And on the right hand took their places
In order; on the left, the Graces: 
To whom she might her doubts propose
On all emergencies that rose. 
The Muses oft were seen to frown;
The Graces half ashamed look’d down;
And ’twas observed, there were but few
Of either sex among the crew,
Whom she or her assessors knew. 
The goddess soon began to see,
Things were not ripe for a decree;
And said, she must consult her books,
The lovers’ Fletas, Bractons, Cokes. 
First to a dapper clerk she beckon’d
To turn to Ovid, book the second: 
She then referr’d them to a place
In Virgil, vide Dido’s case: 
As for Tibullus’s reports,
They never pass’d for law in courts: 
For Cowley’s briefs, and pleas of Waller,
Still their authority was smaller. 
  There was on both sides much to say: 
She’d hear the cause another day;
And so she did; and then a third;
She heard it—­there she kept her word: 
But, with rejoinders or replies,
Long bills, and answers stuff’d with lies,
Demur, imparlance, and essoign,
The parties ne’er could issue join: 
For sixteen years the cause was spun,
And then stood where it first begun. 
  Now, gentle Clio, sing, or say
What Venus meant by this delay? 
The goddess much perplex’d in mind
To see her empire thus declined,
When first this grand debate arose,
Above her wisdom to compose,
Conceived a project in her head
To work her ends; which, if it sped,
Would show the merits of the cause
Far better than consulting laws. 
  In a glad hour Lucina’s aid
Produced on earth a wondrous maid,
On whom the Queen of Love was bent
To try a new experiment. 
She threw her law-books on the shelf,
And thus debated with herself. 
  Since men allege, they ne’er can find
Those beauties in a female mind,
Which raise a flame that will endure
For ever uncorrupt and pure;
If ’tis with reason they complain,
This infant shall restore my reign. 
I’ll search where every virtue dwells,
From courts inclusive down to cells: 
What preachers talk, or sages write;
These will I gather and unite,
And represent them to mankind
Collected in that infant’s mind. 
  This said, she plucks in Heaven’s high bowers
A sprig of amaranthine flowers. 
In nectar thrice infuses bays,
Three times refined in Titan’s rays;
Then calls the Graces to her aid,
And sprinkles thrice the newborn maid: 
From whence the tender skin assumes
A sweetness above all perfumes: 
From whence a cleanliness remains,
Incapable of outward stains: 
From whence that decency of mind,
So lovely in the female kind,
Where not one careless thought intrudes;
Less modest than the speech of prudes;
Where never blush was call’d in aid,
That spurious virtue in a maid,
A virtue but at second-hand;
They blush because they understand.