XXIV.

I think I should have made a decent spouse, If I had never proved the soft condition; I think I should have made monastic vows But for my own peculiar superstition: 'Gainst rhyme I never should have knocked my brows, Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian,[744] Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet, If some one had not told me to forego it.[745]