Nam quid rancidius, quam, quod se non putat ulla
Formosam, nisi quæ de Thusca Græcula facta est?
De Sulmonensi mera Cecropis omnia Græce;
Cum sit turpe minus nostris nescire Latine.
Hoc sermone pavent; hoc iram, gaudia, curas,
Hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta. Quid ultra?
Concumbunt Græce, dones tamen ista puellis:
Tune etiam, quam sextus et octogesimus annus
Puisât, adhuc Græce? non est hic sermo pudicus
In vetula, quoties lascivum intervenit illud,
Modo, sub lodice relectis
Uteris in turba, quod enim non excitât inguen
Vox blanda et nequam? digitos habet: ut tamen omnes
Subsidant pennæ: dicas liæc mollius Æmo
Quamquam, et Carpophoro; faciès tua computat annos.
Who is there such a slave in Nature,
That while he praises would not hate her?
Some smaller crimes, which seem scarce nominable
Are yet to husbands most abominable:
For what so fulsome — if it were new t’ ye,
That no one thinks herself a beauty,
Till Frenchified from head to foot,
A mere Parisian dame throughout.
She spells not English, who will blame her?
But French not understood would shame her.
This language ‘tis in which they tremble,
Quarrel, are happy, and dissemble;
Tell secrets to some other Miss;
What more?— ‘tis this in which they kiss.
But if to girls we grant this leave;
You, madam, whom fast by your sleeve
Old age hath got — must you still stammer
Soft phrases out of Bowycr’s grammar?
Mon ame, mon Mignon! how it comes
Most graceful from your toothless gums
Tho’ softer spoke than by Lord Fanny,
Can that old face be liked by any?
SI tibi legitimis pactam, junctamque tabellis
Non es amaturus, ducendi nulla videtur
Causa; nec est quare cœnam et mustacea perdas
Labente officio, crudis donanda, nec illud,
Quod prima pro nocte datur; cum lance beata
Dacicus, et scripto radiat Germanicus auro.
SI tibi simplicitas uxoria, deditus uni
Est animus; submitte caput cervice parata
Ferre jugum: nullam inverties, quæ parcat amanti,
Ardeat ipsa licet, tormentis gaudet amantis,
Et spoliis, igitur longe minus utilis illi
Uxor, quisquis erit bonus, optandusque maritus.
Nil unquam invita donabis con juge: vendes
Hac obstante nihil: nihil, hæc si nolit, emetur.
Hæc dabit affectus: ille excludetur amicus
Jam senior, cujus barbam tua janua vidit.
Testandi cum sit lenonibus, atque lanistis
Libertas, et juris idem contingat arenæ,
Non unus tibi rivalis dictabitur hæres.
Pone crucem servo: meruit quo crimine servus
Supplicium? quis testis adest? quis detulit? audi:
If love be not your cause of wedding,
There is no other for your bedding:
All the expense of wedding-day
Would then, my friend, be thrown away.
If, on the contrary, you dote,
And are of the uxorious note,
For heavy yoke your neck prepare;
None will the tender husband spare:
E’en when they love they will discover
Joys in the torments of a lover:
The hope to govern them by kindness
Argues, my friend, a total blindness.
For wives most useless ever prove
To those most worthy of their love.
Before you give, or sell, or buy,
She must be courted to comply:
She points new friendships out — and straight
‘Gainst old acquaintance shuts your gate.
The privilege which at their birth
Our laws bequeath the scum o’ th’ earth,
Of making wills, to you’s denied;
You for her fav’rites must provide;
Those your sole heirs creating, who
Have labour’d to make heirs for you.
Now come, sir, take your horsewhip down,
And lash your footman there, Tom Brown.
What hath Tom done? or who accuses him?
Perhaps some rascal, who abuses him.
Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est,
O demens, ita servus homo est? nil fecerit, esto:
Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.
Imperat ergo viro: sed mox hæc régna relinquit,
Permutatque domos, et flammea conterit: inde
Avolat, et spreti repetit vestigia lecti;
Ornatas paulo ante fores, pendentia linquit
Vela domus, et adhuc virides in limine ramos.
Sic crescit numerus; sic fiunt octo mariti
Quinque per autumnos: titulo res digna sepulchri.
Desperanda tibi salva concordia socru:
Illa docet spoliis nudi gaudere mariti:
Illa docet, missis a corruptore tabellis,
Nil rude, nil simplex rescribere: decipit ilia
Custodes, aut ære domat: tune corpore sano
Advocat Archigenem, onerosaque pallia jactat.
Abditus interea latet accersitus adulter,
Impatiensque moræ silet, et præputia ducit.
Let us examine first — and then —
‘Tis ne’er too late to punish men.
Men! Do you call this abject creature
A man? He’s scarce of human nature.
What hath he done? — no matter what —
If nothing — lash him well for that:
My will is a sufficient reason
To constitute a servant’s treason.
Thus she commands: but straight she leaves
This slave, and to another cleaves;
Thence to a third and fourth, and then
Returns, perhaps, to you again.
