The last
named is under the head of "The Filbert," and commences--
"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 clothes, 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."
Also his Commonplace Book proves that, like many other hardworking men,
he amused his leisure hours with what was light and fantastic. Moreover,
he speaks in some places of the advantage of intermingling amusement and
instruction--
"Even in literature a leafy style, if there be any fruit under the
foliage, is preferable to a knotty one however fine the grain.
Whipt cream is a good thing, and better still when it covers and
adorns that amiable compound of sweetmeats and ratafia cakes soaked
in wine, to which Cowper likened his delightful poem, when he thus
described 'The Task'--
"'It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and some
that, for aught I know, may be very diverting.
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