nts, which they believe nothing but want
of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters
of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is
generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of
such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out
of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in
knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph
for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made
generous in AEneas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more
come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can
be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on
from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the
other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his
learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the
Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings
determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally
falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out
of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey
when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully
employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so
many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would
be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining
himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our
parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our
teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have
hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did
before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of
Lalage was what pleased Horace;[267] and I verily believe, the stripes I
suffered about _digito male pertinaci_[268] has given that
irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against
coquettes.

As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to
be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he
is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His
admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these
characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the
conduct of life