Weakness or Delicacy; all fo nice, That each may feem a Virtue, or a Vice. In Men, we various Ruling Paffions find; In Women, two almost divide the kind; Thofe, only fix'd, they firft or last obey, 205 The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway. 210 That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught Is but to please, can Pleasure seem a fault? VARIATIONS, VER. 207. in the first Edition, In fev'ral Men we fev'ral paffions find; NOTES. affertion, which makes their disguifing in public the natural effect of their being bred to difguife: but if we confider that female education is the art of teaching, not to be but to appear, we fhall have no reason to find fault with the exactnefs of the expreffion. VER. 206. That each may feem a Virtue, or a Vice.] For women are taught virtue fo artificially, and vice so naturally, that, in the nice exercife of them, they may be easily mistaken for one another. SCRIBL. P. 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 Characteriftic of the fex, 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. 211, 212.-and where the leffon taught Is but to pleaf, can, &c.] P. The delicacy of the Poet's address is here obfervable, in his manner of informing us what this pleasure is, which makes : Experience, this; by Man's oppreffion curst, 216 Men, fome to Bus'nefs, fome to Pleasure take; Yet mark the fate of a whole Sex of Queens! NOTE S. one of the two objects of women's ruling paffion. He does it in an ironical apology for it, arising from its being a pleasure of the beneficent and communicative kind, and not merely selfish, like those which the other sex generally pursues. VER. 213. Experience, this, &c.] The ironical apology continued that the fecond is, as it were, forced upon them by the tyranny and oppreffion of Man, in order to fecure the first. VER. 216. But ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake.] This line has given offence: but in behalf of the Poet we may observe, that what he fays amounts only to this, "Some men take to "bufinefs, fome to pleasure; but every woman would wil"lingly make pleasure her business;" which being the peculiar characteristic of a Rake, he uses that word, but of course includes in it no more of the Rake's ill qualities than is implied in this definition, of one who makes pleafure his bufinefs. VER. 219. What are the Aims and the Fate of this sex.I. As to Power. P. Beauties, like Tyrants, old and friendless grown, Nor leave one figh behind them when they die. At last, to follies Youth could scarce defend, 235 240 245 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! NOTES. VER. 231.-II. As to Pleafure. P. Ah! Friend! to dazzle let the Vain defign; To raise the Thought, and touch the Heart, be thine! 250 That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring, Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing : And unobferv'd the glaring Orb declines. NOTES. VER. 249. Advice for their true Interest. P. 255 VER. 253. So when the Sun's broad beam, &c.] One of the great beauties obfervable in the Poet's management of his fimilitudes, is the ceremonious preparation he makes for them, in gradually raifing the imagery of them in the lines preceding, by the use of terms taken from the subject of them: -"while what fatigues the Ring, "Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing: And the civil difmiffion he gives them by the continuance of "Oh! bleft with temper, whofe unclouded ray," &c. Whereby the colouring of the imagery gradually dawns, to make way for the luftre of its introduction, and as gradually decays, to give place to other figures; and the reader is never offended with the fudden production, or abrupt difappearance of them. Another inftance of the fame kind we have in the beginning of this epifstle: "Chufe a firm cloud before it fall, and in it "Catch, ere the change, the Cynthia of this minute. Oh! bleft with Temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow chearful as to-day; She, who can love a Sifter's charms, or hear Sighs for a Daughter with unwounded ear; 260 She, who ne'er anfwers till a Husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour moft, when the obeys; Let Fops or Fortune fly which way they will; 265 Difdains all lofs of Tickets, or Codille; Spleen, Vapours, or Small-pox, above them all, And Mistress of herself, tho' China fall. 270 And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a Contradiction still. Heav'n, when it ftrives 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 Pleafure, our defire of Reft: NOTES. VER. 269. The picture of an estimable woman, with the beft kind of contrarieties, created out of the Poet's imagination: who therefore feigned thofe circumftances of a huf band, a daughter, and love for a fifter, to prevent her being mistaken for any of his acquaintance. And having thus made his Woman, he did, as the antient Poets were wont, when they had made their Mufe, invoke, and addrefs his poem to, her. |