Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/152

a set-off to the passages which, have led us to picture him as more or less of an easy liver:—

"To rear a child is easy, but to teachMorals and manners is beyond our reach;To make the foolish wise, the wicked good,That science yet was never understood.The sons of Esculapius, if their artCould remedy a perverse and wicked heart,Might earn enormous wages! But in factThe mind is not compounded and compactOf precept and example; human artIn human nature has no share or part.Hatred of vice, the fear of shame and sin,Are things of native growth, not grafted in:Else wives and worthy parents might correctIn children's hearts each error and defect:${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}}$Whereas we see them disappointed still,No scheme nor artifice of human skillCan rectify the passions or the will"—(F.) )

Not often, however, despite his sententiousness, which has been the cause of his metamorphose by posterity into a coiner of maxims for the use of schools and the instruction of life and morals, does Theognis muse in such a strain of seriousness. Oftener far his vein is bright and gay, as when he makes ready for a feast, which, if we are not mistaken, was destined to take most of the remainder of his "solid day."