35

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; By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame; Made Slaves by honour, and made Fools by shame. Marriage may all those petty Tyrants chase, But fets up one, a greater in their place : Well might you wish for change by those accurst, But the last Tyrant ever proves the worst. Still in constraint your fuff'ring Sex remains, Or bound in formal, or in real chains: Whole years neglected, for fome months ador'd, The fawning Servant turns a haughty Lord. Ah quit not the free innocence of life, For the dull glory of a virtuous Wife; Nor let falfe Shews, nor empty Titles please: Aim not at Joy, but reft content with Ease.

The Gods, to curfe Pamela with her pray'rs, Gave the gilt Coach, and dappled Flanders Mares, The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state, And, to complete her blifs, a Fool for Mate. She glares in Balls, front Boxes, and the Ring, A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched Thing! Pride, Pomp, and State but reach her outward part; She fighs, and is no Duchefs at her heart.

56

But, Madam, if the fates withstand, and you Are deftin'd Hymen's willing Victim too;

I

40

45

51

Truft

Trust not too much your now resistless charms,
Thofe, Age or Sickness, foon or late, difarms:
Good-humour only teaches charms to last,
Still makes new conquefts, and maintains the past;
Love, rais'd on Beauty, will like that decay,
Our hearts may bear its flender chain a day;
As flow'ry bands in wantonnefs are worn,
A morning's pleasure, and at evening torn;
This binds in ties more eafy, yet more strong,
The willing heart, and only holds it long.

Thus Voiture's early care ftill fhone the fame,
And Monthaufier was only chang'd in name:
By this, ev'n now they live, ev'n now they charm,
Their Wit still sparkling, and their flames ftill warm.

Now crown'd with Myrtle, on th' Elyfian coaft, Amid thofe Lovers, joys his gentle Ghost: Pleas'd, while with fmiles his happy lines you view, And finds a fairer Ramboüillet in you.

NOTES.

VER. 69. Thus Voiture's early care] Mademoiselle Paulet.

60

65

70

76

The

POPE.

VER. 76. And finds a fairer Our author's attachment to this lady ended but with his life. Yet it is faid, fhe gave him many hours of uneafinefs and difquiet. She occafioned an unhappy breach betwixt him and his old friend Allen, because he would not lend his coach to carry her to a mass-house at Bath during his mayoralty.

The characteristical difference betwixt Voiture and Balfac is well expreffed by Boileau, in two letters written under their names, from the Elyfian Fields to the Duc de Vivonne, in p. 155, of vol. iii. of his works. And Boileau, fpeaking often of ab

furd

The brightest eyes of France infpir'd his Mufe;
The brightest eyes of Britain now peruse;
And dead, as living, 'tis our Author's pride

Still to charm those who charm the world befide.

NOTES.

furd readers and critics, loved to relate, that one of his relations, to whom he had prefented his works, faid to him, "Pray, Coufin, how came you to infert any other perfon's writings among your own? I find in your works two letters, one from Balfac, and the other from Voiture." Defcartes, who, as well as Leibnitz, was an elegant scholar, wrote a judicious cenfure of Balfac, in admirable Latin. Balfac was, however, fuperior to Voiture. But he was affectedly turgid, pompous, and bloated, on all subjects and on all occafions alike. Yet was he the first that gave form and harmony to the French profe, which was ftill improved by the provincial letters of Pascal, WARTON.

EPISTLE

TO THE SAME,

ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN AFTER THE CORONATION.

As
s fome fond Virgin, whom her mother's care
Drags from the Town to wholesome Country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwilling fhe must fever,
Yet takes one kifs before fhe parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with fighs withdrew;
Not that their pleasures caus'd her discontent,
She figh'd not that they stay'd, but that she went. 10
She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old-fashion'd halls, dull Aunts, and croaking rooks:
She went from Op'ra, Park, Affembly, Play,
To morning-walks, and pray'rs three hours a day;
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To mufe, and fpill her folitary tea,

15

5

Or

NOTES.

Coronation] Of King George the first, 1715.

POPE.

VER. I. As fome fond Virgin,] There is so much likeness (to ufe Johnson's words on another poem) in the initial comparison, that there is no illuftration. As one lady lamented the going out of London, fo did another.

WARTON.

Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,

Count the flow clock, and dine exact at noon:
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,

Hum half a tune, tell ftories to the fquire;
Up to her godly garret after fev'n,

1

There starve and pray, for that's the way to heav'n.
Some Squire, perhaps, you take delight to rack;
Whofe game is Whisk, whofe treat a toast in fack;
Who visits with a Gun, prefents you birds, 25
Then gives a fmacking bufs, and cries,-No Words!
Or with his hound comes hallooing from the stable;
Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whofe laughs are hearty, tho' his jefts are coarse,
And loves you best of all things-but his horse.
In fome fair ev'ning, on your elbow laid,
You dream of Triumphs in the rural shade;
In penfive thought recall the fancy'd scene,
See Coronations rife on ev'ry green;

35

Before you pass th' imaginary fights
Of Lords, and Earls, and Dukes, and garter'd Knights,
While

20

30

NOTES.

VER. 23. Some Squire, &c.] Dr. Warton obferves, that no "country Squire" has ever been painted with such true colours and natural features as Addifon's Tony Foxhunter, except Weftern, in Tom Jones. But of the old English gentleman, who refides in the country, a groffer caracature, though its humour is unrivalled, than that of Squire Western, was never drawn; and this by Pope is equally falfe and overcharged. - An Allworthy is oftener to be found than a Squire Western. The character of the English Gentleman (the perfon of hereditary property refiding in the country) is, in general, among that of the most humane, the most liberal, and the most valuable of the community.