Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail) 200 But grant, in public, men sometimes are shown, Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide; 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. 205 210 That Nature gives; and where the lesson taught Men, some to quiet, some to public strife; 198 Mahomet. Servant to the late king, said to be the son of a Turkish bassa, whom he took at the siege of Buda, and constantly kept about his person.-Pope. 198 Parson Hale. The learned and philanthropic Dr. Stephen Hale. 216 But every woman is at heart a rake. Warburton, as usual, determines to defend the indefensible :- We may observe,' is his plea, the expression simply amounts to this; that while some men take to business, some to pleasure, every woman would willingly make pleasure her business.' The explanation only aggravates the offence. Pope evidently gave way to the temptation of epigram, and terseness obtained the victory over truth. Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens! Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown, 235 Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. 230 See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolics, an old age of cards; 240 245 Ah, friend! to dazzle let the vain design; 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: So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight, All mild ascends the moon's more sober light, And unobserved the glaring orb declines. 255 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; 260 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 humor most when she obeys; Lets fops or fortune fly which way they will; 265 Disdains all loss of tickets or codille; Spleen, vapors, or small-pox, above them all; And mistress of herself, though china fall. 270 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 favorite 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. 275 280 286 Be this a woman's fame: with this unbless'd, 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; To you gave sense, good-humor, and a poet. 290 261 Be this a woman's fame. In conclusion,' says Warburton, boldly, the great moral from both those Epistles together, is that the two rarest things in all nature are, a disinterested man, and a reasonable woman.' |