University of Virginia Library

Lines on the Birthday of Sir Thomas White.

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(Founder of Merchant Taylors' School.)

THE ANNUAL TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

Sir Thomas White
Was a noble knight,
Extremely desirous of doing what's right;
So he sat himself down one beautiful night,
When the moon shone so bright
That he asked for no light
Beyond that of her beams, and began to indite
His last will,—so remarkably good was his sight,—
And he charged and bound down his executors tight,
As soon as his soul should have taken its flight,
To erect a good school of proportionate height,
Length, and breadth—Suffolk Lane he proposed for its site,
And its order what architects term Composite—
In which all such nice little good boys who might
At the date of their entrance have not attained quite
Their tenth year, should be brought up to read and to write;
Not to give way to spite,
Nor to quarrel nor fight,
But to show themselves always well bred and polite,
Keep hands and face clean, and be decently dight
In clothes of a grave colour rather than bright—
At least not so light as remark to excite—
And to make Greek and Latin their chiefest delight;
To be mild in demeanour, in morals upright;
Not to kick, nor to bite,
Nor to pinch, nor affright
Each other by practical jokes, as at night
By aping a goblin, humgruffin, or sprite;
And never to wrong of so much as a mite,
Or a bat, or a ball, or a hoop, or a kite,
Any poor little schoolfellow—Oh, what a plight
I am in after all—poor unfortunate wight!
I can't make my number of verses up quite;
For my paper's expended,
My rhymes too are ended,
And I can write no more, for I've no more to write;
So if a line short, I'm in hopes, Mister Bellamy
Will pity my case, and not cease to think well o' me.