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

Where, stillness aiding study, and his mind,
Serene, and to his duties much inclined,
Not occupied in day-dreams, as at home,
Of pleasures past, or follies yet to come,
His virtuous toil may terminate at last.
In settled habit and decided taste.—
But whom do I advise? the fashion-led,
The incorrigibly wrong, the deaf, the dead!
Whom care and cool deliberation suit

Not better much than spectacles a brute;
Who if their sons some slight 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 Muse replied,
Mankind are various, and the world is wide:
The ostrich, silliest of the feathered kind,
And formed of God without a parent's mind,
Commits her eggs, incautious, to the dust,
Forgetful that the foot may crush the trust;
And while on public nurseries they rely,
Not knowing, and too oft not caring, why,
Irrational in what they thus prefer,

No few, that would seem wise, resemble her.
But all are not alike. Thy warning voice
May here and there prevent erroneous choice;
And some perhaps, who, busy as they are,
Yet make their progeny their dearest care

(Whose hearts will ache, once told what ills may reach
Their offspring, left upon so wild a beach),
Will need no stress of argument to enforce
The expedience of a less adventurous course :
The rest will slight thy counsel, or condemn;
But they have human feelings-turn to them.
To you, then, tenants of life's middle state,
Securely placed between the small and great,
Whose character, yet undebauched, retains
Two-thirds of all the virtue that remains,
Who wise yourselves, desire your sons should learn
Your wisdom and your ways-to you I turn.
Look round you on a world perversely blind;
See what contempt is fallen on humankind;
See wealth abused, and dignities misplaced,
Great titles, offices, and trusts disgraced,
Long lines of ancestry, renowned of old,
Their noble qualities all quenched and cold;

See Bedlam's closeted and handcuffed charge
Surpassed in frenzy by the mad at large;
See great commanders making war a trade,
Great lawyers, lawyers without study made:
Churchmen, in whose esteem their best employ
Is odious, and their wages all their joy,
Who far enough from furnishing their shelves
With Gospel lore, turn infidels themselves;
See womanhood despised, and manhood shamed
With infamy too nauseous to be named,
Fops at all corners, ladylike in mien,
Civeted fellows, smelt ere they are seen,

Else coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue

On fire with curses and with nonsense hung,

Now flushed with drunkenness, now with whoredom pale,
Their breath a sample of last night's regale;
See volunteers in all the vilest arts,

Men well endowed, of honourable parts,

Designed by Nature wise, but self-made fools;

All these, and more like these, were bred at schools.
And if it chance, as sometimes chance it will,
That though school-bred the boy be virtuous still,
Such rare exceptions, shining in the dark,
Prove, rather than impeach, the just remark,
As here and there a twinkling star descried
Serves but to show how black is all beside.
Now look on him, whose very voice in tone
Just echoes thine, whose features are thine own,
And stroke his polished cheek of purest red,
And lay thine hand upon his flaxen head,

And say," My boy, the unwelcome hour is come,
"When thou, transplanted from thy genial home,
"Must find a colder soil and bleaker air,
"And trust for safety to a stranger's care.
"What character, what turn thou wilt assume
"From constant converse with I know not whom ;
"Who there will court thy friendship, with what views,

66

And, artless as thou art, whom thou wilt choose;
Though much depends on what thy choice shall be,

"Is all chance-medley, and unknown to me.

Canst thou, the tear just trembling on thy lids,
And while the dreadful risk foreseen forbids;
Free, too, and under no constraining force,
Unless the sway of custom warp thy course;
Lay such a stake upon the losing side,
Merely to gratify so blind a guide?

Thou canst not! Nature, pulling at thine heart,
Condemns the unfatherly, the imprudent part.

Thou wouldst not, deaf to Nature's tenderest plea,
Turn him adrift upon a rolling sea,

Nor say,-"Go thither; -conscious that there lay
A brood of asps, or quicksands, in his way;
Then, only governed by the self-same rule
Of natural pity, send him not to school.
No!-guard him better. Is he not thine own,
Thyself in miniature, thy flesh, thy bone?
And hopest thou not ('tis every father's hope)
That since thy strength must with thy years elope,
And thou wilt need some comfort to assuage
Health's last farewell, a staff of thine old age,
That then, in recompense of all thy cares,
Thy child shall show respect to thy gray hairs,
Befriend thee, of all other friends bereft,
And give thy life its only cordial left ?
Aware then how much danger intervenes,
To compass that good end, forecast the means.
His heart, now passive, yields to thy command ;
Secure it thine, its key is in thine hand.
If thou desert thy charge, and throw it wide,
Nor heed what guests there enter and abide,
Complain not if attachments lewd and base
Supplant thee in it, and usurp thy place.
But if thou guard its sacred chambers sure
From vicious inmates and delights impure,
Either his gratitude shall hold him fast,
And keep him warm and filial to the last;
Or if he prove unkind (as who can say,
But being man, and therefore frail, he may)
One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart ;-
Howe'er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part.
"Oh, barbarous! wouldst thou with a Gothic hand

Pull down the schools-what!-all the schools i' th' land;
Or throw them up to livery-nags and grooms,
Or turn them into shops and auction-rooms ?"
A captious question, sir, and yours is one,
Deserves an answer similar, or none.
Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock, employ
(Apprised that he is such) a careless boy,
And feed him well, and give him handsome pay,
Merely to sleep, and let them run astray ?
Survey our schools and colleges, and see
A sight not much unlike my simile.
From education, as the leading cause,
The public character its colour draws;

Thence the prevailing manners take their cast,
Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste.

And, though I would not advertise them yet,
Nor write on each-"This building to be let,'
Unless the world were all prepared to embrace
A plan well worthy to supply their place;
Yet, backward as they are, and long have been,
To cultivate and keep the MORALS clean
(Forgive the crime), I wish them, I confess,
Or better managed, or encouraged less.

Miscellaneous Poems.

1779 TO 1799.

A TALE, FOUNDED ON A FACT,

WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY, 1779.

WHERE Humber pours his rich commercial stream,
There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme;
In subterraneous caves his life he led,

Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread.
When on a day, emerging from the deep,

A Sabbath-day (such sabbaths thousands keep!)
The wages of his weekly toil he bore

To buy a cock-whose blood might win him more;
As if the noblest of the feathered kind

Were but for battle and for death designed;

As if the consecrated hours were meant

For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;

It chanced (such chances Providence obey)

He met a fellow-labourer on the way,

Whose heart the same desires had once enflamed;
But now the savage temper was reclaimed.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;

For all plead well who plead the cause of Grace.
His iron heart with scripture he assailed,
Wooed him to hear a sermon, and prevailed.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,
Swift as the lightning-glimpse the arrow flew;
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wondered he should feel;
Grace made the wound, and Grace alone could heal.
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies !
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was washed with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine

Learned, by his altered speech, the change divine!

Laughed when they should have wept, and swore the day Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.