And will it breathe into him all the zeal
That candidates for such a prize should feel,
To take the lead and be the foremost still
In all true worth and literary skill?
“Ah, blind to bright futurity, untaught
The knowledge of the World, and dull of thought!
Church ladders are not always mounted best
By learned clerks and Latinists profess'd.
The exalted prize demands an upward look,
Not to be found by poring on a book.
Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek,
Is more than adequate to all I seek.
Let erudition grace him, or not grace,
I give the bauble but the second place;
His wealth. fame, honors all that I intend,
Subsist and centre in one point-a friend.
A friend, whate er he studies or neglects,
Shall give him consequence, heal all defects
His intercourse with peers and sons of peers-
There dawns the splendor of his future years:
In that bright quarter his propitious skies
Shall blush betimes and there his glory rise.
Your Lordship, and Your Grace! what school
can teach

A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech?
What need of Homer's verse or Tully's prose,
Sweet interjections! if he learn but those?
Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke,
Who starve upon a dog's ear'd Pentateuch,
The parson knows enough who knows a duke."
Egregious purpose! worthily begun
In barbarous prostitution of your son;
Press'd on his part by means that would dis-

grace

A scrivener's clerk, or footman out of place,
And ending if at last its end be gain'd,
In sacrilege, in God's own house profaned.
It may succeed: and if his sins should call
For more than common punishment, it shall;
The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on earth
Least qualified in honor, learning, worth,
To occupy a sacred, awful post,

In which the best and worthiest tremble most.
The royal letters are a thing of course,
A king that would. might recommend his horse;
And deans, no doubt, and chapters, with one
voice,

As bound in duty, would confirm the choice.
Behold your bishop! well he plays his part,
Christian in name, and infidel in heart,
Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan,
A slave at court. elsewhere a lady's man.
Dumb as a senator, and as a priest
A piece of mere church furniture at best;
To live estranged from God his total scope,
And his end sure, without one glimpse of hope.
But, fair although and feasible it seem,
Depend not much upon your golden dream;
For Providence, that seems concern'd to exempt
The hallow'd bench from absolute contempt,
In spite of all the wrigglers into place,
Still keeps a seat or two for worth and grace;
And therefore 'tis, that, though the sight be rare,
We sometimes see a Lowth or Bagot there.
Besides school friendships are not always found,
Though fair in promise. permanent and sound;
The most disinterested and virtuous minds,
In early years connected time unbinds;
New situations give a different cast
Of habit inclination temper, taste;
And he, that seem'd our counterpart at first,
Soon shows the strong similitude reversed.

Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are

warm,

And make mistakes for manhood to reform.
Boys are, at best, but pretty buds unblown
Whose scent and hues are rather guess'd than
known;

Each dreams that each is just what he appears,
But learns his error in maturer years,
When disposition like a sail unfurl d.
Shows all its rents and patches to the world.
If therefore, e'en when honest in design,
A boyish friendship may so soon decline,
Twere wiser sure to inspire a little heart
With just abhorrence of so mean a part,
Than set your son to work at a vile trade
For wages so unlikely to be paid

Our public hives of puerile resort,
That are of chief and most approved report,
To such base hopes, in many a sordid soul,
Owe their repute in part but not the whole.
A principle whose proud pretensions pass
Unquestion'd though the jewel be but glass-
That with a world, not often over-nice,
Ranks as a virtue and is yet a vice;
Or rather a gross compound justly tried,
Of envy, hatred jealousy, and pride-
Contributes most, perhaps, to enhance their
fame;

And emulation is its specious name.
Boys, once on fire with that contentious zeal,
Feel all the rage that female rivals feel;
The prize of beauty in a woman's eyes
Not brighter than in theirs the scholar's prize.
The spirit of that competition burns
With all varieties of ill by turns;
Each vainly magnifies his own success,
Resents his fellow's wishes it were less,
Exults in his miscarriage if he fail,
Deems his reward too great if he prevail,
And labors to surpass him day and night,
Less for improvement than to tickle spite.
The spur is powerful, and I grant its force;
It pricks the genius forward in its course,
Allows short time for play and none for sloth;
And, felt alike by each, advances both:
But judge, where so much evil intervenes,
The end, though plausible, not worth the means.
Weigh, for a moment, classical desert
Against a heart depraved and temper hurt:
Hurt too perhaps for life; for early wrong
Done to the nobler part, affects it long;
And you are staunch indeed in learning's cause,
If you can crown a discipline, that draws
Such mischiefs after it, with much applause.

