Because she pays them all in kind. 
  Corinna wakes.  A dreadful sight! 
Behold the ruins of the night! 
A wicked rat her plaster stole,
Half eat, and dragg’d it to his hole. 
The crystal eye, alas! was miss’d;
And puss had on her plumpers p—­st,
A pigeon pick’d her issue-pease: 
And Shock her tresses fill’d with fleas. 
  The nymph, though in this mangled plight
Must ev’ry morn her limbs unite. 
But how shall I describe her arts
To re-collect the scatter’d parts? 
Or show the anguish, toil, and pain,
Of gath’ring up herself again? 
The bashful Muse will never bear
In such a scene to interfere. 
Corinna, in the morning dizen’d,
Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison’d.

[Footnote 1:  See Cunningham’s “Handbook of London.”  Bridewell was the Prison to which harlots were sent, and were made to beat hemp and pick oakum and were whipped if they did not perform their tasks.  See the Plate in Hogarth’s “Harlot’s Progress.”  The Prison has, happily, been cleared away.  The hall, court room, etc., remain at 14, New Bridge Street.  The Compter, a similar Prison, was also abolished.  For details of these abominations, see “London Past and Present,” by Wheatley.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Jamaica seems to have been regarded as a place of exile.  See “A quiet life and a good name,” ante, p. 152.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 3:  See ante, p. 78, “Descripton of a City Shower.”—­W.  E. B.]

STREPHON AND CHLOE 1731

Of Chloe all the town has rung,
By ev’ry size of poets sung: 
So beautiful a nymph appears
But once in twenty thousand years;
By Nature form’d with nicest care,
And faultless to a single hair. 
Her graceful mien, her shape, and face,
Confess’d her of no mortal race: 
And then so nice, and so genteel;
Such cleanliness from head to heel;
No humours gross, or frouzy steams,
No noisome whiffs, or sweaty streams,
Before, behind, above, below,
Could from her taintless body flow: 
Would so discreetly things dispose,
None ever saw her pluck a rose.[1]
Her dearest comrades never caught her
Squat on her hams to make maid’s water: 
You’d swear that so divine a creature
Felt no necessities of nature. 
In summer had she walk’d the town,
Her armpits would not stain her gown: 
At country dances, not a nose
Could in the dog-days smell her toes. 
Her milk-white hands, both palms and backs,
Like ivory dry, and soft as wax. 
Her hands, the softest ever felt,
[2] Though cold would burn, though dry would melt. 
  Dear Venus, hide this wond’rous maid,
Nor let her loose to spoil your trade. 
While she engrosses ev’ry swain,
You but o’er half the world can reign. 
Think what a case all men are now in,
What ogling, sighing, toasting, vowing!