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Chloe,
In verse by your command I write.
Shortly you'll
bid me ride astride, and fight:
These talents better
with our sex agree
Than lofty flights of dangerous
poetry.
Amongst the men, I mean the men of wit
(At
least they passed for such before they writ),
How
many bold adventureers for the bays,
Proudly
designing large returns of praise,
Who durst that
stormy, pathless world explore,
Were soon dashed
back, and wrecked on the dull shore,
Broke of that
little stock they had before!
How would a woman's
tottering bark be tossed
Where stoutest ships, the
men of wit, are lost?
When I reflect on this, I
straight grow wise,
And my own self thus gravely I
advise:
--Dear Artemesia, poetry's a snare;
Bedlam
has many mansions; have a care.
Your muse diverts
you, makes the reader sad:
Consider, too, 'twill be
discreetly done
To make yourself the fiddle of the
town,
To find th' ill-humored pleasure at their need,
Cursed if you fail, and scorned though you succeed!
Thus, like an errant woman as I am,
No sooner well
convinced writing's a shame,
That whore is scarce a
more reproachful name
Than poetess-
Like men that
marry, or like maids that woo,
'Cause 'tis the very
worst thing they can do,
Pleased with the
contradiction and the sin,
Methinks I stand n thorns
till I begin.
--Y' expect at least to hear what loves
have passed
In this lewd town, since you and I met
last;
What change has happened of intrigues, and
whether
The old ones last, and who and who's
together.
But how, my dearest Chloe, shall I set
My pet to write what I would fain forget?
Or name
that lost thing, love, without a tear,
Since so
debauched by ill-bred customs here?
Love, the most
generous passion of the mind,
The softest refuge
innocence can find,
The safe director of unguided
youth,
Fraught with kind wishes, and secured by
truth;
That cordial drop heaven in our cup has thrown
To make the nauseous draught of life go down;
On
which one only blessing; God might raise
In lands of
atheists, subsidies of praise,
For none did e'er so
dull and stupid prove
But felt a god, and blessed his
power in love -
This only joy for which poor we were
made
Is grown, like play, to be an arrant trade.
The rooks creep in, and it has got of late
As many
little cheats and tricks as that.
--But what yet more
a woman's heart would vex,
'Tis chiefly carried on by
our own sex;
Our silly sex! who, born like monarchs
free,
turn gypsies for a meaner liberty,
And hate
restraint, though but from infamy.
They call whatever
is not common, nice,
And deaf to nature's rule, or
love's advice,
Forsake the pleasure to pursue the
vice.
To an exact perfection they have wrought
The
action, love; the passion is forgot.
'Tis below wit,
they tell you, to admire,
And ev'n without approving,
they desire.
Their private wish obeys the public
vice;
'Twixt good and bad, whimsey decides, not
choice.
Fashions grow up for taste; at forms they
strike;
They know what they would have, not what they
like.
Bovey's a beauty, of some few agree
To call
him so; the rest to that degree
Affected are, that
with their ears they see.
--Where I was visiting the
other night
Comes a fine lady, with her humble
knight,
Who had prevailed on her, through her own
skill,
At his request, thought much against his will,
To come to London.
As the coach stopped, we heard her
voice, more loud
Than a great-bellied woman's in a
crowd,
Telling the knight that her affairs require
He, for some hours, obsequiously retire.
I think she
was ashamed to have him seen:
Hard fate of husbands!
The gallant had been,
Though a diseased, ill-favored
fool, brought in.
"Dispatch," says she, "that
business you pretend,
Your beastly visit to your
drunken friend!
A bottle ever makes you look so fine;
Methinks I long to smell you stink of wine!
Your
country drinking breath's enough to kill:
Sour ale
corrected with a lemon peel.
Prithee, farewell! We'll
meet again anon."
The necessary thing bows, and is
gone.
--She flies upstairs, and all the haste does
show
That fifty antic postures will allow,
And
then bursts out: "Dear madam, am not I
The altered'st
creature breathing? Let me die,
I find myself
ridiculously grown,
Embarassee with being out of
town,
Rude and untaught like any Indian queen:
My
country nakedness is strangely seen.
--"How is love
governed, love that rules the state,
And pray, who
are the men most worn of late?
When I was married,
fools were a la mode.
The men of wit were then held
incommode,
Slow of belief, and fickle in desire,
Who, ere they'll be persuaded, must inquire
As if
they came to spy, not to admire.
With searching
wisdom, fatal to their ease,
They still find out why
what may, should not please;
Nay, take themselves for
injured when we dare
Make 'em think better of us than
we are,
And if we hide our frailties from their
sights,
Call us deceitful jilts and hypocrites.
They little guess, who at our arts are grieved,
The
perfect joy of being well deceived;
Inquisitive as
jealous cuckolds grow:
Rather than not be knowing,
they will know
What, being known, creates their
certain woe.
Women should these, of all mankind
avoid,
For wonder by clear knowledge is destroyed.
Woman, who is an arrant bird of knight,
Bold in the
dusk before a fool's dull sight,
Should fly when
reason brings the glaring light.
--"But the kind,
easy fool, apt to admire
Himself, trusts us; his
follies all conspire
To flatter his, and favor our
desire.
Vain of his proper merit, he with ease
Believes we love him best who best can please.
On him
our gross, dull, common flatteries pass,
Ever most
joyful when most made an ass.
Heavy to apprehend,
though all mankind
Perceive us false, the fop
concerned is blind,
Who, doting on himself,
Thinks
everyone that sees him of his mind.
