You might forgive her, but you must despise.” _D._ Bravo, my girl! ’tis then our sex command, When we can seize the weapon in their hand; When we their charge so manage, that ’tis found To save the credit it was meant to wound. 190 Those who by reasons their acquittal seek, Make the whole sex contemptible and weak; This, too, observe—that men of sense in love Dupes more complete than fools and blockheads prove; For all that knowledge lent them as a guide, Goes off entirely to the lady’s side; Whereas the blockhead rather sees the more, And gains perception that he lack’d before. His honest passion blinds the man of sense. While want of feeling is the fool’s defence; 200 Arm’d with insensibility he comes; When more repell’d, he but the more assumes, And thus succeeds where fails the man of wit; For, where we cannot conquer, we submit. But come, my love! let us examine now, } These Charges all—say, what shall we avow, } Admit, deny; and which defend, and how? } That old affair between your friend and you, When your fond Sailor bade his home adieu, May be forgotten; yet we should prepare 210 For all events—and are you guarded there? _C._ Oh! ’tis long since—I might the whole deny— “So poor, and so contemptible a lie! Charles, if ’tis pleasant to abuse your friend, Let there be something that she may defend; This is too silly—” _D._ Well you may appear With so much spirit—not a witness near; Time puzzles judgment; and, when none explain, You may assume the airs of high disdain. But, for my Brother—night and morn were you 220 Together found, th’ inseparable two, Far from the haunts of vulgar prying men— In the old abbey—in the lonely glen— In the beech-wood—within the quarry made By hands long dead—within the silent glade, Where the moon gleams upon the spring that flows By the grey willows as they stand in rows— Shall I proceed? there’s not a quiet spot In all the parish where the pair were not Oft watch’d, oft seen. You must not so despise 230 This weighty charge—Now, what will you devise? _C._ “Her brother! What, Sir? jealous of a child! A friend’s relation! Why, the man is wild— A boy not yet at college! Come, this proves Some truth in you! This is a freak of Love’s: I must forgive it, though I know not how A thing so very simple to allow. Pray, if I meet my cousin’s little boy, And take a kiss, would that your peace annoy? But I remember Delia—yet, to give 240 A thought to this is folly, as I live— But I remember Delia made her prayer That I would try and give the Boy an air; Yet awkward he, for all the pains we took— A bookish boy, his pleasure is his book; And since the lad is grown to man’s estate, We never speak—Your bookish youth I hate.” _D._ Right! and he cannot tell, with all his art, Our father’s will compelled you both to part.