AN ANSWER TO THE MANTUAN, OR, False Character, lately wrote against WOMANKIND.
Muliere bonâ omnia comprehenduntur.
A Vertuous Woman, Oye Gods! who dare
Presume to speak or write her Character?
Or what Pot-Poet dare attempt to vex
By cursed Libels this so glorious Sex?
A Sex that was by Heav'ns Decrees design'd
To be (and is) the best of Human kind.
For Woman has a vertue that's sublime,
Above the Battery of Fate or Time.
And in this Sex there certain Rays are found,
Which not one Grace can make, but all compound.
In wit, modesty, and vertuous deeds,
This most Divine Celestial Sex exceeds.
A beauty also, not to Art in Debt,
Rather agreeable, Divine, than great.
An Eye likewise, wherein at once do meet
The beams of truest kindness, and of wit.
The fairest Tulips, and the Rose o'th Bush,
Do draw their Tincture from her Lip and Blush.
An undissembled modest Innocence,
Apt not to give, nor yet to take offence.
A Face that's modest, charming, and serene,
A sober; vertuous, and yet lively meen.
As many Diamonds together lye,
And dart one lustre to amaze the Eye;
So Woman is that bright Etherial Ray,
Which many Stars doth in one Light display:
For in her Face she captives modesty,
Which is completed in Divinity.
Her very glances set all Hearts on Fire,
And check them if they should too much aspire.
If she but smile, no Painter e're would take
Another object, when he'd Mercy make.
And Heav'n such splendor hath to her allow'd,
That no damn'd
Mantuan can her Beauty cloud.
That if she frown, none would but phancy then
Justice descended there to punish Men.
Nay, her common looks, I'm asham'd to call
One single Grace, they are compos'd of all:
And if we Mortals could the Doctrine reach,
Her very Eyes and looks do Language teach.
Her Soul's the Image of the Deity,
That still preserves its Native purity:
Which Men can neither threat'n nor allure,
Nor by their dev'lish Characters obscure.
The Innocence that in her Heart doth dwell,
Angels themselves can only parallel.
Such constancy of modest witty Law
Guides all her Actions, that all Men may draw
From her own Soul the noblest precedent,
Of the most safe, wise, vertuous Government.
Oh! I must think the rest, for who can write,
Or into words confine what's infinite?
For striving to describe quite to the end
Of her, that all the World doth comprehend,
Is a most wild Ambition; so for me
To draw her Picture, is flat Lunacy.
But yet by what's here writ, the World may see
I am the first drew Truth to Poetry.
FINIS.
LONDON, Printed in the Year 1679.