Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
But where's the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know.
Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,
And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools.
Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.
Musick resembles Poetry, in each
Are nameless Graces which no Methods teach,
And which a Master-Hand alone can reach.
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd,
So by false Learning is good Sense defac'd.
Learn hence for Ancient Rules a just Esteem;
To copy Nature is to copy Them.
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will You've played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill Walk sober off before a sprightlier age Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage.
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
In quibbles angel and archangel join, And God the Father turns a school divine.
Fancy and Art in gay Petronius please,
The Scholar's Learning, with the Courtier's Ease.
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands in unskillful, the most mischievous.
Die and endow a college or a cat.
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field.
But thousands die without or this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat; To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, T'enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories