GIFT OF 
 A. F. Morrison 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 LURARY 
 
iHnfform witb tbe present IDolume. 
 
 Crown &vo, cloth extra, 6s. 
 
 THE POETS' BIRDS. 
 
 BY PHIL ROBINSON. 
 
 "A simply delightful book." Illustrated London News, 
 
 "Mr. Phil Robinson's volume a book which may be described as one half 
 classified extracts from the poets, the other half a humorous defence of birds whom 
 they have neglected or maligned is a very pleasant one. The one half of Mr. 
 Robinson's book may be set against the other ; and an anthology which contains 
 poems like Shelley's 'Skylark,' and a hundred touches, at once truthful and 
 imaginative, from Keats and Byron and Burns, and many a lesser poet of the 
 country like Grahame or Leyden, more than compensates for a certain want of 
 variety in the allusions to greenfinches and crakes. But either half is very pleasant 
 reading, more especially to those who combine with a love of poetry some knowledge 
 of the woods and fields." St. James's Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Phil Robinson has hit upon a happy idea. . . . Throughout the book one 
 is struck both by the author's exceptional knowledge of bird-nature and by his not 
 less exceptional industry in the accumulation of material. . . . We can hardly be 
 too hearty in our praise. The work is not only of great interest but of solid useful- 
 ness." Derby Mercury. 
 
 " Both informative and entertaining." Sco tsman. 
 
 " Mr. Phil Robinson writes charmingly and originally in this well-filled volume. 
 His book consists mainly of extracts from English verse, strung together by certain 
 short essays or remarks in the peculiar Robinsonian style of humour. What little 
 of his own Mr. Robinson does vouchsafe us is, as usual, pretty and graceful, one half 
 close observation in natural history, the other half delicate fancy and playful solemnity 
 of his wonted mock-serious sort. There is a vast deal of genuinely valuable criticism 
 underlying most of our author's seemingly playful and extravagant strictures, and 
 rising writers of the new school, who attend so closely to all the delicate refinements 
 of form in poetry, might do worse than take a leaf out of his amusing book. It is 
 needless to add that Mr. Robinson's fowls are studied from the very life, that out of 
 the fulness of knowledge and observation his tongue has spoken words of wisdom on 
 all the feathered things from China to Peru, and from England to the Cape of Good 
 Hope. Nobody is better fitted by nature and opportunity to produce just such a 
 work, with just such a mixture of strong literary flavour, wide information, and 
 minute zoological accuracy." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "The book is decidedly entertaining, and contains much information of a useful 
 kind." Literary World. 
 
 "A very charming book, its only fault being that it is a little too encyclopaedic in 
 character, and that its author, in his laudable desire to be absolutely exhaustive, has 
 not given us as much as we should have liked of his own original and unique humour. 
 There is no other work like this in the English language ; and dip into it where we 
 will, we are sure to find really delightful reading." World. 
 
 "The book is remarkable both in its conception and execution, and does great 
 honour to the diligence and patient toil of one whose knowledge of English poetry 
 in its full extent can hardly be surpassed." Tablet, 
 
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 THE POETS' BEASTS, 
 
 BY PHIL ROBINSON. 
 
 " Mr. Robinson brings to his task a wide acquaintance with English poets, a bright 
 and graceful fancy, a quaint and original humour, and the peculiar faculty, which 
 has been so notable in some of his other works, of giving a special individuality, an 
 almost human personality, to the different animals, whether birds, beasts, or insects, 
 which he is describing. Besides these qualifications, he has enjoyed the acquaint- 
 ance of many of the poets' beasts, in their natural condition, in India and elsewhere, 
 and is thus able to enrich his pages with many novel and authentic anecdotes." 
 Guardian. 
 
 " The task of writing a sequel to ' The Poets' Birds,' which should not suggest 
 unfavourable comparisons, could not have been accomplished by any one but Mr. 
 Phil Robinson. "' The Poets' Beasts," however, fully deserves to take equal rank with 
 its charming predecessor. It is a delightful companion for a leisure hour." dole. 
 
 "Mr. Phil Robinson knows the poets intimately, and he seems to know the 
 beasts equally well ; so this book, which is a discourse upon the treatment of the 
 latter by the former, is a book which ought to be, and we are quite sure will be, 
 equally popular among lovers of both. Then, too, he has a fund of the most 
 delicious humour of that dainty, more ethereal kind that we recognise in the best 
 work of Addison and in the average work of Charles Lamb. . . . There is not a 
 chapter or a page in the book that is not full of thoroughly genial entertainment." 
 Manchester Examiner. 
 
 " Mr. Phil Robinson's 'The Poets' Beasts' is as erudite, as chatty, and as fresh 
 as his delightful work on Birds." World. 
 
 " Mr. Phil Robinson has devoted a great deal of study and research to his subject, 
 and has produced a lively and interesting volume of poetical and other lore of the 
 animal world. " British Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Those who have read ' The Poets' Birds ' will need no recommendation to read 
 the sequel. It is a delightful book, at once instructive and amusing. A strong vein 
 of quaint humour runs through the book, and the author displays a wide knowledge 
 of the habits of wild animals, and a warm love for animated nature. There are few 
 people, old or young, who will not heartily enjoy 'The Poets' Beasts."' Standard. 
 
 " The well-known characteristics of Mr. Phil Robinson's writings, his charming 
 originality of style, which in easy colloquial fashion gives proofs of deep learning 
 and varied experiences, his poetic grace, his good-natured but keen sarcasm, vivid 
 sense of humour, and broad humanity, are all found at their brightest and best in 
 this delightful volume." Morning Post. 
 
 " A book which all lovers of animals will read with great delight. . . . Having 
 come to the end of the book, and enjoyed every individual page of it, it is impossible 
 to say whether we have been more amused or instructed. A more fascinating way 
 of learning natural history could scarcely be devised." Christian World. 
 
 "'jThe Poets' Beasts' is wholly unique in character. . . . Mr. Phil Robinson 
 writes with rare fancy and originality on the false and one-sided views with which 
 mankind generally, and the poets in particular, have regarded the beast world. . . . 
 Altogether, the work forms a valuable contribution to the criticism of English poetry, 
 and to the formation of a just and true standard of judgment in regard to the animal 
 world." Daily Telegraph. 
 
 LONDON : CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 PICCADILLY, W. 
 
THE POETS AND NATURE 
 
THE 
 
 POETS AND NATURE 
 
 REPTILES, FISHES, AND INSECTS 
 
 BY 
 
 PHIL ROBINSON 
 
 \* 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE POETS* BIRDS," "THE POETS* BEASTS," ETC.' 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1893 
 
GIFT OP 
 
 QLs/ 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 
 UBRARY 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 IN order to anticipate the discovery by others that I have 
 omitted some of the Poets Insects, I avail myself of the Author's 
 privilege of a Preface to say that my list does not contain, 
 except incidentally, any of the beetles (although such notable 
 insects as the "book-worm " and the "death-watch " are of the 
 tribe), any of the "gnats " or wasps, both so cordially detested 
 by the Poets, or any of their favourite worms. Among the 
 fishes, again, owing to a mishap to manuscript, there is a 
 hiatus, which would be of no importance but for the con- 
 sequent omission of Thomson's lines on Angling already 
 largely drawn upon, however, in my " Poets' Beasts" 
 
 Acting on the advice of my Friends (the Critics of my two 
 previous volumes], I have added an Index to this, the third, 
 and hope that their prediction of the increased usefulness of 
 my work from such an addition may be fulfilled. The task 
 which the publication of this volume completes was undertaken 
 by the Author, and accepted by his Publishers as one which 
 should be of use to men of letters ; and it has been a great 
 pleasure to notice, during the last four years, from the columns 
 of newspapers and the pages of magazines, reviews, and books, 
 that our expectations have been satisfactorily realised ; and I 
 can assure those Writers who, after availing themselves of the 
 quotations which I had brought together expressly for their 
 
 R95656 * 
 
viii Prefatory Note. 
 
 service, have gone on to reproduce my comments, that I accept 
 their recognition of the object of my compilation as a compli- 
 ment, even when they have translated me to their own books, 
 a page at a time, without any acknowledgment, and even when, 
 mistaking me for an obsolete and extinct Person, they have 
 respectfully regretted that I had not survived to the Tenny- 
 sonian Epoch, when many of my opinions might have been 
 altered for the better. 
 
 Wherein Jean Ingelow is delightfully avenged. For 
 having in my first volume premised that I was not dealing 
 with "contemporary" Poets, I quoted largely from that most 
 charming Writer ; and my feelings may or may not be 
 imagined on receiving, a few days after the publication of my 
 book, an invitation to a garden-party, signed "Jean Ingelow /" 
 My pleasure in discovering my mistake was increased by being 
 thus enabled to dedicate my second volume to one of the most 
 exquisite Poets of Nattire and most tender Interpreters of the 
 speechless world. 
 
 PHIL ROBINSON. 
 January 1893. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 fcoete' IReptiles. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 i. "REPTILES" AND "VERMIN" 3 
 
 II. CROCODILES, TURTLES, AND LIZARDS . . . . .12 
 
 III. SNAKES IN NATURE 33 
 
 IV. SNAKES IN TRADITION 55 
 
 V. SNAKES IN POETRY 7$ 
 
 VI. THE TUNEFUL FROG QO 
 
 VII. THE LOATHED PADDOCK . . IOO 
 
 PART II. 
 
 poets' fftebes. 
 
 I. FISH-MONSTERS AND MYTHS IO9 
 
 II. FISHES OF THE ANGLE 1 17 
 
 III. SOME POETIC FISH-FANCIES . . . . . .131 
 
 IV. SOME SHELL-FISHES 145 
 
 V. THE POETS' DOLPHIN 152 
 
Contents. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 poets' 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. ANTS AND BUTTERFLIES 
 II. NIGHT-MOTHS AND DAY-MOTHS 
 III. ARACHNE AND THE POETS 
 
 iv. FLIES: "THE HOSTS OF ACHOR" 
 
 V. GRASSHOPPERS, CRICKETS, AND LOCUSTS 
 VI. LUCIFERS AND THE POETS 
 
 vii. DEBORAH: "THE HONEY-BEE" 
 
 PAGE 
 
 l6l 
 178 
 194 
 
 214 
 
 . 235 
 248 
 
 264 
 
 INDEX . . 179 
 
PART L 
 THE POETS' REPTILES. 
 
THE POETS AND NATURE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE POETS' REPTILE'S.' 'v;; j 
 
 CHAPTER, ,4 i 
 
 " REPTILES AND VERMIN." 
 
 A REPTILE is not, perhaps, an amiable thing. Its name 
 "that which creeps" prejudices some of us against it. 
 Nor is there anything thoroughly unjustifiable in this. The 
 necessities of speech require a word that shall compendi- 
 ously express the idea of the contemptible and crawling, 
 and at the same time the potentially hurtful. And " reptile " 
 fulfils this obnoxious duty. So when Beattie applies this 
 term of reproach to a servile poet, " the reptile muse, Swoln 
 from the sty, and rankling from the stews," or Byron to 
 a mean critic, they are not to be found fault with. The 
 sycophant in Shelley, the slave in Montgomery, even man 
 " the poor reptile man and heir of woe " himself in loftily- 
 moralising Greene, are metaphorically rendered, and not 
 unfairly, by a term that zoologically implies either a turtle, 
 a crocodile, a frog, a lizard, or a snake. Southey brings 
 some priests under the same category, and scattered up and 
 down in verse will be found scores of individuals whom the 
 
 A 
 
4 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 poets, anxious to stigmatise as despicably base, denominate 
 "reptiles." 
 
 Now all this is perfectly fair. We have attached to a 
 certain word a certain metaphorical meaning, which is a 
 very odious one. Bismarck called the Secret Service Vote 
 " the Reptile Fund," and the Man of Iron includes in it 
 all such miserable creatures as venal editors and spies. The 
 self-seeking parasite, the insidious hypocrite, the cringing 
 slave, deserve the worst we can say of them, and as we 
 have decided that there is nothing worse to be said of such 
 than " reptile "reptiles let them be. 
 
 But here we must stop. Even the prerogatives of human 
 being's" ji % *4io. eXetiCt futfher. They cannot outrage the 
 sacred Jaws' of Justice isven in the case of reptiles. So we 
 h^veC UQ:rjgfct*whtiJefrer:tQ%ri>a < k.e the name of a particular 
 fbiipg jnca/ijvtfljat \l i5p < ^. < 5rda:,^hd then to transfer the arbi- 
 trary character which we have affixed to it back to the thing 
 whose name we borrowed. We have absolutely no right 
 whatever to begin by saying that sycophants, hypocrites, 
 slaves, and assassins are "reptiles," and then to say that 
 reptiles are sycophants, hypocrites, slaves, and assassins. 
 Merely as a logical syllogism it is absurd and untenable. 
 Here are the two premisses : Despicable men are reptiles ; 
 Reptiles are either turtles, crocodiles, lizards, frogs, or 
 snakes. Work as you will with them, your conclusion must 
 either be that no conclusion is possible, or else an absurd 
 statement to the effect that a frog is a despicable man, or 
 that sycophants, &c., are either turtles, crocodiles, &c. 
 
 But, setting logic aside, I contend that it is infinitely 
 unjust to speak ill of an immense number of creatures, 
 nearly all of which are either beautiful, directly useful to 
 man, or harmless, simply because, in our usual high-handed 
 way of dealing with the helpless, we have borrowed their 
 collective names as figures of speech. Yet this is what 
 most poets habitually do. Their toads are loathsome and 
 
"Reptiles:' 5 
 
 their frogs obscene. Their chameleons are turncoats, 
 and their scorpions traitors. Their snakes are utterly 
 abominable. 
 
 Now I fail to see any justification for this. It strikes me 
 as thoroughly immoral. Even snakes, against which human 
 prejudice cites Scriptural authority, are admirable. They 
 are one of the most splendid parables in all nature. Nothing 
 that breathes less deserves the title of reptile meaning by 
 that word a despicable cowardly thing than the creature 
 that stands in Holy Writ itself as the semblance of a power 
 that could defy Heaven and challenge terms with Omni- 
 potence. I would even go further and venture to say that 
 this, the poet's treatment of a large order of creatures, shows 
 a deficiency of sympathy with nature which is not in accord- 
 ance with the poetical tradition. For example, take the 
 following from Montgomery : 
 
 " Reptiles were quickened into various birth, 
 Loathsome, unsightly, swoln to obscene bulk, 
 Lurk'd the dank toad beneath the infected turf; 
 The slow-worm crawl'd, the light chameleon climb'd 
 And changed his colour as his place he changed ; 
 The nimble lizard ran from bough to bough, 
 Glancing through light, in shadow disappearing ; 
 The scorpion, many-eyed, with sting of fire, 
 Bred there, the legion-fiend of creeping things." 
 
 But worse than this, as expressing a wider range of 
 unsympathetic prejudice, are such sweeping lines as these 
 of Coleridge : 
 
 1 ' What if one reptile sting another reptile ? 
 Where is the crime ? the goodly face of nature 
 Hath one disfeaturing stain the less upon it." 
 
 The philosophy here is thoroughly bad-hearted and 
 reprehensible. 
 
 Another poetical liberty which I consider only indiffe- 
 rently justified is to call insects "reptiles." Thus Thomson 
 
6 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 (as usual " shagged with horrors ") addresses such pretty 
 things as may-flies and butterflies as a "reptile throng," 
 and it is worth noting how with his usual infelicity he speaks 
 of these reptiles as being "winged, and by the light air 
 upborne." 
 
 ' ' To sunny waters some 
 By fatal instinct fly ; where on the pool 
 They, sportive, wheel; or, sailing down the stream, 
 Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-eyed trout 
 Or darting salmon. Through the greenwood glade 
 Some love to stray ; there lodged, amus'd, and fed 
 In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make 
 The meads their choice, and visit every flower, 
 And every latent herb. 
 
 Some to the house, 
 
 The fold, and dairy, hungry, bend their flight, 
 Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese ; 
 Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream 
 They meet their fate ; or, weltering in the bowl, 
 With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire." 
 
 Wordsworth, again, calls the glow-worm "a very reptile, " 
 which is intolerable, seeing how he uses the word elsewhere. 
 Eliza Cook, after her wont, speaks of cobwebs as 
 
 " The bright slime that cunning reptiles spread 
 To catch their prey." 
 
 But her use of the reptile idea is always thoroughly in 
 character with her poetry generally. What can we say, for 
 instance, of such a stanza as this where an unmasked villain 
 is illustrated by a skinned snake : 
 
 1 ' Why, why does Heaven bequeath such gifts 
 
 To fascinate all eyes, that mark 
 With magnet charm, till something lifts 
 
 The mask, and shows how foully dark 
 The dazzling reptile is within 
 Beneath its painted, shining skin?" 
 
 But this lady's definition of reptiles is, like most ladies', 
 very vague. They consider the word synonymous with 
 
"Reptiles" ^ 
 
 " vermin," under which title they include all the creatures 
 they most object to, such as rats, mice, spiders, black- 
 beetles, earwigs, and snails. The right of the sex to dislike 
 what they choose is of course indisputable, and in the vary- 
 ing technical definitions of the word "vermin," they have a 
 plausible excuse for ranging far. Thus, the professional 
 "vermin-killer" is a rat-and-mole-catcher. 
 
 " Som poison, that he might his ratouns quell 
 And eke ther was a polkat in his nawe 
 That, as he sayd, his capons had yslawe : 
 And fayn he wolde him wrekin if he might 
 Of vermin, that destroied hem by night." 
 
 On the gamekeeper's table of the proscribed are the weasel 
 kind, and many birds, such as the owl, jay, hawk, heron, 
 and hooded crow. On the Continent, beasts of prey, such 
 as wolves and foxes, are so styled. In Australia official 
 enactments call rabbits and wild horses "vermin." In 
 Western America the Red Indian himself goes under the 
 same name. And in the West Indies, according to 
 Montgomery, the man "of colour" 
 
 ' ' Lives there a reptile baser than the slave ? 
 Loathsome as death, corrupted as the grave, 
 See the dull Creole." 
 
 Nor do poets of a more robust sort hesitate at similar 
 licence. Man himself, as in Cowper, is "vermin ; " lawyers 
 in Somervile are " the vermin of debate ; " and courtiers 
 in Thomson are " the vermin of state that on our substance 
 feed." Gutter-children have in Mackay the same ill- 
 sounding name : 
 
 1 ' Take them away ! Take them away 
 
 Out of the gutter, the ooze, and slime, 
 
 Where the little vermin paddle and crawl 
 
 Till they grow and ripen into crime." 
 
 Criminals and " parasites " too, and Jesuits and critics are 
 all "vermin." 
 
8 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Coming lower down, we find the polecat called vermin 
 by Chaucer, the rat by many, the mole " vermin impotent 
 and blind " by Butler, the woodlouse, spider, housefly, and 
 a number of insects by others. So that "reptile" and 
 " vermin " are virtually interchangeable terms with the poets. 
 Each denotes or connotes the meanest individuals of every 
 class of beings those which the poets individually consider 
 the meanest but in either case they go so far wrong as to 
 borrow a creature's name in order to convey an odious 
 meaning, and then transfer the odium which they arbitrarily 
 and capriciously attach to the word back to the creature. 
 
 A further curious complication in this high-handed con- 
 fusion of terms is the use of the word " insect." It is em- 
 ployed as synonymous with reptile and vermin. Thus, man 
 generally is an insect, and so too are special classes of men, 
 notably faithless friends, courtiers, all kinds of sycophants 
 and parasites, and pleasure-seekers generally and riches. 
 
 " The insect tribes of humankind, 
 Each with its busy hum, or gilded wing, 
 Its subtle webwork, or its venom'd sting." Rogers. 
 
 ' ' All the vast stock of human progeny, 
 Which now, like swarms of insects, crawl 
 Upon the surface of earth's spacious ball, 
 Must quit this hillock of mortality 
 And in its bowels buried lie '' Oldham. 
 
 "The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born, 
 Gone to salute the rising morn." Gray. 
 
 ' ' Ye tinsel insects whom a court maintains, 
 That count your beauties only by your stains, 
 Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day ; 
 The Muse's wing shall brush you all away." Pope. 
 
 "The nameless insects of a court." Thomson,. 
 
"Reptiles." 
 
 1 The pageant of a day, without one friend 
 To soothe his tortur'd mind ; all, all are fled, 
 For though they bask'd in his meridian ray, 
 The insects vanish as his beams decline." Somerville. 
 
 "Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, 
 Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolv'd, 
 The quivering nations sport ; till, tempest- wing' d, 
 Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day. 
 Even so luxurious men, unheeding, pass 
 An idle summer life in fortune's shine, 
 A season's glitter ! Thus they flutter on 
 From toy to toy, from vanity to vice ; 
 Till, blown away by Death, Oblivion comes 
 Behind, and strikes them from the book of life." Thomson. 
 
 Riches like insects when concealed they lie * 
 Wait but for wings and in their season fly. Pope. 
 
 The snail, butterfly, spider, lizard, and the rest, addressed 
 in some places as reptiles and vermin, are in others apostro- 
 phised as insects. Again, all are described as emanating 
 alike from putrefying vegetable matter in hot weather. 
 
 "Swampy fens 
 
 Where putrefaction into life ferments, 
 And breathes destructive myriads. 
 
 The hoary fen 
 
 In putrid streams emits the living cloud 
 Of pestilence." 
 
 Especially, in a dozen poets at least, from the Nile mud : 
 
 "When thus, the Nile, diffus'd his wat'ry train 
 In streams of plenty o'er the fruitful plain, 
 Unshapen forms, the refuse of the flood 
 Issu'd imperfect from the teeming mud, 
 But the great source and parent of the day, 
 Fashion'd the creature, and inform'd the clay." Groome. 
 
 This prolific diluvion, produces indeed, a very large variety 
 of zoological species, from the crocodile to the mosquito. 
 About the hippopotamus I will not be certain. But it is 
 
io The Poets and Nature. 
 
 remarkable how all the poets agree about Nile mud produc- 
 ing misshapen and monstrous forms. Pope is by no means 
 alone in his "half-formed insects on the bank of Nile." 
 
 But, poetically speaking, " insects " " the mixing 
 myriads of the setting beam " differ from reptiles and 
 vermin in this, that they are pitiably ephemeral. They are 
 "a daily race" 
 
 ' ' Swarming in the noontide bower, 
 Rise into being and exist an hour." Darwin. 
 
 They live such a short time that the poets generously excuse 
 them, as " beings of a summer's day." This condescension, 
 I think, is hardly called for. Thomson, for instance, is 
 good enough to say that " the ceaseless hum " in the woods 
 at noon is "not undelightful." He will not say outright 
 that it is delightful, but to show what a large-hearted poet 
 he is, how impressionable to the sounds of wild nature, vows 
 half apologetically that, speaking for himself he will not 
 be answerable for other tastes and does not wish to force 
 his own upon his readers he does really, upon his honour, 
 and all joking apart, find something almost agreeable in the 
 humming of bees in summer woodlands ! What a generous 
 admission ! How such a confession draws the hearts of all 
 lovers of nature to the poet ! But let us hear him again : 
 
 1 ' Nor shall the muse disdain 
 To let the little noisy summer race 
 Live in her lay, and flutter through her song." 
 
 What a beautiful condescension have we here ! How ex- 
 quisitely tender ! He, Thomson do not laugh at him, 
 ladies and gentlemen ; it is his gentle nature makes him do 
 it will positively, and of his own accord, mention in his 
 beautiful poems such vermin as grasshoppers and butterflies. 
 " The muse," forsooth ! 
 
"Reptiles" n 
 
 Or take Cowper's lines in the " Task : " 
 
 " I would not enter on my list of friends 
 (Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, 
 Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
 Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
 An inadvertent step may crush the snail 
 That crawls at evening in the public path ; 
 But he that has humanity, forewarn'd, 
 Will tread aside and let the reptile live. 
 The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, 
 And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 
 A visitor unwelcome, into scenes 
 Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, 
 The chamber, or refectory, may die : 
 A necessary act incurs no blame. 
 Not so, when held within their proper bounds, 
 And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 
 Or take their pastime in the spacious field : 
 There they are privileged, and he that hunts 
 Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 
 Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, 
 Who, when she formed, designed them an abode." 
 
 That a man living in the country should be so indifferently 
 informed, and though of a poetical turn of mind so unsym- 
 pathetic, is almost unintelligible. What manner of thing 
 does Cowper mean by " creeping vermin, loathsome to the 
 sight, and charged perhaps with venom " ? The poet 
 means the toad, which " the vulgar " believe to be poisonous. 
 But every gardener knows that it is a most useful little 
 creature, and it is not vermin in any sense of that word. 
 Anyhow, I cannot admire the " sensibility " of the poet who 
 confesses that he approves of killing toads because they 
 come into "the alcove," nor the "humanity" that draws a 
 line between the needful and the needless treading on worms. 
 To kill a toad simply because it comes into a summer- 
 house is stupid cruelty. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 CROCODILES, TURTLES, AND LIZARDS. 
 
 " THE crocodile, the dragon of the waters, In iron panoply 
 fell as the plague, And merciless as famine, " is obviously a 
 creature that no poet can be expected to admire. And it 
 would perhaps be stretching sentiment too far to expect 
 them to do so. It is not a lovable beast. I have seen them, 
 huge ones, lying on a mud-bank, "like a forest-tree, basking 
 in the sun," as Mary Howitt says, or crawling through reeds, 
 and there was something in the demeanour of the thing 
 that always made me long to kill it. It lay flat, with a 
 sluggish affectation of humility that exasperated me, and be- 
 stirred itself with an air of helplessness that was positively 
 monstrous. 
 
 A remarkable passage in Montgomery's "Greenland" 
 shows us a broad river " swarming with alligator * shoals " 
 and rolling "clouds of blood." Thomson has a " Behemoth " 
 that, "in plaited mail, rears his head" "glanced from his 
 side, the darted steel in idle shivers flies " and that " crops 
 upon the hills his varied fare." That the former knew what 
 he was writing about is as certain as that the latter did not, 
 yet each is a conundrum. When very young, crocodiles do 
 certainly go "in shoals." 
 
 I have myself, in the Ganges' overflow, within eyesight 
 from my house in Allahabad, seen them so thick that their 
 
 * "Alligator,", it should be noted, is in poetry an aggravated crocodile. 
 It is what the scritch-owl is, among birds, to the owl. P. R. 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 1 3 
 
 opened jaws they lie with their chins upon the bank and 
 mouths open, perhaps for the same reason that you see 
 vultures sitting facing the breeze with wings widespread 
 looked like a fringe of hurdle stakes, or chevaux de frise. 
 At Dholpur, near Agra, I have also seen them, full grown, 
 in a large company. But these were retainers of the temples. 
 As Bubastis had its cats, and Thebes her ibis, and Memphis 
 her horned divinities, so Dendera had its collared crocodiles : 
 
 " Clouds of incense woo thy smile, 
 Scaly Monarch of the Nile." 
 
 The priests put necklaces about their necks, and earrings in 
 their ears, and the people worshipped them, these grim 
 obscurities that crept from out the depths of the river 
 to take their place under Isis' throne. But why was 
 Montgomery's " broad river " red with blood ? The alligator 
 takes his victim down, and there is no sign of the tragedy. 
 A few pink bubbles perhaps but that is all. 
 
 For Thomson's Behemoth I have no respect. He had 
 very vague or very confused ideas about the crocodile 
 which is " Leviathan " and not Behemoth the rhinoceros, 
 and the hippopotamus. But, whatever it was, his picture is 
 absurd. For crocodiles do not eat grass. The rhinoceros 
 does not live in the water. The hippopotamus is not mailed. 
 
 Keats, as usual, is true to Nature. His " encased croco- 
 dile " is sufficient, and when he adds a reverence 
 
 " Son of the old Moon-mountains African 
 Stream of the Pyramid and crocodile, " 
 
 the conjunction is worthy of the brute "in adamantine 
 scales, That fears no discipline of human hands." 
 How Job militant exults in Leviathan : 
 
 " Dissect the greatnesse of so vast a Creature, 
 By view of severall parts summe up his feature : 
 Whe shields his scales an plac't, which neither art 
 Knowes how to sunder, nor yet force can part. 
 
1 4 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Ne belching rucks forth flames, his moving eye 
 
 Shines like the glory of the morning skie ; 
 
 His craggy sinewes are like wreathes of brasse 
 
 And from his mouth quick flames of fier passe 
 
 As from an Oven ; the temper of his heart 
 
 Is like a Nether-Milstone, which no Dart 
 
 Can pierce, secured from the threatning Speare ; 
 
 Afraid of none, he strikes the world with feare. 
 
 The Bow-moms brawny arms send shafts in vaine, 
 
 They fall like stubble, or bound backe againe : 
 
 Stones are his pillow, and the Mud his Downe, 
 
 In earth none greater is, nor equall none, 
 
 Compar'd with him, all things he doth deride 
 
 And well may challenge to be King of Pride." Quarks. 
 
 But why does Thomson describe the great beast as " cased 
 in green scales," or Shelley imagine the species to have been 
 exterminated by the Deluge ? 
 
 " The jagged alligator, and the might 
 Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 
 Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores 
 And weed-overgrown continents of earth 
 Increased and multiplied like summer worms 
 On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe 
 Wrapt deluge round it like a cloke, and they 
 Yelled, gasped, and were abolished." 
 
 That this reptile, "who can falsely weep," as Heber says, 1 
 is a hypocrite, who needs telling? The poets are much 
 attracted by this fancy. "With a feigned grief the tomb 
 relents, And like a crocodile its prey laments," says Congreve. 
 In Savage we find it "weeping cruel tears " over its "bleed- 
 ing prey." And in Thomson it is " the smooth crocodile 
 Destruction." Coleridge gives Hypocrisy a "crocodile's 
 eye ; " and Shelley in the " Masque of Anarchy," sees her 
 ride by on its back. 
 
 Spenser draws from the saurian's " swike " the admir- 
 able moral that it is as well to mind your own affairs 
 while charitably bent on minding those of others : 
 
 1 ' ' And the beeste who can falsely weepe 
 Crocodilus was here goode shepe." 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 1 5 
 
 ' ' As when a weary traveller, that strays 
 By muddy shore of broad seven-mouthed Nile, 
 Unweeting of the perilous, wand'ring ways, 
 Doth meet a cruel, crafty crocodile, 
 Which, in false grief hiding his harmful guile, 
 Doth weep full sore, and sheddeth tender tears ; 
 The foolish man, that pities all this while 
 His mournful plight, is swallowed up unawares. 
 Forgetful of his own, that minds another's cares." 
 
 Southey puts into doggerel the legend of there being a 
 king of the crocodiles. A woman has her child eaten up 
 by one of the great river-lizards, and determines to complain 
 to their ruler : 
 
 " The King of the crocodiles never does wrong, 
 He has no tail so stiff and strong, 
 He has no tail to strike and slay, 
 But he has ears to hear what I say." 
 
 So she goes, against much advice (like the youth in Excelsior) 
 and eventually finds herself in the presence of the master 
 monster : 
 
 "The King of the crocodiles there was seen, 
 He sate on the eggs of the crocodile queen, 
 And all around, a numerous rout, 
 The young prince-crocodiles crawled about." 
 
 And then she appeals to his Majesty in the words quoted 
 above, and having listened to her 
 
 "You have said well, the King replies, 
 And fixed on her his little eyes ; 
 Good woman, yes, you have said right, 
 But you have not described me quite. 
 I have no tail to strike and slay, 
 And I have ears to hear what you say, 
 I have teeth moreover, as you may see, 
 And I will make a meal of thee," 
 
 which he promptly does. 
 
 There is one more point about the " natural history " of 
 the great reptile that is worth noting, namely, the incon- 
 
1 6 The Poets and Nat^lre. 
 
 gruous friendship of the gruesome beast with the pretty 
 little "zic-zac" plover. Moore has the following : 
 
 The puny bird that dares with teasing hum 
 Within the crocodile's stretched jaws to come." 
 
 Young has 
 
 " Like the bird upon the banks of Nile, 
 That picks the teeth of the dire crocodile." 
 
 and Spenser this : 
 
 " Beside the fruitful shore of muddy Nile, 
 Upon a sunny bank outstretched lay 
 In monstrous length a mighty crocodile, 
 That, crammed with guiltless blood, greedy prey 
 Of wretched people travelling that way, 
 Thought all things less than his disdainful pride, 
 Soon came a little bird called tidula, 
 The least of thousands which on earth abide, 
 That forced this hideous beast to open wide 
 The grisly gates of his devouring hell, 
 And let him feed as nature doth provide 
 Upon his jaws that with black venom * swell. 
 Why then should greatest things the least disdain, 
 That so small so mighty can constrain?" 
 
 It is probably only once in Keats, that crocodiles are an 
 incident of a pretty scene : 
 
 " Onward the tiger and the leopard pants, 
 With Asian elephants : 
 
 Onward these myriads with song and dance, 
 With zebras striped and sleek Arabians prance, 
 Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, 
 Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, 
 Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil 
 Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil : 
 With toying oars and silken sails they glide, 
 Nor care for wind and tide." 
 
 The "low-roofed" Tortoise meets with but scanty com- 
 pliments from poets. There is an unexpected sympathy, 
 
 * Query, "vermin." 
 
Crocodiles^ Turtles, and Lizards. 1 7 
 
 ever, with it in the poetical conceit of the young turtle 
 bom on the dry land longing for the water. "The sad 
 tortoise for the sea doth moan," says Marvell. Another has, 
 " Sighing for the deeps like the turtle." Byron thus notices 
 the contrast : 
 
 " Here the young turtle, crawling from his shell, 
 Steals to the deep wherein his parents dwell. 
 Chipped by the beam, a nursling of the day, 
 But hatched for ocean by the fostering ray." 
 
 Montgomery also, after telling how the parent reptile " steals 
 out at eve," explores the shore "with trembling heart," and 
 lays her eggs in the loose warm sand, goes on to describe 
 the escape of the happy youngsters that " by instinct seek 
 the sea : " 
 
 " Nature herself with her own gentle hand 
 Drops them one by one into the flood, 
 Arid laughs to behold their antic joy 
 When launched in th' element." 
 
 This is all pleasant reading, for it shows a tender appreci- 
 ation of the creature's natural life, " where, in fleshy mail the 
 tortoise climbs the rocks." 
 
 More than one poet makes the curious error of thinking 
 that turtles shed their shells, as, for instance, Garth, who 
 has, " There the tortoise hung her coat of mail." 
 
 As the creature that gives to civic feasts what Southey 
 calls " the fat of verdant hue," so dear to the aldeimanic 
 palate 
 
 " Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, 
 Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan. 
 He snuffs far off the anticipated joy ; 
 Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ." Cowper. 
 
 it cannot escape favourable recognition. Says Byron 
 "The turtle-shell which bore, A banquet in the flesh it 
 cover'd o'er ; " and Churchill 
 
1 8 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " The turtle of a great and glorious size, 
 Worth its own weight in gold, a mighty prize 
 For which a man of taste all risks would run ; 
 Itself a feast, and ev'ry dish in one." 
 
 Though a creature to laugh over when we see it creeping 
 stealthily about on tip-toe, as if it were abroad for the pur- 
 pose of picking pockets, it has a very notable place in myth, 
 and was almost universally reverenced. The East believes 
 that the world rests upon a tortoise, which rests upon 
 nothing and what a grand old testacean it is, this Vedic 
 turtle, standing simply on its own dignity, and yet uphold- 
 ing upon its Atlantean carapace all the burdens of the round 
 world, and of them that dwell therein ! Here is a subject 
 for Walt Whitman himself, the self-sufficient, democratic, 
 thewy-and-sinewy, double-sexed, bully-for-you, old tortoise. 
 More power to your shell, sir ! We creeping things take 
 off our hats to you, testudinous ancient. And how splendidly 
 the deliberate thing looms out of Hindoo myth as the 
 hereditary foe of the mystical elephant, the Darkness. 
 
 The Red Indian to this day says that in the beginning of 
 things there was nothing but a tortoise. It brooded upon 
 space : covered Chaos as with a lid. But after a while it 
 woke up : its solitary existence was irksome to it, and it 
 sank splendidly into the abysmal depths ; and lo ! when it 
 re-emerged, there was the terrestrial globe upon its back ! 
 For something to do, it had fished up our earth from the 
 depths in the protoplasmic fluids, and, rather than be idle, 
 it still keeps on holding it up. But some day it will sink 
 again, and then will come the End with Ragnarok and 
 Armageddon. 
 
 In Greek and Roman fancies, the tortoise hardly fares so 
 well. It is the form to which a bright nymph, who had 
 jested at the nuptials of Zeus and Herd, was turned into by 
 Mercury ; and ridicule falls upon the greatest of the Greeks 
 when a tortoise falls upon his head. Yet they, too, knew of 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 19 
 
 the tradition of the world-supporting thing, and did reverence 
 to it. And so from East to West, from antiquity to to-day, 
 the creature, vast, ponderous, inert, has commanded and 
 commands the homage of men. 
 
 Nor in poetry do the historic traditions of the creature 
 altogether fail of notice. How ^Eschylus was killed every 
 one knows, but in Spenser we find Thomalin (moralising on 
 good and bad shepherds) localising the event in England, 
 and making the victim of the eagle's mistake "a proud and 
 ambitious pastour," by name Algrind, who lived in his own 
 neighbourhood : 
 
 " One day he sate upon a hill 
 
 As now thou wouldst by me ; 
 But I am taught by Algrind' s ill 
 
 To love the low degree : 
 For sitting so with bared scalp, 
 
 An eagle soared high, 
 That, weening his white head was chalk, 
 
 A shell-fish down let fly. 
 She weened the shell-fish to have broke, 
 
 But therewith bruised his brain ; 
 So now astonied with the stroke, 
 
 He lies in grievous pain." 
 
 Henceforth Thomalin refuses ever to go up to the top of a hill, 
 lest an eagle with a tortoise should happen to be overhead. 
 An excellent simile, drawn from a most unpromising source, 
 is Moore's 
 
 1 ' Raised the hopes of men as eaglets fly 
 With tortoise aloft into the sky, 
 To dash them down again more shatteringly ! " 
 
 Of the connection of the tortoise-shell with the first lyre 
 Shelley, among others, takes notable cognisance in his 
 " Hymn to Mercury." The poet sees the child playing 
 about outside the cave and chancing upon a tortoise : 
 
 " The beast before the portal at his leisure 
 The flowery herbage was depasturing ; 
 Moving his feet in a deliberate measure 
 Over the turf." 
 
2O The Poets and Nature. 
 
 He cries, " A treasure ! " and, laughing, addresses the 
 animal : 
 
 " A useful godsend are you to me now 
 King of the dance, companion of the feast, 
 Lovely in all your nature ! Welcome, you 
 Excellent plaything ! Where, sweet mountain beast, 
 Got you that speckled shell ? Thus much I know, 
 You must come home with me, and be my guest ; 
 
 You will give joy to me, and I will do 
 
 All that is in my power to honour you. 
 
 Better to be at home than out of door ; 
 
 So come with me, and though it has been said 
 
 That you alive defend from magic power, 
 
 I know you will sing- sweetly when you're dead. 
 
 Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore 
 
 Lifting it from the grass on which it fed, 
 
 And grasping it in his delighted hold 
 
 His treasured prize into the cavern old." 
 
 Arrived there, he "featly" scoops the shell out, drills holes 
 in it, fastens reeds into them, spreads leather across, fixes 
 the cubits in, " Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched o'er 
 all, Symphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical." When he 
 had finished " the lovely instrument," he tried it, and 
 
 "There went 
 
 Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet 
 Of mighty sounds." 
 
