Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/164

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132
AMYNTAS.
Our souls should sometimes point us out decorum;
'Tis in nice cases too refined for rules;
As equity sometimes takes place of law.
Mechanick motion leave to vulgar souls;
Leave them to coxcombs, to coquettes and prudes;
For these disfiguremeuts of human kind
Are copied from the cities into hamlets.
The prude, by many lessons from her glass,
Her look, originally warm, and lewd,
Converts to chastity's severest winter.
The gay coquette elaborately flutters;
Her easy airs are the result of study:
The coxcomb languishes, and dies by art.
Not so the simple, generous, virtuous mind;
'Tis better taught, and takes it's cue from nature.

SYLVIA.
Oh! I repent my treatment of Amyntas!

DAPH-