But oft repented, and repent it ftill;

He prov'd a rebel to my fov'reign will:

Nay once by Heav'n he ftruck me on the face; 335 Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the cafe.

Stubborn as any Lioness was I;

And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,

And would be so, in spite of all he fwore.
He, against this right fagely would advise,
And old examples fet before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And close the sermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.
Oft would he fay, who builds his house on fands,
Pricks his blind horfe across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deferves a fool's-cap and long ears at home.
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And fo do numbers more, I'll boldly fay,
Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay.

349

345

350

My fpoufe (who was, you know, to learning bred) A certain treatise oft at ev'ning read,

Where divers Authors (whom the dev'l confound For all their lies) were in one volume bound.

Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;

Chryfippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,

360

Solomon's

Solomon's Proverbs, Eloïfa's loves;

And many more than fure the Church approves.
More legends were there here, of wicked wives,
Than good, in all the Bible and Saints-lives.
Who drew the Lion vanquifh'd? 'Twas a Man.
But could we women write as scholars can,

370

366 Men fhould ftand mark'd with far more wickedness Than all the fons of Adam could redress. Love feldom haunts the breast where Learning lies, And Venus fets ere Mercury can rise. Those play the scholars who can't play the men, And use that weapon which they have, their pen; When old, and past the relish of delight, Then down they fit, and in their dotage write, That not one woman keeps her marriage-vow. 375 (This by the way, but to my purpose now.) It chanc'd my husband, on a winter's night, Read in this book, aloud, with strange delight, How the first female (as the Scriptures show) Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe. How Samfon fell; and he whom Dejanire Wrap'd in th' invenom'd fhirt, and fet on fire. How curs'd Eryphile her lord betray'd, And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid.

381

But what most pleas'd him was the Cretan dame, 385 And husband-bull-oh monftrous! fie for fhame!

He had by heart, the whole detail of woe Xantippe made her good man undergo;

How

How oft she scolded in a day, he knew,

How many pifs-pots on the fage fhe threw ;
Who took it patiently, and wip'd his head;
"Rain follows thunder :" that was all he said.
He read, how Arius to his friend complain'd,
A fatal Tree was growing in his land,

On which three wives fucceffively had twin'd
A fliding noofe, and waver'd in the wind.

390

395

Where grows this plant (reply'd the friend) oh where?
For better fruit did never orchard bear.

Give me some flip of this most blissful tree,
And in my garden planted shall it be.

400

Then how two wives their lords' deftruction prove, Through hatred one, and one through too much love; That for her husband mix'd a pois'nous draught, And this for luft an am'rous philtre bought : The nimble juice foon feiz'd his giddy head, Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.

405

How fome with fwords their fleeping lords have

flain,

And fome have hammer'd nails into their brain,
And some have drench'd them with a deadly potion;
All this he read, and read with great devotion. 410
Long time I heard, and fwell'd, and blush'd, and
frown'd;

But when no end of these vile tales I found,
When still he read, and laugh'd, and read again,
And half the night was thus confum'd in vain ;

Provok'd to vengeance, three large leaves I tore,
And with one buffet fell'd him on the floor.

With that my husband in a fury rose,

And down he fettled me with hearty blows,

I groan'd, and lay extended on my fide;

416

Oh! thou haft flain me for my wealth (I cry'd) 420
Yet I forgive thee-take my laft embrace-
He wept, kind foul! and stoop'd to kiss my

face;

I took him fuch a box as turn'd him blue,
Then figh'd and cry'd, Adieu, my dear, adieu!
But after many a hearty struggle past,
I condescended to be pleas'd at last,

Soon as he faid, My mistress and my wife,

Do what you lift, the term of all your life;

I took to heart the merits of the cause,

425

And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; 430
Receiv'd the reins of abfolute command,

With all the government of house and land,
And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand.
As for the volume that revil'd the dames,
'Twas torn to fragments, and condemn'd to flames.

434

Now Heav'n, on all my hufbands gone, bestow Pleasures above, for tortures felt below: That reft they wish'd for, grant them in the grave, And blefs thofe fouls my conduct help'd to fave!

THE lines of Pope, in the piece before us, are fpirited and eafy, and have, properly enough, a free colloquial air. One paffage I cannot forbear quoting, as it acquaints us with the writers who were popular in the time of Chaucer. The jocofe old woman says, that her husband frequently read to her out of a volume that contained

"Valerius whole; and of Saint Jerome part;
Cryfippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,

Solomon's Proverbs, Eloifa's loves :

With many more than fure the Church approves."

VER. 359.

Pope has omitted a ftroke of humour; for, in the original, the naturally mistakes the rank and age of St. Jerome; the lines muft be tranfcribed,

"Yclepid Valerie and Theophraft,

At which boke he lough alway full faft;

And eke there was a clerk fometime in Rome,
A cardinal, that hightin St. Jerome,
That made a boke agenft Jovinian,
In which boke there was eke Tertullian,
Chryfippus, Trotula, and Helowis,
That was an abbess not ferr fro Paris,
And eke the Parables of Solomon,
Ovid' is art, and bokis many a one."

In the library which Charles V. founded in France, about the year 1376, among many books of devotion, aftrology, chemistry, and romance, there was not one copy of Tully to be found, and no Latin poet but Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius; fome French tranflations of Livy, Valerius Maximus, and St. Auftin's City of God. He placed these in one of the towers, called The Tower of the Library. This was the foundation of the prefent magnificent royal library at Paris.

The tale, to which this is the prologue, has been verfified by Dryden, and is fuppofed to have been of Chaucer's own inven

tion;