A book for boys and girls :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Title-page will shew, if there thou look,
Who are the proper Subjects of this Book.
They'r Boys and Girls of all Sorts and Degrees,
From those of Age, to Children on the Knees.
Thus comprehensive am I in my Notions;
They tempt me to it by their childish Motions.
We now have Boys with Beards, and Girls that be
Big as old Women, wanting Gravity.

Then do not blame me, 'cause I thus describe them;
Flatter I may not, lest thereby I bribe them
To have a better Judgment of themselves,
Than wise men have of Babies on their Shelves.
Their antick Tricks, fantastick Modes, and way,
Shew they like very Boys, and Girls, do play
With all the frantick Fopp'ries of this Age;
And that in open view, as on a Stage;
Our Bearded men, do act like Beardless Boys;
Our Women please themselves with childish Toys.

Our Ministers, long time by Word and Pen,
Dealt with them, counting them, not Boys but Men:
Thunder-bolts they shot at them, and their Toys:
But bit them not, 'cause they were Girls and Boys.

The better Charge, the wider still they shot,
Or else so high, these Dwarfs they touched not.
Instead of Men, they found them Girls and Boys,
Addict to nothing as to childish Toys.

Wherefore good Reader, that I save them may,
I now with them, the very Dottril play.
And since at Gravity they make a Tush,
My very Beard I cast behind the Bush.
And like a Fool stand fing'ring of their Toys;
And all to shew them, they are Girls and Boys.

Nor do I blush, although I think some may
Call me a Baby, 'cause I with them play:
I do't to shew them how each Fingle-fangle,
On which they doting are, their Souls entangle,
As with a Web, a Trap, a Ginn, or Snare:
And will destroy them, have they not a Care.

Paul seem'd to play the Fool, that he might gain
Those that were Fools indeed, if not in Grain.
And did it by their things, that they might know
Their emptiness, and might be brought unto
What would them save from Sin and Vanity.
A Noble Act, and full of Honesty.

Yet he, nor I would like them be in Vice,
While by their Play-things, I would them entice,
To mount their Thoughts from what are childish Toys,
To Heav'n, for that's prepar'd for Girls and Boys.
Nor do I so confine my self to these,
As to shun graver things, I seek to please,
Those more compos'd with better things than Toys:
'Tho thus I would be catching Girls and Boys.

Wherefore if Men have now a mind to look;
Perhaps their Graver Fancies may be took
With what is here; tho but in Homely Rhimes:
But he, who pleases all, must rise betimes.
Some, I perswade me, will be finding Fault,
Concluding, here I trip, and there I halt,
No doubt some could these groveling Notions raise
By fine-spun Terms that challenge might the Bays.
But should all men be forc't to lay aside
Their Brains, that cannot regulate the Tide:
By this or that man's Fancy, we should have
The Wise, unto the Fool, become a Slave.
What tho my Text seems mean, my Morals be
Grave, as if fetcht from a Sublimer Tree.
And if some better handle can a Fly,
Then some a Text, why should we them deny
Their making Proof, or good Experiment,
Of smallest things great mischiefs to prevent?

Wise Solomon did Fools to Piss-ants send,
To learn true Wisdom, and their Lives to mend.
Yea, God by Swallows, Cuckows, and the Ass;
Shews they are Fools who let that season pass,
Which he put in their hand, that to obtain
Which is both present, and Eternal Gain.

I think the wiser sort my Rhimes may flight
But what care I! The foolish will delight
To read them, and the Foolish, God has chose.
And doth by Foolish Things, their minds compose,
And settle upon that which is Divine:
Great Things, by little ones, are made to shine.

I could, were I so pleas'd, use higher Strains.
And for Applause, on Tenters stretch my Brains,
But what needs that? The Arrow out of Sight,
Does not the Sleeper, nor the Watchman fright.
To shoot too high doth but make Children gaze;
'Tis that which hits the man, doth him amaze.

And for the Inconsiderableness
Of things, by which I do my mind express;
May I by them bring some good thing to pass,
As Sampson, with the Jaw-bone of an Ass;
Or as Brave Shamgar with his Oxe's Goad,
(Both things not manly, nor for War in Mode)
I have my end, 'tho I my self expose
To scorn; God will have Glory in the close.

Thus much for artificial Babes; and now
To those who are in years but such, I bow

My Pen to teach them what the Letters be,
And how they may improve their A, B, C.
Nor let my pretty Children them despise;
All, needs must there begin, that would be wise.

Nor let them fall under Discouragement,
Who at their Horn-book stick, and time hath spent
Upon that A, B, C. while others do
Into their Primer, or their Psalter go.
Some Boys with difficulty do begin,
Who in the end, the Bays, and Lawrel win.

J. B.