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Let the strict life of graver mortals be A long, exact, and serious comedy;

In ev'ry scene some moral let it teach,

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And, if it can, at once both please and preach:
Let mine, an innocent gay farce appear,
And more diverting still than regular;
Have humour, wit, a native ease and grace,
Tho' not too strictly bound to time and place.
Critics in wit, or life, are hard to please;
Few write to those, and none can live to these.
Too much your sex is by their forms confin'd,
Severe to all, but most to womankind;
Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide;
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;

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By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame,

Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame.
Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase,
But sets up one, a greater, in his place:

Well might you wish for change by those accurst; But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.

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Still in constraint your suff'ring sex remains,

Or bound in formal or in real chains:

Whole years neglected, for some months ador'd,

The fawning servant turns a haughty lord.

Ah! quit not the free innocence of life,

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For the dull glory of a virtuous wife;

Nor let false shews, nor empty titles please:

Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease.

The gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,

Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares, 50

Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
Bless'd in thy genius, in thy love too blest!
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies,
What a whole thankless land to his denies.

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VI. On Mrs. Corbet, who died of a cancer in her breast.

HERE rests a woman, good without pretence,
Bless'd with plain reason and with sober sense:
No conquest she but o'er herself desir'd,
No arts essay'd but not to be admir'd.

Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinc'd that virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so compos'd a mind,
So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin'd,
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd,
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

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VII. On the Monument of the Hon. Robert Digby, and of his sister Mary, erected by their father the Lord Digby, in the church of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Compos'd in suff'rings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great :
Just of thy word, in ev'ry thought sincere,
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:

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Of softest manners, unaffected mind,

Lover of peace, and friend of human-kind!
Go live! for Heav'n's eternal year is thine;
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, bless'd maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these tears, mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive cur grief:
These little rites, a stone, a verse, receive;
'Tis all a father, all a friend, can give!

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VIII. On Sir Godfrey Kneller, in Westminster Abbey, 1723.

KNELLER by Heav'n, and not a master, taught,
Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures thought;
Now for two ages having snatch'd from Fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,
Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poet's lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die.

Or with his hounds comes hallooing from the stable, Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table; Whose laughs are hearty, tho' his jests are coarse, And loves you best of all things---but his horse.

In some fair ev'ning, on your elbow laid, You dream of triumphs in the rural shade; In pensive thought recall the fancy'd scene, See corronations rise on ev'ry green:

Before you pass th' imaginary sights

Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter'd knights,
While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes,
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies,
Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!
So when your slave, at some dear idle time,
(Not plagu'd with headachs or the want of rhyme)
Stands in the streets abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
Just when his fancy points your sprightly eyes,
Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,

Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs, rush upon my sight:
Vext to be still in Town, I knit my brow,
Look sour, and hum a tune, as you may now.

EPISTLE VI.

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To Mr. John Moore, author of the celebrated worm

powder.

How much, egregious Moore! are we

Deceiv'd by shews and forms!

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Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All human kind are worms.

Man is a very worm by birth,

Vile reptile, weak, and vain!
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.

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That woman is a worm we find,

E'er since our grandame's evil;

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She first convers'd with her own kind,

That ancient worm the devil.

The learn'd themselves we bookworms name,
The blockhead is a slow-worm;

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Thus worms suit all conditions;

Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaus,

And death-watches physicians.

That statesmen have the worm, is seen

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By all their winding play:

Their conscience is a worm within

That gnaws them night and day.

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