Now blame we most the nurslings, or the nurse?
The children, crooked, and twisted, and deformed
Through want of care; or her whose winking eye
And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood?
The nurse, no doubt. Regardless of her charge,
She needs herself correction; needs to learn
That it is dangerous 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 memory of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too!
Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears,
When gay Goodnature dresses her in smiles.
He graced a college, in which order yet
Was sacred, and was honoured, loved, and wept
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.
Some minds are tempered happily, and mixed
With such ingredients of good sense and taste
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst
With such a zeal to be what they approve,
That no restraints can circumscribe them more

775

780

785

790

Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake.
Nor can example hurt them: what they see

Of vice in others but enhancing more

795

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
Exposed their inexperience to the snare,
And left them to an undirected choice.

800

See then the quiver broken and decayed,

In which are kept our arrows! Rusting there

In wild disorder, and unfit for use,

805

What wonder, if discharged into the world,
They shame their shooters with a random flight,

Their points obtuse, and feathers drunk with wine!

Well may the Church wage unsuccessful war,
With such artillery armed. Vice parries wide
The undreaded volley with a sword of straw,
And stands an impudent and fearless mark.

810

Have we not tracked the felon home, and found
His birth-place and his dam? The country mourns,
Mourns because every plague that can infest
Society, and that saps and worms the base

815

Of the edifice that policy has raised,

Polluting Egypt: gardens, fields, and plains

Swarms in all quarters; meets the eye, the ear,
And suffocates the breath at every turn.
Profusion breeds them; and the cause itself
Of that calamitous mischief has been found:
Found too where most offensive, in the skirts
Of the robed pedagogue! Else let the arraigned
Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge.
So when the Jewish leader stretched his arm,
And waved his rod divine, a race obscene,
Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth,

820

825

Were covered with the pest; the streets were filled;

The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook;

830

Nor palaces, nor even chambers, 'scaped;

And the land stank-so numerous was the fry.

BOOK III.

THE GARDEN.

ARGUMENT:-Self-recollection and reproof, 1-Address to domestic happiness, 41-Some account of myself, 108-The vanity of many of their pursuits who are reputed wise, 124—Justification of my censures, 191-Divine illumination necessary to the most expert philosopher, 221 -The question, What is truth? answered by other questions, 261Domestic happiness addressed again, 290-Few lovers of the country, 293—My tame hare, 334—Occupations of a retired gentleman in his garden, 352-Pruning, 408-Framing, 435-Raising the cucumber, 446 -Greenhouse, 566-Sowing of flower seeds, 624-The country preferable to the town, even in the winter, 675-Reasons why it is deserted at that season, 728-Ruinous effects of gaming and of expensive improvements, 760-Book concludes with an apostrophe to the metropolis, 811.

As one who long in thickets and in brakes
Entangled, winds now this way and now that
His devious course uncertain, seeking home;
Or having long in miry ways been foiled
And sore discomfited, from slough to slough
Plunging, and half despairing of escape;

If chance at length he find a greensward smooth
And faithful to the foot, his spirits rise,
He cherups brisk his ear-erecting steed,

And winds his way with pleasure and with ease;
So I, designing other themes, and called
To adorn the Sofa with eulogium due,
To tell its slumbers, and to paint its dreams,
Have rambled wide. In country, city, seat
Of academic fame (howe'er deserved)
Long held, and scarcely disengaged at last.

5

ΙΟ

15

But now with pleasant pace a cleanlier road
I mean to tread. I feel myself at large,
Courageous, and refreshed for future toil,
If toil await me, or if dangers new.

Since pulpits fail, and sounding-boards reflect
Most part an empty ineffectual sound,
What chance that I, to fame so little known,
Nor conversant with men or manners much,
Should speak to purpose, or with better hope
Crack the satiric thong? 'Twere wiser far
For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes,
And charmed with rural beauty, to repose

20

25

Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine,

My languid limbs, when summer sears the plains,
Or when rough winter rages, on the soft
And sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous air

30

Feeds a blue flame, and makes a cheerful hearth;
There, undisturbed by Folly, and apprised
How great the danger of disturbing her,
To muse in silence, or at least confine
Remarks that gall so many, to the few
My partners in retreat. Disgust concealed
Is oft-times proof of wisdom, when the fault
Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach.

Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss

Of Paradise that has survived the fall!

35

40

Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure,

Or tasting long enjoy thee; too infirm,

45

Or too incautious, to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitter, which Neglect
Or Temper sheds into thy crystal cup.
Thou art the nurse of Virtue. In thine arms
She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is,
Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.
Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored,
That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm
Of Novelty, her fickle, frail support;

E

50

For thou art meek and constant, hating change,

And finding in the calm of truth-tried love
Joys that her stormy raptures never yield.
Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made
Of honour, dignity, and fair renown!
Till prostitution elbows us aside

In all our crowded streets; and senates seem
Convened for purposes of empire less
Than to release the adultress from her bond.
The adultress! what a theme for angry verse!
What provocation to the indignant heart,
That feels for injured love! but I disdain
The nauseous task to paint her as she is,
Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame!
No-let her pass, and charioted along
In guilty splendour, shake the public ways;
The frequency of crimes has washed them white,
And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch,
Whom matrons now, of character unsmirched
And chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own.
Virtue and vice had boundaries in old time,
Not to be passed: and she that had renounced
Her sex's honour, was renounced herself
By all that prized it; not for prudery's sake,
But dignity's, resentful of the wrong.

'Twas hard perhaps on here and there a waif Desirous to return, and not received,

80

But was a wholesome rigour in the main,

And taught the unblemished to preserve with care
That purity, whose loss was loss of all.
Men too were nice in honour in those days,

85

And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped,
And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained,

Was marked and shunned as odious. He that sold
His country, or was slack when she required

His every nerve in action and at stretch,
Paid with the blood that he had basely spared,

90

The price of his default. But now-yes, now,