With much ado, his Book before him laid,
And Parchment with the smoother fide difplay'd;
He takes the Papers; lays 'em down again;
And, with unwilling Fingers, tries the Pen:
Some peevish Quarrel ftreight he ftrives to pick;
His Quill writes double, or his Ink's too thick;
Infufe more Water; now 'tis grown so thin
It finks, nor can the Characters be seen.
O Wretch, and ftill more wretched ev'ry Day!
Are Mortals born to fleep their Lives away!
Go back to what thy Infancy began,
Thou who wert never meant to be a Man:
Eat Pap and Spoon-meat; for thy Gugaws cry i
Be fullen, and refufe, the Lullaby.
No more accufe thy Pen; but charge the Crime
On Native Sloth, and Negligence of Time.
Think'st thou thy Mafter, or thy Friends, to cheat?
Fool, 'tis thy felf, and that's a worfe Deceit.
Beware the publick Laughter of the Town;
Thou fpring't a Leak, already in thy Crown.
A flaw is in thy ill-bak'd Veffel found;
Tis hollow, and returns a jarring found.
Yet, thy moift Clay is pliant to Command ;
Unwrought, and eafy to the Potter's Hand:
Now take the Mold: now bend thy Mind to feel
The first sharp Motions of the Forming Wheel.
But thou haft Land; a Country-Seat, fecure
By a juft Title; coftly Furniture;
1 Parchment, &c. The Stu- reproves this Cuftom, and ad dents us'd to write their Notes vifes rather Table-Books, lin'd on Parchments; the infide, on with Wax, and a Style, like which they wrote, was white; that we ufe in our Vellum the other fide was hairy, and Table-Books, as more easy. commonly yellow. Quintilian
A Fuming-Pan thy Lares to appease :
What need of Learning when a Man's at case?
If this be not enough to fwell thy Soul,
Then please thy Pride, and fearch the Herald's Roll,
Where thou shalt find thy famous Pedigree
Drawn 3 from the Root of fome old Tufcan Tree;
And thou, a Thoufand off, a Fool of long Degree.
Who, clad in 4 Purple, can't thy Cenfor greet;
And, loudly, call him Coufin, in the Street.
Such Pageantry be to the People fhown:
There boast thy Horfe's Trappings, and thy own:
I know thee to thy Bottom; from within
Thy fhallow Centre, to the utmost Skin:
Doft thou not blufh to live fo like a Beast,
So trim, fo diffolute, fo loosely dreft?
But, 'tis in vain: The Wretch is drench'd too deep;
His Soul is ftupid, and his Heart asleep :
Fatten'd in Vice; fo callous, and fo grofs,
He fins, and fees not; fenfeless of his Lofs.
Down goes the Wretch at once, unskill'd to fwim,
Hopeless to bubble up, and reach the Water's brim.
Great Father of the Gods, when, for our Crimes,
Thou fend'st some heavy Judgment on the Times;
2 A Fuming-Pan, &c. Be fore Eating, it was cuftomary to cut off fome part of the Meat; which was first put into a Pan, or little Dish; then into the Fire, as an Offering to the Houfhold-Gods: This they call'd a Libation.
3 Drawn from the Root, &c. The Tufcans were accounted of moft ancient Nobility. Horace obferves this, in moft of his Compliments to Mecanas,
who was deriv'd from the Old Kings of Tuscany, now the Dominion of the Great Duke.
4 Who clad in Purple, &c. The Roman Knights, attir'd in the Robe call'd Trabea, were fummon'd by the Cenfor to appear before him; and to falute him in paffing by, as their Names were call'd over. They led their Horfes in their Hand. See more of this in Pompey's Life, written by Plutarch.
Some Tyrant-King, the Terror of his Age,
The Type, and true Vicegerent of thy Rage;
Thus punish him: Set Virtue in his Sight,
With all her Charms adorn'd, with all her Graces bright
But fet her diftant, make him pale to fee
His Gains out-weigh'd by loft Felicity!
Sicilian Tortures, and the Brazen Bull,
Are Emblems, rather than exprefs the Full
Of what he feels: Yet what he fears, is more:
The Wretch, who fitting at his plenteous Board,
Look'd up, and view'd on high the pointed Sword
Hang o'er his Head, and hanging by a Twine,
Did with lefs dread, and more fecurely Dine.
Ev'n in his Sleep he ftarts, and fears the Knife,
And, trembling, in his Arms, takes his Accomplice Wife
Down, down, he goes; and from his Darling-Friend
Conceals the Woes his guilty Dreams portend.
