Moll Flanders

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

A large part of the appeal of Moll's story had to do with the voyeuristic pleasure readers gained from the glimpse into the underworld.  Lots of Newgate stories circulated:
http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/newgatecalendar/nc1700_1800.htmlsome of the first examples given in the
The Newgate Calendar 1700-1800
A chronological list of all entries in the Newgate Calendar from 1700 to 1800 A.D.
JOHN LARKIN
Who committed so many Forgeries and Cheats that he had not Time to confess them all before he died, on 19th of April, 1700
MICHAEL VAN BERGHEN, CATHERINE VAN BERGHEN AND DROMELIUS, THEIR SERVANT, PUBLICANS
Executed 10th of July, 1700, for the Murder of their Guest, Mr Oliver Norris
GEORGE CADDELL
Executed for the Cruel Murder of Miss Price, Whom he had Seduced and Promised Marriage
JOHN HOLLIDAY OR SIMPSON
Housebreaker and Highwayman, who robbed a King at Hertford, and a Church, and was hanged at Tyburn in 1700
GEORGE GRIFFITHS
Who courted his Master's Daughter and then robbed him. Hanged at Tyburn on 1st of August, 1700 .
THE REV. THOMAS HUNTER, M.A.
Executed on 22nd of August, 1700, near Edinburgh, for the diabolical Murder out of Revenge of the Two Children of Mr Gordon
JOHN COWLAND, GENTLEMAN
Who suffered Death on 20th of December, 1700, for stabbing Sir Andrew Slanning, Baronet, near Drury Lane Theatre
CAPTAIN JOHN KIDD
Known as the "Wizard of the Seas," who suffered for Piracy, at Execution Dock, 23rd of May, 1701
HERMAN STRODTMAN
Executed at Tyburn, 18th of June, 1701, for the Murder of Peter Wolter, his Fellow-Apprentice
MARY ADAMS
Executed for privately stealing, 16th June, 1702
MARY CHANNEL
Famous for her Wit and Beauty, compelled to marry a Man she detested, poisoned him, and was executed in 1703, at the age of 18
TIM BUCKLEY
Highwayman, who fell after a hot Battle, and was hanged in 1701
TOM JONES
Highwayman, executed at Launceston, 25th of April, 1702, for robbing a Farmer's Wife
DICK BAUF
Who executed his own Parents, and from a Pickpocket became a Cat Burglar, and then a Highwayman. Executed at Dublin, 15th of May, 1702
ALEXANDER BALFOUR
A Man of noble Family, who was convicted for the Murder of Mr Syme, escaped from Prison, and lived Fifty Years after the Day fixed for his Execution by the "Maiden" or Guillotine
JACK WITHERS
A sacrilegious Villain who murdered a Footman and was executed on the 16th of April, 1703
JOHN PETER DRAMATTI
Executed at Tyburn, on 21st of July, 1703, for the Murder of his Wife, who said she was allied to the French Royal Family
THOMAS COOK
Murdered a Constable during a Riot in Mayfair, and was executed on 11th of August, 1703
MOLL RABY
Who robbed many Houses, and was hanged at Tyburn on 3rd of November, 1703
MOLL HAWKINS
A "Question Lay" Thief, whose End was at Tyburn, on 22nd of December, 1703
HARVEY HUTCHINS
Apprenticed as a Thief and became an expert Housebreaker. Executed at Tyburn in 1704

On Newgate and the notorious Jack Sheppard:

http://rictornorton.co.uk/grubstreet/sheppard.htm

A modern take on Moll's sins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlvrrHwa8uM&feature=related

What is the moral?

As a Presbyterian dissenter, Defoe the writer could be expected to have a didactic purpose, and his Preface to Moll asks the reader to be aware of the moral function of the tale that follows: "But as this Work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to read it, and how to make the good uses of it, which the story all long recommends to them; so it is to be hoped that such Readers will be much more pleased with the Moral than the Fable; with the Application than with the Relation, and with the End of the Writer, than with life of the Person written of."

Yet, what IS the moral?  As Moll asks, looking into the camera, in the clip included above, what would YOU do put in her position?  What is the dominant force in this society and what defenses has Moll against the forces that constantly assail her?  She is born into a prison; she aspires to become a gentlewoman and has wit, talent, and beauty, but none of her natural assets are sufficient ultimately to keep her long in the station she aspires to.

As we think about the marriage questions (Moll's forced role as a wife), we can ask, as Defoe does, about the morality of her even marrying (p. 182): "Then it occurr'd to me what an abominable Creature am I! ..."

Marriage
--How many times is Moll married?
--What is the most number of times she is married simultaneously?
--Why does Moll keep marrying even though she is so independent?  What does marriage offer a woman?  What alternatives are available to a woman in Moll’s station?
--Did you notice the gender of the few children she mentions affection for?  Why do you think this is the case?

è Marriage was a vague relationship at the time Defoe wrote Moll Flanders.  Not until 30 years later would the Marriage Act attempt to regulate marriage:
http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/overview/lawofmarriage-/

The journey (p.319)
The captain allows Moll and her husband to go on land at Gravesend.  This is in Kent, the last/first contact with England.  The governess, who supplies Moll with her own good for the journey is here.

