My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed, My Taylor too must sail; To save my Goldsmith from arrest, In vain I offered Bayle. I Prior sought, but could not see The Hood so late in front; And when I turned to hunt for Lee, Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt? I tried to laugh, old care to tickle, Yet could not Tickell touch, And then, alas! I missed my Mickle, And surely mickle's much. 'Tis quite enough my griefs to feed, My sorrows to excuse, To think I cannot read my Reid, Nor even use my Hughes. To West, to South, I turn my head, Exposed alike to odd jeers; For since my Roger Ascham's fled, I ask 'em for my Rogers. They took my Horne--and Horne Tooke, too, And thus my treasures flit; I feel when I would Hazlitt view, The flames that it has lit. My word's worth little, Wordsworth gone, If I survive its doom; How many a bard I doated on Was swept off--with my Broome. My classics would not quiet lie, A thing so fondly hoped; Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry, 'My Livy has eloped!' My life is wasting fast away-- I suffer from these shocks; And though I've fixed a lock on Gray, There's grey upon my locks. I'm far from young--am growing pale-- I see my Butter fly; And when they ask about my _ail_, 'Tis Burton! I reply. They still, have made me slight returns, And thus my griefs divide; For oh! they've cured me of my Burns, And eased my Akenside. But all I think I shall not say, Nor let my anger burn; For as they never found me Gay, They have not left me Sterne. S. LAMAN BLANCHARD. THE BOOK OF NATURE Of this fair volume which we World do name, If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame, We clear might read the art and wisdom rare: Find out His power which wildest powers doth tame, His providence extending everywhere, His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page, no, period of the same. But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold, Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best, On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold; Or if by chance our minds do muse on aught, It is some picture on the margin wrought. W. DRUMMOND. In Nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read. W. SHAKESPEARE. _Antony and Cleopatra._ THE BOOK Eternal God! Maker of all That have lived here since the Man's fall! The Rock of Ages! in whose shade They live unseen when here they fade!