126
XV.
In the School of is a Tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of 'the several Persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the Foundation of the School, with the Time at which they entered upon and quitted their Office. Opposite one of those Names the Author wrote the following Lines.
If Nature, for a favourite Child
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,
Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue
Its history of two hundred years.
—When through this little wreck of fame,
Cypher and syllable! thine eye
Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.