Connexion form'd for interest, and endear'd
By selfish views, thus censured and cashier'd;
And emulation, as engendering hate,
Doom'd to a no less ignominious fate;
| The props of such proud seminaries fall,
The Jachin and the Boaz of them all.
Great schools rejected then as those that swell
Beyond a size that can be managed well,
Shall royal institutions miss the bays,
And small academies win all the praise?
Force not my dritt beyond its just intent,
I praise a school as Pope a government;
So take my judgment in his language dress'd,
Whate'er is best administer'd is best."

Few boys are born with talents that excel,
But all are capable of living well

Then ask not, whether limited or large ?

But, watch they strictly, or neglect their charge 1

If anxious only that their boys may learn,
While morals languish a despised concern,
The great and small deserve one common blame,
Different in size, but in effect the same.
Much zeal in virtue's cause all teachers boast,
Though motives of mere lucre sway the most;
Therefore in towns and cities they abound,
For there the game they seek is easiest found;
Though there, in spite of all that care can do,
Traps to catch youth are most abundant too.
If shrewd, and if a well-constructed brain,
Keen in pursuit, and vigorous to retain,
Your son come forth a prodigy of skill;
As, wheresoever taught, so form'd, he will;
The pedagogue, with self-complacent air,
Claims more than half the praise as his due share.
But if, with all his genius he betray,
Not more intelligent than loose and gay,
Such vicious habits as disgrace his name,
Threaten his health, his fortune, and his fame;
Though want of due restraint alone have bred
The symptoms that you see with so much dread;
Unenvied there, he may sustain alone
The whole reproach, the fault was all his own.
Oh! 'tis a sight to be with joy perused,
By all who sentiment has not abused;
New-fangled sentiment, the boasted grace
Of those who never feel in the right place;
A sight surpass'd by none that we can show,
Though Vestris on one leg still shine below;
A father blest with an ingenuous son.
Father, and friend, and tutor, all in one.
How!-turn again to tales long since forgot,
Esop and Phædrus, and the rest?-Why not?
He will not blush that has a father's heart,
To take in childish plays a childish part;
But bends his sturdy back to any toy
That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy:
Then why resign into a stranger's hand
A task as much within your own command,
That God and nature, and your interest too,
Seem with one voice to delegate to you?
Why hire a lodging in a house unknown
For one whose tenderest thoughts all hover
round your own?

This second weaning, needless as it is,
How does it lacerate both your heart and his!
The indented stick, that loses day by day,
Notch after notch, till all are smooth'd away
Bears witness long ere his dismission come,
With what intense desire he wants his home.
But though the joys he hopes beneath your

τους

Bid fair enough to answer in the proof,
Harmless, and safe, and natural, as they are,
A disappointment waits him even there:
Arrived he feels an unexpected change;
He blushes hangs his head, is shy and strange,
No longer takes as once, with fearless ease,
His favorite stand between his father's knees,
But seeks the corner of some distant seat,
And eyes the door, and watches a retreat,
And least familiar where he should be most,
Feels all his happiest privileges lost.
Alas poor boy!-the natural effect

O love by absence chill'd into respect.
Say, what accomplishments, at school acquired,
Brings he to sweeten fruits so undesired!
Thou well deserv'st an alienated son,
Unless thy conscious heart acknowledge-none;
None that in thy domestic snug recess,
He had not made his own with more address,

Though some, perhaps, that shock thy feeling
And better never learn'd, or left behind. [mind,
Add too that, thus estranged, thou canst obtain
By no kind arts his confidence again;
That here begins with most that long complaint
Of filial frankness lost, and love grown faint,
Which oft neglected, in life's waning years
A parent pours into regardless ears.

Like caterpillars dangling under trees
By slender threads and swinging in the breeze,
Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace
The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race,
While every worm industriously weaves
And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves;
So numerous are the follies that annoy
The mind and heart of every sprightly boy;
Imaginations noxious and perverse,
Which admonition can alone disperse.
The encroaching nuisance asks à faithful hand,
Patient, affectionate, of high command,
To check the procreation of a breed
Sure to exhaust the plant on which they feed.
'Tis not enough that Greek or Roman page,
At stated hours his freakish thoughts engage;
E'en in his pastimes he requires a friend
To warn, and teach him safely to unbend;
O'er all his pleasures gently to preside,
Watch his emotions, and control their tide;
And levying thus, and with an easy sway,
A tax of profit from his very play,
To impress a value, not to be erased,
On moments sqander'd else, and running all to
And seems it nothing in a father's eye
That unimproved those many moments fly?
And is he well content his son should find
No nourishment to feed his growing mind,
But conjugated verbs and nouns declined?
For such is all the mental food purvey'd
By public hackneys in the schooling trade;
Who feed a pupil's intellect with store
Of syntax, truly, but with little more;
Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock,
Machines themselves, and govern'd by a clock.
Perhaps a father, blest with any brains.
Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains,
To improve this diet, at no great expense,
With savory truth and wholesome

sense;

