Artemisa to Chloe.
A Letter from a Lady in the Town to a Lady in the
Country concerning the Loves of the Town

	Chloe,
	In verse by your command I write,
	Shortly you’ll bid me ride astride and fight;
	Such talents better with our sex agree
	Than lofty flights of dangerous poetry.
5	Amongst the men, I mean the men of wit
	(At least they passed for such before they writ),
	How many bold adventurers for the bays,
	Proudly designing large returns of praise,
	Who durst that stormy, pathless world explore,
10	Were soon dashed back and wrecked on the dull shore,
	Broke of that little stock they had before?
	How would a woman’s tottering bark be tossed
	Where stoutest ships, the men of wit, are lost.
	When I reflect on this, I straight grow wise,
15	And my own self thus gravely I advise:
	Dear Artemisa, poetry’s a snare;
	Bedlam has many mansions, have a care:
	Your muse diverts you, makes your reader sad;
	You fancy you’re inspired, he thinks you mad.
20	Consider too ’twill be discreetly done
	To make yourself the fiddle of the town,
	To find th’ill-humoured pleasure at their need,
	Scorned if you fail and cursed if you succeed.
	Yet like an arrant woman as I am,
25	No sooner well convinced writing’s a shame,
	That whore is scarce a more reproachful name
	Than poetess -
	As men that marry or as maids that woo
	’Cause ’tis the very worst thing they can do,
30	Pleased with the contradiction and the sin,
	Methinks I stand on thorns till I begin.
	You expect to hear at least what loves have passed
	In this lewd town since you and I met last,
	What change hath happened of intrigues, and whether
35	The old ones last, and who and who’s together.
	But how, my dearest Chloe, shall I set
	My pen to write what I would fain forget
	Or name that lost thing, love, without a tear,
	Since so debauched by ill-bred customs here?
40	Love, the most generous passion of the mind,
	The softest refuge innocence can find,
	The safe director of unguided youth,
	Fraught with kind wishes and secured by truth,
	That cordial drop heaven in our cup has thrown
45	To make the nauseous draught of life go down;
	On which one only blessing God might raise
	In lands of atheists subsidies of praise,
	For none did e’er so dull and stupid prove
	But felt a god and blest his power in love.
50	This only joy for which poor we were made
	Is grown, like play, to be an arrant trade:
	The rooks creep in, and it has got of late
	As many little cheats and tricks as that.
	But what yet more a woman’s heart would vex,
55	’Tis chiefly carried on by our own sex,
	Our silly sex, who born like monarchs, free,
	Turn gypsies for a meaner liberty
	And hate restraint, though but from infamy.
	They call whatever is not common, nice,
60	And deaf to nature’s rules and love’s advice,
	Forsake the pleasures to pursue the vice.
	To an exact perfection they have wrought
	The action, love; the passion is forgot.
	’Tis below wit, they’ll tell you, to admire,
65	And ev’n without approving, they desire.
	Their private wish obeys the public voice;
	’Twixt good and bad, whimsey decides, not choice.
	Fashions grow up for taste, at forms they strike,
	They know what they would have, not what they like.
70	Bovey is a beauty, if some few agree
	To call him so; the rest to that degree
	Affected are, that with their ears they see.
	Where I was visiting the other night
	Comes a fine lady with her humble knight,
75	Who had prevailed on her by her own skill
	At his request though much against his will
	To come to London.
	As the coach stopped, we heard her voice, more loud
	Than a great-bellied woman’s in a crowd,
80	Telling her knight that her affairs require
	He for some hours obsequiously retire.
	I think she was ashamed to have him seen
	(Hard fate of husbands): the gallant had been,
	Though a diseased, hard-favoured fool, brought in.
85	’Dispatch,’ says she, ’that business you pretend,
	That beastly visit to your drunken friend.
	A bottle ever makes you look so fine,
	Methinks I long to smell you stink of wine.
	Your country drinking bream’s enough to kill,
90	Sour ale corrected with a lemon peel.
	Prithee, farewell, we’ll meet again anon.’
	The necessary thing bows and is gone.
	She flies upstairs, and all the haste does show
	That fifty antic postures will allow,
95	And then bursts out, ’Dear madam, am not I
	The altered’st creature breathing, let me die;
	I find myself ridiculously grown
	Embarrassée with being out of town,
	Rude and untaught like any Indian queen,
100	My country nakedness is strangely seen.
	How is love governed, love that rules the state,
	And pray, who are the men most worn of late?
	When I was married, fools were à la mode,
	The men of wit were then held incommode,
105	Slow of belief and fickle in desire,
	Who, ere they’ll be persuaded, must inquire
	As if they came to spy, not to admire.
	With searching wisdom, fatal to their ease,
	They’ll still find out why what may, should not please,
110	Nay, take themselves for injured if we dare
	Make them think better of us than we are,
	And if we hide our frailties from their sights,
	Call us deceitful jilts and hypocrites.
	They little guess, who at our arts are grieved,
115	The perfect joy of being well deceived,
	Inquisitive as jealous cuckolds grow;
	Rather than not be knowing, they will know
	What being known creates their certain woe.
	Women should these of all mankind avoid,
120	For wonder by clear knowledge is destroyed.
	Woman, who is an arrant bird of night,
	Bold in the dusk before a fool’s dull sight,
	Should fly when reason brings the glaring light.
	But the kind, easy fool, apt to admire
125	Himself, trusts us; his follies all conspire
	To flatter his and favour our desire.
	Vain of his proper merit, he with ease
	Believes we love him best who best can please.
