248 UNPROFITABLE READIN.C;$ ed genius, for the innocent and refreshing delights of poetry. The muses have liv ing votaries, who pour forth strains at once original, mellifluous, and chaste. What shall we presume to say to sober. minded parents, even to grave clergy- men, who not only do not prohibit the authors of the school in question ; who not only do not restrain their daughters from being students in it, but who not unfrequently introduce, as part of the family reading, poetry, which if it con- tain not the gross expressions, and vulgar wickedness of the wits of Charles's days, is little less prophane in principle, or cor- rupt in sentiment? There is some know. ledge which it is a praise not to know ; and the vice in this case being somewhat " refined through certain strainers," furnishes at once a temptation and an apology. It may be urged, in vindication of this remissness, that as soon as young persons get out of their parents"' hands, they will naturally choose their books for them-
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