 Montgomery gives the earliest Christian origin of the 
 lyre:- 
 
 " A shell of tortoise, exquisitely wrought 
 With hieroglyphics of embodied thought ; 
 Jubal himself enchased the polished frame, 
 And Javan won it in the strife for fame ; 
 Among the sons of music, when their sire 
 To his victorious skill adjudged the lyre." 
 
 The line, " That you alive defend from magic power," is 
 worth a note. The blood of the tortoise was considered by 
 the ancients an antidote to subtle venom. Protected itself 
 by its shield, it became a protector. The Romans bathed 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 2 1 
 
 new-born infants in the shells. Its appearance unexpectedly 
 was a very auspicious omen, as being traditionally opposed 
 to the diabolical and mischievous. In England, as a thing 
 of magic, it was part of the stock-in-trade of the alchemist, 
 astrologer, and quack : so, in " Romeo and Juliet " " In 
 his needy shop a tortoise hung." As affording a shield, it 
 has honourable associations referred to by several poets. 
 Thus Rogers' lines, " The warrior's lance Rings on the 
 tortoise with wild dissonance," reminds the reader of the 
 device by which they kept from old Chronos the intelligence 
 of the birth of Zeus, and of the challenge " on the ringing 
 tortoise " of the Knight of Thrace. That the elephant and 
 tortoise should be at perpetual feud, each considering 
 himself the lord of the lake, is one of the funniest myths 
 I know. 
 
 "Both animals (sun and moon) frequent the banks of the 
 same lake, and have conceived a mortal dislike one for the 
 other, continuing in their brutal forms the quarrel which 
 existed between them when they were not only two men 
 but two brothers. As the elephant and the tortoise both 
 frequent the shores of the same lake, they mutually annoy 
 each other, renewing and maintaining in mythical zoology 
 the strife which subsists between the two mythical brothers 
 who fight each other for the kingdom of heaven, either in 
 the form of twilights, or of equinoxes, or of sun and moon." 
 Yet they meet after all in the " Rape of the Lock " in more 
 friendly rivalry : 
 
 " The tortoise here and elephant unite, 
 Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white." 
 
 In poetical metaphor, as in mythology, the tortoise repre- 
 sents the lazy and slow : 
 
 " I would not be a tortoise in his screen 
 
 Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not. 
 'Tis better, on the whole, to have felt and seen 
 That which humanity may bear, or bear not." Byron, 
 
22 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 But, as Bacon says, " slowness is not sloth." It would be 
 harder work to walk a mile behind a snail than to run one 
 after a hare. But "the tortoise-foot" is an established 
 phrase with the poets when they wish to imply " sluggish.'' 
 " The lazy tortoise," says Faber. 
 
 Do you remember, in Crabbe, the girl who gets weary of 
 the sleek, overcautious vicar ? 
 
 "The wondering girl, no prude, but something nice, 
 At length was chill'd by his unmelting ice ; 
 She found her tortoise held such sluggish pace 
 That she must turn and meet him in the chase ; 
 This not approving, she withdrew till one 
 Came who appear'd with livelier hope to run." 
 
 In heraldry we find the Medici with the impress of a 
 tortoise "under full sail," with the motto festina lente. The 
 conceit, though not original, is excellent, and may be classed 
 with the dolphin (emblem of celerity) and anchor of Ves- 
 pasian, the fish and chameleon of Pope Paul, or the crab and 
 butterfly of the Emperor Augustus. 
 
 A wonderful family is that of the lizards the ancestors 
 of the birds, and the sliding link between the snake and 
 crocodile. Was there ever palimpsest or papyrus so fa^ci- 
 nating, so engrossing, so important, or so accurately authentic, 
 as that stone from Saxony on which the archseopteryx has 
 left the complete record of itself stamped on the soft slab? 
 It is nothing less than its whole body. Could any chronicle 
 be more simple, unequivocal, satisfying ? How ingenuously 
 it appeals to our confidence. No room is left for disputing 
 its facts or cavilling at its arguments. There it lies as flat 
 as the pressure of some millions of tons of overlying rock 
 could make a thing, a shadow in thickness. Yet that little 
 skeleton speaks with a logic that is most masterful, com- 
 manding, and unanswerable. It is the thing itself, crying 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 23 
 
 out to us from the dim past a phantom from the Genesis. 
 Its speech is silence, and yet august in dumbness, its voice 
 is more than trumpets; the walled-in cities of old super- 
 stition, the sacred citadels of ignorance, topple into ruins 
 before it. 
 
 It is a word straight from the Demiurge himself, whispered 
 to us through the rock galleries that stretch back from Now 
 to Then a single word spoken from the " In the beginning " 
 a worshipful thing. I never go to the British Museum 
 without passing the model of this archaeopteryx, the first 
 of the birds. The lizard-fowl is a perpetual reverence 
 to me. 
 
 Yet again, contemplate the way in which these creatures 
 gradually shorten their legs as skinks, lose them altogether 
 as amphisbsenas, hesitate for a while as blindworms, and 
 then become actual snakes ophidian, viperine, terrible ! 
 
 They commence with the pretty agile little things of our 
 English sandy heaths, that are the " beasts-of-prey " to the 
 tiny fly-folk who range among the grass as among forests, 
 and find their lakes in dewdrops,' their pleasure-parks on 
 plaintain leaves. To them succeed the amphibious lizards 
 of the New World, who feed on small snakes, mice, and 
 birds larger creatures, a yard in length, splendidly painted 
 with yellow on a black ground. So to the water-lizards of 
 the Old World, the crocodile-like "monitors," which so 
 tradition used to fancy whistled a note of warning to 
 Leviathan when danger threatened, albeit it eats the croco- 
 dile's eggs, and the young ones too. In revenge, the old 
 crocodiles eat it. Next is that wondrous family of the 
 " short-tongued " lizards, the arboreal iguanas, contrasting 
 notably in their fearsome appearance with the floral loveli- 
 ness of their tropical woodland haunts. Here, too, is the 
 basilisk the " dragon " of the Middle Ages in miniature 
 heraldic, grotesquely heterodox ; and the sea-lizard, a dread- 
 ful-looking thing that feeds upon the sea-weeds a mile from 
 
2 _j. The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 the coast ; and the flying lizards, beauteous beyond descrip- 
 tion, that slide through the air from tree to tree on their 
 wing-like parachutes ; and, most curious perhaps of all, the 
 frilled lizard, which, if it were only the size of a camel, 
 might have frightened all the Seven Champions out of their 
 wits. And what can be said too enthusiastic for such 
 a thing as the Moloch, a mass of spines and prickles, 
 with forty horns on the tip of its nose, and ferociously 
 thorned to the tip of its tail ? or the geckos, the familiar but 
 wondrous creatures that sleep all through a summer's day 
 upon the ceiling and never drop off, but if they are startled 
 drop their tails ? or the chameleon, that has such a trans- 
 parent skin that its emotions can be read through it ? 
 
 Human beings have been known to " blush crimson " or 
 turn "deathly pale." The choleric man turns vicious red 
 when out of temper, the Asiatic green when terrified. But 
 the chameleon beats us all. It has no expression whatever 
 on its face, so it makes up for it on its body. You can tell 
 what it is thinking about by the colour of its body. How 
 the poets delighted in the creature \ 
 
 " As the chameleon, who is known 
 To have no colours of his own , 
 But borrows from his neighbour's hue 
 His white or black, his green or blue, 
 And struts as much in ready light, 
 Which credit gives him upon sight, 
 As if the rainbow were in tail 
 Settled on him and his heirs male." Prior. 
 
 Allan Ramsay adapts an old fable excellently in his poem 
 on the beast. One man swears it is blue. He saw it that 
 very morning, and so cannot be wrong. Another had seen 
 it that evening, only an hour ago, and he will stake his life 
 on it, it was green. From argument it comes to quarrelling, 
 and "frae words there had been cuff and kick," but a third 
 man happens to come along. He asks the reason for such 
 high words between neighbours, and they tell him. At 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 25 
 
 this he laughs immoderately, calls them both fools, and 
 says the chameleon is black, and he knows it why? 
 because he has got it in his pocket at that very moment- 
 And he whips the creature out 
 
 " But to surprise them ane and a' 
 The animal was white as snaw ! " 
 
 Shelley too has an exhortation admirably characteristic : 
 
 " Chameleons feed on light and air ; 
 Poets' food is love and fame. 
 If in this wide world of care 
 Poets could but find the same 
 With as little toil as they, 
 Would they ever change their hue 
 As the light chameleons do, 
 Suiting it to every ray 
 Twenty times a day ? 
 
 Poets are on this cold earth 
 As chameleons might be, 
 Hidden from their early birth 
 In a cave beneath the sea. 
 Where light is chameleons change ; 
 Where love is not poets do. 
 Fame is love disguised : if few 
 Find either, never think it strange 
 That poets range. 
 
 Yet dare not stain with wealth or power 
 A poet's free and heavenly mind. 
 If bright chameleons should devour 
 Any food but beams and wind, 
 They would grow as earthly soon 
 As their brother lizards are. 
 Children of a summer star, 
 Spirits from beyond the moon, 
 Ah ! refuse the boon ! " 
 
 But in its natural aspect the poets knew little of it. They 
 pretended to believe it "fed" upon air : 
 
 " Stretch'd at its ease, the beast I view'd, 
 And saw it eat the air for food." Her rick. 
 
26 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 "On that hope, 
 
 I build my happiness, I live upon it, 
 Like the chameleon, on its proper food, 
 The unsubstantial air." Hurdis. 
 
 " Bards are not chameleons quite, 
 And heavenly food is very light." Montgomery. 
 
 No living thing, whate'er its food, feasts there, 
 
 But the chameleon who can feast on air." Churchill. 
 
 " While I, condemned to thinnest fare, 
 Like those I flatter live on air." Gay. 
 
 "Cold" is Sir William Jones's epithet borrowed, of course, 
 from the general lizard idea, that these creatures are gelid 
 
 " E'en cold chameleons pant in thickets dun, 
 And o'er the burning grit the unwinged locusts run." 
 
 It was thus that the salamander got a reputation for disre- 
 garding flames, or even putting them out, by the extreme 
 "coldness" of its body. It is therefore in metaphor that 
 this strange lizard is most conspicuous. The gay gallant in 
 Moore 
 
 " Pranked in gay vest, to which the flame 
 Of every lamp he passed, or blue, 
 Or green, or crimson, lent its hue ; 
 As though a live chameleon's skin 
 He had despoiled to robe him in." 
 
 the turncoat politician in Churchill 
 
 " A creature of the right cameleon hue, 
 Wears any colours, yellow or true blue." 
 
 In Cowley Fancy, in Savage Fortune, has the same steeds 
 
 " Wild dame with much lascivious pride 
 By twin chameleons drawn does gaily ride." 
 
 Advisers are chameleons in Dryden 
 
 "To change the dye, with every distant view." 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 27 
 
 Love in Shakespeare ; courtiers in Gay ; Italians in Rogers ; 
 the sea in Campbell : 
 
 " Mighty sea ! chameleon-like thou changest." 
 lovers in Shelley : 
 
 1 ' As a lover or a chameleon 
 Grows like what it lives upon ; " 
 
 cowards in Byron 
 
 " Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear ; " 
 
 and women "your true chameleons" in Pope, "who 
 change colour according to the humour and disposition of 
 the men who approach them ; " the weak-minded man in 
 
 Pryor : 
 
 " As the chameleon who is known 
 To have no colour but his own, 
 But borrows from his neighbour's hue, 
 His white or black, his green or blue ; 
 And struts as much in ready light 
 Which credit gives him upon sight." Prior. 
 
 " Ah ! simple youth ! how oft will he 
 Of thy chang'd faith complain ! 
 And his own fortunes find to be 
 So airy and so vain, 
 Of so cameleon-like an hue, 
 That still their colour changes with it too ! " Cowley. 
 
 " Through a thousand shades 
 His spirit flits, chameleon-like, and mocks 
 The eye of the observer." Rogers. 
 
 That they thrive on a diet of air is a point that is obvi- 
 ously suggestive : 
 
 " Speed. Why muse you, sir? 'Tis dinner-time. 
 Valentine. I have dined. 
 
 Speed. Ay, but hearken, sir ; though the chameleon Love can feed on the 
 air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat." 
 
28 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 And so in Hamlet : 
 
 " King. How fares our cousin ? 
 
 Hamlet. Excellent, i' faith of the chameleon's diet : I eat the air, 
 promise-crammed. " 
 
 Once upon a time, says a Hindoo legend, there was a 
 certain king who had before him a case in which two 
 Brahmans disputed the possession of a cow and calf, and 
 he was so dilatory in judgment that the pious litigants 
 appealed to Heaven, the result, as far as the king was 
 concerned, being that he was turned into a chameleon, 
 which never seems to know its own mind for an hour to- 
 gether. 
 
 Poets see lizards in two aspects either as things of 
 happiest, brightest sunshine, or of ominous and sepulchral 
 gloom. Those, as Byron, Shelley, Rogers, Montgomery, 
 or Faber, who had seen and therefore admired these pretty, 
 elegant, harmless creatures, speak of them with kindly 
 admiration. They hear "the quick-eyed lizard rustling 
 through the grass," or note " the shrill chirp of the green 
 lizard's love," see " the lively lizard playing in the chinks," 
 and watch it basking in the grooves of the fallen pillar 
 
 " With sensual enjoyment of the heat, 
 And with a little pulse that would outstep 
 The notes of nightingales for speed." 
 
 On the other hand, they are creatures of ruins and dismal 
 abodes 
 
 " Bit by bit the ruin crumbles, 
 
 Not a lizard there abiding ; 
 And the callow raven tumbles 
 From the loophole of her hiding." 
 
 " The painted lizard and the bird of prey " are associates 
 in Dryden (borrowing from Virgil) ; in Cunninghame we 
 have "the lizard and the lazy, lurking bat, Inhabiting the 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 29 
 
 painted room." These are poets of the non-natural-history 
 category, and supreme amongst them are the Eliza Cooks 
 of verse. As, for instance, " Bat and lizard had allied, With 
 mole and owlet by their side;" or "The dark retreat of 
 lizard, frog, and speckled snake;" or "The gloomy owl and 
 speckled lizard." 
 
 Shelley is especially fond of the lizard simile, and having 
 in Greece and Italy had these beautiful creatures constantly 
 under his eye, uses them in his verse with exquisite felicity, 
 although at times with a "large license." Notable is the 
 fidelity of his attaching the idea of " light " to the sudden- 
 flashing thing. It is "sparkling" "glittering" "and the 
 green lizard and the golden snake, Like unimprisoned 
 flames out of their trance awake." 
 
 Now, whimsical though it may seem, I should like to 
 draw passing attention to the curious community of epithet 
 which all these creatures enjoy. 
 
 We have " speckled " lizard with the owl, and the lizard 
 with the "speckled snake," and the latter with the owl. There 
 is the " painted " lizard and the owl, also " the painted snake 
 and the owl." Then we read of " gay lizards glittering," and 
 "serpents glittering, with gay hues adorned." The "green 
 gilded snake " glides on the tomb, and the "green lizard and 
 gilded newt " do the same on a ruin. A third has "a green 
 gilded lizard." I could go on to tedious length, but my 
 object in this brief paragraph is only to suggest that poets 
 are immoral in lumping diverse creatures together in order 
 to convey a particular impression. The mid-day lizard and 
 the nocturnal owl are of course as absurd in association 
 as the land lizard and the water newt. 
 
 Allan Ramsay has a poem on " Twa Lizards," which is 
 zoologically interesting, though the moral is dull enough 
 after Spenser. Of two lizards basking on a bank, one 
 regrets their mean estate, and cites the existence of 
 crocodiles on the Nile, which are worshipped in " pagods," 
 
30 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 as an example of what his ambition aspires to. Those were 
 lizards worth calling such or he would even like to be a 
 deer, with fine horns. Of course a deer is run down before 
 his eyes, and the lizard repents his aspirings after an exalted 
 station. " It is better," says Herbert, " to be the head of a 
 lizard than the tail of a lion." 
 
 As one of the heralds of Spring, the "lizard of St. Agnes " 
 is a popular favourite in Southern Europe. In Italy it is 
 also called "guarda uomo," man's protector. In Sicily it 
 stands in equal favour, and San Giuvanni, as it is called, 
 must not be killed, "because it is in the presence of the 
 Lord in heaven, and lights the little lamps before the Lord." 
 But if by accident you should do one to death, you must 
 touch the still quivering limbs and say : 
 
 " Not I, not I, did murder you, 
 Little dog of holy St. Matthew." 
 
 The children carry them about as pets in their bosoms, 
 and when they let them go, ask them to intercede before 
 " the Lord " for them. The common green lizard is 
 especially protected, as superstition invests it with power 
 against evil talismans and enchantments, and against 
 venomous snakes. Thus the crest of the Mantuan princes 
 was a lizard in a tuft of camomile, Pliny saying that these 
 creatures, when they have fought with serpents and been 
 bitten, cure themselves with that herb. 
 
 It is unlucky, so English folk-lore avers, for a wedding- 
 party to see a lizard ; and that the creature has a painful 
 sting says Suffolk, " as smart as lizards' stings ; " and again, 
 Queen Margaret, "lizards' dreadful stings" is still an 
 article of superstitious belief among the more ignorant. 
 
 The Arabs eat the legless desert lizards, calling them 
 " sand-fishes," so as not to seem to transgress commandment; 
 for the creatures are unclean, one species indeed being 
 specially anathema, for Mahomet has ordered his people 
 
Crocodiles, Turtles, and Lizards. 31 
 
 to stone them wherever found, as they hang their necks 
 in mockery of the Moslem's attitude of prayer. To this 
 day, therefore, the faithful persecute them rigorously as 
 scoffing unbelievers. 
 
 " Fadladeen, besides the spiritual comfort he derived from 
 a pilgrimage to the tomb of the saints from whom the valley 
 is named, had opportunities of gratifying, in a small way, 
 his taste for victims, by putting to death some hundreds of 
 those unfortunate little lizards, which all pious Mussulmans 
 make it a point to kill ; taking for granted that the manner 
 in which the creature hangs its head is meant as a mimicry 
 of the attitude in which the faithful say their prayers ! " 
 
 None the less they were considered, and indeed are still, 
 very important in Eastern medicine, the traditional coldness 
 of the creatures recommending them to the Pharmacopoeia 
 of Fancy as being supposed to be beneficial in all ailments 
 arising from excessive heat, although so diverse as burns, 
 sunstroke, sand-blindness, and scarlet fever. 
 
 Newts, the pretty " eft " of our ponds, receive the most 
 infamous treatment from poets. Wordsworth calls them 
 " offensive," Eliza Cook miasmatic : 
 
 " Mist and chill are over the hill, 
 
 The crops on the upland are green and stark, 
 Newts are about and the rain puts out 
 
 The tender light of the glow-worm's spark." 
 
 It delights me to quote this fustian. Imagine crops being 
 " stark ! " and then that line, " newts are about!" 
 
 But Spenser calls them " fearefull eftes," Garth " hateful," 
 and Shelley " poisonous." Shakespeare's witches mix the 
 eyes of newts with the toes of frogs in their dreadful broth. 
 
 " Onely these marishes and myrie bogs, 
 In which the fearefull ewftes do build their bowres, 
 Yeeld me an hostry mongst the croking frogs." Spenser. 
 
 " And from a stone beside a poisonous eft 
 Peeps idly." Shelley, 
 
3 2 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " Down to those cells obscener reptiles creep, 
 Where hateful newts and painted-lizards sleep, 
 And shiv'ring snakes the summer solstice wait." Garth. 
 
 And here out of sheer malice, I will quote Wordsworth, 
 whose errors of natural history and lack of sympathy with 
 nature are as deplorable as inexplicable in a rural poet : 
 
 " How disappeared he? ask the newt and toad, 
 Inheritors of his abode ; 
 The otter crouching undisturbed, 
 In her dank cleft ; but be thou curbed, 
 O froward fancy ! 'mid a scene 
 Of aspect winning and serene ; 
 For those offensive creatures shun 
 The inquisition of the sun ! " 
 
 Why is the newt, a charming ornament of the waters it 
 frequents, " offensive ; " and why does it shun the sunlight 
 any more than trout or salmon do ? 
 Again : 
 
 "The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute, 
 And 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage, 
 The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage 
 The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit ; 
 And the green lizard and the gilded newt 
 Lead unmolested lives, and die of age." 
 
 Why "gilded" newt? The scarlet fringe of its tail is 
 sufficiently conspicuous, and worth noting, but why gilded ? 
 Why not electro-plated ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 SNAKES IN NATURE. 
 
 IN all the range of poetry there is no object of nature, 
 outside humanity, which has engaged fancy more constantly 
 or in so many diverse moods as the serpent. It was invested 
 in Holy Writ with a most portentous individuality; has 
 been reverenced at one time or another with divine honours 
 by almost every race upon the earth, and coils inextricably 
 round the legends of nearly every language. It was endowed 
 in classical literature with all conceivable attributes, malig- 
 nant and benign, and honoured through successive ages with 
 such persistent superstition as to constitute it almost the cen- 
 tral figure of folk-myth. Is it then to be wondered at that 
 the poetic mind should be attracted by a creature which has 
 fascinated mankind from the earliest times, and which still 
 maintains its rank as the chiefest of Nature's parables ? 
 
 The serpent, however, has a prodigious literature of its 
 own, and into this I have here no intention to make rash 
 expedition. My concern is specifically with "Snakes in 
 Poetry," and even when thus restricted, the subject is suffi- 
 ciently large and many-sided, "rolling in orbs immense its 
 length of coils," to make me prefer to take it in three 
 sections. The first of these is the reptile " in nature." 
 
 Now, very few of our British poets knew personally any- 
 thing at all of the snake in nature, and this absence of in- 
 formation compelled them to go for the facts they wanted to 
 Holy Writ, classical myths, or popular superstitions. More- 
 
 33 C 
 
34 Tlie Poet* and Nature. 
 
 over, in the matter of natural history they follow each other 
 with remarkable fidelity, and nearly all the errors of later 
 poets are to be traced, by the actual language used, back to 
 the elder. The serpent, therefore, continues to be "deceit- 
 ful," and the adder "deaf," and snakes generally are said to 
 be " slimy," to leap upon their victims, to wound with their 
 tongues, or sting with their tails. Like them there is nothing 
 for fatal and determined malignity : it is death to enrage them. 
 
 Yet, how very different are the facts. Even in my own 
 casual acquaintance with venomous species I have learnt 
 indeed, the first experience was enough to teach me what 
 poor, helpless, timid, destructible creatures they are. 
 
 When living on the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, 
 I used to go hunting for rattlesnakes with a forked stick. 
 The suicidal creatures give you but small trouble in " hunt- 
 ing," for as soon as you come near them they spring their 
 alarum. "Here I am," the reptile calls out So, guided 
 by the sound, you discover under a tuft of sage-brush the 
 object of your quest, and in spite of 
 
 "The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake," 
 
 you proceed to fix it with the fork, and then with the heel 
 of the boot or a stone to kill it, cutting off its rattles as a 
 trophy. The diversion at first even suggested cruelty to 
 me : for the snake had no chance whatever, and made no 
 effort worth calling such to escape. But this foreshore was 
 the favourite summer bathing-resort of the residents of Salt 
 Lake City, and as the children wandered about in all direc- 
 tions picking flowers, the danger to life was so considerable 
 (as had been disastrously proved), that the killing of rattle- 
 snakes became as much a public service as the destruction 
 of other venomous species undertaken, for instance, by the 
 Government of India is considered elsewhere. But when 
 I hear any one speak of the terrors of the rattlesnake, I know 
 they have never gone hunting them. 
 
Snakes in Nature. 35 
 
 To give one more personal reminiscence. I was at one 
 time a professor at the Agra College, and, sitting in my 
 chair one hot-weather morning, was holding forth with some- 
 thing more than my usual earnestness to the small class 
 before me. The subject was some problem in metaphysics, 
 the students were undergraduates reading for honours, and 
 examinations were close at hand. It was necessary we 
 should all be very diligent. My annoyance was very consider- 
 able, therefore, when I saw that the half-dozen young fellows 
 some of them were Brahmans persisted in looking over my 
 shoulder instead of at me. At last I looked round to see what 
 it was that distracted their attention, and found, to my surprise, 
 that a passing cobra, attracted probably by the droning of 
 my voice, had come into the lecture-room, and was enjoying 
 itself in a corner. These creatures, as every one knows, are 
 peculiarly susceptible to anything like cadence in sound, and 
 it is very likely that the monotonous rise and fall of a single 
 voice had taken its fancy, just as modulation of notes, 
 without any air, upon any musical instrument will do. At 
 any rate there was the cobra, and as fine a speciman as I 
 ever met with, with its hood inflated to the full, its spec- 
 tacles brilliantly white, and the sunlight striking in through 
 the doorway across its burnished body. There is something 
 singularly imposing in the attitude of this snake when excited. 
 My visitor in the present case had raised itself as high as it 
 could, something less than a foot, and was swaying from side 
 to side in accurate rhythm, as if in a trance ; and in the uplift 
 of the head, the proud drawing-back of the neck, there was 
 a positive majesty of bearing hardly conceivable in a poor 
 worm some four feet long. Now, a Portuguese author, writing 
 of India, says : "The sudden appearance of a cobra-da-capello 
 in a room is considered to presage some future good or 
 evil. It is the Divinity himself in this form, or at least his 
 messenger, and the bringer of rewards or chastisement. 
 Although it is exceedingly venomous, it is neither killed nor 
 
36 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 molested in the house which it enters, but respected, and 
 even caressed." Far different was the fate of the cobra that 
 intruded upon my lecture-room. For I got up, and, keeping 
 my ruler in my hand, went towards the snake. Turning to 
 my class, I said, " It is a very sacred animal, I know but 
 not in a lecture-room." And therewith, while the poor crea- 
 ture was still continuing its sing-song oscillation, I knocked 
 it over with a smart tap on the head from my ebony sceptre. 
 " Besides," I continued, " the Government has placed a 
 reward of fourpence-halfpenny on its head," and I took 
 up my white sun-umbrella, which was leaning against the 
 wall, and, putting the point of it under the writhing thing, 
 jerked it clear out through the doorway into the sunlight. 
 And before I got back to my chair there was a rush of wings to 
 the doorway, and the next instant a couple of kites were 
 carrying the cobra away in halves into two separate parishes. 
 
 So it will be understood that I have not for the natural 
 serpent any superstitious reverence. On the other hand, 
 it may be objected that I am not a fit person to undertake 
 the criticism of poets on a subject so full of suggestive fancies. 
 In self-defence, therefore, I venture to say that I have written 
 much upon this fascinating subject, and not altogether, I 
 hope, without sympathy with the beautiful myths of antiquity 
 and the engaging credulities of more modern ignorance ; and 
 to escape, therefore, the charge of not recognising the aspects 
 from which poets survey the reptile world, I will repeat here 
 a paragraph from a paper which I once took the liberty of 
 putting into Mr. Ruskin's mouth as a lecture on snakes. 
 
 " Without a horizon on any side of him, the speaker could 
 hold high revel among a multitude of delightful phantasies, 
 and make holiday with all the beasts of fable. Ranging 
 from Greek to Saxon, and from Latin to Norman, Mr. 
 Ruskin could traverse all the cloudlands of myth and the 
 solid fields of history, lighting the way as he went with feli- 
 citous glimpses of a wise fancy, and bringing up in quaint 
 
Snakes in Nature. 37 
 
 disorder, and yet in order too, all the grotesque things that 
 heraldry owns, and the old world in days past knew so much 
 of; the wyvern, with its vicious cast of countenance, but 
 inadequate stomach ; the spiny and always rampant dragon- 
 kind ; the hydra, unhappy beast that must have suffered 
 from such a multitudinous toothache ; the crowned basilisk, 
 king of the reptiles and chiefest of vermin ; the gorgon, with 
 snakes for hair ; and the terrible echidna ; the cockatrice, fell 
 worm, whose first glance was petrifaction, and whose second 
 death ; the salamander, of such subtle sort that he digested 
 flame ; the chimaera, shapeless, yet deadly ; the dread cer- 
 astes ; the aspic, " pretty worm of Nilus," fatal as lightning and 
 as swift ; and the dypsas, whose portentous aspect sufficed to 
 hold the path against an army of Rome's choicest legion. 
 From astronomy, where Serpentarius, baleful constellation, 
 glitters, and Draco refulgent rears his impossible head, the 
 speaker could run through all the forms of dragon idealism, 
 recalling to his audience, as he went on his way, beset with 
 " unspeakable " monsters, the poems of the Greek and of yet 
 older mythologies, churning up the old waters with a Shesh 
 of his own, and summoning into sight at the sound of his pipe 
 all the music-loving reptiles of mythology, like one of the old 
 Psylli or the Marmarids, or one of the Magi, sons of Chus, 
 * tame, at whose voices, spellbound, the dread cerastes lay/ 
 " The snakes of antiquity, it is true, have come down to 
 us dignified, and made terrible by the honours and fears of 
 past ages, when the Egyptians and the Greeks bound the 
 aspic round the head of the idol as the most regal of tiaras, 
 and crowned in fancy the adder and the asp ; when nations 
 tenanted their sacred groves with even more sacred serpents : 
 entrusted to their care all that kings held most precious, 
 and the gems which the jealous earth still held undug ; 
 deifying some of their worms, and giving the names of 
 others to their gods. But the actual facts known to science 
 of modern snakes, the deadlier sort of the ophidians, invest 
 
38 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 them with terrors equal to any creature of fable, and with 
 the superstitious, might entitle them to divide honours with 
 the past objects of Ammonian worship and be the central 
 figures in the rites of Thermuthis or of Ops." 
 
 Very few specific varieties of the ophidian class find 
 notice in verse. Apostrophising the Red Man whom Mrs. 
 Hemans, by the way, calls " a snake" Eliza Cook bids 
 him go and consort with " the whipsnake and the jaguar," a 
 task which is as cruelly severe as any ever set by the wicked 
 stepmothers of the fairy tales, for, to consort simultaneously 
 with both whipsnake and jaguar would necessitate the 
 Red Man's being in two places at once, seeing that those 
 creatures inhabit different continents. 
 
 The " rattlesnake "the " Indian's rattlesnake" of Butler- 
 meets with frequent reference. Byron has these mysterious 
 lines : 
 
 " Sprung from a race whose rising blood, 
 When stirred beyond its calmer mood 
 And trodden hard upon, is like 
 The rattlesnake's in act to strike." 
 
 " Like a live arrow leapt the rattlesnake," says Mont- 
 gomery; but Goldsmith's line, "The rattling terrors of the 
 vengeful snake," is perhaps the best, though Butler is 
 certainly more truthful to nature when he says 
 
 " One that idly rails and threats, 
 And all the mischief that he meant 
 Does, like a rattlesnake, prevent." 
 
 For this snake's alarum is, I think, from the personal experi- 
 ences of the reptile already narrated, a merciful provision 
 for the security of man and beast, rather than any additional 
 circumstance of malignity in the reptile. But for that warn- 
 ing sound I should myself have often come very near to 
 treading on them, and on one occasion actually touching 
 one with my hand ; but the smallest alarm makes the hidden 
 thing declare itself. The noisy gift, in fact, is fatal to the 
 snake, and the salvation of everything else. 
 
Snakes in Nature. 39 
 
 Following up her "whipsnake and jaguar" with another 
 impossible association, Eliza Cook has "the boa and the 
 vulture" consorting together for the Red Man's ruin. 
 
 The boa-constrictor is often alluded to, but mentioned by 
 name only once again, unless I am mistaken, and then by 
 Byron in Don Juan : 
 
 " Not that he was not sometimes rash or so, 
 But never in his real and serious mood ; 
 Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow, 
 He lay coil'd like the boa in the wood : 
 With him it never was a word a blow ; 
 His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood ; 
 But in his silence there was much to rue, 
 And his one blow left little work for two." 
 
 Asps, of course, have filled, ever since " the pretty worm 
 of Nilus" hidden in fig-leaves was carried up by country 
 clowns (momentous burden) into the palace of Cleopatra 
 herself Mark Antony's " serpent of old Nile " a large space 
 in serpent-lore. But they are not found often in English 
 verse. In his " Camel-driver," Collins appropriately places it 
 (the " parch'd adder " of Akenside) in Arabian deserts : 
 
 "At that dread hour the silent asp shall creep, 
 If aught of rest I find, upon my sleep." 
 
 And perhaps in the next couplet he refers to the asp's 
 natural companion in the sandy wilderness, the puff-adder : 
 
 "Or some swol'n serpent twist his scales around 
 And wake to anguish with a burning wound." 
 
 That this little worm lets itself be eaten by cranes in order 
 to feed at its ease upon the bird's entrails 1 is a curious fiction 
 more than once alluded to in metaphor, and now and again 
 the word "asp" occurs as a generic name for venomous 
 snakes rather than of any specific viper. The "desert 
 serpent" of Campbell that dwells in "desolation cold," 
 
 1 " As through the crane's trunk throat doth speed, 
 The asp who doth on his feeder feed." Lovelace. 
 
4O The Poets and Nature. 
 
 might be the asp or "horned cerastes dire" if the poet had 
 not naturalised it in America. But Campbell is at all times 
 delightfully incorrect in his natural history. 
 
 King's " horned serpents " that Megaera wears, are perhaps 
 the cerastes ; but Moore, misunderstanding the name of 
 another species, makes an amusingly characteristic error as 
 to its meaning. He says : 
 
 " The smooth glass-snake, gliding o'er my way, 
 Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form " 
 
 evidently thinking the reptile got its name from being trans- 
 parent. But it is as opaque as any other worm, and owes 
 the prefix to its exceeding brittleness. Moreover, the " glass- 
 snakes " are hardly snakes at all, but only snake-like lizards. 
 Sir William Jones has an Indian "serpent dire," "of size 
 minute, with necklace brown and freckled side," which is 
 perhaps the Daboia elegans. More uncertain is the "blue 
 serpent" with which, in the satire of Rufinus, the Fury 
 "girds her waist around," after binding her hair with an 
 adamant?- 
 
 The water-snake, it might have been thought, would have 
 been a very attractive image to poets, but such is not the 
 case. It is but seldom met with, and even on those infre- 
 quent occasions without any attempt to take advantage of 
 so masterly a touch of nature. Moore's fancy imagines 
 many a " water-snake " slumbering in Lake Erie : 
 
 " Basking in the web of leaves 
 Which the water-lily weaves." 
 
 But it is only in Shelley, the poet of the snake, that this 
 serpent meets with competent recognition. Thus : 
 
 "The snake, 
 
 The pale snake that, with eager breath, 
 Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake, 
 
 1 The Fury, having performed these feats of the toilette, proceeds to 
 Phlegethon, " whose pitchy waves are flakes of rolling flame ! " 
 
Snakes in Nature. 41 
 
 Is beaming with many a mingled hue 
 Shed from yon dome's eternal blue 
 When he floats on that dark and lucid flood 
 In the light of his own loveliness." 
 
 What " the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear : Which will 
 not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so 
 wisely," may have been in ancient Palestine, it is now 
 scarcely possible to say ; but in the old version of Holy 
 Writ the translators rendered the original word sometimes as 
 " adder," sometimes as " cockatrice " a fearful reptile, which 
 in the days of King James was thoroughly believed in. But 
 our poets, knowing that one of the English snakes is so 
 called, transferred to it the epithet of " deaf " regardless of 
 the fact that the creature is really very quick of hearing. 
 " Fierce" is another epithet sometimes coupled with it 
 " as the adder deaf and fierce ; " " fierce as the adder and 
 as deaf." Pope has " fierce as a startled adder," and our 
 English reptile, though a timid thing, will, it is true, turn, 
 but impotently, at bay if pursued and teased. 
 
 With regard to these two Biblical points, the "ferocity" 
 and the deafness of the adder, the following passages from 
 Wood's " Bible Animals " are worth quoting. Speaking of 
 the general apathy of snakes, he says 
 
 "The late Mr. Waterton, for example, would take up a 
 rattlesnake in his bare hand without feeling the least uneasy 
 as to the behaviour of his prisoner. 
 
 "He once took twenty-seven rattlesnakes out of a box, 
 carried them into another room, put them into a large glass 
 case, and afterwards replaced them in the box." 
 
 Coming then to the English adder, Mr. Wood gives the 
 following personal reminiscence : 
 
 "As a rule, a great amount of provocation is needed 
 before a venomous serpent will use its teeth. 
 
 " One of my friends, when a boy, caught a viper, mistaking 
 it for a common snake. He tied it round his neck, coiled 
 
42 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 it on his wrist by way of a bracelet, and so took it home, 
 playing many similar tricks with it as he went. After arrival 
 in the house, he produced the viper for the amusement 
 of his brothers and sisters, and, after repeating his per- 
 formances, tried to tie the snake in a double knot. This, 
 however, was enough to provoke the most pacific of 
 creatures, and in consequence he received a bite on his 
 finger." 
 
 Respecting its deafness the same writer gives the following 
 delightful quotation from a "Sermon for the eleventh day 
 after Pentecost," by " Luis of Granada : " 
 
 " Their fury is after the likeness of the serpent, as the 
 asp which even stoppeth her ears which heedeth not the 
 voice of the charmers, even of the wizard which charmeth 
 wisely. 
 
 " For they say commonly, the asp, while she is charmed, 
 so that she poisoneth not men with her deadly venom, layest 
 one of her ears to the ground and stoppeth the other by 
 thereunto putting her tail, that so the strength of the poison 
 which lurketh within may abide without." 
 To this the author adds the remark 
 " It may be as well to remark, before passing to another 
 of the serpents, that snakes have no external ears, and that 
 therefore the notion of the serpent stopping its ears is 
 zoologically a simple absurdity." 
 
 Viper is poetically, as also in popular language, a synonym 
 of adder, and the name is given as a rule to all snakes that 
 are of the smaller size but greater venom. To the larger, 
 the name " serpent " is appropriated. To illustrate this from 
 Thomson : 
 
 " Lo ! the green serpent, from his dark abode, 
 Which e'en Imagination fears to tread, 
 At noon forth issuing, gathers up his train 
 In orbs immense, then, darting out anew, 
 Seeks the refreshing fount ; by which diffused, 
 He throws his folds ; and while, with threatening tongue 
 
Snakes in Nature. 43 
 
 And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls 
 His flaming crest, all other thirst, appalled, 
 Or shivering flies, or checked at distance stands, 
 Nor dares approach." 
 
 This is the serpent, the reptile of the largest size. Then 
 the passage continues thus : 
 
 " But still more direful he, 
 The small close-lurking minister of fate, 
 Whose high concocted venom through the veins 
 A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift 
 The vital current. Formed to humble man, 
 This child of vengeful Nature." 
 
 Here we have the two poetic genera in juxtaposition, the 
 one terrific, bulky, crested, that awes all the wild things of 
 the tropics by its furious aspect, and its acknowledged 
 strength; the other insignificant in size, but "lightning" in 
 its deadliness. 
 
