Had known it all: what most he would conceal, To thefe I made no fcruple to reveal. ⠀rit
Oft' Has he blush'd from ear to ear for fhame,
That e'er he told a fecret to his dame.
It fo befel, in holy time of Lent,
That oft' a day I to this goflip went;
(My husband, thank my stars, was out of town)
From house to house we rambled up and down,
This clerk, my felf, and my good neighbour Alce,
To fee, be feen, to tell, and gather tales;
Vifits to ev'ry Church we daily paid,
And march'd in ev'ry holy Masquerade, tedy f
The ftations duly, and the vigils kept;
Not much we fafted, but fcarce ever flept. T
At fermons too I fhone in fcarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my beft array;
The cause was this; I wore it ev'ry day.
'Twas when fresh May her early bloffóms yields, The clerk and I were walking in the fields. We grew fo intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawn'd my honour, and engag'd my vow, din vilow sna
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, fhould ferve my turn.
We strait struck hands; the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any foul.
I vow'd, I scarce could fleep fince first I knew him, And durft be fworn he had bewitch'd me to him: If e'er I flept, I dream'd of him alone,
And dreams foretel, as learned men have shown:
All this I faid; but Dream, firs, I had none,
I follow'd but my crafty crony's lore,"
Who bid me tell this lye----and twenty more.
Thus day by day, and month by month we past;
It pleas'd the Lord to take my spouse at last!
I tore my gown, I foil'd my locks with dust,
And beat my breafts, as wretched widows-must.
Before my face my handkerchief I fpread,
To hide the flood of tears I did----not. fhed.
The good man's coffin to the Church was born;
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn.
But as he march'd, good Gods! he show'd a pair
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, fo fair!
Of twenty winters age he feem'd to be;
I (to say truth) was twenty more than he;
But vig'rous ftill, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wondrous gift to quench a flame.
A Conjurer once, that deeply could divine,
Affur'd me, Mars in Taurus was my fign.
As the stars order'd, fuch my life has been:
Alas, alas, that ever love was fin!
Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace,
And Mars affurance, and a dauntlefs face.
By virtue of this pow'rful conftellation,
I follow'd always my own inclination.
But to my tale: a month scarce pass'd away,
With dance and fong we kept the nuptial day.
All I poffefs'd I gave to his command,
My goods and chattels, mony, house, and land:
But oft' repented, and repent it still;
He prov❜d a rebel to my fov'reign will :
Nay once by heav'n he ftruck me on the face; Hear but the fact, and judge your felves the case.
Stubborn as any lionefs was I;
And knew full well to raife my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,
And would be fo, in fpight of all he fwore.
He, against this, right fagely would advife,
And old examples fet before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And chofe the fermon, as befeem'd his wit,
With fome grave sentence out of holy writ.
Oft' would he fay, Who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horfe acrofs the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deferves a fools-cap, and long ears at home.
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And fo do numbers more, I'll boldly fay,
Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay.
My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred) A certain treatise oft' at evening read,
Where divers authors (whom the dev❜l confound
For all their lies) were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part; }} Chryfippus and Tertullian; Ovid's Art;
Solomon's proverbs, Eloïfa's loves;
And many more than fure the Church approvesbr
More legends were there here, of wicked wives, li
Than good, in all the Bible and Saint's-lives. A
Who drew the Lion vanquish'd? 'Twas a Man!!
But cou'd we women write as fcholars can,
Men should stand mark'd with far more wickedness,
Than all the fons of Adam can redrefs.
Love feldom haunts the breaft where learning lies,¦¦
And Venus fets e're Mercury can rife,
Those play the fcholars who can't play the men;
And use that weapon which they have, their pen; /
When old, and past the rélish of delight,
Then down they fit, and in their dotage write d
That not one woman keeps her marriage vow.
(This by the way, but to my purpose now.)
It chanc'd my husband, on a winter's night, wi Read in this book, aloud, with strange delight, Lab How the first female (as the fcriptures show)
Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe sonT How
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