As, hid from ages paft, God now displays
To combat atheists with in modern days;
To spread the earth before him, and commend,
With defignation 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 fet fome living worthy in his view,
Whofe fair example may at once inspire

A wish to copy what he must admire.

Such knowledge gained betimes, and which appears,
Though folid, not too weighty for his years,
Sweet in itself, and not forbidding fport,

When health demands it, of athletic fort,

Would make him-what fome lovely boys have been, And more than one perhaps that I have feen

An evidence and reprehenfion both

Of the mere school-boys lean and tardy growth.

Art thou a man profeffionally 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 fprightly mingled with a fhade of fad ;
Not of a nimble tongue, though now and then
Heard to articulate like other men ;

No jefter, and yet lively in discourse,

His phrafe well chosen, clear and full of force ;
And his addrefs, if not quite French in ease,
Not English ftiff, but frank, and formed to please;.
Low in the world, because he scorns its arts;
A man of letters, manners, morals, parts;
Unpatronized, and therefore little known;
Wife for himself and his few friends alone-
In him thy well-appointed proxy see,

Armed for a work too difficult for thee;
Prepared by tafte, by learning, and true worth,
To form thy fon, to ftrike his genius forth;
Beneath thy roof, beneath thine eye, to prove
The force of difcipline when backed by love;
To double all thy pleasure in thy child,
His mind informed, his morals undefiled.
Safe under fuch a wing, the boy shall show
No fpots contracted among grooms below,
Nor taint his fpeech with meanneffes, defigned
By footman Tom for witty and refined,

There, in his commerce with the liveried herd,
Lurks the contagion chiefly to be feared;
For fince (so fashion dictates) all, who claim
An 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 half a score)
Great cause occurs to fave him from a band
So fure to spoil him, and fo near at hand;
A point fecured, if once he be supplied
With fome fuch Mentor always at his fide.
Are fuch men rare? perhaps they would abound
Were occupation easier to be found,

Were education, elfe fo fure to fail,
Conducted on a manageable scale,

And schools that have out-lived all juft efteem,
Exchanged for the fecure domeftic fcheme.

But, having found him, be thou duke or earl,
Show thou haft fenfe enough to prize the pearl,
And, as thou wouldft the advancement of thine heir
In all good faculties beneath his care,

Respect, as is but rational and just,

A man deemed worthy of fo dear a trust.
Despised by thee, what more can he expect
From youthful folly than the fame neglect?

A flat and fatal negative obtains

That inftant upon all his future pains;
His leffons tire, his mild rebukes offend,
And all the inftructions of thy fon's best friend
Are a ftream choaked, or trickling to no end.
Doom him not then to folitary meals;
But recollect that he has fenfe, and feels;
And that, poffeffor of a foul refined,
An upright heart, and cultivated mind,
His poft not mean, his talents not unknown,
He deems it hard to vegetate alone.

And, if admitted at thy board he fit,
Account him no juft mark for idle wit;
Offend not him, whom modefty restrains
From repartee, with jokes that he disdains;
Much lefs 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 unuttered, and fome ills undone,
Through reverence of the cenfor of thy fon.

But, if thy table be indeed unclean, Foul with excefs, and with difcourfe obfcene, And thou a wretch, whom, following her old plan The world accounts an honourable man,

Because forfooth thy courage has been tried
And flood the teft, perhaps on the wrong fide;
Though thou hadft never grace enough to prove
That any thing but vice could win thy love ;-
Or haft thou a polite, card-playing wife,
Chained to the routs that she frequents for life;
Who, juft when industry begins to fnore,
Flies, winged with joy, to some coach-crowded door;
And thrice in every winter throngs thine own
With half the chariots and fedans in town,
Thyfelf meanwhile e'en shifting as thou mayeft;
Not very fober though, nor very chafte ;—
Or is thine house, though less fuperb thy rank,
If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank,

And thou at beft, and in thy sobereft mood,
A trifler vain, and empty of all good;

Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none,
Hear nature plead, fhow mercy to thy fon.

Saved from his home, where every day brings forth
Some mischief fatal to his future worth,

Find him a better in a diftant spot,

Within fome pious paftor's humble cot,
Where vile example (your's I chiefly mean,

The moft feducing and the ofteneft feen)
May never more be stamped upon his breast,
Not yet perhaps incurably impreffed.