Harmless, and fafe, and nat'ral, as they are,
A disappointment waits him even there :
Arriv'd, he feels an unexpected change;
He blushes, hangs his head, is fhy and strange,
No longer takes, as once, with fearless ease,
His fav'rite ftand between his father's knees,
But seeks the corner of some distant feat,
And eyes the door, and watches a retreat,
And, least familiar where he should be most,
Feels all his happiest privileges loft.
Alas, poor boy!-the natural effect

Of love by abfence chill'd into refpect.
Say, what accomplishments, at school acquir'd,
Brings he, to fweeten fruits fo undefir'd?

Thou well deferv'ft an alienated fon,

Unless thy conscious heart acknowledge-none;

None that, in thy domeftic fnug recefs,

He had not made his own with more address,

Though fome perhaps that shock thy feeling mind,

And better never learn'd, or left behind,

Add too, that, thus eftrang'd, thou can't obtain
By no kind arts his confidence again;

That here begins with most that long complaint
Of filial frankness loft, and love grown faint,
Which, oft neglected, in life's waning years
into regardless ears.

A parent pours

Like caterpillars, dangling under trees

By flender threads, and swinging in the breeze, Which filthily bewray and fore difgrace

The boughs in which are bred th' unseemly race; While ev'ry worm induftrioufly weaves

And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves;

So num'rous are the follies that annoy

The mind and heart of ev'ry fprightly boy;
Imaginations noxious and perverfe,

Which admonition can alone difperfe.

Th' encroaching nuifance afks a faithful hand,

Patient, affectionate, of high command,

To check the procreation of a breed

Sure to exhauft the plant on which they feed.
'Tis not enough that Greek or Roman page,
At stated hours, his freakish thoughts engage;
Ev'n in his paftimes he requires a friend
To warn, and teach him fafely to unbend,
O'er all his pleasures gently to prefide,

Watch his emotions, and controul their tide;
And, levying thus, and with an eafy fway,
A tax of profit from his very play,

T'imprefs a value, not to be eras'd,

On moments fquander'd elfe, and running all to waste.
And feems it nothing in a father's eye

That unimprov'd those many moments fly?
And is he well content his fon fhould find

No nourishment to feed his growing mind
But conjugated verbs and nouns declin'd?
For fuch is all the mental food purvey'd
By public hacknies in the schooling trade;

Y 3

Who feed a pupil's intellect with store

Of fyntax, truly, but with little more;

Difmifs their cares when they difmifs their flock-
Machines themselves, and govern'd by a clock.
Perhaps a father, bleft with any brains,

Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains,
T'improve this diet, at no great expenfe,

With fav'ry truth and wholesome common sense;
To lead his fon, for profpects of delight,

To fome not steep, though philofophic, height,
Thence to exhibit to his wond'ring eyes

Yon circling worlds, their diftance, 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 flow'r,
Such microscopic proof of skill and pow'r,
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 gen'rous 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 inspire
A wish to copy what he muft admire.

Such knowledge, gain'd betimes, and which appears, Though folid, not too weighty for his years,

Sweet in itself, and not forbidding fport,

When health demands it, of athletic fort,

Would make him-what fome lovely boys have been,

And more than one, perhaps, that I have seen

An evidence and reprehenfion both

Of the mere school-boy's lean and tardy growth.

Art thou a man profeffionally tied,

With all thy faculties elsewhere applied,

Y 4