To fcandal next---What aukward thing
Was that laft Sunday in the ring?
I'm forry Mopfa breaks fo faft;
I faid her face wou'd never laft.
Corinna, with that youthful air,
Is thirty, and a bit to fpare:
Her fondness for a certain earl
Began, when I was but a girl.
Phillis, who but a month ago
Was marry'd to the Tunbridge beau,
I faw coquetting t'other night
In publick with that odious knight.
They rally'd next Vanessa's drefs:
That gown was made for old queen Bess;
Dear madam, let me fee your head:
Don't you intend to put on red?
A petticoat without a hoop!
Sure, you are not afham'd to stoop;
With handsome garters at your knees,
No matter what a fellow fees.
Fill'd with difdain, with rage
Both of herself and fex afham'd,
The nymph ftood filent out of spight,
Nor wou'd vouchsafe to set them right.
Away the fair detractors went,
And gave by turns their cenfures vent.
She's not fo handsome in my eyes :
For wit, I wonder where it lies.
C
She's fair and clean, and that's the moft:
But why proclaim her for a toast?
A baby face, no life, no airs,
But what fhe learnt at country fairs;
Scarce knows what diff'rence is between
Rich Flanders lace, and Colberteen;
I'll undertake, my little Nancy
In flounces hath a better fancy.
With all her wit, I wou'd not afk
Her judgment how to buy a mask.
We begg'd her but to patch her face,
She never hit one proper place;
Which ev'ry girl at five years old.
Can do, as foon as fhe is told.
I own, that out-of-fashion stuff
Becomes the creature well enough.
The girl might pass if we cou'd get
her
To know the world a little better.
(To know the world! a modern phrase
For vifits, ombre, balls, and plays.)
Thus, to the world's perpetual shame,
The queen of beauty loft her aim.
Too late with grief the understood,
Pallas had done more harm than good:
For great examples are but vain,
Where ignorance begets difdain.
Both fexes, arm'd with guilt and fpite,
Against Vaneffa's pow'r unite:
To copy her few nymphs aspir'd;
Her virtues fewer fwains admir'd t
So stars beyond a certain height
Give mortals neither heat nor light.
Yet fome of either fex, endow'd
With gifts fuperior to the crowd,
With virtue, knowledge, taste and wit,
She condefcended to admit.
With pleafing arts fhe cou'd reduce
Men's talents to their proper use;
And with addrefs each genius held
To that, wherein it most excell'd;
Thus making others wisdom known,
Cou'd please them, and improve her own.
A modeft youth said something new;
She plac'd it in the strongest view.
All humble worth fhe ftrove to raise;
Wou'd not be prais'd, yet lov'd to praise.
The learned met with free approach,
Although they came not in a coach:
Some clergy too fhe wou'd allow,
Nor quarrel'd at their aukward bow.
But this was for Cadenus' fake,
A gown-man of a diff'rent make;
Whom Pallas, once Vanela's tutor,
Had fix'd on for her coadjutor.
But Cupid, full of mischief, longs
To vindicate his mother's wrongs.
C 2
On Pallas all attempts are vain :
One way he knows to give her pain ;
Vows, on Vaneffa's heart to take
Due vengeance for her patron's fake.
Thofe early feeds by Venus fown,
In fpite of Pallas, now were grown;
And Cupid hop'd, they wou'd improve
By time, and ripen into love.
The boy made use of all his craft,
In vain discharging many a shaft,
Pointed at col❜nels, lords, and beaux:
Cadenus warded off the blows;
For, placing still some book betwixt,
The darts were in the cover fix'd,
Or, often blunted and recoil'd,
On Plutarch's morals ftruck, were fspoil'd.
The queen of wisdom could foresee,
But not prevent, the fates decree:
And human caution tries in vain
To break that adamantine chain.
Vaneffa, though by Pallas taught,
By Love invulnerable thought,
Searching in books for wifdom's aid,
Was, in the very search, betray'd.
Cupid, though all his darts were loft,
Yet ftill refolv'd to fpare no coft:
He could not answer to his fame
The triumphs of that stubborn dame,
A nymph fo hard to be fubdu'd,
Who neither was coquette nor prude,
I find, faid he, fhe wants a doctor
Both to adore her, and inftruct her:
I'd give her what the most admires
Among those venerable fires.
Cadenus is a fubject fit,
Grown old in politicks and wit,
Carefs'd by minifters of ftate,
Of half mankind the dread and hate;
Whate'er vexations love attend,
She need no rivals apprehend.
Her fex, with univerfal voice,
Muft laugh at her capricious choice.
Cadenus many things had writ;
Vaneffa much efteem'd his wit,
And call'd for his poetic works:
Mean time the boy in fecret lurks,
And, while the book was in her hand,
The urchin from his private ftand
Took aim, and fhot with all his ftrength
A dart of fuch prodigious length,
It pierc'd the feeble volume through,
And deep transfix'd her bofom too.
Some lines, more moving than the rest,
Stuck to the point that pierc'd her breast,
And, borne directly to the heart,
With pains unknown, increas'd her smart.
Vanessa,
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