For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure,
Spendthrifts, and booted sportsmen, oftener seen
With belted waist 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 such expense as pinches parents blue,
And mortifies the liberal hand of love,
Is squander'd in pursuit of idle sports
And vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name
That sits a stigma on his father's house,
And cleaves through life inseparably close
To him that wears it. What can aftergames
Of riper joys and commerce with the world,
The lewd vain world, that must receive him soon,
Add to such erudition, thus acquired,
Where science and where virtue are profess'd?
They may confirm his habits, rivet fast
His folly, but to spoil him is a task
That bids defiance to the' united powers
Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews.
Now blame we most the nurslings or the nurse?
The children crook'd and twisted and deform'd
Through want of care; or her, whose winking eye
And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood?
The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge,
She needs herself correction; needs to learn,
That it is dangerous sporting with the world,
With things so sacred as a nation's trust,
The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.
All are not such. I had a brother once
Peace to the memory of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too!
Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears,
When gay Goodnature dresses her in smiles.
He graced a college, in which order yet
Was sacred; and was honour'd, loved, and wept
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there.
Some minds are temper'd happily, and mix'd
With such ingredients of good sense and taste
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst
With such a zeal to be what they approve,
That no restraints can circumscribe them more
Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake.
Nor can example hurt them: what they see
Of vice in others but enhancing more
The charms of virtue in their just esteem.
If such escape contagion, and emerge
Pure from so foul a pool to shine abroad,
And give the world their talents and themselves,
Small thanks to those whose negligence or sloth
Exposed 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! Rusting there
In wild disorder, and unfit for use,
What wonder, if, discharged into the world,
They shame their shooters with a random flight,
Their points obtuse, and feathers drunk with wine!
Well may the church wage unsuccessful war,
With such artillery arm'd. Vice parries wide
The' undreaded volley with a sword of straw,
And stands an impudent and fearless mark.
Have we not track'd the felon home, and found His birthplace and his dam? The country mourns, Mourns because every plague that can infest Society, and that saps and worms the base Of the' edifice that policy has raised, Swarms in all quarters: meets the eye, the ear, And suffocates the breath at every turn. Profusion breeds them: and the cause itself Of that calamitous mischief has been found: Found too where most offensive, in the skirts Of the robed pedagogue! Else let the' arraign'd Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge. So, when the Jewish leader stretch'd his arm, And waved his rod divine, a race obscene, Spawn'd in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth, Polluting Egypt: gardens, fields, and plains Were cover'd with the pest; the streets were fill'd; The croaking nuisance lurk'd in every nook; Nor palaces, nor even chambers scaped: And the land stank-so numerous was the fry.
DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL RA ENGRAVED BY J. H. ROBINSON; PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY.
|