PART the THIRD.

Now soar, my Muse! and leave the meaner crew[5],

To aim at bliss, and vainly bliss pursue;

Let us (since Man no privilege can claim,

Than a contended, half superior name)

Expatiate o'er the raptures of the Fair,

Vot'ries to stolen joys, but yet sincere;

In secret Haunts, where never day-light gleams

By bottles, tempting with forbidden streams,

Together let us search; above, below,

Try what the Closets, what the Cellars show;

The latent vault with piercing view explore

Of her who hides the all reviving store.

Eye Beauty's walks, when round the welkin rolls,

And catch the stumbling Charmer as she falls;

Laugh where we must, but pity where we can,

And vindicate the sweet soft souls to Man.

Pardon, ye Fair, the Poet and his Muse,

And what ye can't approve, at least excuse;

Far be from him the iron lash of Wit,

The jokes of Humour, and the sneers that hit;

He speaks of Freedom, and he speaks to you,

His Verse is simple, but his Subject new;

And novelty, ye Fair, beyond a doubt,

Is philosophic truth, the World throughout.

Hard is the lot of Woman, so have sung

The pensive old, and the presuming young;

Born without privilege, in bondage bred,

Slave from the Cradle to the marriage Bed;

Slave from the hour hymeneal to the grave,

In age, in youth, in infancy a Slave.

Happy the Bard, who, bold in pride of song

Shall free the chain, by Custom bound so long,

And show the Fair, to mean tradition prone,

Though Virtue may have sex, yet Vice has none.

If Man is licenc'd to confuse his mind,

Say, why should female Frailty be confin'd?

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Is't right that she who dearly bought the fruit,

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Of all our wayward appetites the root,

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Who first made Man a fool and then a brute;

Who fair in spells of tender kind can slay,

Like Israel's Judge, her thousands in a day;

Nay farther, has a far superior Pow'r,

And almost thousands in a day can cure;

She, the bright cause of fury in Man's breast;

And brighter cause who bids that fury rest;

Who raises peace or war at her command,

And bids a sword destroy a tipsy Land;

Say, is it right that she who kills and saves,

Makes wise Men mad, and takes the veil from Knaves,

Should want the pow'r, the magic, which alone,

Can Conquests boast more fatal than her own?

For Man alone did earth produce her fruit,

The sole, as well as the superior, brute;

Does he alone the glorious licence claim,

To put the human off, and loose his Name?

Woman in Knowledge was the earlier curst,

And tasted of forbidden Fruit the first;

Prior to Man, the law she disobey'd,

And shall she want the Freedom she convey'd?

By her first Theft each fiery ill we feel,

And yet compel the gen'rous Fair to steal;

First made by her for soaring actions fit,

Woman! the spring of super-human wit,

Shall we from her each dear bought bliss withhold,

As Spaniards use the Indians for their Gold?

Ungrateful Man! in pride so high to aim,

As to be sole inheritor of shame!

And you, ye Fair! why slumber on disdain,

Forbear to vindicate, yet can't refrain?

Why should Papilla seek the vaulted hoard,

And but in secret ape her honest Lord?

Why should'st thou, Celia, to thy stores repair,

And sip the generous Spirit in such fear?

Reform the Error, and revoke your plan,

And as ye dare to imitate, be——Man.

First know yourselves, and frame your passions all[6],

In proper order, how to rise and fall;

Woman's a Being, dubiously great,

Never contented with a passive state;

With too much Knowledge to give Man the sway,

With too much Pride his humours to obey,

She hangs in doubt, [too] humble or [too] brave;

In doubt to be a Mistress or a Slave;

In doubt herself or Husband to controul;

Born to be made a tyrant or a fool;

In one extreme, her Power is always such

Either to show too little, or too much;

Bred up in Passions, by their sway abus'd,

The weaker for the stronger still refus'd;

Created oft' to rise, and oft' to fall,

Changing in all things, yet alike in all;

Soft Judge of right or wrong, or blest or curst,

The happiest, saddest, holiest, or the worst.

And why? because your failings ye suppress,

And what ye dare to act, dare not confess.

Would you, ye Fair, as Man your vices boast,

And she be most admir'd, who sins the most;

Would ye in open revel gaily spring,

And o'er the wanton Banquet vaunting sing;

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The doubtful Precedence we then should own,

And you be first in [Error's] mazes known.

But why to Vices of the boist'rous kind

Tye the soft Soul, and urge the gentle Mind?

