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For whose lean country much disdain
We English often show,

Yet from a richer nothing gain

But wantonness and woe.

Be it your fortune, year by year,

The same resource to prove,

And may ye, sometimes landing here,
Instruct us how to love!

June, 1793.

75

80

ON A SPANIEL, CALLED BEAU, KILLING

But

A YOUNG BIRD.*

SPANIEL, Beau, that fares like you,
Well fed, and at his ease,
Should wiser be, than to pursue

Each trifle that he sees.

you have killed a tiny bird, Which flew not till to-day,

Against my orders, whom you heard

Forbidding you the prey.

5

Nor did

you kill that

you might eat,

And ease a doggish pain,

For him, though chased with furious heat,

You left where he was slain.

*Hayley, 1803, vol. 1. p. 316.

10

Nor was he of the thievish sort,
Or one whom blood allures,
But innocent was all his sport
Whom you have torn for yours.

My dog! what remedy remains,
Since, teach you all I can,
I see you, after all my pains,
So much resemble man?

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BEAU'S REPLY.*

IR, when I flew to seize the bird
In spite of your command,
A louder voice than yours I heard
And harder to withstand.

breast

You cried," Forbear! --but in my
A mightier cried-" Proceed!”-
'Twas Nature, Sir, whose strong behest
Impelled me to the deed.

Yet, much as Nature I respect,

I ventured once to break (As you perhaps may recollect) Her precept, for your sake;

And when your linnet on a day,
Passing his prison door,

* Hayley, 1803, vol. I. p. 317.

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Had fluttered all his strength away,
And panting pressed the floor,

Well knowing him a sacred thing,
Not destined to my tooth,

I only kissed his ruffled wing,
And licked his feathers smooth.

Let my obedience then excuse
My disobedience now,
Nor some reproof yourself refuse
From your aggrieved Bow-wow :

If killing birds be such a crime
(Which I can hardly see)

What think you, Sir, of killing Time
With verse addressed to me?

July 15, 1793.

15

20

25

THE FOLLOWING ACCOUNT OF

THE TREATMENT OF HIS HARES

WAS INSERTED BY COWPER IN THE GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE.*

MR. URBAN,

May 28. ONVINCED that you despise no communications that may gratify curiosity, amuse rationally, or add, though but a little, to the stock of public knowledge, I send you a circumstantial account of an animal, which, though its general properties are pretty well known, is for the most part such a stranger to man that we are but little aware of its peculiarities. We know, indeed, that the hare is good to hunt and good to eat, but in all other respects poor Puss is a neglected subject.

In the year 1774, being much indisposed both in mind and body, incapable of diverting myself either with company or books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion necessary, I was glad of any thing that would engage my attention without fatiguing it. The children of a neighbour of mine had a leveret given them for a plaything; it was at that time about three months old. Understanding better how to tease the poor creature than to feed it, and soon becoming weary of their charge, they readily consented that their father, who saw it pining and growing leaner every day, should offer it to my acceptance. I was willing enough to

For June, 1784, vol. liv., p. 412.

take the prisoner under my protection, perceiving that, in the management of such an animal, and in the attempt to tame it, I should find just that sort of employment which my case required. It was soon known among the neighbours that I was pleased with the present, and the consequence was, that in a short time I had as many leverets offered to me as would have stocked a paddock. I undertook the care of three, which it is necessary that I should here distinguish by the names I gave them -Puss, Tiny, and Bess. Notwithstanding the two feminine appellatives, I must inform you, that they were all males. Immediately commencing carpenter, I built them houses to sleep in; each had a separate apartment, so contrived that their ordure would pass through the bottom of it; an earthen pan placed under each received whatsoever fell, which being duly emptied and washed, they were thus kept perfectly sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range of a hall, and at night retired each to his own bed, never intruding into that of another.

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Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my lap, raise himself upon his hinder feet, and bite the hair from my temples. He would suffer me to take him up, and to carry him about in my arms, and has more than once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept him apart from his fellows, that they might not molest him (for, like many other wild animals, they persecute one of their own species that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him with a variety of herbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery; a sentiment which he most signi. ficantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it unsaluted; a ceremony which he never performed but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the garden, where he hid himself generally under the leaves of a cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud till evening; in

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