To ensure the perseverance of his course,
And give your monstrous project all its force,
Send him to college. If he there be tamed,
Or in one article of vice reclaimed,
Where no regard of ordinance is shown
Or looked for now, the fault must be his own. Some sneaking virtue lurks in him, no doubt, Where neither strumpets' charms, nor drinkingbout,
Nor gambling practises, can find out.
Such youths of spirit, and that spirit too,
Ye nurseries of our boys, we owe to you:
Though from ourselves the mischief more proceeds,
For public schools 'tis public folly feeds.
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road,
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.
To follow foolish precedents, and wink
With both our eyes, is easier than to think:
And such an age as our's baulks no expense,
Except of caution and of common-sense;
Else sure notorious fact and proof so plain
Would turn our steps into a wiser train.
I blame not those, who with what care they can
O'erwatch the numerous and unruly clan;
This fond attachment to the well-known place,
Whence first we started into life's long race,
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
We feel it even in age, and at our latest day.
Hark! how the sire of chits, whose future share
Of classic food begins to be his care,
With his own likeness placed on either knee,
Indulges all a father's heart-felt glee ;
And tells them, as he strokes their silver locks,
That they must soon learn Latin, and to box;
Then turning he regales his listening wife
With all the adventures of his early life;
His skill in coachmanship, or driving chaise,
In bilking tavern bills, and spouting plays;
What shifts he used, detected in a scrape,
How he was flogged, or had the luck to escape;
What sums he lost at play, and how he sold
Watch, seals, and all—till all his pranks are told:
Retracing thus his frolics, ('tis a name
That palliates deeds of folly and of shame)
He gives the local bias all its sway;
Resolves that where he played his sons shall play,
And destines their bright genius to be shown
Just in the scene, where he displayed his own.
The meek and bashful boy will soon be taught,
To be as bold and forward as he ought;
The rude will scuffle through with ease enough,
Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough.
Ah happy designation, prudent choice,
The event is sure; expect it; and rejoice!
Soon see your wish fulfilled in either child,
The pert made perter, and the tame made wild.
The great indeed, by titles, riches, birth,
Excused the incumbrance of more solid worth,
Are best disposed of where with most success
They may acquire that confident address,
Those habits of profuse and lewd expense,
That scorn of all delights but those of sense,
Which, though in plain plebeians we condemn,
With so much reason all expect from them.
But families of less illustrious fame,
Whose chief distinction is their spotless name, Whose heirs, their honours none, their income small, Must shine by true desert, or not at all,
What dream they of, that with so little care
They risk` their hopes, their dearest treasure, there?
They dream of little Charles or William graced
With wig prolix, down flowing to his waist;
They see the attentive crowds his talents draw,
They hear him speak-the oracle of law.
The father, who designs his babe a priest,
Dreams him episcopally such at least;
And, while the playful jockey scours the room
Briskly, astride upon the parlour broom,
In fancy sees him more superbly ride
In coach with purple lined and mitres on its side.
Events improbable and strange as these,
Which only a parental eye foresees,
A public school shall bring to pass with ease.
But how? resides such virtue in that air,
As must create an appetite for prayer?
And will it breathe into him all the zeal,
That candidates for such a prize should feel,
To take the lead and be the foremost still
In all true worth and literary skill?
"Ah blind to bright futurity, untaught
"The knowledge of the world, and dull of thought!
"Church-ladders are not always mounted best
"By learned clerks and Latinists professed.
"The exalted prize demands an upward look,
"Not to be found by poring on a book.
"Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek,
"Is more than adequate to all I seek.
"Let erudition grace him or not grace,
"I give the bauble but the second place;
"His wealth, fame, honours, all that I intend,
"Subsist and centre in one point—a friend.
"A friend, whate'er he studies or neglects,
"Shall give him consequence, heal all defects.
"His intercourse with peers and sons of peers→→ "There dawns the splendour of his future years; "In that bright quarter his propitious skies "Shall blush betimes, and there his glory rise. "Your Lordship, and Your Grace! what school "can teach
"A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech? "What need of Homer's verse or Tully's prose, "Sweet interjections! if he learn but those? "Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke, "Who starve upon a dog's-eared Pentateuch, "The parson knows enough, who knows a duke." Egregious purpose! worthily begun
In barbarous prostitution of your son ;
Pressed on his part by means, that would disgrace A scrivener's clerk or footman out of place,
And ending, if at last its end be gained,
In sacrilege, in God's own house profaned.
may succeed; and, if his sins should call
For more than common punishment, it shall;
The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on earth
Least qualified in honour, learning, worth,
To occupy a sacred, awful post,
In which the best and worthiest tremble most.
The royal letters are a thing of course,
A king, that would, might recommend his horse;
|