So said, so done, at college now
He enters well, no matter how.
New scenes awhile his fancy please,
But all must yield to love of ease. . . .
Four years at college dozed away
In sleep and slothfulness and play,
Too dull for vice, with clearest conscience,
Charged with no fault but that of nonsense,-
And nonsense long, with serious air,
Has wander'd unmolested there,-
He passes trial, fair and free,
And takes in form his first degree. .
Now to some priest that 's famed for teaching
He goes to learn the art of preaching,
And settles down with earnest zeal
Sermons to study and to steal.
Six months from all the world retires
To kindle up his cover'd fires;
Learns, with nice art, to make with ease
The scriptures speak whate'er he please;
With judgment, unperceived to quote
What Pool explain'd or Henry wrote;
To give the gospel new editions,
Split doctrines into propositions,
Draw motives, uses, inferences,
And torture words in thousand senses;
Learn the grave style and goodly phrase,
Safe handed down from Cromwell's days,
And shun, with anxious care, the while,
The infection of a modern style;
Or on the wings of folly fly
Aloft in metaphysic sky,
The system of the world explain
Till night and chaos come again;
Deride what old divines can say,
Point out to heaven a nearer way,
Explode all known establish'd rules,
Affirm our fathers all were fools.
(The present age is growing wise,
But wisdom in her cradle lies;
Late, like Minerva, born and bred,
From country cares and labor eased:
No more to rise by break of day
To drive home cows or deal out hay;
To work no more in snow or hail,
And blow his fingers o'er the flail,
Or mid the toils of harvest sweat
Beneath the summer's sultry heat;
Serene he bids the farm good-bye,
And quits the plough without a sigh.
Propitious to their constant friend,
The pow'rs of idleness attend.
So to the priest in form he goes,
Prepared to study and to doze.
The parson in his youth before
Had run the same dull progress o'er,
His sole concern to see with care
His church and farm in good repair.
So said, so done, at college now He enters well, no matter how.
New scenes awhile his fancy please,
But all must yield to love of ease. . . . .
Four years at college dozed away
In sleep and slothfulness and play,
Too dull for vice, with clearest conscience,
Charged with no fault but that of nonsense,-
And nonsense long, with serious air,
Has wander'd unmolested there,-
He passes trial, fair and free,
And takes in form his first degree. .
Now to some priest that 's famed for teaching
He goes to learn the art of preaching,
And settles down with earnest zeal
Sermons to study and to steal.
Six months from all the world retires
To kindle up his cover'd fires;
Learns, with nice art, to make with ease
The scriptures speak whate'er he please;
With judgment, unperceived to quote
What Pool explain'd or Henry wrote;
To give the gospel new editions,
Split doctrines into propositions,
Draw motives, uses, inferences,
And torture words in thousand senses;
Learn the grave style and goodly phrase,
Safe handed down from Cromwell's days,
And shun, with anxious care, the while,
The infection of a modern style;
Or on the wings of folly fly
Aloft in metaphysic sky,
The system of the world explain
Till night and chaos come again;
Deride what old divines can say,
Point out to heaven a nearer way,
Explode all known establish'd rules,
Affirm our fathers all were fools.
(The present age is growing wise,
But wisdom in her cradle lies;
Late, like Minerva, born and bred,
Not from a Jove's but scribbler's head,
While thousand youths their homage lend her,
And nursing fathers rock and tend her.)
Round him much manuscript is spread:
Extracts from living works and dead,
Themes, sermons, plans of controversy
That hack and mangle without mercy,
And whence, to glad the reader's eyes,
The future dialogue shall rise.
At length, matured the grand design,
He stalks abroad a grave divine.
Mean while, from every distant seat,
At stated time the clergy meet:
Our hero comes, his sermon reads,
Explains the doctrine of his creeds,
A licence gains to preach and pray,
And makes his bow and goes his way.
What though his wits could ne'er dispense
One page of grammar or of sense;
What though his learning be so slight
He scarcely knows to spell or write;
What though his skull be cudgel-proof—
He's orthodox, and that 's enough.
Now in the desk, with solemn air,
Our hero makes his audience stare;
Asserts with all dogmatic boldness,
Where impudence is yoked to dulness;
Reads o'er his notes with halting pace,
Mask'd in the stiffness of his face,
With gestures such as might become
Those statues once that spoke at Rome,
Or Livy's ox that to the state
Declared the oracles of fate;
In awkward tones, nor said nor sung,
Slow rumbling o'er the falt'ring tongue,
Two hours his drawling speech holds on,
And names it preaching when he's done.
With roving tired, he fixes down
For life in some unsettled town:
People and priest full well agree,
For why-they know no more than he.
Vast tracts of unknown land he gains,
Better than those the moon contains;
There deals in preaching and in prayer,
And starves on sixty pounds a year,
And culls his texts and tills his farm,
Does little good and little harm;
On Sunday, in his best array,
Deals forth the dulness of the day,
And while above he spends his breath
The yawning audience nod beneath.
PART III, OR THE ADVENTURES OF MISS HARRIET SIMPER
First from the dust our sex began,
But woman was refined from man;
Received again, with softer air,
The great Creator's forming care.
And shall it no attention claim
Their beauteous infant souls to frame?
Shall half your precepts tend the while
Fair nature's lovely work to spoil,
The native innocence deface,
The glowing blush, the modest grace;
On follies fix their young desire,
To trifles bid their souls aspire,
Fill their gay heads with whims of fashion
And slight all other cultivation;
Let every useless, barren weed
Of foolish fancy run to seed,
And make their minds the receptacle
Of every thing that 's false and fickle;
Where gay caprice, with wanton air,
And vanity keep constant fair,
Where ribbons, laces, patches, puffs,
Caps, jewels, ruffles, tippets, muffs,
With gaudy whims of vain parade,
Croud each apartment of the head;
Where stands, display'd with costly pains,
The toyshop of coquettish brains,
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