There is now a statue of Pocahontas.  Gravesend is emblematically a point of transition between the old and new worlds.  The Thames has long been an important feature in Gravesend life and may well have been the deciding factor for the first settlement here. One of the town's first distinctions was in being given the sole right to transport passengers to and from London by water in the late 14th century.

The fact that Moll has freedom here suggests her new beginning.  The boat is washed back to Ireland, where Moll was to go as a bride with her Lancashire husband in the relationship of deception, and it is from there that they set sail to England with him sick.  In Virginia, as her husband later says, she is to prove the wife of fortune after all, and this backwards and forwards journeying with Moll gaining the upper hand foreshadows the outcome.

Moll’s punishment:

Gabriel Cervantes, “Convict Transportation and Penitence in Moll Flanders,” ELH 78.2 (2011): 315-36.
The legal contexts for Moll Flanders are as varied as the scholars who have worked to reconstruct them.11 That little attention has been given to the legal processes involved in convict transportation reflects a

common historiographic misunderstanding…Before extended imprisonment was even conceivable as a means of punishing criminals, exile to the colonies comprised the only significant alternative to the usual array of corporal penalties: hanging, whipping, and branding. Opening a wide space between execution and lesser physical injuries, punishments of exile like those in Moll Flanders sent thieves, murderers,

forgers, and other criminals to British America for seven years or more. (317) …Since ships delivering transports were often tobacco traders landing to pick up cargo, the movement of persons was linked to the volume of production and importation.17 Military and political conflicts and the perceived security of trade routes also affected the rate of convict forced migration.18 In a scheme ultimately bound to profit motives, female convicts were not as highly valued as their male counterparts for plantation work. (318) … Moll’s engagement with the law is figured as a supplication to religious power that ostensibly protects and defines her interests. …By her conversion and her desire for Moll to follow suit, the Governess

initiates a series of events that dramatically alter the end of the narrative. Like the Newgate Ordinary, the minister sent to visit Moll in jail encourages her to repent and under his guidance Moll confesses to “for the first time” feeling “real signs of Repentance” (287).56 This Minister helps Moll move from her earlier false repentances to “a Condition, that [she] never knew any thing of in [her] Life before” and in which she  experiences “a secret surprizing Joy at the Prospect of being a true Penitent, and obtaining the Comfort of a Penitent” (289). The series of conversions thus leaps from the Governess to Moll, and in Defoe’s representation of the criminal justice system these spiritual matters have material bearing on Moll’s case. As Moll describes this process, the Minister’s experience of her “freedom of Discourse”— whereby she “disburthen[ed] [her] Mind”—“qualifie[d] him to apply proper Advice and Assistance,” and “to pray to God” (288). By these terms, we soon after find, the Minister means to assist Moll not only in a spiritual capacity but also in an explicitly legal one. Having heard her story, he “obtain[s] a favourable Report from the Recorder to the Secretary of State” and gets her a temporary reprieve from execution (290).57 More than likely, as a legal historical fact this process entailed the following events: the Minister directly or by proxy discusses Moll’s

case with a Judge who in turn drafted and submitted a memorial to the King through the Secretary of State’s office.58 Containing a description of the circumstances of the case, such communications usually recommended

that the condemned person receive Royal Mercy in the form of a conditional pardon or a reprieve.

In Moll’s case, a reprieve is granted; and since it was the Minister who obtained the report and delivered it to the Secretary of State we can assume that the judge recommending her to the King for mercy had been swayed by the account of her repentance. This interplay of religious and legal forces produces two instances of linguistic doubling at this juncture in the narrative (325-26).  Published at a moment when laws streamlining the sentencing process and bolstering the economic foundation of criminal exile had just been introduced,

Defoe’s text consolidates a legal historical vignette about how old laws paved the way for new ones. To borrow a phrase from Jemy, Moll Flanders explores “all the Forms of a Transported Prisoner Convict”;

that is, the surplus of meaning attached to sentences of exile in the colonies (311). In so doing, the narrative urges us to redraw the historical frames we have used to render the culture of punishment legible. Rather than looking ahead to an idealized version of imprisonment, it asks us to imagine a moment in which spiritual concerns and those of the criminal justice system were intertwined in the service of an expanding Empire—a moment when the status of the transport stood as concoction of penitence and jurisprudence peculiar to, as Blackstone would later call it, the “noble alchemy” of British law (336).71

Moll’s new beginning:

In John Lawson’s The history of Carolina; containing the exact description and natural history of that country: Together with the Present State thereof, the author presents in his dedication, “a description of your own Country [ie North Carolina], for the most part, in her Natural Dress, and therefore less vitiated with fraud and Luxury.  A Country, whose Inhabitants may enjoy a Life of the greatest Ease and satisfaction, and pass away their Hours in solid Contentment.  Those Charms of Liberty and right the Darlings of an English Nature, which Your Lordships grant and maintain, make you appear Noble Patrons in the Eyes of all men, and we a happy People in a Foreign Country; which nothing less than Ingratitude and Baseness can make us disown.  As Heaven has been liberal in its Gifts, so are Your Lordships favourable Promoters of whaever may make us an easy People … and that we and they may always acknowledge such Favours, by banishing among us every Principle which renders Men factious and unjust.”

