It boasts a splendour ever new, To the fame patronefs refort, Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought Wild roses over furrow'd ground, There Genius, Learning, Fancy, Wit, She thus maintains divided sway VERSES Supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during his folitary Abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez. AM monarch of all I furvey, My right there is none to difpute; From the centre all round to the fea I am lord of the fowl and the brute. O Solitude! where are the charms That fages have feen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms Than reign in this horrible place. I am out of humanity's reach, I must finish my journey alone, Society, friendship, and love, In the ways of religion and truth, Might learn from the wisdom of age, And be cheer'd by the fallies of youth. Religion! what treasure untold Ye winds, that have made me your sport, Convey to this defolate shore Some cordial endearing report Of a land I fhall vifit no more. My friends, do they now and then send A with or a thought after me? O tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to fee. How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempeft itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light. When I think of my own native land, But the fea-fowl is gone to her neft, And mercy, encouraging thought! And reconciles man to his lot. ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE Recorded in the Biographia Britannica. H, 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 gulfs receive them as they fall, And dark oblivion foon abforbs them all. So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a ftale last year's news, The flame extinct, he views the roving fire- REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, Not to be found in any of the Books. ETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose, The spectacles fet them unhappily wrong; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ought to belong. So the Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning; While chief baron Ear fat to balance the laws, So famed for his talent in nicely difcerning. In behalf of the Nofe it will quickly appear, And your lordship, he faid, will undoubtedly find That the Nofe has had fpectacles always in wear, Which amounts to poffeffion time out of mind. Then holding the spectacles up to the courtYour lordship obferves they are made with a ftraddle, |