When I was young, I, like a lazy Fool,
Wou'd blear my Eyes with Oil to ftay from School:
5 Sicilian Tortures, &c. Some | He alludes to the Story of D of the Sicilian Kings were fo mocles, a Flatterer of one of great Tyrants, that the Name thofe Sicilian Tyrants, namely is become Proverbial. The Dionyfius. Damocles had infiBrazen Bull is a known Story nitely extoll'd the Happiness of Phalaris, one of thofe Ty- of Kings. Dionyfius, to conrants; who when Perillus, a vince him of the contrary, infamous Artift, had prefented vited him to a Feaft, and him with a Bull of that Metal clothed him in Purple; but hollow'd within, which when caus'd a Sword, with the Point the condemn'd Perfon was in downward, to be hung over clos'd in it, wou'd'render the his Head by a filken Twine; Sound of a Bull's roaring, which when he perceiv'd, he caus'd the Workman to make cou'd ear nothing of the Dethe first Experiment. Docuit-licates that were fet before que fuum mugire Juvencum. him, 6. The Wretch who fitting, &C.
Averfe from Pains, and loth to learn the Part
Of Cato, dying with a dauntless Heart:
Tho' much, my Mafter, that ftern Virtue prais'd,
Which, o'er the Vanquisher the Vanquish'd rais'd:
And my pleas'd Father came with Pride to fee
His Boy defend the Roman Liberty.
But then my Study was to Cog the Dice,
And dextrously to throw the lucky Sice:
To fhun Ames-Ase, that swept my Stakes away;
And watch the Box, for fear they shou'd convey
Falfe Bones, and put upon me in the Play.
Careful, befides, the whirling Top to whip,
And drive her giddy, till fhe fell asleep.
Thy Years are ripe, nor art thou yet to learn
What's Good or Ill, and both their Ends difcern:
Thou, 7 in the Stoick-Porch, feverely bred,
Haft heard the Dogma's of great Zeno read:
Where on the Walls, by 8 Polygnotus' Hand,
The Conquer'd Medians in Trunk-Breeches ftand,
Where the fhorn Youth to midnight Lectures rife,
Rous'd from their Slumbers to be early wife:
Where the coarse Cake, and homely Husks of Beans,
From pamp'ring Riot the young Stomach weans :
And 9 where the Samian Y directs thy Steps to run
To Virtue's narrow Steep, and Broad-way Vice to fhun.
7 Thou in the Stoick Porch, (cles, and other Athenian Cap &c. The Stoicks taught their tains, on the Walls of the Philofophy under a Porticus, Portico, in their Natural Hato fecure their Scholars from bits. the Weather. Zeno was the Chief of that Sect.
9 And where the Samian Y, &c. Pythagoras of Samos, made 8 Polygnotus, a famous Pain- the Allufion of the Y, or Greek ter, who drew the Pictures of Upfilon, to Vice and Virtue. the Medes and Perfians, con-One fide of the Letter being quer'd by Miltiades, Themifto- broad, Characters Vice, to
And yet thou fnor'ft; thou draw't thy drunken Breath,
Sour with Debauch; and fleep'ft the Sleep of Death:
Thy Chaps are fallen, and thy Frame disjoin'd;
Thy Body as diffolv'd as is thy Mind.
Haft thou not, yet, propos'd fome certain End,
To which thy Life, thy ev'ry Act may tend?
Haft thou no Mark, at which to bend thy Bow?
Or like a Boy purfu'ft the Carrion-Crow
With Pellets, and with Stones, from Tree to Tree:
A fruitless Toil, and liv'ft Extempore?
Watch the Disease in time: For, when within
The Dropfy rages and extends the Skin,
In vain for Hellebore the Patient cries,
And fees the Doctor; but too late is wife :
Too late, for Cure, he proffers half his Wealth;
Conqueft and Guibbons cannot give him Health.
Learn, Wretches, learn the Motions of the Mind,
Why you were made, for what you were defign'd;
And the great Moral End of Human Kind.
Study thy felf: What Rank, or what Degree
The wife Creator has ordain'd for thee:
And all the Offices of that Estate
Perform; and with thy Prudence guide thy Fate.
Pray justly, to be heard: Nor more defire
Than what the Decencies of Life require.
Learn what thou ow'ft thy Country, and thy Friend;
What's requifite to fpare, and what to spend:
Learn this; and after, envy not the Store
Of the greaz'd Advocate, that grinds the Poor:
thofe noted Words of the Evangelift, The way to Heaven, &c,
which the Afcent is wide and I might also allude to this, in eafy: The other fide reprefents Virtue; to which the Paffage is ftraight and difficult; and perhaps our Saviour
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