AN
ANSWER
TO THE
MANTUAN,
OR,
False Character, lately wrote against
WOMANKIND
Muliere bona omnia comprehenduntur.
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A Vertuous Woman, O ye Gods! who dare
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Presume to speak or write her Character?
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Or what Pot-Poet dare attempt to vex
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By cursed Libels this so glorious Sex?
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A Sex that was by Heavns Decrees designd
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To be (and is) the best of Human kind.
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For Woman has a vertue thats sublime,
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Above the Battery of Fate or Time.
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And in this Sex there certain Rays are found,
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Which not one Grace can make, but all compound.
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In wit, modesty, and vertuous deeds,
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This most Divine Celestial Sex exceeds.
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A beauty also, not to Art in Debt,
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Rather agreeable, Divine, than great.
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An Eye likewise, wherein at once do meet
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The beams of truest kindness, and of wit.
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The fairest Tulips, and the Rose oth Bush,
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To draw the Tincture from her Lip and Blush.
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An undissembled modest Innocence,
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Apt not to give, nor yet to take offence.
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A Face thats modest, charming, and serene,
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A sober, vertuous, and yet lively meen.
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As many Diamonds together lye,
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And dart one lustre to amaze the Eye;
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So Woman is that bright Etherial Ray,
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Which many Stars doth in one Light display:
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For in her Face she captives modesty,
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Which is completed in Divinity.
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Her very glances set all Hearts on Fire,
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And check them if they should too much aspire.
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If she but smile, no Painter ere would take
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Another object, when hed Mercy make.
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And Heavn such splendor hath to her allowd,
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That no damnd Mantuan can her Beauty cloud.
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That if she frown, none would but phancy then
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Justice descended there to punish Men.
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Nay, her common looks, Im ashamd to call
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One single Grace, they are composd of all:
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And if we Mortals could the Doctrine reach,
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Her very Eyes and looks do Language teach.
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Her Souls the Image of the Deity,
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That still preserves in Native purity:
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Which Men can neither threatn nor allure,
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Nor by their devlish Characters obscure.
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The Innocence that in her Heart doth dwell,
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Angels themselves can only parallel.
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Such constancy of modest witty Law
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Guides all her Actions, that all Men may draw
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From her own Soul the noblest precedent,
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Of the most safe, wise, vertuous Government.
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Oh! I must think the rest, for who can write,
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Or into words confine whats infinite?
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For striving to describe quite to the end
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Of her, that all the World doth comprehend,
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Is a most wild Ambition; so for me
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To draw her Picture, is flat Lunacy.
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But yet by whats here writ, the World may see
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I am the first drew Truth to Poetry.
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