Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it ev'n in age, and at our latest day. Hark! how the sire of chits, whose future share With his own likeness plac'd on either knee, And tells them, as he strokes their silver locks, 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. The meek and bashful boy will soon be taught To be as bold and forward as he ought; The rude will scuffle through with ease enough, Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough. Ah, happy designation, prudent choice, The great, indeed, by titles, riches, birth, Excus'd th' incumbrance of more solid worth, Are best dispos'd of where with most success They may acquire that confident address, Those habits of profuse and lewd expense, That scorn of all delights but those of sense, Which, though in plain plebeians we condemn, With so much reason all expect from them. But families of less illustrious fame, Whose chief distinction is their spotless name, Whose heirs, their honours none, their income small, Must shine by true desert, or none at all- And, while the playful jockey scours the room In fancy sees him more superbly ride In coach with purple lin'd, and mitres on its side. Events improbable and strange as these, Which only a parental eye foresees, A public school shall bring to pass with ease. But how! resides such virtue in that air As must create an appetite for pray'r? And will it breathe into him all the zeal That candidates for such a prize should feel, In all true worth and literary skill? "Ah, blind to bright futurity, untaught "The knowledge of the world, and dull of thought! "Church-ladders are not always mounted best 66 By learned clerks and Latinists profess' d. "Th' exalted prize demands an upward look, "Not to be found by poring on a book. "Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek, "Is more than adequate to all I seek. "I give the bauble but the second place; "Shall give him consequence, heal all defects. "His intercourse with peers, and sons of peers"There dawns the splendour of his future years; "In that bright quarter his propitious skies "Shall blush betimes, and there his glory rise. "Your Lordship, and Your Grace! what school "can teach "A rhet'ric equal to those parts of speech? "What need of Homer's verse or Tully's prose, "Sweet interjections! if he learn but those? "Let rev'rend churls his ignorance rebuke, "Who starve upon a dog's-ear'd Pentateuch, "The parson knows enough who knows a duke."Egregious purpose! worthily begun In barb'rous prostitution of your son; Press'd on his part by means that would disgrace In sacrilege, in God's own house profan'd! |