[waste.

common

To lead his son, for prospects of delight,
To some not steep, though philosophic, height,
Thence to exhibit to his wondering eyes
Yon circling worlds, their distance, and their size,
The moons of Jove, and Saturn's belted ball,
And the harmonious order of them all;
To show him in an insect or a flower
Such microscopic proof of skill and power,
As, hid from ages past, God now displays
To combat atheists with in modern days;
To spread the earth before him and commend,
With designation of the finger's end,
Its various parts to his attentive note,
Thus bringing home to him the most remote;
To teach his heart to glow with generous flame,
Caught from the deeds of men of ancient fame;
And, more than all, with commendation due,
To set some living worthy in his view,
Whose fair example may at once inspire
A wish to copy what he must admire.
Such knowledge gain'd betimes and which ap-
Though solid not too weighty for his years,
Sweet in itself and not forbidding sport,
When health demands it, of athletic sort,

[pears,

Would

make him-what some lovely boys have been.

And more than one perhaps that I have seen-
An evidence and reprehension both

Of the mere schoolboy's lean and tardy growth.
Art thou a man professionally tied.
With all thy faculties elsewhere applied.
Too busy to intend a meaner care

Than how to enrich thyself and next thine heir;
Or art thou (as though rich, perhaps thou art)
But poor in knowledge, having none to impart:-
Behold that figure neat, though plainly clad;
His sprightly mingled with a shade of sad;
Not of a nimble tongue, though now and then
Heard to articulate like other men;
No jester, and yet lively in discourse,
His phrase well chosen. clear and full of force;
And his address if not quite French in ease,
Not English stiff, but frank, and form'd to please;
Low in the world, because he scorns its arts;
A man of letters, manners, morals parts;
Unpatronized, and therefore little known;
Wise for himself and his few friends alone-
In him thy well-appointed proxy see.
Arm'd for a work too difficult for thee;
Prepared by taste, by learning, and true worth,
To form thy son, to strike his genius forth:
Beneath thy roof beneath thine eye, to prove
The force of discipline when back'd by love;
To double all thy pleasure in thy child.
His mind inform'd, his morals undefiled.
Safe under such a wing, the boy shall show
No spots contracted among grooms below.
Nor taint his speech with meannesses, design'd
By footman Tom for witty and refined.
There, in his commerce, with the liveried herd,
Lurks the contagion chiefly to be fear'd;
For since (so fashion dictates) all, who claim
A higher than a mere plebeian fame,
Find it expedient, come what mischief may,
To entertain a thief or two in pay,
(And they that can afford the expense of more,
Some half a dozen, and some halt a score.)
Great cause occurs to save him from a band
So sure to spoil him, and so near at hand;
A point secured, if once he be supplied
With some such Mentor always at his side.
Are such men rare? perhaps they would abound
Were occupation easier to be found,
Were education, else so sure to fail,
Conducted on a manageable scale,

And schools, that have outlived all just esteem.
Exchanged for the secure domestic scheme.-
But, having found him, be thou duke or earl.
Show thou hast sense enough to prize the pearl.
And, as thou wouldst the advancement of thine
In all good faculties beneath his care,
Respect as is but rational and just.
A man deem'd worthy of so dear a trust.
Despised by thee, what more can he expect
From youthful folly than the same neglect?
A flat and fatal negative obtains
That instant upon all his future pains;
His lessons tire, his mild rebukes offend.
And all the instructions of thy son's best friend
Are a stream choked, or trickling to no end.
Doom him not then to solitary meals;
But recollect that he has sense and feels;
And that possessor of a soul refined
An upright heart, and cultivated mind.
His post not mean his talents not unknown,
He deems it hard to vegetate alone.

