'Tis not alone the grapes enticing juice,
Unnerves the moral pow'rs, and marrs their ufe,
Ambition, av'rice, and the luft of fame,
And women, lovely women, does the fame.
The heart, furrender'd to the ruling pow'r
Of fome ungovern'd paffion ev'ry hour,
Find: by degrees, the truths that once bore fway,
And all their deep impreffion wear away.
So coin grows fmooth, in traffic current pafs'd,
'Till Cæfar's image is effac'd at last.
The breach, though fmall at firft, foon op'ning wide,
In rushes folly with a full moon tide.
Then welcome errors of whatever fize,
To justify it by a thousand lies.
As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon,
So fophiftry, cleaves clofe to, and protects
Sin's Potten trunk, concealing its defects.
Mortals whofe pleasures are their only care,
First wish to be impos'd on, and then are.
And left the fulfome artifice should fail,
Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.
Not more induftrious are the just and true
To give to virtue what is virtue's due,
The praise of wisdom, comeliness and worth,
And call her charms to public notice forth,
Than vice's mean and difingenuous race,
To hide the shocking features of her face.
Her form with drefs and lotion they repair,
Then kifs their idol and pronounce her fair.
The facred implement I now employ
Might prove a mischief or at best a toy,
A trifle if it move but to amufe,
But if to wrong the judgment and abuse,
Worse than a poignard in the baseft hand,
It ftabs at once the morals of a land.
Ye writers of what none with safety reads,
Footing it in the dance that fancy leads,
Ye novellists who marr what ye would mend,
Sniv'ling and driv'ling folly without end,
Whofe correfponding miffes fill the ream
With fentimental frippery and dream,
Caught in a delicate foft filken net
By fome lewd Earl, or rake-hell Baronet;
Ye pimps, who under virtue's fair pretence,
Steal to the closet of young innocence,
And teach her unexperienc'd yet and
To fcribble as you fcribble at fifteen;
Who kindling a combuftion of desire,
With fome cold moral think to quench the fire,
Though all your engineering proves in vain,
The dribbling ftream ne'er puts it out again;
Oh that a verfe had pow'r, and could command
Far, far away, these flesh flies of the land,
Who faften without mercy on the fair,
And fuck, and leave a craving maggot there.
Howe'er difguis'd th' inflammatory tale,
And covered with a fine-fpun fpecious veil,
Such writers and fuch readers owe the guft
And relifh of their pleasure all to luft.
But the mufe eagle-pinion'd has in view
A quarry more important still than you,
Down down the wind fhe fwims and fails away,
Now floops upon it and now grafps the prey.
Petronius! all the mufes weep for thee,
But ev'ry tear fhall fcald thy memory.
The graces too, while virtue at their shrine
Lay bleeding under that foft hand of thine,
Felt each a mortal ftab in her own breast,
Abhorr'd the facrifice, and curs'd the priest.
Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth,
Gray beard corruptor of our lift'ning youth,
To purge and fkim away the filth of vice,
That fo refin'd it might the more entice,
Then pour it on the morals of thy fon
To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own.
Now while the poifon all high life pervades,
Write if thou can't one letter from the fhades,
One, and one only, charg'd with deep regret,
That thy worft part, thy principles live yet;
One fad epistle thence, may cure mankind,
Of the plague spread by bundles left behind.
'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears,
Our most important are our earlieft years,
The mind impreffible and foft, with ease
Imbibes and copies what the hears and fees,
And through life's labyrinth holds faft the clue
That education gives her, falfe or true.
Plants rais'd with tenderness are seldom strong,
Man's coltish difpofition asks the thong,
And without discipline the fav'rite child,
Like a neglected forrefter runs wild.
But we, as if good qualities would grow
Spontaneous, take but little pains to fow,
We give fome latin and a smatch of greek,
Teach him to fence and figure twice a week,
And having done we think, the best we can,
Praise his proficiency and dub him man.
From school to Cam or Ifis, and thence home, And thence with all convenient speed to Rome,
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