We can see here the basis of Moll’s new beginning: the sense that in the old world, which is vitiated with “fraud and Luxury” there is an exhaustion of commodities and principles, which can be found and readily nurtured in the New World.  The ship’s captain who recognizes the ultimate goodness of Moll and her Lancashire husband, and her son, the product of her incestuous union with her brother, are the instruments by which Moll benefits from heaven’s liberal gifts and makes her new start in this land of plenty. 

Here is the link to Virginia Woolf on Defoe, which Zack recommends:

http://moderato.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/british-essayists-virginia-woolf-defoe-written-in-1919/
One of the most interesting passages highlights the parallel between Defoe's own experience and that of his heroes, as well as his imaginative capacity to deal with his own fortunes:
"Facts had been drilled into him by sixty years of varying fortunes before he turned his experience to account in fiction. 'I have some time ago summed up the Scenes of my life in this distich,' he wrote:
 

No man has tasted differing fortunes more,
And thirteen times I have been rich and poor.

He had spent eighteen months in Newgate and talked with thieves, pirates, highwaymen, and coiners before he wrote the history of Moll Flanders. But to have facts thrust upon you by dint of living and accident is one thing; to swallow them voraciously and retain the imprint of them indelibly, is another. It is not merely that Defoe knew the stress of poverty and had talked with the victims of it, but that the unsheltered life, exposed to circumstances and forced to shift for itself, appealed to him imaginatively as the right matter for his art. In the first pages of each of his great novels he reduces his hero or heroine to such a state of unfriended misery that their existence must be a continued struggle, and their survival at all the result of luck and their own exertions."

Questions from Ellie:

1) If, as I suggest in my paper, Defoe's work develops a notion of the author as liar, does Moll Flanders also provide evidence that supports the opposite of this notion--that fiction is also a method of telling the truth? In other words, in what ways can we identify the author's activity as at once a role of dissimulation and of truth-telling? 

2) Moll Flanders invites us to raise some important ethical issues. What are some of these issues? Do you think Defoe takes these issues seriously? 

3) What do you make of the claim that identity--rather than something foundational, something to be found within an individual--is constituted by the surface appearances that an individual presents to the world? 

Lady Marys Class

 

Here is a good intro to LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU and her poems (from which I pilfered this pic): http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lady-mary-wortley-montagu

From Zack for Monday's class:
Here are my three questions for Monday's class, along with some of the LMWM poems I intended for my classmates to read:

The Reasons that Induced Dr. S. to write a Poem called "The Lady's Dressing Room"

http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/422/e_texts/montagu_reasons.html

And here is her response (rejection of love-making) to epitaphs Pope sent her regarding the couple killed at Stanton Harcourt which he intended flirtatiously:

Epitath:

Here lies John Hewett and Sarah Drew;
Perhaps you’ll say, what’s that to you?
Believe me friend, much may be said,
On this poor couple that are dead.
On Sunday next they should have married;
But see how oddly things are carried!
On Thursday last it rained and lighten’d,
These tender lovers, sadly frighten’d,
Shelter’d beneath the cocking hay,
In hopes to pass the time away;
But the bold thunder found them out
(Commission’d for that end no doubt);
And seizing on their trembling breath
Consign’d them to the shades of death.
Who knows if ‘twas not kindly done?
For had they seen the next year’s sun,
A beaten wife and cuckold swain
Had jointly curs’d the marriage chain;
Now they are happy in their doom,
For Pope has writ upon their tomb.

And now the questions!

1. Both of the Lady Marys engage in nascent versions of feminism (and, in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's case, post-colonialism as well).  How do these female authors both foreshadow the theoretical approaches that we are so familiar with now and simultaneously reject them?

2. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "Eclogues" are yet another example of 18th Century satire.  How do these poems, widely believed to have been co-written by both Pope and Gay in certain places, differ from and complement the satires we have been studying for the past few weeks?

3. We find ourselves again in exile.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her husband, though on official duty, were nonetheless separated from their home country for an extended period of time.  Additionally, LMWM's eccentricities (as well as her smallpox-altered appearance) often kept on the outside of "proper" English society.  Little is known about Lady Mary Chudleigh's life, but many biographers believe that her marriage was a profoundly unhappy one.  Whether that is true or not, it is clear (for obvious reasons) that both of the Lady Marys were excluded from the domain of writing in which Pope, Swift, Dryden, and our other male authors were allowed to pass so freely.  How do these varied exilic positions affect the Lady Marys' works?


Here is the link to Jack Lynch's online edition of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters (if you look in ECCO you will see the many different 18C editions there). 
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/montagu-letters.html
I think how we will manage this is you can each skim the letters and choose one or two that really appeal to you and be prepared in class to say why.  As the class draws nearer, Zack, who is giving the presentation, or I may have suggestions about which ones to look more closely at.

