To A Lady Who Said She Would Never Marry A Whig. Poem by Nicholas Amhurst

Must Brunswick and his Friends for ever bear,
The keen Resentments of the British Fair?
Still crown'd with Glory, must he curse his Fate,
Fear'd by the World, expos'd to Female Hate?
In vain, he boasts, how firm his Empire stands;
How the World listens to his dread Commands;
Beneath his Sword how many Thousands fell;
What boots Dominion if the Fair rebel?
To court their Favour first deserves his Care,
No Policies avail against the Fair;
To check their Fury, all Attempts are vain,
Leagues have no Power, and Armies meet disdain.

Yet say, what Virtue or superior Grace,
What hidden Charms exalts the Tory Race?
The youthful Whig, with as polite an Air,
Sings, dresses, dances, and gallants the Fair;
With the same scorching Fires and nervous Heats,
His Pulses kindle, and his Bosom beats;
He loves as fiercely as the Tory Swain,
And burns with equal Rage, tho' burns in vain.

Too rashly, fair one, you condemn our Cause;
And judge of our Deserts by partial Laws.
Think not the Whig, what falsely some pretend,
To lawless Rule and Anarchy a Friend;
Foe to the Church, of an abandon'd Life,
And a most horrid Creature to his Wife;
That with a double Edge his Tenets strike,
And wound his Monarch and his Spouse alike;
For tho' my Soul despotick Pow'r disdains,
Yet gladly it submits to female Chains;
In Love no free--born Liberties I crave,
An humble, passive, non--resisting, Slave.