	On him our common, gross, dull flatteries pass,
130	Ever most joyful when most made an ass:
	Heavy to apprehend, though all mankind
	Perceive us false, the fop concerned is blind,
	Who doting on himself,
	Thinks everyone that sees him of his mind.
135	These are true women’s men.’ Here forced to cease
	For want of breath, not will to hold her peace,
	She to the window runs, where she had spied
	Her much esteemed dear friend, the monkey, tied.
	With forty smiles, as many antic bows
140	As if’t had been the lady of the house,
	The dirty, chattering monster she embraced,
	And made it this fine tender speech at last:
	’Kiss me, thou curious miniature of man,
	How odd thou art, how pretty, how japan!
145	Oh; I could live and die with thee.’ Then on
	For half an hour in compliment she run.
	I took this time to think what nature meant
	When this mixed thing into the world she sent,
	So very wise, yet so impertinent:
150	One who knew everything, who ’twas thought fit
	Should be a fool through choice, not want of wit,
	Whose foppery without the help of sense
	Could ne’er have rose to such an excellence.
	Nature’s as lame in making a true fop
155	As a philosopher; the very top
	And dignity of folly we attain
	By curious search and labour of the brain,
	By observation, counsel, and deep thought:
	God never made a coxcomb worth a groat;
160	We owe that name to industry and arts,
	An eminent fool must be a fool of parts.
	And such a one was she, who had turned o’er
	As many books as men, loved much, read more,
	Had a discerning wit; to her was known
165	Everyone’s fault and merit but her own.
	All the good qualities that ever blest
	A woman so distinguished from the rest,
	Except discretion only, she possessed.
	And now, ’Monsieur dear Pug,’ she cries, ’adieu’,
170	And the discourse broke off, does thus renew:
	’You smile to see me, whom the world perchance
	Mistakes to have some wit, so far advance
	The interest of fools that I approve
	Their merit more than men’s of wit, in love.
175	But in our sex too many proofs there are
	Of such whom wits undo and fools repair.
	This in my time was so received a rule
	Hardly a wench in town but had her fool;
	The meanest common slut, who long was grown
180	The jest and scorn of every pit buffoon,
	Had yet left charms enough to have subdued
	Some fop or other fond to be thought lewd.
	Foster could make an Irish lord a Nokes,
	And Betty Morris had her City cokes.
185	woman’s ne’er so ruined but she can
	Be still revenged on her undoer, man:
	How lost soe’er, she’ll find some lover more
	A lewd, abandoned fool than she’s a whore.
	’That wretched thing, Corinna, who had run
190	Through all the several ways of being undone,
	Cozened at first by love, and living then
	By turning the too dear-bought trick on men:
	Gay were the hours and winged with joy they flew,
	When first the town her early beauty knew;
195	Courted, admired, and loved, with presents fed
	Youth in her looks and pleasure in her bed,
	Till fate or her ill angel thought it fit
	To make her dote upon a man of wit,
	Who found ’twas dull to love above a day,
200	Made his ill-natured jest, and went away.
	Now scorned by all, forsaken, and oppressed,
	She’s a memento mori to the rest,
	Diseased, decayed, to take up half a crown
	Must mortgage her long scarf and manteau gown.
205	Poor creature, who unheard of as a fly
	In some dark hole must all the winter lie,
	And want and dirt endure a whole half year
	That for one month she tawdry may appear.
	In Easter term she gets her a new gown,
210	When my young master’s worship comes to town,
	From pedagogue and mother just set free,
	The heir and hopes of a great family,
	Who with strong ale and beef the country rules,
	And ever since the Conquest have been fools.
215	And now with careful prospect to maintain
	This character, lest crossing of the strain
	Should mend the booby breed, his friends provide
	A cousin of his own for his fair bride.
	And thus set out
220	With an estate, no wit, and a young wife,
	The solid comforts of a coxcomb’s life,
	Dunghill and pease forsook, he comes to town,
	Turns spark, learns to be lewd, and is undone.
	Nothing suits worse with vice than want of sense:
225	Fools are still wicked at their own expense.
	This o’ergrown schoolboy lost Corinna wins
	And at first dash to make an ass begins,
	Pretends to like a man who has not known
	The vanities nor vices of the town.
230	Fresh in his youth and faithful in his love,
	Eager of joys which he does seldom prove;
	Healthful and strong, he does no pains endure
	But what the fair one he adores can cure;
	Grateful for favours, does the sex esteem,
235	And libels none for being kind to him;
	Then of the lewdness of the town complains,
	Rails at the wits and atheists, and maintains
	’Tis better than good sense, than power, than wealth
	To have a love untainted, youth, and health.
240	The unbred puppy, who had never seen
	A creature look so gay or talk so fine,
	Believes, then falls in love, and then in debt,
	Mortgages all, ev’n to the ancient seat,
	To buy his mistress a new house for life,
245	To give her plate and jewels, robs his wife;
	And when to th’ height of fondness he is grown,
	’Tis time to poison him, and all’s her own.
	Thus meeting in her common arms his fate,
	He leaves her bastard heir to his estate,
250	And, as the race of such an owl deserves,
	His own dull lawful progeny he starves.
	Nature who never made a thing in vain,
	But does each insect to some end ordain,
	Wisely contrived kind keeping fools, no doubt,
255	To patch up vices men of wit wear out.’
	Thus she ran on two hours, some grains of sense
	Mixed with whole volleys of impertinence.
	But now ’tis time I should some pity show
	To Chloe, since I cannot choose but know
260	Readers must reap the dullness writers sow.
	By the next post such stories I will tell
	As joined with these, shall to a volume swell,
	As true as heaven, more infamous than hell;
	But now you’re tired, and so am I.
	Farewell.