SATIRE XIV.
The whole of this Satire is directed to the one great end of self-improvement. By showing the dreadful facility with which children copy the vices of their parents, the poet points out the necessity as well as the sacred duty of giving them examples of domestic purity and virtue. After briefly enumerating the several vices, gluttony, cruelty, debauchery, etc., which youth imperceptibly imbibe from their seniors, he enters more at large into that of avarice; of which he shows the fatal and inevitable consequences. Nothing can surpass the exquisiteness of this division of the Satire, in which he traces the progress of that passion in the youthful mind from the paltry tricks of saving a broken meal to the daring violation of every principle, human and divine. Having placed the absurdity as well as the danger of immoderate desires in every point of view, he concludes with a solemn admonition to rest satisfied with those comforts and conveniences which nature and wisdom require, and which a decent competence is easily calculated to supply.