| Citation |
NHG-P.761.009
13 Feb 1761:21,22 (228)
Portsmouth. A Gentle Whisper, in Answer to the Ladies
Objections to some useful Arguments in your Paper, No. 226,
which please to insert verbatim. Your's, Yoeman Youth.
Ladies,
Your charming thoughts in softest words express'd,
Must surely pity raise in every breast;
Such pleasing strains can't fail but contrite move,
And make the flinty heart submit to love:
Sweet as the tuneful Philomela's song,
When at the blooming spring, she hails the morn;
If so, who to attack the beauteous throng will dare,
And charge with blemishes the powerful fair?
Great Pope himself the task did arduous call,
And left the weight on hardier souls to fall;
"Matter too soft, a lasting form to bear,
"And best distinguish'd by black, brown and fair.
But where my muse? Your eager warmth repel,
And leave to honest prose the rest to tell;
Yourself a female, can't the sex be nam'd,
But (a true woman) your own friend be blam'd?
. . . [24 lines of prose on Jesuits, the differences between
men and women]
Leaving these things to who the muses follow,
Must tend to Neptune's, not to Jove's Apollo.
|