He marked the conjugal dispute;
Nell roar'd incessant, Dick sat mute;
But, when he saw his friend appear,
Cry'd bravely, Patience, good my dear!
At sight of Will, she bawl'd no more,
But hurry'd out, and clapt the door.
Why Dick! the Devil's in thy Nell,
(Quoth Will) thy house is worse than Hell:
Why what a peal the jade has rung!
D-n her why don't you slit her tongue?
For nothing else will make it cease.
Dear Will I suffer this for peace:
I never quarrel with my wife;
I bear it for a quiet life.
Scripture you know, exhorts us to it;
Bids us to seek peace, and ensue it.
Will went again to visit Dick;
And entering in the very nick,
He saw virago Nell belabour,
With Dick's own staff, his peaceful neighbour:
Poor Will, who needs must interpose,
Received a brace or two of blows.
But now, to make my story short,
Will drew out Dick to take a quart.
Why Dick, thy wife has devilish whims;
Ods-buds! why don't you break her limbs ?.
If she where mine, and had such tricks,
I'd teach her how to handle sticks:
Z-ds! I would ship her to Jamaica,
Or truck the carrion for tobacco:
I'd send her far enough away—
Dear Will but what would people say?
Lord! I should get so ill a name,
The neighbours round would cry out shame.
Dick suffer'd for his peace and credit;
But who believ'd him when he said it?
Can he, who makes himself a slave,
Consult his peace, or credit save?
Dick found it by his ill success,
His quiet small, his credit less.
She serv'd him at the usual rate;
She stunn'd, and then she broke his pate:
And what he thought the hardest case,
The parish jeer'd him to his face ;
Those men, who wore the breeches least,
Call'd him a cuckold, fool, and beast.
At home he was pursu'd with noise;
Abroad was pester'd by the boys:
Within, his wife would break his bones;
Without they pelted him with stones ;
The 'prentices procur'd a riding,
To act his patience and her chiding.
False patience and mistaken pride
There are ten thousand Dicks beside;
Slaves to their quiet and good name,
Are us'd like Dick, and bear the blame.
THE BIRTH OF MANLY VIRTUE.
INSCRIBED TO LORD CARTERET,
1724.
"Gratior & pulchro veniens in corpore Virtus." VIRG.
ONCE on a time, a righteous sage,
Griev'd at the vices of the age,
* A well-known humorous cavalcade, in ridicule of a scolding
wife and henpecked husband. H.
Applied to Jove with fervent prayer
-"O Joye, if Virtue be so fair
As it was deem'd in former days,
By Plato and by Socrates,
Whose beauties mortal eyes escape,
Only for want of outward shape:
Make then its real excellence,
For once, the theme of human sense;
So shall the eye, by form confin'd,
Direct and fix the wandering mind;
And long deluded mortals see,
With rapture, what they us'd to flee!"
Jove grants the prayer, gives Virtue birth,
And bids him bless and mend the earth.
Behold him blooming fresh and fair,
Now made-ye gods-a son and heir:
An heir and, stranger yet to hear,
An heir, an orphan of a peer;
But prodigies are wrought, to prove
Nothing impossible to Jove.
Virtue was for this sex design'd,
In mild reproof to womankind;
In manly form to let them see,
The loveliness of modesty,
The thousand decencies that shone
With lessen'd lustre in their own;
Which few had learn'd enough to prize,
And some thought modish to despise.
To make his merit more discern'd,
He goes to school--he reads-is learn'd;
Rais'd high, above his birth, by knowledge,
He shines distinguish'd in a college;
Resolv'd nor honour, nor estate,
Himself alone should make him great.
Here soon for every art renown'd,
His influence is diffus'd around;
Th' inferior youth to learning led,
Less to be fam'd than to be fed,
Behold the glory he has won,
And blush to see themselves outdone;
And now, inflam'd with rival rage,
In scientific strife engage,
Engage; and, in the glorious strife,
The arts new kindle into life.
Here would our hero ever dwell,
Fix'd in a lonely learned cell;
Contented to be truly great,
In Virtue's best belov'd retreat;
Contented he-but Fate ordains,
He now shall shine in nobler scenes,
Rais'd high, like some celestial fire,
To shine the more, still rising higher;
Completely form'd in every part,
To win the soul, and glad the heart.
The powerful voice, the graceful inien,
Lovely alike, or heard, or seen;
The outward form and inward vie,
His soul bright beaming from his eye,
Ennobling every act and air,
With just, and generous, and sincere.
Accomplish'd thus, his next resort
Is to the council and the court,
Where Virtue is in least repute,
And interest the one pursuit;
Where right and wrong are bought and sold, Barter'd for beauty, and for gold;
Here Manly Virtue, even here,
A peer; a scarcely bearded youth,
Who talk'd of justice and of truth,
Of innocence the surest guard,
Tales here forgot, or yet unheard;
That he alone deserv'd esteem,
Who was the man he wish'd to seem ;
Call'd it unmanly and unwise,
To lurk behind a mean disguise;
(Give fraudful Vice the mask and screen,
'Tis Virtue's interest to be seen ;)
Call'd want of shame a want of sense,
And found, in blushes, eloquence.
Thus acting what he taught so well,
He drew dumb Merit from her cell,
Led with amazing art along
The bashful dame, and loos'd her tongue;
And, while he made her value known,
Yet more display'd and rais'd his own.
Thus young, thus proof to all temptations,
He rises to the highest stations;
For where high honour is the prize,
True Virtue has a right to rise :
Let courtly slaves low bend the knee
To Wealth and Vice in high degree:
Exalted Worth disdains to owe
Its grandeur to its greatest foe.
Now rais'd on high, see Virtue shows
The godlike ends for which he rose ;
For him, let proud Ambition know
The height of glory here below,
Grandeur, by goodness made complete!
To bless, is truly to be great!:
He taught how men to honour rise,
Like gilded vapours to the skies,
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