[Page 315]

REPORT Of an adjudged Case not to be found in any of the Books.

1.
1 BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
2 The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
3 The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
4 To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
[Page 316]
2.
5 So the Tongue was the lawyer and argued the cause
6 With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning,
7 While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
8 So fam'd for his talent in nicely discerning.
3.
9 In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear,
10 And your lordship he said, will undoubtedly find,
11 That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,
12 Which amounts to possession time out of mind.
4.
13 Then holding the spectacles up to the court
14 Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle,
15 As wide as the ridge of the Nose is, in short,
16 Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
5.
17 Again would your lordship a moment suppose
18 ('Tis a case that has happen'd and may be again)
19 That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,
20 Pray who wou'd or who cou'd wear spectacles then?
[Page 317]
6.
21 On the whole it appears, and my argument shows
22 With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
23 That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
24 And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.
7.
25 Then shifting his side as a lawyer knows how,
26 He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes,
27 But what were his arguments few people know,
28 For the court did not think they were equally wise.
8.
29 So his lordship decreed with a grave solemn tone,
30 Decisive and clear without one if or but
31 That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on
32 By day-light or candle-light Eyes should be shut.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 86K / ZIP - 8.8K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.6K / ZIP - 1.0K)

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized by the University of California Libraries.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 780K)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): REPORT Of an adjudged Case not to be found in any of the Books.
Themes: law
Genres: occasional poem

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Cowper, William, 1731-1800. Poems: by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. London: printed for J. Johnson, 1782, pp. 315-317. [4],367,[1]p. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T14895; OTA K027775.000) (Page images digitized by the University of California Libraries.)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by William Cowper