Lord! I fhould get fo ill a name,
The neighbours round would cry out fhame.
Dick fuffer'd for his peace and credit;
But who believ'd him, when he said it?
Can he, who makes himself a flave,
Confult his peace, or credit fave?
Dick found it by his ill fuccefs,
His quiet fmall, his credit lefs.
She ferv'd him at the ufual rate;
She ftunn'd, and then the 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 purfued with noife;
Abroad was pefter'd by the boys:
Within, his wife would break his bones;
Without, they pelted him with ftones:
The 'prentices procur'd a riding **,
To act his patience, and her chiding.
Falfe patience and mistaken pride!
There are ten thousand Dicks befide;
Slaves to their quiet and good name,
Are us'd like Dick, and bear the blame.
A well-known humourous cavalcade, in ridicule of
a fcolding wife and hen-pecked husband.
THE BIRTH OF MANLY VIRTUE.
Infcribed to Lord CARTERET, 1724.
"Gratior & pulchro veniens in corpore Virtus." VIRG.
NCE on a time, a righteous Sage,
Griev'd at the vices of the age,
Applied to Jove with fervent prayer:
"O Jove, if Virtue be foffair
"As it was deem'd in former days.
5 By Plato and by Socrates,
"Whose beauties mortal eyes efcape,
"Only for want of outward shape;
"Make then its real excellence,
"For once, the theme of human fenfe ;
"So fhall the eye, by form confin'd,
"Direct and fix the wandering mind;
"And long-deluded mortals fee
"With rapture what they us'd to flee."
Jove grants the prayer, gives Virtue birth,.
And bids him blefs and mend the earth.
Behold him blooming fresh and fair,
Now made ye gods-a fon and heir:
An heir; and, ftranger yet to hear,
An heir, an orphan of a peer;
But prodigies are wrought, to prove
Nothing impoffible to Jove.
Virtue was for this fex defign'd
In mild reproof to woman-kind;
In manly form to let them fee,
The loveliness of modefty,
The thousand decencies that fhone
With leffen'd luftre in their own;
Which few had learn'd enough to prize,
And fome thought modifh to despise.
To make his merit more difcern'd,
He goes to fchool-he reads-is learn'd;
Rais'd high, above his birth, by knowledge,
He shines diftinguish'd in a college;
Refolv'd nor honour, nor eftate,
Himself alone should make him 'great.
Here foon for every art renown'd,
His influence is diffus'd around;
Th' inferior youth, to learning led,
Lefs 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
In fcientific ftrife engage,
Engage; and, in the glorious ftrife,
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 fhall fhine in nobler fcenes
(Rais'd high, like fome celeftial fire,
To fhine the more, ftill rifing higher);
Compleatly form'd in every part,
To win the foul, and glad the heart.
The powerful voice, the graceful mien,
Lovely alike, or heard, or seen ;
The outward form and inward vie,
His foul bright beaming from his eye,
Ennobling every act and air,
With juft, and generous, and fincere.
Accomplish'd thus, his next refort
Is to the council and the court,
Where Virtue is in least repute,
And Intereft the one pursuit ;
Where right and wrong are bought and fold,
Barter'd for beauty, and for gold;
Here Manly Virtue, even here,
Pleas'd in the person of a peer,
A peer; a fcarcely-bearded youth,
Who talk'd of justice and of truth,
Of innocence the fureft guard,
Tales here forgot, or yet unheard;
That he alone deferv'd esteem,
Who was the man he wifh'd to feem;
Call'd it unmanly and unwife,
To lurk behind a mean disguise;
(Give fraudful Vice the mask and screen,
"Tis Virtue's intereft to be feen ;)
Call'd want of thame a want of sense,
And found, in blushes, eloquence.
Thus, acting what he taught fo well,
He drew dumb Merit from her cell,
Led with amazing art along
The bafhful dame, and loos'd her tongue;
And, whilft he made her value known,
Yet more difplay'd and rais'd his own.
Thus young, thus proof to all temptations,
He rifes to the highest stations
(For where high honour is the prize,
True Virtue has a right to rife):
Let courtly flaves low bend the knee
To Wealth and Vice in high degree:
Exalted Worth difdains to owe
Its grandeur to its greatest foe.
Now rais'd on high, fee Virtue fhows
The godlike ends for which he rofe;
For him, let proud Ambition know
The height of glory here below,
Grandeur, by goodness made compleat !
To blefs, is truly to be great!
He taught how men to honour rife,
Like gilded vapours to the skies,
Which, howfoever they display
Their glory from the god of day,
Their nobleft ufe is to abate
His dangerous excefs of heat,
To fhield the infant fruits and flowers,
And bless the earth with genial fhowers.
Now change the fcene; a nobler care
Demands him in a higher fphere**:
Lord Carteret had the honour of mediating peace
for Sweden with Denmark and with the Czar.
|