Doing badly what should not be attempted?

[Barbara Need]

I believe the original of the bear/dog version was Johnson's comment
about women preaching. (Not at hand, of course, so the details are a
little shaky.)

Barbara

>Something like, "It's like a bear (or a 'dog'?) riding a bicycle (or
>'walking on two legs'?). It's not that he does it badly, it's that
>he can do it at all."
>
>   I haven't checked these on Google.
>
>   JL
>
>"Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
>Subject: Doing badly what should not be attempted?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The following has provoked neurons, but not sufficiently:
>
>"It's sad watching a child do badly what a child should not attempt
>to do at all."
>
>Is there a well-known antecedent, and spoken by whom? It's not, of
>course, "Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it."--Ovid.
>
>Joel
>
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