 Nor are these passages without interest as illustrating 
 several very prevalent errors prevalent, not only among 
 poets about this most wondrous order of creatures. They 
 may indeed be called the " normal " errors of the poets. 
 __One of these is the idea that snakes Titania's " spotted 
 snakes with double tongues" wound with their tongues. 
 Shakspeare has both " tooth " and " sting," and was evidently 
 in doubt on the point. Thomson, we have seen, has 
 " threatening tongue " because, perhaps, Somerville (whom 
 he had read assiduously and to much useful purpose) has 
 the same expression : 
 
 1 ' So when the unwary clown with hasty step 
 Crushes the folded snake, her wounded parts, 
 Grov'lling, she trails along, but her high crest 
 Erect she bears, in all its speckled pride 
 She swells, inflamed, and with her forky tongue 
 Threatens destruction." 
 
 Scott compromises with his doubts : 
 
 " Thus, circled in his coil, the snake, 
 When roving hunters beat the brake, 
 
44 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Watches with red and glistening eye, 
 Prepared, if heedless steps draw nigh, 
 ~W\i\\. forked tongue and venomed fang 
 Instant to dart the deadly pang ; 
 But if the intruders turn aside 
 Away his coils unfolded glide, 
 And through the deep savanna wind 
 Some undisturbed retreat, to find." 
 
 Many other poets are content to be equally ambiguous, 
 while in some there is a suspicion of the further error that 
 the snake "stings." With its tail ? Marvell starts it, so far as 
 I can gather, with 
 
 " Disarmed of its teeth and sting ; " 
 and after him many follow, as Allan Ramsay in 
 " Th' envenomed tooth or forked sting ; " 
 
 or Eliza Cook in 
 
 " Crushing and stinging with venomed fold." 
 
 Philips continues the fiction with an admirable originality, 
 hardly to be expected from the author of " Cider : " 
 
 " And as a snake, when first the rosy hours 
 Shed vernal sweets o'er ev'ry vale and mead, 
 Rolls tardy from his cell obscure and dank ; 
 But, when by genial rays of summer sun 
 Purg'd of his slough he nimbler threads the brake, 
 Whetting his sting, his crested head he rears, 
 Terrific from each eye retort he shoots 
 Ensanguin'd rays the distant swains admire 
 His various neck and spires bedropp'd with gold." 
 
 The idea of " whetting his sting " is as delightful, but not 
 so original as the rest, for in other poets we have the wild- 
 boar and the rhinoceros whetting their tusks under very 
 similar circumstances. Moreover, there is the high prescrip- 
 tion of Holy Writ : " They have sharpened their tongues 
 like a serpent," says the Psalmist. Southey makes thankful 
 use of it in the lines 
 
 " Wily as the snake 
 That sharps his venomed tooth in every brake." 
 
Snakes in Nature. 45 
 
 So much for the errors as to what the Americans call " the 
 business ends " of the snake. Another class concerns itself 
 with the creature's appearance. "The vulgar" always call 
 snakes "slimy," and poets do so too. Thus Rogers, who 
 ought to have known better, says : 
 
 " Everywhere from bush and brake, 
 The musky odour of the serpents came, 
 Their slimy track across the woodman's path 
 Bright in the moonshine." 
 
 The origin of the error that snakes are slimy, so far as 
 modern poets are concerned, is perhaps Darwin, who more 
 than once speaks of the " foamy folds" of serpents, and as 
 he was a naturalist, his word of course went for much. 
 Among other misconceptions as to the tribe may be noted 
 Pitt's idea, that serpents feed on poison-plants 
 
 " So the fell snake rejects the fragrant flow'rs 
 But every poison of the field devours ; " 
 
 and the more common ones that these reptiles stand on 
 end when angry, and that they are most active at noon and 
 asleep by night. 
 
 Darwin has a remarkable fancy on the reciprocity of 
 alarm : 
 
 " Stern stalks the lion ; on the rustling brinks 
 Hears the dread snake, and trembles as he drinks, 
 Quick darts the scaly monster o'er the plain, 
 Fold over fold his undulating train ; 
 And bending o'er the lake his crested brow, 
 Starts at the crocodile, that gapes below." 
 
 What power there is in Spenser's simple lines 
 
 " Like a snake whom wearie winter's teene 
 Hath worne to nought, now, feeling summer's might, 
 Casts off his ragged skin and freshly doth him dight." 
 
 All poets are attracted by this idea of rejuvenescence, 
 and the casting of the slough is as regularly recurrent as 
 
46 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 the deer's "hanging of his old head on the pale." Says 
 Somerville : 
 
 " Brisk as a snake in merry May 
 That just had cast his slough away." 
 
 And Montgomery : 
 
 " The serpent flings his slough away 
 And shines in Orient colours dight, 
 A flexile ray of living light." 
 
 Whether or not these reptiles exercise a fascinating in- 
 fluence over other creatures is still an undecided point. 
 But antiquity held that they could charm with the eye ; and 
 the bird spellbound by the snake has passed into an 
 accepted metaphor. In verse its occurs abundantly : 
 
 " It was vain to hold the victim, 
 
 For he plunged to meet her call, 
 Like the bird that shrieks and flutters 
 
 In the gazing serpent's thrall." Campbell. 
 
 " As the snake's magnetic glare 
 Charms the flitting tribes of air, 
 Till the dire enchantment draws 
 Destined victims to his jaws." Montgomery. 
 
 " Like the bird whose pinions quake, 
 
 But cannot fly the gazing snake." Byron. 
 
 " Thou'lt fly? As easily may victims run 
 The gaunt snake hath once fixed eyes upon ; 
 As easily, when caught, the prey may be 
 Plucked from his loving folds as thou from me." Moore. 
 
 " This cold and creeping kinsman who so long 
 Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon 
 The fluttering bird." Byron. 
 
 Of their personal beauty the poets draw an almost 
 exaggerated picture. Wondrous as the elegance and adorn- 
 
Snakes in Nature. 47 
 
 ment of these creatures undoubtedly are, it is almost 
 excessive to speak of their "volumes of scaly gold" and 
 '* thousand mingling colours," when referring to the actual 
 reptile in nature. That Keats should make his Lamia 
 transcendent in splendour, or Shelley his serpents of fancy 
 such miracles of loveliness, is well within their licence ; but 
 when the real creature is under description, poetical rapture 
 often goes beyond the subject. As in Montgomery : 
 
 " Terribly beautiful, the serpent lay 
 Wreathed like a coronet of gold and jewels 
 Fit for a tyrant brow ; anon he flew, 
 Straight as an arrow shot from his own rings, 
 And struck his victim shrieking, ere it went 
 Down his strained throat, the open sepulchre." 
 
 Their eyes are not like "live rubies " nor "living emeralds," 
 
 "The light of such a joy as makes the stare 
 Of hungry snakes like living emeralds glow, 
 Shone in a hundred human eyes." Shelley. 
 
 but, on the contrary, are most malignantly, venomously, dull, 
 and quite incapable of " flinging out arrows of death." 
 
 That snakes leap at their victims is one of those popular 
 errors which it seems impossible to destroy. For, as a rule, 
 men and woman lose some of their presence of mind when 
 confronted suddenly and the snake is very sudden in its 
 gestures with one of these reptiles, and, if struck at, always 
 declare that the creature " sprang " at them. But it is a fact 
 that no snake can leave the ground; moreover, that the 
 radius of their stroke is limited in a fixed relation to their 
 length, a four-foot individual, for instance, being only able 
 to wound at say a foot-and-a-half, and so on in proportion to 
 the varying lengths. So that the snake 
 
 " Who pours his length 
 And hurls at once his venom and his strength " 
 
 is a poetical fiction, as, for the same reason, is Montgomery's 
 brilliant reptile quoted above. 
 
48 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Scott has " Like adder darting from his coil," and Byron, 
 " As darts an angry asp." 
 
 Sometimes there is a harmless snake, as in Joanna 
 Baillie's "Devotional Song for a Negro Child," where 
 " stingless snakes entwisted lying," are mentioned among 
 the usual features of a tropical noontide a very curious 
 effort of fancy or, as in Waller's address to " A Fair Lady 
 playing with a Snake : " 
 
 " Thrice happy snake ! that in her sleeve 
 May boldly creep ; we dare not give 
 Our thoughts so unconfined a leave. 
 
 Contented in that nest of snow 
 He lies, as he his bliss did know, 
 And to the wood no more would go ; " 
 
 and again, in Broome, in the poem " To a Lady," that com- 
 mences, " It is a pleasing, direful sight, At once you charm 
 us and affright." This more amiable aspect of the reptile 
 is, however, legitimately extended in the " Faery Queen," 
 where we find Cambina's " rod of peace " entwined with 
 two wedded serpents, " with one olive garland crowned." 
 This was probably emblematic of the impending reconcilia- 
 tionof the combatant heroes andtheir simultaneous espousals. 
 For " the rod which Maia's son doth wield, Wherewith the 
 hellish fiends he doth confound," which Spenser himself 
 introduces as resembling that borne by the lovely peace- 
 maker of his poem was also snake bound ; and one 
 legend (though another less pleasing attaches to the staff of 
 Mercury) runs that Hermes once found two snakes fighting, 
 and, having separated them, twisted them round his caduceus, 
 or herald's staff, as typical of peace restored. At first this 
 staff was of entwisted olive branches adorned with white 
 ribands which is still the colour of peace; but in later 
 representations of the herald divinity snakes take the place 
 of the ribands. For a different reason the wand of "the 
 
Snakes in Nature. 49 
 
 blameless physician " carried serpents, the art of yEsculapius 
 being here symbolised by the creature which " renews its 
 youth," and was supposed to have an instinctive knowledge 
 of the healing virtues of herbs. The brazen serpent of the 
 Mosaic wilderness had, in this restorative and curative 
 significance, been anticipated in the temple courts of 
 Epidaurus. It affords a simile on empiric nostrums. Thus 
 Green, in his poem on The Spleen 
 
 "A corporation, 
 
 The brazen serpent of the nation, 
 Which, when hard accidents distressed, 
 The poor must look at to be blessed." 
 
 But as a rule it is "vengeful;" "pernicious;" "with 
 venom fraught ; " " painted and empoisoned ; " the supreme 
 peril ("you might as safely waken a serpent," is an 
 accepted comparison for the most hazardous enterprises *) ; a 
 creature of secret ways, " more hid than paths of snakes " 
 (Davenant); the uttermost symbol of desolation. "Palmyra's 
 ruins " have no tenant but the hissing serpent " (Moore) ; it 
 sits on the "Rajah's throne" when the lawful dynasty is 
 extinct (Hemans) ; " rolls " through the "deserted market 
 and the pleading-place, Choked with brambles and o'er- 
 grown with grass " (Cowley) : and so in Coleridge : 
 
 "The mighty columns were but sand, 
 And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins." 
 
 The movement of the snake, so suggestive at once of 
 subtlety and of strength, so wonderfully elegant and yet 
 awe-inspiring, could not fail to arrest the poet's attention and 
 provoke his admiration 
 
 1 ' ' Pauses ere he wake 
 The slumbering venom of the folded snake : 
 The first may turn, but not avenge the blow, 
 The last expires, but leaves no living foe ; 
 Fast to the doom'd offender's form it clings, 
 And he may crush not conquer still it stings ! " Byron. 
 
 D 
 
5o The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " And when they paint the serpent's scaly pride, 
 
 Their lines should hiss, their numbers smoothly glide." 
 
 Abundant recognition, therefore, is given to the striking 
 grace with which these fearsome things sinuously glide, and 
 as if obeying the attraction of some invisible magnet rather 
 than progressing by any voluntary exercise of muscle, move 
 from place to place. Many fine images are thus suggested, 
 and finest of all is Keats : 
 
 " At this, through all his bulk an agony 
 Crept gradual, from the feet into the crown ; 
 Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular 
 Making slow way, with head and neck convulsed 
 From overstrained might." 
 
 But Virgil's fine picture of the wounded snake that 
 "drags its slow length along" has many admirers : 
 
 1 ' The trodden serpent on the grass 
 Long behind his wounded volume trails." 
 
 That wonderfully poetical touch in Nature of placing 
 serpents in all her Edens, giving them the most exquisite 
 foliage and flowers for their ambush, is not wasted on poets. 
 But I cannot help thinking that they strike a false note when 
 they make the presence of the snake detract from the beauty 
 of the blossoms under which it hides. Roses, as Shakspeare 
 says, are not ' l deceitful " because the adder is beneath. The 
 contrast is itself sufficient, and if any moral is to be drawn, 
 it might better be one of apology for the dangerous reptile 
 in seeking such a resting-place than of reproach for the 
 innocent flower. The rose, curiously enough, is specially 
 selected as the serpent's retreat : 
 
 " As poisonous serpents make their dread repose 
 Beneath the covert of the fragrant rose." 
 
 Yet it is improbable that snakes often go to sleep under a 
 rose bush, except our own harmless reptile in England. 
 To tread on a serpent is proverbially perilous, but how ludi- 
 
Snakes in Natitre. 5 1 
 
 crous the whole situation becomes, when as in King, trodden 
 gives place to spurned. 
 
 " Fell as a spurned serpent as she shoots along 
 With lightning in her eyes, poison in her tongue." 
 
 Moreover, oddly enough, in plant-lore, this particular flower 
 is one of those said to be distasteful to venomous reptiles. 
 
 That serpents specially affected the rose as their lurking- 
 place, is, then, a poetical fancy, natural enough when the 
 desire for strong contrast is needed, but not supported by 
 any traditions. The beautiful, sweet-scented rose, the de- 
 light of the fair, is a striking contradiction to the "hideous, 
 foul-smelling " reptile, the terror of the sex ; and folk-lore 
 does not encourage the association. 
 
 Snakes, so the people's traditions say, love lavender and 
 walnut-trees and fennel. " More pleased my sense," says 
 Satan to Eve, "than smell of sweetest fennel." It was 
 supposed to assist them in casting their skins, thus restoring 
 youth, and in brightening their eyes dimmed by old age. 
 They hate and flee from hemlock, southernwood, and rue. 
 Indeed, so violent and notorious is the reptile's aversion 
 to the last-named that its antagonists take advantage of it, 
 to fortify themselves against its assaults. Thus " when the 
 Weesil is to fight with the Serpent, she armeth herselfe by 
 eating Rue against the might of the Serpent ; " which is a 
 curious reproduction of the fiction of the mongoose's eating 
 of the "aristolochia," another of the snake's vegetable anti- 
 pathies. 
 
 As to the southernwood, I have my doubts, in spite of 
 Lucan : 
 
 " There the large branches of the long-lived hart, 
 With southernwood their odours strong impart ; 
 The monsters of the land, the serpents fell, 
 Fly far away, and shun the hostile smell." 
 
 For during the Afghan campaign I rode through leagues 
 
52 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 of it, and found snakes as common amongst it as in the 
 highly-aromatic sage-brush of Western America. It is worth 
 noting, though, how, in a way analogous to the " doctrine 
 of signatures," the strong-smelling, aromatic snakes are 
 popularly connected with the most odorous herbs lavender, 
 walnut, fennel, rue, and "old-man." Nor will snakes, tradition 
 says, come under the juniper or the ash-tree. So Cowley 
 has 
 
 " But that which gave more wonder than the rest, 
 Within an ash a serpent built her nest 
 And laid her eggs : where erst to come beneath 
 The very shadow of the ash were death." 
 
 " The leaves of this tree," saith an old herbalist, " are of so 
 great virtue against serpents that they dare not so much as 
 touch the morning and evening shadowes of the tree, but 
 shun them afar off, as Pliny reports. He also affirmeth that 
 the serpent being hemmed in with boughes laid round about, 
 will sooner run into the fire, if any be there, than come neare 
 the boughes of the ash ; and that the ash flowereth befor 
 the serpents appear, and doth not cast its leaves befor 
 they be gon again. ' We write (saith he) upon experience, 
 that if the serpent be set within a circle of fire and the 
 branches, the serpent will sooner run into the fire than into 
 the boughes. It is a wonderfull courtesie in nature, that 
 the ash should flower befor the serpents appear, and not 
 cast her leaves befor they be gon again.' " 
 
 If they have to be driven away, nothing is more efficacious 
 than the strewing of leaves of star-wort on the ground, or, 
 " which doth astonish them," sprigs of that virtuous herb 
 dittany. Should any one be bitten by snakes, tradition 
 assures a complete antidote in the adder's-tongue fern : 
 
 " For them that are with newts, or snakes, or adders stung 
 He seeketh out an herb that is called adder's tongue ; 
 As Nature it ordained its own like hurt to cure, 
 And sportive did herself to niceties insure." 
 
Snakes in Nature. 53 
 
 Are more wanted? Then take bramble leaves or herb- 
 william, bugloss, horehound, betony, hawk-weed, or a cross 
 made of hazel twigs. Indeed, bugloss and dittany will not 
 only cure the bitten but kill the biter all of which is very 
 curious and pathetically human, seeing that these weeds are 
 but common wayside wildings, and not some upas or man- 
 chineel or dreadful Chilian serpent-tree. That these should 
 chill the fiery, blood-kindling venom of snakes we could 
 almost be content to imagine. Their own juices are too 
 fatal for serpents' rivalry. 
 
 It is easy, therefore, to see how these reptiles came to 
 possess the reputation of being cunning in herbs, and so, 
 illogically (after the manner of popular beliefs), of being 
 themselves medicinal, their flesh not only wholesome and 
 curative but miraculous in its virtues, endowing with the 
 knowledge of the speech of animals, and of the hiding-place 
 of buried treasures, and their effigies to be the acknowledged 
 crest and trade-mark of physicians from ^Esculapius to 
 Holloway. Hygeia herself always carries a serpent; and 
 in this connection how delightfully consular and Roman is 
 that anecdote of Exagoras, the ambassador from Cyprus. 
 He came to Rome and bored them all so dreadfully with 
 talking about the virtues of herbs and snakes that the 
 consuls had him put into a tank full of serpents to test his 
 long-winded theories. And the odd thing was, the vipers 
 would not touch the ambassador. 
 
 Nor, as a testimonial to the serpent's ability as an herbalist, 
 is the following incident to be neglected. Glaucus, son of 
 Minos, died, and the king, his father, in a high-handed 
 fashion, shut up a certain one in the family vault with the 
 corpse, telling him that he should never come out alive 
 unless his son did so too. The unfortunate man sat him 
 down, disconsolately enough, we may suppose, by the side 
 of the dead body, when, suddenly, there appeared a snake, 
 which, as he saw it was about to crawl upon the bier, he 
 
54 The Poets and Nat^lre. 
 
 killed. Soon after, in came a second snake, and it, on per- 
 ceiving its dead relative, hastily retreated, but, by-and-by, 
 returning with a sprig of herb in its mouth, restored the first 
 snake to life. Acting on the hint, the prisoner took the 
 precious vegetable, and rubbing Glaucus' corpse with it, 
 had shortly the satisfaction of walking out of the mausoleum 
 arm-in-arm with the revivified prince. 
 
 That the "glossy vine" was a "serpent charm" is a 
 poetical tradition new to me, and may perhaps be an error 
 for that other plant of Bacchus the "glossy" ivy. Nor can 
 I trace Wyatt's superstition 
 
 " That snakes have twice to cast away their stings." 
 
 British snakes being harmless are not in harmony with the 
 poetical serpent "idea," and seldom occur in verse. In 
 Coleridge and Wordsworth, " hurrying along the drifted forest 
 leaves, the scared snake rustles ; " but twice only, as far as I 
 am aware, that pretty creature, our " grass-snake," receives 
 kindly mention. These notable exceptions are in the verse 
 of that delightful poet of nature, Hurdis, who speaks in the 
 Favourite Village of "the viper and the basking eft " 
 
 "And spotted snakes, innocuous as they glide, 
 With whisper not unwelcome," 
 
 and Marvell, who presents his beloved shepherdess with 
 "a harmless snake." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 SNAKES IN TRADITION. 
 
 TRADITIONS, whether ancient or modern, all conspire to 
 make the serpent-folk inhabitants either of a subterranean 
 darkness or of the earth's most desolate places, black 
 creviced rocks and rotting vegetation, blistering desert sands 
 and festering swamps. They are the outlaws of animal 
 society. Erebus and lower Orcus and Tartarus below Hades 
 know them. They are familiars of the gloomy shades by 
 Styx, in the caverned banks of Acheron and Cocytus, the 
 Cimmerian darkness beside Avernus. And wherever we 
 find them, they are the rejected of creation, and for ever 
 grovelling upon their bellies and sulkily tracing upon the 
 dust the hieroglyphic record of the original curse. 
 
 Yet how differently the lives of these splendid and 
 powerful beings are really passed. What creatures revel in 
 more exquisite vegetation of leaf and blossom than the boas, 
 anacondas, and pythons? and do not snakes share with 
 fish their abodes in sea and river and lake ? Indeed, there 
 is no family of wild life that traverses so completely every 
 experience of delightful habitation. 
 
 Nor does tradition sufficiently set forth the great snake- 
 parable, with its awful significances of latent mischief, 
 ambushed in such beauty. " Not even the plumage of the 
 Birds of Paradise can excel the purples, blues, and gold of a 
 python that has just cast its slough, while an infinite and 
 terrible interest underlies those iridescent charms from the 
 
56 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 fact that the coils, soft as rose leaves, and shot with colours 
 like a dove's breast, can crush the life out of a jaguar in all its 
 rage, and slowly squeeze it into pulp. Watch its breathing ; 
 it is as gentle as a child's. Let danger threaten, however, 
 and lightning is hardly quicker than the dart of those 
 vengeful convolutions. The gleaming length rustles proudly 
 into menace, and instead of the voluptuous lazy thing of a 
 moment ago, the python, with all its terrors complete, erects 
 itself defiantly, thrilling, so it seems, with eager passion in 
 every scale, and tracing on the air with threatening head the 
 circle within which is death." No wonder that the world has 
 always held the serpent in awe, and that nations should have 
 worshipped, and still worship, this emblem of destruction. 
 It is fate itself, inevitable as destiny, deliberate as reason, 
 incomprehensible as Providence. Yet in poetry they figure 
 invariably as the instruments of divine wrath, the objects of 
 popular detestation, the most hateful metamorphoses of 
 humanity, the incarnations of sin. Their graces are deceits, 
 their powers malign. From their very criminality they 
 command reverence as being potential. Even the legends 
 of their beneficence do them no good. They are wise, but 
 only as the bad, as witches, as the devils, are wise. Huma- 
 nity begrudges them even the credit for their lapses into 
 benignity, and hardly forgives them honourable memories. 
 
 "Both gods and heroes alike held victory over the snake 
 as the supreme criterion of valour. They graduated to 
 divinity by slaying serpents. Indra and Vishnu conquer 
 snakes, Hercules has his hydra, St. George his dragon, and 
 Apollo his python. It is over the body of Ladon, terrible 
 progeny of a terrible parentage Typhon the father and 
 Echidna the dam that the hero steps to gather the golden 
 apples ; and across the dread chameleonising coils of Fafnir, 
 that Sigurd reaches out his hand to the treasures of Brunhild 
 on the glistening heath. What more fearful in Oriental myth 
 than Vritna ; the endless thing which the gods overcome ; or 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 57 
 
 Kalinak, the black death ; or Ahi, the throttler ? Jason and 
 Perseus, Feridun and Odin, claim triumph over the snake 
 as the chiefest of their glories, and it would be tedious to 
 recapitulate the multitude of myths through which ' the dire 
 worm ' has come down to our own time dignified and made 
 awful by the honours and fears of the past." 
 
 Foremost of all the reptiles of tradition is that " spirited 
 sly snake," " the enemy of mankind," that " unparadised the 
 world." 
 
 1 ' Say first what cause 
 
 Mov'd our grand parents, in that happy state, 
 Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off 
 From their Creator, and transgress His will 
 For one restraint, lords of the world besides? 
 Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt? 
 Th' infernal Serpent." 
 
 In " Paradise Lost," the Satanic vehicle is always of great 
 dignity, and however seriously it may be denounced is 
 treated with severe respect. In some other poets it is 
 scarcely so important a personage. Cowper, indeed, makes 
 it ridiculous. Marvell has this quaint fancy 
 
 " When our first parents Paradise did grace, 
 The serpent was the prelate of the place ; 
 Fond Eve did, for this subtle tempter's sake, 
 From the forbidden tree the pippin take ; 
 His God and Lord this preacher did betray, 
 To have the weaker vessel made his prey." 
 
 And Cowley this 
 
 " Oh Solitude ! first state of human kind, 
 Which blessed remained till man did find 
 Eve his own help and company ; 
 As soon as two, alas ! together joined, 
 The serpent made up three." 
 
 But with Milton my only fault is that he sat down to write 
 of the Temptation unfairly prejudiced against the snake. 
 He is fanatically, Puritanically, inflexible : refuses to give it, 
 as he does King Charles, the benefit of a generous doubt. 
 Neither the one nor the other was without compulsion in 
 
58 The Poets and Natitre. 
 
 error but what of that ? Like the stout Roundhead that 
 he was, he looked only at the ultimate offence, and would 
 not take extenuating circumstances into consideration 
 
 ' ' The serpent sly 
 
 Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine 
 His braided train, and of his fatal guile 
 Gave proof unheeded. " 
 
 This passage is from Milton's description of the Garden 
 of Eden, and is his first reference to the creature which he 
 afterwards, when its body had been invaded by Satan, loads 
 with such infamy. It is for my purpose, a notable passage, 
 as showing how the great poet allowed his knowledge of the 
 sequel to prejudice him beforehand against the snake when 
 it was then, as he himself later on proves, a harmless beast, 
 a favourite of Eve's, and as yet perfectly innocent. Sin had 
 not as yet entered Paradise. 
 
 " Frisking played 
 
 All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase 
 In wood or wilderness, forest or den : 
 Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw 
 Dandled the kid ; bears, tigers, ounces, pards, 
 Gambol'd before them." 
 
 Only the snake is described as created in original sin and 
 being naturally vicious, of "fatal guile." Milton no doubt 
 thought he had inspired authority for separating this one 
 animal from all the others by such a terrific chasm, for in 
 Genesis we read, " Now, the serpent was more subtle than 
 any beast of the field." But I understand the authorities 
 upon the Scriptures would read this in an esoteric sense, 
 just as in the New Testament they do not take categorically 
 our Lord's advice, "Be wise as serpents." Was it really 
 intended by the Inspirer of Genesis that the snake should 
 be held up to calumny ? At any rate, it seems to me incon- 
 testable that no poet had the privilege to " mar creation's 
 plan," by supposing that in the sinless garden there was 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 59 
 
 placed one sinful beast. The idea of this solitary iniquity 
 in Paradise is intolerable. 
 
 Later on, Satan determines to pervert the snake, take 
 possession of its body, and bedevil its innocent animal 
 intelligence with something worse than human wickedness. 
 He makes up his mind to find 
 
 " The serpent sleeping, in whose mazy folds 
 To hide him, and the dark intent he brought ; " 
 
 and so descends in the form of a black mist to look for the 
 devoted creature : 
 
 " Him fast-sleeping soon he found, 
 In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled, 
 His head the midst, well stor'd with subtle wiles ; 
 Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den, 
 Nor nocent yet, but on the grassy herb 
 Fearless, unfeared, he slept. In at his mouth 
 The Devil entered, and his brutal sense, 
 In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired 
 With act intelligential ; but his sleep 
 Disturbed not." 
 
 Up to this point, therefore, the wretched serpent is the 
 passive victim of a most atrocious trespass. Henceforth it 
 is not its own self but " possessed," and no more to blame 
 than the bedevilled swine of Gadara, It has been made 
 the instrument of a designing villain ; which was its misfor- 
 tune, not its fault ; and in its second state it was not, to my 
 thinking, a bit more culpable than in its first. For it was 
 not responsible for itself, being under the direct control of 
 the Fiend " incarnate and imbruted " in its form. That the 
 Creator subsequently judged otherwise, and took away the 
 serpent's legs as a punishment for the part it had played in the 
 great tragedy, only shows the infirmity of human judgment, 
 and must be accepted in the same humility of mind as the 
 visiting of a man's sins upon the fourth generation of his 
 posterity, and quite apart from mortal theories of justice. 
 Milton, however, would remove the apparent hardship of the 
 
60 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 serpent's lot first misused by the Devil and then punished 
 by God by making it a conscious accomplice of Satan. 
 He commences with saying that when everything else 
 created was innocuous and amiable, it alone was filled with 
 " fatal guile." Then when the Tempter finds it asleep, the 
 poet describes its head as "well stored with subtle wiles;" 
 and subsequently, when Eve hears it begin to talk, she 
 addresses it in amazement thus : 
 
 " Thee, serpent, subtlest beast of all the field 
 I knew, but not with human voice endued." 
 
 So that not only is the snake originally wicked, but Eve, that 
 miracle of heavenly innocence, actually knows it. Surely 
 this idea, that suspicion was present in Paradise, spoils the 
 whole picture. 
 
 That the poet himself seems to recognise his difficulty 
 is, I think, evident ; for besides his iteration of the original, 
 native, badness of the serpent (itself significant), he makes 
 Satan, when informing the chiefs of hell of his triumph over 
 man, and the subsequent curse, deride thus : 
 
 " Me also hath He judged, or rather 
 Afe not, but the brute serpent, in whose shape 
 Man I deceived." 
 
 Throughout the latter part of his speech Satan tries, and 
 successfully, to make the Fall ridiculous, for his audience 
 laugh when they hear about the apple ; and then he goes on 
 to deride what seems to him, and to Milton, the vicarious 
 culpation of the serpent. 
 
 However, to continue "the poet's splendidly original 
 description of the snake, we find Satan, a " mere serpent in 
 appearance," searching all the favourite haunts of our first 
 parents, and at last, "beyond his hope," he spies Eve all 
 alone tending her flowers. The sight of her beauty strikes 
 him at first "stupidly good," as the poet puts it, but 
 immediately thereafter inflames him with fiercer envy of 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 61 
 
 Adam's happy lot, and he moves on, soliloquising as he goes 
 upon the ruin he is about to work : 
 
 '" So spake th" enemy of mankind, inclosed 
 In serpent, inmate bad, and toward Eve 
 Addressed his way, not with indented wave, 
 Prone to the ground, as since, but on his rear, 
 Circular base of rising folds, that towered 
 Fold above fold a surging maze, his head 
 Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes ; 
 With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect 
 Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass 
 Floated redundant : pleasing was his shape, 
 And lovely ; never since of serpent kind 
 Lovelier." 
 
 But he does not approach Eve directly, but "with tract 
 oblique, as one who sought access, but feared to interrupt, 
 sidelong he worked his way," and when in her sight he dis- 
 plays himself to catch her attention : 
 
 1 ' Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, 
 To lure her eye." 
 
 She hears him rustling, but does not look up, being so 
 accustomed to the beasts disporting themselves about her 
 and vying with each other for her regard. So the snake 
 comes right in front of her " as in gaze admiring." 
 
 " Oft he bow'd 
 
 . His turret crest and sleek enamel'd neck, 
 Fawning, and licked the ground whereon she trod. 
 His gentle dumb expression turned at length 
 The eye of Eve to mark his play." 
 
 Her attention thus won, the tragedy commences. She asks 
 him in astonishment how he came to have human speech. 
 He replies (" the spirited, sly snake "), by eating of a certain 
 fruit. She asks where the tree stands ? 
 
 " To whom the wily adder, blithe and glad : 
 Empress, the way is ready, and not long ; 
 
 ... If thou accept 
 My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon." 
 
62 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " Lead, then," says Eve ; and the serpent willingly starts off. 
 
 1 ' He leading swiftly rolled 
 In tangles, and made intricate seem straight, 
 To mischief swift. " 
 
 His crest flashes with hope, and like an ignis fatuus 
 11 glistered the dire snake " as he led Eve, 
 
 ' ' Our credulous mother, to the tree 
 Of prohibition, root of all our woes." 
 
 She sees, is tempted, and falls. 
 
 1 ' Earth felt the wound ; and Nature from her seat 
 Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe, 
 That all was lost ! Back to the thicket slunk 
 The guilty serpent," 
 
 and thereafter disappears from Eden. The curse is pro- 
 nounced, and Satan, reaching his own dominions, seats 
 himself upon his throne, and addressing the assembly of 
 fallen angels, "Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, 
 powers," boasts of what he has done, and then pauses for 
 " their universal shout and high applause to fill his ear." 
 Instead of that 
 
 1 ' he hears 
 
 On all sides, from innumerable tongues, 
 A dismal universal hiss ; " 
 
 and then Satan begins to feel himself turning into a snake. 
 " His arms clung to his ribs, his legs intwining each other," 
 till he falls off his throne "a monstrous serpent, on his belly 
 prone." In vain he attempts to address his captains, for he 
 can only hiss ; and then issuing from the hall the rout of 
 " complicated monsters " swarm into the open air, where all 
 the fallen host are awaiting their appearance, and, instead 
 of their chiefs, see "a crowd of ugly serpents." At the 
 sight, horror seizes them and they begin to change too, 
 " the dire form catched by contagion," until the whole of 
 Satan's followers are turned to hissing snakes. And lo ! by 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 63 
 
 divine miracle a grove of trees resembling the " dread pro- 
 bationary Tree" of Eden, heavy with luscious fruit; and 
 the scaly multitude, " rolling in heaps," scale the boughs, 
 hoping to eat But the fruit turns to "bitter ashes" in 
 their mouths ; yet goaded on by thirst and hunger, they 
 attempt to eat again and again; "with hatefullest disrelish 
 writhed their jaws, with soot and cinders filled ; " then worn 
 out with famine and with "ceaseless hissing," they are 
 temporarily respited and resume their proper shapes ; to 
 which Milton adds this legend : 
 
 " Yearly enjoined, some say, to undergo 
 This annual humbling certain numbered days, 
 To dash their pride, and joy for man seduced." 
 
 Such is the demoniacal serpent of Milton, and it is assuredly 
 a fine creation the foremost reptile in poetry. 
 
 How pitifully inadequate, after such a dignified flight, is 
 Cowper's " flittermouse wing" attempting the same lofty 
 theme. Here, for instance, is his curse, a travesty upon 
 the original : 
 
 " Prone on thy belly, serpent, thou shalt grovel, 
 As if to man suggesting, 
 Dark as the riddling God, man is of clay ; 
 And clay shalt thou be, destitute of soul, 
 As destitute of soul each other reptile." 
 
 It is the " Stygian," the " cruel " serpent, recognised by 
 both Adam and Eve as " empoisoned." Yet she admires 
 it, the monstrous hybrid : 
 
 " A human breast it has, 
 The rest is serpent all ; 
 Oh ! how the sun, emblazing with its rays 
 These gorgeous scales with glowing colours bright, 
 O'erwhelms my dazzled eyes." 
 
 And Adam specially points it out to her as a solace in 
 occasional solitude : 
 
64 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 " If weary amidst the flowers, 
 Thou seek'st to close thine eyes, 
 Behold ! with flattering pinions at thy feet, 
 A serpent midst the flowers darts and hisses." 
 
 And can anything be more odious in comparison with the 
 noble purity of Milton's treatment of the theme, than Cowper 
 making Eve longingly guess at the pleasures of wedded life 
 from observing the connubial complexities of snakes? 
 
 " Look there and see amidst the thousand folds 
 Those close entwisted snakes, 
 That in a single being seem combined 
 Coy Adam, even these 
 Weave the close web of love. " 
 
 This poet further makes Eve call the serpent to its face 
 "snaky:" 
 
 " Your looks are snaky, and your glance malign." 
 
 As for Satan, whom Cowper calls " Beelzebub," he is a 
 perfectly ridiculous personage, the very Bumble of devils. 
 
 In his poem on the Tree of Knowledge, Cowley supposes 
 the serpent to be Pride, allegorically typified : 
 
 " Henceforth, said God, the wretched sons of earth 
 Shall sweat for food in vain, 
 That will not long sustain ; 
 
 And bring, with labour, forth each fond abortive birth ; 
 That serpent, too, their pride, 
 Which aims at things deny'd 
 That learn'd and el'quent lust- 
 Instead of mounting high, shall creep upon the dust." 
 
 In the " Davideis " the snake again appears as the author 
 of mischief. The scene opens in Hell with Lucifer, in the 
 form of a gigantic serpent, seated on high : 
 
 " Anon, a thousand devils run roaming in, 
 Some with a dreadful smile, deform'dly grin ; 
 Some stamp their cloven paws, some foam and tear 
 The gaping snakes from their black knotted hair." 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 65 
 
 But Lucifer is outrageously grotesque. The rising star of 
 David, and the promise of the Messiah through his seed, 
 has filled Satan with fury. He cannot conceal his emotion 
 on hearing the news : 
 
 "Thrice did he knock his iron teeth, thrice howl ; " 
 
 and then, relieved, he reproaches his devils, and asks them 
 why they are not up and doing, instead of stopping at home 
 in Hell "playing with their idle serpents." But his rage 
 chokes further utterance, and breaks off in a hemistich, 
 short by two feet of the proper line, and 
 
 "With that, with his long tail he lashed his breast, 
 And, horribly, spoke out in looks the rest." 
 
 This outburst frightens the crowd into such silence that 
 
 " No hiss of snake, no clank of chain, was known, 
 The souls, amidst their tortures, durst not groan." 
 
 You might have heard a pin drop. But soon there is a 
 movement in the " dire throng," and Envy crawls forth : 
 
 " Her black locks hung long, 
 Attired with curling serpents ; her pale skin 
 Was almost dropp'd from the sharp bones within ; 
 And at her breast stuck vipers, which did prey 
 Upon her panting heart." 
 
 This dreadful personage volunteers her services, and after re- 
 counting her previous exploits very much after the manner 
 of one of Mayne Reid's " braves " going out to scalp a pale- 
 faceoffers to inspire Saul with mortal jealousy of David : 
 
 " She spoke. All stared at first, and made a pause ; 
 But straight the general murmur of applause 
 Ran through Death's courts." 
 
 "Great Beelzebub" starts up "to embrace the fiend," but 
 she dodges him and is off. 
 
 " The snakes all hissed, the fiends all murmured." 
 
 E 
 
66 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Arriving at Saul's palace, she assumes the form of " Father 
 Benjamin," and approaching the slumbering prince, upbraids 
 him for allowing David, "a boy and minstrel," to steal away 
 his people's love and his crown, and exhorts him to be 
 "whole Saul," and rid himself of the son of Jesse. 
 
 "With that she takes 
 
 One of her worst, her best-beloved, snakes ; 
 ' Softly, dear worm ! soft and unseen,' said she, 
 ' Into his bosom steal, and in it be 
 My viceroy ! '" 
 
 Cowley, again, speaking of the transformation of Aaron's 
 rod (which he calls " Moses' wand ") says : 
 
 " It gaped and hissed aloud, 
 With flaming eyes survey'd the trembling crowd, 
 And like a basilisk almost looked the assembly dead. 
 Swift fled th' amazed king, the guards before him fled ; " 
 
 which is a curious misreading of Holy Writ, inasmuch 
 as Pharaoh, in the hardness of his heart, only recognised 
 in the miracle one of the commonest tricks of his own court 
 jugglers. Instead of flying amazed before "the Almighty 
 wand," he sent, we are told, for the "magicians of Egypt," 
 who, at his orders, repeated the miracle. Cowley's version 
 of the incident is as follows : 
 
 " Jannes and Jambres stopp'd their fight, 
 And with proud words allay'd th' affright. 
 ' The god of slaves,' said they, ' how can he be 
 More powerful than their master's deity ? ' 
 And down they cast their rods, 
 
 And muttered secret sounds that charm the servile gods. 
 The evil spirits their charms obey. 
 All in a subtle cloud they snatched the rods away, 
 And serpents in their place the airy jugglers lay. 
 Serpents in Egypt's monstrous land 
 Were ready still at hand, 
 And all at th' Old Serpent's first command : 
 And they, too, gaped, and they, too, hissed, 
 And they their threatening tails did twist ; 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 67 
 
 But straight on both the Hebrew serpent flew, 
 Broke both their active backs, and both it slew, 
 And both almost at once devoured." 
 
