Her form with dress and lotion they repair;
Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair.

The sacred implement I now employ
Might prove a mischief, or at best a toy;
A trifle, if it move but to amuse;
But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse,
Worse than a poniard in the basest hand,
It stabs at once the morals of a land.

Ye writers of what none with safety reads;
Footing it in the dance that Fancy leads;
Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,
Sniv’lling and driv'lling folly without end;
Whose corresponding misses fill the ream
With sentimental frippery and dream,
Caught in a delicate soft silken net
By some lewd earl, or rakehell baronet:
Ye pimps, who under virtue's fair pretence,
Steal to the closet of young innocence,
And teach her, unexperienc'd yet and green,
To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen;
Who, kindling a combustion of desire,
With some cold moral think to quench the fire i
Though all your engineering proves in vain,
The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again :
O that a verse had pow'r, and could command
Far, far away these flesh-flies of the land;
Who fasten without mercy on the fair,
And suck, and leave a craving maggot there!
Howe'er disguis'd th' inflammatory tale,
And cover'd with a fine-spun specious veil ;
Such writers, and such readers, owe the gust
And relish of their pleasure all to lust.

But the muse, eagle-pinion'd, has in view A quarry more important still than you; Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away, Now stoops upon it, and now grasps

the

prey. Petronius! all the muses weep for thee; But ev'ry tear shall scald thy memory : The graces too, while Virtue at their shrine Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine,

One sad epistle thence may cure maskine

And through life's labyrinth holds tast the end

And ev'ry post, and where the chaise broke du
His stock, a few French phrases gut by heart,

Felt each a mortal stab in ber ova breast,
Abhorr'd the sacrince, and cursd the proste
Thou polish'd and high-faish'd fbe to both,
Graybeard corrupter of our list'ning youth,
To purge and skim asay the filth of rice,
That so refo'd it might the more ealace,
Then pour it on the morals of thy son ;
To taint his heart, was worthy of thine esi!
Now, while tire poisou all high life perrades
Write, if thou canst, one letur from the Lourd:
One, and one ools, charz'd with deep reren
That thy worse part, thiy principles, lise seli

Of the plague spread by bundles lett beline
'Tis granted, and no plainer truch apprests

,
Our most important are our earliest years,
The Mind, impressible and soft, srith ease
Imbibes and copies what she hears and des

That Education gives hier, false or true.
Plants rais'd with tenderness are scidos strane
Man's coltish disposition asks the thual;
And without discipline the fav'rite collele
Like a neglected forester, runs wild.
But we, as if good qualities would gros
Spontaneous, take but little pains to sou;
We gire soine Latio, and a smatch of Greek
Teach him to lence and figure twice a ved
And having done, we think, the best se cach
Praise his proficiency, and dub lim mua.

Froin school to Cain or Isis, and tu ne se
And thence with all convenient speed to Bon
With rey'rend tator clad io habit lay,
To tease for casis, and quarrel with all day;
With memorandum-book for ev'ry towl,

With much to learn, but nothing to impart The youth, obedicat to his site's commands, Sets off a wand'rer into foreign lands.