Though Lady Chudleigh rejoices in these learned topics she modestly disclaims any accurate knowledge. "But 't is not reasonable to expect that a Woman should be nicely skill'd in Physics: We are kept Strangers to all ingenious and useful Studies, and can have but a slight and superficial Knowledge of things." Two poems, _Resolution_ and _To Mr. Dryden on his excellent Translation of Virgil_, give evidence of Lady Chudleigh's wide reading in poetry, history, drama, and divinity. Her literary dicta are of little value, for they do hardly more than echo the judgments of the day. According to her it was the poet Waller who, coming after the "transient Glimm'rings of Chaucer" and the "Lunar Beams of Spenser," announced the dawn of a new Morn, and with Dryden came "The Triumphs of refulgent Day." Taken as a whole the poems bitterly inveigh against life with its blighting sorrows, its fleeting, unreal joys, its injustice, its black despairs. The only break in the gloom comes in short periods of absorption in books, or in occasional religious ecstasies. The first poem by which Lady Chudleigh became known is _The Ladies' Defence_: a sudden, angry outburst caused by a sermon on _Conjugal Duty_ by a Mr. Sprint, a nonconformist in Sherbourn, Dorsetshire.[208] The personal animus in a little poem _To the Ladies_ warning them against marriage, apparently grew out of her own matrimonial infelicities. And _The Ladies' Defence_ has the same ring of indignant sincerity. The poem is in the form of a conversation between the parson who preached the sermon; Sir William Loveall, who, out of the ignorance of his unmarried state, endeavors to reconcile the warring parties; Marissa, Lady Chudleigh herself; and Sir John Brute, who thanks the parson for preaching against "those Terrors of our Lives, those worst of Plagues, those Furies call'd our Wives." The parson replies: Not led by Passion, but by Zeal inspir'd, I've told the Women what's of them requir'd: Taught them their Husbands to Obey and Please, And to their Humours sacrifice their Ease: Give up their Reason, and their Wills resign, And ev'ry look, and ev'ry thought confine. Sure, this Detraction you can't justly call? 'T is kindly meant, and 't is address'd to All. * * * * * If you wou'd live as it becomes a Wife, And raise the Honour of a marry'd Life, You must the useful Art of wheedling try, And with his various Humours still comply; * * * * * Whate'er he is, you still must think him best, And boast to all that you are truly blest; * * * * *