 But it will be seen that here the poet as much detracts 
 from the authorised narrative as previously he had added to 
 it, inasmuch as from Holy Writ we gather that Aaron's rod 
 devoured more than two of the others, for the verse runs, 
 "They cast down every man his rod and they became 
 serpents : but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." For 
 myself I confess I have always imagined fancy being led 
 thereto by a picture in an illustrated Bible which much 
 attracted me in childhood that the floor of Pharaoh's 
 palace -was fairly littered with snakes, and that no part of the 
 miracle was quite so miraculous as Aaron's serpent which, 
 as depicted, was no bigger than most, and not so big as 
 some being able to contain all the rest. Doubtless my 
 timid scepticism on this point was conciliated by being 
 reminded of the extraordinary containing-capacity of other 
 kinds of snakes, and by some such zoological " fact " as the 
 boa-constrictor's habit of swallowing bulls. 
 
 Crashaw has exactly the same story as that of the 
 "Davideis," except that Cruelty takes the place of Envy. 
 Lucifer, " mischiefs old Master," hears in Hell of the birth 
 of the Messiah, and determines to baulk the Almighty. He 
 summons his ministers, and, though many volunteer, he 
 selects Cruelty whom the poet calls "the fourth Fury" 
 and sends her forth to pervert Herod. Assuming the shape 
 of Father Joseph, she approaches the sleeping Tetrarch, and, 
 in language very similar indeed to that of the "Davideis," fills 
 his breast with the horrible suggestion of the Massacre of 
 the Innocents. " Be Herod," she whispers, and vanishes. 
 
 " So said her richest snake, which to her wrist, 
 
 For a beseeming bracelet she had tied, 
 (A special worm it was, as ever kissed 
 The foamy lips of Cerberus) she applied 
 
68 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 To the king's heart ; the snake no sooner hissed 
 But Virtue heard it, and away she hied." 
 
 His Hell, by the way, is simply a wilderness of snakes. 
 
 How grandly different are Milton's pictures of the Arch- 
 Fiend in his monster-shape ! The scene is the Tartarian 
 lake, "as one great furnace flaming," a "fiery deluge, fed 
 with ever-burning sulphur unconsumed." Satan recognises 
 Beelzebub " weltering by his side," and they converse. The 
 Arch-Fiend is thus described : 
 
 " With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
 That sparkling blazed, his other parts beside 
 Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 
 Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as large 
 As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 
 Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, 
 Briareus or Typhon, whom the sea 
 By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast, 
 Leviathan, which God, of all His works, 
 Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream." 
 
 Later, when he is in eager flight, this fine image is em- 
 ployed : 
 
 " As when a gyphon through the wilderness, 
 With winged course, o'er hill or moor or dale, 
 Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth 
 Had from his wakeful custody purloined 
 The guarded gold." 
 
 And afterwards, when the actual transformation of the 
 rebellious host into serpents is described, we see their chief 
 
 " Still greatest in the midst, 
 Now dragon grown, larger than whom the sun 
 Ingender'd in the Pythian vale or slime, 
 Huge Python." 1 
 
 There is nobility of fancy throughout. 
 
 Traditionally the snake is " crested," so no poet refers to 
 a snake of any importance without mentioning its crest. 
 
 1 The python, curiously enough, has the vestiges of legs. P. R. 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 69 
 
 This is a poetical rule to which there is no exception. It is 
 Biblical, Homeric, heraldic, but none the less preposterous. 
 No snake has a crest. Some have inflations of the neck 
 below the head : a few very small vipers have prickles upon 
 their heads. But there is nothing in all herpetology to 
 warrant the " koruthaiolos " idea in which poets delight. 
 Classical tradition, however, abounds with it. So Milton 
 adopts it, and all others follow his example. But this and 
 other varieties of the poetic " basilisk " will be found duly 
 treated of in their proper places among the Fauna of Fancy. 
 Among the individual snakes of tradition, foremost, 
 perhaps, are those of the Furies 
 
 "Revenge! Revenge! Timotheus cries ; 
 See the furies arise ! , 
 See the snakes that they rear, 
 How they hiss in their hair ! 
 And the sparkles that flash 
 
 From their eyes ! " 
 
 more ancient than the Olympian gods, living in dark 
 Tartarus, but issuing thence to punish the infamous with 
 perpetual unrest and successive miseries. Tisiphone, too 
 
 "A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade, 
 A hundred serpents guard her horrid head." 
 
 and " fierce Alecto," with snaky tresses that listen and watch 
 while she sleeps ; and Megaera 
 
 " Tossing her vipers round, 
 Which, hissing, pour their poison on the ground." 
 
 The Gorgon again, "terrible Medusa," with her " long snaky 
 locks of adder-black hair " 
 
 "His dark hair 
 
 That pale brow wildly wreathing round, 
 As if the Gorgon there had bound 
 The sablest of the serpent-braid 
 That o'er her fearful forehead stray'd. " Byron. 
 
 Surely one of the saddest, most unfortunate of maidens, 
 
7o The Poets and Nature. 
 
 once so beautiful that gods wooed her, afterwards so dread- 
 ful that the mere sight of her face terrified men into stone 
 a notable illustration of "disastrous love" and of the 
 malignity of female revenge. Temples, no doubt, ought to 
 be respected, but whenever I think of Medusa's fate and 
 her "fearful head" with its "crested" snakes, my opinion 
 of Poseidon is not complimentary to that amphibious 
 divinity. 
 
 Next, the assailants of Laocoon, immortalised in noble 
 epic and almost as noble marble : 
 
 " Round sire and sons the scaly monsters rolled 
 Ring above ring, in many a tangled fold ; 
 Close, and more close, their writhing limbs surround, 
 And fix with foaming teeth the envenomed wound." 
 
 ' Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 
 Laocoon's torture dignifying pain 
 A father's love and mortal's agony 
 With an immortal's patience blending : Vain 
 The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain 
 And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
 The old man's clench ; the long envenom'd chain 
 Rivets the living links, the enormous asp 
 Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp." Byron. 
 
 ' At last her utmost Masterpieces she found, 
 That Maro fir'd ; the miserable sire, 
 Wrapt with his sons in Fate's severest grasp. 
 The serpents, twisting round, their stringent folds 
 Inextricable tie. Such passion here, 
 Such agonies, such bitterness of pain, 
 Seem so to tremble through the tortur'd stone, 
 That the touch' d heart engrosses all the view. 
 Almost unmask'd the best proportions pass, 
 That ever Greece beheld ; and, seen alone, 
 On the rapt eye th* imperious passions seize : 
 The father's double pangs, both for himself 
 And sons convuls'd ; to Heaven his rueful look, 
 Imploring aid, and half-accusing, cast; 
 His fell despair with indignation mixt, 
 As the strong-curling monsters from his side 
 His full-extended fury cannot tear. 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 7 1 
 
 More tender touch'd, with varied art, his sons 
 
 All the soft rage of younger passions show, 
 
 In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppress'd ; 
 
 While, yet unpierc'd, the frighted other tries 
 
 His foot to steal out of the horrid twine." Thomson. 
 
 Then the " dread snakes," who "at Juno's vengeful nod, 
 climbed round the cradle of the sleeping god." But the 
 baby happens to be Hercules, and 
 
 " Waked by the shrilling hiss and rustling sound, 
 And shrieks of fair attendants fainting round, 
 Their gasping throats with clenching hands he holds, 
 And death entwists their convoluted folds." 
 
 Of Cadmus, "how with the serpent's teeth he sowed the 
 soil, and reaped an iron harvest of his toil ! " from which 
 Coleridge draws the moral : 
 
 " Who sows the serpent's teeth, let him not hope 
 To reap a joyous harvest. Every crime 
 Has, in the moment of its preparation, 
 Its own avenging angel, dark misgiving, 
 An ominous sinking at the inmost heart." 
 
 Of lapetus, whom Keats sees grasping 
 
 "A serpent's plashy neck, its barbed tongue 
 Squeezed from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length 
 Dead : and because the creature could not spit 
 Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove." 
 
 The living bolts of the warring Titans, of Apollo's prowess, 
 " Latona's bane " 
 
 " Who slew Phiton the serpent where he lay 
 Sleeping against the sun upon a day." 
 
 Of the Egyptian Cleopatra, "regal dressed, with the aspic 
 at her breast " 
 
 " I am the worm the weary prize, 
 The Nile's soft asp, 
 One that a Queen has loved to clasp." 
 
72 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Nor are the serpent-reverences of contemporary cult for- 
 gotten, the snake-gods of India, where, as Sir W. Jones 
 sings 
 
 " Taraka, vuth snaky legions, 
 Envious of supernal powers, 
 Menaces old Meru's golden head, 
 And Indra's beamy regions, 
 With desolation wild bespread." 
 
 Foremost of these is Anantas, "the king of serpents, 
 with his thousand heads," the infinite 
 
 " That serpent old, 
 
 Which clasped the great world in its fold, 
 And brooded over earth and the charmed sea 
 Like endless, restless, drear Eternity ; " 
 
 and next Shesh, " whose diamond sun makes subterranean 
 day." The poet refers here without a doubt to that fine 
 legend of the Indian aborigines the Nagas, or "snake-men," 
 who say that once upon a time, and perhaps they are right, 
 they possessed the land, but were driven into the hill-fast- 
 nesses which they now inhabit by successive waves of 
 invasion, and that their great captain and divinity Shesh, 
 "the king of serpents" fled underground, and in con- 
 tempt of the sunlight from which he had been exiled, 
 created the Kanthi-stone, more brilliant than a whole rock 
 of diamond, by the light of which he keeps the diary 
 of the earth, and solemnly records the procession of the 
 ages. 1 
 
 This Shesh, "that never dies," and "whose hiss the round 
 
 1 The Cherokee Indians of the West have much the same legend as the 
 Nagas of the East, and Mrs. Hemans refers to 
 
 " The mighty serpent king 
 Midst the grey rocks, his old domain," 
 
 who is supposed to dwell in the central recesses of the mountains, the chief 
 of the rattlesnakes, and who, though subterranean, is honoured as the 
 "light-giver." P. R. 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 73 
 
 creation awes," is a reptile worthy of homage, and may be 
 accepted without hesitation and in defiance of all sea- 
 serpents, past and future, as the greatest snake on record. 
 When Vishnu and the gods meet to extort from the sea the 
 ichor of immortality, they pluck up from the Himalayan 
 range the biggest mountain in it, and this they make their 
 churn, while around it, as the strongest tackle they could 
 think of, they bound the serpent Shesh. And the gods 
 took hold of the head, and the devils took hold of the tail, 
 and, alternately tugging, they made the mountain spin round 
 and round, until the sea was churned into froth, and from 
 the churning came up all the treasures of the deep, and the 
 most precious possessions of man, and last of all Immortality. 
 The gods and the devils scrambled for all the good things, 
 but nothing more is said of the serpent who had been 
 so useful, nor what he got for his services. Antiquaries 
 in the West incline to think that he remained in the sea 
 and became the kraken ; but the Nagas believe him to 
 be still under the hills dispensing fate by the light of a 
 diamond. 
 
 When, too, Lakshmi fixes her admiring eyes upon " the 
 azure Hari," he started at the summons of love : 
 
 " Straight o'er the deep, then dimpling smooth, he rushed, 
 And towards th' unmeasured snake's stupendous bed 
 The world's great mother, not reluctant, led. 
 All Nature glow'd whene'er she smiled or blushed ; 
 
 The king of serpents hushed 
 
 His thousand heads, where diamond mirrors blazed 
 That multiplied her image as he gazed." 
 
 To these succeed a procession of the "serpents of 
 Romance," " sleepless and stern to guard the golden sight ; " 
 the great reptiles of knightly story. Southey's " Romance's 
 serpent winds the glittering fold." Of the victories of the 
 chivalrous over these baleful monsters there is no end : 
 
74 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 " Soon to a yawning rift Chance turn'd my way, 
 A den it prov'd where a huge serpent lay ; 
 Flame ey'd he lay : he rages now for food, 
 Meets my first glance, and meditates my blood. 
 His bulk, in many a gather'd orb uproll'd, 
 Rears spire on spire. His scales bedropt with gold 
 Shine burnish'd in the sun. Such height they gain 
 They dart green lustre on the distant main. 
 Now wreath'd in dreadful slope, he stoops his crest, 
 Furious to fix on my unshielded breast ! 
 Just as he springs my sabre smites the foe ; 
 Headless he falls beneath the unerring blow. 
 Wrath yet remains, though strength his fabric leaves, 
 And the meant hiss the gaping mouth deceives ; 
 The lengthening trunk slow loosens ev'ry fold, 
 Lingers in life, then stretches stiff and cold." Savage. 
 
 But, as characteristic of human anxiety never to leave triumph 
 wholly with the reptile that was "devoted to defeat" in 
 Eden, the following quotations (from Drayton and the 
 "Reliques") showing how innocence can vanquish, even 
 though unarmed, are well worth notice : 
 
 " Him by strength into a dungeon thrust, 
 In whose black bottom, long two serpents had remain'd 
 (Bred in the common sewer that all the city drain'd), 
 Empoisoning with their smell ; which seized him for their prey ; 
 With whom in struggling long (besmeared with blood and clay) 
 He rent their squalid chaps, and from the prison "scaped." 
 
 The following is even more to the point : 
 
 " And adders, snakes, and toads therein, 
 
 As afterwards was known, 
 Long in this loathsome vault had bin, 
 And were to monsters grown." 
 
 Into this foul and fearful place the fair one, innocent, was 
 cast. 
 
 " The door being open'd straight they found 
 
 The virgin stretch'd along ; 
 Two dreadful snakes had wrapt her round, 
 Which her to death had stung, 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 75 
 
 One round her legs, her thighs, her waist, 
 
 Had twin'd his fatal wreath : 
 The other close her neck embrac'd, 
 
 And stopt her gentle breath. 
 
 The snakes, being from her body thrust, 
 
 Their bellies were so fill'd, 
 That with excess of blood they burst, 
 
 Thus with their prey were kill'd." 
 
 But distinct from all others is the tradition of the Lamia 
 
 " Thou smoothed-lipped serpent surely high-inspired, 
 Thou beauteous wreath with melancholy eyes." 
 
 " Philostratus, in his fourth book, hath a memorable instance 
 in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus 
 Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that, going 
 betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in 
 the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which, after taking him by 
 the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of 
 Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if 
 he would tarry with her he would hear her sing and play, 
 and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man 
 should molest him ; but she, being fair and lovely, would 
 die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The 
 young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able 
 to moderate his passions, though not that of love, tarried 
 with her awhile to his great content, and at last married 
 her, to whose wedding, among other guests, came Apoll- 
 onious, who, by some probable conjectures, found her out 
 to be a serpent, a Lamia; and that all her furniture was, 
 like Tantalus' gold described by Homer, no substance, but 
 mere illusions. When she saw herself descried she wept, 
 and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be 
 moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in 
 it, vanished in an instant ; many thousands took notice of 
 this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece." 
 
 This tradition, a favourite with the poets, has its finest 
 
76 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 exposition in Keats' deathless verse. Mercury, roaming in 
 the pinewood in search of a nymph whom he loves, hears a 
 mournful voice bewailing itself, and searching among the 
 bushes finds 
 
 " A palpitating snake, 
 
 Bright and cirque-couchant, in a dusky brake ; 
 She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, 
 Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; 
 Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, 
 Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd ; 
 And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, 
 Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed 
 Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries 
 So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries, 
 She seemed at once some penanced lady-elf, 
 Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self. 
 Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire, 
 Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar ; 
 Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter sweet ! 
 She had a woman's mouth, with all its pearls complete. 
 And for her eyes what could such eyes do there 
 But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair, 
 As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air? 
 Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake 
 Came, as through bubbling honey, for love's sake." 
 
 He asks the cause of its woe, and the Lamia then says that if 
 Hermes will restore her to her human shape she will make 
 his love who is invisible appear before him. The compact 
 is faithfully adhered to. The god flies away with his 
 nymph into " the green-recessed " woods, and the snake is 
 alone. 
 
 " Left to herself, the serpent now began 
 To change ; her elfin blood in madness ran ; 
 Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent, 
 Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent ; 
 Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear, 
 Hot, glazed, and wide, with lid- lashes all sear, 
 Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear. 
 The colours all inflamed throughout her train, 
 She writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain ; 
 A deep volcanian yellow took the place 
 Of all her milder-mooned body's grace, 
 
Snakes in Tradition. 77 
 
 And, as the lava ravishes the mead, 
 
 Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede : 
 
 Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks, and bars, 
 
 Eclipsed her crescents, and lick'd up her stars : 
 
 So that, in moments few, she was undrest 
 
 Of all her sapphires, gems, and amethyst." 
 
 Thereafter she vanishes, goes to Corinth, bewitches a youth 
 of that city, who marries her. To the wedding feast, un- 
 bidden, comes Apollonius the sage, who detects her, fixes 
 his eye, " keen, cruel, penetrant, stinging," upon her. She 
 implores him by gesture to look away. The bridegroom 
 beseeches the sage to spare her. " Fooll" says Apollonius 
 to the one, and then to the other, " Serpent ! " Upon this 
 she gives a frightful scream and is gone 
 
 " And Lysius" arms were empty of delight, 
 As were his limbs of life, from that same night." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 THE POETS' SNAKES. 
 
 IN folklore the snake has, I find, three distinct and different 
 aspects. Only one of these the malignant aspect is 
 recognised in verse. 
 
 Elsewhere, however, it is very often met wiih as the 
 faithful custodian of treasure, and nearly every country has 
 its Serpent which guards the all-important tree of immortality 
 and other secrets, or its dragonish thing that defends some 
 priceless possession. The Greeks only fled from Athens 
 when they heard that the snake of the city had deserted 
 the Acropolis, and it is only a few years ago in this very 
 nineteenth century of ours that the Nagas of India formally 
 surrendered to British troops because their serpent oracle 
 had escaped from its priests. For the snake is the universal 
 guardian of the under world, whether we look for it in the 
 diamond-lit caverns of Shesh in Hindostan, or under the 
 ash Ygdrasil in Norway. 
 
 In its second aspect it is benign, and emblematical of 
 providential wisdom and a vigilant solicitude. So we find it 
 in Anantas, the infinite, lending itself to the gods, that they 
 might use its body for a rope, to be tied round the moun- 
 tain of Meru when they churned the ocean ; as the bene- 
 ficent rainbow of Africa; in the "feathered serpent" of 
 South America that taught men religion and gave them the 
 gift of wine ; in Hoa, the third person of the Babylonian 
 
 trinity, that befriends the penitent. 
 
 78 
 
The Poeis' Snakes. 79 
 
 Its third aspect, and the only one in which the poets 
 regard it, is diabolical ; typifying a malignant darkness that 
 is hurtful to man, and symbolising every wicked mood or 
 motive, every misery, in human nature. 
 
 "Slander's serpent mark," says one; and in Keats' 
 tragedy of " Otho," the fair Auranthe and her brother 
 who calumniate the Princess, are " those two vipers from 
 whose jaws a deadly breath went forth to taint and blast 
 the guileless lady." 
 
 Envy is very often the motive for slander, so this also is 
 another of the " serpentine obliquities of life." 
 
 " Envy, with serpent eye, 
 Marks each praise that soars on high." 
 
 It is "snake-hung," "hissing," and (from the mystic pro- 
 perties of serpents) u wizard " envy is armed with " venomed 
 teeth." Personified as a hideous hag, it lives in gloomy 
 dens and is " black envy," except when, as in the " Davideis," 
 she is described as the direst fiend in Hell. Pride and 
 envy are not unnaturally associated : 
 
 " From what cause can envy spring? 
 Or why embosom we a viper's sting ? 
 'Tis envy stings our darling passion Pride." 
 
 Here the poetical diagnosis goes one step further back. 
 A man's ideas of his own merit often make him resent 
 the recognition of another's, whence, no doubt, slanderous 
 depreciation. Being serpentine it is secret, whether lurking 
 in some " cave," or cherished in the heart. 
 
 1 ' In his bosom secretly there lay 
 An hateful snake." 
 
 This, again, leads on to the fancy of man taking a sin to his 
 heart for his own destruction, as in ^Esop's fable of the 
 Countryman and the Viper : 
 
8o The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " He who in wild wood alleys roams, unthinking and unwise, 
 And takes a serpent to his heart for beauty of its eyes, 
 For splendour of its arching neck and glitter of its skin, 
 Was scarcely such a dupe as I, in ignorance of sin." 
 
 So Leyden's lines "cherished bosom-sin, Like nestling 
 serpent gnawing the heart within," and "the green-eyed 
 viper gnawing at my heart," or Shelley's 
 
 ' ' Foul and cruel thoughts, which feed 
 Upon the withering life within 
 Like vipers on some poisonous weed." 
 
 This is a curious passage, not only for the last line, which 
 makes snakes vegetarian, but because the simile is so oddly 
 at fault. The only association suggested, it seems to me, 
 is between " withering " in the second line and " weed " in 
 the third, but even that is too weak, while it is hardly sense 
 to say that a thought, feeding on a withering life, resembles 
 a viper eating a poisonous weed. The explanation, probably, 
 is that the poet lapsed from his first image by what the wise 
 call " some process of unconscious cerebration," his mind 
 passing without intermediate expression in words from one 
 to the other, and leaving, therefore, a gap without stepping- 
 stones or bridge. In the first two lines Shelley, it may be, 
 glances at a fiction which has never failed to attract poets, 
 that of the snake living upon the vitals of its parents, as, for 
 example, in Churchill, Dryden, and Marvell : 
 
 11 Oh ! my poor country ! Devour'd 
 By vipers, which in thine own entrails bred, 
 Prey on thy life, and with thy blood are fed, 
 When children us'd their parents to dethrone, 
 And gnaw their way, like vipers, to the crown." 
 
 Against themselves their witnesses will swear, 
 Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear, 
 And suck for nutriment that bloody gore, 
 Which was their principle of life before." 
 
 These vipers have their mother's entrails torn, 
 And would by force a second time be born." 
 
The Poets Snakes. 81 
 
 This idea, that the young vipers killed their mothers 
 before coming into the world themselves, is one of great 
 antiquity, and parricides, who were punished by the 
 ancients by drowning, were sewn up in sacks, in which, as 
 appropriate company for such criminals, some vipers had 
 previously been put. Nor is the fiction by any means 
 exploded, for in parts of England it is still believed that 
 the adder which brings forth its young alive, and does 
 not, like the harmless ' ; grass-snake," lay eggs is killed by 
 her progeny. How this happens rural superstition can have 
 only the vaguest notion, for another, which contradicts it, 
 namely, that the young adders always take refuge inside 
 their mother if suddenly startled, exists simultaneously 
 with it. 
 
 However, to return to the snakiness of human passions. 
 Maternal anguish has her " torturing snakes." Remorse 
 carries " a whip " (Southey) made of them, and can " dart 
 poison through the conscious heart " (Akenside) : Super- 
 stition is (in Shelley) a " hundred-forked " snake " insatiate ; l> 
 Fierce debate (in Sackville) "deadly full of snaky heare;" 
 Conscience is " a stinging worm," with the " viper fear " 
 (Green), and the " adder of disgrace " (Dodd) is " an undying 
 serpent" calling (Shelley) "her venomous brood to their 
 nocturnal task." Error "serpent error wandering" of 
 Milton has a u poisonous serpent head ; " and in Cowper 
 
 " Sing, muse (if such a theme so dark, so long, 
 May find a muse to grace it with a song), 
 By what unseen and unsuspected arts 
 The serpent Error twines round human hearts, 
 Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades, 
 That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades, 
 The poisoning, black, insinuating worm 
 Successfully conceals her loathsome form." 
 
 So, too, Pride the cause of error : 
 
 " Though various foes against the truth combine, 
 Pride above all opposes her design, 
 
 F 
 
82 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Pride of growth superior to the rest, 
 The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest, 
 Swells at the thought, and, kindling into rage, 
 Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage." 
 
 Faith misplaced is in Shelley a " Python ; " it is a curious 
 passage : 
 
 " And Faith, the Python, undefeated, 
 Even to its bloodstained altar-steps dragged on 
 Her foul and wounded train, and men 
 Were trampled and deceived again." 
 
 And elsewhere from another standpoint the poet has the 
 same sentiment : 
 
 11 Faith and Custom and low-though ted cares 
 Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space 
 Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place." 
 
 " Faithlessness " has in Byron a serpent-fold a fine idea : 
 " to find in Hope but the renewed caress, the serpent-fold of 
 further faithlessness " and Coleridge associates the two : 
 
 " tyrants' promises 
 
 That can enchant the serpent treachery 
 From Faith, its lurking hole in the heart." 
 
 Jealousy is a " deaf adder : " 
 
 " The serpent of the field, by art 
 
 And spell, is won from harming ; 
 But that which coils around the heart, 
 Oh ! who hath power of charming?" 
 
 The " Scorner " has in Heber a " serpent tongue." Hate and 
 lawless Pleasure are snakes, and 
 
 " in the soul 
 
 Lurks sin, the Serpent with the fiery sting 
 Of sorrow, rankling in the conscience deep." 
 
 Avarice is a serpent (Savage), and so " strange fellowship 
 through mutual hate " are Fear and Lust (Shelley). Care 
 
The Poets Snakes. 83 
 
 (Churchill) and Evil (Akenside) are vipers, while Ben 
 Jonson adds to the list, in the following powerful lines, 
 the faithless, the selfish man : 
 
 " Look on the false and cunning man, that loves 
 No person nor is loved : what ways he proves 
 To gain upon his belly ; and at last 
 Crushed into the snaky brakes that he had passed." 
 
 Love, of course, is a serpent, in a score or two of poets : 
 
 " A serpent nourish I under my wing, 
 And now, of nature, 'ginneth it to sting." 
 
 Nor does the breaking of the heart cure, but rather aggra- 
 vate the evil : 
 
 " I thought that this some remedy might prove ; 
 But, oh ! the mighty serpent Love 
 Broke, by this chance, in pieces small, 
 In all still lived, and still it stung in all." 
 
 Nor are even "the loves of the Angels" secure from 
 reptilian intrusion : 
 
 1 ' When Love hath not a shrine so pure, 
 
 So holy, but the serpent Sin, 
 In moments even the most secure, 
 Beneath his altar may glide in." 
 
 The jealousy of rivals, and the pleasure of inflicting pain, 
 and the pain of suffering it, suggests the snake to many 
 poets. Thus Wyatt in his " Jealous Man : " 
 
 " The wand'ring gadling in the summer tide 
 
 That finds the adder with his reckless foot 
 
 Starts not dismay'd so suddenly aside 
 
 As jealous despite did, though there were no boot, 
 
 When that he saw me sitting by her side 
 
 That of my health is very crop and root. 
 It pleased me then to have so fair a grace 
 To sting the heart, that would have had my place." 
 
 Among the classes of individuals specially colubrine are 
 
84 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Critics (a particular aversion of poets), as in Goldsmith and 
 Crabbe : 
 
 " His wand's a modern author's pen ; 
 The serpents round about it twined 
 Denote him of the reptile kind, 
 Denote the rage with which he writes, 
 His frothy slaver venomed bites." 
 
 Or 
 
 " The serpent Critic's rising hiss." 
 
 And Harlots so when Dalila leaves the crippled hero's 
 presence with a taunt, the Chorus cry : 
 
 " She's gone, a manifest serpent by her sting, 
 Discovered in the end, till now concealed ; " 
 
 and many others, down to the " unfortunate " of the London 
 streets, against whom Mackay launches this exhortation to 
 the "fool:" 
 
 11 A serpent, woman headed, 
 With loose and floating hair, 
 Beware, O fool ! how you touch it, 
 Beware for your soul ! Beware ! 
 'Tis beautiful to look at 
 As it rustles through the street, 
 But its eyes, though bright as sunshine, 
 Have the glow of hell's own heat. 
 
 'Twill murmur soft sweet music 
 To draw you to its mesh, 
 And coil about you fondly 
 To feed upon your flesh ; 
 Beware of this flaunting Gorgon 
 With the snakes in her wavy hair ! 
 Beware, O fool ! how you touch her, 
 Beware for your soul, beware ! " 
 
 So, too, in Savage, Lawyers : 
 
 ' ' Not a gay serpent glittering to the eye, 
 But more than serpent or than harlot sly, 
 For lawyer-like, a fiend no wit can 'scape, 
 The demon stands confessed in human shape." 
 
 And in Coleridge's " Devil's Thoughts : " 
 
The Poets' Snakes. 85 
 
 " He saw a lawyer killing a viper 
 On a dung heap beside his stable, 
 And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind 
 Of Cain and his brother Abel." 
 
 Many families, alas ! appreciate all too sadly Byron's 
 picture of that insidious wretch who, either calling herself 
 the friend of one or other, comes between husband and 
 wife, or parent and children, and working mischief under 
 pretence of impartial advice, widens the breach with a show 
 of healing it : 
 
 " O serpent under femininitee 
 Like to the serpent depe in helle ybound : 
 O feined woman, all that may confound 
 Vertue and innocence, thurgh thy malice, 
 Is bred in thee, as nest of every vice." Chaucer. 
 
 Or else as the friend of both, poisons each mutually against 
 the other, carrying to and fro not the peace-making con- 
 cessions, the timid beginnings of conciliation with which she 
 is entrusted, but embittering hints and irritating suggestions 
 that provoke recrimination, and further involve the already 
 complicated difficulty. She found a rift which a single kiss 
 might have closed ; she leaves a grief which passionate re- 
 pentance, stretching from to-day to the tomb, cannot bridge. 
 
 ' ' She rules the circle which she served before ; 
 If mothers none know why before her quake ; 
 If daughters dread her for the mother's sake ; 
 If early habits those false links, which bind 
 At times the loftiest to the meanest mind 
 Have given her power too deeply to instil 
 The angry essence of her deadly will ; 
 If like a snake she steal within your walls, 
 Till the black slime betray her as she crawls ; 
 If like a viper to the heart she wind, 
 And leave the venom there she did not find, 
 What marvel that this hag of hatred works 
 Eternal evil latent as she lurks, 
 To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, 
 And reign the Hecate of domestic hells ? 
 Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints 
 With all the kind mendacity of hints, 
 
86 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 While mingling truth with falsehoods, sneers with smiles, 
 
 A thread of candour with a web of wiles ; 
 
 A plain, blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming 
 
 To hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming ; 
 
 A lip of lies, a face formed to conceal, 
 
 And, without feeling, mock at all who feel." 
 
 So, too, in Cowper's "ancient prude" suggested by 
 Hogarth's picture of morning we have Miss Bridget : 
 
 1 ' Of temper as envenomed as an asp, 
 Censorious, and her every word a wasp," 
 
 the meddlesome, scandal-mongering, reputation-tearing old 
 maid, who is all too familiar in society : 
 
 " Mark how the channels of her yellow blood 
 Ooze to her skin and stagnate there to mud ; 
 Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, 
 Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale 
 For drawn from reptiles only may we trace 
 Congenial colours in that soul or face." 
 
 Fever "like a serpent crawling," "insidious Ague, serpent- 
 like," " Gout half a snake," and other ills that flesh is heir 
 to, share in the serpent reproach ; and both the north and 
 the east wind, that cause so many of them in our chilly 
 latitudes, have "serpents' fangs" and sting. 
 
 The image of the river " stealing like a silver snake," "a 
 glistering snake," that "through the grassy mead, winds on, 
 now hidden, glittering now in light " (Southey), is sufficiently 
 hackneyed, but it suggests to Wordsworth this excellent 
 additional fancy : 
 
 " A mightier river winds from realm to realm, 
 And, like a serpent, shows his glittering back 
 Bespotted with innumerable isles." 
 
 And to Shelley this : 
 
 " The glaciers creep 
 
 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains 
 Slow rolling on." 
 
 Several other points in the natural economy of the tribe 
 
The Poets' Snakes. 87 
 
 afford the poets incessant opportunity for metaphor. Thus, 
 the casting of their slough 
 
 " So may my spirit cast, 
 Serpent like, off the past. " Herbert. 
 
 What shall I do ? Where go ? 
 
 When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe." Keats. 
 
 But time strips our illusions of their hue, 
 And one by one in turn, some grand mistake 
 Casts off its bright skin." Byron. 
 
 Warmed by health as serpents in the Spring 
 
 Aside their slough of indolence they fling." Crabbe, 
 
 " They've tricks to cast their sins 
 As easy as serpents do their skins 
 That in a while grow out again." Butler. 
 
 That the snake leaves a slimy track is a popular error, 
 already noticed as accepted by poets. Slander and envy, 
 therefore, are said to "befoul" as they go: the critic's 
 "frothy slaver," the parasite's path "snake-marked," the 
 traitor's "slimy clue," and other similar phrases have their 
 source in the same fiction : "the trail of the serpent is over 
 them all." 
 
 The image of the snake lurking in the herbage is as old 
 as grass itself. Our earliest poets, therefore, had it : 
 
 " I know under the green the serpent how he lurks ; " 
 and 
 
 " Ware fro the serpent that so slily creepeth 
 Under the grass, and stingeth subtelly." 
 
 Equally ancient is the hiding of snakes beneath flowers, a 
 fact of nature of which primitive humanity, shoeless and un- 
 clad, had, no doubt, frequent sad experience. The "serpent 
 in red roses hissing," is, therefore, ubquitous in verse. 
 
8 8 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " Passions among pure thoughts hid 
 Like serpents under flowerets sleeping." 
 
 1 Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers, 
 The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing." 
 
 " Oh, in thy truth secure, thy virtue bold, 
 Beware the poison in the cup of gold, 
 The asp among the flowers." 
 
 " Distrust 
 
 The vain pretence ; the smiles that harbour grief 
 As lurks the serpent deep in flow'rs enwreath'd." 
 
 "See ! how vain pleasures sting the lips they kiss, 
 How asps are hid beneath the bowers of bliss." 
 
 Thence the idea of treason " Gaunt as a serpent : " 
 
 " Right as a serpent hideth him under floures, 
 'Til he may see his time for to bite," 
 
 says Chaucer, or, as Shenstone puts the same thought : 
 
 " My tend'rest glances but the precious flow'rs 
 That shade the viper while she plots her wound. ' 
 
 And so (as in Churchill) to treason particular : 
 
 "Those vipers to their king, 
 Who smooth their looks and flatter whilst they sing." 
 
 "Thus treason works ere traitors be espied, 
 Who sees the lurking serpent." 
 
 In Shelley the hurricane and lightning are both snakes, 
 and in several poets, flame coiling, wreathing, darting, 
 hissing, fork-tongued is a snake. 
 
 " The hurricane came from the west and passed on 
 By the path of the gate of the eastern sun, 
 Transversely dividing the stream of the storm ; 
 As an arrowy serpent pursuing the form 
 Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste." 
 
 In Darwin the great sea-worm l is blue : 
 
 1 The sea-snake is fully referred to in later pages. P. R. 
 
The Poets' Snakes. 89 
 
 " Two serpent-forms incumbent on the main, 
 Lashing the white waves, with redundant train, 
 Arch'd their blue necks, and shook their tow'ring crests 
 And plough'd their foamy way with speckled breasts ; 
 Then, darting fierce amid the affrighted throngs, 
 Rolled their red eyes, and shot their forked tongues." 
 
 This cerulean snake is a recurrent figure. Science knows 
 more than one " blue " snake, though they are not all really 
 such. Who, for instance, that has ever seen one, would 
 think of calling the "Korait" " caruhus" ? Science, how- 
 ever, calls the dull, lead-coloured crow of India " splendens. " 
 So let it pass. The poets, however, have "blue" snakes 
 which they mean to be really blue. Many have water-snakes 
 of this colour for Virgil had such. Darwin, Mary Howitt, 
 and Shelley have, with a natural license, blue sea-snakes. 
 Others have land reptiles of the same colour. Thus in 
 Heber's admirable rendering of Pindar's address to Agesias 
 of Syracuse : 
 
 " Two scaly snakes of azure hue 
 Watched o'er his helpless infancy ; 
 And, rifled from the mountain bee, 
 Bare on their forky tongues a harmless honey-dew." 
 
 King gives Megaera the Fury a ringlet of blue snakes, and 
 in Congreve the Gorgon's headdress of vipers is "blue as 
 the vault." 
 
 While on this subject, it is very curious that the poets 
 should perpetually speak of the "coronal" of snakes what- 
 ever they may mean by it. Yet there is a whole genus 
 scientifically named "coronellinse." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 "THE TUNEFUL FROG." 
 
 " From the hay-cock's moistened heaps 
 Startled frogs take vaunting leaps ; 
 And along the drewen mead, 
 Jumping travellers they proceed ; 
 Quick the dewy grass divides, 
 Moistening sweet their speckled sides ; 
 From the grass or flowret's cup 
 Quick the dew-drop bounces up." Clare. 
 
 " A LONG line is run to make a frog " by which Sir Thomas 
 Browne pleasantly expresses his admiration of the series of 
 metamorphoses by which the frog arrives at complete indi- 
 viduality. First of all, that " lentous and transparent body," 
 full of "little conglobulations," which we call spawn : 
 
 " Ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims, 
 Breathes with new lungs, or tries his nascent limbs, 
 Her countless shoals the amphibious frog forsakes, 
 And living islands float upon the lakes." 
 
 And then the " porwigle " or " tadpole," all tail and head. 
 By-and-by the thing sprouts two hind legs, still keeping its 
 long caudal appendage. 
 
 ' ' So still the tadpole cleaves the watery vale 
 With balanc'd fin and undulating tail." 
 
 Next it grows its fore-legs, and swims about as a long-tailed 
 froglet. Then we see it sitting on the bank with only a 
 short stumpy tail. Return two days later, and, lo ! the tail 
 has gone altogether, and a tiny "frog" is there. 
 
The Timeful Frog. 9 1 
 
 " New lungs and limbs proclaim his second birth, 
 Breathe the dry air, and leap upon the earth." 
 
 "Frogs and toads and all the tadpole train" are un- 
 popular with the poets. They dislike their appearance and 
 detest their voice. They remember, too, against them the 
 description in Holy Writ of " the croaking nuisance " of 
 Egyptian chastisement : 
 
 1 ' The river yet gave one instruction more, 
 And from the rotting fish and uncococted gore, 
 Which was but water just before, 
 A loathsome host was quickly made 
 That scal'd the banks, and with loud noise 
 Did all the countryside invade, 
 As Nilus when he quits his sacred bed 
 (But like a friend he visits all the lands) 
 With welcome presents in his hands. 
 So did this living tide the fields o'erspread. 
 In vain th' alarmed country cries 
 To kill their noisome enemies ; 
 From th' unexhausted source still new recruits arise. 
 Nor does the earth these greedy troops suffice ; 
 The towns and houses they possess, 
 The temples and the palaces, 
 Nor Pharaoh nor his gods they fear, 
 Both their importune croakings hear ; 
 Unsatiate yet, they mount up high'r, 
 Where never sun-born frog durst to aspire, 
 And in the silken beds their slimy members place, 
 A luxury unknown before to all the watr'y race." Cowley. 
 
