Harmless, and safe, and natʼral 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 feeks the corner of fome distant feat,
And eyes
the door, and watches a retreat,
And, leaft familiar where he should be moft,
Feels all his happiest privileges loft.
Alas, poor boy!-the natural effect
Of love by abfence chill'd into respect.
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 domestic fnug recess,
He had not made his own with more address,
Though fome perhaps that fhock thy feeling mind,
And better never learn'd, or left behind.
Add too, that, thus eftrang'd, thou can'ft obtain
By no kind arts his confidence again;
That here begins with moft that long complaint
Of filial frankness loft, and love grown faint,
Which, oft neglected, in life's waning years,
A parent pours into regardless ears.
Like caterpillars dangling under trees
By flender threads, and fwinging in the breeze,
Which filthily bewray and fore difgrace
The boughs in which are bred th' unfeemly race,
While ev'ry worm induftriously 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 sprightly boy,
Imaginations noxious and perverse,
Which admonition can alone difperfe.
Th' encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand,
Patient, affectionate, of high command,
To check the procreation of a breed
Sure to exhaust 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 pastimes 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 easy sway,
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 seems 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;
Who feed a pupil's intellect with store
Of fyntax truly, but with little more;
Difmifs their cares when they dismiss 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 expence,
With fav'ry truth and wholesome common sense;
To lead his fon, for profpects of delight,
To some not steep, though philofophic height,
Thence to exhibit to his wond'ring eyes
Yon circling worlds, their distance, and their size,
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 past, 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,
Whofe fair example may at once inspire
A wish to copy what he must 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,
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