And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still. 270 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 blest, Your love of pleasure or 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. 280
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, 290 Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it, To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.
In whose mad brain the mix'd ideas roll Of Tall-toy's breeches, and of Cæsar's soul.
Oppress'd with wealth and wit, abundance sad! One makes her poor, the other makes her mad.
This Death decides, nor lets the blessing fall On any one she hates, but on them all. Cursed chance! this only could afflict her more, If any part should wander to the poor.
Fain I'd in Fulvia spy the tender wife; I cannot prove it on her, for my life: And, for a noble pride, I blush no less, Instead of Berenice, to think on Bess. Thus while immortal Gibber only sings (As ----- and H---y preach) for queens and kings, The nymph that ne'er read Milton's mighty line, May, if she love, and merit verse, have mine
In several men we several passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind.
EPISTLE III.[20]--TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST.
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 to 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. l99. The due medium, and true use of riches, ver. 219. 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.