Fugitive Pieces

  Where are those honours?  IDA, once your 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, but of a narrower soul,
  Pomposus, holds you in his harsh controul;
  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 beheld in schools,)
  Mistaking pedantry, for learning’s laws,
  He governs, sanctioned but by self applause. 
  With him, the same dire fate attending Rome,
  Ill-fated IDA! soon must stamp your doom;
  Like her o’erthrown, forever lost to fame,
  No trace of science left you, but the name.

HARROW, July, 1805.

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