And all your vain renown will spoil,
As guns o’ercharg’d the more recoil. 
Though he that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence; 110
And put among his wants but shame,
To all the world may lay his claim: 
Though you have try’d that nothing’s borne
With greater ease than public scorn,
That all affronts do still give place 115
To your impenetrable face,
That makes your way through all affairs,
As pigs through hedges creep with theirs;
Yet as ’tis counterfeit, and brass,
You must not think ’twill always pass; 120
For all impostors, when they’re known,
Are past their labour, and undone. 
And all the best that can befal
An artificial natural,
Is that which madmen find as soon 125
As once they’re broke loose from the moon,
And, proof against her influence,
Relapse to e’er so little sense,
To turn stark fools, and subjects fit
For sport of boys, and rabble-wit. 130

PART III.

CANTO I.

THE ARGUMENT.

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The Knight and Squire resolve, at once,
The one the other to renounce. 
They both approach the Lady’s Bower;
The Squire t’inform, the Knight to woo her. 
She treats them with a Masquerade,
By Furies and Hobgoblins made;
From which the Squire conveys the Knight,
And steals him from himself, by Night.
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’Tis true, no lover has that pow’r
T’ enforce a desperate amour,
As he that has two strings t’ his bow,
And burns for love and money too;
For then he’s brave and resolute, 5
Disdains to render in his suit,
Has all his flames and raptures double,
And hangs or drowns with half the trouble,
While those who sillily pursue,
The simple, downright way, and true, 10
Make as unlucky applications,
And steer against the stream their passions. 
Some forge their mistresses of stars,
And when the ladies prove averse,
And more untoward to be won 15
Than by Caligula the Moon,
Cry out upon the stars, for doing
Ill offices to cross their wooing;
When only by themselves they’re hindred,
For trusting those they made her kindred; 20
And still, the harsher and hide-bounder
The damsels prove, become the fonder. 
For what mad lover ever dy’d
To gain a soft and gentle bride? 
Or for a lady tender-hearted, 25
In purling streams or hemp departed? 
Leap’d headlong int’ Elysium,
Through th’ windows of a dazzling room? 
But for some cross, ill-natur’d dame,