Points which, unless the scripture made them plain, The wisest heads might agitate in vain. Oh thou, whom, born on fancy's eager wing Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail; Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simplestyle, May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile; Witty, and well employ'd, and, like thy Lord, Speaking in parables his slighted word; I name thee not, lest so despis'd a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame; That mingles all my brown with sober gray, engage Their childhood, pleas'd them at a riper age; The man, approving what had charm'd the boy, Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy; And not with curses on his heart, who stole The gem of truth from his unguarded soul. By kind tuition on his yielding breast, The youth now bearded, and yet pert and raw, His pride resents the charge, although the 'proof Point to the cure, describe a Saviour's cross 1 See 2 Chron. ch. xxvi. ver. 19. The young apostate sickens at the view, And hates it with the malice of a Jew. How weak the barrier of mere nature proves, Oppos'd against the pleasures nature loves! Pray'r to the winds, and caution to the waves; Religion makes the free by nature slaves! Priests have invented, and the world admir'd Till reason, now no longer overaw'd, Resumes her pow'rs, and spurns the clumsy fraud; And, common-sense diffusing real day, The meteor of the gospel dies away! Such rhapsodies our shrewd discerning youth 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" But sound religion sparingly enough; "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. Our early notices of truth, disgrac'd, Soon lose their credit, and are all effac'd. 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; Else of a mannish growth, and five in ten There shall he learn, ere sixteen winters old, But taverns teach the knowledge of the heart; |