Forbid it, Nature! to the Fair I speak,

By her made strong, by Custom rendered weak;

Whose passions, trembling for unbounded sway,

Will thank the Bard, who points the nearest way;

All Vice through Folly's regions first should pass,

And Folly holds her sceptre o'er the glass.

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Drink then, ye Fair! and nature's laws fulfill;

Be ev'ry thing at once, and all ye will;

Put off the mask that hides the Sex's claim

And makes Distinction but an empty name.

Go, wond'rous Creature! where the potion glides[7]

From Bowls unmeasured in illumin'd tides;

Instruct each other, in your due degrees;

Correct old Rules, and be e'en what you please;

Go, drink! for who shall jointed power contest?

Drink to the passable, the good, the best.

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And, quitting Custom and her idle plan,

Call drowning reason imitating Man;

Like lovers' brains in giddy circles run,

And, all exhausting, imitate the Sun;

Go, and be Man in noise and glorious strife,

Then drop into his Arms and be a——Wife.

Ye Gods! what scenes upon my Fancy press,

The Consequence of unconfin'd excess;

When Vice in common has one general name,

And male and female Errors be the same;

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For, as the strength of Spirit none contest,

That daring Ill shall introduce the rest;

Then, what a field of glory will arise,

What dazzling scenes, ye Fair, before your eyes:

As female duels, Jockies——what besides?

Gamblers in petticoats, and booted brides;

The tender Billet to the gentle swain,

That boldly dares avouch the am'rous pain;

Soft Beaux intreated, gentle Coxcombs prest,

And Fops asham'd half blush to be addrest.

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Thus to sweet Strephon will his Chloris say,

One cup of Nectar having pav'd the way;

"Oh! why so dead to my emploring eyes,

Deaf to my prayer, and speechless to my sighs?

Sure never Nymph of old, my darling Boy,

When Men intreated, and when we were coy,

Was prest so warmly by a bleeding swain,

Or shot from killing eyes such cold disdain."

And thus will run wild Flavia's Billetdoux,

The writing bold, and e'en the spelling true:

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"No more, my Belmour, shun these longing arms,

Thou quintessence of all thy Sex's charms;

At ten—behind the elm, where echoes sigh,

Shall, taught [by] me, teach thee my swain to die;

The conscious Moon shall fill her lucid horn,

And join thy Blush to mock the crimson morn;

The limpid Stream shall softly move along,

And hear its own sweet warble from thy tongue;

There come, dear boy, or vainly flow the streams,

There come, or vainly sheds the moon her beams;

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Vainly on her my Moments I shall waste,

She who like thee is cold, and who like thee is chaste."

But then what tender Stripling shall escape?

What blushing Boy avoid a Lady-Rape?

Where shall each lisping creature hide his head,

To amazonian desires betray'd?

Where from the wily Heroine remove,

Clad in the fortitude of Wine and Love?

Oh! hapless Lad, what refuge canst thou find

Too soft, too mild, too tender to be kind?

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Yet this is no objection understood,

"For partial Evil's universal Good."

Nor think of Nature's state I make a jest[8]:

The state of Nature is a state undrest;

The love of Pleasure at our birth began,

Pleasure the aim of all things, and of Man.

Law then was not, the swelling flame to kill,

Man walk'd with beast, and—so he always will;

And Woman too, the same their board and bed,

And would be now, but Folks are better bred;

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In some convenient grot, or tufted wood,

All human beings Nature's circuit trod;

The shrine was her's, with no gay vesture laid;

Unbrib'd, unmarried stood the willing maid;

Her attribute was universal Love,

And man's prerogative to range and rove.

But how unlike the Pairs of times to come,

Wedded, yet separate, abroad at home,

Who foes to Nature, and to evil prone,

Despising all, but hating most their own.

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A wayward craving this Neglect succeeds,

As every Monster monst'rous children breeds;

Strange motly passions from this vice began,

And Man unnatural turn'd to worship Man.

For this the Muse now calls the Fair to rise,

To shew our failings, and to make us wise;

Be now to Bacchus, now to Venus prone,

And share each folly Man has thought his own;

Shame him from Vice, by shewing him your shame,

And part with yours, to reinstate his Fame;

200

Be generously vile, and this your view:

That Man may hate his errors seen in you.

