WOMAN, WOMEN-continued.

Women! Keep me from women!
Place me before a cannon, 'tis a pleasure:
Stretch me upon a rack, a recreation:
But woman! woman! O the devil, woman!
Curtius' Gulph was never half so dangerous!

Beaumont & Fletcher, Custom of the Country.

Woman, they say, was only made of man:
Methinks 'tis strange they should be so unlike!
It may be all the best was cut away,
To make the woman, and the naught was left
Behind with him.
Beaumont & Fletcher, Coxcomb.
Women never

Love beauty in their sex, but envy ever.

The fox,

Hyæna, crocodile, and all beasts of craft,

Geo. Chapman.

Have been distill'd to make one woman. Randolph, Jeal. Lov. Who trusts himself to woman, or to waves,

Should never hazard what he fears to lose.

Oldmixon, Governor of Cyprus.

Massinger, Old Law, xv. 2.

How sweetly sounds the voice of a good woman!
It is so seldom heard that, when it speaks,
It ravishes all senses.

There's not a grain of faith or honesty
In all your sex: you've tongues like the hyæna,
And only speak us fair, to ruin us;

You carry springs within your eyes, and can
Outweep the crocodile, till our too much pity

Betray us to your merciless devouring. Shirley, Love's Cruelty.
He is a fool who thinks by force or skill

To turn the current of a woman's will. Tuke, Five Hours, v. 3.

Oh fairest of creation! last and best

Of all God's works! creature in whom excell'd

Whatever can to sight or thought be form'd

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! Milton, P. L. 1x.896.

The souls of women are so small,

That some believe they've none at all;

Or if they have, like cripples, still

They've but one faculty, the will. Butler, Miscel. Thoughts. Who can describe

Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles,

Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies!

Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds,

The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods. Otway, Orph.

WOMAN, WOMEN.

WOMAN, WOMEN-continued.

O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee

To temper man; we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair to look like you :

There's in you all that we believe of heaven,
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.

701

Otway, Venice Pres. 1.

Their sex is one gross cheat! their only study
How to deceive, betray, and ruin man!

They have it by tradition from their mothers,

Which they improve each day, and grow more exquisite ! Their painting, patching, all their chamber-arts,

And public affectations, are but tricks

To draw fond man into that snare, their love! Otway, Atheist.

As for the women, though we scorn and flout'em,
We may live with, but cannot live without 'em.
Dryden, The Will, v. 4.

Women, with a mischief to their kind,
Pervert, with bad advice, our better mind.
A woman's counsel brought us first. to woe,
And made her man his paradise forego,

Where at heart's ease he lived; and might have been
As free from sorrow as he was from sin.

For what the devil had their sex to do,

That, born to folly, they presumed to know,
And could not see the serpent in the grass?
But I myself presume, and let it pass.

Dryden, Cock and the Fox, 555,

No woman takes herself to be a monster;
Yet she would be so, if her eyes were stars,
Her lips of roses, and her face of lilies;
Why, traps were made for foxes, gins for hares,
Lime-twigs for birds, and lies and oaths for women.

Sir Francis Fane, The Sacrifice.

Beshrew my heart, but it is wond'rous strange;
Sure there is something more than witchcraft in them,
That masters ev'n the wisest of us all.

Rowe, Jane Shore.

Women, like summer storms, awhile are cloudy,
Burst out in thunder, and impetuous showers:
But straight the sun of beauty dawns abroad,
And all the fair horizon is serene.

Rowe, Tamerlane.

WOMAN, WOMEN—continued.

Mankind from Adam have been women's fools,
Women, from Eve, have been the devil's tools:
Heaven might have spar'd one torment when we fell;
Not left us women, or not threaten'd hell.

Lansdowne, She-Gallants. So many shapes have women for deceit,

That man's a fool whenever they think fit. Tb, Jew of Venice.
Who to a woman trusts his peace of mind,
Trusts a frail bark with a tempestuous wind.

If the heart of a man is depressed with cares,

Lansdowne.

The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears. Gay, B. Opera,11.1.
And yet believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can

Its last best works, forms but a softer man. Pope, M.E. 11. 269.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake :

Men, some to quiet, some to public strife,

But every lady would be queen for life.

Our grandsire, ere of Eve possess'd,
Alone, and e'en in Paradise unblest,

Pope, M. E. 11. 215.

