Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

From the Richmond Compiler.

BIDDLE FOR THE LADIES, WITH ITS SOLUTION.

I've thought the world the more it grew,
Should with its age be wiser too:
Experience is a useful sage,
To check the vices of the age;
But all her maxims are despis'd,
And folly's flattering dictates priz'd:
Good sense and sober truth, it seems,
Are laid aside as idle dreams,
And pride and silly fashion still
Controul the heart and guide the will.

What harmless looking thing is this?
Surely it never did amiss;
A thing so simple and so plain,
Could never well have given pain!

"Hold, sir, you do not know me well
Have patience, I will briefly tell.
Though harmless I may seem to be,
I am of murder's pedigree;
Pride is my father's hated name,
And cruelty my angry dame;
My sisters are disease and folly,
Hysteric grief and melancholy;
Pain courted by my lady fair,
Who prizes me with tender care;
I visit in her dressing room,
And sleep amidst her rich perfume.

"I often on her toilet lay,
And doze the lonesome night away;
Nay more, in her caresses plac'd,
She always binds me round her waist;
Abroad, at home, afar, and near,
I'm her companion every where;
And though I am a wicked elf,
Delighting to amuse myself.
Sometimes to give my mistress pain,
I almost squeeze her waist in twain;
Yet strange to tell, the more she's squeez'd
The more she seemeth to be pleas'd.

That I'm an ingrate is most clear—
From return for all this care,
All this fondness, all this love,
I yet a cruel monster prove;
My lady's tortures are my food,
I daily shrink her shapely blood;
I pluck away the rose's glow,
And let the sickly saffron grow;
I blight the lustre of her eyes,
And stain their orbs with languid dyes;
That rosy urchin call'd a smile,
I strangle when he lives awhile;
I point disease's pungent dart,
And like a vulture gnaw her heart.

My name—upon your heart endorse it,
My gentle mistress calls me
CORSLET."