Ovid fe. If he be mine, he shall follow and obferve what I will apt him to, or I profefs here openly and utterly to disclaim him.

Ovid ju. Sir, let me crave you will forego these

moods:

I will be any thing, or study any thing;

I'll

prove the unfashion'd body of the Law Pure elegance, and make her rugged'st strains Run fmoothly as Propertius' elegies.

Ovid fe. Propertius' elegies? good!

Lup. Nay, you take him too quickly, Marcus. Ovid fe. Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of poetry; he is bewitch'd with it.

Lup. Come, do not mif-prise him.

Ovid fe. Mif-prize? I marry, I would have him use fome fuch words now; they have fome touch, fome taste of the Law. He should make himself a ftile out of these, and let his Propertius' elegies go by.

Lup. Indeed, young Publius, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the Law; we have no other planet reigns, and in that sphere you may fit and fing with angels. Why, the Law makes a man happy, without

without respecting any other merit; a fimple scholar, or none at all, may be a lawyer.

Tuc, He tells thee true, my noble Neophyte; my little grammaticafter, he does: it shall never put thee to thy mathematicks, metaphyficks, philofophy, and I know not what fuppos'd fufficiencies; if thou canft but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough.

Lup. Three books will furnish you.

Tuc. And the lefs art the better: besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience to do right or wrong at thy pleasure, my pretty Alcibiades.

Lup. I, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to obferve him, and stand bare.

Tuc. True, and he to carry himself proud and stately, and have the law on his fide for't, old boy. Ovid. fe. Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. Publius, if thou wilt have favour, abandon these idle fruitlefs ftudies that fo be

my

witch thee. Send Janus home his back-face again, and look only forward to the law: intend that. I will allow thee what fhall fute thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy fociety with the best ; and under these conditions I leave thee. My bleffings light upon thee, if thou refpect them; if not, mine eyes may drop for thee, but thine own heart will ake for itself; and fo farewel.

The

The LA W-STU DEN T.

To GEORGE COL MAN, Efq.

Quid tibi cum Cirrhá? quid cum Permessidos undá?
Romanum propius divitiufque Forum eft.

NOT

точ MART.

OW Chrift-Church left, and fixt at Lincoln's Inn,
Th' important ftudies of the Law begin."

Now groan
the shelves beneath th' unusual charge
Of Records, Statutes, and Reports at large.
Each Claffic Author feeks his peaceful nook,
And modest Virgil yields his place to Coke.
No more, ye Bards, for vain precedence hope,
But even Jacob take the lead of Pope!

While the pil'd shelves fink down on one another,

And each huge folio has its cumb'rous brother,

While, arm'd with these, the Student views with awe His rooms become the magazine of Law,

Say whence fo few fucceed? where thousands aim,

So few e'er reach the promis'd goal of fame?

Say, why Cæcilius quits the gainful trade
For regimentals, fword, and fmart cockade?
Or Sextus why his first profeffion leaves

For narrower band, plain shirt, and pudding fleeves?

The depth of Law afks ftudy, thought, and care; Shall we feek thefe in rich Alonzo's heir? Such diligence, alas! is feldom found

In the brifk heir to forty thousand pound.

Wealth, that excufes folly, floth creates,

Few, who can spend, e'er learn to get estates.
What is to him dry cafe, or dull report,

Who ftudies fashions at the Inns of Court;

And proves that thing of emptiness and show,
That mungrel, half-form'd thing, a Temple-Beau?
Obferve him daily fauntring up and down,

In purple flippers, and in filken gown ;

Laft