With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Defpair, and fell Disease, and ghaftly Poverty.

Thy form benign, O goddefs! wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philofophick train be there,

To foften, not to wound my heart;
The generous fpark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

THE FEMINEAD; OR, FEMALE GENIUS.

SH

WRITTEN IN M DCC LI.

BY JOHN DUNCOMBE, M. A.

HALL lordly man, the theme of every lay,
Ufurp the Mufe's tributary bay?

In kingly state on Pindus' fummit fit,
Tyrant of verfe, and arbiter of wit?

By Salick law the female right deny,
And view their genius with regardless eye?
Juftice forbid! and every Muse inspire

To fing the glories of a fifter-choir!

Rife, rife, bold fwain! and to the liftening grove
Refound the praises of the fex you love;

Tell how, adorn'd with every charm, they fhine,

In mind and person equally divine,

Till man, no more to female merit blind,

Admire the perfon, but adore the mind.

To these weak ftrains, O thou! the fex's friend

And conftant patron, Richardfon*! attend:
Thou, who so oft, with pleas'd but anxious care,
Hast watch'd the dawning genius of the fair,

*The author of thofe three celebrated works, Pamela, Clariffa, and Sir

Charles Grandifon.

With

With wonted fmiles wilt hear thy friend difplay
The various graces of the female lay;
Studious from Folly's yoke their minds to free,
And aid the generous caufe efpous'd by thee.
Long o'er the world did' Prejudice maintain,
By founds like thefe, her undifputed reign:

Woman!' fhe cried, to thee, indulgent Heaven • Has all the charms of outward beauty given; Be thine the boast, unrivall'd, to enslave

• The great, the wife, the witty, and the brave; Deck'd with the Paphian rofe's damask glow, And the vale-lily's vegetable snow,

Be thine to move majestick in the dance,

To roll the eye, and aim the tender glance,

• Or touch the ftrings, and breathe the melting fong; • Content to emulate that airy throng,

Who to the fun their painted plumes difplay,

And gaily glitter on the hawthorn spray,

• Or wildly warble in the beechen grove,

⚫ Careless of aught, but mufick, joy, and love.'

Heavens! could fuch artful, flavish founds, beguile

The free-born fons of Britain's polish'd isle!
Could they, like fam'd Ulyffes' daftard crew,
Attentive liften, and enamour'd view,
Nor drive the fyren to that dreary plain,

In loathfome pomp, where eastern tyrants reign;
Where each fair neck the yoke of flavery galls,
Clos'd in a proud feraglio's gloomy walls,
And taught, that levell'd with the brutal kind,
Nor fenfe nor fouls to women are affign'd!

Our British nymphs with happier omens rove,
At Freedom's call, thro' Wifdom's facred grove;
And, as with lavish haid each fifter-grace
Shapes the fair form, and regulates the face,
Each fifter-mufe, in blifsful union join'd,
Adorns, improves, and beautifies the mind.

E'en

E'en now fond Fancy, in our polish'd land,
Affembled fhews a blooming, ftudious band:
With various arts our reverence they engage,
Some turn the tuneful, fome the moral page;
Thefe, led by Contemplation, foar on high,
And range the heavens with philofophick eye;
While thofe, furrounded by a vocal choir,

The canvas tinge, or touch the warbling lyre.
Here, like the stars mix'd radiance, they unite
To dazzle and perplex our wandering fight:
The Mufe each charmer fingly fhail furvey,
And tune to each her tributary lay.

So when, in blended tints, with sweet furprize
Affembled beauties ftrike our ravish'd eyes,
Such as in Lely's melting colours shine,

Or fpring, great Kneller! from a hand like thine,
On all with pleasing awe at once we gaze,

And, loft in wonder, know not which to praise;
But, fingly view'd, each nymph delights us more,
Disclosing graces unperceiv'd before.

