EPISTLE II.

OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN.

NOTHING SO true as what you once let fall ;-
'Most women have no characters at all.'
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear;

And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
How many pictures of one nymph we view,
All how unlike each other, all how true!
Arcadia's countess, here, in ermined pride,
Is there, Pastora by a fountain side:
Here Fannia, leering on her own good man;
And there, a naked Leda with a swan.
Let then the fair one beautifully cry,
In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye,

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2 Most women have no characters at all. Warburton attempts to dilute this formidable libel, by alleging that it had been juster to say, their characters are not so easily developed as those of men.' He curiously regards matrimony as the effective means by which the confusion of the original qualities of the sex is reducible into shape. A husband, he affirms, acts the part of the cylindrical steel mirror which brings irregularity of lines into form; adding, with a daring defiance of all female posterity, but whether under the form of a lamb or a tiger, a dove or a cat, could never be guessed from the disorder of the unreduced lines and unharmonious coloring.'

Or dress'd in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine,
With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine;
Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

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Come then, the colors and the ground prepare: Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air; Choose a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute. Rufa, whose eye quick-glancing o'er the park, Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke, As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask : So morning insects that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun. How soft is Silia! fearful to offend;

The frail one's advocate, the weak one's friend.

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16 I must paint it. Warburton, in allusion to Pope's note on the preceding lines, again commits himself in rash hostility with the sex. He tells us that the poet threw away his apologies; that men bear general satire most heroically, women with the utmost impatience;' still more oddly assigning as the reason,' that it is from the fear that such representations may hurt them in the opinion of the men; whereas the men are not at all apprehensive that their follies or vices would prejudice them in the opinion of the women.' Yet Warburton's matrimonial experience might have taught him that general scandal might be borne by a female with very remarkable intrepidity.

24 Sappho's diamonds. Young's fifth Satire on Women seems to have been the model of this animated passage. Sappho was probably meant for queen Caroline, whose philosophic habits rendered her occasionally the object of burlesque to the poets. The well-known and bitter lines,

When Artemisia talks by fits, &c.

were written for her.

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To her Calista proved her conduct nice;
And good Simplicius asks of her advice.
Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the
wink :

But spare your censure; Silia does not drink.

All eyes may see from what the change arose; 35
All
eyes may see- -a pimple on her nose.
Papillia, wedded to her amorous spark,
Sighs for the shades :- How charming is a park!'
A park is purchased, but the fair he sees
All bathed in tears :- O, odious, odious trees!'
Ladies like variegated tulips show;

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"Tis to their changes half their charms we owe;
Fine by defect, and delicately weak,
Their happy spots the nice admirer take.
'Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarm'd,
Awed without virtue, without beauty charm'd:
Her tongue bewitch'd as oddly as her eyes;
Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise.
Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had;
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad;
Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create,

As when she touch'd the brink of all we hate.
Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,

To make a wash, would hardly stew a child;
Has ev'n been proved to grant a lover's prayer,
And paid a tradesman once to make him stare;
Gave alms at Easter in a christian trim,
And made a widow happy for a whim.

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54 Hardly stew a child. It was said, that some monstrous use of a dead body for this purpose was made by a woman of rank at the time. The rest of the character was designed for the duchess of Hamilton.

Why then declare good-nature is her scorn,
When 'tis by that alone she can be borne?
Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name?
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame :

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Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his grace and Chartres:
Now conscience chills her, and now passion burns;
And atheism and religion take their turns:
A very heathen in the carnal part;
Yet still a sad, good christian at her heart.
See sin in state, majestically drunk ;
Proud as a peeress, prouder as a punk;
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside;
A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.
What then? let blood and body bear the fault;
Her head's untouch'd, that noble seat of thought:
Such this day's doctrine: in another fit
She sins with poets through pure love of wit.
What has not fired her bosom or her brain?
Cæsar and Tall-boy, Charles and Charlemagne.
As Helluo, late dictator of the feast,
The nose of haut goût, and the tip of taste,
Critiqued your wine, and analysed your meat,
Yet on plain pudding deign'd at home to eat ;-
So Philomedé, lecturing all mankind
On the soft passion, and the taste refined,
The address, the delicacy,-stoops at once,
And makes her hearty meal upon a dunce.
Flavia's a wit; has too much sense to pray:
To toast our wants and wishes, is her way;

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63 So Philomedé. Probably meant for Henrietta, daughter of the celebrated duchess of Marlborough.

Nor asks of God, but of her stars, to give

The mighty blessing, While we live, to live.' 90
Then all for death, that opiate of the soul!
Lucretia's dagger, Rosamonda's bowl.
Say, what can cause such impotence of mind?
A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind.
Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please;
With too much spirit to be e'er at ease;
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common thought;
You purchase pain with all that joy can give,
And die of nothing but a rage to live.

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Turn then from wits, and look on Simo's mate;

No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate:

Or her, that owns her faults, but never mends, Because she's honest, and the best of friends: Or her, whose life the church and scandal share, For ever in a passion or a prayer:

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Or her, who laughs at hell, but, like her grace, Cries, Ah! how charming if there's no such place!'

Or who in sweet vicissitude appears,

Of mirth and opium, ratafia and tears,
The daily anodyne, and nightly draught,

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To kill those foes to fair ones, time and thought.
Woman and fool are two hard things to hit;
For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit.
But what are these to great Atossa's mind? 115
Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind!

108 Cries, Ah, how charming. The duchess of Montague. 115 Great Atossa. Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus, sister of Cambyses, and wife of Cyrus. Whether it were for those high relationships, or her violence of temper, that Pope chose