Bruin-Bear,

Now could I sonnetize thy piteous plight,
And prove how much my sympathetic heart
Even for the miseries of a beast can feel,
In fourteen lines of sensibility.

But we are told all things were made for man;
And I'll be sworn there's not a fellow here
Who would not swear 'twere hanging blasphemy
To doubt that truth. Therefore as thou wert born
Bruin! for man, and man makes nothing of thee
In
any other way,.. most logically

It follows, that thou must be born to dance;

That that great snout of thine was form'd on purpose To hold a ring; and that thy fat was given thee

Only to make pomatum !

To demur

Were heresy. And politicians say,

(Wise men who in the scale of reason give
No foolish feelings weight,) that thou art here
Far happier than thy brother bears who roam
O'er trackless snow for food; that being born
Inferiour to thy leader, unto him
Rightly belongs dominion; that the compact
Was made between ye, when thy clumsy feet
First fell into the snare, and he gave up

His right to kill, conditioning thy life
Should thenceforth be his property: . . besides,
'Tis wholesome for thy morals to be brought
From savage climes into a civilized state,
Into the decencies of Christendom....
Bear! Bear! it passes in the Parliament
For excellent logic this! what if we say
How barbarously man abuses power,
Talk of thy baiting, it will be replied,
Thy welfare is thy owner's interest,
But wert thou baited it would injure thee,
Therefore thou art not baited. For seven years
Hear it o Heaven, and give ear o Earth!
For seven long years this precious syllogism
Hath baffled justice and humanity!

The FILBERT.

Nay gather not that Filbert, Nicholas,
There is a maggot there, .. it is his house,..
His castle,.. oh commit not burglary!
Strip him not naked, 'tis his cloaths, his shell,
His bones, the case and armour of his life,
And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas!
It were an easy thing to crack that nut
Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth,
So easily may all things be destroyed!
But 'tis not in the power of mortal man
To mend the fracture of a filbert shell.

There were two great men once amused themselves
Watching two maggots run their wriggling race
And wagering on their speed; but Nick, to us
It were no sport to see the pampered worm
Roll out and then draw in his folds of fat,

Like to some Barber's leathern powder bag
Wherewith he feathers, frosts, or cauliflowers
Spruce Beau, or Lady fair, or Doctor grave.
Enough of dangers and of enemies

Hath Nature's wisdom for the worm ordained,
Increase not thou the number! him the Mouse
Gnawing with nibbling tooth the shells defence
May from his native tenement eject;

Him may the Nut-hatch piercing with strong bill
Unwittingly destroy; or to his hoard

The Squirrel bear, at leisure to be crack'd.
Man also hath his dangers and his foes

As this poor Maggot hath, and when I muse
Upon the aches, anxieties and fears,
The Maggot knows not, Nicholas methinks
It were a happy metamorphosis

To be enkernelled thus: never to hear
Of wars, and of invasions, and of plots,
Kings, Jacobines, and Tax-commissioners;
To feel no motion but the wind that shook
The Filbert Tree, and rock'd me to my rest;
And in the middle of such exquisite food

To live luxurious! the perfection this

Of snugness! it were to unite at once Hermit retirement, Aldermanic bliss, And Stoic independance of mankind.