BOOK II.

THE TIME-PIECE.

Declin'd at length into the vale of years:

A palsy struck his arm; his sparkling eye

Was quench'd in rheums of age: his voice, un

strung

Glew tremulous, and mov'd derision more

Than rev'rence in perverse rebellious youth.
So colleges and halls neglected much

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Their good old friend; and Discipline at length,
O'erlook'd and unemploy'd, fell sick and died.
Then Study languish'd, Emulation slept,

And Virtue fled. The schools became a scene
Of solemn farce, where Ignorance in stilts,

His

cap well lined with logic not his own,

With parrot tongue perform'd the scholar's part, Proceeding soon a graduated dunce.

Then compromise had place, and scrutiny

Became stone blind; precedence went in truck,

And he was competent whose purse was so.

A dissolution of all bonds ensued;

The curbs invented for the mulish mouth

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Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts

Grew rusty by disuse; and massy gates

Forgot their office, op'ning with a touch;

Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade,
The tassell'd cap and the spruce band a jest,
A mock'ry of the world! What need of these 750
For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure,
Spendthrifts, and booted sportsmen, oft’ner seen
With belted waist and pointers at their heels,
Than in the bounds of duty? What was learn'd,
If aught was learn'd in childhood, is forgot:
And such expense, as pinches parents blue,
And mortifies the lib'ral hand of love,

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Is squander'd in pursuit of idle sports
And vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name
That sits a stigma on his father's house,
And cleaves through life inseparably close
To him, that wears it. What can aftergames
Of riper joys, and commerce with the world,
The lewd vain world, that must receive him soon,

Add to such erudition, thus acquir'd,

Where science and where virtue are profess'd?

They may confirm his habits, rivet fast

His folly, but to spoil him is a task,

That bids defiance to th' united pow'rs
Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews.

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Now blame we most the nurselings or the nurse?
The children crook'd, and twisted, and deform'd,
Through want of care; or her, whose winking eye
And slumb'ring oscitancy mars the brood?
The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge,
She needs herself correction; needs to learn,
That it is dang'rous sporting with the world,
With things so sacred as a nation's trust,
The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.

All are not such. I had a brother once-
Peace to the mem'ry of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too!
Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears,

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When gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles.

h

He grac❜d a college, in which order yet

Was sacred; and was honour'd, lov'd, and wept,
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.
Some minds are temper'd happily, and mix'd
With such ingredients of good sense, and taste
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst
With such a zcal to be what they approve,

That no restraints can circumscribe them more

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Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's

sake.

Nor can example hurt them: what they see

Of vice in others but enhancing more

The charms of virtue in their just esteem.

If such escape contagion, and emerge

Pure from so foul a pool to shine abroad,

And give the world their talents and themselves, Small thanks to those, whose negligence or sloth

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h Bene't Coll. Cambridge.