Why all the charges of the nuptial feaft,
Wine and deferts, and sweet-meats to digest?
Th' endowing gold that buys the dear delight,
Giv'n for their firft and only happy night?
If thou art thus uxoriously inclin'd,

To bear thy bondage with a willing mind,
Prepare thy neck, and put it in the yoke :
But for no mercy from thy woman look.
For tho' perhaps, fhe loves with equal fires,
To abfolute dominion fhe afpires;

Joys in the spoils, and triumphs o'er thy purfe;
The better husband makes the wife the worse.
Nothing is thine to give, or fell, or buy,
All offices of ancient friendship die;
Nor haft thou leave to make a legacy.
By 6 thy imperious wife thou art bereft;
A privilege, to pimps and panders left;
Thy teftament's her will; where the prefers
Her ruffians, drudges, and adulterers,
Adopting all thy rivals for thy heirs.

}

Go 7 drag that flave to death : 8 Your reason, why
Should the poor innocent be doom'd to die?
What proofs For, when man's life is in debate,
The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.

Call'st 9 thou that flave a man, the wife replies:
Prov'd, or unprov'd, the crime, the villain dies.
I have the fovereign pow'r to fave or kill;
And give no other reafon but my will.

Thus the fhe-tyrant reigns, till pleas'd with change, Her wild affections to new empires range:

Another fubject-husband she defires;

Divorc'd from him, fhe to the first retires,

6 All the Romans, even the most inferior, and most infamous

fort of them, had the power of making wills.

7 Go drag that flave, &c. Thefe are the words of the wife.

8 Your reafon wby, &c. The answer of the husband.

9 Call'st thou that flave a man? The wife again.

R 3

While

}

While the last wedding-feaft is scarcely o'er,
And garlands hang yet green upon the door.
So ftill the reck'ning rifes; and appears
In total fum, eight husbands in five years.
The title for a tomb-stone might be fit;
But that it would too commonly be writ.
Her mother living, hope no quiet day;
She sharpens her, inftructs her how to flea
Her husband bare, and then divides the prey.
She takes love-letters, with a crafty fmile,
And, in her daughter's answer, mends the style.
In vain the husband fets his watchful fpies;
She cheats their cunning, or fhe bribes their eyes.
The doctor's call'd; the daughter, taught the trick,
Pretends to faint; and in full health is fick.
The panting stallion, at the clofet-door,
Hears the confult, and wishes it were o'er.
Can't thou, in reafon, hope, a bawd fo known,
Should teach her other manners than her own?
Her int'reft is in all th' advice fhe gives:
'Tis on the daughter's rents the mother lives.
No cause is try'd at the litigious bar,
But women plaintiffs or defendants are,
They form the procefs, all the briefs they write;
The topics furnish, and the pleas indite;
And teach the toothlefs lawyer how to bite.
They turn viragos too; the wrestler's toil
They try, and smear their naked limbs with oil:
Against the poft their wicker fhields they crush,
Flourish the fword, and at the flastron push.
Of ev'ry exercise the mannish crew
Fulfils the parts, and oft excels us too;
Prepar'd not only in feign'd fights t' engage,
But rout the gladiators on the stage.
What fenfe of shame in such a breast can lie,
Inur'd to arms, and her own sex to fly?

}

Yet

Yet to be wholly man fhe would difclaim;
To quit her tenfold pleasure at the game,
For frothy praises and an empty name.
Oh what a decent fight 'tis to behold
All thy wife's magazine by auction fold!
The belt, the crested plume, the several suits
Of armour, and the Spanish leather boots!
Yet these are they, that cannot bear the heat
Of figur'd filks, and under farcenet sweat,
Behold the ftrutting Amazonian whore,

She ftands in guard with her right foot before:
Her coats tuck'd up; and all her motions juft,
She stamps, and then cries hah! at ev'ry thrust:
But laugh to see her tir'd with many a bout,
Call for the pot, and like a man piss out.
The ghofts of ancient Romans, fhould they rife,
Would grin to fee their daughters play a prize.
Befides, what endless brawls by wives are bred:
The curtain-lecture makes a mournful bed.

