If e'er it chanced, as fometimes chance it must,
That one among fo many overleaped
The limits of controul, his gentle eye
Grew ftern, and darted a fevere rebuke.
His frown was full of terror, and his voice
Shook the delinquent with fuch fits of awe,
As left him not, till penitence had won
Loft favour back again, and closed the breach.
But Difcipline, a faithful servant long,
Declined at length into the vale of years:
A palfy ftruck his arm; his sparkling eye
Was quenched in rheums of age; his voice unftrung
Grew tremulous, and moved derifion more
Than reverence in perverse rebellious youth.
So colleges and halls neglected much
Their good old friend; and Difcipline at length
O'erlooked and unemployed fell fick and died.
Then study languished, emulation flept,
And virtue fled. The fchools became a scene
Of folemn farce, where Ignorance in ftilts,
His cap well lined with logic not his own,
With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part,
Proceeding foon a graduated dunce.
Then compromise had place, and fcrutiny
Became ftone blind; precedence went in truck,
And he was competent whofe purfe was fo.
A diffolution of all bonds enfued;
The curbs invented for the mulish mouth
Of head-ftrong youth were broken; bars and bolts
Grew rufty by difufe; and maffy gates
Forgot their office, opening with a touch;
Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade,
The taffeled cap and the spruce band a jeft,
A mockery of the world! What need of these
For gamefters, jockeys, brothellers impure,
Spendthrifts, and booted sportsmen, oftener seen
With belted waift and pointers at their heels,
Than in the bounds of duty? What was learned,
If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot;
And fuch expence, as pinches parents blue,
And mortifies the liberal hand of love,
Is fquandered in pursuit of idle sports
And vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name,
That fits a ftigma on his father's house,
And cleaves through life infeparably clofe
To him, that wears it. What can after-games
Of riper joys, and commerce with the world,
The lewd vain world, that muft receive him foon,
Add to fuch erudition, thus acquired,
Where science and where virtue are profeffed?
They may confirm his habits, rivet faft
His folly, but to spoil him is a task,
That bids defiance to the united powers
Of fashion, diffipation, taverns, ftews.
Now blame we moft the nurflings or the nurse?
The children crooked, and twifted, and deformed,
Through want of care; or her, whofe winking eye
And flumbering ofcitancy mars the brood?
The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge
She needs herfelf correction; needs to learn,
That it is dangerous fporting with the world,
With things fo facred as a nation's truft,
The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.
All are not fuch. I had a brother oncePeace to the memory of a man of worth, A man of letters, and of manners too! Of manners fweet as virtue always wears, When gay good-nature dreffes her in fmiles. He graced a college *, in which order yet Was facred; and was honoured, loved, and wept, By more than one, themselves confpicuous there. Some minds are tempered happily, and mixt With fuch ingredients of good fenfe, and tafte Of what is excellent in man, they thirst With fuch a zeal to be what they approve,
That no reftraints can circumfcribe them more
Than they themfelves by choice, for wifdom's fake;
Nor can example hurt them: what they fee
Of vice in others but enhancing more
The charms of virtue in their just esteem.
If such escape contagion, and emerge
Pure from fo foul a pool to shine abroad,
And give the world their talents and themfelves,
Small thanks to those, whose negligence or floth
Expofed their inexperience to the snare,
And left them to an undirected choice.
See then the quiver broken and decayed,
In which are kept our arrows! Rufting there
In wild diforder, and unfit for ufe,
What wonder if, difcharged into the world,
They fhame their fhooters with a random flight,
Their points obtufe, and feathers drunk with wine!
Well may the church wage unfuccefsful war
With fuch artillery armed. Vice parries wide
The undreaded volley with a fword of ftraw,
And ftands an impudent and fearless mark.
Have we not tracked the felon home, and found His birth-place and his dam? The country mourns, Mourns becaufe every plague, that can infeft
Society, and that faps and worms the base
Of the edifice, that policy has raised,
Swarms in all quarters: meets the eye, the ear,
And fuffocates the breath at every turn.
Profufion breeds them; and the cause itself
Of that calamitous mischief has been found:
Found too where moft offenfive, in the fkirts
Of the robed pedagogue! Elfe let the arraigned
Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge.
So, when the Jewish leader ftretched his arm,
And waved his rod divine, a race obfcene,
Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth,
Polluting Ægypt: gardens, fields, and plains,
Were covered with the peft; the streets were filled;
The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook;
Nor palaces, nor even chambers, 'scaped;
And the land ftank-fo numerous was the fry.
|