Page:Punch and judy.djvu/52

And said the law was not his law,
He car'd not for a letter;
And if on him it laid its claw,
He'd teach it to know better.

Then took to travel o'er each land,
So loving and seductive,
Three ladies only could withstand
His lessons most instructive.
The first, a simple rustic maid;
The next, a pious abbess;
The third I'd call, but I'm afraid,
The tabbiest of tabbies.^[1]

In Italy, the dames were worst;
In France, they were too clamorous;
In England, altho' coy at first,
Yet after quite as amorous.
In Spain, they all were proud, yet frail;
In Germany, but coolish;
But further north he did not sail,
To do so had been foolish.

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1. In this stanza, the writer (we regret that so pleasant an effusion should be anonymous) seems to have had in his mind Spenser's Squire of Dames ("Fairy Queen," Book 3, canto 7), who had been commanded by his mistress to go forth a "colonelling" against the virtue of the female sex. He returned in less than a year, with tokens of three hundred conquests; and she then set him a penance to bring testimonies of as many women who had resisted his arts and entreaties. In three years he had only found three.
   "The first which then refused me," said he,
   "Certes was but a common courtesane,
   Yet, flat refused to have a-do with me,
   Because I could not give her many a Jane."
   (Thereat full heartily laugh'd Satyrane.)
   "The second was an holy nun to chose,
   Which would not let me be her chapelaine.
   Because she knew, she said, I would disclose
   Her counsel, if she should her trust in me repose."
   
   

   "The third a damsel was of low degree,
   Whom I in country cottage found by chance, &c."