[Page 66]

On the Reasonableness of Her coming to the Oxford Act.

1 Beauty, the bounty of indulgent Heav'n,
2 To favour'd Maids of mortal race was giv'n;
3 Not to retire with to some lonely scene,
4 But to shine forth, and to be seen of Men.
5 The sun thus radiant with diffusive light,
6 In his own native day appears most bright,
7 And leaves the moon the empire of the night.
8 By his example, Charlot, shine away;
9 Be thou the goddess, as he's god of day:
10 So shall Oxonians own thy sacred pow'r,
11 And worship Thee, as Persians Him adore.
12 Whilst Danae liv'd immur'd within her tow'r,
13 None but old Jove confess'd her gentle pow'r:
14 But had the hapless maid dwelt always there,
15 Who could have said she was, or was not fair?
[Page 67]
16 Her charms had been unheard of in the throng;
17 Nor Horace left us his immortal song.
18 The sea-born goddess, rising from the main,
19 Unheeded might have dabbled there again;
20 Had not Apelles snatch'd the faultless dame,
21 And made her charms immortal as his fame.
22 'Tis therefore common prudence to appear,
23 That some Apelles may record you fair;
24 Left future dawbers should the task essay,
25 And, like dull R — smear your charms away.
26 Come then, and leave those unfrequented shades,
27 To dirty shepherds, and to homely maids:
28 To our Athenian Theatres repair,
29 And let the learn'd and gay admire thee there.
30 Inspire, and then reward some gen'rous youth,
31 Nurs'd in the arms of science, and of truth:
32 For trust me, Charlot, who no flatt'ry mean —
33 To be admir'd, you only need be seen.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 77K / ZIP - 8.6K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.5K / ZIP - 1.0K)

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [Harding C 1723].)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 2.4M)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): On the Reasonableness of Her coming to the Oxford Act.
Author: Mary Jones
Themes:
Genres: heroic couplet; occasional poem

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Jones, Mary, d. 1778. Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. By Mary Jones. Oxford: Printed; and delivered by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Clements in Oxford, and Mr. Frederick in Bath, MDCCL., 1750, pp. 66-67. vi,[1],xlv,[1],405p. (ESTC T115196) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [Harding C 1723].)

Editorial principles

Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. 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 Mary Jones