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to tranflate him. Though there wanted not another reason, which was, that no one elfe would undertake it: at least, Sir C. S. who could have done more right to the author, after a long delay, at length abfolutely refufed fo ungrate ful an employment: and every one will grant, that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had appeared without one of the principal members belonging to it. Let the poet therefore bear the blame of his own invention; and let me fatisfy the world, that I am not of his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English are free from all his imputations. They will read with wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the most infamous of any on record. They will bless themselves when they behold thofe examples, related of Domitian's time: they will give back to antiquity thofe monsters it produced: and believe with reason, that the fpecies of those women is extinguished; or at least, that they were never here propagated. I may fafely therefore proceed to the argument of a fatire, which is no way relating to them: and firft obferve, that my author makes their luft the most heroic of their vices: the rest are in a manner but digreffion. fkims them over; but he dwells on this: when he seems to have taken his last leave of it, on the sudden he returns to it: it is one branch of it in Hippia, another in Mesalina, but luft is the main body of the tree. He begins with this text in the first line, and takes it up with intermiffions to the end of the chapter. Every vice is a loader, but that's a ten. The fillers, or intermediate parts, are their revenge; their contrivances of fecret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can no longer be kept Secret. Then the perfons to whom they are moft addicted; and on whom they commonly beftow the laft favours: as ftage-players, fidlers, finging-boys, and fencers. Thoft who pass for chate amongst them, are not really fo; but only for their vaft dowries, are rather fuffered, than loved by their own bufbands. That they are imperious, domineering, fcolding suices: fet up for learning and criticism in poetry; but are falje judges. Love to Speak Gresk (which was then the fashionable tongue, as French

He

I

is now with us.) That they plead causes at the bar, and play prizes at the bear-garden. That they are goffips and news-mongers: wrangle with their neighbours abroad, and beat their fervants at home. That they lie-in for new faces once a month, are fluttish with their husbands in private; and paint and dress in public for their lovers. That they deal with Jews, diviners, and fortune-tellers: learn the arts of miscarrying, and barrenness, Buy children, and produce them for their own. Murder their husbands fons, if they ftand in their way to his eftate; and make their adulterers his heirs. From hence the poet proceeds to fhew the occafions of all thefes vices, their original, and how they were introduced in Rome, by peace, wealth, and luxury. In conclufion, if we will take the word of our malicious author, bad vomen are the general ftanding rule; and the good, but fome few exceptions to it.

'N Saturn's reign, at Nature's early birth,

There was that thing call'd chastity on earth;
When in a narrow cave, their common shade,
The sheep, the fhepherds, and their Gods were laid;
When reeds and leaves, and hides of beafts were spread
By mountain-housewives for their homely bed,
And moffy pillows rais'd, for the rude hufband's head,
Unlike the nicenefs of our modern dames,
(Affected nymphs with new-affected names :)
The Cynthia's and the Lesbia's of our years,
Who for a fparrow's death diffolve in tears.
Thofe firft unpolifh'd matrons, big and bold,
Gave fuck to infants of gigantic mold;

Rough as their favage lords, who rang'd the wood,
And 2 fat with acorns belch'd their windy food.
For when the world was buxfom, fresh and young,
Her fons were undebauch'd, and therefore ftrong;
And whether born in kindly beds of earth,
Or ftruggling from the teeming oaks to birth,

I In the golden age; when Saturn reigned.

2 Acorns were the bread of mankind, before corn was found.

OF

Or from what other atoms they begun,
No fires they had, or, if a fire the fun.
Some thin remains of chaftity appear'd,

Ev'n 3 under Jove, but Jove without a beard;
Before the fervile Greeks had learnt to fwear
By heads of kings; while yet the bounteous year
Her common fruits in open plains expos'd,
Ere thieves were fear'd, or gardens were inclos'd.
At length 4 uneafy Justice upwards flew,
And both the fifters to the ftars withdrew;
From that old æra whoring did begin,
So venerably ancient is the fin.
Adult'rers next invade the nuptial ftate,

And marriage-beds creak'd with a foreign weight;
All other ills did iron times adorn ;

But whores and filver in one age were born.
Yet thou, they fay, for marriage doft provide:
Is this an age to buckle with a bride ?
They fay thy hair the curling art is taught,
The wedding-ring perhaps already bought;
A fober man like thee to change his life!
What fury would poffefs thee with a wife ?
Art thou of every other death bereft,
No knife, no ratsbane, no kind halter left ?
(For every noose compar'd to her's is cheap)
Is there no city-bridge from whence to leap?
Would't thou become her drudge, who doft enjoy
A better fort of bedfellow, thy boy?

