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Who know no guilt, no scandal, but in rags ;
And swell in just proportion to their bags.
Nor only the low-born, deform'd, and old,
Think glory nothing but the beams of gold;
The first young lord, which in the Mall you meet,
Shall match the veriest hunks in Lombard-street,
From rescued candles' ends who rais'd a sum,
And starves, to join a penny to a plum.
A beardless miser! 'T is a guilt unknown
To former times, a scandal all our own.

Of ardent lovers, the true modern band
Will mortgage Celia to redeem their land.
For love, young, noble, rich, Castalio dies;
Name but the fair, love swells into his eyes.
Divine Monimia, thy fond fears lay down;
No rival can prevail — but half a crown.

He glories to late times to be convey'd, Not for the poor he has reliev'd, but made: Not such ambition his great fathers fir'd, When Harry conquer'd, and half France expir'd: He'd be a slave, a pimp, a dog, for gain: Nay, a dull sheriff for his golden chain.

"Who'd be a slave?" the gallant Colonel cries, While love of glory sparkles from his eyes. To deathless fame he loudly pleads his right Just is his title for he will not fight:

All soldiers valour, all divines have grace,
As maids of honour beauty — by their place:
But, when indulging on the last campaign,
His lofty terms climb o'er the hills of slain;
He gives the foes he slew, at each vain word,
A sweet revenge, and half absolves his sword.

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Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid,
A soldier should be modest as a maid:
Fame is a bubble the reserv'd enjoy ;

Who strive to grasp it, as they touch, destroy.
'T is the world's debt to deeds of high degree;
But if you pay yourself, the world is free.

Were there no tongue to speak them but his own.
Augustus' deeds in arms had ne'er been known.
Augustus' deeds! if that ambiguous name
Confounds my reader, and misguides his aim,
Such is the prince's worth, of whom I speak;
The Roman would not blush at the mistake.

SATIRE V.

ON WOMEN.

O fairest of creation! last and best!

Of all God's works! Creature in whom excell'd,
Whatever can to sight, or thought, be form'd
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost!-

MILTON.

NOR reigns ambition in bold man alone;
Soft female hearts the rude invader own;
But there, indeed, it deals in nicer things,
Than routing armies, and dethroning kings:
Attend, and you discern it in the fair

Conduct a finger, or reclaim a hair;
Or roll the lucid orbit of an eye;

Or, in full joy, elaborate a sigh.

The sex we honour, though their faults we

blame;

Nay, thank their faults for such a fruitful theme:

A theme, fair

! doubly kind to me,

Since satirizing those is praising thee;

Who wouldst not bear, too modestly refin'd,

A panegyric of a grosser kind.

Britannia's daughters, much more fair than nice, Too fond of admiration, lose their price; Worn in the public eye, give cheap delight To throngs, and tarnish to the sated sight: As unreserv'd, and beauteous, as the Sun, Through every sign of vanity they run; Assemblies, parks, coarse feasts in city-halls; Lectures, and trials, plays, committees, balls, Wells, bedlams, executions, Smithfield scenes, And fortune-tellers, caves, and lions' dens, Taverns, exchanges, bridewells, drawing-rooms, Instalments, pillories, coronations, tombs, Tumblers, and funerals, puppet-shows, reviews, Sales, races, rabbits, (and, still stranger!) pews. Clarinda's bosom burns, but burns for Fame; And love lies vanquish'd in a nobler flame; Warm gleams of hope she, now, dispenses; then, Like April suns, dives into clouds again : With all her lustre, now, her lover warms; Then, out of ostentation, hides her charms; 'T is, next, her pleasure sweetly to complain, And to be taken with a sudden pain; Then, she starts up, all ecstasy and bliss, And is, sweet soul! just as sincere in this: O how she rolls her charming eyes in spite ! And looks delightfully with all her might! But, like our heroes, much more brave than wise, She conquers for the triumph, not the prize.

Zara resembles Ætna crown'd with snows;
Without she freezes, and within she glows:
Twice ere the Sun descends, with zeal inspir'd,
From the vain converse of the world retir'd
She reads the psalms and chapters for the day,
Cleopatra, or the last new play.

In

Thus gloomy Zara, with a solemn grace,
Deceives mankind, and hides behind her face.
Nor far beneath her in renown, she,
Who through good-breeding is ill company;
Whose manners will not let her larum cease,
Who thinks you are unhappy, when at peace;
To find you news, who racks her subtle head,
And vows
-"that her great-grandfather is dead."
A dearth of words a woman need not fear;
But 't is a task indeed to learn

to hear: In that the skill of conversation lies;

That shows, or makes, you both polite and wise. Xantippe cries, "Let nymphs who nought can

say

Be lost in silence, and resign the day;
And let the guilty wife her guilt confess,
By tame behaviour, and a soft address !"
Through virtue, she refuses to comply
With all the dictates of humanity;
Through wisdom, she refuses to submit

To wisdom's rules, and raves to prove her wit;
Then, her unblemish'd honour to maintain,
Rejects her husband's kindness with disdain :
But if, by chance, an ill-adapted word
Drops from the lip of her unwary lord,
Her darling china, in a whirlwind sent,
Just intimates the lady's discontent.

Wine may indeed excite the meekest dame;
But keen Xantippe, scorning borrow'd flame,
Can vent her thunders, and her lightnings play,
O'er cooling gruel, and composing tea:
Nor rests by night, but, more sincere than nice,
She shakes the curtains with her kind advice:
Doubly, like echo, sound is her delight,
And the last word is her eternal right.

Is 't not enough plagues, wars, and famines, rise
To lash our crimes, but must our wives be wise?
Famine, plague, war, and an unnumber'd throng
Of guilt-avenging ills, to man belong :

What black, what ceaseless cares besiege our state!
What strokes we feel from fancy, and from fate!
If fate forbears us, fancy strikes the blow;
We make misfortune; suicides in woe.
Superfluous aid unnecessary skill!

Is Nature backward to torment, or kill?
How oft the noon, how oft the midnight, bell,
(That iron tongue of Death!) with solemn knell,
On Folly's errands as we vainly roam,

[home!
Knocks at our hearts, and finds our thoughts from
Men drop so fast, ere life's mid-stage we tread,
Few know so many friends, alive, as dead.
Yet, as immortal, in our up-hill chase
We press coy Fortune with unslacken❜d pace;
Our ardent labours for the toys we seek,
Join night to day, and Sunday to the week:
Our very joys are anxious, and expire
Between satiety and fierce desire.

Now what reward for all this grief and toil?

But one, a female friend's endearing smile;

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