Thus in the space of seven short years
Possessing half a score of dears.
Be sure, no quiet can arrive
To you while her mamma’s alive:
She’ll teach her how to cheat her spouse,
To pick his pocket, strip his house:
Answers to love-letters indite,
And make her daughter’s style polite.
With cunning she’ll deceive your spies,
Or bribe with money to tell lies.
Then, tho’ health swells her daughter’s pulse,
She sends for Wasey, Hoadley, Hulse.
So — she pretends, — but in their room,
Lo, the adulterer is come.
Scilicet expectas, ut tradat mater honestos,
Aut alios mores, quam quos habet? utile porro
Filiolam turpi vetulae producere turpem.
Nulla fere causa est, in qua non fcemina litem
Moverit. Accusât Manilia, si rea non est.
Componunt ipsæ per se, formantque libellos,
Principium atque locos Celso dictare paratæ.
Endromidas Tyrias, et fcemineum ceroma
Quis nescit? vel quis non vidit vulnera pali?
Quem cavat assiduis sudibus, scutoque lacessit,
Atque omnes implet numéros; dignissima prorsus
Florali matrona tuba; nisi si quid in illo
Pectore plus agitet, veræque paratur arense.
Quem præstare potest mulier galeata pudorem?
Quæ fugit a sexu, vires amat; hæc tamen ipsa
Vir nollet fieri; nam quantula nostra voluptas?
Quale decus rerum, si conjugis auctio fiat,
Do you expect, you simple elf,
That she who hath them not herself
Should teach good ma
nners to your lady,
And not debauch her for the ready?
In courts of justice what transactions?
Manilia’s never without actions:
No forms of litigation ‘scape her,
In special pleading next to Dr-per.
Have you not heard of fighting females,
Whom you would rather think to be males?
Of Madam Sutton, Mrs. Stokes,
Who give confounded cuts and strokes?
They fight the weapons through complete,
Worthy to ride along the street.
Can female modesty so rage,
To draw a sword, and mount the stage?
Will they their sex entirely quit?
No, they have not so little wit:
Better they know how small our shares
Of pleasure — how much less than theirs.
But should your wife by auction sell,
(You know the modem fashion well)
Balteus, et manicæ, et cristæ, crurisque sinistri
Dimidium tegmen! vel si diversa movebit
Prælia, tu felix, ocreas vendente puella.
Hæ sunt, quæ tenui sudant in cyclade, quarum
Delicias et panniculus bombycinus urit.
Aspice, quo fremitu monstratos perferat ictus,
Et quanto galeæ curvetur pondéré; quanta
Poplitibus sedeat; quam denso fascia libro:
Et ride, scaphium positis cum sumitur armis.
Dicite vos neptes Lepidi, cæcive Metelli,
Gurgitis aut Fabii, quæ ludia sumpserit unquam
Hos habitus? quando ad palum gemat uxor Asylli?
Semper habet lites, alternaque jurgia lectus,
In quo nupta jacet: minimum dormitur in illo.
Tune gravis ilia viro, tune orba tigride pejor,
Cum simulât gemitus occulti conscia facti,
Aut odit pueros, aut ficta pellice plorat
Uberibus semper lachrymis, semperque paratis
Should Cock aloft his pulpit mount,
And all her furniture recount,
Sure you would scarce abstain from oaths
To hear, among your lady’s clothes,
Of those superb fine horseman’s suits,
And those magnificent jack-boots.
And yet, as often as they please,
Nothing is tenderer than these.
A coach! — O gad! they cannot bear
Such jolting! — John, go fetch a chair.
Yet see through Hyde Park how they ride!
How masculine! almost astride!
Their hats fierce cock’d up with cockades,
Resembling dragoons more than maids.
Knew our great-grandmothers these follies?
Daughters of Hampden, Baynton, Hollis?
More modesty they surely had,
Decently ambling on a pad.
Sleep never shows his drowsy head
Within the reach of marriage-bed:
The wife thence frightens him with scolding.
— Then chiefly the attack she’s bold in,
When, to conceal her own amours,
She falls most artfully on yours:
Pretends a jealousy of some lady,
With tears in plenty always ready;
In statione sua, atque expectantibus illam,
Quo jubeat manare modo: tu credis amorem;
Tu tibi tunc, curruca, places, fletumque labellis
Exorbes; quæ scripta, et quas lecture tabellas
SI tibi zelotypæ retegantur scrinia mœchæ!
Sed jacet in servi complexibus, aut equitus: die,
Die aliquem, sodes hie, Quintiliane, colorem.
Hæremus: die ipsa: olim convenerat, inquit,
Ut faceres tu quod velles, necnon ego possem
Indulgere mihi: clames licet, et mare coelo
Confundas, homo sum. Nihil est audacius illis
Deprensis: iram atque animos a crimine sumunt.
Unde hæc monstra tamen, vel quo de fonte requirii
Præstabat castas humilis fortuna Latinas
Quondam, nec vitiis contingi parva sinebat
Which on their post true sent’nels stand,
The word still waiting of command,
How she shall order them to trickle.