He keeps thee not awake with nightly brawls,
Nor with a begg'd reward thy pleasure palls;
Nor with infatiate heavings calls for more,
When all thy fpirits were drain'd out before.

3 When Jove had driven his father into banishment, the filver age began, according to the poets,

4 The poet makes Juftice and Chastity fifters; and fays, that they fled to heaven together, and left earth for ever,

But

But ftill Urfidius courts the marriage-bait,
Longs for a fon to fettle his eftate,
And takes no gifts, tho' every gaping heir
Would gladly grease the rich old batchelor.
What revolution can appear fo ftrange,
As fuch a leacher, fuch a life to change?
A rank, notorious whoremafter, to choose
To thrust his neck into the marriage-noose?
He who so often in a dreadful fright

Had in a coffer 'fcap'd the jealous cuckold's fight,
That he to wedlock dotingly betray'd,

Should hope in this lewd town to find a maid!
The man's grown mad; to ease his frantic pain,
Ran for the furgeon; breathe the middle vein :
But let a heifer with gilt horns be led
To Juno, regent of the marriage-bed,
And let him every deity adore,

If his new bride prove not an arrant whore
In head and tail, and every other pore.

On 5 Ceres' feast, reftrain'd from their delight,
Few matrons there, but curse the tedious night:
Few whom their fathers dare falute, fuch luft
Their kiffes have, and come with fuch a guft.
With ivy now adorn thy doors, and wed;
Such is thy bride, and fuch thy genial bed.
Think'ft thou one man is for one woman meant?
She, fooner with one eye would be content.

And yet
'tis nois'd, a maid did once appear
In some small village, though fame fays not where
'Tis poffible; but fure no man fhe found;
"Twas defart, all, about her father's ground:
And yet fome luftful God might there make bold,
Are 6 Jove and Mars grown impotent and old?

}

5 Ceres' feaft. When the Roman women were forbidden to bed with their husbands.

6 Jove and Mars. Of whom more fornicating ftories are told than of any of the other gods.

Many

Many a nymph has in a cave been spread,

And much good love without a feather bed.
Whither would't thou to chuse a wife refort,

The park, the mall, the play-houfe, or the court?
Which way foever thy adventures fall,
Secure alike of chastity in all.

One fees a dancing-mafter cap'ring high,
And raves, and piffes, with pure ecstasy :
Another does, with all his motions move,
And gapes, and grins as in the feat of love:
A third is charm'd with the new opera notes,
Admires the fong, but on the finger dotes:
The country lady in the box appears,
Softly the warbles over all the hears;

}

And fucks in paffion, both at eyes and ears.
The reft (when now the long vacation's come,
The noify hall and theatre's grown dumb)
Their mem'ries to refresh, and chear their hearts,
In borrow'd breeches act the player's parts.
The poor, that scarce have wherewithal to eat,
Will pinch, to make the finging-boy a treat.
The rich, to buy him, will refuse no price;
And stretch his quail-pipe, till they crack his voice.
Tragedians, acting love, for luft are fought:
Tho' but the parrots of a poet's thought.)
The pleading lawyer, tho' for counsel us'd,
In chamber-practice often is refus'd.

Still thou wilt have a wife, and father heirs;
(The product of concurring theatres.)
Perhaps a fencer did thy brows adorn,
And a young fword-man to thy lands is born.
Thus Hippia loath'd her old patrician lord,
And left him for a brother of the fword:
To wond'ring 7 Pharos with her love he fled,
To fhew one monfter more than Africk bred:

7 She fled to Egypt; which wondered at the enormity of her crime.

Forgetting

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