With mournful looks the blissful scenes survey'd,
And wander'd in the solitary shade;

The Maker saw, took pity, and bestow'd

Woman, the last, the best, reserv'd of God. Pope, Jan. & May. Shouldst thou search the spacious world around,

Yet one good woman is not to be found. Pope, Jan. & May,637. Heaven gave to woman the peculiar grace

To spin, to weep, and cully human race. Ib. Wife of Bath, 160. A woman will, or won't, depend on't;

If she will she will, and there's an end on't.

Aaron Hill, Epilogue to Zara. Women were made to give our eyes delight; A female sloven is an odious sight.

Young, Love of Fame, V.

If you resent, and wish a woman ill,
But turn her o'er one moment to her will.
A shameless woman is the worst of men.
One only care your gentle breasts should move,-
Th' important business of your life is love.
Seek to be good, but aim not to be great,
A woman's noblest station is retreat;
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight.

Ib. v. 425. Ib. v. 472.

Lord Lyttelton.

Lord Lyttelton.

WOMAN, WOMEN.

WOMAN, WOMEN-continued.

Why, what a wilful, wayward thing is woman!
Even in their best pursuits so loose of soul,
That every breath of passion shakes their frame,
And every fancy turns them.

Charming woman can true converts make,

703

Francis, Eugenia.

We love the precepts for the teacher's sake;
Virtue in her appears so bright and gay,

We hear with pleasure, and with pride obey. Benj. Franklin.

Says Montague to me, and in her own house,

I do not care for you three skips of a louse."

I forgive it; for women, however well bred,

Will still talk of that which runs most in their head. C.J.Fox.

And nature swears, the lovely dears

Her noblest work she classes, O;

Her 'prentice hand she tried on man,

An' then she made the lasses O. Burns, Green grow the Rushes.

One moral's plain-without more fuss;

Man's social happiness all rests on us :

Through all the drama-whether damn'd or not

Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot.

Sheridan, Fp. to the Rivals.

A tigress robb'd of young, a lioness,

Or

any interesting beast of prey,

Are similes at hand for the distress

Of ladies who cannot have their own way. Byron, D. J. v. 132.

She was a soft landscape of mild earth,

Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet,
Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,
Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it
Than are your mighty passions.

Byron, D. J. VI. 53.

I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,
And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger
Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head,
And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger
Is all the rest about her! Whether wed,
Or widow, maid or mother, she can change her
Mind like the wind; whatever she has said

Or done, is light to what she'll say or do ;-

:

Ib. VI. 53.

The oldest thing on record, and yet new! Byron, D. J. 1x. 64.

WOMAN, WOMEN-continued.

Some waltz; some draw; some fathom the abyss

Of metaphysics; others are content

With music; the most moderate shine as wits,

While others have a genius turn'd for fits. Byron, D.J.x11.52. And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify

A woman; so she's good, what does it signify? Ib. XIV. 57.
The very first

Of human life must spring from woman's breast :
Your first small words are taught you from her lips;
Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last sighs
Too often breath'd out in a woman's hearing,

When men have shrunk from the ignoble care

Of watching the last hour of him who led them. Ib. Sard. 1. 2.
Oh, woman! in our hours of ease,

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!

Scott, Marmion.

Geo. Crabbe.

Ladies, like towns besieg'd, for honour's sake,
Will some defence, or its appearance, make.
The fair not always view with favouring eyes
The very virtuous or extremely wise,
But, odd it seems, will sometimes rather take
Want with the spendthrift, riot with the rake. Hon. G. Lamb.
Nought can to peace the busy female charm,

And if she can't do good, she must do harm. Hon. G. Lamb.

Now, had not woman work'd our fall,

How many, who have trades, and avocations,

Would shut up shop, in these our polish'd nations,

And have no business to transact at all!

In such an instance, what, pray, would become
Of all our reverend clergy?

They would be thought uncommonly hum-drum,
And banish'd, in a trice,

Who, zealously, for pay, should urge ye
Not to be vicious, if there were no vice ?
Again,-if we should never die, nor dress,
But walk, immortally in nakedness,
'Twould be a very losing game for those
Who furnish us with funerals and clothes.
To sum the matter up, then, briefly,
Losers through innocency would be, chiefly,-