Mysogynus: OR, A satire UPON WOMEN.  
IN DOMINO CONFIDO   printer's or publisher's device 
LONDON, Printed for John Langly, Bookseller in Oxford. MDCLXXXII.   

An Advertisement.  
Courteous Reader,  
THE Author would let you to understand, that he intends not to determine whether or no the stronger hath any just cause of quarrel with the weaker Sex; or if they have, that he designs not that this Paper should contain an Indictment: But being one that loves peace and quietness, thought good to disburden his (yet unprejudiced) mind, that he might sleep more undisturbedly. It is far from our drift to make the Married man pick a quarrel with his Wife, or the unmarried out of Love with his Mistress; but to make both the more admire what they find admirable: Such is the use the Author himself makes of it, and such, he hopes, you will too.   

MYSOGYNUS: OR, A satire upon Women.  


LAte come from Derby's Peak, where Women do  
Beat their poor Cuckold Husbands black and blue;  
And, which is worse, make nothing of it too:   
I'm mad to see the poor men thus abused,  
And would by all means have them better used.   

And now were I outlandish, then I'd rant  
With liberty of Tongue, which now I want;  
I'd force a smart Burlesque on those sly Creatures  
That thus Tongue-tied us with their slier features.  
Poor Countrymen! not only choosed of their right hand,  
(They can't the privilege of the Wall command.)  
Not only cowed, but to laugh at them too;  
've gulled them of their wordst ' express their woe:  
What shall I do for English words t' employ  
On this dire theme, which Foreigners enjoy:  
Foreigners, that know how to use command,  
Like Caesar, when 've got the upper hand.  
But we are mute, or have our language lost,  
Which these Decoys have to themselves engrossed.  
You'd think, they'll scold in such a lasting stile,  
That one poor Tongue could not serve all the while.  
Till then, I've made my satire quite complete,  
I'll shake the Letters of the Alphabet:  
But I do want for what I would contrive,  
Unless you will allow me twenty five;  
But our School-Dames allow but four, and say,  
That after Z there's no Et caetera.  
Conscious that if Et caetera should be known,  
We should prove scolds in telling them their own.  
How haughtily upon the Englishman they tread,  
Stark drunk with Pride, they ride a free Horse dead.  
We'll ne'er endure't, come subject Hearts,  
I'll paraphrase upon a Woman's parts;  
And when I cannot think what bade enough to say,  
I'll brand her name with black Et caetera.   

whate'er was left unfit in the Creation  
To make a Toad, after its ugly fashion,  
Of scrape from unfinished Creatures had,  
Sure was the body of a Woman made:  
Yet there's some finer Atoms daubed upon,  
Which makes her seem so beauteous to look on.  
Nor better is a Woman's end, nor can,  
Born only to Nightmare the Soul of Man.  
Nor is he only plagued by her birth,  
She is an Universal Curse unto the Earth.  
Some say, the ground with barrenness is cursed,  
Where in the Morn she strains her body first.  
Surely she was not th' end of the Creation,  
But made by th' by, huddled at any fashion.  
She's some imperfect thing, it needs must follow,  
She sounds so loud, impertinently hollow:  
So shrill and empty, that you'd swear i'faith  
She'd not more Soul in her than a Cannon hath;  
Unless inhabited by incarnate Devils,  
Sent to disturb men's peace with their loud evils.  
You'd think that she was made, so fair her face,  
Only for to officiate the Devil's place:  
Why are we men not fearful at her sight,  
As at the Devils walking in the night:  
The one as hurtful as the other, nay  
She is more Devil of the two, they say.   

In the beginning of the World, says one,  
When man did absolutely rule alone,  
When there was no such thing as Woman known,  
To be man's partner in his Regal Throne,  
When Man was gotten not with Copulation,  
But Men spawned Men, after a brisker fashion;  
A more ingenious way of Propagation:  
When Men were bend, whatever stop was given,  
And nolens volens, had gone all to Heaven;  
Then threw the Devil these same Golden Balls  
To stop his full career with gentle falls:  
Then first was man bewitched; then first  
Did man make Reason truckle to his Lust;  
Then first was Man bedridden with these Devils,  
Certainly of all, this sure the worst of Evils.  
Infernal Imps, I thought, but now and then,  
Were wont to haunt the seats of living men;  
But now these Spirits incarnate, are so bold  
They are familiar, and will have, and hold  
Of whatsoever's his, and will control,  
Where e'er he goes or comes, his haunted Soul.  
Woman! What shall I say? Infernal Creature:  
Thou'st so degenerated man's soft Nature,  
That he has quite forgot his Primitive state,  
And thinks it natural to copulate  
With an Hellbred Familiar, (such his fate)  
And counts his Offspring all Legitimate.   

Think with the Atheist, that there is no God,  
Nor can this cunning Creature be his Rod,  
Sent down at second thoughts to plague poor men,  
I'll whip her fame as bad, I'll warrant then;  
I will invent some wicked thing upon her,  
That you would think impossible to shame on her;  
To make her what she is, one way or tother,  
I'll make her ragged Atoms t' hang together:  
Then let us strive to make a tall, a proper,  
A fair, deceitful, that is, a Woman of her;  
Who can't a necessary good commence,  
Because she is a being came by chance;  
So may Men pray that some Chance would surround her,  
And take her there, where Chance, her Maker, found her.   

And now within so boundless, huge a place,  
Whose vast immensity admits no space,  
To be called up or down, (gone to be lost)  
Thousands of Atoms eternally are tossed;  
So that I do despair amidst them all,  
Of finding out Woman's original.  
Thus spying Nature labouring, I find,  
The large frame begun within my larger mind,  
I see things coming gradually to perfection,  
At length completed by coacervation:  
Nor had this Jointed Baby of my mind,  
Scarce all it's shuffled parts combined;  
But strait some unforced Particles we see,  
That will with no part of the frame agree,  
Which hooked together by themselves, became  
The imperfect thing that Men do Woman name;  
Hence 'tis, we in her composition find  
Such a strange medley made of every kind;  
From Man a snip of Rationality,  
The rest from Beasts, the Goat, and Chatter-Pye.   

Then whate'er Nature thought unfit to be  
Mixed with the substance of the Creature, she  
Designed to be th' Masterpiece of her Art,  
Doth all lie centred in a Woman's Heart;  
All the crooked Atoms, and the rough, that joined,  
Raise Malice, Fear, and Passions in the mind;  
All those from whose cross disposition rise  
Envy and Hate, Despair and Jealousies,  
Nature rejected, as unfit to be  
Ingredients of Man, the Creature she  
Intended for the World's Epitome:  
Then whatsoever's left, that can produce  
A Hellish mould, fit for the Devils use;  
Whatever's Ill, Depraved, or what not  
That is so thought, falls not to Woman's lot:  
Evil is so engrafted in her parts, you'd swear  
She'd not one dram of good to boast of there;  
Her wicked qualities, which we think occult,  
From th' disposition of her parts result:  
She'll lie, and cog, and flatter with the best,  
Though Nature otherwise teaches Humane Breast;  
Woman is so unnatural a Beast.  
She is 'gainst Nature so entire a Sinner,  
It is impossible for goodness to be in her;  
All the depravity that is, control,  
And have predominancy in a Woman's Soul,  
Kneaded, and woven in her parts within,  
And are inseparable as her Skin.   

When careful Nature had the World quite ended,  
Sound Wind and Limb, than she had it befriended,  
If she had quite expelled this rotten part,  
Which so corrupts all other to the Heart;  
Then the straight-limbed World might chance perhaps  
To have lived strong, and free from all her Claps;  
Nay, 'twould have been eternal, for I'm sure,  
What hath no cause of corruption, will for  endure:  
Such would the World be, had not Woman been;  
For all Corruption, Putrefaction, Sin,  
And what is worse, if worse there be, all came  
From Woman, and Woman as their Parent, claim;  
Like Prometheus' Vulture, she feeds on Man's poor Breast;  
Like Brass, she cankers some, and eats the rest.  
She'll kill, as does a Basilisk, or worse if't can,  
Insensibly she blinds, and burns the Man.  
Her outside's fair and pleasing, when the while  
She kills as craftily as the Crocodile;  
Usurps his right, reigns o'er her fellow slaves,  
Nor won't admit her Lord to go her halves;  
She alone was the cause, when she usurped the Throne,  
Nor any other was't, that Hell itself was known.  
Whate're's irregular done, 'tis she doth do't,  
Univerfal Mischief is her Attribute.  
Now, Reader, if thou hast what's worse to say,  
Pray say't, for that is hers, Et caetera.   
FINIS.