— Thou thinkest love her soul doth tickle.
Poor hedge-sparrow — with fifty dears,
Lickest up her fallacious tears.
Search her scrutoire, man, and then tell us
Who hath most reason to be jealous.
But, in the very fact she’s taken;
Now let us hear, to save her bacon,
What Murray, or what Henley can say;
Neither proof positive will gainsay:
It is against the rules of practice;
Nothing to her the naked fact is.
“You know” (she cries) ere I consented
To be, what I have since repented,
It was agreed between us, you
Whatever best you liked should do;
Nor could I, after a long trial,
Persist myself in self-denial.”
You at her impudence may wonder,
Invoke the lightning and the thunder:
“You are a man” (she cries) “‘tis true;
We have our human frailties too.”
Nought bold is like a woman caught,
They gather courage from the fault.
Whence come these prodigies? what fountain,
You ask, produces them? I’ th’ mountain
The British dames were chaste, no crimes
The cottage stain’d in elder times;
Tecta labor, somnique breves, et vellere Thusco
Vexatæ, duræque manus, ac proximus urbi
Hannibal, et stantes Collina in turre mariti.
Nunc patimur longæ pacis mala: sævior armis
Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem.
Nullum crimen abest, facinusque libidinis, ex quo
Paupertas Romana perit: hinc fluxit ad istos
Et Sybaris colles, hinc et Rhodos, atque Miletos,
Atque coronatum, et petulans, madidumque Tarentum.
Prima peregrinos obscœna pecunia mores
Intulit, et turpi fregerunt secula luxu
Divitiæ molles. —
When the laborious wife slept little,
Spun wool, and boil’d her husband’s kettle;
When the Armada frighten’d Kent,
And good Queen Bessy pitch’d her tent.
Now from security we feel
More ills than threaten’d us from steel;
Severer luxury abounds,
Avenging France of all her wounds.
When our old British plainness left us,
Of every virtue it bereft us:
And we’ve imported from all climes,
All sorts of wickedness and crimes:
French finery, Italian meats,
With German drunkenness, Dutch cheats.
Money’s the source of all our woes;
Money! whence luxury o’erflows,
And in a torrent, like the Nile,
Bears off the virtues of this isle.
TO MISS H — AND AT BATH
WRITTEN EXTEMPORE IN THE PUMP-ROOM, 1742
SOON shall these bounteous springs thy wish bestow,
Soon in each feature sprightly health shall glow;
Thy eyes regain their fire, thy limbs their grace,
And roses join the lilies in thy face.
But say, sweet maid, what waters can remove
The pangs of cold despair, of hopeless love?
The deadly star which lights th’ autumnal skies
Shines not so bright, so fatal, as those eyes.
The pains which from their influence we endure,
Not Brewster, glory of his art, can cure.
PLAIN TRUTH
As Bathian Venus t’other day
Invited all the Gods to tea,
&
nbsp; Her maids of honour, the miss Graces,
Attending duely in their places,
Their godships gave a loose to mirth,
As we at Butt’ring’s here on earth.
Minerva in her usual way
Rallied the daughter of the sea.
Madam, said she, your lov’d resort,
The city where you hold your court,
Is lately fallen from its duty,
And triumphs more in wit than beauty;
For here, she cried; see here a poem —
‘Tis Dalston’s; you, Apollo, know him,
Little persuasion sure invites
Pallas to read what Dalston writes:
Nay, I have heard that in Parnassus
For truth a current whisper passes,
That Dalston sometimes has been known
To publish her works as his own.
Minerva read, and every God
Approved — Jove gave the critic nod;
Apollo and the sacred Nine
Were charm’d, and smil’d at ev’ry line;
And Mars, who little understood,
Swore, d — n him, if it was not good.
Venus alone sat all the while
Silent, nor deign’d a single smile.
All were surpriz’d; some thought her stupid
Not so her confident’Squire Cupid;
For well the little rogue discern’d
At what his mother was concern’d,
Yet not a word the urchin said,
But hid in Hebe’s lap his head.
At length the rising choler broke
From Venus’ lips, — and thus she spoke.
That poetry so cram’d with wit,
Minerva, shou’d your palate hit,
I wonder not, nor that some prudes
(For such there are above the clouds)
Shou’d wish the prize of beauty torn
From her they view with envious scorn.
Me poets never please, but when
Justice and truth direct their pen.
This Dalston — formerly I’ve known him;
Henceforth for ever I disown him;
For Homer’s wit shall I despise
In him who writes with Homer’s eyes.
A poem on the fairest fair
At Bath, and Betty’s name not there!
Hath not this poet seen those glances
In which my wicked urchin dances?
Nor that dear dimple, where he treats
Himself with all Arabia’s sweets;
In whose soft down while he reposes
In vain the lillies bloom, or roses,
To tempt him from a sweeter bed
Of fairer white or livelier red?
Hath he not seen, when some kind gale
Has blown aside the cambric veil,
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 378