And, if admitted at thy board he sit,
Account him no just mark for idle wit;
Offend not him whom modesty restrains
From reparte, with jokes that he disdains;
Much less transfix his feelings with an oath;
Nor frown, unless he vanish with the cloth.-
And, trust me, his utility may reach
To more than he is hired, or bound to teach;
Much trash unutter'd, and some ills undone,
Through reverence of the censor of thy son.
But if thy table be indeed unclean.
Foul with excess, and with discourse obscene
And thou a wretch. whom following her old plan
The world accounts an honorable man,
Because forsooth thy courage has been tried.
And stood the test perhaps on the wrong side
Though thou hadst never grace enough to prove
That anything but vice could win thy love;-
Or hast thou a polite, card-playing wife,
Chain'd to the routs that she frequents for life.
Who, just when industry begins to snore [door;
Flies, wing'd with joy, to some coach-crowded
And thrice in every winter throngs thine own
With half the chariots and sedans in town.
Thyself meanwhile e'en shifting as thou may,
Not very sober though, nor very chaste:
Or is thine house, though less superb thy rank.
If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank
And thou at best, and in thy soberest mood,
A trifler vain, and empty of all good:-
Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none
Hear Nature plead, show mercy to thy son.
Saved from his home, where every day brings

forth

Some mischief fatal to his future worth,
Find him a better in a distant spot,
Within some pious pastor's humble cot.
Where vile example (yours I chiefly mean.
The most seducing and the oftenest seen
May never more be stamp'd upon his breast,
Not yet perhaps incurably impress'd:
Where early rest makes early rising sure,
Disease or comes not or finds easy cure.
Prevented much by diet neat and plain:
Or. if it enter, soon starved out again-
Where all the attention of his faithful host,
Discreetly limited to two at most

May raise such fruits as shall reward his care,
And not at last evaporate in air:
Where stillness aiding study, and his mind
Serene, and to his duties much inclined,
Not occupied in day dreams, as at home,
Of pleasures past, or follies yet to come,
His virtuous toil may terminate at last
In settled habit and decided taste.-
But whom do I advise the fashion-led
The incorrigibly wrong the deaf the dead
Whom care and cool deliberation suit
Not better much than spectacles a brute;
Who, if their sons some slight tuition share
Deem it of no great moment whose or where:
Too proud to adopt the thoughts of one un-
known,

And much too gay to have any of their own
But courage man methought the Muse replied
Mankind are various, and the world is wide.
The ostrich. silliest of the feather'd kind
And form'd of God without a parent's mind,
Commits her eggs incautious to the dust
Forgetful that the foot may crush the trust;
And, while on public nurseries they rely,
Not knowing, and too oft not caring, why,

Your wisdom and your ways-to you I turn.
Look round you on a world perversely blind;
See what contempt is fallen on human kind;
See wealth abused, and dignities misplaced,
Great titles, offices, and trusts disgraced,
Long lines of ancestry, renown'd of old,
Their noble qualities all quench'd and cold;
See Bedlam's closeted and handcuff'd charge
Surpass'd in frenzy by the mad at large;
See great commanders making war a trade,
Great lawyers, lawyers without study made;
Churchmen, in whose esteem their best employ
Is odious, and their wages all their joy,
Who far enough from furnishing their shelves
With Gospel lore, turn infidels themselves;
See womanhood despised, and manhood shamed
With infamy too nauseous to be named,
Fops at all corners, ladylike in mien,
Civited fellows, sinelt ere they are seen,

Else coarse and rude in manners, and their, tongue

On fire with curses. and with nonsense hung. Now flush'd with drunkenness, now with whoredom pale,

Their breath a sample of last night's regale;
See volunteers in all the vilest arts,
Men weil endow'd, of honorable parts,
Design'd by Nature wise, but self-made fools;
All these and more like these, were bred at
schools.

And if it chance, as sometimes chance it will, That though school-bred the boy be virtuous still;

Such rare exceptions, shining in the dark.
Prove, rather than impeach, the just remark:
As here and there a twinkling star descried
Serves but to show how black is all beside.
Now look on him, whose very voice in tone
Just echoes thine, whose features are thine own,
And stroke his polish'd cheek of purest red,
And lay thine hand upon his flaxen head,
And say. My boy the unwelcome hour is come,
When thou, transplanted from thy genial home,
Must find a colder soil and bleaker air,
And trust for safety to a stranger's care;
What character, what turn thou wilt assume
From constant converse with I know not whom;
Who there will court thy friendship, with what

Though much depends on what thy choice shall be,

Is all chance-medley, and unknown to me.
Canst thou, the tear just trembling on thy lids,
And while the dreadful risk foreseen forbids;
Free too, and under no constraining force,
Unless the sway of custom warp thy course;
Lay such a stake upon the losing side,
Merely to gratify so blind a guide?

