PRODIGIOUS this! the Frail-one of our play | |
| From her own sex should mercy find to-day! | |
| You might have held the pretty head aside, | |
| Peep’d in your fans, been serious, thus, and cried,— | |
| ‘The play may pass—but that strange creature, Shore, | 5 |
| I can’t—indeed now—I so hate a whore!’ | |
| Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull, | |
| And thanks his stars he was not born a fool; | |
| So from a sister sinner you shall hear, | |
| ‘How strangely you expose yourself, my dear! | 10 |
| But let me die, all raillery apart, | |
| Our sex are still forgiving at their heart; | |
| And, did not wicked custom so contrive, | |
| We ’d be the best good-natured things alive.’ | |
| There are, ’t is true, who tell another tale, | 15 |
| That virtuous ladies envy while they rail; | |
| Such rage without betrays the fire within; | |
| In some close corner of the soul they sin; | |
| Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice, | |
| Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice. | 20 |
| The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns, | |
| Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams. | |
| Would you enjoy soft nights and solid dinners? | |
| Faith, gallants, board with saints, and bed with sinners. | |
| Well, if our author in the Wife offends, | 25 |
| He has a Husband that will make amends: | |
| He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving; | |
| And sure such kind good creatures may be living. | |
| In days of old, they pardon’d breach of vows; | |
| Stern Cato’s self was no relentless spouse. | 30 |
| Plu—Plutarch, what ’s his name that writes his life, | |
| Tells us, that Cato dearly lov’d his wife: | |
| Yet if a friend, a night or so, should need her, | |
| He ’d recommend her as a special breeder. | |
| To lend a wife, few here would scruple make; | 35 |
| But, pray, which of you all would take her back? | |
| Tho’ with the Stoic Chief our stage may ring, | |
| The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing. | |
| The man had courage, was a sage, ’t is true, | |
| And lov’d his country—but what ’s that to you? | 40 |
| Those strange examples ne’er were made to fit ye, | |
| But the kind cuckold might instruct the city: | |
| There, many an honest man may copy Cato | |
| Who ne’er saw naked sword, or look’d in Plato. | |
| If, after all, you think it a disgrace, | 45 |
| That Edward’s Miss thus perks it in your face, | |
| To see a piece of failing flesh and blood, | |
| In all the rest so impudently good: | |
| Faith, let the modest matrons of the town | |
| Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down. | 50 |
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