some qualities of disposition,
To which, in general, her sex are foes,--
As strange proclivities to erudition,
And lore unfeminine, reserved for those
Who now-a-days descant on "Woman's Mission,"
Or tread instead that "primrose path" to knowledge,
That milder Academe--the Girton College.

The truth is, she admired ... a learned man.
There were no curates in that sunny Greece,
For whom the mind emotional could plan
Fine-art habiliments in gold and fleece;
(This was ere chasuble or cope began
To shake the centres of domestic peace;)
So that "admiring," such as maids give way to,
Turned to the ranks of Zeno and of Plato.

The "object" here was mildly prepossessing,
At least, regarded in a woman's sense;
His _forte_, it seems, lay chiefly in expressing
Disputed fact in Attic eloquence;
His ways were primitive; and as to dressing,
His toilet was a negative pretence;
He kept, besides, the _regime_ of the Stoic;--
In short, was not, by any means, "heroic."

_Sic visum Veneri!_--The thing is clear.
Her friends were furious, her lovers nettled;
'Twas much as though the Lady Vere de Vere
On some hedge-schoolmaster her heart had settled.
Unheard! Intolerable!--a lumbering steer
To plod the upland with a mare high-mettled!--
They would, no doubt, with far more pleasure hand her
To curled Euphorion or Anaximander.

And so they used due discipline, of course,
To lead to reason this most erring daughter,
Proceeding even to extremes of force,--
Confinement (solitary), and bread and water;
Then, having lectured her till they were hoarse,
Finding that this to no submission brought her,
At last, (unwisely[1]) to the man they sent,
That he might combat her by argument.

Being, they fancied, but a bloodless thing;
Or else too well forewarned of that commotion
Which poets feign inseparable from Spring
To suffer danger from a school-girl notion;
Also they hoped that she might find her king,
On close inspection, clumsy and Boeotian:--
This was acute enough, and yet, between us,
I think they thought too little about Venus.

Something, I know, of this sort is related
In Garrick's life. However, the man came,
And taking first his mission's end as stated,
Began at once her sentiments to tame,