Excerpt from Doctor Syntax: His Three Tours in Search of the Picturesque, of Consolation, of a Wife The school was done, the bus'ness o'er, When tir'd of Greek and Latin lore, Good Syntax sought his easy chair, And sat in calm composure there. His wife was to a neighbour gone, To hear the chit-chat of the town; And left him the unfrequent power Of brooding through a quiet hour. Thus, while he sat, a busy train Of images besieged his brain. Of Church-preferment he had none; Nay, all his hope of that was gone: He felt that he content must be With drudging in a Curacy. Indeed, on ev'ry Sabbath-day, Through eight long miles he took his way, To preach, to grumble, and to pray; To cheer the good, to warn the sinner, And, if he got it, - eat a dinner; To bury these, to christen those, And marry such fond folks as chose To change the tenor of their life, And risk the matrimonial strife. Thus were his weekly journeys made, 'Neath summer suns and wintry shades; And all his gains, it did appear, - Were only thirty pounds a year. Besides, th' augmenting taxes press To aid expense and add distress: Mutton and beef and bread and beer, And ev'rything was grown so dear; The boys too, always prone to eat, Delighted less in books than meat; So that when holy Christmas came, His earnings ceas'd to be the same, And now, alas, could do no more, Than keep the wolf without the door. Even birch, the pedant master's boast, That oft, prudentially beguil'd, To save the rod, he spar'd the child. Thus, if the times refus'd to mend, He to his school must put an end. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.