On A Change Of Masters At A Great Public School
WHERE are those honours, Ida! once yow own, When Probus fill’d your magisterial throne? As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, Hail’d a barbarian in her Cæsar’s place, So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate, And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate. Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, Pomposus holds you in his harsh control; Pomposus, by no social virtue sway’d, With florid jargon, and with vain parade; With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules, Such as were ne’er before enforced in schools Mistaking pedantry for learning’s laws, He governs, sanction’d but by self applause; With him the same dire fate attending Rome, Ill-fated Ida! soon must stamp your doom; Like her o’erthrown, for ever lost to fame, No trace of science left you, but the name.
July 1805.
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