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, 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 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.
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:
*Found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk, after her death, in the hand writing of Dr. Swift. H.
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,
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 bolts to give one fatal blow,
And strike Discretion to the shades below.
Cur 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 nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,
Which thus she will venture profusely to throw
On so mean a design, and a subject so low.
For mean 's her design, and her subject as mean,
The first but a rebus, the last but a dean.
A dean's but a parson: and what is a rebus ?
A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus.
The corruption of verse; for, when all is done,
It is but a paraphrase made on a pun.
But a genius like her's no subject can stifle,
It shows and discovers itself through a trifle.
By reading this trifle, I quickly began
To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man.
Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff,
Which others for mantuas would think fine enough:
So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here,
Might furnish a second-rate poet a year.
Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next,
Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text:
Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season,
And what she describes to be merit, is treason:
The changes which faction has made in the state,
Have put the dean's politics quite out of date :
Now no one regards what he utters with freedom,
And, should he write pamphlets, no great man would
And should want or desert stand in need of his aid,
This racer would prove but a dull founder'd jađe.
HORACE, BOOK II. ODE I. PARAPHRASED.
ADDRESSED TO RICHARD STEELE, ESQ.
"En qui promittit, cives, urbem sibi curæ,
Imperium fore, et Italiam, et delubra deorum."
HOR. 1. SAT. vi. 34.
DICK, thou'rt resolv'd, as I am told,
Some strange arcana to unfold,
And, with the help of Buckley's pen,
To vamp the good old cause again :
Which thou (such Burnet's shrewd advice is)
Must furbish up, and nickname Crisis.
Thou pompously wilt let us know
What all the world knew long ago,
(E'er since Sir William Gore was mayor,
And Harley fill'd the commons' chair)
That we a German prince must own,
When Anne for Heaven resigns her throne.
But, more than that, thoul't keep a rout
With-who is in-and who is out;
Thou'lt rail devoutly at the peace,
And all its secret causes trace,
The bucket-play 'twixt whigs and tories,
Their ups and downs, with fifty stories
Of tricks the lord of Oxford knows,
And errors of our plenipoes.
Thou'lt tell of leagues among the great,
Portending ruin to our state;
And of that dreadful coup d'eclat,
Which has afforded thee much chat.
The queen, forsooth (despotic,) gave
Twelve coronets without thy leave!
|