Then afk not, Whether limited or large?

But, Watch they ftrictly, or neglect their charge?
If anxious only that their boys may learn,
While morals languish, a despised concern,

The great and small deserve one common blame,
Different in fize, but in effect the fame.

Much zeal in virtue's caufe all teachers boaft,
Though motives of mere lucre sway the moft;
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 fhrewd, and of a well-constructed brain,
Keen in pursuit, and vigorous to retain,
Your fon come forth a prodigy of skill;
As, wherefoever taught, so formed, he will;
The pedagogue, with felf-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 difgrace his name, Threaten his health, his fortune, and his fame; Though want of due reftraint alone have bred The symptoms, that you fee with so much dread; Unenvied there, he may sustain alone

The whole reproach, the fault was all his own.

Oh 'tis a fight to be with joy perused,
By all whom fentiment has not abused;
New-fangled fentiment, the boasted grace
Of those, who never feel in the right place;
A fight furpaffed by none that we can show,
Though Veftris on one leg ftill shine below;
A father bleft with an ingenuous fon,
Father, and friend, and tutor, all in one.
How!-turn again to tales long fince forgot,
Æfop, 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 refign into a stranger's hand
A task as much within your own command,
That God and nature, and your intereft too,
Seem with one voice to delegate to you?

Why hire a lodging in a house unknown

For one, whofe tenderest thoughts all hover round your

own?

This fecond weaning, needlefs as it is,

How does it lacerate both your heart and his!
The indented ftick, that lofes day by day
Notch after notch, till all are fmoothed away,
Bears witness, long ere his difmiffion come,
With what intense defire he wants his home.

But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof
Bid fair enough to anfwer in the proof,
Harmless, and fafe, and natural, as they are,
A disappointment waits him even there :
Arrived, he feels an unexpected change,
He blushes, hangs his head, is fhy and strange,
No longer takes, as once, with fearless ease,
His favourite ftand between his father's knees,
But feeks the corner of fome diftant feat,
And eyes the door, and watches a retreat,
And, leaft familiar where he should be moft,
Feels all his happieft privileges loft.

Alas, poor boy!-the natural effect

Of love by abfence chilled into respect.
Say, what accomplishments, at school acquired,
Brings he, to fweeten fruits fo undefired?

Thou well deservest an alienated fon,
Unless thy confcious heart acknowledge-none;
None that, in thy domeftic fnug recefs,

He had not made his own with more address,

Though some perhaps that shock thy feeling mind,
And better never learned, or left behind.

Add too, that, thus eftranged, thou canst obtain
By no kind arts his confidence again;
That here begins with moft that long complaint
Of filial frankness loft, and love grown faint,

Which, oft neglected, in life's waning years
A parent pours into regardless ears.

Like caterpillars, dangling under trees

By flender threads, and swinging in the breeze,
Which filthily bewray and fore difgrace

The boughs, in which are bred the unfeemly race;

While every worm industriously weaves
And winds his web about the rivelled leaves;
So numerous are the follies, that annoy
The mind and heart of every sprightly boy;
Imaginations noxious and perverse,
Which admonition can alone difperfe.
The encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand,
Patient, affectionate, of high command,

To check the procreation of a breed

Sure to exhauft the plant, on which they feed.
'Tis not enough that Greek or Roman page,
At ftated hours, his freakifh thoughts engage;
Ev'n in his pastimes he requires a friend
To warn, and teach him fafely to unbend,
O'er all his pleasures gently to prefide,
Watch his emotions, and control their tide;
And levying thus, and with an easy sway,
A tax of profit from his very play,

To imprefs a value, not to be erafed,

On moments fquandered elfe, and running all to waste.
And feems it nothing in a father's eye

That unimproved those many moments fly?
And is he well content his fon fhould find
No nourishment to feed his growing mind,
But conjugated verbs and nouns declined?
For fuch is all the mental food purveyed
By public hacknies in the schooling trade;
Who feed a pupil's intellect with ftore
Of fyntax, truly, but with little more;
Difmifs their cares when they difmifs their flock,
Machines themselves, and governed by a clock.
Perhaps a father, bleft with any brains,
Would deem it no abuse, or wafte of pains,
To improve this diet, at no great expense,
With favory truth and wholesome common sense;
To lead his fon, for profpects of delight,
To fome not fteep, though philofophic, height,
Thence to exhibit to his wondering eyes

Yon circling worlds, their diftance, and their fize,
The moons of Jove, and Saturn's belted ball,
And the harmonious order of them all;

To fhow him in an infect or a flower

Such microscopic proof of skill and power,

7