Say, when the Coxcomb flatters and adores,

When (taking snuff) your pity he implores;

With many a gentle Dem'me swears to die,

And humbly begs Destruction from your eye;

When your own arts he takes, and speaks in smiles,

With Softness woos, and with a Voice beguiles;

Does it not move your pity and disdain,

Such flow'ry passion, and such mincing pain;

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Your various Follies you with anger scan,

So shewn by one whom Nature meant for Man.

E'en so do we our faults in you despise,

And Vice has double malice in those Eyes.

When Chloe toasts her Beau, or raves too loud;

When Flavia leaves her home, and joins a croud;

When Silvia fearless rolls the roguish eye,

And Damon's want of confidence supply;

When betts, and duns, and every rougher name,

Sound in the ear of either Sex the same;

220

How should we tell, when thus you love and hate,

Who acts the Man, and who's effeminate?

Drink, then! disclaim your Sex, be Man in all,

Shew us at once, distinction ought to fall;

And from the humble things ye were of old,

Be reeling Cæsars in a cyprian mould.

Better for us, 'tis granted, it might be[9],

Were you all Softness, and all Honour we;

That never rougher Passion mov'd your mind;

That we were all or excellent or blind;

230

But, as we now subsist by passions strife,

Which are (Pope writes) the elements of life,

The general order, since the whole began,

Should be dissolv'd, and Manners make the Man.

Nor fear, if once ye break through general Laws,

To draw in thousands, and gain our applause;

Nor fear but Fame your merits shall make known,

And female Bravos trample Hectors down;

From Man himself you'll learn the art he boasts,

Rule in his room, and govern in his posts.

240

Thus does the Muse in vein didactic speak——[10]

"Go, from proud Man thy full instructions take;

Learn from the Law, what gain its mazes yield;

Learn of the Brave the police of the field;

Thy arts of shuffling from the Courtier get;

Learn of his Grace to stare away a debt;

Learn from the Sot his poison to caress,

Shake the mad room, and revel in excess;

From Man all forms of grand deception find,

And so be tempted to delude Mankind.

250

Here frantic schemes of wild Ambition see;

There all the plots, my Fair! he lays for thee.

Learn each small People's genius, humours, aims,

The Jocky's dealing, and Newmarket games;

How there in common wealth in currents go,

And poverty and riches ebb and flow;

And these for ever, though a Saint deny'd,

To splendour or contempt their Masters guide;

Mark the nice rules of modern honour well,

Rules which the laws of Nature far excel.

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In vain thy fancy finer whims shall draw;

Good-breeding is as difficult as Law,

And, form'd so complex, makes itself a science,

To bid the Scholar and the Clown defiance.

Go then, and thus thy present Lords survey,

And let the Creatures feel they must obey;

Learn all their Arts, be these thy choicest hoard,

Be fear'd for these, and be for these ador'd."

And where are these? within the Bowl they lie;

Thence spring ambitious thoughts, there doubtings die;

270

From thence we trace the horrors of a War,

Chaotic counsel, ministerial jar;

This makes a gambling Lord, a Patriot vain,

The Soldier's fury, and the Lover's pain;

Fills Bedlam's wards with souls of ærial mould;

This makes the Madman, this supplies the Scold;

Here rules the one grand Passion in extreme,

A love of lucre, or a love of fame;

The Scholar's boast, the Politician's plan;

Here shines the Bubble, and here falls the Man.

280

Oh! happy fall of insolence and pride,

Which makes the humblest with the great allied;

Which levels like the Grave all earthly things,

For drunken Coblers are as proud as Kings;

Which plucks the sons of grandeur from their sphere,

For who is lower than a stagg'ring Peer?

Yet here, ye Fair, tho' ev'ry Soul's the same,

And Prince and Pedlar differ but in name,

Folly with Fashion is discreetly grac'd,

And, if all sin, not all can sin in taste;

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For who, ye Gods! would ever go astray,

If 'twas not something in a modish way?

Oh! Fashion, caprice, pride—whate'er we call—

Thou something, nothing, dear attractive all;

Thou serious trifle of the gentle Soul,

Worship'd, yet changing, varying to controul;

Sweet Child of wanton fancy, artful whim,

Bred in an instant, born in an Extreme;

Folly's best friend, and luxury's ally,

Who, dying always, prov'st thou canst not die;

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Attend us here; let us grow mad in Form,

Rage with an Air, and elegantly storm;

Invoke destruction with a Grace divine,

And call for Satan as a child of thine;

Genteely stagger from the common road;

And ape the brute, but ape him in the mode;

With a Court-grace make every action known,

For who'd be d——n'd for sins they blush to own?

