III.

When lawless mobs insult the court,

That man shall be my toaft,

If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.

IV.

But oh! for him my fancy culls

The choiceft flow'rs she bears,

Who conftitutionally pulls

Your house about your ears.

V.

Such civil broils are my delight;

Tho' fome folks can't endure 'em,

Who fay the mob are mad outright, And that a rope must cure 'em.

VI.

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 hiftoric page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny luftres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethæan gulphs 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! illuftrious spark,
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!

7

REPORT

OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.

I.

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 faid spectacles ought to belong.

II.

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learn

ing;

While chief baron Ear set to balance the laws, So fam'd for his talent in nicely difcerning.

III.

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. IV.

Then holding the spectacles up to the court

Your lordship observes they are made with a

As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,
Design'd to fit close to it, just like a faddle.

V.

Again, would your lordship a moment suppose ('Tis a cafe that has happen'd, and may be again) That the visage or countenance had not a nose! Pray who wou'd, or who cou'd, wear spectacles then?

VI.

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 Nofe, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.

VII.

Then, shifting his fide, (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 wife.

VIII.

So his lordship decreed, with a grave folemn tone, Decisive and clear, without one if or butThat, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, By day-light or candle-light-Eyes should be shut!

BURNING LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY. 275

ON THE BURNING OF

LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY,

TOGETHER WITH HIS MSS.

BY THE MOB, IN THE MONTH OF JUNE 1780.

I.

So then the Vandals of our ifle,

Sworn foes to sense and law,

Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman faw!

II.

And MURRAY sighs o'er Pope and Swift,

And many a treasure more,

The well-judg'd purchase and the gift

That grac'd his letter'd store.

III.

Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,

The lofs was his alone;

But ages yet to come shall mourn

The burning of his own.