First let the Muse with gen'rous ardour try
To chafe the mift from dark Opinion's eye;
Nor mean we here to blame that father's care,
Who guards from learned wives his booby heir,
Since oft that heir with prudence has been known
To dread a genius that transcends his own:
The wife themfelves fhould with difcretion chufe,
Since letter'd nymphs their knowledge may abuse,
And hufbands oft experience to their coft
The prudent housewife in the fcholar loft.
But thofe incur deferv'd contempt, who prize
Their own high talents, and their sex despise;
With haughty mien each focial blifs defeat,
And fully all their learning with conceit:
Of fuch the parent justly warns his fon,
And fuch the Mufe herfelf will bid him shun.

But lives there one, whofe unaffuming mind,
Tho' grac'd by nature, and by art refin'd,
Pleas'd with domeftick excellence, can spare
Some hours from ftudious eafe to focial care,
And with her pen that Time alone employs,
Which others wafte in vifits, cards, and noise;
From affectation free, tho' deeply read,

With wit well natur'd, and with books well bred?"
With fuch (and fuch there are) each happy day
Muft fly improving and improv'd away;
Inconftancy might fix and fettle there,
And Wifdom's voice approve the chofen fair.

Nor need we now from our own Britain rove,
In fearch of genius, to the Lesbian grove,
Tho' Sappho there her tuneful lyre has ftrung,
And amorous griefs in sweetest accents fung,
Since here, in Charles's days, amidst a train
Of shameless bards, licentious and profane,
The chafte Orinda rofe; with purer light,
Like modeft Cynthia, beaming thro' the night:
Fair Friendship's luftre, undisguis'd by art,
Glows in her lines, and animates her heart;
Friendship, that jewel, which, tho' all confefs
It's peerless value, yet how few poffefs!
For her the never-dying myrtle weaves
A verdant chaplet of her odorous leaves;
If Cowley's or Rofcommon's fong can give
Immortal fame, her praise fhall ever live.

Who can, unmov'd, hear Winchelseat reveal
Thy horrors, Spleen! which all, who paint, muft feel?
My praises would but wrong her fterling wit,

Since Pope himself applauds what she has writ.

*Mrs. Catherine Philips: fhe was diftinguished by most of the wits of king Charles's reign, and died young. Her pieces on Friendship are particularly admired.

† Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, a lady of great wit and genius, wrote (among others) a poem, much admired, on the Spleen, and is praised by Mr. Pope, &c. under the poetical name of Ardelia.

But

"

But fay, what matron now walks musing forth
From the bleak mountains of her native north?
While round her brows two fifters of the Nine
Poetick wreaths with philofophick twine!

Hail, Cockburne*, hail! e'en now from Reason's bowers
Thy Locke delighted culls the choiceft flowers,
To deck his great, fuccefsful champion's head,
And Clarke expects thee in the laurel fhade.
Tho' long to dark, oblivious want a prey,
Thy aged worth pass'd unperceiv'd away;
Yet Scotland now fhall ever boaft thy fame,
While England mourns thy undistinguish'd name,
And views with wonder, in a female mind,
Philofopher, divine, and poet join'd!

The modeft mufe a veil with pity throws
O'er vice's friends, and virtue's female focs;
Abafh'd the views the bold unblushing mien
Of modern Manley, Centlivre, and Behnt;
And grieves to fee one nobly born disgrace
Her modeft fex, and her illuftrious race.
Tho' harmony thro' all their numbers flow'd,
And genuine wit it's every grace bestow'd,
Nor genuine wit, nor harmony, excufe
The dangerous fallies of a wanton mufe:
Nor can fuch tuneful, but immoral, lays
Expect the tribute of impartial praife:

As foon might Philips, Pilkington, and Vane ‡,
Deferv'd applause for spotless virtue gain.

But hark! what nymphs, in Frome's embroider'd vale,

With ftrains feraphick fwells the vernal gale?

*Mrs. Catharine Cockburne was the wife of a clergyman, lived obfcurely, and died a few years ago in an advanced age in Northumberland; her works on dramatic, philofophical, and facred fubjects, have been lately collected by the learned Dr. Birch, and are generally admired.

The first of these wrote the fcandalous memoirs called Atalantis, and the other two are notorious for the indecency of their plays.

Thefe three ladies have endeavoured to immortalize their fhame by writing their own memoirs.

The character of Mrs. Rowe, and her writings, is too well known to be dweit