The best of the taverns were all pre-engaged, So I barely was lodged, or rather encaged; Yet, cage as it was, I enjoyed a regale Of victuals three times every day, without fail: There was poultry, and pyes, and a dozen things more That the damnable college had never in store: I feasted, and lived on such fat of the place That the college would not have remembered my face-- So long had I fed on their trash algebraic, Indeed, it was time I went to Passaick!-- The rocks were amazing, and such was the height, They struck me at once with surprize and delight. The waters rushed down with a terrible roar-- What a pleasure it was to be lounging on shore! They now were as clear as old Helicon's stream, Or as clear as the clearest in poetry's dream.-- These falls were stupendous, the fountains so clear, That another Narcissus might see himself here, Nor only Narcissus--some ill-featured faces From the springs were reflected--not made up of graces. But now I must tell you--what people were met: They were, on my conscience, a wonderful sett; Some came for their health, and some came for their pleasure, And to steal from the city a fortnight of leisure; Some came for a day, and yet more for a week, Some came from the college, tormented with Greek, To continue as long as their means would afford, That is, while the taverns would trust them their board: (Of this last mentioned class, I confess I was one, For why should I fib when the mischief is done?) This age may decay, and another may rise, Before it is fully revealed to our eyes, That Latin, and Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Greek, To the shades of oblivion must certainly sneak; Too much of our time is employed on such trash When we ought to be taught to accumulate cash. Supposing I knew them as pat as my prayers (And to know them completely would cost me twelve years) Supposing, I say, I had Virgil by rote, And could talk with old Homer--'tis not worth a groat; If with Rabbi Bensalem I knew how to chat, Where lies the advantage?--and what of all that? Were this cart load of learning the whole that I knew, I could sooner get forward by mending a shoe: I could sooner grow rich by the axe or the spade, Or thrive by the meanest mechanical trade, The tinker himself would be richer than I, For the tinker has something that people must buy, While such as have little but Latin to vend, On a shadow may truly be said to depend; Old words, and old phrases that nothing bestow, And the owners discarded ten ages ago.-- Here were people on people--I hardly know who-- There was Mammon the merchant, and Japhet the Jew: There was Slyboots the Quaker, whose coat had no flaps, With two of his Lambkins, as plain in their caps. In silks of the richest I saw them array, But nothing was cut in our mode of the day, They hung to old habits as firm as to rocks,