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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 their's the scholar's prize.
The spirit of that competition burns

With all varieties of ill by turns;

Each vainly magnifies his own fuccefs,
Refents his fellow's, wifhes it were less,
Exults in his miscarriage if he fail,
Deems his reward too great if he prevail,
And labours to surpass him day and night,
Lefs for improvement than to tickle fpite.
The fpur is powerful, and I grant its force;
It pricks the genius forward in its course,
Allows fhort time for play, and none for floth;
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, claffical desert

Against an heart depraved and temper hurt;
Hurt too perhaps for life; for early wrong
Done to the nobler part, affects it long;
And you are ftaunch indeed in learning's caufe
If you can crown a difcipline, that draws

Such mifchiels after it, with much applause.

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Connexion formed for interest, and endeared
By selfish views, thus cenfured and cashiered;
And emulation, as engendering hate,
Doomed to a no less ignominious fate;
The props of fuch proud feminaries fall,
The Jachin and the Boaz of them all.
Great schools rejected then, as those that swell
Beyond a fize that can be managed well,
Shall royal inftitutions miss the bays,
And small academies win all the praise?
Force not my drift beyond its just intent,
I praise a school as Pope a government;
So take my judgment in his language dressed,
"Whate'er is beft administered is beft."
Few boys are born with talents that excel,
But all are capable of living well;

Then afk not, Whether limited or large?
But, Watch they strictly, or negle&t 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 cause all teachers boast,
Though motives of mere lucre fway the moft;

Therefore in towns and cities they abound,

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For there the game they feek 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-conftructed brain,
Keen in purfuit, and vigorous to retain,
Your fon come forth a prodigy of skill;
As, wherefoever taught, fo formed, he will;
The pedagogue, with felf-complacent air,
Claims more than half the praife as his due fhare.
But if, with all his genius, he betray,

Not more intelligent than loofe and gay,
Such vicious habits, as difgrace his name,

Threaten his health, his fortune, and his famo;
Though want of due reftraint alone have bred
The symptoms, that you fee with fo much dread;
Unenvied there, he may fuftain alone

The whole reproach, the fault was all his own.

Oh 'tis a fight to be with joy perufed, By all whom sentiment has not abused; New-fangled fentiment, the boafted grace Of those, who never feel in the right place;

A fight furpaffed by none that we can fhow,
Though Veftris on one leg ftill fhine below;
A father bleft with an ingenuous fon,
Father, and friend, and tutor, all in one.
How!-turn again to tales long fince forgot,

fop, and Phædrus, and the reft? Why not?

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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?

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Why hire a lodging in a house unknown For one, whofe tendereft thoughts all hover round your own?

This fecond weaning, needlefs as it is,

How does it lacerate both your heart and his!
The indented stick, that lofes day by day
Notch after notch, till all are smoothed away,
Bears witnefs, 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 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 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 most,

Feels all his happieft privileges loft.

Alas, poor boy!-the natural effect

Of love by abfence chilled into refpect,

Say, what accomplishments, at school acquired,
Brings he, to fweeten fruits fo undesired?

Thou well deferveft an alienated fon,
Unless thy conscious 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;

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