But if, with all his genius, he betray,

Not more intelligent than loose and gay,
Such vicious habits as disgrace his name,
Threaten his health, his fortune, and his fame;
Though want of due restraint alone have bred
The symptoms that you see with so much dread;
Unenvied there, he may sustain alone
The whole reproach, the fault was all his own.
Oh! 'tis a sight to be with joy perused,
By all whom sentiment has not abused;
New-fangled sentiment, the boasted grace
Of those who never feel in the right place;
A sight surpass'd by none that we can show,
Though Vestris on one leg still shine below;
A father blest with an ingenious son,
Father, and friend, and tutor, all in one.
How!-turn again to tales long since forgot,
Esop, and Phædrus, and the rest?-Why not?
He will not blush, that has a father's heart,
To take in childish plays a childish part;
But bends his sturdy back to any toy

That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy :
Then why resign into a stranger's hand

A task as much within your own command,

That God and nature, and your interest too,

Seem with one voice to delegate to you?

Why hire a lodging in a house unknown

For one whose tenderest thoughts all hover round your own?

This second weaning, needless as it is,

How does it lacerate both your heart and his!

The indented stick, that loses day by day

Notch after notch, till all are smooth'd away,

Bears witness, long ere his dismission come,
With what intense desire he wants his home.
But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof
Bid fair enough to answer in the proof,
Harmless, and safe, and natural, as they are,
A disappointment waits him even there :
Arrived, he feels an unexpected change;
He blushes, hangs his head, is shy and strange,
No longer takes, as once, with fearless ease,
His favourite stand between his father's knees,
But seeks the corner of some distant seat,
And eyes the door, and watches a retreat,

And, least familiar, where he should be most,

Though some, perhaps, that shock thy feeling mind,
And better never learn'd, or left behind.
Add too, that thus estranged, thou canst obtain

By no kind arts his confidence again;

That here begins with most that long complaint
Of filial frankness lost, and love grown faint,
Which, oft neglected, in life's waning years
A parent pours into regardless ears.

Like caterpillars, dangling under trees

By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze,
Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace

The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race;

While every worm industriously weaves

And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves;

So numerous are the follies that annoy

The mind and heart of every sprightly boy;

Imaginations noxious and perverse,
Which admonition can alone disperse.

The encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand,
Patient, affectionate, of high command,

To check the procreation of a breed

Sure to exhaust the plant on which they feed.
'Tis not enough that Greek or Roman page,
At stated hours, his freakish thoughts engage;
E'en in his pastimes he requires a friend
To warn,
and teach him safely to unbend;
O'er all his pleasures gently to preside,
Watch his emotions, and control their tide;

And levying thus, and with an easy sway,

A tax of profit from his very play,

To impress a value not to be erased,

On moments squander'd else, and running all to waste.

And seems it nothing in a father's eye

That unimproved those many moments fly?
And is he well content his son should find
No nourishment to feed his growing mind,
But conjugated verbs and nouns declined?
For such is all the mental food purvey'd
By public hackneys in the schooling trade;
Who feeds a pupil's intellect with store
Of syntax, truly, but with little more;
Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock,
Machines themselves, and govern'd by a clock.

Perhaps a father, blest with any brains,

Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains,

To improve this diet, at no great expense,

With savoury truth and wholesome common sense;

To lead his son, for prospects of delight,

To some not steep, though philosophic, height,.
Thence to exhibit to his wondering eyes,

Yon circling worlds, their distance, and their size,
The moons of Jove, and Saturn's belted ball,

And the harmonious order of them all;

To show him in an insect or a flower

Such microscopic proof of skill and power,

As, hid from ages past, God now displays
To combat atheists with in modern days;
To spread the earth before him, and commend,
With designation of the finger's end,

Its various parts to his attentive note,
Thus bringing home to him the most remote;
To teach his heart to glow with generous flame,
Caught from the deeds of men of ancient fame;
And, more than all, with commendation due,
To set some living worthy in his view,
Whose fair example may at once inspire

A wish to copy what he must admire.

Such knowledge, gain'd betimes, and which appears,
Though solid, not too weighty for his years,
Sweet in itself, and not forbidding sport,

When health demands it, of athletic sort,

Would make him-what some lovely boys have been, And more than one perhaps that I have seen—

An evidence and reprehension both

Of the mere schoolboy's lean and tardy growth.
Art thou a man professionally tied,
With all thy faculties elsewhere applied,
Too busy to intend a meaner care

Than how to enrich thyself, and next thine heir;
Or art thou (as, though rich, perhaps thou art)
But poor in knowledge, having none to impart :
Behold that figure, neat, though plainly clad;
His sprightly mingled with a shade of sad;
Not of a nimble tongue, though now and then
Heard to articulate like other men ;
No jester, and yet lively in discourse,
His phrase well chosen, clear, and full of force;
And his address, if not quite French in ease,
Not English stiff, but frank and formed to please;
Low in the world, because he scorns its arts;
A man of letters, manners, morals, parts;

