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But die, and she'll adore you-Then the Bust
And Temple rise then fall again to dust1.
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 robb'd of Pow'r, by Warmth of Friends,
By Wealth of Follow'rs! without one distress
Sick of herself thro' very selfishness!
Atossa, curs'd with ev'ry granted pray'r,
Childless with all her Children, wants an Heir 2.
To Heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store,
Or wanders, Heav'n-directed, to the Poor 3.
Pictures like these, dear Madam, to design,
Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line;
Some wand'ring touches, some reflected light,
Some flying stroke alone can hit 'em right:
For how should equal Colours do the knack?
Chameleons who can paint in white and black?
"Yet Chloe sure was form'd without a spot"
Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot.
"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part,

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Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a Heart.
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought;
But never, never, reach'd one gen'rous Thought.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in Decencies for ever.
So very reasonable, so unmov'd,

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As never yet to love, or to be lov'd.

She, while her Lover pants upon her breast,

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Observes how much a Chintz exceeds Mohair".
Forbid it Heav'n, 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 slander'd 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.

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This alludes to a temple she erected with a bust of Queen Anne in it, which mouldered away in a few years. Wilkes.

2 After v. 148, in the MS. 'This Death decides, nor lets the blessing fall On any one she hates, but on them all. Curs'd chance! this only could afflict her more, If any part should wander to the poor.'

Warburton. 3 [Pitt (the elder) was then one of the poor;

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and to him Heaven directed a portion of the wealth of the haughty Dowager. Macaulay.] Lady Suffolk. Warton. [This great lady, whose friendship was courted by Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot and Gay, is described by Lord Stanhope as 'placid, good-natured, and kind-hearted, but very deaf, and not remarkable for wit.' She was the mistress of George II.]

[Mohair, a stuff made of camel's or other uncommon hair.]

'Tis well-but, Artists! who can paint or write,

And shew their zeal, and hide their want of skill.

With Truth and Goodness, as with Crown and Ball. Poets heap Virtues, Painters Gems at will,

One certain Portrait may (I grant) be seen, Which Heav'n has varnish'd out, and made a Queen: THE SAME FOR EVER! and describ'd by all

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To draw the Naked is your true delight.
That robe of Quality so struts and swells,
None see what Parts of Nature it conceals:
Th' exactest traits of Body or of Mind,
We owe to models of an humble kind.

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If QUEENSBURY1 to strip there's no compelling,

'Tis from a Handmaid we must take a Helen, From Peer or Bishop 'tis no easy thing

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To draw the man who loves his God, or King:

Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail)

From honest Mah'met 2, or plain Parson Hale3.

But grant, in Public Men sometimes are shown*,

A Woman's seen in Private life alone:

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Our bolder Talents in full light display'd;

Your virtues open fairest in the shade.

Bred to disguise, in Public 'tis you hide;

There, none distinguish 'twixt your Shame or Pride,
Weakness or Delicacy; all so nice,

That each may seem a Virtue, or a Vice 5.
In Men, we various Ruling Passions find ";

In Women, two almost divide the kind;

Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey,
The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway.

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That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught?

Is but to please, can Pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by Man's oppression curst,
They seek the second not to loose the first.
Men, some to Bus'ness, some to Pleasure take;

[The Duchess of Queensbury, the correspondent of Swift and the untiring patroness of Gay. Her commanding position as a leader of fashion is illustrated by an amusing anecdote of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's, who speaks of the Duchess at the head of a tribe of dames insisting upon admission to the House of Lords on an occasion when for want of room ladies had been excluded from the Chamber.]

2 Mahmet, servant to the late King [George I.], said to be the son of a Turkish Bassa, whom he took at the Siege of Buda, and constantly kept about his person. P.

3 Dr Stephen Hale, not more estimable for his useful discoveries as a natural philosopher, than for his exemplary Life and Pastoral Charity as a Parish Priest. P.

But grant, in Public, &c.] In the former Editions, between this and the foregoing lines, a want of Connexion might be perceived, oc

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casioned by the omission of certain Examples and Illustrations to the Maxims laid down; and tho' some of these have since been found, viz. the Characters of Philomedé, Atossa, Chloe, and some verses following, others are still wanting, nor can we answer that these are exactly inserted.

5 That each may seem a Virtue, or a Vice.] For Women are taught Virtue so artificially, and Vice so naturally, that, in the nice exercise of them, they may be easily mistaken for one another. Scriblerus.

"The former part having shewn, that the particular Characters of Women are more various than those of Men, it is nevertheless observed, that the general Characteristic of the sex, as to the ruling Passion, is more uniform. P.

7 This is occasioned partly by their Nature, partly their Education, and in some degree by Necessity. P.

But every Woman is at heart a Rake:
Men, some to Quiet, some to public Strife;
But ev'ry Lady would be Queen for life.

Yet mark the fate of a whole Sex of Queens1!
Pow'r all their end, but Beauty all the means:
In Youth they conquer, with so wild a rage,
As leaves them scarce a subject in their Age:
For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam;
No thought of peace or happiness at home.
'But Wisdom's triumph is well-tim'd Retreat,
As hard a science to the Fair as Great!
Beauties, like Tyrants, old and friendless grown,
Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone,
Worn out in public, weary ev'ry eye,

Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die.
Pleasures the sex, as children Birds, pursue 3,
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,
It grows their Age's prudence to pretend;
Asham'd to own they gave delight before,
Reduc'd to feign it, when they give no more:

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As Hags hold Sabbaths, less for joy than spite,
So these their merry, miserable Night;

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Still round and round the Ghosts of Beauty glide;

And haunt the places where their Honour died.
See how the World its Veterans rewards!
A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot;
Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot"!

