His want of passion will redeem
With gratitude, respect, esteem:
With that devotion we bestow,
When goddesses appear below.

While thus Cadenus entertains
Vanessa in exalted strains,

The nymph in sober words entreats
A truce with all sublime conceits:

For why such raptures, flights, and fancies,
To her who durst not read romances?
In lofty style to make replies,

Which he had taught her to despise?
But when her tutor will affect
Devotion, duty, and respect,
He fairly abdicates the throne;
The government is now her own;
He has a forfeiture incurr'd;
She vows to take him at his word,

And hopes he will not think it strange,
If both should now their stations change;
The nymph will have her turn to be
The tutor; and the pupil, he:
Though she already can discern
Her scholar is not apt to learn;
Or wants capacity to reach
The science she designs to teach;
Wherein his genius was below
The skill of every common beau,
Who, though he cannot spell, is wise
Enough to read a lady's eyes,
And will each accidental glance
Interpret for a kind advance.

But what success Vanessa met
Is to the world a secret yet.

Whether the nymph, to please her swain,
Talks in a high romantic strain;

Or whether he at last descends
To act with less seraphic ends;
Or, to compound the business, whether
They temper love and books together;
Must never to mankind be told,

Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold.
Meantime the mournful Queen of Love
Led but a weary life above.

She ventures now to leave the skies,
Grown by Vanessa's conduct, wise:
For, though by one perverse event
Pallas had cross'd her first intent;
Though her design was not obtain'd;
Yet had she much experience gain'd,
And, by the project vainly try'd,
Could better now the cause decide.
She gave due notice, that both parties,
Coram Regina, prox' die Martis,
Should at their peril, without fail,
Come and appear, and save their bail.
All met; and, silence thrice proclaim'd,
One lawyer to each side was nam'd.
The judge discover'd in her face
Resentments for her late disgrace;
And, full of anger, shame, and grief,
Directed them to mind their brief;
Nor spend their time to show their reading:
She'd have a summary proceeding.

She gather'd under every head
The sum of what each lawyer said,
Gave her own reasons last, and then
Decreed the cause against the men.

But,

But, in a weighty case like this,
To show she did not judge amiss,
Which evil tongues might else report,
She made a speech in open court;
Wherein she grievously complains,
"How she was cheated by the swains;
On whose petition (humbly shewing,
That women were not worth the wooing,
And that, unless the sex would mend,
The race of lovers soon must end)-
She was at Lord knows what expense
To form a nymph of wit and sense,
A model for her sex design'd,
Who never could one lover find.
She saw her favour was misplac'd;
The fellows had a wretched taste;
She needs must tell them to their face,
They were a stupid, senseless race;
And, were she to begin again,
She'd study to reform the men ;
Or add some grains of folly more
To women, than they had before,
To put them on an equal foot;
And this, or nothing else, would do't.
This might their mutual fancy strike;
Since every being loves its like.

"But now, repenting what was done,
She left all business to her son;
She put the world in his possession,
And let him use it at discretion."

The crier was order'd to dismiss
The court, so made his last "O yes!”

The

The goddess would no longer wait;
But, rising from her chair of state,
Left all below at six and seven,
Harness'd her doves, and flew to Heaven.

TO LOV E.*

IN all I wish, how happy should I be,
Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee!
So weak thou art, that fools thy power despise;
And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Thy traps are laid with such peculiar art,
They catch the cautious, let the rash depart.
Most nets are fill'd by want of thought and care:
But too much thinking brings us to thy snare;
Where, held by thee, in slavery we stay,
And throw the pleasing part of life away.
But, what does most my indignation move,
Discretion! thou wert ne'er a friend to Love:
Thy chief delight is to defeat those arts,
By which he kindles mutual flames in hearts;
While the blind loitering God is at his play,
Thou steal'st his golden pointed darts away:
Those darts which never fail; and in their stead
Convey'st malignant arrows tipt with lead:
The heedless God, suspecting no deceits,
Shoots on, and thinks he has done wondrous feats;
But the poor nymph, who feels her vitals burn,
And from her shepherd can find no return,

* Found in miss Vanhomrigh's desk, after her death, in the handwriting of Dr. Swift. H.

Laments,

Laments, and rages at the power divine,

When, curst Discretion! all the fault was thine:
Cupid and Hymen thou hast set at odds,
And bred such feuds between those kindred gods,
That Venus cannot reconcile her sons;

When one appears, away the other runs.
The former scales, wherein he us'd to poise
Love against love, and equal joys with joys,
Are now fill'd up with avarice and pride,
Where titles, power, and riches, still subside.
Then, gentle Venus, to thy father run,
And tell him, how thy children are undone;
Prepare his boits to give one fatal blow,
And strike Discretion to the shades below.

A REBUS. BY VANESSA.

*

CUT the name of the man who his mistress

deny'd,

And let the first of it be only apply'd

To join with the prophet † who David did chide;
Then say what a horse is that runs very fast;
And that which deserves to be first put the last;
Spell all then, and put them together, to find
The name and the virtues of him. I design'd.
Like the patriarch in Egypt, he's vers'd in the
state;

Like the prophet in Jewry, he's free with the great;
Like a racer he flies, to succour with speed,
When his friends want his aid, or desert is in need.

* Jo-seph.

+ Nathan.

+ Swift.

THE