hopkins, heirs;
To Chartres, vigour; Japhet, nose and ears?
Can they, in gems bid pallid Hippia glow,
In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below?

Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,
With all th' embroidery plaistered at thy tail?
They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend)
Give Harpax self the blessing of a friend;
Or find some doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife:
But thousands die, without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college, or a cat.
To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate,
T' enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.

Perhaps you think the poor might have their part?
Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart:
The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule
That" every man in want is knave or fool:"
"God cannot love (says Blunt with tearless eyes)
The wretch he starves"—and piously denies :
But the good bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.

Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: Damn'd to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides.' B. Who suffer thus, mere charity should own, Must act on motives powerful, though unknown.

P. Some war, some plague, or famine they foresee,
Some revelation hid from you and me.
Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found;
He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound.
What made directors cheat the South-Sea year?
To live on venison when it sold so dear.
Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys?
Phryne foresees a general excise.

Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum?
Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.

Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold,
And therefore hopes this nation may be sold:
Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store,

And be what Rome's great Didius was before.

t

The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage. But nobler scenes, Maria's dreams unfold, Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold. Congenial souls! whose life one avarice joins, And one fate buries in th' Asturian mines. Much-injur'd Blunt! why bears he Britain's hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate: "At length corruption, like a general flood, (So long by watchful ministers withstood) Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun; Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box; And judges job, and bishops bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown. See Britain sunk in lucre's sordid charms,

And France reveng'd of Anne's and Edward's arms!" "Twas no court badge, great scrivener, fir'd thy brain, Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain:

No, 'twas thy righteous end, asham'd to see
Senates degenerate, patriots disagree,
And nobly wishing party rage to cease,
To buy both sides, and give thy country peace.
"All this is madness," cries a sober sage:
But who, my friend, has reason in his rage?
"The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still."
Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame,
Than ev'n that passion, if it has no aim;
For though such motives folly you may call,
The folly's greater to have none at all. [sends,
Hear then the truth: ""Tis Heaven each passion
And different men directs to different ends.
Extremes in nature equal good produce,
Extremes in man concur to general use.'
Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow?
That power who bids the ocean ebb and flow;
Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconcil'd extremes of drought and rain;
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives th' eternal wheels to know their rounds.

Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie, Wait but for wings, and in their season fly. Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor; This year a reservoir, to keep and spare ; The next a fountain, spouting through his heir, In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst, And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.

Old Cotta sham'd his fortune and his birth, Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth: What though (the use of barbarous spits forgot) His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot? His court with nettles, moats with cresses stor'd, With soups unbought and sallads bless'd his board? If Cotta liv'd on pulse, it was no more Than bramins, saints, and sages did before; To cram the rich, was prodigal expense, And who would take the poor from Providence? Like some lone Chartreux stands the good old hall, Silence without, and fasts within the wall; No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound, No noontide bell invites the country round: Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey, And turn th' unwilling steeds another way: Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er, Curse the say'd candle, and unopening door; While the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate, Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.

Not so his son: he mark'd this oversight,
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right.
(For what to shun, will no great knowledge need,
But what to follow, is a task indeed).
Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise,
More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise.

What slaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine,
Fill the capacious 'squire, and deep divine!
Yet no mean motives this profusion draws,
His oxen perish in his country's cause;
'Tis George and Liberty that crowns the cup,
And zeal for that great house which eats him up.
The woods recede around the naked seat,
The Sylvans groan-no matter-for the fleet:
Next goes his wool-to clothe our valiant bands:
Last, for his country's love, he sells his lands.
To town he comes, completes the nation's hope,
And heads the bold train-bands, and burns a Pope.
And shall not Britain now reward his toils,
Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils ?
In vain at court the bankrupt pleads his cause,
His thankless country leaves him to her laws.

The sense to value riches, with the art
T' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart,
Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued,
Not sunk by sloth, nor rais'd by servitude;
To balance fortune by a just expense,
Join with œconomy, magnificence;
With splendour, charity; with plenty, health;
Oh teach us, Bathurst! yet unspoil'd by wealth!
That secret rare, between th' extremes to move
Of mad good-nature, and of mean self-love.

B. To worth or want well-weigh'd, be bounty And ease, or emulate, the care of Heaven; [given,