Of trick and plot:  —­he dreads to be betray’d: 
He shuns all friendship, for he finds they lend
When lads begin to call each other friend: 
Yet self with self has war; the tempting sight
Of fruit on sale provokes his appetite; —
See! how he walks the sweet seduction by;
That he is tempted, costs him first a sigh, —
’Tis dangerous to indulge, ’tis grievous to deny! 
This he will choose, and whispering asks the price,
The purchase dreadful, but the portion nice: 
Within the pocket he explores the pence;
Without, temptation strikes on either sense,
The sight, the smell;—­but then he thinks again
Of money gone! while fruit nor taste remain. 
Meantime there comes an eager thoughtless boy,
Who gives the price and only feels the joy: 
Example dire:  the youthful miser stops
And slowly back the treasured coinage drops: 
Heroic deed! for should he now comply,
Can he tomorrow’s appetite deny? 
Beside, these spendthrifts who so freely live,
Cloy’d with their purchase, will a portion give:  —
Here ends debate, he buttons up his store,
And feels the comfort that it burns no more. 
   Unlike to him the Tyrant-boy, whose sway
All hearts acknowledge; him the crowds obey: 
At his command they break through every rule;
Whoever governs, he controls the school: 
’Tis not the distant emperor moves their fear,
But the proud viceroy who is ever near. 
   Verres could do that mischief in a day,
For which not Rome, in all its power, could pay;
And these boy-tyrants will their slaves distress,
And do the wrongs no master can redress: 
The mind they load with fear; it feels disdain
For its own baseness; yet it tries in vain
To shake th’ admitted power:  —­the coward comes again: 
’Tis more than present pain these tyrants give,
Long as we’ve life some strong impressions live;
And these young ruffians in the soul will sow
Seeds of all vices that on weakness grow. 
   Hark! at his word the trembling younglings flee,
Where he is walking none must walk but he;
See! from the winter fire the weak retreat,
His the warm corner, his the favourite seat,
Save when he yields it to some slave to keep
Awhile, then back, at his return, to creep: 
At his command his poor dependants fly,
And humbly bribe him as a proud ally;
Flatter’d by all, the notice he bestows,
Is gross abuse, and bantering and blows;
Yet he’s a dunce, and, spite of all his fame
Without the desk, within he feels his shame: 
For there the weaker boy, who felt his scorn,
For him corrects the blunders of the morn;
And he is taught, unpleasant truth! to find
The trembling body has the prouder mind. 
   Hark! to that shout, that burst of empty noise,
From a rude set of bluff, obstreperous boys;
They who, like colts let loose, with vigour bound,
And thoughtless spirit, o’er the beaten ground;