The curious spirit of youth is crammed with unwholesome garbage,
While starving for the mother's milk the breasts of nature yield;
And high-coloured fables of depravity lure with their classic varnish,
While truth is holding out in vain her mirror much despised.
Of olden time, the fashion was for arms, to make an accomplished slayer,
And set gregarious man a-tilting with his fellows;
Thereafter, occult sciences, and mystic arts, and symbols,
How to exorcise a wizard, and how to lay a ghost;
Anon, all for gallantry and presence, the minuet, the palfrey, and the foil,
And the grand aim of education was to produce a coxcomb;