Turn then from wits; and look on Simo's mate, No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate;

Or her, that owns her faults, but never mends,
Because she's honest, and the best of friends;
Or her, whose life the Church and scandal share,
Forever in a passion, or a prayer;
106

Or her, who laughs at hell, but (like her Grace) Cries, “Ah! how charming, if there's no such place!"

Or who in sweet vicissitude appears

Of mirth and opium, ratafie and tears,
The daily anodyne, and nightly draught,

110

115

120

125

130

To kill those foes to fair ones, time and thought.
Woman and fool are two hard things to hit;
For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit.
But what are these to great Atossa's mind?
Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind!
Who, with herself, or others, from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth;
Shines, in exposing knaves, and painting fools,
Yet is, whate'er she hates and ridicules.
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the world has been her trade,
The wisest fool much time has ever made.
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratified except her rage.
So much the fury still outran the wit,
The pleasure missed her, and the scandal hit.
Who breaks with her, provokes revenge from hell,
But he's a bolder man who dares be well.
Her every turn with violence pursued,
Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude:
To that each passion turns, or soon or late;
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate:
Superiors? death! and equals? what a curse!
But an inferior not dependent? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live;
But die, and she'll adore you - then the bust
And temple rise - then fall again to dust.
Last night, her lord was all that's good and great;
A knave this morning, and his will a cheat.
Strange! by the means defeated of the ends,
By spirit robbed of power, by warmth of friends,
By wealth of followers! without one distress,
Sick of herself through very selfishness!
Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir.
To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,

136

140

146

150

Or wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor.
Pictures like these, dear Madam, to design,
Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line;
Some wandering touches, some reflected light,
Some flying stroke alone can hit them right:
For how should equal colours do the knack? 155
Chameleons who can paint in white and black?
"Yet Chloe sure was formed without a spot".
Nature in her then erred not, but forgot.
"With every pleasing, every prudent part,
Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart.
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought;
But never, never, reached one generous thought.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies forever.
So very reasonable, so unmoved,
As never yet to love, or to be loved.

159

165

She, while her lover pants upon her breast,
Can mark the figures on an Indian chest;
And when she sees her friend in deep despair,
Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. 170
Forbid it Heaven, a favour or a debt
She e'er should cancel - but she may forget.
Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear;
But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear.
Of all her dears she never slandered one,
But cares not if a thousand are undone.
Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead?
She bids her footman put it in her head.
Chloe is prudent would you too be wise?
Then never break your heart when Chloe dies.

175

179

210

In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind; Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway. That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault? Experience, this; by man's oppression cursed, They seek the second not to lose the first.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; 216 But every woman is at heart a rake: Men, some to quiet, some to public strife; But every lady would be queen for life.

*

Pleasures the sex, as children birds, pursue, Still out of reach, yet never out of view; Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most, To covet flying, and regret when lost: At last, to follies youth could scarce defend, 235 It grows their age's prudence to pretend; Ashamed to own they gave delight before, Reduced to feign it, when they give no more: As hags hold Sabbaths, less for joy than spite, So these their merry, miserable night;

240

Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round:

260

Oh! blest with temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day; She, who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She, who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will; 265 Disdains all loss of tickets, or Codille; Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself, though China fall.

270

And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still. Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can Its last best work, but forms a softer man; Picks from each sex, to make the favorite blest, Your love of pleasure, our desire of rest: Blends, in exception to all general rules, Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools: Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied, Courage with softness, modesty with pride; Fixed principles, with fancy ever new; Shakes all together, and produces — You.

275

280

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER

Father of all! in every age,

In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood: 5

Who all my sense confined

To know but this, that Thou art good,
And that myself am blind;

156

161

165

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense,
We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath;
And keep them in the pale of words till death.
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? A very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder House or Hall.
There truant Wyndham every muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!
Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reached the work, the all that mortal can,
And South beheld that masterpiece of man."
"Oh," cried the goddess, "for some pedant
reign!
175

Some gentle James, to bless the land again;
To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone,
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar school!
For sure, if Dullness sees a grateful day,
'Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.

170

180

Came whip and spur, and dashed through thin and thick

On German Crousaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams that murmuring fall
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare Hall, 200
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them marched that awful Aristarch;
Ploughed was his front with many a deep remark;
His hat, which never vailed to human pride, 205
Walker with reverence took, and laid aside.
Low bowed the rest: he, kingly, did but nod;
So upright Quakers please both man and God.
"Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avaunt is Aristarchus yet unknown?
Thy mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again.
Roman and Greek grammarians, know your

better!

210

215

Author of something yet more great than letter;
While towering o'er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our Digamma, and o'ertops them all.
'Tis true, on words is still our whole debate,
Disputes of me or te, of aut or at,

To sound or sink in cano, O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.

Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsop never but like Horace joke;
For me, what Virgil, Pliny may deny,
Manilius or Solinus shall supply.
For Attic phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicensed Greek.
In ancient sense if any needs will deal,

220

225

Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal; 230 What Gellius or Stobæus hashed before,

Or chewed by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er.
The critic eye, that microscope of wit,

Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit.
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, 235
The body's harmony, the beaming soul, -

All things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see,
When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.
"Ah, think not, mistress! more true dullness lies
In folly's cap, than wisdom's grave disguise. 240
Like buoys, that never sink into the flood,
On learning's surface we but lie and nod.
Thine is the genuine head of many a house,
And much divinity without a Νους.
Nor could a Barrow work on every block,
Nor has one Atterbury spoiled the flock.
See, still thy own, the heavy cannon roll,
And metaphysic smokes involve the pole.
For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read;

245

250

460

465

470

"Be that my task (replies a gloomy clerk, Sworn foe to mystery, yet divinely dark; Whose pious hope aspires to see the day When moral evidence shall quite decay, And damns implicit faith, and holy lies, Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize), Let others creep by timid steps, and slow, On plain experience lay foundations low, By common sense to common knowledge bred, And last, to nature's cause through nature led. All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide, Mother of arrogance, and source of pride! We nobly take the high priori road, And reason downward, till we doubt of God; Make nature still encroach upon his plan, And shove him off as far as e'er we can; Thrust some mechanic cause into his place; 475 Or bind in matter, or diffuse in space: Or, at one bound o'erleaping all his laws, Make God man's image, man the final cause, Find virtue local, all relation scorn, See all in self, and but for self be born, Of nought so certain as our reason still, Of nought so doubtful as of soul and will. Oh, hide the God still more! and make us see Such as Lucretius drew, a God like thee,— Wrapped up in self, a God without a thought, Regardless of our merit or default:

480

575

580

Some botanists, or florists at the least,
Or issue members of an annual feast.
Nor passed the meanest unregarded, one
Rose a Gregorian, one a Gormogon.
The last, not leåst in honour or applause,
Isis and Cam made doctors of her laws.
Then, blessing all, "Go, children of my care!
To practice now from theory repair.
All my commands are easy, short, and full:
My sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull.
Guard my prerogative, assert my throne:
This nod confirms each privilege your own.
The cap and switch be sacred to his Grace; 585
With staff and pumps the marquis lead the race;
From stage to stage the licensed earl may run,
Paired with his fellow-charioteer the sun;
The learned baron butterflies design,

Or draw to silk Arachne's subtle line;

590

595

The judge to dance his brother sergeant call;
The senator at cricket urge the ball;
The bishop stow (pontific luxury!)
An hundred souls of turkeys in a pie;
The sturdy squire to Gallic masters stoop,
And drown his lands and manors in a soup.
Others import yet nobler arts from France,
Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance.
Perhaps more high some daring son may soar,
Proud to my list to add one monarch more; 600
And nobly conscious, princes are but things
Born for first ministers, as slaves for kings,
Tyrant supreme! shall three estates command,
And make one mighty Dunciad of the land!"
More she had spoke, but yawned - All nature
nods:
605

What mortal can resist the yawn of gods?
Churches and chapels instantly it reached,
(St. James's first, for leaden G preached)
Then catched the schools; the Hall scarce kept
awake:

609

486

Or that bright image to our fancy draw,

Which Theocles in raptured vision saw,

The Convocation gaped, but could not speak.
Lost was the nation's sense, nor could be found,
While the long solemn unison went round;
Wide, and more wide, it spread o'er all the realm;
E'en Palinurus nodded at the helm.

While through poetic scenes the Genius roves, Or wanders wild in academic groves;

490

That Nature, our society adores,

Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores."

The vapour mild o'er each committee crept; 615
Unfinished treaties in each office slept;
And chiefless armies dozed out the campaign,
And navies yawned for orders on the main.

O Muse! relate (for you can tell alone; Wits have short memories, and dunces none) 620 Relate, who first, who last resigned to rest, Whose heads she partly, whose completely, blest; What charms could faction, what ambition lull, The venal quiet, and entrance the dull;

Till drowned was sense, and shame, and right, and wrong 625

O sing, and hush the nations with thy song!

In vain, in vain the all-composing hour
Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the power.
She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold
Of Night primeval and of Chaos old!
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying rainbows die away.

Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sickening stars fade off th' ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppressed,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest:
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after art goes out, and all is night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head!
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!

In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.

Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.

THE ILIAD

FROM BOOK VI

630

635

640

645

650

656

He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part; At home he sought her, but he sought in vain: She, with one maid of all her menial train, Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height, Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight; There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, 470 Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. But he, who found not whom his soul desir'd,

Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fir'd,
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent
Her parting steps; if to the fane she went,
Where late the mourning matrons made resort,
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court.
"Not to the court" replied th' attendant train,
"Nor, mix'd with matrons, to Minerva's fane;
To Ilion's steepy tow'r she bent her way,
To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword;
She heard, and trembled for her distant lord.
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly,
Fear on her cheek and sorrow in her eye.
The nurse attended with her infant boy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy."

480

491

Hector, this heard, return'd without delay; Swift through the town he trod his former way, Through streets of palaces and walks of state, And met the mourner at the Scæan gate. With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair, His blameless wife, Eetion's wealthy heir (Cilician Thebè great Eëtion sway'd, And Hippoplacus' wide-extended shade);

500

The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd
His only hope hung smiling at her breast,
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn.
To this lov'd infant Hector gave the name
Scamandrius, from Scamander's honour'd stream;
Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy,
From his great father, the defence of Troy.
Silent the warrior smil'd, and pleas'd, resign'd,
To tender passions all his mighty mind:
His beauteous princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom labour'd with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.

520

For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain!
Oh, grant me, gods! e'er Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of heav'n, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows as they first begun.
No parent now remains, my griefs to share,
No father's aid, no mother's tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire,
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire!
His fate compassion in the victor bred;
Stern as he was, he yet rever'd the dead,
His radiant arms preserv'd from hostile spoil,