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ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]

Edition used:

The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903).

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ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

Catharine Howard, one of Queen Caroline’s waiting-women; afterward Countess of Suffolk and mistress to George II. Her identification as the Chloe of Moral Essays, II., makes it easier to believe Walpole’s statement that this lady once reprieved a condemned criminal that ‘an experiment might be made on his ears for her benefit.’

    • I know the thing that ’s most uncommon;
    • (Envy, be silent, and attend!)
    • I know a reasonable Woman,
    • Handsome and witty, yet a friend:
    • Not warp’d by Passion, awed by Rumour,
    • Not grave thro’ Pride, nor gay thro’ Folly,
    • An equal mixture of Good-humour,
    • And sensible soft Melancholy.
    • ‘Has she no faults then (Envy says), sir?’
    • Yes, she has one, I must aver:
    • When all the world conspires to praise her,
    • The woman ’s deaf and does not hear.