Now in the desk, with solemn air,
Our hero makes his audience stare;
Asserts with all dogmatic boldness,
Where impudence is yoked to dulness;
Reads o'er his notes with halting pace,
Mask'd in the stiffness of his face;'
With gestures such as might become
Those statues once that spoke at Rome,
Or Livy's ox,* that to the state
Declared the oracles of fate,

In awkward tones, nor said, nor sung,
Slow rumbling o'er the falt'ring tongue,
Two hours his drawling speech holds on,
And names it preaching, when he's done.
With roving tired, he fixes down
For life, in some unsettled town.
People and priest full well agree,
For why-they know no more than he.
Vast tracts of unknown land he gains,
Better than those the moon contains;
There deals in preaching and in prayer,
And starves on sixty pounds a year,

And culls his texts, and tills his farm,
Does little good, and little harm;
On Sunday, in his best array,
Deals forth the dulness of the day,
And while above he spends his breath,
The yawning audience nod beneath.

Thus glib-tongued Merc'ry in his hand
Stretch'd forth the sleep-compelling wand,
Each eye in endless doze to keep-
The God of speaking, and of sleep.

END OF PART FIRST.

THE PROGRESS OF DULNESS.

PART II.

OR THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF

DICK HAIRBRAIN.*

"TWAS in a town remote, the place
We leave the reader wise to guess,
(For readers wise can guess full well
What authors never meant to tell,)
There dwelt secure a country clown,
The wealthiest farmer of the town.
Though rich by villany and cheats,
He bought respect by frequent treats;
Gain'd offices by constant seeking,
'Squire, captain, deputy and deacon ;
Great was his power, his pride as arrant ;
One only son his heir apparent.

* First printed at New-Haven, January 1773.

He thought the stripling's parts were quick,
And vow'd to make a man of DICK;

Bless'd the pert dunce, and praised his looks,
And put him early to his books.

More oaths than words Dick learn'd to speak And studied knavery more than Greek; Three years at school, as usual, spent, Then all equipp'd to college went, And pleased in prospect, thus bestow'd His meditations, as he rode.

"All hail, unvex'd with care and strife, The bliss of academic life;

Where kind repose protracts the span,
While childhood ripens into man;
Where no hard parent's dreaded rage
Curbs the gay sports of youthful age:
Where no vile fear the genius awes
With grim severity of laws;

Where annual troops of bucks come down,
The flower of every neighb'ring town;
Where wealth and pride and riot wait,

And each choice spirit finds his mate.

"Far from those walls, from pleasure's eye,

Let care and grief and labour fly,