Is hackney'd home unlackey'd,-who, in haste
Alighting, turns the key in her own door,
And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.

Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives,
On Fortune's velvet altar offering up

Their last poor pittance ;- Fortune, most severe
Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far

Than all that held their routs in heathen heaven.—
So fare we in this prison-house the World;
And 'tis a fearful spectacle to fee

So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them fast
With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot,
Then shake them in despair, and dance again!
Now basket up the family of plagues
That waste our vitals; peculation, fale
Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds
By forgery, by fubterfuge of law,

By tricks and lies as numerous and as keen
As the neceffities their authors feel;
Then caft them, closely bundled, every brat
At the right door. Profufion is its fire.
Profufion unreftrain'd with all that's base
In character has litter'd all the land,
And bred, within the memory of no few,
A priesthood fuch as Baal's was of old,
A people fuch as never was till now.
It is a hungry vice-it eats up all
That gives fociety its beauty, ftrength,
Convenience, and fecurity, and use:

Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapp'd

And gibbeted, as faft as catchpole claws
Can feize the flippery prey: unties the knot
Of union, and converts the facred band,
That holds mankind together, to a fcourge.
Profufion, deluging a state with lufts
Of groffeft nature and of worst effects,
Prepares it for its ruin: hardens, blinds,
And warps the consciences of public men,
Till they can laugh at virtue; mock the fools
That truft them; and in the end disclose a face
That would have shock'd Credulity herself,
Unmask'd, vouchfafing this their fole excufe-
Since all alike are selfish, why not they?
This does Profufion, and the accurfed cause
Of fuch deep mischief has itself a cause.
In colleges and halls in ancient days,
When learning, virtue, piety, and truth
Were precious, and inculcated with care,
There dwelt a fage call'd Discipline. His head,
Not yet by time completely filver'd o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpair'd.
His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile
Play'd on his lips; and in his speech was heard
Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love.
The occupation dearest to his heart

Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke
The head of modeft and ingenuous worth,
That blush'd at its own praise; and press the youth
Close to his fide.that pleafed him. Learning grew
Beneath his care a thriving vigorous plant;
The mind was well inform'd, the paffions held

Subordinate, and diligence was choice.

If e'er it chanced, as fometimes chance it must,
That one among fo many overleap'd

The limits of control, his gentle eye
Grew ftern, and darted a fevere rebuke:
His frown was full of terror, and his voice
Shook the delinquent with fuch fits of awe
As left him not, till penitence had won
Loft favour back again, and closed the breach.
But Discipline, a faithful servant long,
Declined at length into the vale of years:
A palfy ftruck his arm; his sparkling eye
Was quench'd in rheums of age; his voice, un-
ftrung,

Grew tremulous, and moved derifion more
Than reverence in perverse rebellious youth.
So colleges and halls neglected much

Their good old friend; and Difcipline at length,
O'erlook'd and unemploy'd, fell fick, and died.
Then Study languish'd, Emulation slept,
And Virtue fled. The schools became a scene
Of folemn farce, where Ignorance in stilts,
His cap well lined with logic not his own,
With parrot tongue perform'd the scholar's part,
Proceeding foon a graduated dunce.

Then compromise had place, and scrutiny
Became ftone-blind; precedence went in truck,
And he was competent whofe purse was so.
A diffolution of all bonds enfued;

The curbs invented for the mulish mouth

Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts Grew rufty by difufe; and maffy gates

Forgot their office, opening with a touch;
Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade,
The taffel'd cap and the fpruce band a jeft,

A mockery of the world! What need of these
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 fuch expense, as pinches parents blue,
And mortifies the liberal hand of love,
Is fquander'd in pursuit of idle sports
And vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name
That fits a stigma on his father's house,
And cleaves through life infeparably close
To him that wears it. What can after-games
Of riper joys, and commerce with the world,
The lewd vain world, that must receive him soon,
Add to fuch erudition, thus acquired,
Where science and where virtue are profeff'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, diffipation, taverns, stews.

Now blame we most the nurselings or the nurse ?
The children crook'd and twisted and deform'd
Through want of care; or her, whose winking eye
And flumbering ofcitancy mars the brood?
The nurse, no doubt. Regardless of her charge,
She needs herself correction; needs to learn
That it is dangerous fporting with the world,
With things fo facred as a nation's truft,

The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.

All are not fuch. 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 good-nature dreffes her in fimiles.
He graced a college,* in which order yet
Was facred; and was honour'd, loved, and wept
By more than one, themselves confpicuous there.
Some minds are temper'd happily, and mix'd
With fuch ingredients of good fense and taste
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst
With fuch a zeal to be what they approve,
That no restraints can circumfcribe them more
Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's fake.
Nor can example hurt them: what they fee
Of vice in others but enhancing more
The charms of virtue in their just esteem.
If fuch escape contagion, and emerge
Pure from fo foul a pool to shine abroad,
And give the world their talents and themselves,
Small thanks to thofe whofe negligence or floth
Expofed their inexperience to the fnare,
And left them to an undirected choice.

See then the quiver broken and decay'd,
In which are kept our arrows! Rufting there
In wild diforder, 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!

* Ben'et College, Cambridge.