Or in a coach and six the British fair,

165

As long as Atalantis shall be read,1
Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed,
While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When numerous wax-lights in bright order
blaze,

While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, So long my honour, name, and praise shall live!"

170

What time would spare, from steel receives its

date,

And monuments, like men, submit to fate!
Steel could the labour of the gods destroy,
And strike to dust the imperial towers of Troy;
Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
And hew triumphal arches to the ground. 176
What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs
should feel 2

The conquering force of unresisted steel?

CANTO IV.

BUT anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed,3
And secret passions laboured in her breast.
Not youthful kings in battle seized alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robbed of all their bliss,

5

A famous book written about that time by a woman full of court and party scandal; and in a loose effeminacy of style and sentiment, which well suited the debauched taste of the better vulgar.— Warburton. The author was Mrs. Manley.

2 "Ille quoque eversus mons est, &c.

Quid faciant crines, cum ferro talia cedant?"
Catull. de Com. Berenices.-P.

3 “At regina gravi," &c.—Virg. Æn. iv. 1.—P.

Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinned awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin! for thy ravished hair.
For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs with-
drew,1

And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew,
Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,
As ever sullied the fair face of light,

IO

Down to the central earth, his proper scene, 15
Repaired to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen.
Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome,
And in a vapour reached the dismal dome.
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,
The dreaded east is all the wind that blows. 20
Here in a grotto, sheltered close from air,
And screened in shades from day's detested
glare,

She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,

Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head.

Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place,

25

But differing far in figure and in face.
Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid,
Her wrinkled form in black and white arrayed;
With store of prayers, for mornings, nights, and

noons,

Her hand is filled; her bosom with lampoons. There Affectation, with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,

31

1 All the lines from hence to the 94th verse, that describe the House of Spleen, are not in the first edition; instead of them followed only these: “While her racked soul repose and peace requires, The fierce Thalestris fans the rising fires,"

and continued at the 94th verse of this Canto.-P.

35

Practised to lisp, and hang the head aside,
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride,
On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,
Wrapped in a gown, for sickness, and for show.
The fair ones feel such maladies as these,
When each new night-dress gives a new disease.
A constant vapour o'er the palace flies;
Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise; 40
Dreadful, as hermits' dreams in haunted shades,
Or bright, as visions of expiring maids.
Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,
Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires :
Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes,
And crystal domes, and angels in machines.

45

Unnumbered throngs on every side are seen, Of bodies changed to various forms by Spleen. Here living tea-pots stand, one arm held out, One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: A pipkin there, like Homer's tripod walks;1 51 Here sighs a jar, and there a goose-pie talks: Men prove with child, as powerful fancy works, And maids turned bottles call aloud for corks. Safe passed the Gnome through this fantastic band,

2

55

A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand. Then thus addressed the power: 66 Hail, way

ward Queen!

60

Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen;
Parent of vapours, and of female wit,
Who give the hysteric, or poetic fit,
On various tempers act by various ways,
Make some take physic, others scribble plays;
Who cause the proud their visits to delay,

1 See Hom. Iliad, xviii. of Vulcan's walking tripods.-P.

2 Alludes to a real fact, a lady of distinction imagined herself in this condition.-P.

1.

And send the godly in a pet to pray;

64

70

A nymph there is, that all thy power disdains,
And thousands more in equal mirth maintains.
But oh! if e'er thy Gnome could spoil a grace,
Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face,
Like citron-waters matrons' cheeks inflame,
Or change complexions at a losing game;
If e'er with airy horns I planted heads,
Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds,
Or caused suspicion when no soul was rude,
Or discomposed the head-dress of a prude,
Or e'er to costive lap-dog gave disease,
Which not the tears of brightest eyes could

ease;

75

Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin,
That single act gives half the world the spleen."
The Goddess with a discontented air

Seems to reject him, though she grants his

prayer.

80

A wondrous bag with both her hands she binds,
Like that where once Ulysses held the winds;
There she collects the force of female lungs,
Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.
A vial next she fills with fainting fears, 85
Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.
The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away,
Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to
day.

Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he
found,1

Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound.
Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent,
And all the Furies issued at the vent.
Belinda burns with more than mortal ire,
And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire.

1 Thalestris was Mrs. Morley.

90

"O wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and

95

cried, (While Hampton's echoes, "Wretched maid!"

replied)

"Was it for this you took such constant care
The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare ?
For this your locks in paper durance bound?
For this with torturing irons wreathed around?
For this with fillets strained your tender head, 101
And bravely bore the double loads of lead?
Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair,
While the fops envy and the ladies stare!
Honour forbid! at whose unrivalled shrine 105
Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign.
Methinks already I your tears survey,
Already hear the horrid things they say,
Already see you a degraded toast,
And all your honour in a whisper lost!
How shall I, then, your helpless fame defend?
"Twill then be infamy to seem your friend!
And shall this prize, the inestimable prize,
Exposed through crystal to the gazing eyes,
And heightened by the diamond's circling rays,
On that rapacious hand for ever blaze?
Sooner shall grass in Hyde-park Circus grow,
And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow;
Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall,
Men, monkeys, lap-dogs, parrots, perish all!"

116

119

She said: then raging to Sir Plume repairs,1 And bids her beau demand the precious hairs: (Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane) With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,

1 Sir Plume was Sir George Brown, Mrs. Morley's brother: "He was angry that the poet should make him talk nothing but nonsense; and in truth one could not well blame him."-Warburton.