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My highest wishes never mounted higher,
Than the attainments of an aged sire;
Proverbial wisdom, competence of wealth,
Earn'd with hard labour, and enjoy'd with health;
Blest, had I still these blessings known to prize!
More rich I sure had been; perhaps more wise.

One luckless day, returning from the field,
Two swains, the wisest that the village held,
Talking of books and learning, I o'erheard,
Of learned men and learned men's reward:
How some rich wives, and some rich livings, got,
Sprung from the tenants of a turf-built cot:
Then both concluded though it ruin'd health,
Increase of learning was increase of wealth.

Fired with the prospect, I embraced the hint,
A grammar borrowed, and to work I went;
The scope and tenor of each rule I kept
No accent miss'd me, and no gender scap'd;
I read whate'er commenting Dutchmen wrote,
Turn'd o'er Stobæus, and could Suidas quote;
In letter'd Gellius traced the bearded sage
Through all the windings of a wise adage :
Was the spectator of each honest scar,
Each sophist carry'd from each wordy war;

Undaunted was my heart, nor could appal
The mustiest volume of the mustiest stall;
Where'er I turn'd, the giant-spiders fled,
And trembling moths retreated as I read;
Through Greece and Rome, I then observant
stray'd,

Their manners noted, and their states survey'd ;
Attended heroes to the bloody fields,

Their helmets polish'd, and emboss'd their shields;
With duteous hand the decent matron drest,
And wrapp'd the stripling in his manly vest;
Nor stop'd I there, but mingled with the boys,
Their rattles rattled, and improved their toys;
Lash'd conick turbos as in gyres they flew,
Bestrode their hobbies, and their whistles blew :
But still when this, and more than this, was done,
My coat was ragged and my hat was brown.

Then thus I commun'd with myself:

"Let all this learning in oblivion die,

"shall I

"Live in the haunts of ignorance, content "With vest unbutton'd, and with breeches rent? "None knows my merit here; if any knew, "A scholar's worth would meet a scholar's due. "What then? the college! ay, 'tis there I'll shine, "I'll study morals, or I'll turn divine;

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"Struck with my letter'd fame, without a doubt,
"Some modern Lælius will find me out:
"Superior parts can never long be hid,

"And he who wants, deserves not to be fed."
Transported with the thoughts of this and that,
I stitch'd my garments, and I dyed my hat;
To college went, and found with much ado,
That roses were not red, nor violets blue ;
That all I've learn'd, or all I yet may learn,
Can't help me truth from falsehood to discern.

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One dreary waste, one vast ideal world!
Where uproar rules, and do you what you will,
Uproar has ruled it, and will rule it still.
Victorious ergo, daring consequence,

Will even be a match for common sense!
To lordly reason every thing must bow,
The hero liberty, and conscience too;
The first is fetter'd in a fatal chain,

The latter gagg'd attempts to speak in vain.

Locke! Malebranche! Hume! abstractions thrice

abstract!

In reason give me what in sense I lack

I feel my poverty, and in my eye,

;

My hat, though dyed has but a dusky dye,

you do."

"Mistrust your feelings, Reason bids
But, gentlemen, indeed I cannot now;
For after all your ergo's, look you there
My hat is greasy, and my coat is bare.

Hail MORAL TRUTH! I'm here at least secure,
You'll give me comfort, though you keep me poor.
But say you so? in truth 'tis something hard,
Virtue does surely merit a reward.
"Reward! O, servile, selfish; ask a hire!"
Raiment and food this body does require:
A prince for nothing may philosophize,
A student can't afford to be so wise.

Sometimes the Stoick's gloomy walks I try'd,
Wrinkled my forehead, and enlarged my stride,
Despised even hunger, poverty, and pain,
Searching my pockets for a crust in vain.
Sometimes in Academus' verdant shade,
With step more graceful I exulting stray'd,
Saw health and fortune join'd with happiness,
And virtues smiling in her social dress;
On me she did not smile, but rather lour;

I still was wretched, for I still was poor.
Sworn to no master, sometimes I would dwell
With Shaftesbury, sometimes with Mandeville;

Would call at every system on my way,

And now with Leibnitz, now with Manes stay; But after all my shiftings here and there,

My hat was greasy, and my coat was bare.

Then I beheld my labours past, and lo!
It was not vanity, and all was woe;

I look'd on learning, and her garb was mean,
Her eyes were hollow, and her cheeks were lean;
Disease and Famine threaten'd in her train,

And Want, who strives to hide her rags in vain;
Her lurid brow a sprig of laurel traced,
On which was mark'd, 'Unpension'd and Unplac'd.'
I turn'd to Ignorance; and lo she sate
Enthroned beneath a canopy of state;
Before her riches all his bags unty'd,
And ever and anon her wants supply'd,
While on a smiling plenitude of face,

Was clearly read, "a Pension and a Place."

To Lady D- -n, on her learning.

In beauty or wit,

No mortal as yet,

To question your empire has dared:

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