What! all our sex in one sad hour undone? 
  Lost are our arts, our learning, our renown
  Since nature’s tide of wit came rolling down. 
  Keen were your eyes we knew, and sure their darts;
  Fire to our soul they send, and passion to our heart! 
  Needless was an addition to such arms,
  When all mankind were vassals to your charms: 
  That hand but seen, gives wonder and desire,
  Snow to the fight, but with its touches fire! 
  Who sees thy yielding Queen, and would not be
  On any terms, the best, the happy he;
  Entranc’d we fancy all is extasy. 
  Quote Ovid, now no more ye am’rous swains,
  Delia, than Ovid has more moving strains. 
  Nature in her alone exceeds all art,
  And nature sure does nearest touch the heart. 
  Oh! might I call the bright discoverer mine,
  The whole fair sex unenvied I’d resign;
  Give all my happy hours to Delia’s charms,
  She who by writing thus our wishes warms,
  What worlds of love must circle in her arms?

They who had a regard for Mrs. Manley could not but observe with concern, that her conduct was such, as would soon issue in her ruin.  No language but flattery approached her ear; the Beaux told her, that a woman of her wit, was not to be confined to the dull formalities of her own sex, but had a right to assume the unreserved freedom of the male, since all things were pardonable to a lady, who knew to give laws to others, yet was not obliged to keep them herself.  General Tidcomb, who seems to have been her sincerest friend, took the privilege of an old acquaintance to correct her ill taste, and the wrong turn she gave her judgment, in admitting adulation from such wretches, whose praise could reflect but little honour, and who would be ready to boast of favours they never received, nor indeed ever endeavoured to obtain.

This salutary council was rejected; she told him, that she did not think fit to reform a conduct, which she reckoned very innocent; and still continued to receive the whispers of flatterers, ’till experience taught her the folly of her behaviour, and she lived to repent her indiscretion.

Her virtue was now nodding, and she was ready to fall into the arms of any gallant, like mellow fruit, without much trouble in the gathering.  Sir Thomas Skipwith, a character of gaiety of those times, and, who it seems had theatrical connections, was recommended to her, as being very able to promote her design in writing for the stage.  This knight was in the 50th year of his age, and in the 60th of his constitution, when he was first introduced to her, and as he had been a long practised gallant, he soon made addresses to her, and whether or no this knight, who was more dangerous to a woman’s reputation, than her virtue, was favoured by her, the world was so much convinced of it, that her character was now absolutely lost.  Sir Thomas was a weak, vain, conceited coxcomb, who delighted in boasting of his conquests over women, and what was often owing to his fortune, and station in life, he imputed to his address, and the elegance of his manner, of both which he was totally destitute.  He even published Mrs. Manley’s dishonour, and from that time our sprightly poetess was considered, by the sober part of the sex, quite abandoned to all shame.