Hark! how the sire of chits, whose future share
Of classic food begins to be his care,
With his own likeness placed on either knee,
Indulges all a father's heart-felt glee,

And tells them as he strokes their silver locks,
That they must soon learn Latin and to box;
Then turning, he regales his listening wife
With all the adventures of his early life,
His skill in coachmanship or driving chaise,
In bilking tavern bills and spouting plays,
What shifts he used detected in a scrape,
How he was flogg'd, or had the luck to escape,
What sums he lost at play, and how he sold
Watch, seals, and all-till all his pranks are told.
Retracing thus his frolics, ('tis a name
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 event is sure, expect it and rejoice!
Soon see your wish fulfill'd in either child,
The pert made perter, and the tame made wild.
The great indeed, by titles, riches, birth,
Excused the encumbrance of more solid worth,
Are best disposed 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 not at all,
What dream they of, that with so little care
They risk their hopes, their dearest treasure there?
They dream of little Charles or William graced
With wig prolix, down-flowing to his waist;
They see the attentive crowds his talents draw,
They hear him speak-the oracle of law.
The father who designs his babe a priest,
Dreams him episcopally such at least,
And while the playful jockey scours the room
Briskly, astride upon the parlour broom,
In fancy sees him more superbly ride

In coach with purple lined, 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 prayer?
And will it breathe into him all the zeal
That candidates for such a prize should feel,
To take the lead and be the foremost still
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
By learned Clerks and Latinists profess'd.
The 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;

Let erudition grace him or not grace,

I give the bauble but the second place;
His wealth, fame, honours, all that I intend,
Subsist and centre in one point-a friend.
A friend, whate'er he studies or neglects,
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
A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech? [teach
What need of Homer's verse, or Tully's prose,
Sweet interjections! if he learn but those?
Let reverend 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 barbarous prostitution of your son;
Press'd on his part by means that would disgrace
A scrivener's clerk or footman out of place,
And ending, if at last its end be gain'd,
In sacrilege, in God's own house profaned.
It may succeed; and if his sins should call
For more than common punishment, it shall.
The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on earth
Least qualified in honour, learning, worth,
To occupy a sacred, awful post,

In which the best and worthiest tremble most.
The royal letters are a thing of course,

A king that would might recommend his horse,
And Deans no doubt, and Chapters, with one voice,
As bound in duty, would confirm the choice.
Behold your Bishop! well he plays his part,
Christian in name, and infidel in heart,
Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan,
A slave at court, elsewhere a lady's man ;
Dumb as a senator, and as a priest

A piece of mere church-furniture at best;
To live estranged from God his total scope,
And his end sure, without one glimpse of hope.
But fair although and feasible it seem,
Depend not much upon your golden dream;
For Providence, that seems concern'd to exempt
The hallow'd bench from absolute contempt,
In spite of all the wrigglers into place,
Still keeps a seat or two for worth and grace;
And therefore 'tis, that, though the sight be rare,
We sometimes see a Lowth or Bagot there.
Besides, school-friendships are not always found,
Though fair in promise, permanent and sound.
The most disinterested and virtuous minds
In early years connected, time unbinds;
New situations give a different cast
Of habit, inclination, temper, taste,

And he that seem'd our counterpart at first,

Soon shows the strong similitude reversed.
Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm,
And make mistakes for manhood to reform.
Boys are at best but pretty buds unblown,
Whose scent and hues are rather guess'd than

known.

Each dreams that each is just what he appears,
But learns his error in maturer years,
When disposition, like a sail unfurl'd,
Shows all its rents and patches to the world.
If therefore, even when honest in design,
A boyish friendship may so soon decline,
"Twere wiser sure to inspire a little heart
With just abhorrence of so mean a part,

Than set your son to work at a vile trade For wages so unlikely to be paid.