 In the New Testament the batrachian folk are only once 
 mentioned. " And I saw," says St. John in the Revelation, 
 " three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of 
 the dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of 
 the mouth of the False Prophet." In the Old they recur 
 three times, and always in the same association, as the 
 instrument of Osirtesen's humbling : 
 
 ' ' That croaked the Jews 
 From Pharaoh's brick-kilns loose" 
 
 on the day when his borders were smitten with frogs 
 
92 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 "that loathed invasion," as Milton calls it which "the 
 river brought forth abundantly." 
 
 1 ' A race obscene 
 
 Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, 
 Polluting Egypt. Gardens, fields, and plains 
 Were covered with the pest. The trees were filled, 
 The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook ; 
 Nor palaces, nor even chambers 'scaped ; 
 And the land stank, so numerous was the fry." Cowper. 
 
 With this point of high prescription, sanctified by a 
 supreme authority, the poets are accurately well content, and 
 the frog remains therefore "loathsome." " Puffing" frog, 
 " dew-sipping," " sly-jumping," are found among the more 
 curious epithets applied to the animal. But " speckled," 
 " hoarse," and " slimy " are the more common. 
 
 Yet if more poets had been familiar with zoology they 
 might have fairly revelled in the beauties and significances 
 of the frog-world. Of the strange chain of metamorphoses 
 by which the '' porwigle " laboriously graduates in maturity 
 I have already spoken, but what shall we say of the Pipa 
 that hatches her young out of dimples upon her back? 
 She has, as it were, a false skin, and under this are little 
 pits, in each of which an egg germinates. By-and-by they 
 hatch. The young ones creep out through the upper skin 
 on to the mother's back, and hop off to the ground. She 
 then casts her old skin and starts afresh. Or of the Alyatis, 
 where the husbands share with their wives in a fair and 
 manly way the inconveniences of reproduction, and "lie 
 in," so to speak, of one half the eggs while the mother takes 
 charge of the other half? Or of that Hyla whose eggs the 
 male takes up in its paws and packs away comfortably into 
 a pouch on the mother's back, where they hatch ? 
 
 Were the responsibilities of parents ever more conscien- 
 tiously undertaken? Then, too, the originality of such 
 proceedings ! The poor things have got neither " dens " nor 
 " nests," and they refuse to leave their eggs lying about, as 
 
The Tuneful Frog. 93 
 
 some things do, at the mercy of the spoiler. So they always 
 carry them with them, the father dividing the work with 
 the mother. This is surely admirable. Yet, as Professor 
 Martin Duncan says, " Frogs have little to thank humanity 
 for." Children tease them, ignorant adults persecute them. 
 Men of science delight in microscopical and galvanic experi- 
 ments with them. Birds and beasts and fish and snakes 
 are perpetually hunting them. In the water and out of it 
 they are for ever under pursuit. Nor does much sympathy 
 attach to them in their afflictions because they are only frogs. 
 
 Yet if regard attaches, as it certainly should do, to that 
 which is eminently edible, we owe some consideration to 
 this creature. It is particularly good eating, and by the 
 draining and cultivation of the country, we have lost a 
 side-dish which the Continent and America more judiciously 
 appreciate. Again, if respect is due to that which is useful, 
 the utmost deference should be shown to frogs and toads, 
 who are the most relentless enemies of insects injurious to 
 plants, and a terror to all evil-doers in gardens and orchards. 
 Is admiration the prerogative of beauty ? Then where can 
 it be better bestowed than on the pretty green and red frogs 
 of South Africa, or the cornfield frog of Carolina, which is 
 dove-colour above and silver below, or the exquisite tree- 
 frogs, grass green and gold as a rule, but in Central America 
 sky-blue above and rose-pink beneath? They are all living 
 gems, and science calls them by pretty names aurea, 
 cceruleus, ornatus, pulcher, and elegans. Even in mere 
 variety there is a pleasant virtue : for this we load the vari- 
 able chrysanthemum with compliments. Yet among the frogs 
 and toads there is a diversity almost as bold and quaint as 
 amongst the ochids, while for positive beauty they are, some 
 of them, unsurpassed. 
 
 As for their voice, the poets have much excuse for 
 disapproval. 
 
 " Gossips are frogs they drink and talk." 
 
94 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 I have myself wondered that any one could ever have spoken 
 with admiration of their song, and am not surprised that 
 the Abderites should have been driven from their homes 
 by the intolerable monotony of the batrachian chorus. 
 How it exasperated Bacchus on his way to Hades that 
 
 " Brekekex coax coax, brekekekex coax coax," 
 
 of the persistent multitude ! 
 
 In Menu's " After-world " there are twenty-one purgatories. 
 One of them is filled with mud ; and if the mud be filled 
 with frogs, I think I would rather be consigned to any one 
 of the other twenty; albeit, I know that Indra's august 
 abode is enlivened, according to Hindoo legend, by "the 
 harmonious voices of the black bee and the frog." So, too, 
 in Aristophanes, Charon, laughing, says 
 
 1 ' You shall hear most delightful melodies as soon as you lay-to at your 
 
 oars. 
 
 From whom ? 
 From swans the frogs wondrous ones." 
 
 And the frogs have much to say in their own praise : 
 " Marshy offspring of the fountains we, let us raise our 
 voices in harmonious hymn brekekekex in sweet-sounding 
 song coax coax. Thus sung we in the marshes by the 
 Acropolis, making festal the rites of Nisaean Bacchus. 
 Brekekekex coax coax. The Muses of the beautiful lyre love 
 us coax coax and so does horn-footed Pan who pipes 
 upon the reed brekekekex and Apollo, the sweet harper 
 brekekekex coax coax. So let us sing and leap, and leap 
 and sing again, through galingal and sedge, chanting as we 
 dive our choral strains to the music of breaking bubbles 
 brekekekex coax coax" 
 
 Other poets, however, are not of Pan's opinion, nor of 
 Apollo's. They recognise no harmony in the voice of the 
 batrachians. Southey quotes it as the extreme antithesis of 
 melody. Spenser, in his " Epithalamium," warns them off 
 
The Tuneful Frog. 95 
 
 11 Ne let th' unpleasant quyre of frogs still croking 
 Make us to wish theyr choking." 
 
 "Dutch nightingales" is a popular nickname of these 
 loquacious amphibians, and Allan Ramsay derisively rallies 
 the Hollanders upon their songsters. 
 
 Elegant Paris, however, has a better claim to these mud- 
 larks, as I may call them. For three frogs once formed 
 the civic device of Lutetia "the mud-land " 
 
 ' ' Where stagnant pools and quaking bogs 
 Swarmed, croaked, and crawled with hordes of frogs ; " 
 
 but in Clovis' time the grenouille was " miraculously " trans- 
 figured into the fleur-de-lis, one product of the marshes thus 
 supplanting the other upon the banner and shield of France. 
 The truth, perhaps, is that about that time our neighbours 
 discovered what excellent eating their national device was, 
 and not caring to emblazon that which they cooked, they 
 promoted the frog from their oriflamme to their stew-pans. 
 The Moon-folk, however, had anticipated them, for, so 
 Lucian avers, " they used but one kind of food." " There 
 are," he says, " great multitudes of frogs flying about in the 
 air ; these they catch, and, lighting a fire, cook them upon 
 the coals ; and while the frogs are a-cooking they sit round 
 the fire, just as men sit round a table and swallow the 
 smoke, thinking it indeed to be the finest thing in the 
 world." 
 
 " Soulless " is a good epithet (of Mackay's) for the croak 
 of the creature, as any one who has listened long to their un- 
 meaning clamour will confess, but I like Moore's humorous 
 rendering of its significance none the less : 
 
 ' ' Those frogs whose legs a barbarous cook 
 Cut off, and left the frogs in the brook 
 To cry all night, till life's last dregs, 
 ' Give us our legs Give us our legs.' " 
 
 Any translation of the sound that makes sense of it com- 
 
gb The Poets and Nature. 
 
 mends itself to me. For I should be glad to be convinced 
 that the moist and garrulous things had souls. They have 
 got calves to their legs, a feature which, if I am not wrong, 
 no other animal but man possesses. 
 
 Yet, when in company, they have a wide range of ex- 
 pression from the crisp, shrill chirrup of the tree-frogs, to the 
 loud snore of the " Cambridge nightingales." The multi- 
 tudes of the Arkansas swamps have a nasal metallic <; yank- 
 yank," as different as possible from the deep "owk-owk" 
 of the French frogs. The fire-bellied toad has a clear, reso- 
 nant voice, the bull-frog a profoundly sonorous one. The 
 natter-jack cries "gloo-gloo," the green toad " may-may," 
 while, for the noises of the rest, the frog-chorus of Aristo- 
 phanes, already quoted, renders them faithfully enough by 
 brekekekex and coax coax. 
 
 Again and again in legends they are struck dumb ; now 
 by saints for disturbing devotions, and now by nymphs for 
 defiling fountains. On the other hand, men are punished by 
 being made to croak 
 
 As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs 
 Railed at Latona's twin- born progeny." 
 
 In Syriapha, blessed isle, the frogs were voiceless ; and it is 
 a fact that the illustrious Meoenas bore a frog for his device 
 as an emblem of taciturnity, borrowed from those batrachians 
 on the shores of the yEgean, who " never croak in their own 
 marshes," according to ^Elian. " Mute the same is, and 
 never croaketh," saith Pliny. Emblematic, therefore, of 
 silence and secrecy, qualites for which Augustus held 
 Mecsenas in such respect and favour. 
 
 The " bull-frog," which I take to be a corruption of bell- 
 frog, let philologists say what they like, is not an aversion 
 of the poets. It is "deep-mouthed and doubly harsh" in 
 Byron, and Faber has 
 
The Tuneful Frog. 97 
 
 1 ' Beneath thy feet 
 
 A lonely bell-frog from the reedy fosse 
 Rang his distinct and melancholy fall, 
 But harshly to thy travel- wearied mind 
 Most soothingly attuned." 
 
 There ought to be nothing laughable about the creature's 
 voice, but I confess I have laughed consumedly at its 
 pompous gravity ; and a friend once told me how a love- 
 making scene, which both the lady concerned and he 
 meant to be most serious, was made utterly ridiculous, in 
 consequence of a bull-frog chiming in most inopportunely, 
 whenever sentiment demanded silence, or, at most, only a 
 nightingale's song. However, the frog was,. after all, a true 
 friend, for the marriage, which eventually followed their 
 laughing betrothal, has been a happy one, owing, so they 
 say, to " that old bull-frog " having stopped them both from 
 committing themselves and each other to " a lot of bosh " at 
 the commencement. 
 
 In fairy-stories the frog is perpetually recurring. Its 
 shape is popularly held in aversion, so nothing could be 
 more suitable for the utmost degradation of enchanted 
 princesses and princes. Ivan the Tsar's son has to marry a 
 frog who eventuates blissfully in a very Helen of personal 
 charms. In Grimm, the exquisite princess has to wed a 
 frog which turns into an adorable prince. When the lovely 
 maiden is to be transformed into an odious object, tonds 
 fall from her mouth when she speaks. Yet in folk-lore, 
 frogs are uniformly beneficent. One brings the Queen her 
 Rose-briar daughter ; another, a fat old frog, makes Dumm- 
 ling's fortune for him. 
 
 So, too, are the toads. They are always bringing good 
 luck to children, or treasures (as "the toad with the crooked 
 leg "did) to princesses. As the metamorphoses of human 
 beings, they are intended to be repulsive. In their own 
 persons they are benign. As the familiars of witches the 
 paddocks had a bad name 
 
 G 
 
98 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " I went to the toad that breeds under the wall ; 
 I charmed him out, he came to my call. 
 I scratched out the eyes of the owl before ; 
 I tore the bat's wing what would you have more ? " 
 
 But, like Robin Goodfellow, who was also the companion 
 of hobgoblins and all manner of Serene Naughtinesses, they 
 exercised their power with consideration and benevolence. 
 
 Wordsworth regards the frog as a sort of amphibian Mark 
 Tapley, and sees in the creature jumping about on a wet 
 day a moral of cheerfulness under depressing circumstances, 
 and bids his readers 
 
 " Learn from him to find a reason 
 For a light heart in a dull season." 
 
 But considering that Wordsworth professed an exceptional 
 sympathy with nature, it is curious that he should have 
 missed sense by such a distance. Wet days are, of course, 
 the frog's gayest weather ; then it picnics, flirts, puffs out, 
 is happiest. As a matter of fact, Wordsworth knew this 
 very well. 
 
 " On shore the coming deluge draws the race 
 Of reptiles from their haunts, in mead and grove, 
 Concealed the puffing frog, the horned snail, 
 And all the species of the slimy tribes." Grahame. 
 
 Indeed, in myth, they are often clouds and pluvial. Their 
 croaking is the rain signal. They are "rain-desiring," so 
 " rain-heralding," and thus come to be " rain-compelling." 
 
 Of the actual frogs of story the poets have three groups. 
 There are first those " good ^Esop's frogs " that asked for 
 a king 
 
 " Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings 
 Were burnished into heroes, and became 
 The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp, 
 Storks among frogs." 
 
 and afterwards changed the dynasty 
 
The Tuneful Frog. 99 
 
 " Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, 
 And the hoarse nation croaked 'God save King Log.' " 
 
 From the same delightful source comes that other that would 
 have her children know that their mother could make her- 
 self "so big as anything" 
 
 " And thus the reptile sits 
 Enlarging till she splits." 
 
 And also those, the "much-complaining" frogs, that pre- 
 sumptuously entertained the idea of punishing the Sun for 
 drying up their mud. 
 
 Next, in frequency of mention, are the pugnacious frogs 
 of the classics that did battle with the mice, where " he 
 who inflates the cheek" warred with the " cheese-nibbler ; " 
 and those others who went, as Beattie sings, to battle 
 against the cranes : 
 
 /'And there the frog, a scene full sad to see, 
 Shorn of one leg, slow sprawled along on three. 
 He vaults no more with vigorous hops on high, 
 But mourns in hoarsest croaks his destiny." 
 
 The third group are those of Holy Writ, to which I have 
 already referred. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 "THE LOATHED PADDOCKS' 
 
 " Would 1 st thou think that toads or snakes or efts 
 Could e'er be beautiful?" ^Shelley, 
 
 "INASMUCH," says De Gubernatis, "as the toad is a form 
 proper to the demon, it is feared and hunted ; inasmuch 
 as, on the contrary, it is considered as a diabolical form 
 imposed upon a divine or princely being, it is respected 
 and venerated as a sacred animal." In poetry, the toad 
 has only one, the " loathed " aspect ; although in popular 
 estimation in all countries it has both a sinister and a 
 benign. 
 
 It is a lucky omen if one crosses the path of a wedding 
 party bound for the church. Did not St. Patrick all 
 pictures to the contrary notwithstanding spare them when 
 he drummed "the vermin" out of Ireland? Just as in 
 Cornwall a man may not shoot a raven lest he should kill 
 King Arthur unawares, so in Tuscany, you may not hurt a 
 toad lest you should do a mischief to some young princess 
 or heroine who has been cruelly transformed into that shape, 
 and who is only waiting for the beautiful prince to come, 
 when the maiden will resume her charms and " live happily 
 ever afterwards." In the folk-tale of some countries, the 
 Beast who marries Beauty is a toad, and many stories 
 substitute this creature for the frog in such stones as where, 
 benign and amiable, it fetches rings up for sultans' sons 
 
The L,o tithed Paddock*, ^ 101 
 
 and balls for kings' daughters? ""Medicinally, 'tKe u paddock 
 had once a high value for cancer, and in Europe it is still 
 worn on the person as a charm against poisons and the 
 plague. On occasion, too, it was a potent beast. For if 
 it found a cock's egg and hatched it, the result was a 
 cockatrice, a fearsome thing, which of its own accord grew 
 a crown on its head and so became a basilisk, and could 
 kill by merely looking. A very notable worm indeed, and 
 mo.^t reverend, was " this crowned asp." Moreover, the 
 toad, 
 
 " Though ugly, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in its head." 
 
 In that very fascinating work, " The Natural History of 
 Gems," 1 a chapter is devoted to those "stones of virtue," 
 which were supposed in olden times to have been produced 
 by, or found inside of, beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles 
 such as the hyaena, which, placed under the tongue, con- 
 ferred the gift of prophecy, and the marvellous "lynx-stone ; " 
 the grass-green chloritis, found only in wagtails, and the 
 alectoria, a crystal formed inside cocks; the cinaedia, 
 developed in the head of the fish so called ; the draconite, 
 dreadfully lodged in snakes, and the famous " batrachite " 
 or " bufonite " the " toad-stone." This last was said to be 
 of three kinds, one yellow and green "like a frog," the 
 second black, the third red and black. This tradition being 
 handed down to mediaeval fancies resulted in the toad being 
 credited with "a jewel in its head," which was variously 
 called "borax," " nosa," and "crapodinus." 
 
 " The unwieldy Toad 
 That crawls from his secure abode 
 Within the mossy garden wall 
 When evening dews began to fall, 
 
 1 By C. W. King, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
IO2 o c * ^Fhe. Poets <and 1ST ature. 
 
 * Oh rnark"the ^be'auty in his eye : 
 What wonders in that circle lie ! 
 So clear, so bright, our fathers said 
 He wears a jewel in his head ! " 
 
 This rare gem was a specific against poisons, and a great 
 number of rings are in existence in which the " Kroten- 
 stein ' is set as a talisman against venom. Erasmus writes 
 of a famous toad-stone dedicated to our lady of Walsingham, 
 and numerous mediaeval jewels now preserved in collections 
 owed their great value in the past to the magic potencies 
 supposed to be vested in the mysterious " stone." It has 
 been discovered by modern investigation that these bufonites 
 are really the bony plates lining the jaws of some fossil fish, 
 hemispherical bosses which served the finned creatures for 
 teeth ; but fortunately this discovery was not made in time 
 to spoil the pleasure which our forefathers took in their 
 " toad-stones." 
 
 On the other hand, " in its diabolical aspect," Bufo has 
 many depreciative associations. It was said to spit poison, 
 and to shoot it out at its pursuers, also to envenom all the 
 plants it passed over. This is the poets' acceptation of 
 toads. Indeed, they are so venomous that serpents "of most 
 deadly sort " are bracketed with them, as being in Blair for 
 instance the " superlatives " of evil. 
 
 " Toads and snakes, and loathly worms, 
 And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs 
 That bear ill berries." 
 
 Eliza Cook calls them " foam-spitting " and " vile," and this 
 unfortunate lady had, at any rate, such privilege as might 
 be begged from the precedent of Milton, living two centuries 
 before her, saying that Satan 
 
 " Squat like a toad close to the ear of Eve." 
 
 Coleridge, always punctual in plagiarism, has "Slander 
 squatting near, spitting cold venom in a dead man's ear," 
 
The Loathed Paddock. 103 
 
 altogether a ridiculous image and a waste of " venom." In 
 Dyer we find them associated with several poetical horrors 
 a curious assortment. 
 
 " 'Tis now the raven's dark abode, 
 "Pis now th' apartment of the toad, 
 And there the fox securely feeds, 
 And there the pois'nous adder breeds." 
 
 Churchill is in the same vein 
 
 " Marking her noisome road 
 
 With poison's trail, here crawl'd the bloated toad ; 
 There webs were spread of more than common size, 
 And half-starv'd spiders prey'd on half-starv'd flies ; 
 In quest of food efts strove in vain to crawl ; 
 Slugs, pinched with hunger, smear' d the slimy wall ; 
 The cave around with hissing serpents hung ; 
 On the damp roof unhealthy vapours hung, 
 And famine, by her children always known, 
 As proud as poor, here fixed her native throne." 
 
 Moore is characteristically fanciful 
 
 " There let every noxious thing 
 Trail its filth and fix its sting ; 
 Let the bull-toad taint him over, 
 Round him let mosquitoes hover, 
 In his ears and eye-balls tingling, 
 With his blood their poison mingling." 
 
 This "bull-toad" is thoroughly Moore ish, and belongs of 
 course to the same poetical family as the " night-raven" or 
 " wood-wolf." Toad and adder, by the way, is a very fre- 
 quent association showing how thoroughly the fiction of 
 the poisonous character of the toad had taken hold of the 
 poets' fancy. So, too, had the wickedness and the blood- 
 thirstiness of the owl. 
 
 "Full-blown" is Pope's delightful epithet for Bufo, "puffed 
 by every quill." It is not what he meant, of course, for that 
 was " inflated," " puffed-out," "bloated." But it conveys his 
 meaning admirably none the less, and has no spite in it. 
 "Fulsome" is one of Dryden's epithets, and, even more 
 
IO4 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 absurdly than " full-blown," suggests an excessive distension. 
 'The real meaning of the word, however, is " nauseating," 
 "nauseous," and differs, therefore, from Pope's in being 
 extremely rude to Bufo. " Slow, soft toad," says Shelley 
 an excellent phrase. But the majority, from Spenser to 
 Wordsworth, have only "bloated" and "loathly." Moore 
 calls it "obscene;" Southey "foul;" Savage "loathsome," 
 and so on. Thomson, of course, is egregious as usual in 
 infelicitous description. 
 
 In metaphor the toad comes off poorly. Spenser sets the 
 fashion : 
 
 1 ' Envy rode 
 
 Upon a ravenous wolf and still did chaw 
 Between his cankered teeth a venomous tode 
 That all the poison ran about his maw/' 
 
 In Lovelace's duel : 
 
 " First from his den rolls forth that load 
 Of spite and hate, the speckled toad, 
 And from his chaps a foam doth spawn." 
 
 Pope, in his prologue to the Satires, has Sporus, who, a 
 
 "Familiar toad, 
 Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad. " 
 
 Thomson in his " Castle of Indolence " has " a wretch : " 
 
 " A wretch, who had not crept abroad 
 For forty years, no face of mortal seen, 
 In chamber brooding like a loathly toad." 
 
 Southey in " The Miser's Mansion " makes the toad a feature 
 of its horrors : 
 
 " Thy tall towers tremble to the touch of time, 
 The rank weed rustle in thy spacious courts ; 
 Filled are thy wide canals with loathly slime, 
 Where, battening undisturb'd, the foul toad sports." 
 
 As opposed to all this fancy, how strangely reads this 
 
The Loathed Paddock. 105 
 
 extract from Sir Joseph Banks, not the only naturalist by a 
 score who has left on record his admiration of and liking 
 for toads : 
 
 " In a cage, if properly provided with a damp corner, 
 lined with mat, and kept clean, it will live happily and com- 
 fortably a long time. Feed it once a day with earthworms, 
 maggots, or flies ; of all of which it is very fond. I conceive 
 that the workings of your reason would soon gain a victory 
 over your prejudice if you could conquer your first disgust 
 and look at the animal with any kind of indifference. The 
 eye of the toad would first attract your attention, which 
 is brilliant and intelligent; his action in seizing his prey, 
 which is composed of a mixture of force and cunning, would 
 amuse you, and I am confident, if the first prejudice were 
 removed, that in one week's time a toad would become an 
 object of amusement instead of disgust." 
 
 Its nominal connection with the toadstool is very curious, 
 for it arises from the word " pogge," which means a toad, 
 and is also an equivalent for Puck. Now, the "pogge," as 
 I have already said, has in popular superstition a diabolical 
 aspect, and is of the nature of devilkins, of whom Puck is 
 the chief, and the fungus in question, by a very allow- 
 able fancy, is called indifferently a "puck's stool," or 
 toad-stool, and the puff-ball is a pixie-stool, or paddock- 
 stool. Spenser's couplet on this connection, is surely 
 delightful 
 
 " The grisly toadstool grown there might I see, 
 And loathed paddocks lording on the same." 
 
 "Toad-flax," one of the very prettiest of all our wild- 
 flowers, and "toad -pipe," are said to be only accidentally 
 associated with the toad, as the original spelling was " tod," 
 which means a bunch. Not that I care in the least for such 
 learned enlightenments. They spoil a great deal of pleasant 
 fancy, I think, by taking away its flax and its pipe from the 
 
io6 
 
 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 toad. Why should not the quiet-living, home-staying thing 
 spin flax or use the hollow tubes of the equisetum (as the 
 frogs pretend they use the reeds) for mellowing their 
 utterances ? There are toads that croak as melodiously as 
 frogs. 
 
PART If. 
 THE POETS' FISHES. 
 
PART II. 
 THE POETS' FISHES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FISH-MONSTERS AND MYTHS. 
 
 IT is not easy with poets' animals to draw the line between 
 fish and flesh. Their water creatures are so finely graduated, 
 from the complete human to the complete fish, that it is 
 difficult to say where the actual severance of species occurs. 
 Out on the sea-wave yonder a water-sprite "sits dodging 
 the blessed bird," and here on the river-bank the brown 
 kelpie lies, "lurking 'mid the unrustling reeds." But you 
 cannot see whether they have legs or tails. Yet they are 
 the kindred of the mermaids who wear scales on half their 
 bodies, and the mermaids again are the relatives of creatures 
 that are entirely fish. 
 
 Sometimes these sea things are dreadful, living as they 
 do in an ocean " scourged by hissing gales, and writhing in 
 their glistening coats of clashing scales," and "haunting 
 those dark rocks which, when the storm is up, bellow and 
 gnash and snarl together." Yet as a rule the poets make fun 
 of them. Proteus and his sea-calves have little dignity. 
 Triton with his puffed -out cheeks is usually laughed at. 
 In a general way, of course, there is the utmost, reverence 
 expressed for " the huge sea monsters that lift the deep 
 
 upon their backs ; " and now and again there is special awe 
 
 109 
 
1 10 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 of some particularly grim creature such as Spenser's "griesly 
 wasserman," that 
 
 " Makes his game 
 The flying ships ; " 
 
 or " the horrible sea satyre " " that doth show his fearful face 
 in time of greatest storm ; " or " the greedy rosmarines with 
 visages deforme," Land monsters are all well enough. 
 Amphibious ones just pass muster. But purely aquatic 
 monsters are absurd. The poets, it is true, affect to believe 
 in the fiction that the water holds an exact counterpart of 
 the geology of the dry land 
 
 " For seas as well as skies have sun, moon, stars ; 
 As well as air swallows, rooks, and stares ; 
 As well as earth vines, roses, rushes, melons, 
 Mushrooms, pinks, gilliflowers, and many millions 
 Of other plants, more rare, more strange than these, 
 As very fishes, living in the seas ; 
 As also rams, calves, horses, hares, and hogs, 
 Wolves, urchins, lions, elephants, and dogs, 
 Yea, men and maids, and, which I most admire, 
 The mitred Bishop and the cowled Friar, 
 Of which examples, but a few years since, 
 Was shown in Norway the Polonian prince." 
 
 But they treat the marine Fauna of Fancy individually 
 as inferior imitations of their terrestrial equivalents. 
 
 It was a common myth this that the sea held a duplicate 
 of every animal on the earth, and antiquity therefore was 
 familiar with many marine equivalents for their land beast?, 
 even though they could find no better resemblances for the 
 corresponding terrestrial beasts than a lobster for the " lion," 
 a crab for the "bear," a skate for the "ox," a dog-fish for 
 the "dog," and an eel for the "wolf." The names were 
 probably given at first simply to indicate a single point 
 of fancied resemblance, but eventually some imaginative 
 theorist, seeing so many correspondences recognised, hit 
 upon the idea of extending the identities throughout creation. 
 The attempt, however, was a complete failure, and the 
 
Fish-Monsters and Myths. 1 1 1 
 
 further inquiry is made, the wider become the differences 
 between the inhabitants of the water and the earth. 
 
 " Where, like our moderns so profound, 
 Engag'd in dark dispute, 
 The cuttles cast their ink around 
 To puzzle the dispute. 
 
 Where sharks like shrewd directors thrive, 
 Like lawyers rob at will, 
 Where flying fish, like trimmers live, 
 Like soldiers, swordfish kill. 
 
 Where on the less the greater feed, 
 The tyrants of an hour, 
 Till the huge royal whale succeed 
 And all at once devour. 
 
 Thus, in the moral world we now 
 
 Too truly understand 
 
 Each monster of the sea below 
 
 Is match'd by one at land." Ch. Pitt. 
 
 Sailors and fishermen still retain many of the old names, 
 and popular usage has familiarised us more or less with the 
 sea-horse the quaint little creature, so like a knight on a 
 chess-board sea-lion, sea-bear, sea-cat, sea-eagle, sea-bat, 
 sea-hedgehog, sea-leopard, sea-mouse, sea-scorpion, sea- 
 snipe, sea-swallow, sea-parrot, and so forth, while heralds 
 are responsible for the perpetuation of many amphibious 
 hybrids. But this tendency to see in the water a reflection 
 of everything on land is only an instance of human self- 
 consciousness, for if we were to be just to our seniors in 
 creation, and more modest, we should call ourselves land- 
 manatees, our elephants land-whales, and our tigers land- 
 sharks. As Sir Thomas Browne says " If we concede 
 that the animals of one element might bear the names ot 
 those in the other, the watery productions should have the 
 pre-nomination." 
 
 The poets' sea-horses are veritable things of saddle and 
 harness, that "snort amayne, and from their nostrils blow 
 
1 1 2 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 the brynie stream." Again in Darwin "Her playful sea- 
 horse wooes her soft command, Turns his quick ears, his 
 webbed claws expands." 
 
 These are obviously the actual chargers that bore the 
 sea-god through the tumult of the ^Egean, with such " a 
 rushing voice of waters " as silenced for a while even the 
 thunders of an embattled Olympus. 
 
 The sea-dog, again, is evidently no barking thing like 
 the horrible familiars of Scylla, for the hounds of the 
 Sicilian ogress are always mentioned specifically by name. 
 It is a horrible fish of the shark kind a dog-fish. Thus 
 Moore has the sea-dog "that doats upon the small sweet 
 fry that round him floats," and "that tracks the bloody 
 way " of the bark. In Faber they are the companions of 
 the seal 
 
 1 ' And on the sandbanks of the bay 
 Sea-dogs and seals together lay, 
 As though the hot mist of noon were sweet 
 
 After the day's cold gloom. 
 They slept like the dogs at the marble feet 
 
 Of a Templar on his tomb." 
 
 And from this we pass to the " sea-calf," which, in Savage 
 for instance, basks on the rock where seals congregate for 
 sunshine, and to the "sea-lion" that roams in Rogers "in 
 coral groves silent and dark," and so to the seals themselves. 
 
 Poets oddly enough detest the seal. Keats only has it 
 sadly " in death, on the cold ice with piteous bark, lie full of 
 darts." But with the rest it is the " stinking " seal in Spenser 
 and others, and the " misshapen " seal. 
 
 Sometimes we read " with seals and ores in sunless caverns 
 bred ;" at others the poets call them "ores" when they wish 
 to aggravate their " obscenity ; " and Leyden accuses them of 
 attacking children by throwing stones at them : 
 
 " Nor ravenous seal, that suckleth on the shore 
 Her hairy young, unaw'd by eye of man ; 
 
Fish-Monsters and Myths. 1 1 3 
 
 Her snorting oft, at sunset, 0:1 the coast 
 
 Of Argus, fruitful land of vital grain, 
 
 The wanton damsel mocks, and children join 
 
 Insultant, to provoke with rustic names ; 
 
 Suddenly awak'd she starts with uncouth gait 
 
 Gleaning their steps, and now with either hand 
 
 Gathers, and throws full fast stone after stone ; 
 
 Blind with revenge, nor mindful of her end, 
 
 Though near ; for now her neck the hissing ball 
 
 Hath pierced. . . . 
 
 In vain, alas ! thou homeward hasteth back, 
 
 Mad to have risked thy life with artful man 
 
 On land, to thee strange element, where now 
 
 Thou agonising liest, a monument 
 
 For others not to dare their sphere beyond ; 
 
 While children, from their flight retiring, gaze 
 
 And wonder at the shaggy monster's form." 
 
 The seal is the "dire" Phoca of poetry, sometimes a 
 " scaly " beast that (as in Spenser), draws the shell chariots 
 of sea divinities, but more often an ordinary seal, found in 
 the high seas, rolling in company with' whales and " grarnpi," 
 as more than one poet calls them. 
 
 " Old sea-lion of the North " is an excellent conceit of 
 Mackay, speaking of the Viking. 
 
 It is characteristic of poets to prefer for their purpose 
 those " fish " that are associated with old myths, and have 
 classical associations, rather than those that are simply 
 picturesque in nature. The dolphin, nautilus, and Behe- 
 moth are therefore especial favourites, while as terms of 
 reproach the shark and pike are of frequent occurrence. 
 Yet all the same, when we have allowed for the normal 
 prepossession of bards in favour of the ancient and mythi- 
 cal, heraldic or absurd, there remains a considerable balance 
 of very good description of, and pretty thought, about the 
 real water-folk. 
 
 In the general struggle some of them have attained to 
 
 H 
 
1 1 4 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 honours by their force of character. For instance, the 
 salmon, so lordly in its nature as to worthily justify the name 
 of that proud King of Elis who defied Olympus. But he 
 was hurled to the shades by a judiciously directed thunder- 
 bolt, and thus abundantly expiated his arrogant obliquities. 
 So too the shark, that awful Attila of the sea ; and the 
 pike also, the " dispeopler of the lake," that by its ferocity 
 of countenance and manners usurps the autocracy of the 
 reedy pond. Other fish again have compassed dignity by 
 the passive virtues of their flesh. Did not Domitian order 
 a special session of the Senate to discuss the cooking of a 
 turbot, and " nihil ad rhombum " all Lombard Street to a 
 China orange pass into a proverb ? What man in Rome 
 would not have been a lamprey to be petted by the beautiful 
 wife of Drusus ? and what a pitch of dignity they attained 
 to in the households of epicures, those mullet, and mursenn, 
 and carp. But by far the greatest number have achieved 
 distinction by legendary exploits, or by accidents of honour. 
 Thus the dolphin and the tortoise, or the haddock and the 
 John Dory. It was a crab that retrieved the crucifix of St. 
 Xavier from the sea 
 
 " Nor let Xavier's great wonders pass concsaled, 
 How storms were by the Almighty wafer quelled, 
 How zealous crab the sacred image bore, 
 And swam a Catholic to the distant shore" 
 
 and to a codfish that Scandinavia owed its recovered crown. 
 Was it not a fish that guided the Vedic ark to its resting-place, 
 the hill-peak Naubandha? 
 
 " In the whole world of creation, 
 
 None were seen but these seven sages, Manu and the Fish. 
 Years on years, and still unwearied, drew this Fish the bark along, 
 Till at length it came where reared Himavan its loftiest peak ; 
 There at length they came, and smiling, thus the Fish addressed the Sage : 
 ' Bind now thy stately vessel to the peak Himavan ! ' 
 At the Fish's mandate, quickly to the peak of Himavan 
 Bound the Sage his bark ; and even to this day that loftiest peak 
 Bears the name Naubandha," 
 
Fish-Monsters and Myths. 1 1 5 
 
 and from a fish-pond (according to Arabic legend) that 
 Moses was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter? When the 
 demons had usurped Solomon's throne, and the monarch 
 was an outcast in his dominions and jeered at as a sort of 
 Perkin Warbeck, a preposterous claimant, a fish found the 
 omnipotent signet-ring, and so enabled the king to reascend 
 his throne. Did they not give their names to a score of 
 cities? Is not fish one of the special foods promised to 
 the faithful in the paradise of the Moslem, with, hard 
 by, that tree from Sinai that yields sauces "appropriate 
 thereto, for them who eat" a kind of paradisiacal 
 cruets. 
 
 In character they range through every variety of tempera- 
 ment, from the gentle carp that in Java and elsewhere are 
 tamed into the playfulness and familiarity of dormice or 
 caged birds, or the Adonis, " darling of the sea," l to the dog- 
 fish, that are cruel and fierce beyond all mammalian com- 
 parison. And what episode is there in all human knowledge 
 more terrible than the manner of the death of those whales 
 which the dog-fish follow for days and days and days, living 
 upon them as they go ? 
 
 Fish are, as a rule, in myths, the stupid persons of the 
 narrative, the foolish folk who are found dancing in the 
 nets just when they should be most serious ; who get caught 
 and beg the fishermen to put them back, "so that we may 
 grow larger and better worth your eating ; " who catch hold 
 of the hook in order to pull the angler into the water; 
 who rush into the net just to make fun of the fishermen, 
 
 1 " There is also," saith the " Compleat Angler," " a fish called by Aliaut 
 the Adonis, or Darling of the Sea, so called because it is a loving and 
 innocent fish, a fish that hurts nothing that hath life, and is at peace with 
 all the numerous inhabitants of that vast watery element ; and truly I 
 think most anglers are so disposed to most of mankind." Wait for the 
 adonis that Marc Antony and Cleopatra used to make those notable fishing- 
 excursions, at once the admiration and the scandal of "surrounding 
 nations." 
 
1 1 6 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 forgetting that, though it is the same old net with the same 
 meshes they used to slip through when they were tiny fry, 
 they have been gradually getting bigger themselves, who 
 fall victims, in fact, to every designing person that comes 
 their way. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 FISHES OF THE ANGLE. 
 
 POETS are in sympathy with anglers, whether, as children, 
 they go with Clare 
 
 " Chasing the stickle o'er the shallow tide, 
 And flat stones turning, where the gudgeon hide " 
 
 or, in completer accomplishment of adult sport 
 
 " Where the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge, 
 And feeding pike starts from the water's edge" 
 
 with Mackay 
 
 " Rod in hand they go 
 To streams that leap too frolicsome to flow, 
 Angling for trout, and catch them by themselves, 
 In fancied citadel, beneath the shelves of slippery stone ; " 
 
 all of which is very curious. They do not, it is true, like 
 to see men putting the poor worms on to their hooks, but, 
 for poets, they are singularly insensible to any suffering that 
 may be caused to the fish. 
 
 " When, if or chance or hunger's pow'rful sway 
 Directs the roving trout this fatal way, 
 He greedily sucks in the twining bait, 
 And tugs and nibbles the fallacious meat. 
 Now, happy fisherman ! Now twitch the line ; 
 How thy rod bends ! behold, the prize is thine. 
 Cast on the bank, he dies with gasping pains, 
 And trickling blood his silver mail distains. 
 
1 1 8 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 You must not ev'ry worm promiscuous use ; 
 Judgment will tell the proper bait to choose. 
 The worm that draws a long immod'rate size 
 The trout abhors, and the rank morsel flies. 
 And if too small, the naked fraud's in sight, 
 And fear forbids, while hunger does invite. 
 Those baits will best reward the fisher's pains, 
 Whose polish' d tails a shining yellow stains. 
 
 Cleanse them from filth, to give a tempting gloss, 
 
 Cherish the sullied reptile race with moss ; 
 
 Amid the verdant bed they twine, they toil, 
 
 And from their bodies wipe their native soil." Gay. 
 
 Or again, the salmon-fisher 
 
 "Till, tired at last, despoil'd of all his strength, 
 The game athwart the stream unfolds his length. 
 He now, with pleasure, views the gasping prize 
 Gnash his sharp teeth, and roll his bloodshot eyes ; 
 Then draws him to the shore with artful care, 
 And lifts his nostrils in the sick'ning air. 
 Upon the burden'd stream he floating lies, 
 Stretches his quiv'ring fins, and gasping, dies." 
 
 With all their strong objections to birds catching insects, 
 animals eating each other, and human beings hunting, 
 shooting, and snaring game, poets speak tenderly of fishing, 
 and admiringly of success with rod, net, or spear. 
 