And here is  commentary from the Norton Anthology.  We might look at these letters:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/18century/topic_4/montagu.htm

Smallpox vaccination:
 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_variolation.html

Variolation

In Asia, practitioners developed the technique of variolation—the deliberate infection with smallpox. Dried smallpox scabs were blown into the nose of an individual who then contracted a mild form of the disease. Upon recovery, the individual was immune to smallpox. Between 1% to 2% of those variolated died as compared to 30% who died when they contracted the disease naturally.
By 1700, variolation had spread to Africa, India and the Ottoman Empire.

In contrast to Asians and Africans who inoculated by blowing dried smallpox scabs up the nose, Europeans and their American cousins tended to innoculate through a puncture in the skin.
In 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador, learned about variolation in Constantinople. In 1721, at the urging of Montagu and the Princess of Wales, several prisoners and abandoned children were inoculated by having smallpox inserted under the skin. Several months later, the children and prisoners were deliberately exposed to smallpox. When none contracted the disease, the procedure was deemed safe and members of the royal family were inoculated. The procedure then became fashionable in Europe.
African slaves introduced variolation into America. In Massachusetts, Cotton Mather learned about the practice from his slave, Onesimus. Mather publicized the technique and the procedure was first tried during a smallpox epidemic in Boston in 1721.
Variolation was never risk-free. Not only could the patient die from the procedure but the mild form of the disease which the patient contracted could spread, causing an epidemic. Victims of variolation could be found at all levels of society; King George III lost a son to the procedure as did many others.

“Every year, thousands undergo this operation, and the French ambassador says pleasantly that they take the smallpox here by way of diversion as they do the waters in other countries.”
— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1774.

Colonial Manuscript.

THE LADY'S RESOLVE.

Written on a window, soon after her marriage, 1713.

Whilst thirst of praise and vain desire of fame,

In every age is every woman's aim;

With courtship pleas'd, of silly toasters proud,

Fond of a train, and happy in a crowd;

On each proud fop bestowing some kind glance,

Each conquest owing to some loose advance;

While vain coquets affect to be pursued,

And think they're virtuous, if not grossly lewd:

Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide;

In part she is to blame that has been try'd--

He comes too near, that comes to be deny'd.

TOWN ECLOGUES

Written in the Year 1715.

MONDAY.

ROXANA; OR, THE DRAWING-ROOM.

ROxana, from the court retiring late,

Sigh'd her soft sorrows at St. James's gate.

Such heavy thoughts lay brooding in her breast,

Not her own chairmen with more weight oppress'd;

They groan the cruel load they're doom'd to bear;
She in these gentle sounds express'd her care.

"Was it for this that I these roses wear?

For this new-set the jewels for my hair?

Ah! Princess! with what zeal have I pursued!

Almost forgot the duty of a prude.

Thinking I never could attend too soon,

I've miss'd my prayers, to get me dress'd by noon.

For thee, ah! what for thee did I resign?

My pleasures, passions, all that e'er was mine.

I sacrific'd both modesty and ease,

Left operas and went to filthy plays;

Double-entendres shock my tender ear;

Yet even this for thee I choose to bear.

In glowing youth, when nature bids be gay,

And every joy of life before me lay,

By honor prompted, and by pride restrain'd,

The pleasures of the young my soul disdain'd:

Sermons I sought, and with a mien severe

Censur'd my neighbours, and said daily pray'r.

"Alas! how chang'd--with the same sermon-mien

that once I pray'd, the What d'ye call't I've seen.

Ah! cruel Princess, for thy sake I've lost

That reputation which so dear had cost:

I, who avoided every public place,

When bloom and beauty bade me show my face,

Now near thee constant every night abide

With never-failing duty by thy side;

Myself and daughters standing on a row,

To all the foreigners a goodly show!

Oft had your drawing-room been sadly thin,

And merchant's wives close by the chair been seen,

Had I not amply fill'd the empty space,

And sav'd your highness from the dire disgrace.

"Yet Coquetilla's artifice prevails,

When all my merit and my duty fails;

That Coquetilla, whose deluding airs

Corrupt our virgins, still our youth ensnares;

So sunk her character, so lost her fame

Scarce visited before your highness came:

Yet for the bed-chamber 'tis her you choose,

When zeal and fame and virtue you refuse.

Ah! worthy choice! not one of all your train

Whom censure blasts not, and dishonours stain!
Let the nice hind now suckle dirty pigs,

And the proud pea-hen hatch the cuckoo's eggs!

Let Iris leave her paint and own her age,

And grave Suffolka wed a giddy page!

A greater miracle is daily view'd,

A virtuous Princess, with a court so lewd.

"I know thee, court! with all thy treach'rous wiles,

Thy false caresses and undoing smiles!

Ah! Princess, learn'd in all the courtly arts,

To cheat our hopes, and yet to gain our hearts!

"Large lovely bribes are the great statesman's aim;

And the neglected patriot follows fame.

The Prince is ogled; some the King pursue;

But your Roxana only follows you.

Despis'd Roxana, cease, and try to find

Some other, since the Princess proves unkind:

Perhaps it is not hard to find at court,

If not a greater, a more firm support."

