MISCELLANIES.
397
Too much your Sex is by their forms confin'd,
Severe to all, but most to womankind;
Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide;
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;
By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame;
Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame.
Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase,
But sets up one, a greater, in their place;
Well might you wish for change, by those accurst,
But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.
Still in constraint your suff'ring sex remains,
Or bound in formal, or in real chains;
Whole years neglected for some months ador'd,
The fawning servant turns a haughty Lord;
Ah quit not the free innocence of life,
For the dull glory of a virtuous wife!
Nor let false shows, or empty titles please;
Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease.
The Gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,
Severe to all, but most to womankind;
Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide;
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;
By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame;
Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame.
Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase,
But sets up one, a greater, in their place;
Well might you wish for change, by those accurst,
But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.
Still in constraint your suff'ring sex remains,
Or bound in formal, or in real chains;
Whole years neglected for some months ador'd,
The fawning servant turns a haughty Lord;
Ah quit not the free innocence of life,
For the dull glory of a virtuous wife!
Nor let false shows, or empty titles please;
Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease.
The Gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,
The
