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 ftream 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 just mark for idle wit;
Offend not him, whom modesty restrains
From repartee, with jokes that he difdains;
Much lefs transfix his feelings with an oath ;
Nor frown, unlefs he vanifh with the cloth.-
And, truft me, his utility may reach
To more than he is hired or bound to teach ;
Much trash unuttered, and fome ills undone,
Through reverence of the cenfor of thy fon.
But, if thy table be indeed unclean,
Foul with excess, 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 stood the test, 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 she 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 chaste ;—
Or is thine houfe, though lefs fuperb thy rank,
If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank,
And thou at beft, and in thy fobereft mood,
A trifler vain, and empty of all good;
Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none,
Hear nature plead, fhow mercy to thy fon.
Saved from his home, where every day brings forth
Some mifchief fatal to his future worth,
Find him a better in a diftant spot,
Within fome pious paftor's humble cot,
Where vile example (your's I chiefly mean,
The most feducing and the oftenest seen)
May never more he ftamped upon his breaft,
Not yet perhaps incurably impreffed.
Where early reft makes early rifing sure,
Disease or comes not, or finds eafy cure,
Prevented much by diet neat and plain ;
Or, if it enter, foon ftarved out again :
Where all the attention of his faithful hoft,
Difcreetly limited to two at moft,
May raife fuch fruits as shall reward his care,
And not at laft 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 pleasures paft, or follies yet to come,
His virtuous toil may terminate at last
In fettled habit and decided tafte.-
But whom do I advise? the fashion-led,
The incorrigibly wrong, the deaf, the dead,
Whom care and cool deliberation fuit
Not better much than spectacles a brute;
Who, if their fons fome flight tuition share,
Deem it of no great moment whofe, 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 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 crufh the truft;
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 feem wife, resemble her.
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 deareft care,
(Whose hearts will ache, once told what ills may reach
Their offspring, left upon so wild a beach)
Will need no ftress of argument to enforce
The expedience of a lefs adventurous course:
The reft will flight 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, wife yourselves, defire your fon fhould learn
Your wisdom and your ways-to you I turn.
Look round you on a world perversely blind;
See what contempt is fallen on human kind
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See wealth abused, and dignities misplaced,
Great titles, offices and trufts difgraced,
Long lines of ancestry, renowned of old,
Their noble qualities all quenched and cold;
See Bedlam's closetted and hand-cuffed charge
Surpaffed in frenzy by the mad at large;
See great commanders making war a trade,
Great lawyers, lawyers without ftudy made;
Churchmen, in whofe efteem their bleft employ
Is odious, and their wages all their joy,
Who, far enough from furnishing their shelves
With gofpel lore, turn infidels themselves;
See womanhood defpifed, and manhood fhamed
With infamy too naufeous to be named,
Fops at all corners, lady-like in mien,
Civetted fellows, fmelt ere they are feen,
Elfe coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue
On fire with curses, and with nonsense hung,
Now flushed with drunk'nefs, now with whoredom pale,
Their breath a fample of last night's regale;
See volunteers in all the vileft arts,
Men well endowed, of honourable parts,
Defigned by nature wife, but self-made fools;
All thefe, and more like thefe, were bred at schools.
And if it chance, as fometimes chance it will,
That though school-bred the boy be virtuous ftill;
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