Courts in Print, all others to be Lewd,
Condemns a Wife and swears he will be rude:
He talks of Roving from each Pole, to Pole,
And with fresh lustful pleasures drown his Soul:
He calls that ease, which Christians counts a Sin,
And walks the Road which Thives and Rogues go in:
He plainly tells how he does spend his time
His lazey progress, shewes what is his Crime
His baudy Books, with Calves skin fenced round,
A proof enough, wherein his faults abound.
He talks of moderation or'e a Glass }
But mentions none of that when with his Lass, }
He's Knave in Grain; a Blockhead and an Ass. }
Because a Cuckold's Life was his hard fate,
Must Wedlock be abused at this rate?
Because he had a strumpit for his Wife,
He now commends a mopish single Life.
Let him content himself to live a Drone,
In some dark Corner of the World alone;
And trouble not his Brains with our blest State,
Which now is far above his wretched fate;
He talks of prayers a little while before,
And then he curss'd his Wife and call'd her whore.
Oh! meddley of confusion, never worse,
Must pray, then swear, give thanks to God and curse.
The Wife he lost, has faults as black as Hell. }
He sets her off, with a most dismal smell, }
But not one silible of his own he'l tell. }

He owns his Cuckoldom, and which is worse;
How then the Cuckold su'd out his Divorce:
No doubts, the Wife, that he has Abdicated,
(Had he been good,) her ills had been abated:
But Women when provok'd, without a Cause,
They like enraged subjects, breaks the Lawes:
His Whip and Spur, was too unkindly us'd;
The weaker Vessel must not be abus'd.
If he too strictly held her by the reins,
He must accept the Cuckold for his pains.

Farewel, thou scandal of a married Life,
Thou single Fop, grand Hater of a Wife;
Thou Plague to Churches, and to Women too,
'Tis time for either, to have done with you:
No more attempt, Heavens Laws for to confute,
No more advise Mankind, to be a Bruite;
_But spend they Days in some dark, lonesome Cave,
And to thy bruitish Lust be still a Slave._
Go sneak in some vile Corner of the Earth,
With Pox and Plagues, resign thy poisonous Breath,
And may the worst of Torturs be thy Death.

_FINIS._

THE Ladies Choice:
A POEM.

LONDON

Printed, and Sold by _J. How_, and _B. Bragg_, at the _Blew-Ball_
in _Avemary-Lane_, next _Ludgate-Street_, 1702.

THE LADIES CHOICE.

_Melissa Belinda._

Melissa.

Prithee, _