POETICAL LAW REPORTS. EXCUSE FOR DULNESS. Cowper, the poet, in one of his letters has made the following humorous proposal for the publication of poetical law-reports : "Poetical reports of law-cases are not very common; yet it appears to me desirable that they should be so ;-many advantages would accrue from such a measure. They would in the first place be more commodiously deposited in the memory, just as linen, grocery, and other articles, when neatly packed, are known to occupy less room, and to lie more conveniently in any trunk, chest, or box, to which they may be committed. In the next place, being divested of that infinite circumlocution, and the endless embarrassment in which they are involved by it, they would become surprisingly intelligible in comparison with their present obscurity. And lastly, they would by that means be rendered susceptible of musical embellishment; and instead of being quoted in the country with that dull monotony, which is so wearisome to by-standers, and frequently lulls even the judges themselves to sleep, might be rehearsed in recitative, which would have an admirable effect in keeping the attention fixed and lively, and would not fail to disperse that heavy atmosphere of sadness and gravity which hangs over the jurisprudence of our country. I remember many years ago being informed by a relation of mine, who in his youth had applied himself to the study of the law, that one of his fellowstudents, a gentleman of sprightly parts, and very respectable talents, of the poetical kind, did actually engage in the prosecution of such a design, for reasons I suppose somewhat similar to, if not the same with, those I have now suggested. He began with Coke's Institutes, a book so rugged in its style that an attempt to polish it seemed an Herculean labour, and not less arduous and difficult than it would be to give the smoothness of a rabbit's fur to the prickly back of a hedgehog. But he succeeded to admiration, as you will perceive by the following specimen, which is all that my said relation could recollect of the performance. Tenant in fee Simple is he, THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER. And need neither quake nor quiver, Free from demands To him and his heirs for ever." The hint which he thus threw out, Cowper has himself acted upon in his report of the case of Nose v. Eyes. (See page 328.) An ingenious author has actually versified the substance of Sir Edward Coke's Reports. The point of each case (with the name) is comprised in a complet, as in the following instances:ARCHER. If he for life enfeoff in fee It bars remainders in contingency. SNAGG. If a person says, "he kill'd my wife," No action lies if she be yet alive. FOSTER. Justice of peace may warrant send To bring before him such as do offend. A poetical Report of a poor-law case occurs in Burns' Justice, which runs as follows:A woman having a settlement Married a man with none; The question was, he being dead, Quoth Sir John Pratt, "the settlement Living the husband, but him dead, Chorus of the Puisne Judges. "Living the husband, but him dead, It doth revive again!" VAUXHALL WEATHER. It having happened for several successive summers, that wet weather took place just as the Vauxhall season commenced, Tom Lowe, Tyers's principal vocal performer, accidentally meeting the proprietor, expressed an anxious desire to know when he meant to open his gardens. "Why are you so particular, Mr. Lowe?" said Jonathan. "I have a very good reason, sir, and should like to know the very day.” “Why, why?" reiterated Tyers, impatiently. "That I may bespeak a great coat to sing in; for you know we shall be sure to have rain." MODERN SERMONS. There is no species of composition that seems to stand more in need of an infusion of fresh vigour than sermons.-Many of our preachers seem to think that the intrinsic charms of the truth are so obvious as to supersede the necessity of any outward display of them; and however much, as Swift observed in ha day, they may fall short of the apostles in working miracles, they greatly surpass them in the art of setting men asleep. THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. With a whirl of thought opprest, I saw the graves give up their dead : By nature, reason, learning, blind; I damn such fools! go, go; you're bit." DE NOVO. SWIFT. Dr. Franklin, when he heard people say "they were tired of a thing," merely through a want of proper perseverance, he used to reply, "Well, do as married people do ; tire and begin again.” THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER. BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS. For Hodge had risen ere the early dawn, A seaman coming before the judges of the : WHISTLING PRAYERS. While Caroline, wife of George the Second, was dressing, prayers used to be read in the outward room, where hung a naked Venus. Mrs. Selwyn, bed-chamber woman in waiting, was one day ordered to bid the chaplain, Dr. Madox, afterwards bishop of Worcester, begin the service. He said archly, "And a very proper altar-piece is here, madam." Queen Anne had the same custom; and once ordering the door to be shut while she shifted, the chaplain stopped. The queen sent to ask why he did not proceed? He replied, "he would not whistle the word of God through the key-hole." SIR SIMON AND HODGE; OR, THE ADDITIONAL As Hodge, one day, was swelt'ring in the sun- He had some wit, and thought that he had more ; jug of ale had done you no ill-turn!" Hodge seiz'd, with eager hand, the foaming prize; I'm thirsty, too; zounds! Hodge, leave me a drop!" I've half a mind to ram down jug and all. I told thee I was dry, as well as thee; But not a drop, plague take thee, 's left for me!" Hodge, now, affected wonderful surprise. And like a pig's, just stuck, appear'd his eyesLord, sir," says he, and seemed to be contrite, Tho' bent, by trick, to pacify the knight"Ise be main sorry thus to give offence: But to a person of your worship's sense, Ise need not say, for that would be absurd, While a man drinks, he ne'er can hear one "Not hear, while drinking?" straight Sir Simon cries; of that society, takes its origin from the seal used by the first Knights Templars. Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, had, it is said, engraved upon their seal the figures of two men riding upon one horse,-a type of their poverty. A rude representation of this seal may be seen in the Historia Minor of Matthew Paris. This emblem was corword!"-rupted by the lawyers, the successors to the Knights Templars, into a Pegasus, and to this day remains their crest. The Society of the Middle Temple adopted the emblem of a lamb bearing a banner; or in heraldic language, a device of a field argent charged with a cross gules, and upon the nombrel thereof a holy lamb with its nimbus and banner. These two devices, which are scattered very liberally over all the gateways in the Temple, gave rise to the following Fill'd, in his turn, with a stuck pig's surprise : be Egad, I'll fetch another jug, and see." Away the knight, with his best speed, now went, And Hodge, meantime, contriv'd the means to Sir Simon, what he said, for gospel take. "Now, Hodge," the knight returning, cried, "we'll try If what you tell me truth be, or a lie, I'll drink, and you must bellow-Stop, stop, stop! Sir Simon heav'd the pitcher to his head; Hodge thus got paid, for playing off his wit; CREST OF THE TEMPLE. The Pegasus which appears over the principal entrance of the Inner Temple, and which is the crest EPIGRAM. As by the Templars' holds you go, The merits of their trade. ANSWER. Deluded men, these holds forego, Nor trust such cunning elves; By which they mean to cheat you; To these their courts misguide you, POVERTY AND POETRY. It is not poetry, that makes men poor; VOX POPULI. When the Rev. John Wesley, one of the founders of the religious society which bears his name, was vainly endeavouring to convince his sister that the voice of the people is the voice of God. "Yes," she mildly replied, "it cried, crucify him, crucify him." LIQUIDATING CLAIMS. "The humble petition of WHO and WHICH, "That your petitioners being in a forlorn and destitute condition, know not to whom we should apply ourselves for relief, because there is hardly any man alive who hath not injured us. We are descended of ancient families, and kept up our dignity and honour many years, till the jack-sprat BUTLER. THAT supplanted us. How often have we found ourselves slighted by the clergy in their pulpits, and the lawyers at the bar? Nay, how often have we heard, in one of the most polite and august assemblies in the universe, to our great mortification, these words, "That THAT that noble lord urged;' which if one of us had had justice done, would have sounded nobler thus, That WHICH that noble lord urged.' Senates themselves, the guardians of British liberty, have degraded us, and preferred THAT to us; and yet no decree was ever given against us. In the very acts of parliament, in which the utmost right should be done to every body, word, and thing, we find ourselves often either not used, or used one instead of another. In the first and best prayer children are taught, they learn to misuse us: "Our Father, WHICH art in heaven;" should be "Our Father, wHo art in heaven;" and even a Convocation, after long debates, refused to consent to an alteration of it. In our General Confession we say, "Spare thou them, O God, WHICH Confess their faults," which ought to be "WHO confess their faults." What hopes then have we of having justice done us, when the makers of our very prayers and laws, and the most learned in all faculties, seem to be in a confederacy against us, and our enemies themselves must be our judges. During a remarkably wet summer, Joe Vernon, whose vocal taste and humour contributed for many years to the entertainment of the frequenters of Vauxhall gardens, but who was not quite so good a timist in money matters as in music, meeting an acquaintance who had the misfortune to hold some of his unhonoured paper, was asked by him, not uninterestedly, how the gardens were going on. "Oh, swimmingly" answered the jocose Joe. "Glad to hear it," retorted the creditor," their swimming state, I hope, will cause the singers to liquidate their notes.” WHOLESALE AND RETAIL. In little trades more cheats and lying PHILOLOGICAL PETITIONS. BUTLER. In this age of innovation, when the procreative genius of upstart linguists is aiming to subvert common-sense phraseology, the following petitions will be received as literary morceaux, "The Spanish proverb says, El sabio muda consejo, el necio no; i. e. "A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will." You are well able to settle this affair, and to you we submit our cause. We desire you to assign the butts and bounds of each of us; and that for the future we may both enjoy our own. We would desire to be heard by |