As just the counterpart of his. 
She darted many a private glance,
And freely made the first advance;
Was of her beauty grown so vain,
She doubted not to win the swain;
Nothing she thought could sooner gain him,
Than with her wit to entertain him. 
She ask’d about her friends below;
This meagre fop, that batter’d beau;
Whether some late departed toasts
Had got gallants among the ghosts? 
If Chloe were a sharper still
As great as ever at quadrille? 
(The ladies there must needs be rooks,
For cards, we know, are Pluto’s books.)
If Florimel had found her love,
For whom she hang’d herself above? 
How oft a-week was kept a ball
By Proserpine at Pluto’s hall? 
She fancied those Elysian shades
The sweetest place for masquerades;
How pleasant on the banks of Styx,
To troll it in a coach and six! 
  What pride a female heart inflames? 
How endless are ambition’s aims: 
Cease, haughty nymph; the Fates decree
Death must not be a spouse for thee;
For, when by chance the meagre shade
Upon thy hand his finger laid,
Thy hand as dry and cold as lead,
His matrimonial spirit fled;
He felt about his heart a damp,
That quite extinguished Cupid’s lamp: 
Away the frighted spectre scuds,
And leaves my lady in the suds.

[Footnote 1:  Megaera, one of three Furies, beautifully described by Virgil, “Aeneid,” xii, 846.—. W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Periwigs with long tails.]

[Footnote 3:  Where the College of Physicians was situated at that time.  See Cunningham’s “Handbook of London.”—­W.  E. B.]

DAPHNE

Daphne knows, with equal ease,
How to vex, and how to please;
But the folly of her sex
Makes her sole delight to vex. 
Never woman more devised
Surer ways to be despised;
Paradoxes weakly wielding,
Always conquer’d, never yielding. 
To dispute, her chief delight,
Without one opinion right: 
Thick her arguments she lays on,
And with cavils combats reason;
Answers in decisive way,
Never hears what you can say;
Still her odd perverseness shows
Chiefly where she nothing knows;
And, where she is most familiar,
Always peevisher and sillier;
All her spirits in a flame
When she knows she’s most to blame. 
  Send me hence ten thousand miles,
From a face that always smiles: 
None could ever act that part,
But a fury in her heart. 
Ye who hate such inconsistence,
To be easy, keep your distance: 
Or in folly still befriend her,
But have no concern to mend her;
Lose not time to contradict her,
Nor endeavour to convict her. 
Never take it in your thought,
That she’ll own, or cure a fault. 
Into contradiction warm her,
Then, perhaps, you may reform her: 
Only take this rule along,
Always to advise her wrong;