 Collectively in single poems, and individually in hundreds 
 of scattered verses, the denizens of British waters find such 
 frequent reference as would surprise any literary angler who 
 cared to rummage our classics for piscatorial allusions. In- 
 deed, it would be well worth the while of some literary fisher- 
 man of the " Red Spinner " type to run over the British poets 
 for the poetry of fishes. The mistake hitherto has been, it 
 seems to me, to collate only "the Poetry of the Angle." 
 Now, the majority of our piscatory bards were better anglers 
 than poets, and their descriptions of fresh-water fishing and 
 fresh-water fishermen are vapid, sententious, and conceited. 
 I know nothing more depressing in the range of poetry than 
 their odes on angling and so forth, written apparently under 
 
Fishes of tlie Angle. 1 19 
 
 the mocking burden of empty creels. Izaak Walton himself 
 is very dreary reading indeed, unless (I hope I am not pro- 
 fane) for one in the humour to be amused by tediously- 
 sustained affectation. He then becomes undoubtedly 
 "quaint." Most poets, moreover, when they go a- fishing, 
 seem to me to become at the outset apologists for the sport 
 by pointing out how suitable angling is for the observation 
 of Nature as if one could not worship the divinities of 
 river-bank and meadow, of sedge and overhanging wood, 
 without having a box of worms in one's pocket. I always 
 think of that dragon-fly that comes and sits cross-wise on 
 the tip of the rod whenever an angling poet begins maunder- 
 ing about Nature, and it has been a result of my study of the 
 bards to find that angling is emphatically the pastime of the 
 commonplace versifier. When trivial Gay tries to work 
 himself up into enthusiasm over a salmon, he firks up such 
 a very moderate degree of fervour as reminds one of an 
 organist at an instrument with leaky bellows, that gives forth 
 only "the exiguous residual squeak." Somerville was of 
 course a true poet of the chase, but he is sportsman far 
 before he is poet, and his descriptions are at most times of 
 revolting cruelty. But the majority of the "poets of the 
 Angle "will be found-no be invertebrates. They hope by 
 referring to the sky, and the grass, and the water to magnify 
 the sport obliquely, and with a great show of commonplace 
 observation and some piety to enhance indirectly the virtues 
 of an occupation which of itself did not suffice to float their 
 lines. 
 
 Such collections of verse, therefore, represent the poetry 
 of fishing neither adequately nor becomingly. But if 
 a tasteful compilation of the poetry of fishes^ "from the 
 oyle-steeped anchovie" to the "cumbrous grampus," from 
 "the sudden rushing of the minnow shoal," scared from 
 the shallows by a passing tread, "to those living islands, 
 whales," were to be made, the result would be found 
 
I 20 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 abounding in vigorous descriptions of water life Leyden's, 
 for instance without any references of any kind to anglers 
 and most charming vignettes straight from nature, quite 
 irrespective of rods or " worms." Such a work would be 
 welcome not merely to sententious anglers, but to all lovers 
 of nature, and that means virtually everybody. 
 
 My own concern just now is with fishes, and not 
 fishermen ; but the attitude of the poets towards the craft 
 may find a passing notice, for it is rather a curious one, 
 inasmuch as they do not seem to recognise any cruelty in 
 the sport, but, on the contrary, to regard the catching offish 
 as innocent and commendable. Poetical sympathies are, 
 no doubt, rather unaccountable. The deer is pitied, but 
 the fox never ; hares are condoled with, but not rabbits ; 
 they exult in the killing of otters, which kill fish for food, and 
 condone the killing of pike for sport. Indeed, the killing 
 of fish generally is amiably condoned. Sometimes there 
 is an affectation of compromise by throwing in a word of 
 pity for the worm, as Izaak Walton does himself "damned 
 neuters " (as Dryden has it), " in their double way of steering, 
 neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring" and very 
 often they use some such phrase as this 
 
 "With slender line 
 And yielding rod, solicit to the shore 
 The eager trout " 
 
 to temper the actual fact ; but, as a rule, there is nothing 
 but straightforward approval of " that solitary vice ; " whether 
 only as children "catching prickly stickles in their rout, and 
 miller's-thumbs and gudgeons driving out " or the more 
 serious processes of maturer angling. No poet ever re- 
 proaches children for murdering loaches, minnows, gud- 
 geon, and similar small fry "which everywhere are found 
 in every little beck ; " although poetry is full of reproofs for 
 doing bees, butterflies, and beetles to death. 
 
Fishes of the Angle. 121 
 
 " The various arts how fishes might be caught, 
 Sometimes with trembling reed, and single hair, 
 And bait conceal' d, he'd for their death prepare, 
 With melancholy thoughts and downcast eyes 
 Expecting, till deceit had gain'd its prize ; 
 Sometimes, in riv'let quick, and water clear, 
 They'd meet a fate more gen'rous from his spear. 
 To basket oft he'd pliant osier turn, 
 Where they might entrance find, but not return. 
 His net, well pois'd with lead, he'd sometimes throw, 
 Encircling thus his captives all below. 
 But when he would a quick destruction make, 
 And from afar much larger booty take, 
 He'd through the stream where most descending, set 
 From side to side his strong capacious net ; 
 And then his rustic crew, with mighty poles, 
 Would drive his prey from out their oozy holes, 
 And so pursue them down the rolling flood 
 Gasping for breath, and almost chock'd with mud, 
 Till they, of farther passage quite bereft, 
 Were in the mesh, with gills entangled left." 
 
 There is nothing in these lines to hint at pitifulness in 
 the writer, and the same want of sympathy with the fish 
 except on very rare occasions, where, as in Mackay, the fish 
 are warned against their " enemy " is characteristic of all 
 piscatorial verse. 
 
 That the world sustained a great loss in the destruction 
 of Solomon's work on Fishes, may be accepted as beyond 
 dispute ; for let the scientific attainments of the sumptuous 
 builder have been what they might, there can be no doubt 
 of it Solomon, who was of an artistic kind, would have pre- 
 served to posterity vast quantities of old-world nonsense, 
 possibly even of antediluvian facts, which are now hopelessly 
 lost to us; and except Solomon, no other personage of 
 Holy Writ has expatiated on the subject of fishes. We 
 have no Scriptural recognition of any great fisher " before 
 the Lord." Indeed the untranslated Bible is singularly 
 reticent on the subject, for it does not specify a single fish. 
 Tobit's fish and Jonah's fish, the fishes of the Psalms and 
 of the New Testament, are spoken of only generically, and 
 
122 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 even when the Lawgiver is enumerating the things which 
 the Hebrews might and might not eat, he is careful to dis- 
 tinguish by their names the creatures in fur and feathers, 
 but the fish are merely divided into " those with scales and 
 fins" and "those without." Still more remarkable is it 
 that Peter and his comrades, themselves professional fisher- 
 men, should have omitted to identify the actual species with 
 which the Saviour worked His miracles. In fish history, 
 therefore, there is a very considerable gap, and it is not until 
 we go to Pagan mythology that we find the things of the 
 water identified into species. 
 
 Poets divide them broadly, according to poetic suscepti- 
 bilities, into the tyrant and the victim, the eater and the 
 eaten ; reserving always, among the latter, their tenderest 
 sympathies for those species that are the best eating. 
 Nothing exasperates a poet against the otter so much as 
 that the "goose-footed prowler" should dare to eat trout. 
 If it only ate roach, their indignation would be mitigated. If 
 it devoured sticklebacks exclusively they would be indifferent 
 to its poaching. When it consumes the pike they applaud it. 
 
 "Where rages not oppression? where, alas, 
 Is innocence secure? Rapine and spoil 
 Haunt e'en the lowest deeps ; 
 Seas have their sharks, 
 Rivers and ponds enclose the rav'nous pike ; 
 He in his turn becomes a prey, on him 
 Th' amphibious otter feasts. Just is his fate deserved." 
 
 But the otter has the presumption to prefer the best fish 
 to have, in fact, the same tastes as man himself; and so, 
 just as they abuse the wolf for eating their mutton (they do 
 not really sympathise a bit with the sheep), and the fox for 
 stealing the hens that lay the eggs for their breakfast, so 
 they, the poets, pelt the otter with every name they can 
 think of, because it kills and eats the finer fish, salmon and 
 trout. 
 
Fishes of the Angle. 1 2 3 
 
 A volume as large as the present one could easily be 
 written on the Fishes of poetry alone, for it will be seen 
 from the next few pages (which read, I fear, very much 
 like a mere alphabetical catalogue), how comprehensive 
 the range of poetical reference to water-folk really is. 
 The subject has, I know, already attracted literary men 
 of the angle, and a great deal of most excellent work has 
 been done ; but there is not as yet any complete Thesaurus 
 of fish-verse : than which, I can imagine, for fishermen, no 
 more fascinating volume, nor for the curious reader outside 
 the crait, one of more unconventional interest. 
 
 To take them in order. First, the barbel, " than whom 
 a braver doth not swim " (Drayton), " nor (newly taken) 
 more the curious palate please;" the "silver broadside" 
 bream of Quarles, that gives Waller these curious lines in 
 the " Battle of the Summer Islands " 
 
 ' ' The boat which on the first assault did go, 
 Struck with a harping-iron the younger foe 
 Who, when he felt his side so rudely gored, 
 Loud as the sea that nourished him he roared : 
 As a broad bream, to please some curious taste, 
 While yet alive, in boiling water cast, 
 Vexed with unwonted heat he flings about 
 The scorching brass, and hurls the liquor out ; 
 So with the barbed javelin stung, he raves, 
 And scourges with his tail the suffering waves" 
 
 The "golden carp in his precious mail" (Charlotte Smith), 
 and " yellow carp in scales bedropped with gold " (Pope), 
 " in burnished golden mail " (Somerville) ; the chub, " which 
 some (whose nearer name) a cheven call" (Drayton), "food 
 to the tyrant pike (more being in his power), who for their 
 numerous store he most cloth them devour;" the "fast- 
 feeding" cod; the "muddy" conger; the "pretty slender 
 dare, of many cabled the dace," "with silver back" 
 
124 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " Where in the dark sequester' d pool, 
 Among the fibres of the tree, 
 The curious eye may often see 
 A little crew of silver dace 
 Self-prisoned in that shadowy place." Fater. 
 
 The Dory, "with his dolphin head, whose fins like amber 
 horns are spread " (Joanna Baillie), and whose body bears, 
 so some say, the marks of Peter's fingers. (The disciple had 
 caught it, but the fish cried so plaintively that, "touched 
 with compassion," he picked it up and let it go, saying, 
 "Rejoin thy family and remember me." Others, however, 
 say in that notable passage of the river, when he carried the 
 child-Christ across, St. Christopher caught the John Dory 
 (a sea-water fish, by the way) and left the marks of the pinch 
 which he gave it to be handed down in memoriam to the 
 Dory's posterity. This fish had a certain classical sanctity 
 as being called Zeus, and Aristotle has a " sacred fish," the 
 Anthias, which, from his description of its habits, has been 
 conjectured to be the John Dory. It was also called 
 Faber, " the blacksmith," and so under the protection of 
 Hephaistos, Mulciber, or Vulcan. Again, the Apah, or 
 king-fish, is a native of the eastern seas, and it is not a 
 little singular that, by a people so distant and secluded as 
 the Japanese, this fish (originally included in the genus 
 Zeus) should also be regarded as devoted to the Deity, 
 and the only one that is so. The Apah is by them termed 
 Tai, and is esteemed as the peculiar emblem of happiness, 
 because it is sacred to Jebis or Neptune.) 
 
 "The insinuating eel" (Somerville), "lithe and wavy, in 
 shining volumes rolled" (Pope); the "silver-throated" eels 
 of Keats, " that dread the heron," and " weel-kenned for 
 souple tail and gleds for greed," is, as it deserves, a pro- 
 minent fish in verse, and many rivers strive for supremacy in 
 the produce. Thus Pope has " the Kennet swift, for silver 
 eels renowned;" in Drayton, "nor Annan's silvered eel 
 
Fishes of the Angle. 125 
 
 exceedeth that of Trent ; " 1 and this creature may, therefore, 
 lay fair claim to the honour of being a " time-honoured " 
 dish, and its excellence a maxim of old prescription. (What 
 fanatics the Greeks and Romans were about "the holy 
 eel, Boeotian goddesses all clothed in beet ! " They called it 
 " the white-armed goddess " and " the Helen of the dinner- 
 table. " But the Egyptians went even further, for they not only 
 adored them as food but formally worshipped them. None 
 the less the natural history of the eel puzzled the ancients 2 
 vastly, and the theory that satisfied them best was that the 
 creature was the spontaneous outcome of river-mud.) 
 
 The "disrelished" flounder "smooth and flat;" the spotted 
 grayling "basking between the shadows" (Jean Ingelow), 
 " whose great spawn is big as any pease " (Drayton). 
 
 "To smell daintily as a flower or a fish" has been 
 accepted by our forefathers as an allowable simile. One 
 angler says the smelt has a fragrance of lavender ; another 
 that it savours of cucumber ; another that the grayling has 
 the aroma of thyme. St. Ambrose called it the "sweet- 
 flower of fishes." (The cuttlefish was supposed "with its 
 sweet odour" to attract fish to it ; and the whale too obtained 
 its food by opening its mouth, whence issued " so agreeable 
 a scent " that the creatures of the deep gathered together in 
 its jaws to enjoy the fragrant atmosphere. Asa general rule 
 too, the smell of fish cooking is considered rather worse 
 than that of fish raw : yet, says an Athenian enthusiast, " the 
 
 1 " Your Ulster eels," says Laud to Strafford (in Stafford's letters), "are 
 the fattest and fairest I ever saw." 
 
 2 Compare Pope's 
 
 " Silver eel in shining volumes rolled, 
 And yellow carp in scales bedropped with gold ; " 
 
 with Jenyns' 
 
 " Here the bright silver eel enrolled 
 In shining volume lies, 
 There basks the carp bedropt with gold." 
 
126 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 odour of a cooking conger is so divine that it would make 
 a dead man sniff." 
 
 The mythical fragrance of the cuttlefish suggested to 
 Domenichi to give the Cardinal Ferrara, as device, a sepia, 
 with the motto, " Sic tua non virtus," meaning, that as the 
 cuttlefish by its sweet odour attracts other fish around it, 
 so the Cardinal, by the sweetness and affability of his dis- 
 position, drew all men after him but not to eat them.) 
 
 The "daintie," "greedy," "fool-gudgeon" (in Crabbe, 
 Moore, Cowper, and a dozen others a simile for dupes and 
 victims of lawyers) ; the halibut, dignified by Cowper's verse 
 as "the king o' the sea;" the herring, "sheathed in silvery 
 green," moving "in crowds amazing," by many besides 
 Swift and Darwin 
 
 " The migrant herring steers her myriad bands 
 From seas of ice, to visit warmer strands ; 
 Unfathomed depths and climes unknown explores, 
 And covers with her spawn unmeasured shores." 
 
 (Not that the herring attains in verse any prominence, 
 adequate either to its intrinsic worth or its legendary 
 importance. In folk-lore it is very conspicuous indeed, 
 and in contemporary superstition no other fish, naturally 
 enough, fills so large a space in the fancy of our sea-going 
 folk, as may well be, if only from the Scotch fisherman's 
 maxim, "No herring, no wedding." The connection may 
 not at first be obvious to all, but the Scottish registers make 
 it clear enough. In the returns for the third quarter of 
 1871, for instance, the registrar of Fraser burgh states that 
 the herring fishery was very successful, and the value of 
 the catch, including casks and curing, may be set down 
 at .130,000 sterling, and the marriages were 80 per cent, 
 above the average. On the other hand, the registrar of 
 Tarbert has to report a steady falling off in the fishing at 
 that creek, and consequently the quarter passed without 
 an entry in the parish register. The registrar of Lochgilp- 
 
Fishes of the Angle. 1 2 7 
 
 head also returns that the herring fishery has been a failure 
 in the loch, and states that this accounts for the blank 
 in the marriage column that quarter " No herring, no 
 wedding." 
 
 That herrings have a king who leads them from sea 
 to sea is a wide-spread tradition, but, as a rule, their 
 monarch is some predaceous wretch who looks upon his 
 subjects merely as a perambulatory larder ; thus the 
 Chimsera, which in the north is called the herring king, 
 does no more for the herrings than live upon them. The 
 porpoise, by the way, is called both the "herring king" 
 and the " herring pig ; " but this creature's synonyms are 
 singularly numerous.) 
 
 The "regicide" lampreys of Moore, that in Darwin, 
 " with lungs respiring steer, kiss the rude rocks, and suck 
 till they adhere," has only an indifferent character in folk- 
 lore. So Gay " Lamprey's a most immodest diet, You'll 
 neither wake nor sleep in quiet." 
 
 The mackerel with its "tabbied sides," so delightful in 
 Jean Ingelow's vignette 
 
 1 ' And down we ran and lay upon the reef, 
 And saw the swimming infants, emerald green, 
 In separate shoals ; the scarcely turning ebb 
 Bringing them in ; while sleek and not intent 
 On chase, but taking that which came to hand, 
 The full-fed mackerel and the gurnet swam 
 Between." 
 
 " The minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin, swimming 
 in mazy rings the pool within " (Joanna Baillie) 
 
 1 ' The sudden rushing of the minnow shoal, 
 Scared from the shallows by my passing tread." 
 
 " Dull as a mullet " was a Roman proverb, but in English 
 verse it lives as a comparison for constancy, and is the 
 "faithful "mullet 
 
128 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 ' ' But for chaste love the mullet hath no peer ; 
 For, if the fisher hath surprised her pheer, 
 As mad with woe, to shore she followeth, 
 Prest to comfort him both in life and death." Walton. 
 
 (In contrast to this, from the same poet, is the " sargus "- 
 
 " The adult' rous sargus doth not only change 
 Wives every day in the deep streams, but (strange) 
 As if the honey of sea-love delight 
 Could not suffice his ranging appetite, 
 Goes courting she-goats on the grassy shore, 
 Horning their husbands that had horns before." 
 
 So, too, the " constant " cantharis, which, says this " com- 
 pleat " old angler, 
 
 " In nuptial duties spendeth his chaste life, 
 Never loves any but his own dear wife.") 
 
 The "bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye "(Pope), 
 "and prickling fins against the pike prepared "- 
 
 11 As Nature had therein bestowed this stronger guard 
 His daintiness to keep (each curious palate's proof), 
 From his vile ravenous foe." Drayton. 
 
 The pike that "feed like cannibals" (Butler); the "tyrant 
 pike" (Somerville), "that keeps awful court" (Ramsay); 
 " vile, ravenous pike," "dispeoples of the lake" (Gay) ; 
 the ruffe, " the very near ally " of the perch ; the " wary " 
 roach (Marvel), " whose common kind to every flood doih 
 fall;" the "stately sawmont"of Burns, "that dreads the 
 thievish net and triple spear " (Gay). 
 
 Only less frequent because less familiar is "the stately 
 sawmont," for this noble fish meets everywhere with the 
 same unstinted admiration. Its life-history might easily 
 be gathered from the poets, but the two following must 
 suffice as specimens of the detail in which "the lord of 
 rivers " is treated. 
 
Fishes of the Angle. 129 
 
 ' ' By purifying frosts when streams run clear, 
 The amorous salmons to the fords repair ; 
 Unerring instinct moves their longing mind, 
 By wondrous ways to propagate their kind. 
 Not the red firebrand blazing o'er their head 
 Can force the lovers from their wat'ry bed ; 
 So fierce love rages in their gelid blood, 
 The unheeded trident gores them in the flood. 
 Deep, deep, they bury in a sandy bed 
 Their countless ova and prolific seed ; 
 Which unobserved long lurk beneath the tide 
 Till Sol arrays the year in vernal pride. 
 Then all the sand (a true though wondrous thing) 
 Begins to move as in a bubbling spring ; 
 Swarming with life, the weltering bottom heaves, 
 And glittering swarms crowd the encumbered waves. 
 Broad shoals, on shoals in youthful prime, are rolled ; 
 Their azure armour shines with studs of gold ; 
 Bedropt with purple hues and scarlet bright, 
 They shoot amid the floods, a glorious sight." Leyden. 
 
 " Now when the labouring fish doth at the foot arrive, 
 And finds that by his strength but vainlie he doth strive, 
 His taile takes in his teeth ; and bending like a bow, 
 That's to the compasse drawne, aloft himself doth throwe, 
 Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand, 
 That bended end to end, and flerted from the hand, 
 Farre off itselfe doth cast ; so doth the salmon vaut. 
 And if at first he faile, his second summersaut 
 Hee instantlie assaies ; and from his nimble ring 
 Still yarking, never leaves, until himselfe he fling 
 Above the Weare." 
 
 The salmon-fisher too is a frequent figure, and Marvell's 
 vignette is perhaps the most curious 
 
 "And now the salmon-fishers moist, 
 Their leathern boatsbegin to hoist, 
 And, like antipodes in shoes, 
 Have shod their heads in their canoes. 
 How tortoise-like, but none so slow 
 These rational amphibii go." 
 
 The " dainty " sole ; the sturgeon of Darwin's poem 
 
 "With worm-like beard his toothless lips array, 
 And teach the unwieldy sturgeon to betray. 
 Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulchred in sands, 
 In dread repose he waits the scaly bands, 
 
1 30 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws 
 The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws, 
 Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset, 
 And clasps the quick inextricable net." 
 
 The "vengeful tench;" the trout "bedropt with crimson 
 stains " in Shenstone, and " bedropped with crimson hail " 
 in Burns ; the weaver, " whose prickles," according to 
 Drayton, " venom be;" whiting "in its pearly sheen" 
 (Joanna Baillie), "a generall wholesome fish;" and all the 
 rest even the pout, loach, bleak, and bull-head, "which 
 everywhere are found in every little beck " find recognition 
 in proportion to their deserts. The herring, salmon, and 
 the trout enjoy, as is befitting, most frequent notice, and 
 those who search such poets as Clare, Faber, Hurdis, 
 Leyden, and Grahame, will chance upon passages of rare 
 merit and prettiness. 
 
 The last-named fish is specially a favourite. It is " the 
 river's pride." 
 
 " The trout, by Nature marked with many a crimson spot, 
 As though she curious were in him above the rest, 
 And of fresh-water fish, did note him for the best." 
 
 Many poets were anglers, and so "the pools where the trout 
 are found," " the rush-bordered rills where trout abide," " the 
 birch-shaded place that harbours the trout," " the wimpling 
 burn where darts the trout," are as familiar to readers of 
 verse as the fish itself; " the wary trout that thrives against 
 the stream" (Quarles) ; the "quick-eyed," "lightning-seiz- 
 ing" trout. Burns is alone, if I am not mistaken, in the 
 idea of " death's fish-creel," making Death an angler. It 
 would have been a finer fancy had the poet made him cast- 
 ing a net instead of a line ; inasmuch as Death offers no lure 
 to his victims. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 SOME POETIC FISH-FANCIES. 
 
 AMONG the foreign fishes if any fish can be called 
 "foreign" to our islands the shark, whale, sword-fish, 
 flying-fish, remora, nautilus, and "crimson" murex ("the 
 far-famed fish that gives the fleecy robe to Tyrian dye," and 
 "wounded strikes a purple stain"), afford the poets some 
 excellent touches of sea-life Nature. 
 
 The fiction of the " keeled " nautilus is far too beautiful 
 for any one to regret its survival, and the passages in which 
 our poets pass on to our time the legend of this mariner of 
 fancy are very dainty. Montgomery's lines that begin 
 
 " Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, 
 Keel upward from the deep emerged a shell 
 Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled " 
 
 are a delightful rendering of the myth, while Charlotte 
 Smith's poem to the nautilus is so charming that it is no 
 excessive generosity to forgive her adding a " tapering mast " 
 and " silken " sail to the rigging of the craft in which the 
 little mariner is supposed to "scud before the freshening 
 breeze" 
 
 " Where southern suns and winds prevail, 
 And undulate the summer seas, 
 The nautilus expands his sail 
 And scuds before the fresh'ning breeze. 
 
1 3 2 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Oft in a little squadron seen 
 Of mimic ships all rigg'd complete, 
 Fancy might think the Fairy Queen 
 Was sailing with her elfin fleet. 
 
 With how much beauty is design'd 
 Each channelled bark of purest white ; 
 W T ith orient pearl each cabin lin'd, 
 Varying with ev'ry change of light. 
 
 While with his little slender oars, 
 His silken sail, and tapering mast, 
 The dauntless mariner explores 
 The dangers of the watery waste. 
 
 Prepar'd, should tempests rend the sky, 
 From harm his fragile bark to keep, 
 He furls his sail, his oars lays by, 
 And seeks his safety in the deep. 
 
 Then safe on ocean's shelly bed 
 He hears the storm above him roar, 
 'Mid groves of coral glowing red, 
 Or rocks o'erhung with madrepore." 
 
 In another reference to the nautilus Montgomery repeats 
 the same fancy 
 
 "Should a breath of danger sound, 
 With sails quick furled it dives profound, 
 And far beneath the tempest's path 
 In coral grots defies the foe 
 That never breaks, in heaviest wrath, 
 The Sabbath of the deep below." 
 
 These are, of course, simply perpetuations of Pliny's 
 engaging romance of the nautilus one of the favourite 
 traditions of the classical poets. 
 
 In this class of merely fanciful creatures may be also 
 noticed the Pompilus, the sailor's pilot-fish, which was 
 supposed to guide mariners to their destination, and having 
 seen them safely into harbour, to go back to look for another 
 job, for Apollo, it is said, changed a fisherman (named 
 Pompilus) who had crossed him in his loves, into this fish, 
 and condemned him for all eternity to the task of gratuitous 
 
Some Poetic Fish- Fancies. 133 
 
 pilotage. The whale, again, was said to be attended by the 
 " musculus," a little fish that swam in front of Behemoth 
 and warned him off the shoals, on which he might have 
 otherwise run aground. 1 This legend reappears in the 
 " Pentameron," where the whale that has lost its way is told 
 to go and get " the sea-mouse " to pilot it. 
 
 The "remora," or sucking-fish, only finds recognition on 
 the score of the myth, that it could (as in Ben Jonson's 
 Magnetic Lady) stop vessels under full sail by suction. 
 Thus Spenser 
 
 " Looking far forth into the ocean wide, 
 A goodly ship, with banners bravely dight, 
 And flag in her topgallant I espied 
 Through the main sea making her merry flight. 
 Fair blew the wind into her bosom right, 
 And th' heavens looked lovely all the while 
 That she did seem to dance as in delight, 
 And at her own felicity did smile. 
 All suddenly there clove unto her keel 
 A little fish that men call remora, 
 Which stopped her course and held her by the heel 
 That wind nor tide could move her thence away. 
 Strange thing meseemeth that so small a thing 
 Should able be so great an one to wring ! " 
 
 In modern times it has been used to illustrate the power 
 of technical trivialities to retard a lawsuit, but antiquity be- 
 lieved it had the power of arresting a ship under full sail 
 by attaching its tail-end to a rock, and its head-end to the 
 keel of a passing vessel 
 
 " The lazy remora's inhaling lips 
 Hung on the keel, retard the struggling ships." 
 
 1 Mallet on " The Critic" is excellently severe : 
 
 " Where'er the king of fish moves on before, 
 This humble friend attends from shore to shore 
 With eyes still earnest, and with bill inclin'd, 
 He picks up what his patron drops behind. 
 With those choice cates his palate to regale, 
 And is the careful Tibbald of a whale." 
 
134 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 In the natural history of the period \ve read that " there 
 is a little fish, keeping ordinarie about rockes, named 
 Echeneis. It is thought that if it settle and sticke to the 
 keel of a ship under water, the ship goeth the slower by 
 that means, wherefore it is called the 'stay-ship.'" Now 
 Pliny is here cautious enough, and attributes no more to 
 the remora than is actually the property of barnacles when 
 in number. But popular fancy outran fact, and a single 
 remora, four inches long, was supposed to have held back 
 Antony's flag-ship in the sea-fight off Actium. Periander 
 also, among others, declared himself the victim of a similar 
 accident, and the fiction flourished, thanks chiefly to poets 
 and heralds, till a couple of centuries ago 
 
 "The sucking-fish, with secret chains 
 Clung to the keel, the swiftest ship detains." 
 
 The flying-fish, "the aspiring fish that fain would be a 
 bird," are, in the same way, favourites on account of a fancied 
 power of protracted flight. Thus Leyden, in some lines 
 written after being at sea for the first time 
 
 " On wondrous fins the fishes fly, 
 Like birds on the ocean plain, 
 In flocks like sparrows soar on high, 
 And sport and glitter on the main." 
 
 while Shelley has the mysterious lines 
 
 " As the flying fish drop from the Indian deep, 
 And mix with the sea-birds half asleep." 
 
 Montgomery, who often saw them, speaks of them flying 
 " in bow-and-arrow " figures, which is accurate ; but is he 
 speaking from observation when he describes pelicans prey- 
 ing upon them when on the wing, " snapping them, as mos- 
 quitoes are by swallows "? Cowley correctly speaks of their 
 "short silver wings," meaning of course that their flight is 
 brief, and the metaphors taken from this brevity by Swift, 
 Congreve, Shenstone and others, are both apt and forcible : 
 
Some Poetic Fish- Fancies. 135 
 
 " So fishes, rising from the main, 
 
 Can soar with moisten'd wings on high ; 
 The moisture dried, they sink again, 
 And dip their wings again to fly." 
 
 "Sprung the flying-fish against the sun, 
 Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height 
 To gather moisture for another flight." Byron. 
 
 " Like those fish by sailors met, 
 Fly highest while their wings are wet." Greene. 
 
 " Alas ! the flattering pride is o'er, 
 Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar ; 
 But erring man must blush to think, 
 Like thee, again, the soul must sink." Moore. 
 
 The torpedo, "the benumbing fish," curiously meets with 
 more references than might have been expected. An expla- 
 nation, perhaps, is to be found in its familiarity to the 
 ancients. A galvanic shock from the torpedo was one of 
 Galen's prescriptions for rheumatics and the gout, and the 
 poets, adopting the idea of antiquity, speak of the creature 
 u delivering its opium at a distance " the notion that electric 
 fishes could discharge the fluid to a distance without any 
 conducting medium. The spine of the stinging-ray was 
 the barb of the spear that Circe gave her son, and to this day 
 in the South Seas the savage tips his arrows and harpoons 
 with them. 
 
 Sword-fishes, as the " warriors of the sea," lend a martial 
 variety to many fishy lines, and we find them in Darwin in 
 the company of "torpedoes, sharks, rays, and porpuses/' 
 pouring t; their twinkling squadrons round the glittering 
 shore." 
 
 "Our little fleet was now engaged so far, 
 That like the sword-fish in the whale they fought ; 
 The combat only seemed a civil war, 
 Till thro" their bowels we our passage wrought." Dryden. 
 
 The shark is in Nature a thing of exceeding horror, but 
 the poets by their grisly fancies aggravate its terrors. Keats 
 
I 3 6 
 
 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 calls them "thorny" sharks, and another poet "mailed;" 
 and it is a favourite thought in Shelley, Montgomery, 
 Thomson, and Byron among others that they fattened on 
 the slave-trade 
 
 " His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate, 
 Here dwells the direful shark. Lured by the scent 
 Of steaming crowds, of rank disease and death, 
 Behold ! he, rushing, cuts the briny flood, 
 Swift as the gale can bear the ship along, 
 And from the partners of that cruel trade, 
 Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons, 
 Demands his share of prey demands themselves. 
 The stormy fates descend ; one death involves 
 Tyrants and slaves ; when straight, their mangled limbs 
 Crushing at once, he dyes the purple seas 
 With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal." Thomson. 
 
 " Myriads of slaves, that perished on the way, 
 From age to age the shark's appointed prey, 
 By livid plagues, by lingering tortures slain, 
 Or headlong plunged alive into the main." Montgomery. 
 
 How it follows ships when any are dying on board, is a 
 world-wide superstition, and finds place more than once in 
 verse. Thus in Barry Cornwall 
 
 " Till dawn we watched the body in its dead and ghastly sleep, 
 And next evening, at sunset, it was slung into the deep ! 
 And never, from that moment save one shudder through the sea 
 Saw we or heard the shark that had followed in our lee." 
 
 " Where 
 
 Is the ship ? On the verge of the wave where it lay, 
 One tiger is mingled in ghastly affray 
 With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the battle 
 Stain the clear air with sunbows ; the jar, and the rattle 
 Of the snake's adamantine voluminousness, 
 And the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rains 
 Where the grip of the tiger has wounded the veins, 
 Swollen with rage, strength, and effort ; the whirl and the splash 
 As of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash 
 The thin winds and soft waves into thunder ; the screams 
 And hissings crawl fast o'er the smooth ocean streams, 
 Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion, 
 A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean, 
 The fin-winged tomb of the victor." Shelley. 
 
Some Poetic Fish-Fancies. 1 3 7 
 
 " With their hammocks for coffins the seamen, aghast, 
 Like dead men the dead limbs of their comrades cast 
 Down the deep, which closed on them above and around, 
 And the sharks and the dog-fish their grave-clothes unbound, 
 And were glutted like Jews with this manna rained down 
 From God on their wilderness." Shelley. 
 
 They are " the grim monarchs of insatiate death " (Darwin) ; 
 and ''tyrants of the flood," with "quenchless rage;" the 
 "ravin'd salt-sea sharks." That they were supposed to have 
 the snake's power itself a fancy of fascinating with the eye, 
 especially women, and that on some coasts they are believed 
 never to molest children, are superstidons which the poets 
 utilise ; and the use of their teeth for arming the terrible 
 Polynesian cestus, is referred to by, I think, Thomson. The 
 " shark and dog-fish " is a companionship that occurs with 
 some frequency, notably in Shelley, and is not an unnatural 
 one 
 
 " As a shark and dog-fish wait 
 
 Under an Atlantic isle, 
 For the negro ship whose freight 
 Is the theme of their debate, 
 
 Wrinkling their red gills the while." 
 
 That the whale should be a familiar image in poetry is 
 not remarkable, seeing how antiquity, Holy Writ x (as trans- 
 lated), art, heraldry, and fiction generally, have popularised 
 Behemoth. 
 
 " Lo, warm and buoyant in his oily mail, 
 Gambols on seas of ice the unwieldy whale ; 
 Wide waving fins round floating islands urge 
 His bulk gigantic through the troubled surge ; 
 With hideous yawn the flying shoals he seeks, 
 Or clasps with fringe of horn his massy cheeks ; 
 Lifts o'er the tossing wave his nostrils bare, 
 And spouts pellucid columns into air ; 
 The silvery arches catch the setting beams, 
 And transient rainbows tremble o'er the streams." Darwin. 
 
 It is not often, however, that we hear the whale styled 
 
 1 The word whale does not occur in the Old Testament. P. R. 
 
138 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 "grampus," as in Darwin's poem on the "Economy of 
 Vegetation," in the striking passage that commences 
 
 1 ' So when enormous Grampus issuing forth 
 From the pale regions of the icy north, 
 Waves his broad tail and opes his ribbed mouth, 
 And seeks on winnowing fins the breezy south." 
 
 Nor is it easier to explain why poets should have persisted 
 in thinking that whales lived on herrings 
 
 ' ' A whale of moderate size will draw 
 A shoal of herrings down his maw ; " 
 
 ' ' With monstrous gape, 
 
 Sepulchral whales devour 
 Shoals at a gulp ; " 
 
 than that they should say three poets, at any rate " white 
 as whalebone." That it should be spoken of as "bound- 
 ing " is not consonant with whale dignity ; and when Mary 
 Howitt adds to Montgomery's irreverence by saying bound- 
 ing "like lambs" it seems to the ordinary mind that a 
 liberty is being taken with Behemoth, for even when at play 
 the giant should be taken seriously. 
 
 "With gills pulmonic breathes the enormous whale, 
 And spouts aquatic columns to the gale ; 
 Sports on the shining wave at noontide hour, 
 And shifting rainbows crest the rising shower." 
 
 This treatment is seemly; and "cumbrous," "belching," 
 "gulphing," ''living islands," are all becoming epithets ; but 
 it is curiously significant of the common humanity that 
 poets share with us that they should always exult so pro- 
 digiously in man's triumphs over the whale. Just as with 
 the lien, nearly every time a poet talks of the whale " in 
 oily mail," he is sure to say something about its being 
 stranded, or harpooned, or hunted, or otherwise victimised, 
 by human beings. 
 
 What an admirable poem that is of Mackay's on " The 
 
Some Poetic Fish- Fancies. 139 
 
 Shoal of Whales." The fisher folk are all in chapel on a 
 Sabbath when out through the open door one sees the 
 monsters spouting in the bay. "There are whales in the 
 bay ! a shoal ! a shoal ! " 
 
 ' ' ' Leviathan ! Leviathan ! ' 
 The minister cries, and shuts his book ; 
 And though a man of peace is he, 
 As a preacher of the Word should be, 
 He takes his musket from a nook, 
 Rusty and old, and hastes away 
 To join his people in the bay. 
 
 The women have left their spinning wheels, 
 
 Their hose, their nets, their fishing creels, 
 
 And arm'd themselves with pikes and staves 
 
 To follow the monsters of the waves. 
 
 Fifty boats at least are ready, 
 
 With rowers strong and helmsmen steady, 
 
 To drive the whales into shallow water, 
 
 And dye the beach with the blood of slaughter. 
 
 Merrily row the boats, 
 Merrily swell the sails, 
 And merrily go the islanders 
 To chase the mighty whales. 
 And quietly prays the preacher 
 For a blessing and reward 
 Upon harpoon and musket, 
 Upon the spear and sword, 
 That shall slay the great Leviathan 
 For the glory of the Lord." 
 
 But the Behemoth of the poets is, as I have said, a mixed 
 beast. At times it is the elephant "for thee his ivory 
 load Behemoth bears." At others the rhinoceros " decked 
 in Behemoth's spoils, the tali Shangalla strode." And 
 again a hippopotamus 
 
 " Mild is my Behemoth, though large his frame, 
 Smooth is his temper and repressed his flame 
 While unprovoked. This native of the flood 
 Lifts his broad foot and puts ashore for food : 
 Earth sinks beneath him as he moves along 
 To seek the herbs." 
 
1 40 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 But as a rule it is the whale. So too Leviathan. Though 
 sometimes a crocodile, it is generally " that sea beast which 
 God of all His works created hugest that swim the ocean 
 streams," and which 
 
 " Hugest of living creatures on the deep, 
 Stretched like a promontory, sleeps or swims, 
 And seems a moving land, and at his gills 
 Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out the sea" 
 
 Milton describes the whale as being often mistaken for an 
 island : 
 
 " Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam, 
 The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff, 
 Deeming some island, oft as seamen tell, 
 With fixt anchor in his skaly rind, 
 Moors by his side, under the lee, while night 
 Invests the sea, and wished-for morn delays." 
 
 This island idea is similarly utilised by a score of poets. 
 In another aspect Leviathan is a torpid giant of the true 
 lazy giant breed : 
 
 " So close behind some promontory lie 
 The huge leviathans t'attend their pray, 
 And give no chase ; " 
 
 but tremendous and tyrannical when once in motion. He 
 is then "dread Leviathan," and "tempests o'er the main 
 their terrors spread, to rock him in his bed." From his 
 "roaring nostrils" he sends "two fountains to the sky," and 
 "spouts his waters in the face of day." Sporting "on the 
 face of the calm deep," "he lashes it into foam," and woe 
 to those who "dispute his reign, and uncontrolled dominion 
 of the main." 
 