Our public hives of puerile resort That are of chief and most approved report, To such base hopes in many a sordid soul Owe their repute in part, but not the whole. A principle, whose proud pretensions pass Unquestion'd, though the jewel be but glass, That with a world not often over-nice Ranks as a virtue, and is yet a vice, Or rather a gross compound, justly tried, Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride, Contributes most perhaps to enhance their fame, And Emulation is its specious name. Boys once on fire with that contentious zeal Feel all the rage that female rivals feel, The prize of beauty in a woman's eyes Not brighter than in theirs the scholar's prize. The spirit of that competition burns With all varieties of ill by turns, Each vainly magnifies his own success, Resents his fellow's, wishes it were less, Exults in his miscarriage if he fail, Deems his reward too great if he prevail, And labours to surpass him day and night, Less for improvement, than to tickle spite. The spur is powerful, and I grant its force; It pricks the genius forward in its course, Allows short time for play, and none for sloth, And felt alike by each, advances both; But judge where so much evil intervenes, The end, though plausible, not worth the means. Weigh, for a moment, classical desert Against a heart depraved and temper hurt, Hurt too perhaps for life, for early wrong Done to the nobler part affects it long, And you are staunch indeed in learning's cause, If you can crown a discipline that draws Such mischiefs after it, with much applause.

Connexion form'd for interest, and endear'd By selfish views, thus censured and cashier'd, And emulation, as engendering hate, Doom'd to a no less ignominious fate, The props of such proud seminaries fall, The JACHIN and the Boaz of them all. Great schools rejected then, as those that swell Beyond a size that can be managed well, Shall royal institutions miss the bays, And small academies win all the praise? Force not my drift beyond its just intent, I praise a school as Pope a government; So take my judgment in his language dress'd, "Whate'er is best administer'd, is best." Few boys are born with talents that excel, But all are capable of living well. Then ask not, whether limited or large, But watch they strictly or neglect their charge? If anxious only that their boys may learn, While morals languish, a despised concern; The great and small deserve one

blame,

common

Different in size, but in effect the same.
Much zeal in virtue's cause all teachers boast,
Though motives of mere lucre sway the most.
Therefore, in towns and cities they abound,
For there the game they seek is easiest found;
Though there, in spite of all that care can do,
Traps to catch youth are most abundant too.
If shrewd, and of a well-constructed brain,
Keen in pursuit, and vigorous to retain,

Your son come forth a prodigy of skill,
As wheresoever taught, so form'd, he will,
The pedagogue, with self-complacent air,
Claims more than half the praise as his due share;
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 ingenuous son,
Father and friend and tutor all in one.
How? turn again to tales long since forgot,
Æsop 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,
Feels all his happiest privileges lost.
Alas, poor boy!-the natural effect

Of love by absence chill'd into respect.

Say, what accomplishments at school acquired
Brings he to sweeten fruits so undesired?
Thou well deservest an alienated son,
Unless thy conscious heart acknowledge-none;
None that in thy domestic snug recess,

He had not made his own with more address,
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 rivel'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,
Even 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 controul 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 feed 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 proofs 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 school-boy's lean and tardy growth.
Art thou a man professionally tied,

With all thy faculties elsewhere applied,

Too busy to intend a meaner care

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 form'd to please,
Low in the world because he scorns its arts,
A man of letters, manners, morals, parts,
Unpatronised, and therefore little known,
Wise for himself and his few friends alone,
In him, thy well-appointed proxy see,
Armed 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,

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 may'st,
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-dreams, 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,

Whose hearts will ache once told what ills may
Their offspring left upon so wild a beach, [reach
Will need no stress of argument to enforce
The expedience of a less adventurous course.
The rest will slight thy counsel, or condemn;
But they have human feelings. Turn to them.
To you then, tenants of life's middle state,
Securely placed between the small and great,
Whose character, yet undebauch'd, retains
Two thirds of all the virtue that remains,
Who wise yourselves, desire your sons should learn
Your wisdom and your ways-to you I turn.
Look round you on a world perversely blind,
See what contempt is fallen on human kind;
See wealth abused, and dignities misplaced,
Great titles, offices, and trusts disgraced,
Long lines of ancestry renown'd of old,
Their noble qualities all quench'd and cold;
See Bedlam's closeted and handcuff'd charge
Surpass'd in frenzy by the mad at large;
See great commanders making war a trade,
Great lawyers, lawyers without study made;
Churchmen, in whose esteem their blest employ
Is odious, and their wages all their joy,
Who far enough from furnishing their shelves
With gospel lore, turn infidels themselves;
See womanhood despised, and manhood shamed
With infamy too nauseous to be named,
Fops at all corners, lady-like in mien,
Civeted fellows, smelt ere they are seen,
Else coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue
On fire with curses and with nonsense hung,
Now flush'd with drunkenness, now with whore-