These are true
women's men."
-------------------------- Here
forced to cease
Through want of breath, not will to
hold her peace,
She to the window runs, where she had
spied
Her much esteemed dear friend, the monkey,
tied.
With forty smiles, as many antic bows,
As if
't had been the lady of the house,
The dirty,
chattering monster she embraced,
And made it this
fine, tender speech at last:
"Kiss me, thou curious
miniature of man!
How odd thou art! how pretty! how
japan!
Oh, I could live and die with thee!" Then on
For half an hour in compliment she run.
--I took this
time to think what nature meant
When this mixed thing
into the world she sent,
So very wise, yet so
impertinent:
One who knew everything; who, God
thought fit,
Should be an ass through choice, not
want of wit;
Whose foppery, without the help of
sense,
Could ne'er have rose to such an excellence.
Nature's as lame in making a true fop
As a
philosopher; the very top
And dignity of folly we
attain
By studious search, and labor of the brain,
By observation, counsel, and deep thought:
God never
made a coxcomb worth a groat.
We owe that name to
industry and arts:
An eminent fool must be a fool of
parts.
And such a one was she, who had turned o'er
As many books as men; loved much, read more;
Had a
discerning wit; to her was known
Everyone's fault and
merit, but her own.
All the good qualities that ever
blessed
A woman so distinguished from the rest,
Except discretion only, she possessed.
--But now,
"Mon cher dear Pug," she cries, "adieu!"
And the
discourse broke off does thus renew:
--"You smile to
see me, whom the world perchance
Mistakes to have
some wit, so far advance
The interest of fools, that
I approve
Their merit, more than men's of wit, in
love.
But, in our sex, too many proofs there are
Of such whom wits undo, and fools repair.
This, in my
time, was so observed a rule
Hardly a wench in town
but had her fool.
The meanest common slut, who long
was grown
The jest and scorn of every pit buffoon,
Had yet left charms enough to have subdued
Some fop
or other, fond to be thought lewd.
Foster could make
an Irish lord a Nokes,
And Betty Morris had her City
cokes.
A woman's ne'er so ruined but she can
Be
still revenged on her undoer, man;
How lost so'er,
she'll find some lover, more
A lewd, abandoned fool
than she a whore.
--"That wretched thing Corinna, who
had run
Through all the several ways of being undone,
Cozened at first by love, and living then
By turning
the too dear-bought trick on men -
Gay were the
hours, and winged with joys they flew,
When first the
town her early beauties knew;
Courted, admired, and
loved, with presents fed;
Youth in her looks, and
pleasure in her bed;
Till fate, or her ill angel,
thought it fit
To make her dote upon a man of wit,
Who found 'twas dull to love above a day;
Made his
ill-natured jest, and went away.
Now scorned by all,
forsaken, and oppressed,
She's a momento mori to the
rest;
Diseased, decayed, to take up half a crown
Must mortgage her long scarf and manteau gown.
Poor
creature! who, unheard of as a fly,
In some dark hole
must all the winter lie,
And want and dirt endure a
while half year
That for one month she tawdry may
appear.
--"In Easter Term she gets her a new gown,
When my young master's worship comes to town,
From
pedagogue and mother just set free,
The heir and
hopes of a great family;
Which, with strong ale and
beef, the country rules,
And ever since the Conquest
have been fools.
And now, with careful prospect to
maintain
The character, lest crossing of the strain
Should mend the booby breed, his friends provide
A
cousin of his own to be his bride.
And thus set out
With an estate, no wit, and a young wife
(The solid
comforts of a coxcomb's life),
Dunghill and pease
forsook, he comes to town,
Turns spark, learns to be
lewd, and is undone.
Nothing suits worse with vice
than want of sense:
Fools are still wicked at their
own expense.
--"This o'ergrown schoolboy lost Corinna
wins,
And at first dash to make an ass begins:
Pretends to like a man who has not known
The vanities
nor vices of the town;
Fresh in his youth, and
faithful in his love;
Eager of joys which he does
seldom prove;
Healthful and strong, he does no pains
endure
But what the fair one he adores can cure;
Grateful for favors, does the sex esteem,
And libels
none for being kind to him;
Then of the lewdness of
the times complains:
Rails at the wits and atheists,
and maintains
'Tis better than good sense, than power
or wealth,
To have a love untainted, youth, and
health.
--"The unbred puppy, who had never seen
A
creature look so gay, or talk so fine,
Believes, then
falls in love, and then in debt;
Mortgages all, ev'n
to the ancient seat,
To buy this mistress a new house
for life;
To give her plate and jewels, robs his
wife.
And when t' th' height of fondness he is grown,
'Tis time to poison him, and all's her own.
Thus
meeting in her common arms his fate,
He leaves her
bastard heir to his estate,
And, as the race of such
an owl deserves,
His own dull lawful progeny he
starves.
--"Nature, who never made a thing in vain,
But does each insect to some end ordain,
Wisely
contrived kind keeping fools, no doubt,
To patch up
vices men of wit wear out."
Thus she ran on two
hours, some grains of sense
Still mixed with volleys
of impertinence.
--But now 'tis time I should some
pity show
To Chloe, since I cannot choose but know
Readers must reap the dullness writers sow.
But the
next post such stories I will tell
As, joined with
these, shall to a volumn swell,
As true as heaven,
more infamous than hell.
But you are tired, and so am
I.
Farewell.
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