THURSDAY.--THE BASSETTE-TABLE.

SMILINDA AND CARDELIA.

CARDELIA.

The Bassette-Table spread, the Tallier  come;

Why stays Smilinda in her dressing-room?

Rise, pensive nymph! the Tallier waits for you.

SMILINDA.

Ah! madam, since my Sharper  is untrue,

I joyless make my once ador'd alpiu.

I joyless saw him stand behind Ombrelia's chair,

And whisper with that soft deluding air,

And those feign'd sighs, which cheat the list'ning fair.

CARDELIA.

Is this the cause of your romantic strains?

A mightier grief my heavier heart sustains.

As you by Love, so I by Fortune cross'd,

In one bad deal three septlevas{43} have lost.

SMILINDA.

Is that the grief which you compare with mine!

With ease the smiles of Fortune I resign:

Would all my gold in one bad deal were gone;

Were lovely Sharper mine, and mine alone!

CARDELIA.

A lover lost is but a common care:

And prudent nymphs against that charge prepare.

The knave of clubs thrice lost: oh! who could guess

This fatal stroke! this unforeseen distress?
SMILINDA.

See Betty Loveit, very a propos,

She all the care of love and play does know;

Dear Betty shall th'important point decide;

Betty, who oft the pain of each has try'd;

Impartial she shall say who suffers most,

By cards' ill usage, or by lovers lost.

LOVEIT.

Tell, tell your griefs; attentive will I stay,

Though time is precious, and I want some tea.

CARDELIA.

Behold this equipage by Mathers wrought,

With fifty guineas (a great penn'orth!) bought.

See on the toothpick, Mars and Cupid strive;

And both the struggling figures seem alive.

Upon the bottom shines the queen's bright face;

A myrtle foliage round the thimble case.

Jove, jove himself, does on the scissors shine;

The metal, and the workmanship divine!

SMILINDA.

This snuff-box, once the pledge of Sharper's love,

When rival beauties for the present strove;

At Corticelli's  he the raffle won;

Then first his passion was in public shown:

Hazardia blush'd, and turn'd her head aside,

A rival's envy (all in vain) to hide.

This snuff-box--on the hinge see brilliants shine:

This snuff-box will I stake, the prize is mine.

CARDELIA.

Alas! far lesser losses than I bear,

Have made a soldier sigh, a lover swear,

And oh! what makes the disappointment hard,

'Twas my own lord that drew the fatal card
In complaisance I took the queen he gave,

Though my own secret wish was for the knave.

The knave won Sonica which I had chose;

And the next pull my septleva I lose.

SMILINDA.

But ah! what aggravates the killing smart,

The cruel thought that stabs me to the heart;

This curs'd Ombrelia, this undoing fair,

By whose vile arts this heavy grief I bear;

She, at whose name I shed these spiteful tears,

She owes to me the very charms she wears:

An awkward thing when first she came to town;

Her shape unfashion'd, and her face unknown:

She was my friend, I taught her first to spread

Upon her sallow cheeks enlivening red.

I introduc'd her to the park and plays;

And by my int'rest Cosins made her stays.

Ungrateful wretch! with mimic airs grown pert,

She dares to steal my favourite lover's heart.

CARDELIA.

Wretch that I was! how often have I swore,

When Winnall tallied, I would punt no more?

I know the bite, yet to my ruin run;

And see the folly which I cannot shun.

SMILINDA.

How many minds have Sharper's vows deceiv'd!

How many curs'd the moment they believ'd!

Yet his known falsehoods could no warning prove;

Ah! what is warning to a maid in love?

CARDELIA.

But of what marble must that breast be form'd,

To gaze on Bassette, and remain unwarm'd?

When kings, queens, knaves, are set in decent rank,

Expos'd in glorious heaps the tempting bank,
Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train;

The winner's pleasure, and the loser's pain:

In bright confusion open rouleaus{48} lie,

They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye.

Fir'd by the sight, all reason I disdain:

My passions rise, and will not bear the rein.

Look upon Bassette, you who reason boast;

And see if reason must not there be lost.

SMILINDA.

What more than marble must that heart compose,

Can hearken coldly to my Sharper's vows?

Then when he trembles, when his blushes rise,

When awful love seems melting in his eyes,

With eager beats his Mechlin{49} cravat moves:

He loves, I whisper to myself, he loves!

Such unfeign'd passion in his looks appears,

I lose all mem'ry of my former fears:

My panting heart confesses all his charms,

I yield at once, and sink into his arms:

Think of that moment, you who prudence boast,

For such a moment, prudence well were lost.

CARDELIA.

At the Groom-Porter's, batter'd bullies play,

Some dukes{50} at Marybone bowl time away.

But who the bowl, or rattling dice, compares

To Bassette's heavenly joys and pleasing cares?

SMILINDA.

Soft Simplicetta doats upon a beau;

Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show.

Their several graces in my Sharper meet;

Strong as the footman, as the master sweet.

LOVEIT.

Cease your contention, which has been too long

I grow impatient, and the tea too strong.
Attend, and yield to what I now decide;

The equipage shall grace Smilinda's side:

The snuff-box to Cardelia I decree:

Now leave complaining, and begin your tea.

