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Grew tremulous, and mov'd derifion more

Than rev'rence, in perverse rebellious youth.
So colleges and halls neglected much

Their good old friend, and Difcipline at length
O'erlook'd and unemploy'd, fell fick and died.
Then study languish'd, emulation slept,

And virtue fled. The fchools became a scene
Of folemn farce, where ignorance in ftilts,
His cap well lin❜d with logic not his own,
With parrot tongue perform'd the scholar's part,
Proceeding foon a graduated dunce.

Then compromife had place, and fcrutiny
Became ftone-blind, precedence went in truck,
And he was competent whose purse was so.
A diffolution of all bonds enfu'd,

The curbs invented for the mulish mouth

Of head-strong youth were broken; bars and bolts

Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates

Forgot their office, op'ning with a touch ;

'Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade;

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The taffell'd cap

and the fpruce band a jeft,
A mock'ry of the world. What need of thefe
For gamesters, jockies, brothellers impure,
Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oft’ner seen
With belted waift and pointers at their heels,
Than in the bounds of duty? What was learn'd,
If aught was learn'd in childhood, is forgot,
And fuch expence as pinches parents blue,
And mortifies the lib'ral hand of love,

Is fquander'd in pursuit of idle sports
And vicious pleasures: buys the boy a name,
That fits a ftigma on his father's house,

And cleaves through life infeparably clofe

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To him that wears it. What can after-games

Of riper joys, and commerce with the world,

The lewd vain world that must receive him foon,
Add to fuch erudition thus acquir'd,

Where science and where virtue are profefs'd?

They may confirm his habits, rivet faft

His folly, but to fpoil him is a talk

That

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Of fashion, diffipation, taverns, ftews.

Now, blame we most the nurflings or the nurse?

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The children crook'd, and twisted, and deform'd
Through want of care, or her whofe winking eye
And flumb'ring ofcitancy mars the brood?
The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge,
She needs herself correction: needs to learn.
That it is dang'rous fporting with the world,
With things fo facred as a nation's trust,
The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.

fuch. I had a brother once

All are not fuch.

Peace to the mem'ry of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too.
Of manners sweet as virtue always wears,
When gay good-nature dreffes her in smiles.
He grac'd a college, in which order yet

Ben'et Coll. Cambridge.

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Was

Was facred; and was honor'd, lov'd and wept

By more than one, themselves confpicuous there.
Some minds are temper'd happily, and mixt
With fuch ingredients of good fense and taste
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst

With fuch a zeal to be what they approve,

That no reftraints can circumfcribe them more,

Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's fake, Nor can example hurt them. What they see

Of vice in others but enhancing more

The charms of virtue in their just esteem.
If fuch escape contagion, and emerge

Pure, from fo foul a pool, to fhine abroad,
And give the world their talents and themselves,
Small thanks to those whofe negligence or floth
Expos'd their inexperience to the snare,
And left them to an undirected choice.

See then! the quiver broken and decay'd, In which are kept our arrows. Rufting there

In wild diforder, and unfit for use,

What wonder, if discharg'd into the world,
They fhame their shooters with a random flight,
Their points cbtufe, and feathers drunk with wine.
Well may the church
the church wage unfuccefsful war,
With fuch artill❜ry arm'd. Vice parries wide
Th' undreaded volley with a fword of straw,
And ftands an impudent and fearless mark.

Have we not track'd the felon home, and found
His birth-place and his dam? The country mourns,
Mourns, because ev'ry plague that can infest
Society, and that faps and worms the base
Of th' edifice that policy has rais'd,

Swarms in all quarters; meets the eye, the ear,
And fuffocates the breath at ev'ry turn.
Profufion breeds them; and the cause itself
Of that calamitous mifchief has been found:
Found too where most offenfive, in the skirts
Of the rob'd pedagogue. Elfe, let th' arraign'd

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