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in his verse is the second: because she was fortunate enough to die within the first year, before he found time to grow weary of her. Even then, it was not until after she had died that he uttered her praise. His housekeeper wife was tolerated, and came in for his money, because she had cooked him nice dinners.

Not only a sheet, but an entire volume might be easily filled, if necessary, with specimens of the playful badinage against matrimony, in which poets and prose-writers have indulged from early times, but at none with more frequency and more sparkling wit than during the reign of the last two Stuarts.'

1 We are glad to see, since the above was written in our text, that Robert Roberts, of Boston, the excellent printer and publisher of our three volumes, The "Drolleries" of the Restoration, announces that "At some future time I may publish a volume containing the most elegant compliments and the bitterest epigrams which have been written on the fair sex,-not compilations from Byron and Tennyson, but further a-field" (p. 417 of The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, translated into English by Nicolas Udall. Literally reprinted from the scarce edition of 1564. Boston, Lincolnshire, 1877). By the way, the writers of the bitter epigrams have often written also the elegant compliments; for "the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, is always the first to be touched by the thorns." Not many things were better phrased than Southey's praise of woman, and Sir Walter Scott's in Marmion, which we quoted as motto on p. 880.

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[Bagford Collection, III. 102.]

The Philosophical Wife;

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Hey'r many that Wedlock a Plague do call,
And have curs'd it ever since Adam's Fall,

Yet these are but dull Philosophers all,

Which no body can deny.

For when Adam led a single life,

Sole Monarch of the World, and free from Strife,
To compleat his Bliss, he still wanted a Wife,

Which no body will deny.

To make this out, that you may know so,
I'le prove in spite of each Braggadocio,
That the Wife's the only Virtuoso,

Which no body, &c.

In Grammar first, her skill's not slender,

She shews the Case, and Declines not the Gender,'

And in varying Amo, there's no man can mend her,
Which no body, &c.

What though her Stock perhaps be but small
I'th Languages raiz'd at Babels fall,

Her own Tongue utters more than they all,

Which no body, &c.

Her Rhetorick next is more moving far,

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Than a Spruce young Law[y]ers new call'd to the Barr, When with Tropes and Figures he levies Warr,

Which no body, &c.

For when an obliging Wench does perswade,
Each Man forgets his Credit and Trade,
And streight like a sneaking Cully's betrayd,
Which no body, &c.

But when to chop Logick, her mind is bent,
The Fool her Husband were best be content,
Or else he's in a sad Predicament,

Which no body, &c.

In Numbers she hath knowledge store,
And duly reckons the Ale-house Score,
By Debitor and Creditor over the Dore,

Which my Hostess cannot deny.

1 Early manuscript correction reads "not to Gender."

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I' th' Art of Musick she leads the Van,
She knows Elevation, and Backfalls, and can
Make her Husband shake when she acteth the Man,
Which no body, &c.

Her Tune she can easily grace and embellish,
Her Husband she kisses, and that's a good rellish;
But if she fall out there's no Musick so Hellish,
Which no body, &c.

Hence come the Beats, and they'r never at rest,
Till at last by a Cadent they fall to their Nest,
For there they can play their Rellishes best,
Which no body can deny.]

In Astrology next, none righter than she,
Can Calculate a Nativity,

With Venus none better acquainted can be,

[Which no body can deny.]

But Aries and Taurus are Enemies still,
The changable Moon too her Husband doth kill;
For she by Example brings Horns when she will,
Which no borly can deny.

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And when she is crabbed you'l swear that the Sun
Just then to the Tropick of Cancer is run,
For the House is too hot till her humour be done.
Which no body, &c.

Now if that her love be cold, and she scorn
Her Husband, declining to Capricorn;
'Tis a Sign the poor Cuckold may wind his Horn,
Which no body, &c.

But if thou art kind and of frolli[c]king brains,
And too much blood hath extended thy Veins,
She can give thee a Potion to purge thy Reins,
Which no body, &c.

In Law too she hath knowledge, for if from thy Bed
She fly; or incensed begins to look red,

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You'l find by her own Law she may scratch her own head,

Which no body, &c.

Though Dike for Limning famous be,
And no man ever drew better than he;
Yet he ne're drew Boyes so lively as She,
Which no body, &c.

I' th' Mathematicks too she leads the Ring,
Where Demonstrations she can bring,
That the middle's the Centre of every thing,
Which no body, &c.

This by th' Attractive Power she'll prove,
Whereby Things do their Centre move,
Since every Man to the middle doth move
Which no body, &c.

Though Chymists, Natures bratts alone
May call themselves, yet there is none

But She, that can find the Philosopher's Stone,
Which no body, &c.

Anthony Vandyck, of course.

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He died in Dec. 1641, but we need not

therefore attribute this balled to a date so early: his repute accounting fully for

the mention of him many years later.

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