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THE CHAMELEON.

OFT has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark,
With eyes that hardly served at most
To guard their master 'gainst a post;
Yet round the world the blade has been,
To see whatever could be seen.
Returning from his finished tour,
Grown ten times perter than before,
Whatever word you chance to drop,
The travelled fool your mouth will stop:
"Sir, if my judgment you'll allow-
I've seen-and sure I ought to know.”—
So begs you'd pay a due submission,
And acquiesce in his decision.

Two travellers of such a cast,
As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed,
And on their way, in friendly chat,
Now talked of this, and then of that,
Discoursed a while, 'mongst other matter,
Of the chameleon's form and nature.
"A stranger animal," cries one,

Sure never lived beneath the sun!

A lizard's body lean and long,
A fish's head, a serpent's tongue,
Its foot with triple claw disjoined;
And what a length of tail behind!
How slow its pace! and then its hue-
Who ever saw so fine a blue?"

"Hold there!" the other quick replies; ""Tis green;--I saw it with these eyes, As late with open mouth it lay, And warmed it in the sunny ray; Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed. And saw it eat the air for food."

"I've seen it, sir, as well as you,
And must again affirm it blue;
At leisure I the beast surveyed
Extended in the cooling shade."

66 'Tis green,

'tis green, sir, I assure ye;""Green!" cries the other in a fury;

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"Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes?". ""Twere no great loss," the friend replies; "For if they always serve you thus, You'll find them but of little use." So high at last the contest rose, From words they almost came to blows; When luckily passed by a third: To him the question they referred, And begged he'd tell them, if he knew, Whether the thing was green or blue.

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Sirs," cries the umpire, "cease your pother; The creature's neither one nor t'other.

I caught the animal last night,
And viewed it o'er by candle-light:
I marked it well-'twas black as jet!
You stare-but sirs, I've got it yet,
And can produce it."-"Pray, sir, do;
I'll lay my life the thing is blue.”-
"And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen
The reptile, you'll pronounce him green."

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'Well, then, at once to ease the doubt,”
Replies the man, "I'll turn him out:
And when before your eyes I've set him,
If you don't find him black, I'll eat him."
He said; then full before their sight
Produced the beast, and, lo!-'twas WHITE!
Both stared; the man looked wondrous wise.
"My children," the chameleon cries-
Then first the creature found a tongue-
"You all are right, and all are wrong:
When next you talk of what you view,
Think others see as well as you;
Nor wonder, if you find that none
Prefers your eye-sight to his own.”

MERRICK.

MODERN LOGIC.

AN Eton stripling, training for the Law,
A Dunce at Syntax, but a Dab at Taw,
One happy Christmas, laid upon the shelf
His cap, his gown, and store of learned pelf,
With all the deathless bards of Greece and Rome,
To spend a fortnight at his uncle's home.
Arrived, and past the usual "How-d'ye-do's ?"
Inquiries of old friends, and college news—

“Well, Tom, the road, what saw you worth discerning,
And how goes study, boy-what is't your learning?"-
"Oh! Logic, sir; but not the worn-out rules

Of Locke and Bacon-antiquated fools!

"Tis wit and wranglers' Logic: thus, d'ye see, I'll prove to you, as clear as A, B, C,

That an eel-pie's a pigeon: to deny it

Were to swear black's white.”—“ Indeed!”—“Let's try it.

An eel-pie is a pie of fish.”—“Well, agreed.”

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A fish-pie may be a Jack-pie."

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Proceed."

"A Jack-pie must be a John-pie—thus 'tis done,
For every John-pie is a pi-ge-on!"-

"Bravo!" Sir Peter cries, "Logic for ever!
It beats my grandmother—and she was clever!
But zounds! my boy, it surely would go hard
That wit and learning should have no reward!
To-morrow, for a stroll, the park we'll cross,
And then I'll give you"-

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What?"-"My chestnut horse."-
A horse!" cries Tom, "blood, pedigree, and paces,
Oh! what a dash I'll cut at Epsom races!"-
He went to bed and wept with downright sorrow
To think the night must pass before the morrow;

Dreamed of his boots, his cap, his spurs, and leather breeches,
Of leaping five-barred gates and crossing ditches;
Left his warm bed an hour before the lark,
Dragged his old uncle fasting through the park.
Each craggy hill and dale in vain they cross,
To find out something like a chestnut horse;
But no such animal the meadows cropped.
At length, beneath a tree Sir Peter stopped;

Took & bough, shook it, and down fell

A fine horse-chestnut in its prickly shell.

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There, Tom, take that."---"Well, sir, and what beside?"'Why, since you're booted, saddle it, and ride."

Ride what?-a chestnut!"—"Ay; come get across.

I tell you, Tom, the chestnut is a horse,

And all the horse you'll get! for I can show,
As clear as sunshine, that 'tis really so;
Not by the musty, fusty, worn-out rules
Of Locke and Bacon-addle-headed fools!
All Logic but the wranglers' I disown,
And stick to one sound argument-your own.
Since you have proved to me, I don't deny,
That a pie-John is the same as a John-pie;
What follows then, but, as a thing of course,
That a horse-chestnut is a chestnut horse!"

ANON.

THE OCEAN.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain!
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields

Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise.

And shake him from thee: the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shiv'ring, in thy playful spray, And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth;-there let him lay.

The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;-

These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee. Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage: their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :-not so thou: Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where th' Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time-
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublimeThe image of eternity—the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone!

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