| |
| THUS 1 you the sad Catastrophe have seen, | |
| Occasion’d by a Mistress and a Queen. | |
| Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say; | |
| But English Manufacture got the Day. | |
| Jane Clifford was her Name, as Books aver: | 5 |
| Fair Rosamond was but her Nom de Guerre. | |
| Now tell me, Gallants, wou’d you lead your Life | |
| With such a Mistress, or with such a Wife? | |
| If one must be your Choice, which d’ye approve, | |
| The Curtain-Lecture or the Curtain-Love? | 10 |
| Wou’d ye be godly with perpetual Strife, | |
| Still drudging on with homely Joan your Wife, | |
| Or take your Pleasure in a wicked way, | |
| Like honest Whoring Harry in the Play? | |
| I guess your Minds; The Mistress wou’d be taking, 2 | 15 |
| And nauseous Matrimony sent a packing. | |
| The Devil’s in ye all; Mankind’s a Rogue, | |
| You love the Bride, but you detest the Clog: | |
| After a Year, poor Spouse is left i’ th’ lurch; | |
| And you, like Haynes, return to Mother-Church. | 20 |
| Or, if the Name of Church comes cross your mind, | |
| Chapels of Ease behind our Scenes you find. | |
| The Play-house is a kind of Market-place; | |
| One chaffers for a Voice, another for a Face; | |
| Nay, some of you, I dare not say how many, | 25 |
| Would buy of me a Pen’ worth for your Peny. | |
| Even this poor Face (which with my Fan I hide) | |
| Would make a shift my Portion to provide, | |
| With some small Perquisites I have beside. | |
| Though for your Love, perhaps, I should not care, | 30 |
| I could not hate a Man that bids me fair. | |
| What might ensue, ’tis hard for me to tell; | |
| But I was drench’d to day for loving well, | |
| And fear the Poyson that would make me swell. | |
