him on the leg. "This little incident," he observes, "was an alarm to my conscience; for the event may be remembered among the best religious documents I received at Westminster." He sought hope in religious consolations, and then hopelessly abandoned them; and he was struck with lowness of spirits, and intimations of a consumptive habit, which the watchful sympathies of home might possibly have averted or subdued. Nevertheless, Cowper appears to have been sufficiently strong and healthy to excel at cricket and football; and he persevered so successfully in his studies, that he stood in high favor with the master for his scholarship. Looking back many years afterward on this part of his life, he only regretted the lack of his religious instruction. Latin and Greek, he complains, were all that he acquired. The duty of the school-boy absorbed every other, with the single exception of the periodical preparations for confirmation, to which we find this interesting testimony in his Letters: "That I may do justice to the place of my education, I must relate one mark of religious discipline, which, in my time, was observed at Westminster; I mean the pains which Dr. Nichols took to prepare us for confirmation. The old man acquitted himself of this duty like one who had a deep sense of its importance; and I believe most of us were struck by his manner, and affected by his exhortations." Cowper translated twenty of Vinny Bourne's poems into English, and his allusions to his old favorite usher of the fifth form at Westminster are frequent.* "I remember (says Cowper) seeing the Duke of Richmond set fire to Vinny's greasy locks, and box his ears to put it out again." And again writing to Mr. Rose, Cowper says: "I shall have great pleasure in taking now and then a peep at my old friend, Vincent Bourne; the neatest of all men in his versification, though, when I was under his ushership at Westminster, the most slovenly in his person. He was so inattentive to his boys, and so indifferent whether they brought good or bad exercises, or none at all; that he seemed determined, as he was the best, so he should be the last, Latin poet of the Westminster line; a plot, which I believe he exercised very successfully; for I have not heard of any one who has at all deserved to be compared with him." Even in the time of his last illness, we find that Cowper's dreary thoughts were, for the moment, charmed away by the poems of his old favorite, Vincent Bourne. • Vincent or Vinny Bourne, the elegant Latin poet and usher of Westminister School, where he was educated, died in 1747. Cowper has left also this feeling tribute to his old tutor : "I love the memory of Vinny Bourne. I think him a better Latin poet than Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius, or any of the writers in his way, except Ovid, and not at all inf>rior to him.... It is not common to meet with an author who can make you smile, and yet at nobody's expense; who is always entertaining, and yet always harmless; and who, though always elegant, and classical in a degree not always found even in the classics themselves, charms more by the simplicity and playfulness of his ideas than by the neatness and purity of his verse: yet such was poor Vinny." TIROCINIUM; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS.* But the principal thing is, the right education of youth.-Plato. The basis of every state is, the education of the young. Diog. Laert. TO THE REV. WILLIAM CAWTHORNE UNWIN, RECTOR OF STOCK IN ESSEX, THE TUTOR OF HIS TWO SONS, THE FOLLOWING POEM, RECOMMENDING PRIVATE TUITION IN PREFERENCE TO AN EDUCATION AT SCHOOL, IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE PRIEND, Olney, Nov. 6, 1784. WILLIAM COWPER. IT is not from his form in which we trace For her the memory fills her ample page With truths pour'd down from every distant age; For her amasses an unbounded store, That Grace and Nature have to wage through life, Appointed sage preceptor to the Will, *In this poem the author would be very sorry to stand suspected of having aimed his censure at any particular school. His objections are such as naturally apply themselves to schools in general. If there were not, as for the most part there is, willful neglect in those who manage them, and an omission even of such discipline as they are susceptible of, the objects are yet too numerous for minute attention; and the aching hearts of ten thousand parents, mourning under the bitterest of all disappointments, attest the truth of the allegation. His quarrel, therefore, is with the mischief at large, and not with any particular instance of it.-Original Preface. Condemns, approves, and with a faithful voice Why did the fiat of a God give birth To yon fair Sun and his attendant Earth? And crown'd it with the majesty of man. Thus form'd, thus placed, intelligent, and taught, To press the important question on his heart, His crimes and follies with an aching eye; Truths that the learn'd pursue with eager thought Are not important always as dear-bought, But truths on which depends our main concern, "Tis true that, if to trifle life away Down to the sunset of their latest day, Then perish on futurity's wide shore Like fleeting exhalations, found no more, Were all that heaven required of human kind, But reason heard, and nature well perused, In early days the conscience has in most Too careless often, as our years proceed, What friends we sort with, or what books we read, Our parents yet exert a prudent care To feed our infant minds with proper fare; And wisely store the nursery by degrees With wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease. "Tis call'd a book, though but a single page) Presents the prayer the Saviour deign'd to teach, Which children use, and parsons-when they preach. Lisping our syllables, we scramble next Through moral narrative, or sacred text; And learn with wonder how this world began, Who made, who marr'd, and who has ransom'd man: O thou, whom, borne on Fancy's eager wing I name thee not, lest so despised a name That mingles all my brown with sober gray, Revere the man whose PILGRIM marks the road, By kind tuition on his yielding breast, The youth, now bearded and yet pert and raw, That babblers, call'd philosophers, devise, As God's expedient to retrieve his loss, How weak the barrier of mere nature proves, But now farewell all legendary tales, The shadows fly, philosophy prevails; Prayer to the winds, and caution to the waves; Religion makes the free by nature slaves. Priests have invented, and the world admired What knavish priests promulgate as inspired, Till Reason, now no longer overawed, Resumes her powers, and spurns the clumsy fraud; And, common sense diffusing real day, The meteor of the Gospel dies away. Such rhapsodies our shrewd discerning youth Learn from expert inquirers after truth; Whose only care, might truth presume to speak, Is not to find what they profess to seek. And thus, well tutor'd only while we share A mother's lectures and a nurse's care; And taught at schools much mythologic stuff,† See 2 Chron. xxvi. 19. †The author begs leave to explain.-Sensible that, without such knowledge, neither the an. |