Choose a firm cloud, before it fail, and in it
Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.
Rufa, whose eye, quick glancing o'er the park,
Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark,
Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke,
As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock;
Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task,
With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask:
So morning insects, that in muck begun,
Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun.
How soft is Silia! fearful to offend;
The frail-one's advocate, the weak-one's friend,
To her, Calista proved her conduct nice;
And good Simplicius asks of her advice.

260 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.
Papilia, wedded to her amorous spark,

Sighs for the shades- How charming is a park!'

A park is purchased, but the fair he sees

20

30

40

10 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 place!

50

60

70

80

90

100

Or who in sweet vicissitude appears
Of mirth and opium, ratafie 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 those 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 gratified, 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 dependent! 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, cursed with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir.
To heirs unknown descends the 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 unmoved,

As never yet to love, or to be loved.

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 described by all
With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball.
Poets heap virtues, painters gems at will,
And shew 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:
The 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 Mahomet or plain parson Hale.

But grant, in public men sometimes are shewn,
A woman's seen in private life alone:

Our bolder talents in full light display'd
110 Your virtues open fairest in the shade.
Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide;
There, none distinguish 'twixt your shade 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
120 Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by man's oppression cursed,
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 end, but beauty all the means:
In youth they conquer with so wild a rage,

130 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-timed 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,

210

220.

Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die.
Pleasures the sex, as children, birds pursue,

230

140

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;
Ashamed to own they gave delight before,
Reduced 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,

150 And haunt the places, where their honour died.
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;

240

To raise the thought, and touch the heart, be thine! 250
That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring,

160 Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing:
So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight,
All mild ascends the moon's more sober light,
Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserved the glaring orb declines.

O! bless'd 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;
170 Or, if she rules him, never shews she rules;

180

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 bless'd,
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 allied,
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 unbless'd,
190 Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care,
Averted half your parents' simple prayer;

And gave you beauty, but denied 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,

200 To you gave sense, good-humour, ard a poet.

I

260

270

280

290

EPISTLE III.

And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew,
Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.'
Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Gold, imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,

TO ALLEN, LORD BATHURST. Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings;

ARGUMENT.

Of the Use of Riches.

That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, avarice or profusion, ver. 1, &c. The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to mankind, ver. 21 to 77. That riches, either to the avaricious or the prodigal, cannot afford happiness, scarcely necessaries, ver. 89 to 160. That avarice is an absolute frenzy, without an end or purpose, ver. 113. &c. 152. Conjectures about the motives of avaricious men, ver. 121 to 153. That the conduct of men with respect to riches, can only be accounted for by the order of Providence, which works the general good out of extremes, and brings all to its great end by perpetual revolutions, ver. 161 to 178. How a miser acts upon principles which appear to him reasonable, ver. 179. How a prodigal does the same, ver. 199. The true medium, and true use of riches, ver. 210. The man of Ross, ver. 250. The fate of the profuse and the covetous, in two examples; both miserable in life and in death, ver. 300, &c. The story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339 to the end.

This Epistle was written after a violent outcry against our author, on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman, merely for his wrong taste. He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are these words: I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridiculous: and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high-places, and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and as the only certain way to avoid misconstructions, to lessen offence, and not to Inultiply ill-natured applications, I may probably in my next make use of real names instead of fictitious ones.

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,
Flamed forth this rival to its sire the sun,
Then careful Heaven supplied two sorts of men,
To squander these, and those to hide again.

Like doctors thus, when much dispute has pass'd,
We find our tenets just the same at last:
Both fairly owning riches, in effect,

No grace of Heaven, or token of the elect;

Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,

To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the devil.

'Tis thus we eat the bread another sows.

B. What nature wants, commodious gold bestows:

P. But how unequal it bestows, observe;
'Tis thus we riot, while, who sow it, starve:
What nature wants (a phrase I much 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,'

A single leaf shall waft an army o'er,
Or ship off senates to some distant shore;
A leaf like Sybil's, scatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes, as the wind shall blow;
Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseeu,
And silent sells a king or buys a queen.

46

50

Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see,
Still, as of old, encumber'd villany!
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 con-
found,
Or water all the quorum ten miles round?
A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil!
Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;
Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door;
A hundred oxen at your levee roar.'

60

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 mazed,
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed,
Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs,
Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?
His grace will game: to White's a bull be led,
With spurning heels and with a butting head:
To White's be carried, 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 perfumed and fine,
Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine?
O 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 gives 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 pass'd)
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 the embroidery plaster'd 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,
To enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.
Perhaps you think the poor might have their part;

70

90

101

10 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 :

20

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. 110
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 in South-sea year?
To live on venison when it sold so dear.
Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys?
30 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.

120

The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage. But nobler scenes Maria's dreams unfoid, Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold. Congenial souls; whose life one avarice joins, And one fate buries in the Asturian mines.

Much-injured 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,

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

220

B. To worth or want well-weigh'd, be bounty given.

140 And ease or emulate the care of Heaven

And France revenged of Anne's and Edward's arms!'
Twas no court-badge, great scrivener! fired thy brain,
Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain:

No, 'twas thy righteous end, ashamed 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.

(Whose measure full o'erflows on human race);
Mend fortune's fault, and justify her grace.
Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffused;
As poison heals in just proportion used:
In heaps, like ambergris, a stink it lies,

But well dispersed, is incense to the skies.

230

P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles, eats?
The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats.
Is there a lord, who knows a cheerful noon

150 Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon?
Whose table, wit or modest merit share,
Un-elbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player?
Who copies yours or Oxford's better part,

Hear then the truth: 'Tis Heaven each passion
sends,

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 reconciled extremes of drought and rain:
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives the 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 shamed 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 stored,
With soups unbought and salads bless'd his board?
If Cotta lived 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 tabour sound,
No noontide bell invites the country round:
Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey,
And turn their unwilling steeds another way:
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,

Curse the saved 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 motive 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?

160

To ease the oppress'd and raise the sinking heart?
Where'er he shines, O Fortune, gild the scene,
And angels guard him in the golden mean!
There, English bounty yet awhile may stand,
And honour linger ere it leaves the land.

But all our praises why should lords engross?
Rise, honest muse! and sing the MAN OF Ross:
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns toss'd,

Or in proud falls magnificently lost,

But clear and artless pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?

170 Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
'The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate:
Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives.
180 Is there a variance? enter but his door,

Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.

B. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Say, O what sums that generous hand supply;
What mines to swell that boundless charity?

240.

250

260

270

280

P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possess'd-five hundred pounds a year. 190 Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your

blaze!

Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.

B. And what! no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost unknown?

P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough that virtue fill'd the space between,
200 Proved by the ends of being to have been.

When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch who living saved a candle's end;
Shouldering God's altar a vile image stands,
Belies his features, nay, extends his hands;
That live long wig, which Gorgon's self might own,
Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.
Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend !
And, see what comfort it affords our end.

29

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, 210 The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, 300

On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw.
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies-alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!

Wife, son, and daughter, Satan are thy own;
His wealth, yet dearer, forfeit to the crown:
The devil and the king divide the prize,

310 And sad sir Balaam curses God, and dies.

"Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy :
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
380 His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham drawings and designs;
For Pembroke statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies from Sloane,
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.
For what has Virro painted, built, and planted?
390 Only to shew how many tastes he wanted.

What brought sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste?
Some demon whisper'd Visto! have a taste,
Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool,
And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule.
See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide:
A standing sermon at each year's expense,
That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence,