Exact, to what his[4] age amounts. 
The Dean, she heard her uncle say,
Is sixty, if he be a day;
His ruddy cheeks are no disguise;
You see the crow’s feet round his eyes. 
  At one she rambles to the shops,
To cheapen tea, and talk with fops;
Or calls a council of her maids,
And tradesmen, to compare brocades. 
Her weighty morning business o’er,
Sits down to dinner just at four;
Minds nothing that is done or said,
Her evening work so fills her head. 
The Dean, who used to dine at one,
Is mawkish, and his stomach’s gone;
In threadbare gown, would scarce a louse hold,
Looks like the chaplain of the household;
Beholds her, from the chaplain’s place,
In French brocades, and Flanders lace;
He wonders what employs her brain,
But never asks, or asks in vain;
His mind is full of other cares,
And, in the sneaking parson’s airs,
Computes, that half a parish dues
Will hardly find his wife in shoes. 
  Canst thou imagine, dull divine,
’Twill gain her love, to make her fine? 
Hath she no other wants beside? 
You feed her lust as well as pride,
Enticing coxcombs to adore,
And teach her to despise thee more. 
  If in her coach she’ll condescend
To place him at the hinder end,
Her hoop is hoist above his nose,
His odious gown would soil her clothes.[5]
She drops him at the church, to pray,
While she drives on to see the play. 
He like an orderly divine,
Comes home a quarter after nine,
And meets her hasting to the ball: 
Her chairmen push him from the wall. 
The Dean gets in and walks up stairs,
And calls the family to prayers;
Then goes alone to take his rest
In bed, where he can spare her best. 
At five the footmen make a din,
Her ladyship is just come in;
The masquerade began at two,
She stole away with much ado;
And shall be chid this afternoon,
For leaving company so soon: 
She’ll say, and she may truly say’t,
She can’t abide to stay out late. 
  But now, though scarce a twelvemonth married,
Poor Lady Jane has thrice miscarried: 
The cause, alas! is quickly guest;
The town has whisper’d round the jest. 
Think on some remedy in time,
The Dean you see, is past his prime,
Already dwindled to a lath: 
No other way but try the Bath. 
  For Venus, rising from the ocean,
Infused a strong prolific potion,
That mix’d with Acheloues spring,
The horned flood, as poets sing,
Who, with an English beauty smitten,
Ran under ground from Greece to Britain;
The genial virtue with him brought,
And gave the nymph a plenteous draught;
Then fled, and left his horn behind,
For husbands past their youth to find;
The nymph, who still with passion burn’d,
Was to a boiling fountain turn’d,
Where childless wives crowd every morn,
To drink in Acheloues horn;[6]
Or bathe beneath the Cross their limbs