Full hearty was his love, and I can shew
The tokens on my ribs, in black and blue;
Yet, with a knack, my heart he could have won,
While yet the smart was shooting in the bone.

How quaint an appetite in women reigns!

255

Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains : 260
Let men avoid us, and on them we leap;
A glutted market makes provision cheap.

In pure good will I took this jovial spark,
Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk.
He boarded with a widow in the town,
A trufty goffip, one dame Alison.
Full well the secrets of my foul she knew,
Better than e'er our parish Prieft could do.
To her I told whatever could befall;

265

Had but my husband piss'd against a wall,
Or done a thing that might have cost his life,
She-and my niece-and one more worthy wife,
Had known it all: what most he would conceal,

270

To these I made no fcruple to reveal.
Oft' has he blush'd from ear to ear for shame,

275

That e'er he told a fecret to his dame.

It fo befel, in holy time of Lent,
That oft' a day I to this gossip went;
(My husband, thank my stars, was out of town)
From house to house we rambled up and down,
This clerk, my self, and my good neighbour Alce,
To fee, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.

Visits to ev'ry Church we daily paid,

And march'd in ev'ry holy Masquerade,

280

The

The Stations duly, and the Vigils kept;
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At Sermons too I shone in scarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my best array,
The cause was this, I wore it ev'ry day.

285

}

'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields, 290 This Clerk and I were walking in the fields. We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,

I pawn'd my honour, and engag'd my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,

That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
We strait ftruck hands, the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trufts to one poor hole,

293

Can never be a mouse of any foul.

}

I vow'd, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, 300 And durst be sworn he had bewitch'd me to him; If e'er I slept, I dream'd of him alone, And dreams foretel, as learned men have shown; All this I said; but dream, firs, I had none : I follow'd but my crafty Crony's lore, Who bid me tell this lye and twenty more. Thus day by day, and month by month we past;

305

It pleas'd the Lord to take my spouse at last.
I tore my gown, I foil'd my locks with dust,
And beat my breasts, as wretched widows-must. 310
Before my face my handkerchief I spread,

To hide the flood of tears I did

not shed.
The good man's coffin to the Church was born;
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn.
VOL. III.

N

Bus

But as he march'd, good Gods! he show'd a pair 315
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters age he seem'd to be;

I (to say truth) was twenty more than he;
But vig'rous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame.
A Conj'rer once, that deeply could divine,
Assur'd me, Mars in Taurus was my fign.
As the stars order'd, such my life has been :
Alas, alas, that ever love was fin!

320

325

Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace,
And Mars afsurance, and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this pow'rful constellation,
I follow'd always my own inclination.

But to my tale: A month scarce pass'd away,
With dance and song we kept the nuptial day.
All I poffefs'd I gave to his command,
My goods and chattels, mony, house, and land:
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;
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,

330

335

And would be so, in spite of all he swore.
He, against this right fagely would advise,
And old examples fet before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,

340

Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;

And

And chose the sermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With some grave sentence out of holy writ.
Oft' would he say, Who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deserves 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 so do numbers more, I'll boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay.

345

350

360

My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred) 355 A certain treatise oft' at evening read, Where divers Authors (whom the dev'l confound For all their lyes) were in one volume bound. Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part; Chryfippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art, Solomon's proverbs, Eloisa'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 vanquish'd? 'Twas a Man. But cou'd we women write as scholars can, Men should stand mark'd with far more wickedness, Than all the fons of Adam could redress.

Love seldom haunts the breast where Learning lies,

And Venus fets e'er 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,

365

370

That not one woman keeps her marriage-vow. (This by the way, but to my purpose now.)

375

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 Sampson fell; and he whom Dejanire Wrap'd in th' envenom'd shirt, and set on fire.

380

How curs'd Eryphile her Lord betray'd,

And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid.

But what most pleas'd him was the Cretan dame,
And husband-bulloh monstrous! fie for shame!

385

He had by heart, the whole detail of woe

Xantippe made her good man undergo;
How oft' she scolded in a day, he knew,
How many piss-pots on the sage she threw;
Who took it patiently, and wipe'd his head;
Rain follows thunder, that was all he said.

390

He read, how Arius to his friend complain'd, A fatal Tree was growing in his land,

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

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 lord's destruction prove,

Thro' hatred one, and one thro' too much love;

That for her husband mix'd a pois'nous draught,

And this for luft an am'rous philtre bought,

The