dom pale,

Their breath a sample of last night's regale;
See volunteers in all the vilest arts
Men well endow'd, of honourable parts,
Design'd by nature wise, but self-made fools;
All these, and more like these, were bred at schools.
And if it chance, as sometimes chance it will,
That though school-bred, the boy be virtuous still,
Such rare exceptions shining in the dark,
Prove rather than impeach the just remark,
As here and there a twinkling star descried
Serves but to show how black is all beside.
Now look on him whose very voice in tone
Just echoes thine, whose features are thine own,
And stroke his polish'd cheek of purest red,
And lay thine hand upon his flaxen head,
And say, My boy, the unwelcome hour is come,
When thou, transplanted from thy genial home,
Must find a colder soil and bleaker air,
And trust for safety to a stranger's care;
What character, what turn thou wilt assume
From constant converse with I know not whom,
Who there will court thy friendship, with what
views,

And, artless as thou art, whom thou wilt chuse,
Though much depends on what thy choice shall be,
Is all chance-medley and unknown to me.
Canst thou, the tear just trembling on thy lids,
And while the dreadful risk foreseen, forbids,
Free too, and under no constraining force,
Unless the sway of custom warp thy course,
Lay such a stake upon the losing side,
Merely to gratify so blind a guide?
Thou canst not: Nature pulling at thine heart
Condemns the unfatherly, the imprudent part.
Thou wouldst not, deaf to Nature's tenderest plea,
Turn him adrift upon a rolling sea,

Nor say, go thither, conscious that there lay
A brood of asps, or quicksands in his way;
Then only govern'd by the self-same rule
Of natural pity, send him not to school.
No-Guard him better: Is he not thine own,
Thyself in miniature, thy flesh, thy bone?
And hopest thou not ('tis every father's hope)
That since thy strength must with thy years elope,
And thou wilt need some comfort to assuage
Health's last farewell, a staff of thine old age,
That then, in recompense of all thy cares,
Thy child shall show respect to thy grey hairs,
Befriend thee, of all other friends bereft,
And give thy life its only cordial left?
Aware then how much danger intervenes,
To compass that good end, forecast the means.
His heart, now passive, yields to thy command;
Secure it thine. Its key is in thine hand.
If thou desert thy charge and throw it wide,
Nor heed what guests there enter and abide,
Complain not if attachments lewd and base
Supplant thee in it, and usurp thy place.
But if thou guard its sacred chambers sure
From vicious inmates and delights impure,
Either his gratitude shall hold him fast,
And keep him warm and filial to the last,
Or if he prove unkind, (as who can say
But being man, and therefore frail, he may)

One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart, Howe'er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part.

Oh barbarous ! would'st thou with a Gothic hand

Pull down the schools-what-all the schools i' the land?

Or throw them up to livery-nags and grooms?
Or turn them into shops and auction rooms?
-A captious question, Sir, and yours is one,
Deserves an answer similar, or none.
Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock, employ
(Apprised that he is such) a careless boy,
And feed him well, and give him handsome pay,
Merely to sleep, and let them run astray?
Survey our schools and colleges, and see
A sight not much unlike my simile.
From education, as the leading cause,
The public character its colour draws,
Thence the prevailing manners take their cast,
Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste.
And though I would not advertise them yet,
Nor write on each-This Building to be let,
Unless the world were all prepared to embrace
A plan well worthy to supply their place,
Yet backward as they are, and long have been,
To cultivate and keep the MORALS clean,
(Forgive the crime) I wish them, I confess,
Or better managed, or encouraged less.

JOHN GILPIN,