If in her coach she'll condescend
To place him at the hinder end,
Her hoop is hoist above his nose,
His odious gown would soil her clothes.[5]
She drops him at the church, to pray,
While she drives on to see the play.
He like an orderly divine,
Comes home a quarter after nine,
And meets her hasting to the ball:
Her chairmen push him from the wall.
The Dean gets in and walks up stairs,
And calls the family to prayers;
Then goes alone to take his rest
In bed, where he can spare her best.
At five the footmen make a din,
Her ladyship is just come in;
The masquerade began at two,
She stole away with much ado;
And shall be chid this afternoon,
For leaving company so soon:
She'll say, and she may truly say't,
She can't abide to stay out late.
But now, though scarce a twelvemonth married,
Poor Lady Jane has thrice miscarried:
The cause, alas! is quickly guest;
The town has whisper'd round the jest.
Think on some remedy in time,
The Dean you see, is past his prime,
Already dwindled to a lath:
No other way but try the Bath.
For Venus, rising from the ocean,
Infused a strong prolific potion,
That mix'd with Acheloues spring,
The horned flood, as poets sing,
Who, with an English beauty smitten,
Ran under ground from Greece to Britain;
The genial virtue with him brought,
And gave the nymph a plenteous draught;
Then fled, and left his horn behind,
For husbands past their youth to find;
The nymph, who still with passion burn'd,
Was to a boiling fountain turn'd,
Where childless wives crowd every morn,
To drink in Acheloues horn;[6]
Or bathe beneath the Cross their limbs
Where fruitful matter chiefly swims.
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