 What manner of thing " Leviathan " was in those un- 
 evoluted times the period called (until the day of Lyell) 
 the Epoch of Diluvium and Catastrophe, the age of unlimited 
 mud it would be almost profane for us, in these puny 
 days of whales, without spirit enough in us to fish up even 
 
Some Poetic Fish-Fancies. 141 
 
 a sea-serpent, to attempt to imagine ; and for myself I am 
 content to believe with the Talmudists that it was an unde- 
 finable sea-monster, of which the female lay coiled round 
 the earth, till God, fearing her progeny might destroy the 
 new globe, killed it, and that then He salted her flesh and 
 put it away for the banquet which the pious shall enjoy at 
 the Great End. In that day the angel Gabriel will kill the 
 male also, and will make a tent out of his skin for the elect 
 that are bidden to the banquet. But it is a hazy old tradi- 
 tion, I confess. 
 
 The " imperial whale" that does not dare, "unless by 
 stealth," to attack the " firm united commonwealth of the 
 herrings," is a very precious fiction, and full of humour. 
 
 " But herrings, lively fish, like best to play 
 In rowan ocean, or the open bay ; 
 In crowds amazing through the waves they shine, 
 Millions on millions from ilk equal line : 
 Nor dares the imperial whale, unless by stealth, 
 Attack their firm united commonwealth. 
 But artfu' nets and fishers' wilie skill 
 Can bring the scaly nations to their will." Allan Ramsay. 
 
 Only a poet could imagine a whale stealing up in a red 
 Indian, snaky sort of manner upon its prey, or suppose that 
 Behemoth, let him be never so crafty, could take a herring 
 by surprise, or fancy that any danger to the whales could 
 possibly result from a bold front attack upon a shoal of 
 herrings. That the whale eats herrings is " a fact of know- 
 ledge " with the poets, and seeing that they are convinced it 
 really was "a whale" (as our translation of the Acts states), 
 that " swallowed " Jonah, there can be obviously no physical 
 difficulty in the way of Behemoth swallowing herrings. Pitt 
 goes farther, and says it swallows sharks ! Milton and many 
 others after him speak of the whale as being scaly, but 
 Campbell is, I think, the only poet who endows Leviathan 
 
142 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 with a voice. " Where loud Lofoden whirls to death the 
 roaring whale." Judging from that poet's natural history 
 generally, it is more than probable that "roaring" was only 
 a truth by accident, for it is undeniable that the whale and 
 its cetaceous relatives, the " quadrupeds " of the sea, " can 
 roar you" both "gently as any sucking dove," or "with that 
 hollow voice of roaring" of the lion in the Progress that 
 came after the Pilgrim at "a great padding pace." Our 
 knowledge of these creatures is very insufficient, for, sad to 
 relate, nearly all our reliable information of their habits has 
 been obtained during the process of murdering them, or after 
 the great things have been murdered. We have no acquaint- 
 ance with the domestic or social life of the whales except in 
 circumstances of terror and bloodshed. Under these con- 
 ditions each of the sea-beasts have uttered sounds. The 
 common dolphin makes " a murmuring, like suppressed low- 
 ing ; " the other, while being killed, " bellowed like a bull." 
 Porpoises when entrapped "uttered cries so distressing, 
 that they had to be killed:" the grampus "groaned most 
 horribly," and the " cries " of the " ca'ing whale " while being 
 put to death were piteous. From all of which it may be 
 assumed that in times of happiness the whale-folk are not 
 voiceless ; and there is abundant foundation for the belief of 
 whalers, and the assent thereto of men of science, that the 
 whales call to each other under water, and communicate the 
 approach of danger by submarine signals of sound. So that 
 the poets who include the whales among these fishes are in- 
 correct in addressing them as "mute" 
 
 " Nay, the mute fish witness no less His praise, 
 For those He made, and clothed with silver scales, 
 From minnows to those living islands whales." Cowley. 
 
 Nor indeed, when speaking of fishes proper, are poets always 
 correct who address the finned things as "dumb"and "silent." 
 For it is now established as a fact of knowledge that there are 
 
Some Poetic Fish- Fancies. 143 
 
 fishes who " pipe " and " snort " and " grunt," and who make 
 noises that resemble drumming, whistling, and Jews'-harping. 
 
 The masted nautilus, again, is a very pleasant exten- 
 sion of the ancient myth, and suggests all kinds of possi- 
 bilities a double-funnelled nautilus, a passenger nautilus 
 registered Ai at Lloyd's. Did any poet ever see one 
 jury-rigged? The gleaming porpoise that "shoots" (in 
 Moore) "along the wave," is a terror to mariners. Sea- 
 horses " prick up their ears," and sea-dogs hunt prey " by 
 scent." Seals, as we have seen, pursue children and pelt 
 them with stones. Sharks kill their victims in Darwin 
 "with descending blow," and in Shelley they have "red 
 gills." That trout hybernate in river mud is as much a 
 poetical fiction as Eliza Cook's whim that "pearls hang 
 thick on the red coral stems ; " or Congreve's vision of 
 flying-fish in a river. Lobsters, according to one poet, live 
 " in scarlet mail ; " and the prawn when alive is, according 
 to another, " pink-nosed." 
 
 The nautilus suggests to Montgomery a pleasant figure 
 for the Esquimaux in their frail kayaks 
 
 " Trained with inimitable skill to float, 
 Each balanced in his bubble of a boat." 
 
 The shark, of course, provides an easy synonym for all 
 rogues of prey, and the gudgeon another for their victims : 
 
 ' ' The roving eye, the bosom bare, 
 The forward laugh, the wanton air, 
 May catch the fop, for gudgeons strike 
 At the bare hook and bait alike ; 
 While salmon play regardless by, 
 Till art like nature forms the fly." Moore. 
 
 Says Cowper 
 
 " Like 
 Dart: 
 
 "Live bullion" is Moore's pretty synonym for gold-fish; 
 
 " Like trout pursued, the critic in despair, 
 Darts to the mud, and finds his safety there." 
 
144 
 
 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 which, by the way, are said to have first reached Europe as 
 a present to the Pompadour. 
 
 That eels grow in time familiar with the process of being 
 skinned, Byron and others jocularly note; and Pope's 
 " hold the eel of science by the tail " is only one of the 
 many allusions to the creamre's slippery character and 
 evasive habits. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 SOME "SHELL-FISHES." 
 
 CRUSTACEANS, "whose shell is all their bones," curiously 
 enough bear a somewhat sinister character; but they have 
 'doubtless inherited this from antiquity, and so, having 
 passed opprobriously into proverbs, became fair game for 
 poets. At any rate, they do not hesitate to reflect upon 
 the character of the lobster and the crab, and, as a sample, 
 either Gay or Drayton is worth consulting by those interested 
 in " heating " viands. Hood in his " Mermaid of Margate " 
 celebrates the crustacean's revenge : 
 
 44 The squealing lobsters that he had boiled. 
 
 And the little potted shrimps, 
 All the horny prawns that he had spoiled, 
 Gnawed into his soul like imps." 
 
 Yet had our poets known as much as the Germans do of 
 those monster crustaceans of Udvaer (which the fishermen 
 dare not attack as their claws are a fathom apart) the poets 
 might have been more respectful to the Jesuits' symbol. 
 The crab, "as bargemen wont to fare, bending their force 
 contrary to their face" (Spenser), is ridiculed for being 
 "sidelong" and "crouching:" 
 
 " No crab more active in the dirty dance, 
 Downward to climb, and backward to advance" (Pope}' 
 
 and therefore papistical, 
 
 MS K 
 
146 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Next, "glowing" Cancer: 
 
 " As close in's shell he lies, affords his aid 
 To greedy merchants, and inclines to trade." 
 
 But over births his influence is hardly more auspicious 
 than the fishes', though in omen it is happy 
 
 " The dream's good ; 
 The crab is in conjunction with the sun." 
 
 And it is by the Gate of Cancer, Mercury standing at the 
 starry portals, that souls descend to take possession of the 
 bodies of men. Not that the reasons of the crustacean's 
 exaltation commend it to popularity, for when Hercules was 
 fighting with the Hydra, Juno meanly sent Cancer to bite 
 the hero's heel, but Hercules merely stopped for a moment 
 in his job, killed the crab, and then went on with the 
 Hydra. The goddess, however, translated the smashed 
 crustacean to the skies. 
 
 In the story of the " Cruel Crane Outwitted," the bird, 
 finding the fish likely to die of drought in a fast shrinking 
 puddle, offers to carry them across to a large and pleasant 
 lake of which he knows. After much suspicious demurring, 
 the fishes go with the crane, one by one, and are, of course, 
 eaten up in succession. Left last of all, however, is an old 
 crab, and the bird proposes to take it over too, to join its 
 old comrades. "Very good," says the crafty crustacean, 
 " but as you cannot very well hold me in your beak as you 
 did the fishes, suppose I hold you with my pincers." The 
 crane agrees to this, and having arrived at the shambles, 
 announces to the crab that he is now about to be eaten. 
 " Not a bit of it," is the reply. " On the contrary, if you 
 do not take me to the lake at once, I shall nip your head 
 off your thin neck." So the crane in great alarm takes 
 Cancer straight to the lake, but before getting off the bird's 
 back, the crab bites its head off. 
 
Some "Shell-fishes" 147 
 
 And, so again, when he kills the snake and sees it lying 
 stretched out along the ground, he addresses the dead 
 viper with the caustic moral " This fate would never have 
 befallen you if you had lived as straight as you have died." 
 
 The crab runs the fox a race, and as soon as his opponent 
 starts, catches hold of its tail. When the fox reaches the 
 winning-post it turns round to see how far the crab has got, 
 when the wily crustacean quietly drops off, crosses the 
 winning line, and startles the fox with " What ! come 
 at last, are you ? I've been here some time." 
 
 "The scallop cordiall judged, the dainty whelk and limp, 
 The periwinkle, prawnes, the cockle and the shrimp," 
 
 are all of ill-repute of being what a poet calls " a most im- 
 modest diet." (In Gay's poem "To a Young Lady" these 
 traditions are all noticed.) "The lobster, as an enemy to 
 serpents, was," says Moule, " sometimes used as an emblem 
 of temperance, and two lobsters fighting as an emblem of 
 sedition." The union of a lobster with the human form is 
 an impresa of very old date, but the families on the con- 
 tinent that bear this crustacean for a badge probably refer 
 it back to no earlier times than the chivalric days when 
 knights went forth to fight in that armour of overlapping 
 plates which were called "ecrivisses." But just as many 
 have adventitiously arrived at honour, so many others have 
 accidentally fallen into disrepute, and the lobster, recollect- 
 ing its traditional obliquities, may hardly go haughtily. Its 
 character in legend is very curious, for, while the crab is 
 always of good repute, the lobster is ever of bad. Very old 
 engravings show us a fool astride a lobster, and the signi- 
 ficance of that medal of the Pretender, in which the youthful 
 aspirant is shown in the arms of a Jesuit who rides a lobster, 
 conveys nothing to the credit of either the friar or the " fish." 
 Mercury in his baser aspect rides a cray-fish. Prawns and 
 shrimps are among the heraldic bearings of the Crafords 
 
148 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 and Atseas of Kent ; and the cray-fish, also an English crest, 
 was the badge of the Prince of Orange, and betrayed that 
 warrior to imprisonment when he had hoped to escape 
 identification among a heap of the killed after the battle 
 of St. Aubin du Cormier. The crab frequently recurs in 
 heraldry the golden crabs of the Scropes, the Danbys, and 
 the Bytheseas. 
 
 A scallop on a shield shows, or should show, that an 
 ancestor had been in the Crusades, as it was the cognisance 
 of St. James, and after him of all who fought against the 
 infidels, and so of all pious pilgrims. The badge of the 
 Order of St. James of Spain is a sword with a cross handle 
 and a scallop on the pommel. The same shell forms the 
 badge and collar of the Order of St. James in Holland, and 
 St. Louis instituted the " Order of the Ship and Escallop " 
 for the decoration of the nobility who accompanied him to 
 the Holy Land. The collar of the Order of St. Michael, 
 founded by Louis XI., was garnished with golden scallops. 
 The cockle, whelk, and several of the genera Turbo and 
 Cyproea, found among modern crests and shields, date back 
 to the palmy days of Phoenicia, when Tyre and other cities 
 of the Mediterranean stamped their medals and coins with 
 them. 
 
 But of course the most celebrated and popular shell crest 
 and device was the pearl-oyster. Charged with its precious 
 freight, it appears in a hundred forms, the legend always 
 repeating one or other of the curious and beautiful fancies 
 of antiquity. Every royal -Margaret, by right of name, 
 claimed the precious thing as her emblem, Princes and 
 nobles bore it on their impresas, and the coronets of no- 
 bility take their degrees of rank from the pearls upon 
 them. 
 
 The poets seem hardly to have done justice to these 
 beautiful houses tenantless, the shells, which once held the 
 happy creatures of the deeps. "Buoying shells, that on 
 
Some "Shell-fishes" 149 
 
 stormless voyages, wherried their tiny mariners." " Pink- 
 lipped and rosy," sometimes " humming," and one poet has 
 the line, "all the wonders of the cockle-shell." Yes, they 
 are wondrous things these gifts of the sea, strewn upon our 
 beaches as hints of hidden treasures : 
 
 "Gold, amber, ivory, pearls, ouches, rings, 
 And all that else was precious and dear ; 
 The sea unto him voluntary brings." Spenser. 
 
 Then, too, that beautiful cave-recalling whisper of the 
 shells : 
 
 "Apply 
 
 Its polished lips to your attentive ear, 
 And it remembers its august abodes ; 
 And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there." 
 
 And again : 
 
 1 ' I have seen 
 
 A curious child who dwelt upon a tract 
 Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
 The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell, 
 To which, in silence hushed, his very soul 
 Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon 
 Brightened with joy ; for murmurings from within 
 Were heard, sonorous cadences ! whereby 
 To his belief, the monitor expressed 
 Mysterious union with its native sea." Wordsworth. 
 
 These are fine passages. But for most of the poets the 
 shell and its occupant denote only the "lowest " form of life 
 and intelligence. "From the mute shell-fish to man," 
 touches the extreme poles, and Pope in conchology finds 
 the lowest deeps of dulness : 
 
 " Yet by some object every brain is stirr'd, 
 The dell may waken to a humming-bird ; 
 The most recluse, discreetly open'd, find 
 Congenial matter in the cockle-kind." 
 
 In contrast is Somerville's admiration, albeit tempered by 
 a pitiful " poor " and a qualifying " even : " 
 
1 50 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 1 ' The curious sage 
 Ranks in classes all the fishy race, 
 From those enormous monsters of the main, 
 Who in their world like other tyrants reign, 
 To the poor cockle-tribe, that humble band, 
 Who cleave to rocks, or loiter on the strand. 
 Yet ev'n their shells the forming hand divine 
 Has, with distinguish'd lustre, taught to shine. 
 What bright enamel, and what various dyes, 
 What lively tints delight our wond'ring eyes." 
 
 What reckless adventurer first dared to swallow an 
 oyster? Was it some miserable pearl-diving slave who 
 desperately hoped to steal the accompanying gem, and thus 
 arrive at the price of his ransom ? 
 
 " For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, 
 And went all naked to the hungry shark, 
 For them his ears gushed blood." Keats. 
 
 Or was it some poor shipwrecked wretch, groping about 
 among the rocks of his barren island, who, to save dear life, 
 first bolted the unlovely bivalve ? Surely nothing less than 
 a last despairing effort to regain liberty or preserve life 
 could have nerved the primitive oyster-eater to the shocking 
 act. The poet Gay attributes the discovery to the jaded 
 appetite of luxury. 
 
 " The man had sure a palate covered o'er 
 With brass or steel that on the rocky shore 
 First broke the oozy oyster's pearly coat, 
 And risk'd the living morsel down his throat." 
 
 "What will not luxury taste?" he asks. It does not follow 
 from this that Gay did not like oysters; indeed there is 
 evidence in his verse that he was partial to shell-fish. But 
 the tendency of poets is to make fun of the amiable mollusc. 
 Cowper, who, it seems to me, had very little real tenderness 
 for the weak, though something of a jelly-fish himself, sneers 
 at the oyster for not feeling anything till " the knife is at its 
 throat." Byron laughs at the idea of its being crossed in 
 
Some "Shell-fishes" 151 
 
 love. And it is a fact that, in spite of classical traditions 
 as to the excellence of the creature as food, our ancestors 
 held the oyster in disrepute. " Not worth an oyster," was 
 a common saying in Chaucer's time, and the Sompnere 
 expects sympathy from his audience inasmuch as he was 
 driven to such straits for food that he actually had to eat 
 oysters. " For many a muscle and many an oistre, When 
 other men have been ful wel at ese, Hath been our food." 
 Nowadays but little sympathy, I imagine, would attach to 
 a Londoner compelled by circumstances to an occasional 
 oyster diet. 
 
 Drayton mantains the excellence of the native : 
 
 " Thinke you our oysters here unworthy of your praise, 
 Pure Wall Fleet which doe still the daintiest pallats please, 
 As excellent as those which are esteemed most." 
 
 We have all read how it was a tradition, and not so very 
 long ago, that barnacle-geese were bred from the barnacle. 
 Says Butler, "As barnacles turn Soland geese, in the islands 
 of the Orcades." 
 
 " Whereas those scattered trees, which naturally partake 
 The fatness of the soyle, send from the stocky bough 
 A soft and sappy gum, from which these geese do grow 
 Called barnacles by us, which like a jelly fish 
 To the beholder seeme, then by the fluxure moist 
 Still great, and greater thrive untill you well may see 
 Them turn'd to perfect fowles, when dropping from the tree 
 Into the meery pond, which under them doth lye, 
 Wax ripe, and taking wing away in flocke doe flye, 
 Which well the ancients did among our wonders plaie." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 THE POETS' DOLPHIN. 
 
 A THOROUGHLY poetical fish is the poets' dolphin. In the 
 first place, it is not a dolphin at all, but a porpoise. In the 
 next, it is a creature abounding in classical impossibilities, 
 and as overgrown with delightful legends and traditions as 
 any old tree in an Assam jungle is with orchids. Moreover, 
 it is a "fish" the poets really know nothing about Finally, 
 as both Arion and Amphion, the heroes of delphinian 
 adventure, were poets, their successors of more modern 
 days feel themselves called upon to patronise the dolphin. 1 
 It is therefore in every way a thoroughly poetical animal. 
 
 Physically, it is "scaled" and "curved" in form, while 
 its colours transcend all other efforts of nature in loveliness. 
 It plays in "coral caves," and lives in "caverns roofed with 
 spar." Sometimes it comes forth to do battle with the seal, 
 as in Spenser : 
 
 "As when a dolphin and a sele are met 
 In the wide champain of the ocean plain, 
 
 1 Davenant is a delightful exception. Speaking of the Drum he says : 
 
 11 Had wet Arion chosen to lament 
 His grief at sea on such an instrument, 
 Perhaps the martiall mustick might incite 
 The sword-fish, thrasher, and the whale to fight, 
 But not to dance." 
 
 152 
 
The Poets' Dolphin. 1 5 3 
 
 With cruell chaufe their courages they whet 
 
 The maysterdome of each by force to gaine, 
 
 And dreadfull battaile twixt them do arrayne ; 
 
 They snuf, they snort, they bounce, they rage, they rore, 
 
 That all the sea, disturbed with their traine, 
 
 Doth frie with fome above the surges hore : 
 
 Such was betwixt these two the troublesome uprore." 
 
 Morally it is a sportive fish of very benevolent tendencies. 
 It warns sailors of the approaching storm, guards their 
 keels, 1 and befriends the mariner at sea in every way it 
 can. Poets indeed would have been grievously put to it 
 for a touch of marine nature, if it had not been for this 
 "fish" they call the dolphin. As a rule, the poets mean 
 the porpoise, but it is a fair exercise of poetical license to 
 say dolphin for porpoise, or in fact for fish generally. For 
 this creature stood in ancient symbol and classic verse for 
 "the sea-things," so modern poets always keep a dolphin 
 on hand, in case their wanderings in search of a rhyme 
 should take them to the sea coast. It is in fact a stock- 
 in-trade " fish," like the nautilus and the shark and 
 " Behemoth," just as the owl, dove, eagle, lark, and " night- 
 raven " are stock-in-trade birds, or the tiger, fawn, wolf, fox, 
 and sheep stock-in-trade beasts. Every legend of the 
 mystical thing has been punctually utilised by our poets, 
 and often with great elegance and force. Was not the 
 dolphin "the king of the sea," the symbol of marine 
 sovereignty, emblem of sea cities and their maritime supre- 
 macy, the hieroglyphic of Neptune himself? So the poets 
 delighted in " these fleetest coursers of the finny race," the 
 synonyms of celerity, the special messengers of sea-divinities. 
 
 And what delightful creations of fancy they are, those 
 "Ionian shoals of dolphins that bob their noses through 
 the brine" in Keats ! Here in Darwin, one "playful draws 
 
 i Thus in Waller : 
 
 1 ' About the keel delighted dolphins play, 
 Too sure a sign of seas' ensuing rage." 
 
154 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Galatea's silver shell," and "she strikes the cymbal as it 
 moves along." Here another in Montgomery, " enamoured 
 of the Triton's music," floats attentive. A third carries the 
 crowned Arion 
 
 " Who playing on his harpe, unto him drew 
 The eares and hearts of all that goodly crew ; 
 That even yet the dolphin, which him bore 
 Through the ^Egean seas from pirates ve\v, 
 Stood still by him, astonisht at his lore, 
 And all the raging seas for ioy forget to rore." 
 
 Spenser says, " Through the sweet musick that his harp did 
 make, allured a dolphin him from death to ease." A 
 fourth, as the willing steed of Apollo, " to delight his ear 
 doth load his back " (Davenant). On the one hand, with 
 the older poet, we see " a team of dolphins, ranged in array, 
 draw the smooth chariot of sad Cymoent ; " on the other, 
 with the modern Amphitrite in her "pearly car" (Words- 
 worth). " Upon the crooked dolphin's back, scudding 
 amidst the purple-coloured waves" (Green), and "Theban 
 Amphion, leaning on his lute as he skims the sea" (Keats). 
 Thus, too, the melody of " sweet shells " welcomes return- 
 ing Thetis, but the goddess beams with greater pleasure 
 upon " the dolphin tumults " that herald her approach. 
 They are the playmates of Endymion, letting him "feel 
 their scales of gold and green;" the bright herds of 
 Proteus ; " the dolphin faye " that " won Deucalion's daughter 
 bright" (Spenser) ; the " gen'rous dolphins " that " in sportive 
 ring " guard Neptune's statue (Savage). 
 
 How often these images of antiquity are reproduced by 
 qourtier bards I will not venture to say; but, as a rule, 
 whenever kings and queens are on the seas, " about the 
 keel delighted dolphins play ; " and if one poet wishes to 
 pay another a compliment, he speaks of " the gift to King 
 Amphion, that walled a city with its melody." 
 
 So, too, Proteus has his modem representative in him 
 
The Poets Dolphin. 155 
 
 of Fingal's cave, where "by turns, his dolphins, all finny 
 palmers great and small, came to pay devotion due." 
 
 "Crooked" is a favourite poet's epithet for the dolphin, 
 for most poets go to heraldry and fable for their natural 
 history ; and antiquity always spoke of the dolphin, drew it 
 in pictures, carved it in stone, and engraved it on metal, as 
 curly-bodied. Sometimes they were merely bowed "con- 
 vexedly ; " in others, as in Arion's steed, " concavously 
 inverted," with various spinal inflexions. But this incurvity 
 is, of course, a fiction, for the dolphin is as straight-spined 
 an animal as ever swam in water ; but the popular error 
 rose, not unnaturally, from the fact of the porpoise being 
 usually seen when leaping, and with its head declining 
 towards the water before the tail had fairly left it. Among 
 the pretty fancies which the evanescent beauties of the 
 dying dolphin have afforded poets, should be quoted Byron's, 
 of the parting day, that 
 
 " Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
 With a new colour as it gasps away, 
 The last still loveliest till 'tis gone, and all is grey." 
 
 Anticipated, however, among others, by Falconer in the 
 lines 
 
 " While in his heart the fatal javelin thrills, 
 And flitting life escapes in sanguine rills ; 
 What radiant changes strike th' astonished sight, 
 What glorious hues of mingled shade and light ! 
 Not equal beauties yields the lucid west, 
 With parting beams all o'er profusely drest, 
 Not lovelier colours paint the vernal dawn, 
 When orient dews impearl th' enamelled lawn "- 
 
 and Herbert's characteristic lines 
 
 " Oh ! what a sight were man if his attires 
 Did alter with his mind, 
 And like a dolphin's skin, 
 His clothes combined with his desires." 
 
 Not that Herbert keeps his metaphor within an allowable 
 
156 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 licence any more than Montgomery, who speaks of the dol- 
 phins when alive as miracles of beauty. They "glow with 
 such orient tints, they might have been the rainbow's off- 
 spring," and "sparkle through the sea." Other poets make 
 the same fanciful error, and thus it may be that Eliza Cook 
 spoke of them as "golden." 1 It is a standard of com- 
 parison for the gaiety of others : 
 
 "The longing heart of Hero, much more joys 
 Than nymphs and shepherds when the timbrel rings, 
 Or crooked dolphins when the sailor sings." 
 
 "And when he chose to sport or play, 
 No dolphin ever was so gay." 
 
 "Sportive," "leaping," "gay," are among the regular 
 epithets of the creature, and thus a poet arrives at the 
 delightful phrase of " the dolphin Pleasure." 
 
 The porpoise then, up to a certain point, is the counterpart 
 of the "pellochs rolling from the mountain bay" the dolphin. 
 Nor, seeing that the poets really, as a rule, meant porpoise 
 when they said dolphin, is this to be wondered at. Both, 
 therefore, are "gamesome," "tumbling," and so forth. 
 
 But here comes in one of those ingenuities of fancy so 
 characteristic of poetical natural history the creation 
 of two species out of one. For the porpoise has many 
 disadvantages as compared with the dolphin. Its name 
 is absurd ; it is never mentioned in classical verse ; it had 
 no taste for music; never happened to be near a ship 
 when poets were thrown overboard with their harps ; never 
 dragged goddesses about in shells. This being the case, 
 the poets deliberately transfer its virtues, under the name 
 of dolphin, to an imaginary creature, and reconstruct a 
 new fish of fancy out of what is left. This is exactly 
 analogous to the other poetical process of crediting the 
 
 1 So Keats, following the Greeks' epithet of "gleaming," speaks of 
 their "scales of gold." 
 
The Poets' Dolphin. 157 
 
 eagle and the pelican with all the virtues which antiquity 
 really intended for the vulture, and then abusing the vulture 
 as a " gryffe " or a fowl without any virtues. 
 
 Though gamesome like the dolphin (that is itself), the 
 porpoise is also ferocious "like as a mastiff" 
 
 " Upon every side 
 
 The gamesome porpoise tumbled in the tide, 
 Like as a mastiff, when restrained a while, 
 Is made more furious and more apt to spoil" (Quarks} 
 
 while the extension of the weather-foretelling idea into some- 
 thing sinister, is a curious illustration of the poet's humour. 
 That "the tumbling porpoise" predicted rough weather was 
 an old sailor's superstition before Virgil's time, and is a 
 familiar idea in English verse, as in Churchill, " like a por- 
 poise just before a storm onward he rolled," or in "The 
 Shipwreck " 
 
 " When threatening clouds th' etherial vault deface 
 Their route to leeward still sagacious form, 
 To shun the fury of th' approaching storm." 
 
 But it ought to have been noted by other poets that the 
 porpoise foretold coming rough weather, by its anxiety to 
 escape from it, and not from any delight in the tempest. For 
 the only use of the creature as a weather-gauge was the 
 direction in which it was going, inasmuch as the porpoise is 
 always seen hurrying away in front of the storm which it 
 apprehends to be coming. Churchill and Falconer under- 
 stood this, but the majority simply made the poor porpoise 
 " the vulture of the sea," delighting in conflicts, and eating 
 the victims of the storm. Thus in Davenant : 
 
 " The prince could porpoise-like in tempests play, 
 And in court-storms on shipwrecked greatness feed." 
 
 Strictly analogous also to the poetical evolutions of a specially 
 sinister " night-raven " out of the ordinary raven, is the 
 poets' deduction of a " porcpisce " out of the ordinary por- 
 
158 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 poise, which they treat as if it were a pig, and call it " greedy" 
 and "obscene." The grampus is a "variety" of the porcpisce 
 which poets decline to entertain seriously except when they 
 mean a whale. 
 
 The following note of Wren's upon the use of the word 
 "porpoise" by Sir Thomas Browne is worth quoting : 
 
 "Read porkpisce. The porkpisce hath his name from 
 the hog hee resembles in convexity and curvitye of his 
 backe, from the head to the tayle ; nor is he otherwise curlie, 
 than as a hog is ; except that before a storme hee tumbles 
 just as a hog runs. That which I once saw cutt up in Fish 
 Street was of this forme, and above five foote longue, his 
 skin not skaly, but smoothe and ' black, like bacon in a 
 chimney, and his bowels in all'points like an hog ; yf instead 
 of his four fins you imagine four feete, hee would represent 
 a back hog (as it were) s weated alive." 
 
 " They say they are half-fish, half-flesh," says the prince 
 in " Pericles," and one of the many legends of the porky 
 nature of this fish to which the poets subscribe is that 
 St. Patrick, unable to restrain his appetite on a fast-day, 
 surreptitiously procured some pork and proceeded to eat it. 
 But an angel, to save the saint from sin, turned it into por- 
 poise meat, and so the porpoise has been partly pork ever 
 since. 
 
PART II L 
 THE POETS' INSECTS. 
 
PART III. 
 THE POETS' INSECTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ANTS AND BUTTERFLIES. 
 
 AMONG the morals and maxims drawn from natural history 
 few are so popular, or so unfair, as that which contrasts the 
 "industrious" ant with the "idle" butterfly. It requires 
 only the most rudimentary knowledge of insect life to under- 
 stand this. For the butterfly, after all, is only the winged 
 caterpillar. In a previous stage it worked with monstrous 
 diligence at the work it was given to do, consuming every 
 day ever so many times its own weight of green stuff. Then 
 it went into its chrysalis state and rested for a while and 
 changed itself, and by-and-by it came out of its shell, put on 
 its gay wedding clothes and flew away to find a mate. The 
 honeymoon over, the female set about laying her eggs, and 
 it was probably when it is engaged in this very serious busi- 
 ness that the charge of idleness has attached to it. 
 
 For the insect flutters about the plant which it knows to 
 be the proper food for its young, and settles for half an 
 instant here and half an instant there, its whole demeanour 
 being frivolous and flighty. Such, of course, is not the truth, 
 for every time that the butterfly rested an egg was laid, and 
 while it fluttered, apparently so aimlessly in all directions, it 
 was really in its instinct selecting proper cradles. 
 
 161 L 
 
1 62 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 At other times, too, when flitting so " idly " from flower 
 to flower, it was just as busy as the bee which shared the 
 flowers with it, for it was on the same business, of eating 
 honey. So that as a matter of fact even the winged butter- 
 fly has its work to do, and does it conscientiously and 
 thoroughly. The winged ant does no more; indeed, it 
 does much less, for it has not even to feed itself, nor has 
 it to take any maternal care of its young whatever. All this 
 is done for it. Its only duty is to get married, and as soon 
 as this is done, it is taken possession of by the unwinged 
 workers, and spared all further exertion thenceforward from 
 that moment. 
 
 Nor if we compare the unwinged butterfly, the caterpillar, 
 with the wingless ant, is the balance of work in favour of 
 either. Each gets through all that it has to do with exemplary 
 industry and despatch. 
 
 Amongst ourselves, too, there are the butterflies and the 
 ants the men who get through quantities of work and yet 
 somehow always seem to have leisure for enjoyment, and 
 the men who moil and toil all the day long, grinding out 
 work and complaining that the day is too short for all that 
 they have to do. Yet the actual output of the former is 
 usually as large, and as a rule more brilliant, than that of 
 the latter. Moreover, he goes about his work and in the 
 intervals of his work about his pleasures like a creature 
 that is capable of happiness, a pleasure to look at, under- 
 standing the gladness of sunshine and the beauty of 
 flowers 
 
 The ants among us wonder at them, and in their clumsy 
 antennal language exchange astonishment over their butterfly 
 fellow-workers being able to get through so much and yet 
 seem so unoccupied. They themselves can hardly find time 
 to take their meals, or make themselves tidy, and hurry 
 about in the heat and dust dragging loads behind them, 
 shabby and careworn, while the butterflies carefully dressed 
 
Ants and B litter flies. 163 
 
 flit from work to play, all gaiety and good temper, and with 
 time to spare for a laugh and a gossip. 
 
 Watch two ants meet on a stick, as I did the other day. 
 One had in tow half a fly, with a pair of legs and one wing 
 on it, and the trouble that these limbs gave the ant, catching 
 in everything as it went along, was perfectly exasperating to 
 look at. 
 
 But the ant tugged and lugged at the thing with stupid, 
 dogged determination, and so, going round and round, 
 upside down and downside up, it slowly, painfully moved on 
 its silly way. The other had got a grass seed in its pincers, 
 and the husk was certainly one half of the total weight : yet 
 this " wise emmet " was going to haul this grain to its nest, 
 and right down to the bottom of it, then husk it and laboriously 
 drag the useless outside cover up to the front door again and 
 throw it away. 
 
 Each of the two, in fact, was doing exactly twice as much 
 as there was any necessity for doing : was wasting half its 
 time and fifty per cent, of tissue in accomplishing a perfectly 
 useless task of industry. 
 
 Well, they met on a narrow stick, and I could have 
 banged their two heads together for the way they went on. 
 In the first place, why were they on the stick at all? It 
 was very narrow, very crooked, and not steady. The ground 
 on either side was not only easy and open going, but a much 
 shorter way. However, there they were, and they met. 
 
 The ant with the fly was going backwards, tug tug 
 tugging at its inconvenient treasure. The legs of the half- 
 fly hitched in every crevice of the wood, the wind kept on 
 catching its one wing, and nearly capsizing the ant. It was 
 just as if a man should try to drag, say, a dead camel through 
 a jungle with a balloon tied to its head, and a couple of fifty 
 pronged anchors tied to its tail. Travelling the opposite way 
 was the other ant with its grass seed in front of its face, so that 
 it could not see an inch before it. And so the two collided. 
 
164 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Now I think, from personal observation, that no other 
 insect is more unphilosophically given to sudden panic than 
 the ant. If anything out of the ordinary happens, the scene 
 is one of instant and utter demoralisation. 
 
 By-and-by instinct reasserts itself, and they combine to 
 retrieve the disaster which the commonwealth may or may 
 not have suffered. But at first it is all frenzy. The most 
 intimate of friends turn on each other in mortal combat, 
 and when the mistake is discovered, rush off in opposite 
 directions in search of fresh adventures without as much as 
 a " beg your pardon " between them. 
 
 The present case was no exception. On the instant that 
 the blindfolded ant ran into the tail of the other, both 
 decided that there was nothing for it but immediate and 
 precipitate flight. Each dropped the burden which it 
 had been carrying with such furious pertinacity, and falling 
 simultaneously off the stick whirled away as fast as its legs 
 could carry it. 
 
 Even in the ordinary rencontres of everyday life they are 
 aggravating and disagreeable. Hurrying round a corner two 
 of them knock their heads together. " Hullo," says each of 
 them, and then they stand opposite each other with nothing 
 to say. All of a sudden both perk up and say simul- 
 taneously, ''Well, good bye ! I've got to go to catch a train," 
 and hugely relieved at getting away from each other, spin 
 along the road as if the police were after them. Yet they 
 are perfectly honest insects, these, only they have no idea 
 how work ought to be done, or that there is anything in life 
 beyond the sordid routine of getting through a job, and, if 
 possible, saving up. All they know about sunshine is that 
 it makes them sweat. 
 
 " Flowers ! Yes, pretty things flowers. My little girl is 
 very fond of flowers," said an old stupid to me one day in 
 the train. 
 
 But the butterflies what gentlemen they are. What an 
 
A nts and Butterflies. 165 
 
 educated sense of beauty they have, and what inherited taste. 
 Who, on the one hand, has ever seen a butterfly that did 
 not do its work properly, or, on the other hand, was in such 
 a hurry that it had not time to be civil. I know that butter- 
 flies sometimes develop sordid and morbid likings for raw 
 meat and other abominations, but all the same I think that, 
 taking the insect-world all round, there is no other class that 
 fulfils its duties with, at once, more credit to itself and more 
 pleasure to others than the "idle" butterflies. They seem 
 only an ornament of society, and yet, if they were gone, how- 
 substantial would be their loss ! The ants, doubtless, do not 
 think so, for the formic proletariat look upon the necessity 
 for labour as a brand an ignoble birth-mark, and yet 
 imagine that the measure of an insect's worth is in the sweat 
 of its limbs. 
 
 And now I have gone beyond the poets in imagining ; 
 but let that be as it may I have not gone beyond the facts 
 of nature. Ah me ! the fables that the hedgerows tell ; the 
 parables of the fields ! Of these the poets have known little. 
 Imagine even Thomson writing this fustian : 
 
 41 Behold ! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold ! 
 See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay : 
 See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, 
 Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May ! 
 What youthful bride can equal her array ? 
 Who can with her for easy pleasure vie ? 
 From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, 
 From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 
 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky." 
 
 And thus Error has come down to us in their lines, sancti- 
 fied by the beauty of their genius and the magic of their 
 speech. 
 
 " As an ant of his talents superiourly vain, 
 Was trotting with consequence over the plain, 
 A worm, in his progress remarkably slow, 
 Cry'd " Bless your good worship, wherever you go 1 
 I hope your great mightiness wont take it ill, 
 I pay my respects with a hearty good will i " 
 
1 66 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 With a look of contempt and impertinent pride, 
 
 " Begone, you vile reptile," his antship reply'd ; 
 
 " Go, go, and lament your contemptible state, 
 
 But first, look at me, see my limbs how complete ! 
 
 I guide all my motions with freedom and ease, 
 
 Run backward and forward, and turn when I please. 
 
 Of nature (grown weary) you shocking essay ! 
 
 I spurn you thus from me, crawl out of my way." 
 
 The reptile insulted, and vexed to the soul, 
 
 Crept onwards, and hid himself close in his hole ; 
 
 But nature, determin'd to end his distress, 
 
 Soon sent him abroad in a butterfly's dress. 
 
 Ere long the proud ant, as repassing the road, 
 
 (Fatigu'd from the harvest, and tugging his load) 
 
 The beau on a violet bank he beheld, 
 
 Whose vesture, in glory, a monarch's excell'd ; 
 
 His plumage expanded 'twas rare to behold, 
 
 So lovely a mixture of purple and gold. 
 
 The ant, quite amazed at a figure so gay, 
 
 Bow'd low with respect, and was trudging away : 
 
 " Stop friend," says the butterfly, "don't be surprised ; 
 
 I once was the reptile you spurn'd and despised ; 
 
 But now I can mount ; in the sunbeams I play ; 
 
 While you must for ever drudge on in your way ! " 
 
 MoraL 
 
 " A wretch, tho' to-day he's o'erloaded with sorrow, 
 May soar above those that oppress him to-morrow." 
 
