Are fuch men rare? perhaps they would abound
Were occupation eafier 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 domestic scheme.-
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,
Refpect, as is but rational and juft,

A man deemed worthy of fo dear a truft.
Defpifed 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 stream 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 reftrains
From repartee, with jokes that he difdains;
Much less transfix his feelings with an oath;
Nor frown, unless he vanifh with the cloth.-
And, trust me, his utility may reach
To more than he is hired or bound to teach ;
Much trafh 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 ftood 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 the frequents for life;

Who, juft when industry begins to fnore,
Flies,winged with joy, to fome 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 soberest mood,
A trifler vain, and empty of all good;

Though mercy for thyself thou canft have none,
Hear nature plead, show mercy to thy son.
Saved from his home, where every day brings forth
Some mischief fatal to his future worth,
Find him a better in a distant spot,

Within fome pious paftor's humble cot,
Where vile example (your's I chiefly mean,
The most seducing and the oftenest seen)
May never more be ftamped upon his breaft,
Not yet perhaps incurably impreffed.
Where early reft makes early rifing fure,
Disease or comes not, or finds easy cure,
Prevented much by diet neat and plain;
Or, if it enter, foon ftarved out again:

Where all the attention of his faithful hoft,
Discreetly limited to two at most,

May raise fuch fruits as fhall reward his care,
And not at last evaporate in air:

Where, ftillness aiding study, and his mind
Serene, and to his duties much inclined,
Not occupied in day-dreams, as at home,
Of pleafures paft, or follies yet to come,
His virtuous toil may terminate at last
In fettled habit and decided taste.-
But whom do I advife? the fashion-led,
The incorrigibly wrong, the deaf, the dead,
Whom care and cool deliberation fuit
Not better much than fpectacles a brute;
Who, if their fons fome flight tuition share,
Deem it of no great moment whose, or where;
Too proud to adopt the thoughts of one unknown,
And much too gay to have any of their own.
But courage, man! methought the mufe replied,
Mankind are various, and the world is wide:
The oftrich, fillieft of the feathered kind,
And formed of God without a parent's mind,
Commits her eggs, incautious, to the duft,
Forgetful that the foot may crush the truft;

And, while on public nurferies they rely,
Not knowing, and too oft not caring, why,
Irrational in what they thus prefer,

No few, that would seem wise, resemble ber.
But all are not alike. Thy warning voice
May here and there prevent erroneous choice;
And fome perhaps, who, bufy as they are,
Yet make their progeny their dearest care,
(Whose hearts will ache, once told what ills may
reach

Their offspring, left upon fo wild a beach)
Will need no ftrefs of argument to enforce
The expedience of a lefs adventurons course:
The reft will flight thy counfel, or condemn;
But they have human feelings-turn to them.

To you then, tenants of life's middle ftate, Securely placed between the fall and great, Whofe character, yet undebauched, retains Two thirds of all the virtue that remains, Who, wife yourselves, defire your fon fhould learn Your wisdom and your ways-to you I turn. Look round you on a world perverfely blind; See what contempt is fallen on human kind;