A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed.

WRITTEN FOR THE HONOUR OF THE FAIR SEX. 1731     Corinna, pride of Drury-Lane,     For whom no shepherd sighs in vain;     Never did Covent-Garden boast     So bright a batter'd strolling toast!     No drunken rake to pick her up,     No cellar where on tick to sup;     Returning at the midnight hour,     Four stories climbing to her bower;     Then, seated on a three-legg'd chair,     Takes off her artificial hair;     Now picking out a crystal eye,     She wipes it clean, and lays it by.     Her eyebrows from a mouse's hide     Stuck on with art on either side,     Pulls off with care, and first displays 'em,     Then in a play-book smoothly lays 'em.     Now dext'rously her plumpers draws,     That serve to fill her hollow jaws,     Untwists a wire, and from her gums     A set of teeth completely comes;     Pulls out the rags contrived to prop     Her flabby dugs, and down they drop.     Proceeding on, the lovely goddess     Unlaces next her steel-ribb'd bodice,     Which, by the operator's skill,     Press down the lumps, the hollows fill.     Up goes her hand, and off she slips     The bolsters that supply her hips;     With gentlest touch she next explores     Her chancres, issues, running sores;     Effects of many a sad disaster,     And then to each applies a plaster:     But must, before she goes to bed,     Rub off the daubs of white and red,     And smooth the furrows in her front     With greasy paper stuck upon't.     She takes a bolus ere she sleeps;     And then between two blankets creeps.     With pains of love tormented lies;     Or, if she chance to close her eyes,     Of Bridewell[1] and the Compter[1] dreams,     And feels the lash, and faintly screams;     Or, by a faithless bully drawn,     At some hedge-tavern lies in pawn;     Or to Jamaica[2] seems transported     Alone, and by no planter courted;     Or, near Fleet-ditch's[3] oozy brinks,     Surrounded with a hundred stinks,     Belated, seems on watch to lie,     And snap some cully passing by;     Or, struck with fear, her fancy runs     On watchmen, constables, and duns,     From whom she meets with frequent rubs;     But never from religious clubs;     Whose favour she is sure to find,     Because she pays them all in kind.         Corinna wakes. A dreadful sight!     Behold the ruins of the night!     A wicked rat her plaster stole,     Half eat, and dragg'd it to his hole.     The crystal eye, alas! was miss'd;     And puss had on her plumpers p - st,     A pigeon pick'd her issue-pease:     And Shock her tresses fill'd with fleas.         The nymph, though in this mangled plight     Must ev'ry morn her limbs unite.     But how shall I describe her arts     To re-collect the scatter'd parts?     Or show the anguish, toil, and pain,     Of gath'ring up herself again?     The bashful Muse will never bear     In such a scene to interfere.     Corinna, in the morning dizen'd,     Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison'd.