To gain command of English words and every grammar rule,
'Tis best to be a butcher's son and never go to school.

To from good plays in perfect style, and full of classic knowledge, 'Tis
best to be a poacher bold, and never go to college.

To write of ladies, lords and dukes, of kings and kingly sport,
'Tis best to be a common man and never go to court.

To write about philosophy and law and medicine,
'Tis best to stand at horses' heads, and never read a line.

To treat of foreign lands in strains that all men must applaud,
'Tis best to stay in England and never go abroad.

To scale the heights of human bliss and sound the depths of woe,
'Tis best to make a steady "pile" and never let go.

If come to ripe maturity when genius has full play,
'Tis best to lead an easy life and lay the pen away.

To show that "knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven,"
'Tis best that to your own dear child no lessons should be given.

To surely earn immortal fame as England's greatest bard,
'Tis best to leave no manuscripts and die of "drinking hard."

 

Bacon

To win injustice and contempt from every biased mind,
'Tis best to be "the wisest and the brightest of mankind."

 

Shake-Speare

To warn the strong, to teach the proud, to give new knowledge scope,
'Twas best to use a nom-de-plume , and write in faith and hope
That future ages, wiser grown, would learn the royal rule,
That knowledge does not come to those who never go to school.

--E.C. S.

 

*******