Such is th' advice the friendly  gives,
He perishes who scorns, who follows lives.
And thus this moral piece instructs; if aught
Is mystic still, reveal your doubting thought.


Whate'er in arts or sciences is found
Of solid use, in their capacious round,
These,  reasons, like a curbing rein,
Unruly youth from devious starts restrain.


Necessity there's none. We'll not deny
Their merit in some less utility;
But they contribute, we aver, no part
To heal the manners and amend the heart.
An author's meaning, in a tongue unknown,
May glimmer thro' translation in our own:
Yet masters of his language, we might gain
Some trivial purposes by tedious pain.
So in the sciences, tho', rudely taught,
We may attain the little that we ought;
Yet, accurately known they might convey
More light not wholly useless in its way.
But Virtue may be reach'd, thro' all her rules,
Without the curious subtleties of schools.


Blind as the crowd alas! to good and ill,
Intangled by the like corrupted will,
What boasts the man of letters o'er the rest?
Skill'd in all tongues, of all the arts possest,
What hinders but he sink into a sot,
A libertine, or villain in a plot,
Miser, or knave, or whatso'er you'll name
Of moral lunacy and reason's shame?

How, then, for living right
Avail those studies, and their vaunted light
Beyond the vulgar?


Held by a potent charm in this retreat
They dwell, content with nearness to the seat
Of





What, then, are these
In moral things, advantag'd o'er the lees
Of human race? in moral things, we find
These duller or less tractable of mind.

Pride, pride averts their eyes
From offer'd light: in self-sufficience wise,
Altho' unknowing, they presume to know:
Clogg'd with that vain conceit they creep below,
Nor can mount up to yon exalted bound,
True  mansion, by the humble found.
Not found by these, till the vain visions spread,
By  in the learned head,
scatter; and deceiv'd no more,
They own th' illusion which deceiv'd before,
That for  they embrac'd her shade,
And hence the healing of their souls delay'd.