in pawn;
Or to Jamaica[2] seems transported
Alone, and by no planter courted;
Or, near Fleet-ditch's[3] oozy brinks,
Surrounded with a hundred stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some cully passing by;
Or, struck with fear, her fancy runs
On watchmen, constables, and duns,
From whom she meets with frequent rubs;
But never from religious clubs;
Whose favour she is sure to find,
Because she pays them all in kind.
Corinna wakes. A dreadful sight!
Behold the ruins of the night!
A wicked rat her plaster stole,
Half eat, and dragg'd it to his hole.
The crystal eye, alas! was miss'd;
And puss had on her plumpers p--st,
A pigeon pick'd her issue-pease:
And Shock her tresses fill'd with fleas.
The nymph, though in this mangled plight
Must ev'ry morn her limbs unite.
But how shall I describe her arts
To re-collect the scatter'd parts?
Or show the anguish, toil, and pain,
Of gath'ring up herself again?
The bashful Muse will never bear
In such a scene to interfere.
Corinna, in the morning dizen'd,
Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison'd.

[Footnote 1: See Cunningham's "Handbook of London." Bridewell was the
Prison to which harlots were sent, and were made to beat hemp and
pick oakum and were whipped if they did not perform their tasks. See
the Plate in Hogarth's "Harlot's Progress." The Prison has, happily,
been cleared away. The hall, court room, etc., remain at 14, New
Bridge Street. The Compter, a similar Prison, was also abolished.
For details of these abominations, see "London Past and Present,"
by Wheatley.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: Jamaica seems to have been regarded as a place of exile. See
"A quiet life and a good name," _ante_, p. 152.--_W. E. B_.]

[Footnote 3: See _ante_, p. 78, "Descripton of a City
Shower."--_W. E. B_.]

STREPHON AND CHLOE
1731

Of Chloe all the town has rung,
By ev'ry size of poets sung:
So beautiful a nymph appears
But once in twenty thousand years;
By Nature form'd with nicest care,
And faultless to a single hair.
Her graceful mien, her shape, and face,
Confess'd her of no mortal race:
And then so nice, and so genteel;
Such cleanliness from head to heel;
No humours gross, or frouzy steams,
No noisome whiffs, or sweaty streams,
Before, behind, above, below,
Could from her taintless body flow:
Would so discreetly things dispose,
None ever saw her pluck a rose.[1]
Her dearest comrades never caught her
Squat on her hams to make maid's wate