And what we did but slightly prime,
Most ignorantly daub in rhyme;
You force us, in our own defences,
To copy beams and influences;
To lay perfections on the graces,
And draw attracts upon our faces;
And, in compliance to your wit,
Your own false jewels counterfeit :
For, by the practice of those arts,
We gain a greater share of hearts;
And those deserve in reason most,
That greatest pains and study cost;
For great perfections are, like heav'n,
Too rich a present to be giv'n:
Nor are those master-strokes of beauty
To be perform'd without hard duty,
Which, when they're nobly done, and well,
The simple natural excel.
How fair and sweet the planted rose,"
Beyond the wild in hedges grows!
• How fair and sweet the planted rose,] This and the following
lines are beautiful. Mr. Bacon supposes, that the poet alludes to
Milton, when he says,
Though paradise were e'er so fair,
It was not kept so without care.
The moral sense of the passage may be found in Horace, lib. iv. O. 4.
Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam
Rectique cultus pectora roborant.
And the sweetness of the verse in Catull. Carm. Nuptial. 39, &c.
Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber.
For, without art, the noblest seeds
Of flowers degenerate into weeds :
How dull and rugged, ere 'tis ground,
And polish'd, looks a diamond?
Though paradise were e'er so fair,
It was not kept so without care.
The whole world, without art and dress,
Would be but one great wilderness;
And mankind but a savage herd,
For all that nature has conferr'd:
This does but rough-hew and design,
Leaves art to polish and refine.
Though women first were made for men,
Yet men were made for them agen:
For when, out-witted by his wife,
Man first turn'd tenant but for life,*
If woman had not interven'd,
How soon had mankind had an end!
And that it is in being yet,
To us alone you are in debt.
Then where's your liberty of choice,
And our unnatural no-voice?
Since all the privilege you boast,
And falsely usurp'd, or vainly lost,
Is now our right, to whose creation
You owe your happy restoration.
For when, out-witted by his wife,
Man first turn'd tenant but for life,] i. e. When man became subject to death by eating the forbidden fruit at the persuasion of the woman.
And if we had not weighty cause
To not appear in making laws,
We cou'd, in spite of all your tricks,
And shallow formal politics,
Force you our managements t' obey,
As we to yours, in shew, give way.
Hence 'tis, that while you vainly strive
T' advance your high prerogative,
your braves,
You basely, after all
Submit and own yourselves our slaves;
And 'cause we do not make it known,
Nor publicly our int'rests own,
Like sots, suppose we have no shares
In ord'ring you, and your affairs,
When all your empire, and command,
You have from us, at second hand;
As if a pilot, that appears
To sit still only, while he steers,
And does not make a noise and stir,
Like ev'ry common mariner,
Knew nothing of the chart, nor star,
And did not guide the man of war:
Nor we, because we don't appear
In councils, do not govern there:
While, like the mighty Prester John,
Whose person none dares look upon,5
While, like the mighty Prester John,
Whose person none dares look upon,] The name or title of Prester John, has been given by travellers to the king of Tenduc in Asia, who, like the Abyssine, or Ethiopian emperors, preserved great
But is preserv'd in close disguise,
From b'ing made cheap to vulgar eyes,
W'enjoy as large a pow'r unseen.
To govern him, as he does men :
And, in the right of our Pope Joan,
Make emp❜rors at our feet fall down;
Or Joan de Pucelle's braver name,
Our right to arms and conduct claim;
Who, tho' a spinster, yet was able
To serve France for a grand constable.
We make and execute all laws,
Can judge the judges, and the cause;
Prescribe all rules of right or wrong,
To th' long robe, and the longer tongue,
'Gainst which the world has no defence,
But our more pow'rful eloquence.
We manage things of greatest weight
In all the world's affairs of state;
Are ministers of war and peace,
That sway all nations how we please.
state, and did not condescend to be seen by his subjects above twice or three times in a year. Mandeville, who pretends to have travelled over Prester John's country, and is very prolix on the subject, makes him sovereign of an archipelago of isles in India beyond Bactria, and says that, a former emperor travelled into Egypt, "where being present at divine service, he asked who those persons were that stood before the bishop? And being told they should be
priests, he said, he would no more be called king, nor emperor, "but priest; and would have the name of him that came first out "of the priests, and was called John, and so have all the emperors "since been called Prester John."-Cap. 99.
We rule all churches, and their flocks,
And are the heavenly vehicles
O' th' spirits in all conventicles :6
By us is all commerce and trade
Improv'd, and manag'd, and decay'd:
For nothing can go off so well,
Nor bears that price, as what we sell.
We rule in ev'ry public meeting,
And make men do what we judge fitting;"
Are magistrates in all great towns,
Where men do nothing but wear gowns.
We make the man of war strike sail,
And to our braver conduct veil,
And, when he 'as chas'd his enemies,
Submit to us upon his knees.
Is there an officer of state,
Untimely rais'd, or magistrate,
That's haughty and imperious?
He's but a journeyman to us,
That, as he gives us cause to do't,
Can keep him in, or turn him out.
We are your guardians, that increase,
Or waste your fortunes how we please;
• And are the heavenly vehicles
O' th' spirits in all conventicles :] As good vehicles at least as the cloak-bag, which was said to have conveyed the same from Rome to the council of Trent.
We rule in ev'ry public meeting,
And make men do what we judge fitting;] A great part of what is here said on the political influence of women, was aimed at the court of Charles II. or perhaps at the wife of general Monk.
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