FRIDAY.--THE TOILETTE.

LYDIA.

Now twenty springs had cloth'd the Park with green,

Since Lydia knew the blossom of fifteen;

No lovers now her morning hours molest,

And catch her at her toilet half undrest.

The thund'ring knocker wakes the street no more,

Nor chairs, nor coaches, crowd the silent door;

Now at the window all her mornings pass,

Or at the dumb devotion of her glass:

Reclin'd upon her arm she pensive sate,

And curs'd th' inconstancy of man too late.

"O youth! O spring of life, for ever lost!

No more my name shall reign the fav'rite toast:

On glass no more the diamond grave my name,

And lines mis-spelt record my lover's flame:

Nor shall side-boxes watch my wand'ring eyes,

And, as they catch the glance, in rows arise

With humble bows; nor white-glov'd beaux encroach

In crowds behind, to guard me to my coach.

"What shall I do to spend the hateful day?

At chapel shall I wear the morn away?

Who there appears at these unmodish hours,

But ancient matrons with their frizzled tow'rs,

And gray religious maids? My presence there,

Amidst that sober train, would own despair?

Nor am I yet so old, nor is my glance

As yet fix'd wholly on devotion's trance.

Strait then I'll dress, and take my wonted range

Through India's shops, to Motteux's, or the Change,

Where the tall jar erects its stately pride,

With antic shapes in China's azure dy'd;

There careless lies a rich brocade unroll'd,

Here shines a cabinet with burnish'd gold.

But then alas! I must be forc'd to pay,
And bring no penn'orth, not a fan away!

"How am I curs'd, unhappy and forlorn!

My lover's triumph, and my sex's scorn!

False is the pompous grief of youthful heirs;

False are the loose coquet's inveigling airs;

False is the crafty courtier's plighted word;

False are the dice when gamesters stamp the board;

False is the sprightly widow's public tear;

Yet these to Damon's oaths are all sincere.

"For what young flirt, base man, am I abus'd?

To please your wife am I unkindly us'd?

'Tis true her face may boast the peach's bloom;

But does her nearer whisper breathe perfume?

I own her taper shape is form'd to please;

But don't you see her unconfin'd by stays?

She doubly to fifteen may claim pretence;

Alike we read it in her face and sense.

Insipid, servile thing! whom I disdain;

Her phlegm can best support the marriage chain.

Damon is practis'd in the modish life,

Can hate, and yet be civil to his wife:

He games, he drinks, he swears, he fights, he roves;

Yet Cloe can believe he fondly loves.

Mistress and wife by turns supply his need;

A miss for pleasure, and a wife for breed.

Powder'd with diamonds, free from spleen or care,

She can a sullen husband's humour bear;

Her credulous friendship and her stupid ease,

Have often been my jest in happier days;

How Chloe boasts and triumphs in my pains!

To her he's faithful; 'tis to me he feigns.

Am I that stupid thing{57} to bear neglect,

And force a smile, not daring to suspect?

No, perjur'd man! a wife may be content;

But you shall find a mistress can resent."

Thus love-sick Lydia rav'd; her maid appears,

And in her faithful hand the band-box bears

(The cestus, that reform'd inconstant Jove,

Not better fill'd with what allur'd to love);

"How well this ribbon's gloss becomes your face!"

She cries in rapture; "then so sweet a lace!

How charmingly you look! so bright! so fair!

"Tis to your eyes the head-dress owes its air!"
Straight Lydia smiled; the comb adjusts her locks;

And at the play-house Harry keeps her box.

SATURDAY.--THE SMALL-POX.

FLAVIA

The wretched Flavia, on her couch reclined,

Thus breath'd the anguish of a wounded mind,

A glass revers'd in her right hand she bore,

For now she shunn'd the face she sought before.

"How am I chang'd! alas! how am I grown

A frightful spectre to myself unknown!

Where's my complexion? where my radiant bloom,

That promis'd happiness for years to come?

Then with what pleasure I this face survey'd!

To look once more, my visits oft delay'd!

Charm'd with the view, a fresher red would rise,

And a new life shot sparkling from my eyes!

"Ah! faithless glass, my wonted bloom restore;

Alas! I rave, that bloom is now no more!

The greatest good the gods on men bestow,

Ev'n youth itself, to me is useless now.

There was a time (oh! that I could forget!)

When opera-tickets pour'd before my feet;

And at the Ring, where brightest beauties shine,

The earliest cherries of the spring were mine.

Witness, O Lilly; and thou, Motteux, tell,

How much japan these eyes have made ye sell.

With what contempt ye saw me oft despise

The humble offer of the raffled prize;

For at each raffle still each prize I bore,

With scorn rejected, or with triumph wore!

Now beauty's fled, and presents are no more!

"For me the patriot has the House forsook,

And left debates to catch a passing look:

For me the soldier has soft verses writ:

For me the beau has aim'd to be a wit.

For me the wit to nonsense was betray'd;

The gamester has for me his dun delay'd,

And overseen the card he would have play'd.

