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 teach
Morals 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 art
Could remedy a perverse and wicked heart,
Might earn enormous wages! But in fact
The mind is not compounded and compact
Of precept and example; human art
In 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 correct
In children's hearts each error and defect:
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Whereas we see them disappointed still,
No scheme nor artifice of human skill
Can 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."

"Now that in mid career, checking his force,
The bright sun pauses in his pride and force,
Let us prepare to dine; and eat and drink
The best of everything that heart can think: