quote · Legacy record
At his first aptness the maternal love Those rudiments of wisdom did improve; The tender age was pliant to command; Like wax it yielded to the forming hand: True to the artificer, the laboured mind With ease was pious, generous, just, and kind; Soft for impression, from the first prepared, Till virtue, with long exercise, grew hard; With every act confirmed and made at last, So durable as not to be effaced, It turned to habit; and from vices free, Goodness resolved into necessity.
At his first aptness the maternal love Those rudiments of wisdom did improve; The tender age was pliant to command; Like wax it yielded to the forming hand: True to the artificer, the laboured mind With ease was pious, generous, just, and kind; Soft for impression, from the first prepared, Till virtue, with long exercise, grew hard; With every act confirmed and made at last, So durable as not to be effaced, It turned to habit; and from vices free, Goodness resolved into necessity.
Approximate author period: c. 1666 AD · renaissance
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- John Dryden
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1666 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint (1631–1701)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- A Cyclopædia of Sacred Poetical Quotations (catalogued1888) (1888 AD)
Page 114 · printed citation: Dryden · subject: CHILDHOOD—INFANCY
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