The Boarding School; Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils / Consisting of Information, Instruction and Advice, Calculated to Improve the Manners and Form the Character of Young Ladies. To Which Is Added, a Collection of Letters, Written by the Pupils to Their Instructress, Their Friends, and Each Other.

by Hannah Webster Foster

And pomp and eclat are the habit she wears:

Or hie to the court, where so well you are known,

So highly esteem’d and so confident grown,

That without your assistance and recommendation,

None claims any merit, or fills any station!

Seek either of these; and with joy you’ll behold

Yourself crown’d with honor, and filled with gold.

But to wait on a priest! How absurd is the scheme;

His reward’s in reversion; the future’s his theme.

Will these, for the present, your craving’s supply,