60 This was his logic, and his arm so strong, His cause prevail’d, and he was never wrong; But so obtuse--you must have seen his look, Desponding, angry, puzzled o’er his book. “Can you not see him on the morn that proved His skill in figures? Pluto’s self was moved-- ‘Come, six times five?’ th’ impatient teacher cried; In vain, the pupil shut his eyes, and sigh’d. ‘Try, six times count your fingers; how he stands!-- Your fingers, idiot!’--‘What, of both my hands?’ 70 “With parts like these his father felt assured, In busy times, a ship might be procured; He too was pleased to be so early freed: He now could fight, and he in time might read. So he has fought, and in his country’s cause Has gain’d him glory, and our hearts’ applause. No more the blustering boy a school defies; } We see the hero from the tyrant rise, } And in the captain’s worth the student’s dulness dies.” } “Be all allow’d;” replied the squire, “I give 80 Praise to his actions; may their glory live! Nay, I will hear him in his riper age Fight his good ship, and with the foe engage; Nor will I quit him when the cowards fly, Although, like them, I dread his energy. “But still, my friend, that ancient spirit reigns; His powers support the credit of his brains, Insisting ever that he must be right, And for his reasons still prepared to fight. Let him a judge of England’s prowess be, 90 And all her floating terrors on the sea; But this contents not, this is not denied; He claims a right on all things to decide, A kind of patent-wisdom; and he cries, ‘’Tis so!’ and bold the hero that denies. Thus the boy-spirit still the bosom rules, And the world’s maxims were at first the school’s.” “No doubt,” said Jacques, “there are in minds the seeds Of good and ill, the virtues and the weeds; But is it not of study the intent 100 This growth of evil nature to prevent? To check the progress of each idle shoot That might retard the ripening of the fruit? Our purpose certain, and we much effect, We something cure, and something we correct; But do your utmost: when the man you see, You find him what you saw the boy would be, Disguised a little; but we still behold What pleased and what offended us of old. Years from the mind no native stain remove, 110 But lay the varnish of the world above. Still, when he can, he loves to step aside And be the boy, without a check or guide; In the old wanderings he with pleasure strays, And reassumes the bliss of earlier days. “I left at school the boy with pensive look, Whom some great patron order’d to his book; Who from his mother’s cot reluctant came, And gave my lord, for this compassion, fame;