"Where lies the fault then? Parents ought to be sharply reprehended,
who will not have their children come on by any strict method; but in
this, as in all things, are so fond of making a noise in the world;
and in such haste to compass their wishes, that they hurry them in
publick e'er they have digested what they have read, and put children
e'er they are well past their sucking-bottle, upon the good grace of
speaking, than which even themselves confess, nothing is greater:
Whereas if they would suffer them to come up by degrees, that their
studies might be temper'd with grave lectures; their affections
fashion'd by the dictates of wisdom; that they might work themselves
into a mastery of words; and for a long time hear, what they're
inclined to imitate, nothing that pleas'd children, wou'd be admir'd
by them. But now boys trifle in the schools, young men are laugh'd at
in publick, and, which is worse than both, what every one foolishly
takes up in his youth, no one will confess in his age. But that I may
not be thought to condemn Lucilius, as written in haste, I also will
give you my thoughts in verse.
"Who ere wou'd with ambitious just desire,
To mastery in so fire an art aspire,
Must all extreams first diligently shun,
And in a settled course of vertue run.
Let him not fortune with stiff greatness climb,
Nor, courtier-like, with cringes undermine:
Nor all the brother blockheads of the pot,
Ever persuade him to become a sot;
Nor flatter poets to acquire the fame
Of, I protest, a pretty gentleman.
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