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Me, let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,
Make langour smile, and smooth the bed of death;
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following Spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise;
So generations in their course decay,
So flourish these, when those are past away.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.

Good-nature and good sense should ever join;
To err is human,-to forgive, divine.

Unblemished let me live, or die unknown;
O grant an honest fame, or grant me none !

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend-of every foe.

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Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such,
Who still are pleased too little or too much."
At every trifle scorn to take offence,
That always shews great pride or little sense. W
As things seem large which we through mists descry,
Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

Some valuing those of their own side or mind,..
Still make themselves the measure of mankind":
Fondly we think we honour merit then,
When we but praise ourselves in other men.

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Be silent always when you doubt your sense;
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence:
Some positive persisting fops we know,

That, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you, with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last ti

'Tis not enough your counsel still be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot..
Without good breeding truth is disapprov'd,
That only makes superior sense belov'd....

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Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense..

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PRIDE often guides the author's pen,→→ Tomy v Books as affected are as menanca a an none a But he who studies Nature's laws

From certain truth his maxims draws.

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Learn to contemn all praise betimes,
For flattery's the nurse of crimes, judukan ma

Cowards are cruel, but the brave
Love mercy, and delight to save.

Thus, when the villain orams his chest,
Gold is the canker of the breast;

'Tis av'rice, insolence, and pride,

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And ev'ry shocking vice besideres 3" 240V
But when to virtuous hands 'tis given, wow pu
It blesses like the dews of heaven.

Like Heaven, it hears the orphans' cries,
And wipes the tears from widows' eyes.

TO W

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Whene'er I hear a knave commend, we
He bids me shun his worthy friends arma ded

Seek you to train your fav'rite boy?

Each caution, ev'ry care employзm aduna d hot cỶ Husum tower way ung evrunde

And ere you venture to confide,
Let his preceptor's heart be tried;
Weigh well his manners, life, and scope:
On these depends your future hope.

For when we risk no contradiction,
It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.

Thus the dull lad, too tall for school,
With travel finishes the fool.

Who friendship with a knave hath made, Is judg'd a partner in the trade;

'Tis thus, that on the choice of friends Our good or evil name depends.

All upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.

Would you contempt and scorn avoid,
Let your vain glory be destroy'd.

By outward show

Men judge of happiness and woe :
Shall ignorance of good and ill
Dare to direct th' eternal Will?
Seek virtue, and of that possest,
To Providence resign the rest.

Be humble, learn thyself to scan, Know, pride was never made for man.

Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise,
For envy is a kind of praise.

Think not that treach'ry can be just;
Take not informers' words on trust..

Coxcombs, distinguished from the rest, To all but coxcombs are a jest.

Hyperboles, though ne'er so great,
Will still come short of self-conceit.

All private slander I detest,

I judge not of my neighbour's breast;
Party and prejudice I hate,

And write no libels on the state.

Shall not my fable censure vice,
Because a knave is over-nice?
And, lest the guilty hear and dread,
Shall not the decalogue be read?

We frequently misplace esteem
By judging men by what they seem.
To birth, wealth, pow'r, we should allow
Precedence and our lowest bow:

In that is due distinction shown:
Esteem is Virtue's right alone.

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