Thelearned teacher satisfaction showed,
          That such success from his instructions flowed,
          Laughed heartily at husbands, silly wights,
          Who had not wit to guard connubial rights,
          And from their lamb the wily wolf to keep: 
          A shepherd will o’erlook a hundred sheep,
          While foolish man’s unable to protect,
          E’en one where most he’d wish to be correct. 
          Howe’er, this care he thought was somewhat hard,
          But not a thing impossible to guard;
          And if he had not got a hundred eyes,
          Thank heav’n, his wife, though cunning to devise,
          He could defy:—­her thoughts so well he knew,
          That these intrigues she never would pursue.

          You’ll, ne’er believe, good reader, without shame,
          The doctor’s wife was she our annals name;
          And what’s still worse, so many things he asked,
          Her look, air, form, and secret charms unmasked,
          That ev’ry answer fully seemed to say,
          ’Twas clearly she, who thus had gone astray. 
          One circumstance the lawyer led to doubt: 
          Some talents had the student pointed out,
          Which she had never to her husband shown,
          And this relief administered alone. 
          Thought he, those manners not to her belong,
          But all the rest are indications strong,
          And prove the case; yet she at home is dull;
          While this appears to be a prattling trull,
          And pleasing in her conversation too;
          In other matters ’tis my wife we view,
          Form, face, complexion, features, eyes, and hair,
          The whole combined pronounces her the fair.

          Atlength, when to himself the sage had said
          ’Tis she; and then, ’tis not;—­his senses led
          To make him in the first opinion rest,
          You well may guess what rage was in his breast. 
          A second meeting you have fixed? cried he;
          Yes, said the Frenchman, that was made with glee;
          We found the first so pleasing to our mind,
          That to another both were well inclined,
          And thoroughly resolved more fun to seek. 
          That’s right, replied the doctor, have your freak;
          The lady howsoe’er I now could name. 
          The scholar answered, that to me’s the same;
          I care not what she’s called, Nor who she be: 
          ’Tis quite enough that we so well agree. 
          By this time I’m convinced her loving spouse. 
          Possesses what an anchorite might rouse;
          And if a failure any where be met,
          At such a place to-morrow one may get,
          What I shall hope, exactly at the hour,
          To find resigned and fully in my pow’r: