FOR CHILDREN. 115

No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut,
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert,

No glue to join: his little beak was all—
And yet how neatly finished! what nice hand,
With every implement and means of art,

And twenty years’ apprenticeship to boot,!
Could make me such another? Vainly, then,
We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill
Instinctive genius foils.

THE TOAD’S JOURNAL.*

In 2 land for antiquities greatly renowned

A traveller had dug wide and deep under ground,

A temple for ages entombed, to disclose—

When lo! he disturbed in its secret repose

A toad, from whose journal it plainly appears

It had lodged in that mansion some thousands of
ears,

The roll, which this reptile’s long history records,

A treat to the sage antiquarian affords:

The sense by obscure hieroglyphics concealed,

Deep learning, at length, with long labour revealed.

The first thousand years as a specimen, take ;—

The dates are omitted for brevity’s sake.

Hurdis.

1 To boot—to superadd—here, in addition.

2 Tt is said that Belzoni, the traveller in Egypt, discovered
a living toad in a temple which had been for ages buried in
the sand. This circumstance gave rise to the poem, the first
twelve lines of which were not written by the ingenious au-
thor of the rest, but prefixed by some unknown hand.