Then, when she has thee fure within the fheets,
Her cry begins, and the whole day repeats.
Conscious of crimes herfelf, fhe teizes firft;
Thy fervants are accus'd; thy whore is curst;
She acts the jealous, and at will she cries :
For women's tears are but the fweat of eyes.
Poor cuckold-fool, thou think'ft that love fincere,
And fuck'st between her lips the falling tear:
But fearch her cabinet, and thou shalt find
Each tiller there with love-epiftles lin❜d.
Suppose her taken in a clofe embrace,
This you would think fo manifeft a case,

}

No rhetoric could defend; no impudence out-face;
And yet even then fhe cries the marriage-vow

A mental reservation must allow ;

And there's a filent bargain ftill imply'd,
The parties fhould be pleas'd on either fide:
And both may for their private needs provide.
Tho' men yourselves, and women us you call,
Yet bomo is a common name for all.

}

There's nothing bolder than a woman caught;
Guilt gives them courage to maintain their fault.
You ask from whence proceed these monftrous crimes?
Once poor, and therefore chafte, in former times,
Our matrons were: no luxury found room

In low-rooft houses, and bare walls of lome;
Their hands with labour harden'd while 'twas light,
And frugal fleep supply'd the quiet night,

While pinch'd with want, their hunger held 'em ftraight; When Hannibal was hov'ring at the

gate: But wanton now and lolling at our eafe, We suffer all th' invet'rate ills of peace, And wasteful riot; whose destructive charms Revenge the vanquish'd world, of our victorious arms. No crime, no luftful poftures are unknown ; Since Poverty, our guardian God, is gone : Pride, laziness, and all luxurious arts, Pour like a deluge in, from foreign parts: Since gold obfcene, and filver found the way, Strange fashions with ftrange bullion to convey, And our plain fimple manners to betray.

What care our drunken dames to whom they spread ? Wine no diftinction makes of tail or head.

Who lewdly dancing at a midnight ball,

For hot eringoes and fat oyfters call:
Full brimmers to their fuddled noses thruft;
Brimmers, the laft provocatives of luft.

When vapours to their fwimming brains advance,
And double tapers on the tables dance.

A famous Carthaginian captain, who was upon the point of conquering the Romans,

Now

Now think what bawdy dialogues they have,
What Tullia talks to her confiding slave,

At Modefty's old ftatue; when by night
They make a stand, and from their litters light;
The good man early to the levee goes,
And treads the nafty paddle of his spouse.

The fecrets of the 2 Goddess nam'd the Good, Are ev'n by boys and barbers understood: Where the rank matrons, dancing to the pipe, Gig with their bums, and are for action ripe; With music rais'd, they spread abroad their hair; And tofs their heads like an enamour'd mare: Laufella lays her garland by, and proves The mimic letchery of manly loves. Rank'd with the lady the cheap finner lies; For here not blood, but virtue, gives the prize. Nothing is feign'd in this venereal strife; 'Tis downright luft, and acted to the life. So full, fo fierce, fo vig'rous, and fo ftrong, That, looking on, would make old 3 Neftor young. Impatient of delay, a gen'ral found,

An univerfal groan of luft goes round;

For then, and only then, the fex fincere is found.
Now is the time of action; Now begin,

They cry, and let the lufty lovers in.

The whorefons are afleep; then bring the flaves,
And watermen, a race of strong-back'd knaves.
I wish, at least, our facred writes were free
From thofe pollutions of obfcenity:

But 'tis well known 4 what finger, how difguis'd,
A lewd audacious action enterpriz'd;

2 The Good Goddefs. At whofe feafts no men were to be prefent. 3 Neftor. Who lived three hundred years.

4 He alludes to the ftory of P. Clodius, who, difguis'd in the habit of a finging woman, went into the house of Cæfar, where the feaft of the Good Goddess was celebrated, to find an opportunity with Cæfar's wife Pompeia.