Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me, From avarice and ambition free,

And pleasure's fatal wiles?

For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,
The banquet of thy smiles?

The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heaven that thou alone canst make,
And wilt thou quit the stream
That murmurs through the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequestered shed,
To be a guest with them?

For thee I panted, thee I prized,
For thee I gladly sacrificed

Whate'er I loved before,

And shall I see thee start away,

And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say, "Farewell! we meet no more"?

HUMAN FRAILTY

WEAK and irresolute is man;
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,

To-morrow rends away.

The bow well bent and smart the spring, Vice seems already slain,

But passion rudely snaps the string,

And it revives again.

Some foe to his upright intent

Finds out his weaker part,

Virtue engages his assent,

But pleasure wins his heart.

'Tis here the folly of the wise
Through all his art we view,
And, while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.

Bound on a voyage of awful length

And dangers little known,

A stranger to superior strength,

Man vainly trusts his own.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail

To reach the distant coast,

The breath of heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.

THE MODERN PATRIOT

REBELLION is my theme all day,
I only wish 'twould come

(As who knows but perhaps it may ?)

A little nearer home.

Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t'other side the Atlantic,

I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.

When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.

But oh! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flowers she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls

Your house about your ears.

Such civil broils are my delight,
Though some folks can't endure ’em
Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure 'em.

A rope! I wish we patriots had
Such strings for all who need 'em.-
What! hang a man for going mad!
Then farewell British freedom.

ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE

RECORDED IN THE BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA

Он, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain, recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:

Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethæan gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.

So when a child (as playful children use)
Has burnt to tinder a stale last-year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire-
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!

REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE

NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS

BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning;
While Chief Baron Ear sat to balance the laws,

So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.

"In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,

And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind."

Then, holding the spectacles up to the court,

"Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle, As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short, Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.

Again, would your lordship a moment suppose ("Tis a case that has happened, and may be again,) That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?

"On the whole it appears, and my argument shows,
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.”

Then, shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how,
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes:
But what were his arguments few people know,

For the court did not think they were equally wise.

So his lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear, without one if or but-
That, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on,
By daylight or candlelight-Eyes should be shut!

ON THE BURNING OF LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY

TOGETHER WITH HIS MSS.

BY THE MOB, IN THE MONTH OF JUNE 1780

So then the Vandals of our isle,
Sworn foes to sense and law,
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman saw!

And Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift,
And many a treasure more,

The well-judged purchase and the gift
That graced his lettered store.

Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,
The loss was his alone;

But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own.

ON THE SAME

WHEN wit and genius meet their doom

In all devouring flame,

They tell us of the fate of Rome,
And bid us fear the same.

O'er Murray's loss the Muses wept,
They felt the rude alarm,

Yet blessed the guardian care that kept
His sacred head from harm.

There Memory, like the bee that's fed

From Flora's balmy store,

The quintessence of all he read

Had treasured up before.

The lawless herd, with fury blind,
Have done him cruel wrong;

The flowers are gone-but still we find
The honey on his tongue.

a

THE LOVE OF THE WORLD REPROVED;

OR

HYPOCRISY DETECTED

THUS says the prophet of the Turk,
"Good Mussulman, abstain from pork;
There is a part in every swine
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination,
On pain of excommunication."

Such Mahomet's mysterious charge,
And thus he left the point at large.
Much controversy straight arose,
These choose the back, the belly those;
By some 'tis confidently said

He meant not to forbid the head;
While others at that doctrine rail
And piously prefer the tail.

Thus, conscience freed from every clog,
Mahometans eat up the hog.

*

You laugh; 'tis well. The tale applied
May make you laugh on t'other side.
"Renounce the world," the preacher cries.
"We do," a multitude replies.

While one as innocent regards

A snug and friendly game at cards;

And one, whatever you may say,
Can see no evil in a play ;

Some love a concert or a race;

And others shooting and the chase.

Reviled and loved, renounced and followed,
Thus bit by bit the world is swallowed;
Each thinks his neighbour makes too free,
Yet likes a slice as well as he :

With sophistry their sauce they sweeten,
Till quite from tail to snout 'tis eaten.

It may be proper to inform the reader that this piece has already_appeared in print, having found its way, though with some unnecessary additions by an unknown hand, into the "Leeds Journal," without the author's privity.