Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/90

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58
AMYNTAS.
Who taught the fish to swim, the ram to butt,
The peacock to unfurl his glistening train?

DAPHNE.
What is the name of this surprizing teacher?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, the name.

DAPHNE.
False, ridiculing tongue!

THYRSIS.
Reject not quite my strong hyperbole:
Thou an adept sufficient art in love,
In all its mystery, to erect a school,
And teach a thousand girls the pleasing system.
Indeed the school by Nature is precluded;
They have the science from her inspiration;
Yet nature owes a part to education;
The mother, and the nurse, improve her dictates;
Open, and throw them into ready practice.

DAPHNE.
Come; you're a phlegmatick, a gloomy reasoner.

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