at long division sums she had no chance,

and history was quite as bad a balk;

her french it was too small for petty france,

and priscian suffered in her english talk:

her drawing might be done with cheese or chalk;

as for the globes—the use of the terrestrial

she knew when she went out to take a walk,

[pg 307]

or take a ride; but, touching the celestial,

her knowledge hardly soared above the bestial.

nothing she learned of juno, pallas, mars;

georgium, for what she knew, might stand for burgo,

sidus, for master: then, for northern stars,

the bear she fancied did in sable fur go,

the bull was farmer giles’s bull, and, ergo,

the ram the same that butted at her brother;

as for the twins, she only guessed that virgo,

from coming after them, must be their mother;

the scales weighed soap, tea, figs, like any other.

as ignorant as donkeys in gallicia,

she thought that saturn, with his belt, was but

a private, may be, in the kent militia;

that charles’s wain would stick in a deep rut,

that venus was a real west-end slut—

oh, gods and goddesses of greek theogony!

that berenice’s hair would curl and cut,

that cassiopëia’s chair was good mahogany,

nicely french-polished,—such was her cosmogony!

judge, then, how puzzled by the scientifics

lorenzo’s letter came now to dispense;

a lizard, crawling over hieroglyphics,

knows quite as much of their egyptian sense;

a sort of london fog, opaque and dense,

hung over verbs, nouns, genitives, and datives.

in vain she pored and pored, with eyes intense;

as well is known to oyster-operatives,

mere looking at the shells won’t open natives.

yet mixed with the hard words, so called, she found

some easy ones that gave her heart the staggers:

[pg 308]

words giving tongue against her, like a hound

at picking out a fault—words speaking daggers.

the very letters seemed, in hostile swaggers,

to lash their tails, but not as horses do,

nor like the tails of spaniels, gentle waggers,

but like a lion’s, ere he tears in two

a black, to see if he is black all through.

with open mouth, and eyeballs at full stretch,

she gazed upon the paper sad and sorry,

no sound—no stir—quite petrified, poor wretch!

as when apollo, in old allegory,

down-stooping like a falcon, made his quarry

of niobe, just turned to purbeck stone;

in fact, since cupid grew into a worry,

judge if a suing lover, let alone

a lawyer, ever wrote in such a tone.