ONLY FULL AND TRUE REPORT

OF THE CONTENTION BETWEEN NOSE AND EYES FOR THE SPECTACLES,

AND THE ISSUE THEREOF. *

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 Mr. Cowper's report of this celebrated case we look in vain for his accustomed impartiality, his characteristic love of truth and justice. Not only has he garbled the pleadings by a total omission of the plea of the eyes, but even falsified the record itself by the substitution of an absurd and unjust decision of the court for the rational and equitable compromise by which the case was actually closed, and the proceedings brought to a termination satisfactory to both parties. To this, the sole dereliction of the straightforward path with which he has ever been charged, Mr. Cowper was no doubt seduced by his partiality for the nose, Mr. Cowper, as it is well known, having always been accustomed to wear his spectacles

,,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."

Having thus made a case on behalf of the Nose
No less valid in law than in equity strong,
Tongue changed sides and with arguments weighty as blows
Showed the spectacles only to Eyes could belong:

upon his nose. In order to guard my report against all tinge of a similar predilection for the eyes (a predilection of which I acknowledge I cannot wholly divest myself, the eyes in my case having always had the use of the spectacles), I have taken the precaution not to draw my account of the arguments of Counsel on behalf of the nose from the same source from which I have drawn my account of the plea of the eyes and of the final compromise, viz. the books of the Court of Uncommon Pleas, the court in which the case was tried and in which I have been so fortunate as to find a complete record of it, but to adopt Nose's arguments verbatim and literatim from the report of Nose's best friend, Mr. Cowper himself.

"My Lord, spectacles being, as we all know, a pair,
And Eyes a pair also, while Nose is but one,
That it's Eyes and not Nose that should spectacles wear
Is as plain and as clear as at noonday the sun.

"And as for the ownership Nose claimed just now

On the ground of his fitting exactly the straddle, Why, my Lord, allow that, and you can't but allow That the horse owns by right both the rider and saddle."

Here the court, interrupting, proposed compromise

Between next-door neighbours such strife 's a disgrace And Nose waived his claim, on condition that Eyes Should from thenceforth let spectacles lie in their case. DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); Febr. 11, 1855.

"Epicuri de grege porcum."

THERE's nothing I so much admire
Ás a full glass and roaring fire,
Unless it be cow-heel or tripe,
Or well replenished meerschaum pipe
Stáy, darling Meg, I did but jest;
Of áll God's gifts thou art the best.

DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY; Jan. 25, 1855.

FROM his shroúd the dead man peéping
Sáw the moúrners round him weeping,
Heárd such sóbs and sighs and groans
Might have mélted hearts of stónes.

Nót a word the dead man said,
Bút the thought came into his head:
Tó that whining blúbbering pack
Gód keep me from góing báck.

Dalkey Lodge, DALKEY; April 3, 1855.

WHAT benéficent Jóve was 't, or Búddh or Osiris Or Saturn or Sátan, who, nót for their own good But mán's use, creáted poor birds, beasts and fishes; And his protégé, móre to enrích and exált him,

Into two halves divided and to the one half

Gave the other for sérvant and bondslave for éver?

DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); April 13, 1855.

Tray's nose ásks each: "Who are you?"

Tó Belinda's when I cóme,

Tray snuffs round and roúnd the room,

Thén lies down beside my chair,

Knows I'll stay a long while thére.

When I rise to go away

Fróm Belinda's, and call Tráy,

Tray comes slówly, knówing well
I've to say a lóng farewell.