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That here begins with most 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 fwinging in the breeze, Which filthily bewray and fore disgrace

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 alonc disperse.

The encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand,
Patient, affectionate, of high command,

To check the procreation of a breed

Sure to exhaust the plant, on which they feed.
'Tis not enough that Greek or Roman page,
At ftated hours, his freakish thoughts engage;
Ev'n in his pastimes he requires a friend

To warn,

and teach him safely to unbend,

O'er all his pleasures gently to prefide,
Watch his emotions, and control their tide;
And levying thus, and with an eafy fway,
A tax of profit from his very play,

To imprefs a value, not to be erased,

On moments fquandered elfe, and running all to waffe.

And feems it nothing in a father's eye
That unimproved thofe 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 flore
Of fyntax, truly, but with little more;

Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock,
Machines themselves, and governed by a clock.
Perhaps a father, bleft with any brains,

Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains,
To improve this diet, at no great expense,
With favory truth and wholesome common fenfe;
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 distance, 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,
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,
Whose fair example may at once infpire-
A with to copy what he muft admire.

Such knowledge gained betimes, and which ap

pears,

Though folid, not too weighty for his years,
Sweet in itself, and not forbidding sport,

When health demands it, of athletic fort,

Would make him-what some lovely boys have

been,

And more than one perhaps that I have seen—
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 phrase well chosen, clear and full of force;
And his address, if not quite French in ease,

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Not English stiff, 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 fee,

Armed for a work too difficult for thee;
Prepared by tafte, by learning, and true worth,
To form thy fon, to strike his genius forth;
Beneath thy roof, beneath thine eye, to prove
The force of discipline 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 so near at hand;
A point fecured, if once he be supplied
With fome fuch Mentor always at his fide.

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