She needs herself correction; needs to learn, All are not such. I had a brother oncePeace to the mem'ry of a man of worth, A man of letters, and of manners too! Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears, When gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles. He grac❜d a college*, in which order yet Was sacred; and was honour'd, lov'd, 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. * Bene't Coll. Cambridge. 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 Expos'd their inexperience to the snare, And left them to an undirected choice. See then the quiver broken and decay'd, What wonder, if, discharg'd into the world, Have we not track'd the felon home, and found His birthplace and his dam? The country mourns, Mourns because ev'ry plague, that can infest Society, and that saps and worms the base Of th' edifice, that Policy has rais'd, Swarms in all quarters: meets the eye, the ear, And suffocates the breath at ev'ry turn. Profusion breeds them; and the cause itself And the land stank-so num'rous was the fry. |