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[Page 16]
SOLILOQUY Of a BEAUTY in the Country.
Written at Eton School.
1 'TWAS night; and FLAVIA to her room retir'd,
2 With ev'ning chat and sober reading tir'd;
3 There melancholy, pensive, and alone,
4 She meditates on the forsaken town:
5 On her rais'd arm reclin'd her drooping head,
6 She sigh'd, and thus in plaintive accents said:
7 "Ah, what avails it to be young and fair,
8 "To move with negligence, to dress with care?
9 "What worth have all the charms our pride can boast,
10 "If all in envious solitude are lost?
11 "Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel;
12 "Where none are Beaus, 'tis vain to be a Belle:
[Page 17]13 "Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shewn;
14 "Both most are valu'd where they best are known.
15 "With ev'ry grace of nature, or of art,
16 "We cannot break one stubborn country heart:
17 "The brutes, insensible, our pow'r defy:
18 "To love exceeds a 'Squire's capacity.
19 "The town, the court, is Beauty's proper sphere;
20 "That is our heav'n, and we are angels There:
21 "In that gay circle thousand Cupids rove,
22 "The court of Britain is the court of Love.
23 "How has my conscious heart with triumph glow'd,
24 "How have my sparkling eyes their transport shew'd,
25 "At each distinguish'd birth-night ball, to see
26 "The homage due to empire, paid to me!
27 "When ev'ry eye was fix'd on me alone,
28 "And dreaded mine more than the monarch's frown:
29 "When rival statesmen for my favour strove,
30 "Less jealous in their pow'r, than in their love.
31 "Chang'd is the scene; and all my glories die,
32 "Like flow'rs transplanted to a colder sky;
33 "Lost is the dear delight of giving pain,
34 "The tyrant joy of hearing slaves complain.
35 "In stupid indolence my life is spent,
36 "Supinely calm, and dully innocent:
37 "Unblest I wear my useless time away;
38 "Sleep (wretched maid!) all night, and dream all day;
39 "Go at set hours to dinner and to prayer;
40 "For dulness ever must be regular.
[Page 18]41 "Now with mamma at tedious whist I play;
42 "Now without scandal drink insipid tea;
43 "Or in the garden breathe the country air,
44 "Secure from meeting any Tempter there:
45 "From books to work, from work to books I rove,
46 "And am (alas!) at leisure to improve!
47 "Is this the life a Beauty ought to lead?
48 "Were eyes so radiant only made to read?
49 "These fingers, at whose touch ev'n age wou'd glow,
50 "Are these of use for nothing but to sew?
51 "Sure erring Nature never could design
52 "To form a housewife in a mould like mine!
53 "O Venus, queen and guardian of the fair,
54 "Attend propitious to thy vot'ry's pray'r:
55 "Let me revisit the dear town again:
56 "Let me be seen! — cou'd I that wish obtain,
57 "All other wishes my own pow'r would gain.
About this text
Themes:
beauty; high society; court, the
Genres:
heroic couplet; lament
References:
DMI 22309
Text view / Document view
Source edition
Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. II. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 16-18. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.002) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)
Editorial principles
The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.
Other works by George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton
- ADVICE to a LADY. ()
- BLENHEIM. Written at the University of Oxford in the Year 1727. ()
- DAMON and DELIA. In Imitation of Horace and Lydia. Written in the Year 1732. ()
- EPIGRAM. ()
- An Epistle to Mr. POPE. From Rome, 1730. ()
- An Irregular ODE written at Wickham, in 1746. To the Same. ()
- ODE, in Imitation of Pastor Fido. (O Primavera Gioventu del Anno.) Written Abroad in 1729. ()
- Part of an Elegy of Tibullus, translated. (Divitias alius fulvo sibi congerat Auro.) 1729-30. ()
- A Prayer to Venus in her Temple at Stowe. To the Same. ()
- THE PROGRESS of LOVE. IN Four ECLOGUES. ()
- SONG. Written in the Year 1732. ()
- SONG. Written in the Year 1732. ()
- SONG. Written in the Year 1733. ()
- To Miss LUCY F— ()
- To Mr. POYNTZ, Ambassador at the Congress of Soissons, in the Year 1728. Written at Paris. ()
- To Mr. West at Wickham. Written in the Year 1740. ()
- To my Lord — In the Year 1730. From Worcestershire. ()
- To the Memory of the same LADY, A MONODY. A. D. 1747. ()
- TO THE Reverend Dr. AYSCOUGH at Oxford. Written from Paris in the Year 1728. ()
- To the same with a New Watch. ()
- To the Same, with Hammond's Elegies. ()
- To the Same. ()
- To the Same. ()
- To the Same. ()
- To the Same. ()
- To the Same. On her pleading want of Time. ()
- VERSES Making Part of an EPITAPH on the same LADY. ()
- VERSES to be written under a Picture of Mr. POYNTZ. ()
- Written at Mr. Pope's House at Twickenham, which he had lent to Mrs. G—lle. In August 1735. ()