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Ah! Friend! to dazzle let the Vain design";

To raise the Thought, and touch the Heart be thine!

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That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring7,
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing:
So when the Sun's broad beam has tir'd the sight,
All mild ascends the Moon's more sober light,
Serene in Virgin Modesty she shines,
And unobserv'd the glaring Orb declines 8.

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Oh! blest with Temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;

What are the Aims and the Fate of this Sex?-I. As to Power. P.

2 Copied from Young, Satire V. Warton. 3 II. As to Pleasure.

P.

[The Hags' or Witches' Sabbath is properly the Walpurgis-night, preceding May-day.]

5 [For the history of these lines see note to lines To Martha Blount on her birthday in the Miscellaneous Poems.]

6 Advice for their true Interest. P.

7 [The fashionable promenade in the Park, made in the reign of Charles I. and partially destroyed at the time of the formation of the Serpentine by order of Queen Caroline.]

8 [These four lines were originally addressed to Miss Judith Cowper, preceded by this triplet; 'Though sprightly Sappho force our love and praise, A softer wonder my pleas'd soul surveys: The mild Erinna blushing in her bays.'] See Carruthers' Life.

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 shews 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;
Disdains all loss of Tickets, or Codille1:
Spleen, Vapours, or Small-pox, above them all,
And Mistress of herself, tho' China fall 2.

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And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at best a Contradiction still.
Heav'n, when it strives to polish all it can
Its last best work, but forms a softer Man;
Picks from each sex, to make the Fav'rite blest,
Your love of Pleasure, or desire of Kest:
Blends, in exception to all gen'ral rules,
Your Taste of Follies, with our Scorn of Fools:
Reserve with Frankness, Art with Truth ally'd,
Courage with Softness, Modesty with Pride;
Fix'd Principles, with Fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces- You 3.

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Be this a Woman's Fame: with this unblest,
Toasts live a scorn, and Queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promis'd (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care,
Averted half your Parents' simple Pray'r;

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And gave you Beauty, but deny'd the Pelf
That buys your sex a Tyrant o'er itself.

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The gen'rous God, who Wit and Gold refines,
And ripens Spirits as he ripens Mines,

Kept Dross for Duchesses, the world shall know it 4,
To you gave Sense, Good-humour, and a Poet.

[Codille: cf. Rape of the Lock, Canto III. v.

2 Addison has touched this subject with his usual exquisite humour in the Lover, No 10, quoting Epictetus, to comfort a Lady that labours under this heavy calamity. Warton.

3 [Warton compares Swift's:

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'Jove mix'd up all, and his best clay employ'd, Then call'd the happy composition-Floyd.'] 4 [Yet it was for Martha Blount, to whom these compliments are addressed, that Pope seems to have taken the dross of the Duchess of Marlborough. V. ante.]

EPISTLE III.1

TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST 2.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Use of RICHES.

THAT it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profusion, v. 1, &c. The point discuss'd, whether the invention of Money has been more commodious or pernicious to Mankind, v. 21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, scarcely Necessaries, v. 89—160. That Avarice is an absolute Frenzy, without an End or Purpose, v. 113, &c. 152. Conjectures about the Motives of Avaricious men, v. 121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the ORDER OF PROVIDENCE, which works the general Good out of Extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, v. 161 to 178. How a Miser acts upon Principles which appear to him reasonable, v. 179. How a Prodigal does the same, v. 199. The due Medium, and true use of Riches, v. 219. The Man of Ross, v. 250. The fate of the Profuse and the Covetous, in two examples; both miserable in Life and in Death, v. 300, &c. The Story of Sir Balaam, v. 339 to the end.

P.

WHO

HO shall decide, when Doctors disagree,
And soundest Casuists doubt, like you and me?
You hold the word, from Jove to Momus giv'n
That Man was made the standing jest of Heav'n;
And Gold but sent to keep the fools in play,
For some to heap, and some to throw away.

But I, who think more highly of our kind,
(And surely, Heav'n and I are of a mind)
Opine, that Nature, as in duty bound,
Deep hid the shining mischief under ground:
But when by Man's audacious labour won,
Flam'd forth this rival to its Sire, the Sun,
Then careful Heav'n supply'd two sorts of Men,
To squander These, and Those to hide again.
Like Doctors thus, when much dispute has pist,
We find our tenets just the same at last.

This Epistle was written after a violent outcry against our Author, on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong taste. He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are these words: "I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridiculous: and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high places; and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and as the only certain way to avoid misconstructions, to lessen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured

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applications, I may probably, in my next, make use of real names instead of fictitious ones." P.

2 [Allen Apsley Lord Bathurst, a Tory peer, was one of the most intimate of Pope's friends and associates. 'He united,' says Carruthers, a sort of French vivacity'['Bathurst impetuous, whom you and I strive who shall love the most,' is the mention of him in Gay's catalogue of Pope's friends] 'to English principles, and mingled freely in society till past ninety, living to walk under the shade of lofty trees which Pope and he had planted, and to see his son Lord Chancellor of England.’ He died in the year 1774, at the age of 91.]

3 [Momus (derisive blame) is personified as a god in the Theogony of Hesiod.]

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