Had gone through all the common places
Worn out by wits, who rhyme on 'faces,
Before he could his poem clofe,

The lovely nymph had loft her nose.
Your virtues fafely I commend;
They on no accidents depend;
Let malice look with all her eyes,
She dares not say the poet lies.

Stella, when you these lines transcribe,
Left you fhould take them for a bribe,
Refolv'd to mortify your pride,
I'll here expofe your weaker fide.
Your fpirits kindle to a flame,

Mov'd with the lightest touch of blame;
And when a friend in kindness tries
To fhew you where your error lies,
Conviction does but more incenfe ;
Perverseness is your whole defence;
Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spite,
Regardless both of wrong and right;
Your virtues all fufpended wait
Till time has open'd reafon's gate;
And, what is worfe, your paffion bends
Its force against your nearest friends,
Which manners, decency, and pride,
Have taught you from the world to hide :
In vain; for fee, your friend has brought
To public light your only fault;

And yet a fault we often find
Mix'd in a noble generous mind;
And may compare to Ætna's fire,

The heat, that makes the fummit glow,
Enriching all the vales below.
Those who in warmer climes complain
From Phoebus' rays they fuffer pain,
Must own that pain is largely paid
By generous wines beneath a fhade.

Yet, when I find your paffions rife,
And anger sparkling in your eyes,
I grieve those spirits fhould be spent,
For nobler ends by nature meant.
One paffion, with a different turn,
Makes wit inflame, or anger burn:
So the fun's heat, with different powers,
Ripens the grape, the liquors fours:
Thus Ajax, when with rage poffeft
By Pallas breath'd into his breast,
His valour would no more employ,
Which might alone have conquer'd Troy;
But, blinded by resentment, feeks
For vengeance on his friends the Greeks.
You think this turbulence of blood
From ftagnating preferves the flood,
Which, thus fermenting by degrees,
Exalts the spirits, finks the lees.

Stella, for once you reafon wrong;
For, fhould this ferment laft too long,
By time fubfiding, you may find
Nothing but acid left behind;
From paffion you may then be freed,
When peevishnefs and fpleen fucceed.

Say, Stella, when you copy next,
Will you keep ftrictly to the text?

Dare you let these reproaches stand,
And to your failing fet your hand?
Or, if thefe lines your anger fire,
Shall they in bafer flames expire?
Whene'er they burn, if burn they muft,
They'll prove my accufation juft.

TO STELLA.

Visiting me in my SICKNESS, 1720

PALLAS, obferving Stella's wit

Was more than for her fex was fit,
And that her beauty, foon or late,
Might breed confusion in the state,
In high concern for human-kind,
Fix'd honour in her infant mind.

But (not in wranglings to engage
With fuch a stupid vicious age)
If honour I would here define,
It answers faith in things divine.
As natural life the body warms,
And, fcholars teach, the foul informs;
So honour animates the whole,

And is the spirit of the foul,

Those numerous virtues, which the tribe

Of tedious moralists describe,

And by fuch various titles call,
True honour comprehends them all,
Let melancholy rule fupreme,
Choler prefide, or blood, or phlegm,

See the Verfes on her Birth-day, 1723-4.

It

It makes no difference in the cafe,
Nor is complexion honour's place.
But, left we should for honour take,
The drunken quarrels of a rake;
Or think it feated in a scar,
Or on a proud triumphal car;
Or in the payment of
of a debt
We lose with sharpers at picquet;
Or when a whore, in her vocation,
Keeps punctual to an affignation;
Or that on which his lordship swears,
When vulgar knaves would lofe their ears;
Let Stella's fair example preach

A leffon fhe alone can teach.

In points of honour to be try'd,
All paffions must be laid afide:
Ask no advice, but think alone;
Suppose the question not your own.
How fhall I act, is not the cafe;
But how would Brutus in my place?
In fuch a cafe would Cato bleed?
And how would Socrates proceed!
Drive all objections from your mind,
Elfe you relapse to human kind :
Ambition, avarice, and luft,

And factious rage, and breach of trufl,
And flattery tipt with nauseous fleer,
And guilty fhame, and fervile fear,
Envy, and cruelty, and pride,
Will in your tainted heart preside.
Heroes and heroines of old,
By honour only were inroll'd

Among

Among their brethren in the skies,
To which (though late) fhall Stella rife.
Ten thousand oaths upon record

Are not fo facred as her word:
The world fhall in its atoms end,
Ere Stella can deceive a friend.
By honour feated in her breaft
She ftill determines what is beft:
What indignation in her mind
Against inflavers of mankind!...
Bafe kings, and minifters of ftate,
Eternal objects of her hate!

She thinks that nature ne'er defign'd
Courage to man alone confin'd.

Can cowardice her fex adorn,

Which most exposes ours to fcorn?
She wonders where the charm appears
In Florimel's affected fears;

For Stella never learn'd the art

At proper times to feream and ftart;
Nor calls up all the house at night,
And fwears the faw a thing in white.
Doll never flies to cut her lace,
Or throw cold water in her face,
Because she heard a fudden drum,
Or found an earwig in a plum.

Her hearers are amaz'd from whence
Proceeds that fund of wit and fenfe;
Which, though her modesty would shroud,
Breaks like the fun behind a cloud;
While gracefulnefs its art conceals,
And yet through every motion steals.

Say,