AN ANCIENT MANUAL.

O! what a fund of genius, pent
In narrow space is here!

This volume's method and intent

How luminous and clear.

It leaves no reader at a loss

Or posed, whoever reads:

No commentator's tedious gloss,
Nor even index needs.

Search Bodley's many thousands o'er!
No book is treasured there,

Nor yet in Granta's numerous store,

That may with this

compare.

No!-rival none in either host

Of this was ever seen,

Or, that contents could justly boast,
So brilliant and so keen.

295

W ter which,

Boots bought, or boots borrow'd, a whip or a

switch,

Five shillings or less for the hire of his beast, Paid part into hand;-you must wait for the rest. Thus equipt, Academicus climbs up his horse, And out they both sally for better or worse;

His heart void of fear, and as light as a feather; And in violent haste to go not knowing whither: Through the fields and the towns; (see!) he scampers along,

And is look'd at and laugh'd at by old and by young.

Till at length overspent, and his sides smear'd with blood,

Down tumbles his horse, man and all in the mud. In a waggon or chaise, shall he finish his route? Oh! scandalous fate! he must do it on foot.

Young gentlemen, hear!—I am older than you! The advice that I give I have proved to be true, Wherever your journey may be, never doubt it, The faster you ride, you're the longer about it.

THE

THE SILKWORM.

(PAGE 218.)

HE beams of April, ere it goes,
A worm, scarce visible, disclose;
All winter long content to dwell
The tenant of his native shell.
The same prolific season gives
The sustenance by which he lives,
The mulberry leaf, a simple store,
That serves him-till he needs no more!
For, his dimensions once complete,
Thenceforth none ever sees him eat;

Though till his growing time be past,
Scarce ever is he seen to fast.

That hour arrived, his work begins.

He spins and weaves, and weaves and spins;

Till circle upon circle wound

Careless around him and around,

Conceals him with a veil, though slight,

Impervious to the keenest sight.
Thus self-enclosed as in a cask,
At length he finishes his task;

THE SILKWORM.

And, though a worm when he was lost,
Or caterpillar at the most,

When next we see him, wings he wears,

And in papilio pomp appears;
Becomes oviparous; supplies

With future worms and future flies
The next ensuing year-and dies!

Well were it for the world, if all
Who creep about this earthly ball,
Though shorter lived than most he be,
Were useful in their kind as he.

299