Far as the power of human vice extends[11],

Her scale of sensual vanity ascends;

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Mark how it rises to the gilded Throne,

From the poor wretch who dully topes alone.

What modes of folly, each in one extreme,

The sots dim sense, th' Epicurean's dream;

Of scent, what difference 'twixt the pungent rum

And noxious vapours of fermenting stum;

Of hearing, to Champain's decanted swell

From the dull gurgle of expiring ale?

The touch, how distant in the mean and great,

Who feel all roughness, or who feed from plate;

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In the nice Lord, behold what arts produce;

From vases carv'd is quaff'd the balmy juice;

How palates vary in the poor Divine,

Compar'd, half-reasoning Nobleman! with thine.

Thus every sense is fill'd in due degree,

And proper barriers bound his Grace and me;

Here every Passion is at length display'd,

Nations are ruin'd, Ministers betray'd;

And what, ye Fair, concerns your pleasures most,

Intrigues are plan'd, and Reputations lost:

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By you persuaded, Man was overcome,

And conquer'd once, received a general doom;

Requite the deed, partake a general Curse;

We fell with you, and you should fall with us.

FOOTNOTES:

[5]

"Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things

To low ambition, and the pride of Kings;

Let us (since Life can little more supply

Than just to look about us, and to die)

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man,

A mighty maze, but not without a plan;

A Wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot

Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.

Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield;

The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore,

Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;

Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,

And catch the Manners, living as they rise;

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,

But vindicate the ways of God to Man."

Pope's Essay on Man.—

[6]

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,

A Being darkly wise, and rudely great;

With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,

With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,

He hangs between: in doubt to act, or rest;

In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;

In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;

Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;

Alike in Ignorance, his reason such,

Whether he thinks too little or too much;

Chaos of Thought and Passion; all confus'd;

Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd:

Created half to rise, and half to fall,

Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd;

The glory, jest, and riddle of the World!"

Pope's Essay on Man.—

[7]

"Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides;

Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;

Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,

Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;

Go, soar, with Plato, to th' empyreal sphere,

To the first Good, first Perfect, and first Fair;

Or tread the mazy round his foll'wers trod,

And quitting sense call imitating God;

As eastern Priests in giddy circles run,

And turn their heads to imitate the Sun;

Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule;

Then drop into thyself, and be a Fool."

Pope's Essay on Man.—

[8]

"Nor think, in Nature's State they blindly trod;

The state of Nature was the reign of God:

Self-love and social at her birth began,

Union the bond of all things, and of Man.

Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to aid;

Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade;

The same his table, and the same his bed;

No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.

In the same temple, the resounding wood,

All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God;

The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest;

Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest;

Heav'n's attribute was universal care,

And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare.

Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!

Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;

Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan,

Murders their species, and betrays his own.

But just Disease to luxury succeeds,

And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds;

The Fury-passions from that blood began,

And turn'd on Man a fiercer savage, Man."

Pope's Essay on Man.—

[9]

"Better for us, I grant, it might appear,

Were there all Harmony, all Virtue here;

That never air or ocean felt the wind,

That never passion discompos'd the mind;

But all subsists by elemental strife,

And passions are the elements of life;

The general Order, since the whole began

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man."

[10]

"Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake——

'Go, from the creatures thy instructions take:

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;

Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

Thy arts of building from the bee receive;

Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;

Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.

Here too all forms of social union find,

And hence let Reason, late, instruct Mankind;

Here subterranean works and cities see,

There towns aerial on the waving tree.

Learn each small people's genius, policies,

The ant's republic, and the realm of bees;

How those in common all their wealth bestow,

And anarchy without confusion know;

And these for ever, though a monarch reign,

Their sep'rate cells and properties maintain.

Mark what unvary'd laws preserv'd each state,

Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as Fate.

In vain thy Reason finer webs shall draw,

Intangle Justice in her net of law,

And right, too rigid, harden into wrong,

Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.

Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway;

Thus let the wiser make the rest obey;

And, for those arts mere Instinct could afford,

Be crown'd as Monarchs, or as Gods ador'd.'"

Pope's Essay on Man.—

[11]

"Far as Creation's ample range extends,

The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends;

Mark how it mounts to Man's imperial race,

From the green myriads in the peopled grass

What modes of sight, betwixt each wide extreme,

The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:

Of smell the head-long lioness between,

And hound sagacious on the tainted green.

Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,

To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood,

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line;

In the nice bee what art, so subtly true,

From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew;

How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine,

Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine."

Pope's Essay on Man.—

FINIS.