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Who, with herself, or others, from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth:
Shines in exposing knaves, and painting fools;
Yet is whate'er she hates and ridicules:
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the world has been her trade;
The wisest fool much time has ever made.
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratified except her rage.
So much the fury still outran the wit,
The pleasure miss'd her, and the scandal hit.
Who breaks with her provokes revenge from hell,
But he's a bolder man who dares be well.
Her every turn with violence pursued,
No more a storm her hate than gratitude :
To that each passion turns, or soon or late;
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate:
Superiors? death! and equals? what a curse! 135
But an inferior not dependent? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she 'll hate you while you live:

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the Persian princess as the representative of the most celebrated woman of his day, the wife of the great duke of Marlborough, must now be left to conjecture. Walpole, in his pleasantry, remarks of her Memoirs, that, though they are rather the annals of a wardrobe than of a reign, they retain those sallies of wit which fourscore years of arrogance could not fail to produce in so fantastic an understanding: one sees exactly how Europe and the back-stairs took their places in her imagination. The revolution left no impression on her mind, but of queen Mary turning up bed-clothes; and the protestant hero, but of a selfish glutton, who devoured a dish of peas from his sister-in-law! The queen gave her a picture in enamel set with diamonds: the duchess took off the diamonds, and gave the picture to a Mrs. Higgins to be sold.'

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But die, and she 'll adore you: then the bust
And temple rise, then fall again to dust.
Last night, her lord was all that's good and great;
A knave this morning, and his will a cheat.
Strange! by the means defeated of the ends;
By spirit robb'd of power, by warmth of friends,
By wealth of followers! without one distress, 145
Sick of herself through very selfishness!
Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir.
To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store;
Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor.

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Pictures like these, dear madam, to design, Asks no firm hand and no unerring line; Some wandering touches, some reflected light, Some flying stroke alone can hit them right: For how could equal colors do the knack? Cameleons who can paint in white and black? "Yet Chloe sure was form'd without a spot.'Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot. With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?'-She wants a heart. She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought; But never, never, reach'd one generous thought: Virtue she finds too painful an endeavor, Content to dwell in decencies for ever. So very reasonable, so unmoved,

As never yet to love or to be loved.

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She, while her lover pants upon her breast,
Can mark the figures on an Indian chest ;
And when she sees her friend in deep despair,
Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. 170

Forbid it, Heaven, a favor or a debt
She e'er should cancel !-but she may forget.
Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear;
But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear.
Of all her dears she never slander'd one,
But cares not if a thousand are undone.
Would Chloe know if you 're alive or dead?
She bids her footman put it in her head.
Chloe is prudent: would you too be wise?
Then never break your heart when Chloe dies.

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One certain portrait may, I grant, be seen, 181 Which Heaven has varnish'd out, and made a queen:

The same for ever! and described by all

With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball.

Poets heap virtues, painters gems at will;

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And show their zeal, and hide their want of

skill.

'Tis well: but, artists! who can paint or write, To draw the naked is your true delight.

That robe of quality so struts and swells,
None see what parts of nature it conceals:
The exactest traits of body or of mind
We owe to models of a humble kind.

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If Queensbury to strip there's no compelling, 'Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen. From peer or bishop 'tis no easy thing

To draw the man who loves his God or king:

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179 Chloe is prudent. Lady Suffolk. Pope dining at her table heard her tell one of the footmen to remind her, to send to know how Mrs. Blount, who was ill, had passed the night.

Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail)
From honest Mahomet, or plain parson Hale.

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But grant, in public, men sometimes are shown,
A woman's seen in private life alone :
Our bolder talents in full light display'd;
Your virtues open fairest in the shade.

Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide;
There, none distinguish 'twixt your shame or pride,
Weakness or delicacy; all so nice,

That each may seem a virtue or a vice.

In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind; Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey; The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.

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That Nature gives; and where the lesson taught
Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by man's oppression cursed,
They seek the second not to lose the first.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; 215
But every woman is at heart a rake;

Men, some to quiet, some to public strife;
But every lady would be queen for life.

198 Mahomet. Servant to the late king, said to be the son of a Turkish bassa, whom he took at the siege of Buda, and constantly kept about his person.-Pope.

198 Parson Hale. The learned and philanthropic Dr. Stephen Hale.

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216 But every woman is at heart a rake. Warburton, as usual, determines to defend the indefensible :-'We may observe,' is his plea, the expression simply amounts to this; that while some men take to business, some to pleasure, every woman would willingly make pleasure her business.' The explanation only aggravates the offence. Pope evidently gave way to the temptation of epigram, and terseness obtained the victory over truth.

Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens! Power all their end, but beauty all the means: 220 In youth they conquer with so wild a rage,

As leaves them scarce a subject in their age:
For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam;
No thought of peace or happiness at home.
But wisdom's triumph is well-timed retreat, 225
As hard a science to the fair as great!

Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown,
Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone;
Worn out in public, weary every eye;

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Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. 230
Pleasures the sex, as children birds, pursue,
Still out of reach, yet never out of view;
Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most;
To covet flying, and regret when lost:
At last, to follies youth could scarce defend,
It grows their age's prudence to pretend;
Ashamed to own they gave delight before,
Reduced to feign it when they give no more:
As hags hold sabbaths less for joy than spite,
So these their merry, miserable night:
Still round and round the ghosts of beauty glide,
And haunt the places where their honor died.

See how the world its veterans rewards!

A youth of frolics, an old age of cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end;
Young without lovers, old without a friend;
A fop their passion, but their prize a sot;
Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot!

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Ah, friend! to dazzle let the vain design; To raise the thought, and touch the heart, be

thine!

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