Thou canst not! Nature, pulling at thine heart,
Condemns the unfatherly, the imprudent part.
Thou wouldst not, dear to Nature's tenderest
Turn him adrift upon a rolling sea, [plea,
Nor say, Go thither, conscious that there lay
A brood of asps, or quicksands in his way;
Then, only govern'd by the self-same rule
Of natural pity, send him not to school.
No-guard him better. Is he not thine own,
Thyself in miniature, thy flesh, thy bone?
And hopest thou not, ('tis every father's hope.)
That, since thy strength must with thy years
elope,

And thou wilt need some comfort to assuage
Health's last farewell, a staff of thine old age,
That then, in recompense of all thy cares,
Thy child shall show respect to thy gray hairs,
Befriend thee, of all other friends berett,
And give thy life its only cordial left!
Aware then how much danger intervenes,
To compass that good end, forecast the means.
His heart, now passive, yields to thy command;
Secure it thine, its key is in thine hand;
If thou desert thy charge, and throw it wide.
Nor heed what guests there enter and abide,
Complain not if attachments lewd and base
Supplant thee in it, and usurp thy place.
But, if thou guard its sacred chambers sure.
From vicious inmates, and delights impure,
Either his gratitude shall hold him fast
And keep him warm and filial to the last;
Or, if he prove unkind, (as who can say
But, being man, and therefore frail, he may?)
One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart.
Howe'er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part.
Oh, barbarous! wouldst thou with a Gothic
hand
fi' th' land;
Pull down the schools-what-all the schools
Or thrown them up to livery-nags and grooms,
Or turn them into shops and auction-rooms?
A captious question, sir, (and yours is one,)
Deserves an answer similar or none.
Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock. employ
(Apprised that he is such) a careless boy,
And feed him well, and give him handsome pay,
Merely to sleep, and let them run astray?
Survey our schools and colleges and see
A sight not much unlike my simile.
From education, as the leading cause,
The public character its color draws;
Thence the prevailing manners take their cast,
Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste.
And though I would not advertise them yet,
Nor write on each-This Building to be Let,
Un.ess the world were all prepared to embrace
A plan well worthy to supply their place;
Yet, backward as they are and long have been,
To cultivate and kee the MORALS clean,
(Forgive the crime.) I wish them, I confess,
Or better managed, or encouraged less.

39

THE YEARLY DISTRESS, OR TITHING TIME AT STOCK IN ESSEX.

Verses addressed to a Country Clergyman, complaining of the disagreeableness of the day annually appointed for receiving the Dues at the Parsonage.

COME, ponder well, for 'tis no jest,
To laugh it would be wrong,
The troubles of a worthy priest,
The burden of my song.

The priest he merry is and blithe
Three quarters of a year:
But oh! it cuts him like a scythe,
When tithing time draws near.
He then is full of fright and fears,
As one at point to die,
And long before the day appears,
He heaves up many a sigh.

For then the farmers come jog, jog,
Along the miry road,
Each heart as heavy as a log.

To make their payments good.

In sooth the sorrow of such days
Is not to be express'd,

When he that takes and he that pays
Are both alike distress'd.

Now all unwelcome at his gates

The clumsy swains alight,
With rueful faces and bald pates-

He trembles at the sight.

And well he may, for well he knows
Each bumpkin of the clan,
Instead of paying what he owes,
Will cheat him if he can.

So in they come-each makes his leg,
And flings his head before,
And looks as if he came to beg,
And not to quit a score.

"And how does miss and madam do,
The little boy and all?"
"All tight and well. And how do you,
Good Mr. What-d'ye-call?"

The dinner comes, and down they sit,
Were e'er such hungry folk?
There's little talking and no wit;
It is no time to joke.

One wipes his nose upon his sleeve,
One spits upon the floor,

Yet not to give offence or grieve,
Holds up the cloth before.

The punch goes round, and they are dull
And lumpish still as ever;

Like barrels with their bellies full,
They only weigh the heavier.

At length the busy time begins.
"Come, neighbors, we must wag"

The money chinks, down drop their chins,
Each lugging out his bag.

One talks of mildew and of frost,
And one of storms of hail,

And one of pigs that he has lost
By maggots at the tail.