To lay perfections on the graces,
To draw attracts upon our faces;
And, in compliance to your wit,
Your own falfe jewels counterfeit :
For, by the practice of those arts,
We gain a greater share of hearts;
And those deserve in reafon 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 fimple natural excel.
How fair and fweet the planted rofe,
Beyond the wild in hedges grows!
For, without art, the nobleft feeds
Of flowers degenerate into weeds:
How dull and rugged, ere 'tis ground,
And polish'd, looks a diamond?
Tho' paradife were e'er fo fair,
It was not kept so without care.
The whole world, without art and dress,
Wou'd be but one great wilderness ;
And mankind but a favage herd,
For all that nature has conferr'd:
This does but rough-hew and design,
Leaves art to polish and refine.
Tho' women first were made for men,
Yet men were made for them
For when, outwitted by his wife,
Man firft turn'd tenant but for life,
If women had not interven❜d,
How foon 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 falfely' ufurp'd, or vainly lost,
Is now our right, to whose creation
You owe your happy restoration.
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 politicks,
Force you our managements t' obey,
As we to yours, in fhew, give way.
Hence 'tis, that while you vainly strive
T' advance your high prerogative,
You bafely, after all your braves,
Submit and own yourselves our slaves;
And 'cause we do not make it known,
Nor publicly our int'rests own,
Like fots, suppose we have no shares
In ord❜ring you, and your affairs,
When all your empire, and command
You have from us, at fecond-hand ;
As if a pilot that appears
To fit 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 Prefter John,
Whose perfon none dares look upon,
But is preferv'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 powr'ful eloquence.
We manage things of greatest weight
In all the world's affairs of state;
Are ministers in war and peace,
That fway all nations how we please.
We rule all churches, and their flocks,
Heretical and orthodox,
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