Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can
Its last best work, but forms a softer man;
Picks from each sex, to make the favourite blest,
Your love of pleasure, our desire of rest:
Blends, in exception to all general rules,
Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools:
Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied,
Courage with softness, modesty with pride;
Fixed principles, with fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces—you! 280
Be this a woman’s fame; with this unblest,
Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care,
Averted half your parents’ simple prayer;
And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf
That buys your sex a tyrant o’er itself.
The generous god, who wit and gold refines,
And ripens spirits as he ripens mines, 290
Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it,
To you gave sense, good humour, and a poet.
Composed 1732–4 First published 1735
EPISTLE TO BURLINGTONArgument: of the use of richesThe vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality. The
abuse of the word taste, ver. 13. That the first principle and
foundation in this, as in everything else, is good sense,
ver. 39. The chief proof of it is to follow Nature, even in
works of mere luxury and elegance. Instanced in
architecture and gardening, where all must be adapted to
the genius and use of the place, and the beauties not
forced into it, but resulting from it, ver. 47. How men are
disappointed in their most expensive undertakings for
want of this true foundation, without which nothing can 10
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