Priests have invented, and the world admired
What knavish priests promulgate as inspired,
'Till reason, now no longer overawed,

Resumes her powers, and spurns the clumsy fraud,
And common sense diffusing real day,

The meteor of the gospel dies away.

Such rhapsodies our shrewd discerning youth
Learn from expert enquirers after truth,
Whose only care, might truth presume to speak,
Is not to find what they profess to seek.
And thus well tutor'd only while we share
A mother's lectures and a nurse's care,
And taught at schools much mythologic stuff 2,
But sound religion sparingly enough,
Our early notices of truth disgraced

Soon lose their credit, and are all effaced.

Would you your son should be a sot or dunce,
Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once,
That in good time, the stripling's finish'd taste
For loose expense and fashionable waste
Should prove your ruin, and his own at last,
Train him in public with a mob of boys,
Childish in mischief only and in noise,
Else of a mannish growth, and five in ten
In infidelity and lewdness, men.

There shall he learn ere sixteen winters old,
That authors are most useful, pawn'd or sold,

The author begs leave to explain; sensible that without such knowledge, neither the ancient poets nor historians can be tasted or indeed understood, he does not mean to censure the pains that are taken to instruct a school-boy in the religion of the heathen, but merely that neglect of Christian culture which leaves him shamefully ignorant of his own.

That pedantry is all that schools impart,
But taverns teach the knowledge of the heart;
There waiter Dick with Bacchanalian lays
Shall win his heart and have his drunken praise,
His counsellor and bosom friend shall prove,
And some street-pacing harlot his first love.
Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong,
Detain their adolescent charge too long.
The management of Tiro's of eighteen
Is difficult, their punishment obscene.
The stout tall Captain, whose superior size
The minor heroes view with envious eyes,
Becomes their pattern, upon whom they fix
Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks.
His pride that scorns to obey or to submit,
With them is courage, his effrontery wit;
His wild excursions, window-breaking feats,
Robbery of gardens, quarrels in the streets,
His hair-breadth 'scapes, and all his daring schemes,
Transport them and are made their favourite themes.
In little bosoms such achievements strike

A kindred spark, they burn to do the like.
Thus half accomplish'd, ere he yet begin
To show the peeping down upon his chin,
And as maturity of years comes on

Made just the adept that you designed your son,
To insure 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 ord'nances is shown,
Or look'd for now, the fault must be his own.

Some sneaking virtue lurks in him no doubt,
Where neither strumpet's charms nor drinking-bout,
Nor gambliug practices can find it 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 establish'd 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 ours 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,
Or if I blame, 'tis only that they dare
Promise a work of which they must despair.
Have ye, ye sage intendants of the whole,
An ubiquarian presence and controul,
Elisha's eye, that when Gehazi stray'd

Went with him, and saw all the game he play'd?
Yes, ye are conscious; and on all the shelves
Your pupils strike upon, have struck yourselves.
Or if by nature sober, ye had then,

Boys as ye were, the gravity of men,
Ye knew at least, by constant proofs address'd
To ears and eyes, the vices of the rest.

But ye connive at what ye cannot cure,
And evils not to be endured, endure,
Lest power exerted, but without success,
Should make the little ye retain still less.
Ye once were justly famed for bringing forth
Undoubted scholarship and genuine worth,
And in the firmament of fame still shines
A glory bright as that of all the signs

Of poets raised by you, and statesmen and divines.
Peace to them all, those brilliant times are fled,
And no such lights are kindling in their stead.
Our striplings shine indeed, but with such rays
As set the midnight riot in a blaze,

And seem, if judged by their expressive looks,
Deeper in none than in their surgeons' books.

Say, Muse, (for education made the song,
No Muse can hesitate or linger long,)

What causes move us, knowing as we must
That these Menageries all fail their trust,
To send our sons to scout and scamper there,
While colts and puppies cost us so much care?

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise,
We love the play-place of our early days.
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.
The wall on which we tried our graving skill,
The very name we carved subsisting still,
The bench on which we sat while deep-employ'd
Though mangled, hack'd and hew'd, not yet destroy'd;
The little ones unbutton'd, glowing hot,

Playing our games, and on the very spot,

As happy as we once, to kneel and draw
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw,
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat;
The pleasing spectacle at once excites
Such recollection of our own delights,
That viewing it, we seem almost to obtain
Our innocent sweet simple years again.
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 flogg'd, 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 play'd his sons shall play,
And destines their bright genius to be shown
Just in the scene where he display'd his own.