An Invective against the Pride of Women.
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[1]
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WIll Womens vanities never have end?
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Alas! what is the matter?
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Shall Poets all their Spirits spend,
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And Women never the better!
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Will Bagnols Ballad hath done no good,
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To the Head that's hid in the Taffaty-hood,
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Which makes the virtuous chew the cud,
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And me, till now, their debter.
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[2]
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I once resolved to be blind,
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And ne're put Pen to sheet,
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Though all the race of Women-kind
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Were mad, I would not see't.
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Yet now my heart is so big, it struts;
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That hold I cannot for my guts,
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But with as much ease as Hens cracks Nuts,
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My lines, and numbers meet.
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[3]
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And first I will begin to touch,
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Upon their dawbing Paint;
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Their Sin that way is grown so much
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It makes my Muse prove faint:
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For when they are got into a new Suit,
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They look as if they'd straight go to't,
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The devil's in't, and's Dam to boot,
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anger any Saint.
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[4]
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Their faces are bespread and peec'd,
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With several sorts of patches,
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As if some Cat their skins had fleec't,
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With Stars, half-Moons, and natches:
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Prodigious Signs, and Invocations,
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And Meteors of such dreadful fashions,
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Booker hath no such Prognostications,
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Oh! out upon them wretches.
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[5]
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With these they are disfigured so,
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They look as wild as Elves;
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Their Husbands scarce their Wives can know,
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Nor they sometimes themselves:
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And every morning feed their chops,
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With Caudles, Broths, and Hony-sops,
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And lap it up as thick as Hops,
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Ne're think on him that delves.
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[6]
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Their soaring Thoughts to Books advance,
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ods, that may undo 'um;
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For ever since Dame Eves mischance,
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That villanous itch sticks to 'um:
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And if they get but a little smack,
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They talk, as if they nought did lack,
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Of Sidney, Drayton, and Balzaack,
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weary a man to woo 'um.
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[7]
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Sometime I think them quite subdued,
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They let me use such freedom;
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And by and by they call me rude,
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Then such a word strikes me dumb:
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They are fickle and shy, God save 'um,
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A man can never tell where to have 'um;
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I wish we were all resolv'd to leave 'um,
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Till we hereafter need 'um.
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[8]
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Their kind Behaviour is a trap,
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For men, wherein to catch 'um,
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With sugared words they lye and snap,
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But I'll be sure to watch 'um:
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For if once with many a quaint device,
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They get you into fools paradise,
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They'l laugh, and leave you in a trice;
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The Fiend will one day fetch 'um.
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[9]
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A Syrene once had got a Drone,
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And thus began to chatter,
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Sweet-heart, quoth she, I am thine own;
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But there was no such matter:
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For when he thought her as sure as a Gun,
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She set up her tayl, and a way she run,
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As if she would have out-stripped the Sun,
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The Devil could never have sat her.
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[10]
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Or if some Women mean, good sooth,
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And promise lawful Marriage,
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'Tis ten to one she hath ne're a tooth,
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And then poor men must forrage:
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Who sure is Wed, is sped with a wanyon,
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He may weep without the help of an Onyon,
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He's an Ox, or an Ass, or a flabberdegullion,
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That wooes, and doth not barr-age.
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[11]
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Sometimes they in the water lurk,
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Like Fish with silver fins,
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And then I wish I were the Turk,
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And they my Concubins.
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But now I'll tell you truth without erring,
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They are neither Fish, Flesh, nor good red Herring;
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And wheresoe're you find them stirring,
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They'l put you in mind of your Sins.
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[12]
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Our Zealous Lecturers often Preach,
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And Homilies do expound;
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But Women, as if they were out of their reach,
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persever, and stand their ground:
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There's not one among ten, but she's Sermon proof,
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You may Preach as well to the Wall, or Roof,
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Their Hearts are as hard as a Horses hoof,
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And as hollow, but not so sound.
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[13]
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And when do you think this geer will mend,
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And come to a better pass?
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Indeed, I think, it will never have end:
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What, never! Oh out alas:
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They hold such wicked Councils between 'um,
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We can do little but make Ballads agen'um;
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Ten thousand Furies, I think, is in 'um:
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Is not this a pitiful Case?
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[14]
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I think it would not do amiss,
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To put them in a Play;
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There's matter, and enough, I wis,
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And I'll have the Second day:
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Where some shall be habited like unto pages,
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The rest shall go as they are Baggages;
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He that sets them o'work, will pay them their wages,
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Troth that's the only way.
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[15]
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And when I have brought them on the Stage,
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All sorts of People among;
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I'll there expose them like Birds in a Cage,
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To be gaz'd on in the midst of the throng:
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Nay now I have got them into my clutches,
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Although you may think that this over-much is,
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I'le favour neither Lady nor Dutchess,
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They are no more to me than they that go on crutches,
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I have made this Staff too long.
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[16]
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Some virtuous Wives abroad are seen,
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Who give them Caution ample,
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But they, as if they had never been,
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On all good Precepts trample:
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But here is the spite, it would anger a stone,
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For a Woman to go to Heaven alone;
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What is bred in the Flesh, will ne're out of the Bone,
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They'l not amend by example.
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