Unpatronized, and therefore little known;

Wise for himself, and his few friends alone

In him thy well-appointed proxy see,

Arm'd for a work too difficult for thee;
Prepared by taste, by learning and true worth,
To form thy son, to strike his genius forth;
Beneath thy roof, beneath thine eye, to prove
The force of discipline when back'd by love;
To double all thy pleasure in thy child,
His mind inform'd, his morals undefiled,
Safe under such a wing, the boy shall show
No spots contracted among grooms below,
Nor taint his speech with meannesses, design'd
By footman Tom for witty and refined.
There, in his commerce with the liveried herd,
Lurks the contagion chiefly to be fear'd;
For since (so fashion dictates) all, who claim
A higher than a mere plebeian fame,

Find it expedient, come what mischief may,
To entertain a thief or two in pay,

(And they that can afford the expense of more,
Some half a dozen, and some half a score,)
Great cause occurs to save him from a band,
So sure to spoil him, and so near at hand;
A point secured, if once he be supplied
With some such Mentor always at his side.
Are such men rare? perhaps they would abound
Were occupation easier to be found,
Were education, else so sure to fail,
Conducted on a manageable scale,

And schools, that have outlived all just esteem,
Exchanged for the secure domestic scheme.-
But, having found him, be thou duke or earl,
Show thou hast sense enough to prize the pearl,
And, as thou wouldst the advancement of thine heir
In all good faculties beneath his care,

Respect, as is but rational and just,

A man deem'd worthy of so dear a trust.
Despised by thee, what more can he expect
From youthful folly than the same neglect!
A flat and fatal negative obtains

That instant upon all his future pains;
His lessons tire, his mild rebukes offend,
And all the instructions of thy son's best friend

Are a stream choked, or trickling to no end.

Doom him not then to solitary meals;

But recollect that he has sense. and feels,

And that, possessor of a soul refined,

An upright heart, and cultivated mind,

His post not mean, his talents not unknown,

He deems it hard to vegetate alone.

And, if admitted at thy board he sit,
Account him no just mark for idle wit;
Offend not him, whom modesty restrains
From repartee, with jokes that he disdains;
Much less transfix his feelings with an oath;
Nor frown, unless he vanish with the cloth-
And, trust me, his utility may reach

To more than he is hired or bound to teach;
Much trash unutter'd, and some ills undone,
Through reverence of the censor of thy son.

But, if thy table be indeed unclean,
Foul with excess, and with discourse obscene,
And thou a wretch, whom following her old plan,
The world accounts an honourable man,
Because forsooth thy courage has been tried,
And stood the test, perhaps on the wrong side;
Though thou hadst never grace enough to prove
That any thing but vice could win thy love ;-
Or hast thou a polite, card-playing wife,
Chain'd to the routs that she frequents for life:

Who, just when industry begins to snore,

Flies, wing'd with joy, to some coach-crowded door;

And thrice in every winter throngs thine own
With half the chariots and sedans in town,
Thyself meanwhile e'en shifting as thou mayst;
Not very sober though, nor very chaste;

Or is thine house, though less superb thy rank,
If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank,
And thou at best, and in thy soberest mood,

A trifler vain, and empty of all good;-
Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none,
Hear Nature plead, show mercy to thy son.
Saved from his home, where every day brings forth
Some mischief fatal to his future worth,
Find him a better in a distant spot,
Within some pious pastor's humble cot,
Where vile example (yours I chiefly mean,
The most seducing, and the oftenest seen)
May never more be stamp'd upon his breast,
Not yet perhaps incurably impress'd.
Where early rest makes early rising sure,
Disease or comes not, or finds easy cure,
Prevented much by diet neat and plain;
Or, if it enter, soon starved out again:
Where all the attention of his faithful host,
Discreetly limited to two at most,

May raise such fruits as shall reward his care,
And not at last evaporate in air:

Where, stillness aiding study, and his mind
Serene, and to his duties much inclined,
Not occupied in day dream, as at home,
Of pleasures past, or follies yet to come,
His virtuous toil may terminate at last
In settled habit and decided taste.-
But whom do I advise? the fashion-led,
The incorrigibly wrong, the deaf, the dead!
Whom care and cool deliberation suit
Not better much than spectacles a brute;
Who, if their sons some slight tuition share,
Deem it of no great moment whose, or where;
Too proud to adopt the thoughts of one unknown,
And much too gay to have any of their own.
But courage, man! methought the Muse replied,
Mankind are various, and the world is wide:
The ostrich, silliest of the feather'd kind,
And form'd of God without a parent's mind,
Commits her eggs, incautious, to the dust,
Forgetful that the foot may crush the trust;
And, while on public nurseries they rely,
Not knowing, and too oft not caring, why,
Irrational in what they thus prefer,

No few, that would seem wise, resemble her.
But all are not alike. Thy warning voice
May here and there prevent erroneous choice;
And some, perhaps, who, busy as they are,
Yet make their progeny their dearest care,