The bold and haughty, by success made vain,
Aw'd by my eyes have trembled to complain:

The bashful 'squire, touch'd by a wish unknown,

Has dar'd to speak with spirit not his own:

Fir'd by one wish, all did alike adore;

Now beauty's fled, and lovers are no more!

"As round the room I turn my weeping eyes,

New unaffected scenes of sorrow rise.

Far from my sight that killing picture bear,

The face disfigure, and the canvas tear:

That picture which with pride I us'd to show,

The lost resemblance that upbraids me now.

And thou, my toilette! where I oft have sat,

While hours unheeded pass'd in deep debate

How curls should fall, or where a patch to place;

If blue on scarlet best became my face:

Now on some happier nymph your aid bestow;

On fairer heads, ye useless jewels, glow!

No borrow'd lustre can my charms restore;

Beauty is fled, and dress is now no more!

"Ye meaner beauties, I permit ye shine;

Go, triumph in the hearts that once were mine:

But, 'midst your triumphs with confusion know,

'Tis to my ruin all your charms ye owe.

Would pitying Heav'n restore my wonted mien,

Ye still might move unthought of and unseen:

But oh, how vain, how wretched is the boast

Of beauty faded, and of empire lost!

What now is left but, weeping, to deplore

My beauty fled, and empire now no more!

"Ye cruel chemists, what withheld your aid?

Could no pomatum save a trembling maid?

How false and trifling is that art ye boast!

No art can give me back my beauty lost.

In tears, surrounded by my friends, I lay

Mask'd o'er, and trembled at the sight of day;

Mirmillio came my fortune to deplore

(A golden-headed cane well carv'd he bore),

Cordials, he cried, my spirits must restore!

Beauty is fled, and spirit is no more!

"Galen, the grave officious Squirt was there.

With fruitless grief and unavailing care;

Machaon too, the great Machaon, known

By his red cloak and his superior frown;
And why, he cried, this grief and this despair?

You shall again be well, again be fair;

Believe my oath (with that an oath he swore);

False was his oath; my beauty was no more!

"Cease, hapless maid, no more thy tale pursue,

Forsake mankind, and bid the world adieu!

Monarchs and beauties rule with equal sway:

All strive to serve, and glory to obey:

Alike unpitied when depos'd they grow,

Men mock the idol of their former vow.

"Adieu! ye parks--in some obscure recess,

Where gentle streams will weep at my distress,

Where no false friend will in my grief take part,

And mourn my ruin with a joyful heart;

There let me live in some deserted place,

There hide in shades this lost inglorious face.

Plays, operas, circles, I no more must view!

My toilette, patches, all the world adieu!"

VERSES,

Written in the Chiosk of the British Palace, at

Pera, overlooking the city of Constantinople, Dec. 26, 1718 [1717].

Give me, great God! said I, a little farm,

In summer shady, and in winter warm;

Where a clear spring gives birth to murm'ring brooks,

By nature gliding down the mossy rocks.

Not artfully by leaden pipes convey'd,

Or greatly falling in a forc'd cascade,

Pure and unsullied winding through the shade.

All bounteous Heaven has added to my prayer,

A softer climate and a purer air.

Our frozen Isle now chilling winter binds,

Deform'd by rains, and rough with blasting winds;

The wither'd woods grow white with hoary frost,

By driving storms their verdant beauty lost;

The trembling birds their leafless covert shun,

And seek in distant climes a warmer sun:

The water-nymphs their silent urns deplore,

Ev'n Thames, benumb'd, 's a river now no more:

The barren meads no longer yield delight,
By glist'ning snows made painful to the sight

. Here summer reigns with one eternal smile,

Succeeding harvests bless the happy soil;

Fair fertile fields, to whom indulgent Heaven

Has ev'ry charm of ev'ry season given.

No killing cold deforms the beauteous year,

The springing flowers no coming winter fear.

But as the parent rose decays and dies,

The infant buds with brighter colours rise,

And with fresh sweets the mother's scent suppli

es. Near them the violet grows with odours blest,

And blooms in more than Tyrian purple drest;

The rich jonquils their golden beams display,

And shine in glory's emulating day;

The peaceful groves their verdant leaves retain,

The streams still murmur undefil'd with rain,

And tow'ring greens adorn the fruitful plain.

The warbling kind uninterrupted sing,

Warm'd with enjoyments of perpetual spring.

Here, at my window, I at once survey

The crowded city and resounding sea;

In distant views the Asian mountains rise,

And lose their snowy summits in the skies;

Above these mountains proud Olympus tow'rs,

The parliamental seat of heavenly pow'rs!

New to the sight my ravish'd eyes admire

Each gilded crescent and each antique spire,

The marble mosques, beneath whose ample domes

Fierce warlike sultans sleep in peaceful tombs;

Those lofty structures, once the Christian's boast,

Their names, their beauty, and their honours lost;

Those altars bright with gold and sculpture grac'd,

By barb'rous zeal of savage foes defac'd;

Soph'a alone, her ancient name retains,

Though th' unbeliever now her shrine profanes;

Where holy saints have died in sacred cells,

Where monarchs pray'd, the frantic dervise dwells.

