Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

THE SCHOOL-BOY, THE PEDANT, AND THE GARDENER.

THE SCHOOL-BOY, THE PEDANT AND THE GARDENER.

A CERTAIN School-boy rendered doubly wild and doubly roguish by his extreme youth, and by the privilege which pedants enjoy of turning their wits, was in the habit of robbing a neighbour of fruits and flowers. In the autumn, this neighbour was blessed with Pomona's choicest gifts. Each season brought its tribute; for in the spring he was overwhelmed with the gifts of Flora. One day he espied our schoolboy, who, carelessly climbing a fruit-tree, spoilt all his habiliments, even to the buttons. He shook and broke the branches of the trees in such a manner, that the gardener sent to make his complaints to the school-master. The latter came, followed by a troop of children, thus filling the garden with a band of spoilers worse than the first. The pedant had graciously increased the evil by bringing with him his illbred rabble, in order he said, that the chastisement he intended to inflict on the offender might make a salutary impression on the minds of his scholars, which should never be effaced during their lives. Hereupon he commenced quoting Virgil and Cicero, as authorities for the importance of early impressions. His discourse lasted so long, that the little depredators had time to despoil the garden in a hundred places.

I detest pieces of eloquence misplaced, and which have no end in view; and I am acquainted with no animal in the world worse than a school-boy, unless it be a pedant. To speak the truth, I should feel very ill at ease with even the better of these two for a neighbour.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

By words you seek to gain applause;
My services best plead my cause."

Thus said the well.

September came,

The rivulet lost its very name,

The well filled Colin's buckets just the same.
"Tis thus in life. Th' illit'rate fop
His rattling tongue will never stop;
And though his wit's by fools caress'd
'Tis superficial all, at best.

But talk of science; lo! he's dumb,
His voice is parched-September's come.
Not so the skill'd, yet modest sage,
Deep read in learning's classic page;
He hears what others may disclose,

Never his knowledge vainly shews,

And little says, though always much he knows.

[blocks in formation]

HATEFUL is the man who would raise his name on the ruins of another's reputation. Like him, prudes, while destroying characters, imagine that they are establishing their own; like him, writers, covetous of praise, think, by calumny, they transfer laurels from the brows of others to their own. Inspired with the same pride, belles and poets decry all their rivals.-Whoever would extol the features and eyes of Lesbia, must paint her sister a plain and clumsy girl; for flattery is sure to please, when accompanied with the censure of some other nymph.

In the freshness of the opening morn, a poet visited a garden covered with the dew of May. In every part of it an embalmed air breathed around him; every plant expelled the homage of its own incense. The poet gathers a rose, contemplates, admires, and thus addresses the flower, in the language which his muse inspires :

[ocr errors]

Rose, go and adorn the bosom of my Chloe! Too happy! could I there kindle an inextinguishable flame, and, like a Phoenix, under the eyes of Chloe, and on a bed of perfumes, burn and die!

[ocr errors]

'Know, sad flower, that you will there find roses more fragrant than yourself! I see you already bowing your head, withering with envy and despair! Doomed to the same fate we die; you with envy, I for love!"

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

A truce,- —a truce, with comparisons," replied a rose from a neighbouring tree. We disturb your quiet less than that of any other. What could poets do without us? The rose flourishes in all your amorous songs; we enrich them with our colours and our odours. When you depress us to exalt your Chloe, how do you add to her charms? Must we, to flatter her, grow pale; and wither with envy, fade and die ?”

« PreviousContinue »