Who, with an English beauty smitten,
Ran under ground from Greece to Britain;
The genial virtue with him brought,
And gave the nymph a plenteous draught;
Then fled, and left his horn behind,
For husbands past their youth to find:
The nymph, who still with passion burn'd,
Was to a boiling fountain turn'd,
Where childless wives crowd every morn,
To drink in Acheloüs' horn.
And here the father often gains
That title by another's pains.
Hither, though much against the grain,
The dean has carry'd lady Jane.
He, for a while, would not consent,
But vow'd his money all was spent:
His money spent! a clownish reason!
And must my lady slip her season?
The doctor, with a double fee,
Was brib'd to make the dean agree.
Here all diversions of the place
Are proper in my lady's case:
With which she patiently complies,
Merely because her friends advise;
His money and her time employs
In musick, raffling-rooms, and toys;
Or in the Cross-bath seeks an heir,
Since others oft' have found one there:
Where if the dean by chance appears,
It shames his cassock and his years.
He keeps his distance in the gallery,
Till banish'd by some coxcomb's raillery;
For 'twould his character expose
To bathe among the belles and beaux.
