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 ............