How art thou fall'n, imperial city, low!

Where are thy hopes of Roman glory now?

Where are thy palaces by prelates rais'd?

Where Grecian artists all their skill display'd,

Before the happy sciences decay'd;

So vast, that youthful kings might here reside,
So splendid, to content a patriarch's pride;

Convents where emperors profess'd of old,

The labour'd pillars that their triumphs told;

Vain monuments of them that once were great,

Sunk undistinguis'd by one common fate;

One little spot the tenure small contains,

Of Greek nobility the poor remains;

Where other Helens, with like powerful charms,

Had once engag'd the warring world in arms;

Those names which royal ancestors can boast,

In mean mechanic arts obscurely lost;

Those eyes a second Homer might inspire,

Fix'd at the loom, destroy their useless fire:

Griev'd at a view, which struck upon my mind

The short-liv'd vanity of humankind.

In gaudy objects I indulge my sight,

And turn where Eastern pomp gives gay delight;

See the vast train in various habits drest,

By the bright scimitar and sable vest

The proud vizier distinguish'd o'er the rest!

Six slaves in gay attire his bridle hold,

His bridle rich with gems, and stirrups gold;

His snowy steed adorn'd with costly pride,

Whole troops of soldiers mounted by his side,

These top the plumy crest Arabian coursers guide.

With artful duty all decline their eyes,

No bellowing shouts of noisy crowds arise;

Silence, in solemn state, the march attends,

Till at the dread divan the slow procession ends.

Yet not these prospects all profusely gay,

The gilded navy that adorns the sea,

The rising city in confusion fair,

Magnificently form'd, irregular,

Where woods and palaces at once surprise,

Gardens on gardens, domes on domes arise,

And endless beauties tire the wand'ring eyes,

So soothe my wishes, or so charm my mind,

As this retreat secure from humankind.

No knave's successful craft does spleen excite,

No coxcomb's tawdry splendour shocks my sight,

No mob-alarm awakes my female fear,

No praise my mind, nor envy hurts my ear,

Ev'n fame itself can hardly reach me here;
Impertinence, with all her tattling train,

Fair-sounding flattery's delicious bane;

Censorious folly, noisy party rage,

The thousand tongues with which she must engage

Who dare have virtue in a vicious age.

LADY MARY CHUDLEIGH (1656-1710)

Some biography: http://www.poemhunter.com/lady-mary-chudleigh/biography/

 Zach's choice for his presentation:

Chudleigh's "The Ladies Defence," which is available in its entirety online here: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/chudleigh/defence/defence.html

Other: 

Song
Why Damon, why, why, why so pressing?
The Heart you beg's not worth possessing:
Each Look, each Word, each Smile's affected,
And inward Charms are quite neglected:
Then scorn her, scorn her, foolish Swain,
And sigh no more, no more in vain.

Beauty's worthless, fading, flying;
Who would for Trifles think of dying?
Who for a Face, a Shape, wou'd languish,
And tell the Brooks, and Groves his Anguish,
Till she, till she thinks fit to prize him,
And all, and all beside despise him?

Fix, fix your Thoughts on what's inviting,
On what will never bear the slighting:
Wit and Virtue claim your Duty,
They're much more worth that Gold and Beauty:
To them, to them, your Heart resign,
And you'll no more, no more repine.

The Wish
Would but indulgent Fortune send
To me a kind, and faithful Friend,
One who to Virtue's Laws is true,
And does her nicest Rules pursue;
One Pious, Lib'ral, Just and Brave,
And to his Passions not a Slave;
Who full of Honour, void of Pride,
Will freely praise, and freely chide;
But not indulge the smallest Fault,
Nor entertain one slighting Thought:
Who still the same will ever prove,
Will still instruct ans still will love:
In whom I safely may confide,
And with him all my Cares divide:
Who has a large capacious Mind,
Join'd with a Knowledge unconfin'd:
A Reason bright, a Judgement true,
A Wit both quick, and solid too:
Who can of all things talk with Ease,
And whose Converse will ever please:
Who charm'd with Wit, and inward Graces,
Despises Fools with tempting Faces;
And still a beauteous Mind does prize
Above the most enchanting Eyes:
I would not envy Queens their State,
Nor once desire a happier Fate.

To the Ladies.
WIFE and servant are the same,
But only differ in the name :
For when that fatal knot is ty'd,
Which nothing, nothing can divide :
When she the word obey has said,
And man by law supreme has made,
Then all that's kind is laid aside,
And nothing left but state and pride :
Fierce as an eastern prince he grows,
And all his innate rigour shows :
Then but to look, to laugh, or speak,
Will the nuptial contract break.
Like mutes, she signs alone must make,
And never any freedom take :
But still be govern'd by a nod,
And fear her husband as a God :
Him still must serve, him still obey,
And nothing act, and nothing say,
But what her haughty lord thinks fit,
Who with the power, has all the wit.
Then shun, oh ! shun that wretched state,
And all the fawning flatt'rers hate :
Value yourselves, and men despise :
You must be proud, if you'll be wise.