And to her gown the sturdiest rogue can pin: 
Aided by these, and spells, and tell-tale birds,
Her power they dread and reverence her words. 
   To Learning’s second seats we now proceed,
Where humming students gilded primers read;
Or books with letters large and pictures gay,
To make their reading but a kind of play —
“Reading made easy,” so the titles tell;
But they who read must first begin to spell: 
There may be profit in these arts, but still
Learning is labour, call it what you will;
Upon the youthful mind a heavy load,
Nor must we hope to find the royal road. 
Some will their easy steps to science show,
And some to heav’n itself their by-way know;
Ah! trust them not,—­who fame or bliss would share,
Must learn by labour, and must live by care. 
   Another matron, of superior kind,
For higher schools prepares the rising mind;
Preparatory she her Learning calls,
The step first made to colleges and halls. 
   She early sees to what the mind will grow,
Nor abler judge of infant-powers I know: 
She sees what soon the lively will impede,
And how the steadier will in turn succeed;
Observes the dawn of wisdom, fancy, taste,
And knows what parts will wear, and what will waste: 
She marks the mind too lively, and at once
Sees the gay coxcomb and the rattling dunce. 
   Long has she lived, and much she loves to trace
Her former pupils, now a lordly race;
Whom when she sees rich robes and furs bedeck,
She marks the pride which once she strove to check. 
A Burgess comes, and she remembers well
How hard her task to make his worship spell;
Cold, selfish, dull, inanimate, unkind,
’Twas but by anger he display’d a mind: 
Now civil, smiling, complaisant, and gay,
The world has worn th’ unsocial crust away: 
That sullen spirit now a softness wears,
And, save by fits, e’en dulness disappears: 
But still the matron can the man behold,
Dull, selfish, hard, inanimate, and cold. 
A Merchant passes,—­“Probity and truth,
Prudence and patience, mark’d thee from thy youth.” 
Thus she observes, but oft retains her fears
For him, who now with name unstain’d appears: 
Nor hope relinquishes, for one who yet
Is lost in error and involved in debt;
For latent evil in that heart she found,
More open here, but here the core was sound. 
   Various our Day-Schools:  here behold we one
Empty and still:  —­the morning duties done,
Soil’d, tatter’d, worn, and thrown in various heaps,
Appear their books, and there confusion sleeps;
The workmen all are from the Babel fled,
And lost their tools, till the return they dread: 
Meantime the master, with his wig awry,
Prepares his books for business by-and-by: 
Now all th’ insignia of the monarch laid
Beside him rest, and none stand by afraid;
He, while his troop light-hearted leap and play,
Is all intent on duties of the day;