Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/150

 Report of an Adjudged Case Not to be Found in Any of the Books BY WILLIAM COWPER WITH ADDITION BY J. B. MACKENZIE OF OSGOODE HALL, BARRISTER-AT-LAW [Our contributor has added verses of his own in order to fill up a gap in Cowper's whimsical poem, and to report more fully the arguments of counsel. Cowper's stanzas are here printed in italics, the seventh being omitted, and the eighth concluding one being put at the end. Mr. Mackenzie is an old-time contributor to the Green Bag, the author of numerous verses and articles in volumes 14, 15 and 16. — Ed.

nETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose, •*-* The spectacles set them unhappily wrong; The point in dispute was, all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ought to belong. So the Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning, While Chief Baron Ear sat to balance the laws, So famed for his talent in nicely discerning. "In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear, And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind." Then holding the spectacles up to the Court, "Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle, As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short, Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle. "Again, would your lordship a moment suppose ('Tis a case that has happened, and may be again) That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray, who would, or who could, wear spectacles then? "On the whole, it appears, and my argument shows With a reasoning the Court will never condemn. That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them." MR. SERGEANT HEAD (OF COUNSEL FOR THE EYES), CONTRA

The Head, Eyes' true champion, did here interpose — Liberal his contempt for those arguments slim —