 Allan Ramsay, with a poet's usual fidelity to originals, has 
 a poem with the same title and identical ideas as this of 
 Cunningham's. It commences 
 
 " A pensy ant right trig, and clean, 
 Came one day whidding o'er the green ; 
 When to advance her pride she saw 
 A caterpillar moving slaw." 
 
 The caterpillar is very civil to the ant who, however, 
 "geeks up" her head and addresses it in scorn as "Some 
 experiment of nature, Who scarce has claims to be a 
 creature," and boasts of her own superior person : 
 
An Is and Bu tier flies. 167 
 
 " For me, I'm made with better grace, 
 With active limbs and lively face, 
 And cleverly can move at ease, 
 Frae place to place where'er I please." 
 
 The caterpillar goes off humbly into retirement, and the 
 end is just as in Cunningham's poem. 
 
 In Parnell, for instance, the flies as " foolish nurslings of 
 the summer air " are violently contrasted with ants as wise 
 creatures : 
 
 " Black ants in teams come dark'ning all the road, 
 Some call to march and some to lift the load : 
 They strain, they labour with incessant pains, 
 Press' d by the cumbrous weight of single grains. 
 The flies, struck silent, gaze with wonder down ; 
 The busy burghers reach their earthly town, 
 There lay the burthens of a wintry store, 
 And thence unwearied part in search of more." 
 
 Somerville also has a singularly infelicitous poem on the 
 same subject, when we remember that the poor ants die 
 about the same time as butterflies : 
 
 " The careful ant that meanly fares, 
 
 And labours hardly to supply, 
 With wholesome cakes and homely tares 
 His num'rous working family. 
 
 Upon a visit met one day 
 
 His cousin fly in all his pride, 
 A courtier insolent and gay, 
 
 By Goody Maggot near ally'd. 
 
 The ant who could no longer bear 
 
 His cousin's insolence and pride, 
 Toss'd up his head, and with an air 
 
 Of conscious worth he thus reply 'd. 
 
 1 Vain insect ! know the time will come 
 When the court sun no more shall shine, 
 
 When frosts thy gaudy limbs benumb, 
 And damps about thy wings shall twine ; 
 
 When some dark nasty hole shall hide, 
 
 And cover thy neglected head ; 
 When all this lofty swelling pride 
 
 Shall burst, and shrink into a shade. 
 
1 68 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Take heed lest fortune change the scene : 
 
 Some of thy brethren, I remember 
 In June have mighty princes been, 
 
 But begged their bread before December.' " 
 
 But Charlotte Smith, as always, swings the matter back 
 into proper grooves : 
 
 " Beneath some leaf of ample shade 
 Thy pearly eggs shall then be laid, 
 Small rudiments of many a fly : 
 While thou, thy frail existence past, 
 Shall shudder in the chilly blast 
 And fold thy wings and die. 
 
 Soon fleets thy transient life away, 
 Yet short as is thy natal day 
 Like flowers that form thy fragrant food ; 
 Thou, poor Ephemeron shalt have filled 
 The little space thy Maker willed, 
 And all thou know'st of life be good." 
 
 But to descend from great to small, from the general to 
 the specific. I am afraid, much afraid, that poets thought 
 that ants made mole-hills. I tremble while I write it, but 
 did Wordsworth himself (one of the most inaccurate and 
 unsympathetic of observers) think so? 
 
 " So the emmet gives 
 Her foresight and intelligence that makes 
 The tiny creatures strong by social league, 
 Supports the generations, multiplies 
 Their tribes, till we behold a spacious plain 
 Or grassy bottom, all, with little hills 
 Their labour covered, as a lake with waves 
 Thousands of cities, in the desert place 
 Built up of life, and food and means of life." 
 
 Or, at any rate, that ants were naturally associated with 
 them. Curious theories of zoological relativity are not 
 uncommon with poets, as, for instance, among birds, the 
 connection between doves and vultures, or among beasts, 
 between the wolf and the bear, or among reptiles, between 
 
Ants and Butterflies. 169 
 
 newts and adders. None the less, the ant-and-molehill 
 association is sufficiently original. Did the poets really 
 think that ants made mole-hills ? It looks like it. 
 
 Thus, we read in " Quarles," that man is " a pismire 
 crawling on this mole-hill earth," and if we analyse the 
 cerebration here, we can only conclude that the poet had in 
 his mind some vague idea that the industry of the pismire 
 had erected the " hill "which he calls a " mole-hill." King 
 says, "as bees from hive, from mole-hill ants." Phineas 
 Fletcher, again, has, "Earth a mole-hole, men but ants." 
 Eliza Cook sees us as "ants in a mole-hill running in and 
 out," and Mackay speaks of "the Babel-burrows," where 
 "the little emmets come and go." So, too, in Watts 
 
 " Yet once a day drop down a gentle look 
 On the great mole hill, and with pitying eye 
 Survey the busy emmets round the heap, 
 Crowding and bustling in a thousand forms 
 Of strife and toil." 
 
 Watts, by the way, is particularly given to the ant-and-mole- 
 hill idea 
 
 " Be gone for ever mortal things ; 
 Thou mighty mole-hill, earth, farewell ! 
 Angels aspire on lofty wings, 
 And leave the globe for ants to dwell." 
 
 These instances may, perhaps, be thought sufficient, but I 
 cannot help also quoting country-gentleman Somerville, who, 
 as being a country-gentleman, should, if any poet should, 
 most assuredly have known the difference between ant- 
 hills and mole-hills 
 
 " She looks beneath 
 
 Contemptuous, and beholds from far this earth, 
 This molehill earth and all its busy ants 
 Lab'ring for life." 
 
 Some of my critics have said of me that I am microscopic 
 in my fault-finding, and, now and again, that I do not make 
 
170 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 sufficient allowance for the license of poets. I had hoped 
 that I had avoided these objections. However, two volumes 
 of these trivial studies of the poets' natural history have been 
 published, and nearly every chapter in each volume will be 
 found to contain a well-founded complaint of the poets' 
 neglect of some central fact of nature's teaching. 
 
 I am speaking, as I have always spoken, of the ante- 
 Tennysonian epoch. Our latest Poet Laureate was one of 
 the most accurately-scientific naturalists of the day, and how 
 exquisite he is in his fidelity to fact I need not repeat. 
 
 For example, in my " Bird " volume, the poets cannot 
 say too much about nightingales ; yet nearly every one of 
 them speaks of the glorious songster, not the allegorical 
 Philomela, but the actual living bird before them, as female 
 and as English peculiarly, specially, English. 
 
 Or, for example, in the " Beast " volume : the fox is treated 
 universally as a monster of cruelty, and, therefore, properly 
 punished by being torn to pieces by hounds. 
 
 These are, each in its way, typical errors. The first makes 
 nonsense and an absurdity out of one of Nature's prettiest 
 and most powerful parables. The second presents the poets 
 in a thoroughly unsympathetic and Philistine aspect. 
 
 This my third volume will be found to illustrate incidentally 
 the same unnecessary and unpoetical blemishes indeed, I 
 need go no further for evidence of this than the present mole- 
 hill-building ant. Why, I would ask, should any writers go 
 out of their way to insist on ants making mole-hills ? Why 
 not let them make ant-hills ? Such conceits may be " trivial," 
 but when they occur in every poem the total is certainly not 
 trivial. Error becomes then characteristic. Moreover, the 
 inaccuracies are, as a rule, useless ones, and diminish the 
 actual beauty of the verses in which they occur. 
 
 Tennyson is invariably correct, and what can be more 
 beautiful than his similes, analogies, and metaphors taken 
 from real life ? 
 
Ants and Butterflies. 1 7 1 
 
 In the present instance, apart from the absurdity of the 
 poets in making ants making mole-hills, there is an illus- 
 tration of my meaning as to the " uselessness " of most 
 poetical mistakes. We find the ant busy on a mole-hill. 
 Now, how does the mole-hill improve or adorn the fancy ? 
 Is the earth in any way whatever like a mole-hill? Is it 
 even a good simile? Now it is like an ant-hill, for when 
 viewed from the Olympus of genius it might seem to the 
 imagination the agglomerated result of infinite individual 
 labourers, each very small and weak, but by co-operation 
 capable of considerable achievements. Though even then 
 it is only strictly applicable to, say, a city, and if so applied 
 forms a fairly accurate and delightful simile. 
 
 But a mole-hill ! The heap of soil which a single sub- 
 terranean labourer, working in the dark, throws up fortuit- 
 ously and at random, and in a minute or two, and not only 
 one, but a whole row of them, and never thinks any more of 
 them, does not even know of their existence ! It would, in 
 fact, be very difficult indeed to think of any natural pheno- 
 menon that was less like the earth, less like the busy haunts 
 of mankind, less sensible, less poetical, than a mole-\ri\\. 
 Yet with the word ant actually on their pens, on the paper, 
 the poets one after the other talk rubbish about " us pismires " 
 and " us emmets " toiling and moiling over a mole-hill. 
 
 That we human beings have much in common with the 
 " innumerous emmet," has been most delightfully demon- 
 strated by many writers from Homer to Lubbock, but 
 philosophic Young is hardly felicitous when he speaks of the 
 race as "vagrant emmets on an air-suspended ball." If 
 there is one thing which ants are not, it is "vagrant." 
 There are, of course, nomadic species, the Bedouins and 
 Tartars of the formic kind. But the common ant is not a 
 vagabond. As opposed to many gipsy insects, it is in Rom- 
 many language emphatically a " house-dweller." Its paths 
 all lead into highways, and its highways all converge upon 
 
172 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 a city. Nor are they fitly placed on an " air-suspended " ball. 
 For ants cannot remain upon a spherical surface. Their 
 foothold is curiously insecure, and they drop in the most 
 helpless way off places where most other insects walk 
 with ease and safety. 
 
 But there are many allusions, such as Shelley's 
 
 " The thronging thousands to a passing view 
 Seemed like an anthill's citizens" 
 
 which are both accurate and admirable. Thomson, lagging 
 behind, borrows the phrase of " this ant-hill Earth." 
 
 In its other poetical aspects the ant is " provident," " By 
 careful nature led, to make (in Clare) the most of summer's 
 plenteous day," and " industrious." It is always the "toil- 
 ing " " laboring " ant : 
 
 " Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes, 
 Observe her labours, sluggard, and be wise : 
 No stern commands, no monitory voice 
 Prescribes her duties or directs her choice. 
 Yet, timely provident, she hastes away 
 To snatch the blessings of the plenteous day. 
 When fruitful summer loads the teaming plain, 
 She crops the harvest and she stores the grain." 
 
 These lines of Johnson are, perhaps, the best upon a theme 
 which meets with such abundant and just appreciation, and 
 here and there I find passages that treat the insect's pro- 
 vidence with some originality. Thus, more than one poet 
 admires the ant for providing itself in spring with "a house 
 against summer's heat," while others call the hard-toiling 
 neuter a " housewife," and address the sexless thing as " she." 
 Prior notes thus a special and very singular feature of the 
 creature's foresight : 
 
 "Tell me why the ant 
 In summer's plenty thinks of winter's want 
 By constant journey careful to prepare 
 Her store and bringing home the corny ear. 
 
Ants and Butterflies. 173 
 
 By what instruction does she bite the grain f 
 Lest hid in earth and taking root again 
 It might elude the foresight of her care." 
 
 " The sage industrious ant, the wisest insect, 
 And best economist of all the field : 
 For when as yet the favourable sun 
 Gives to the genial earth the enlivening ray, 
 
 all her subterraneous avenues, 
 
 And storm-proof cells, with management most meet, 
 And unexampled housewif ry she frames ; 
 Then to the field she hies, and on her back 
 Burden immense ! brings home the cumbrous corn : 
 Then many a weary step, and many a strain, 
 And many a grievous groan subdued, at length 
 Up the huge hill she hardly heaves it home : 
 Nor rests she here her providence, but nips 
 With subtle teeth the grain, lest from her garner 
 In mischievous fertility it steal, 
 And back to daylight vegetate its way." Smart. 
 
 Milton, as always, is characteristic : 
 
 1 ' First crept 
 
 The parsimonious emmet, provident, 
 Of future, in small room large heart enclosed : 
 Pattern of just equality perhaps 
 Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes of commonalty." 
 
 King Solomon is responsible for many errors, and among 
 others this of the providence of ants. Twice in his Proverbs 
 he speaks of the insect laying up food in the summer 
 " having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in 
 the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest." And 
 it is said by naturalists, " devilling " for King Solomon, that 
 the ants of Palestine do, as a matter of fact, hoard supplies 
 for "the winter." Let this be as it may, the ants of Great 
 Britain do nothing of the kind. These wonderful com- 
 munities comprise, as is well known, males, females and 
 neuters. Of these, the neuters alone do work in the sense 
 which attracts the poet's admiration, and certainly if industry 
 is ever praiseworthy, it is here. Their lives are one unceasing 
 round of unselfish toil. The young, whether as eggs, grubs 
 
1 74 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 or pupae, receive from them an amount of attention which 
 even in a monthly nurse would be called unconscionably 
 fussy. Every time the weather changes, the neuters shift 
 the eggs and young so as to give them the advantage of as 
 much warmth as possible, and when they are in their eating 
 stages, are perpetually at their mouth with food. In winter, 
 however, the community is dormant, torpid. The males 
 and females are dead, and the surviving neuters hybernate 
 in the lowest chambers of the nest, in company with their 
 helpless charges. These facts are, therefore, damaging to 
 the poetical pictures of the insect securely feasting in its 
 barns during the winter months : 
 
 " The wiser emmet quoted just before 
 In summer time ranges the fallows o'er, 
 With pains and labour to lay in his store. 
 But when the blustering north with ruffling blasts 
 Saddens the year, and nature overcasts, 
 The prudent insect hid in privacy, 
 Enjoys the fruits of his past industry." 
 
 Nor is it correct to imagine that the race enjoys a longer 
 life than other insects, for the males and females, which are 
 the perfect insects, die, as all other] insects do, within the 
 twelve-month. A proportion of the neuters survive to the 
 following spring, in order to tend the next year's brood, but 
 not, so to speak, for the enjoyment of a renewed existence 
 on their own account. Cowley, therefore, is not over 
 fortunate in his moral 
 
 " Wisely the ant against poor winter hoards 
 The stock which summer's wealth affords ; 
 In grasshoppers that must at autumn die, 
 How vain were such an industry ! " 
 
 Nor Green in " The Fable of the Old Comedian," the grass- 
 hopper being the thriftless moralist of the poem 
 
 " My wretched end may warn green springing youth 
 To use delights as toys that will deceive, 
 
Ants and Butterflies. 1 75 
 
 And scorn the world, before the world them leave, 
 For all world's trust is ruin without ruth. 
 Then blest are they that, like the toiling ant 
 Provide in time 'gainst woeful winter's want. 
 
 With this the grasshopper, yielding to the 
 
 Weather's extremity, died comfortless without remedy." 
 
 For the grasshopper lives quite as long as the ant, indeed 
 longer, when we take the duration of the several stages of 
 each insect's development into consideration. 
 
 Nor am I thoroughly in sympathy with those who uphold 
 the ant as an exemplar of "wisdom." The male enjoys life 
 as frivolously as any other insect of his sex. The female 
 goes through her one duty of maternity with prodigious 
 diligence. The neuter, poor little drudge, slaves out its 
 twelvemonth of never-faltering labour with an apparent 
 cheerfulness and unflagging alacrity, which is indeed amaz- 
 ing, bewildering. 
 
 But all human reason is ranged "against this instinct for 
 ceaseless moiling. If he could, St. Lubbock would, I am 
 sure, insist on bank holidays for these unfortunate little 
 drudges, and everybody who has ever written or spoken on 
 the subject agrees that there is unwisdom in perpetual slaving. 
 For myself, I have never greatly applauded the ant. It sets 
 an example which, if man were to follow, would at once 
 make life intolerable, and eventually result in putting 
 lunatics in the majority. So I think the insect, as a pattern 
 to the sluggard, should be suppressed, or at any rate that 
 its abominable industry should cease to be quoted for our 
 edification. 
 
 There is virtue in working. Nobody will deny that. But 
 there is wisdom also in timely relaxation. I hope, there- 
 fore, it is true, as some observers say, that ants play at games. 
 Meanwhile, I like Butler's lines : 
 
 ' ' Those get the least that take the greatest pains 
 But most of all i' the drudgery of brains, 
 
1 76 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 A nat'ral sign of weakness, as an ant 
 Is more laborious than an elephant ; 
 And children are more busy at their play 
 Than those that wisely pass their time away." 
 
 Lovelace, too, is delightful on the same theme. He has 
 a poem on the ant, "Thou Miserable Ant," in which these 
 verses occur : 
 
 " Austere and cynic, not one hour t' allow 
 To lose with pleasure what thou gett'st with pain ; 
 But drive on sacred festivals the plough, 
 Tearing highways with thy o'ercharged wain, 
 Not all thy life time one poor minute live 
 And thy o'erlaboured bulk with mirth relieve. 
 
 Forbear thou great good husband, little ant, 
 A little respite from thy flood of sweat : 
 Thou thine own horse and cart, under this plant 
 Thy spacious tent, fan thy prodigious heat, 
 Down with thy double load of that one grain 
 
 Cease large example of wise thrift awhile 
 (So thy example is become our law) 
 And teach thy frowns a seasonable smile 
 So Cato sometimes naked Florals saw." 
 
 In Fancy, the sober-sided, matter-of-fact, humdrum ant 
 finds but small place. In the feast of the Fairies when flies' 
 eggs poached in moonshine, and butterflies' brains fricasseed 
 in dew, a sucking mite roasted, and a rainbow tart, formed 
 the bill of fare the place of honour is given to the whole 
 ant barbecued. A sprite riding on an ant is thrown, and 
 "under the unruly beast's proud feet" lies mangled. It 
 raises a monumental mound to the dead fay and befriends 
 unhappy stepdaughters who are kind to it. Then there is 
 the ant in amber : 
 
 " Whilst in an amber shade the ant doth rest, 
 A gummy drop ensnares the small wild beast." 
 
 But Clare, referring, it may be, to the fairy origin of ants, 
 
A nts and Butterflies. 1 7 7 
 
 which is current in many parts of the country, has a very 
 delightful passage : 
 
 " What wonder strikes the curious, while he views 
 The black ant's city, by a rotten tree, 
 Or woodland bank ! In ignorance we muse : 
 Pausing annoyed we know not what we see ; 
 Such government and thought there seem to be ; 
 Some looking on, and urging some to toil, 
 Dragging their loads of bent-stalks slavishly : 
 And what's more wonderful, when big loads foil 
 One ant or two to carry, quickly then 
 A swarm flash round to help their fellow-men. 
 Surely they speak a language whisperingly, 
 Too fine for us to hear : and sure their ways 
 Prove they have kings and laws, and that they be 
 Deformed remnants of the fairy-days." 
 
 M 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 NIGHT-BUTTERFLIES AND DAY-MOTHS. 
 
 MOTHS are somehow supposed to be the poor relations of 
 butterflies. When people who care little about such matters 
 see a prettily coloured insect flying by, they say, " Look at 
 that butterfly," but if it be dingy or insignificant in size they 
 call it "a moth." Here, then, as everywhere else, the old 
 fallacy "from authority" maintains its force. Holy Writ 
 has damned the moth. So superstition and folklore ap- 
 proach it prejudiced. And Poetry, which used always to 
 go to Holy Writ and Folklore for its natural history, falls 
 into the ditch with its leaders. 
 
 But there is, of course, no ground for this invidious 
 distinction between the butterfly and the moth. It is true 
 that night-flying things, dusky things, do not commend 
 themselves to general admiration with the same immediate 
 attractiveness as those that delight in sunshine. The bat, 
 being crepuscular entre chien el loup is a creature of 
 shocking possibilities. Victor Hugo apostrophises it as a 
 bird. Most poets call it "obscene." So, too, the owl, and 
 the night-jar, and the " night raven " that most delicious 
 of all poetical bogies, invented by poets for their own 
 titillation, just as children like to get themselves into the 
 " creeps " by pretending an imaginary bear or giant under 
 the bed. 
 
 They are all odious because they are of the twilight and 
 
 the darkness, silent-flighted, mysterious in the gloaming. 
 
 178 
 
Night-Butterflies and Day-Moths. 1 79 
 
 Even so, too, is it with the moths. Scripture saith that it 
 "corrupts." So it does at any rate one moth, the 
 " clothes moth." They do corrupt. As Bacon would say, 
 they are "shrewd things" in a wardrobe yet only think 
 of the horrible "corruption" of which the good busy ex- 
 emplary ant is guilty ! 
 
 One iniquitous insect, however, has brought down upon 
 the whole republic the everlasting condemnation of poetry. 
 There is one tiny drab carpet-creeping creature of which 
 the tiny grub, fearfully, eats cloth and clothes. Says 
 Quarles 
 
 " Like moths their houses shall they build, in doubt 
 And danger, every hour, to be cast out." 
 
 There are others just as inconsiderable, just as feeble in 
 colouring, which plunder other possessions of our lordly 
 race, apples and meal-bags for instance. 
 
 But what is there in all the range of insect beauty to 
 excel our moths? What epithet appropriate to butterflies 
 is excessive when applied to moths ? For every " beautiful," 
 "painted," "gorgeous," "spangled" butterfly I will match 
 you with a moth. More than this, I will bring you moths 
 that shall defy all your butterflies to match for chastity of 
 colouring, for exquisite design, and perfect beauty. Do you 
 want audacious splendour of colouring or most delicately 
 dainty tracery ? Will you challenge me upon form or upon 
 hue ? I will meet you with such rare tints of all the colours 
 as shall beggar you to surpass, and for form such elfin 
 prettiness as shall be your despair. 
 
 It is a mistake, then, to think, as most do, that evening- 
 flying moths are dull-coloured and dowdy, just as it is a 
 mistake to suppose that those birds of wondrously beautiful 
 plumage, the owls and night-jars, are unworthy of admiration. 
 We have very few birds to equal them in the loveliness of 
 their feathers and their colouring. 
 
1 80 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 Nor are they small in size. Some of our English moths 
 are larger than any of our butterflies. Nor, again, are they 
 to be depreciated as night-flies, for many fly by day and 
 among them some of the prettiest. Moreover, in character, 
 robust differences of temperament, and physical habit there 
 is no comparison between the two. They are absolutely 
 equal. Tell me of your purple emperor that tantalises you 
 from the tops of oaks (and is caught eventually on a dead 
 cat), and I will give you the sphinges the humming-birds 
 of our isles, the wondrous ones that make our petunia-beds 
 tropical, our heliotropes and honeysuckles redolent of 
 California and the Brazils. What splendour of wing ! 
 What a delicate adjustment of velocity ! See them round 
 the clematis : it is a spectacle to remember all your life. 
 What mechanism of man's genius can equal the lightning- 
 flash apparition? that instantaneous immobility, still as a 
 star? that lightning-flash departure? If we could only 
 imitate it, we should have sky-ships and sky-trains, and 
 every man would call to his servant in the morning for his 
 "wings," as he does now for his boots. Or take your 
 stately flighted "white admiral," your luxurious fritillaries 
 Aglaia and the rest or swift Edusa. Can I not match 
 them? 
 
 The poets, therefore, knew nothing whatever of moths. 
 They supposed that they " corrupt," because they knew 
 that rust does, and that thieves break through and steal. 
 But this is after all poor reasoning, or else sparrows ought 
 to be selling at twelve a penny. Besides, translators of the 
 Bible took extraordinary liberties with natural history. Our 
 marginal readings warn us to read " badger " instead of 
 " swan," and so on verse after verse. Albeit I consider the 
 wondrous language of our translations as one of the most 
 positive evidences of " inspiration " that has been vouchsafed 
 to us. 
 
 Now, for myself, I have a singular sympathy with creatures 
 
Night-Butterflies and Day-Moths. 1 8 1 
 
 that are not of our own day ; that make their own. Any 
 pedestrian wretch can be abroad and awake in the sun-light. 
 Only original genius like Byron's, Shelley's, Goethe's, 
 Lessing's, and everybody else's worth talking about can 
 resent the formalities of the clock and insist upon the right 
 to choose its own hours. Nearly all the best work of the 
 world has been done while the stupid were asleep. 
 
 That the moth is crepuscular ; that in combination with 
 rust it " doth corrupt " ; that light has a fatal fascination for 
 it, are among the ordinary facts of moth-lore that are common 
 property, and constitute the sum of poets' science. 
 
 "And every silver moth fresh from the grave, 
 Which is its cradle ever from below 
 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, 
 To be consumed within the purest glow 
 Of one serene and unapproached star, 
 As if it were a lamp of earthly light." Shelley. 
 
 On the first account, they start with a general prejudice 
 against it ; on the second, they enjoy a specific reason for 
 dislike to it ; on the third, instead of pitying the dreadful 
 fascination surely one of the most horrible " instincts " in 
 nature they reproach the moth, sneer at it, and expatiate 
 in common-place morals on youth and pleasure, beauty and 
 desire, and so on. Here and there is a compassionate touch, 
 a word of tender regret; but as a rule the analogies are 
 neither compassionate nor tender, nor even excellent as 
 imagery. 
 
 Shelley is an exception ; he is one of our poets of the night, 
 and the " silver moths " are therefore under his protection. 
 There is originality in the line " Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like 
 muse has burnt its wings," and beauty in these 
 
 "Such clouds as flit 
 
 Like splendour-winged moths about a taper 
 Round the red west when the sun sets in it." 
 
 For the poets, for poetical reasons, are adverse to darkness 
 
1 8 2 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 and the things belonging thereto. Though constantly con- 
 fessing to the practical advantages of night, they perpetually 
 abuse it as a time of all dreadfulness. Yet we know it to be 
 the tutelary genius of the small-creature world, their protection 
 and Providence. Concealed by it, they repose in security, 
 and under cover of the shadows of night come out to seek 
 the food which they dare not look for when man and other 
 large animals are abroad. Moths are among the illustrations 
 of this protective caution. 
 
 Science, for the sake of classification, has butterflies, moths, 
 and neither-one-thing-nor-the-others, the differences in the 
 three being solely in the shape of the end of the antennae. 
 But practically there is no difference at any stage of life, 
 either as caterpillar, chrysalis, or perfect insect. Nor in any 
 habit or detail of life. Each division hoplessly overlaps 
 the other. Moths are, therefore, simply night-butterflies. 
 Butterflies are day-moths. Some fly by night, for better 
 protection doubtless, but many by day. Thus among the 
 heather in July, the "heath moth" and "heath butterfly" 
 flutter about together. Poets, therefore, have no grounds 
 for drawing a line between the two classes. But, as I have 
 so often noticed before, the fact of any class of creature being 
 nocturnal prejudices the poets against it. To be " dusky " 
 is to be unamiable. 
 
 For instance, Thomson says 
 
 " Soft-buzzing Slander, silly moth, that eats 
 An honest name ' 
 
 as if moths " buzz ! " as if there was any, the remotest, analogy 
 between slander and a moth ! Ben Jonson has 
 
 1 ' Security 
 It is the common moth 
 That eats our wits and arts, and so 
 Destroys them both." 
 
 Change, as tending to waste, and Desuetude (the old 
 
Night-Butterflies and Day -Moths. 1 83 
 
 association with rust being in the poet's mind) are 
 " moths." 
 
 But their treatment of these insects illustrates another 
 large poetical obliquity. Because men and women who are 
 gaily dressed are often frivolous and vain, it is assumed that 
 gaiety of attire in the animal world leads to the same moral 
 weakness. 
 
 As, for instance, among birds the goldfinch, among beasts 
 the panther, among flowers the tulip, are reproached for 
 being " gaudy," " gay," and " painted," and, therefore, " vain " 
 and " fickle," so it is with the Butterfly. The poets concede 
 its beauty, but, with that unfortunate tendency of their's to 
 translate all animal life into human phrases, go on to assume 
 that because it is fair to look upon therefore it is conceited, 
 light in affection, heartless, proud. 
 
 " Conscious of beauty they speed from flower to flower, 
 Flaunting in the aspect of the day 
 Their robes of spangled tissue." 
 
 Clare, a sympathetic poet, is one of the few who really gives 
 them the advantage of a doubt. 
 
 " For amid the sunny hour, 
 When I've found thee on a flower 
 (Searching with minutest gleg) 
 Oft I've seen thy little leg 
 Soft as glass o'er velvet glides 
 Smoothen down thy silken sides ; 
 Then thy wings would ope and shut, 
 Then thou seemingly wouldst strut ; 
 Was it nature, was it pride ? 
 Let the learned world decide." 
 
 It follows, then, naturally enough from the poet's moral, 
 that "so gay a popelet" should be a fop, "light-fluttering," 
 a "beau," and "dandy." But how ugly such metaphors 
 are ! This, for instance 
 
1 84 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 1 ' And that thing was made of sound and show 
 Which mortals have misnamed a beau, 
 But in the language of the sky 
 Is called a two-legged butterfly." 
 
 Or this 
 
 " But for those butterflies the beaux 
 Who buzz around in tinsel rows, 
 Shake, shake them off with quick disdain. 
 Where insects settle they will stain." 
 
 I cannot understand how "poets" can even fancy so dis- 
 agreeably, so sordidly, of these pretty harmless things with 
 their happy ways so happy, indeed, that they need no voice 
 to tell us how glad they are of life, and how good they find 
 the sunshine, and how fair the flowers. I think a better 
 moral might easily be drawn from the flirtation of a butterfly 
 and a daisy than this 
 
 " The dandy butterfly 
 
 All exquisitely dressed 
 Before the daisy's eye, 
 
 Displays his painted vest, 
 In vain is he arrayed 
 
 In all the gaudy show ; 
 What business hath a maid 
 
 With such a foppish beau ? " 
 
 I confess that, for myself, I am a trifle bored with the " inno- 
 cence " of the daisy, and half wish some poet would get up 
 and call it names. And I am quite sure butterflies do not 
 go and show off before them, or even look as if they did. 
 Nobody ever saw a butterfly on a daisy. 
 
 A worthless woman has this, again, for her epitaph 
 
 11 Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, 
 What once was a butterfly gay in life's beam ; 
 Want only of wisdom denied her respect, 
 Want only of goodness denied her esteem." 
 
 Poor Psyche ! Who does not know the exquisite legend of 
 Love and Psyche ? 
 
Night-Butterflies and Day-Moths. 1 8 5 
 
 " Love's own, 
 
 His wedded love by holiest vow 
 Pledged in Olympus, and made known 
 To mortals by the type which now 
 Hangs glittering on her sunny brow 
 That butterfly, mysterious trinket, 
 Which means the soul (though few would think it)." 
 
 It is a " holiday-rover," " giddy," bent only on enjoyment, 
 " to pleasure ever on the wing." 
 
 1 ' From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly 
 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky." 
 
 So it is "the aimless butterfly" that flits "through ether 
 without aim," " withouten any choice," or that, " fickle as a 
 butterfly-love " 
 
 " doth rejoice 
 
 Every minute to change choice, 
 Counting he were then in bliss, 
 If that each fair of all were his." 
 
 Moreover, singularly enough, the poets seem to resent the 
 butterfly's elevation from the grub-commonalty to the Upper 
 House. The moralists among them see in the meta- 
 morphosis an aspiring mind rewarded by success, or a 
 pious one rising from earthly clods to heavenly heights. 
 But, as a rule, it is remembered unkindly against the 
 charming insect that it should have had such lowly origin, 
 the intermediate refining stage of chrysalis-tranquillity not- 
 withstanding. So, as the butterfly is born of the caterpillar, 
 "to Goody Maggot near allied," and as those "reptiles," 
 as poets call them, are (poetically) supposed to be en- 
 gendered from corruption, the butterfly is a courtier-insect 
 which is the outcome of a rotten society. In this character 
 it perpetually recurs in verse. Again, inasmuch as the 
 grubbing, toiling caterpillar may be imagined as having 
 laid the foundation for the pleasures which the winged 
 thing possesses, and which it so prodigally enjoys, it affords 
 a simile for a spendthrift heir. 
 
1 86 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " All glossy, gay-enamelled all with gold, 
 The silly tenant of the summer air 
 In folly lost, of nothing taking care." 
 
 Thus basely born, and being, as it were, fortuitous and 
 ephemeral not really butterflies, but only grubs on the 
 wing they are sometimes regarded as positively con- 
 temptible and beneath the appreciation of sensible men. 
 Thus Shenstone, addressing collectors, says 
 
 ' ' Hail, curious wights ! to whom so fair 
 
 The form of mortal fly is, 
 Who deem those grubs beyond compare 
 Which common-sense despises." 
 
 So, too, Pope contemptuously relegates butterfly-collecting 
 to " curious Germans." The insect is of no value " swiche- 
 talking is ne worth a boterflie." 
 
 But from all the above I do not mean it to be understood 
 that the poets did not admire butterflies. On the contrary, 
 their verse is full of compliments to their actual beauty. 
 This admiration, however, is so very common, indeed so 
 universal, that it would have been impossible for poets not 
 to share in it ; and quotation of their approving epithets is 
 equally unnecessary. Indeed, it will be seen that even 
 when depreciating the insects their physical charms are 
 punctually admitted. None the less, it is curious to note 
 how this wrong way of regarding the animal world that is, 
 from human standpoints and transferring our own failings 
 to all other creatures, is consistently adhered to by poets, 
 who should remember that some writers, judging in the same 
 erroneous way, have actually called the poets themselves 
 ' butterflies." 
 
 Some special phrases of admiration are, however, well 
 worth noting; as for instance when the poet, more suo, 
 exceeds the already-sufficing measure of the creatures' 
 natural beauty. Thus Keats in fancy has a "golden " 
 butterfly, but it was born of a flower, a fairy insect, and led 
 
Night-Butterflies and Day- Moths. 1 8 7 
 
 Endymion to strange and sweet adventure. But what real 
 butterfly Shenstone had before him which he describes as 
 " celestial crimson dropped with gold" it would puzzle the 
 naturalist to say, or what the very common insect of poetry 
 can be that has " wings of gold." " Gaudy, spangled wing," 
 "painted and spangled," might apply to the fritillaries, but 
 poets are too inaccurate as observers to have noticed the 
 under side of these species' wings. Yet Darwin, who was a 
 student of nature, has " silver" butterflies; while Wordsworth, 
 who takes such credit to himself for communing in intimacy 
 with nature, actually says ' he saw English boys chasing a 
 " crimson " butterfly, and describes another " all green and 
 gold" two insects which it is perfectly certain he could 
 never have beheld in Great Britain. Yet he tells us that he 
 watched a single butterfly "a full half-hour," and that as a 
 child 
 
 " My sister Emmeline and I 
 Together chased the butterfly ; " 
 
 so that he ought to have known them by sight at any rate, 
 and to have remembered that "sister Emmeline and I" 
 never saw either a crimson or a green-and-gold butterfly. 
 
 They are "flying flowers," as the Chinese (or is it the 
 Japanese?) call them : 
 
 " One might fancy the rich flowers 
 That round them in the sun lay sighing 
 Had been by magic all set flying." 
 
 Summer comes on butterfly wings ; Pleasure is a butterfly : 
 Youth " on its insect-wing " flies, " eager to taste the honey's 
 spring." Keats beautifully calls them "lords of flowers." 
 In Byron the butterfly affords an analogy for beauty wooed, 
 won, and thrown aside : 
 
 " So beauty lures the full-grown child, 
 With hue as bright and wing as wild, 
 A chase of idle hopes and fears, 
 Begun in folly, closed in tears. 
 
1 88 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 If won, to equal ills betray'd 
 Woe waits the insect and the maid, 
 A life of pain, the loss of peace, 
 From infant's play, and man's caprice ; 
 The lovely toy so fiercely sought, 
 Hath lost its charm by being caught, 
 For every touch that woo'd its stay 
 Hath brush'd its brightest hues away." 
 
 Several butterflies and moths are individually specified 
 without any loss of beauty to the verse. Thus Hurdis' 
 insect, "with saffron wing superb," that "zigzag dances 
 o'er the flowery dell;" Clare's "plain-drest butterfly of 
 russet dye," which 
 
 " As if awakened by the scythe's shrill sound 
 Soon as the bent with ripeness 'gan to die, 
 Was constant with the mower in the meadow-ground 
 Flitting the with'ring swathe and unmown blossom round." 
 
 Or the other 
 
 " Lo ! the arching heavenly bow- 
 Doth all his dyes on thee bestow, 
 Crimson, blue, and watery green, 
 Mixed with azure shade between, 
 These are thine thou first in place, 
 Queen of all the insect race." 
 
 Which Jean Ingelow more pointedly particularises : 
 
 ' ' Open velvet butterflies 
 That swing and spread their peacock eyes 
 As if they cared no more to rise 
 From off their bed of camomile." 
 
 Crabbe is delightful : 
 
 " From the sweet bower, by nature form'd, arise 
 Bright troops of virgin moths and fresh-born butterflies ; 
 Who broke that morning from their half-year's sleep 
 To fly o'er flowers where they were wont to creep, 
 Above the sovereign oak, a sovereign, skims 
 The purple emp'ror, strong in wing and limbs, 
 There fair Camilla takes her flight serene, 
 Adonis blue, and Paphia silver queen ; 
 
Night-Butterflies and Day- Moths. 1 89 
 
 With every filmy fly from mead or bower, 
 
 And hungry Sphinx who threads the honey'd flower 
 
 She o'er the larkspur's bed, where sweets abound, 
 
 Views ev'ry bell, and hums th' approving sound ; 
 
 Poised on her busy plumes, with feelings nice 
 
 She draws from every flower, nor tries a flow'ret twice." 
 
 Eliza Cook, whose butterflies are beyond all sober concep- 
 tion, has " blue " moths flit past in poem after poem, and to 
 leave no room for doubt, she sometimes refers to the insect 
 as " moth with azure wings." Moreover, her moths are the 
 companions of the bee. Thus, " the moth is full dressed 
 and the bee is about," " the golden moth and the shining 
 bee Will seldom rest on the willow-tree," " aspen stalks move 
 with the moth and the bee," and so on. But, I suppose, 
 Eliza Cook ought never to be taken seriously. Other poets, 
 however, see " happy moths sporting in the sunny summer's 
 sheen," meaning, no doubt, "midges." 
 
 And what Darwin may mean by the lines 
 
 "Ye painted moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl, 
 Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl," 
 
 I am at a loss to imagine. Clare was a nice observer, and 
 the " ermine " and the " ghost " moths " that live in the silence 
 and sweetness of night " met with frequent notice in his verse, 
 flitting along the meadows, " climbing up the tall grasses " 
 
 "Dancing with lily-white wings o'er the dew, 
 Perched on the down-headed grass like a fairy." 
 
 "Tender-speckled" is Bloomfield's epithet for, no doubt, 
 the " ermine." And Keats admirably speaks of a painted 
 window as 
 
 " Diamonded with panes of quaint device, 
 As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings." 
 
 Many have "silver" moths an epithet which is admissible, 
 seeing that the white or very light-cloured sorts are the only 
 
1 90 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 ones likely to have attracted the notice of such "impres- 
 sionist " persons as poets. 
 
 "The silver moth enjoys the gloom 
 Glancing on tremulous wing through twilight bow'rs, 
 Now flits where warm nasturtiums glow, 
 Now quivers on the jasmine bough, 
 And sucks with spiral tongue the balm of sleeping flowers." 
 
 As a boy at school I was an inveterate " collector " of 
 objects of natural history, and my " museum " was at once 
 the envy and the despair of my contemporaries. That I 
 neglected my duties for my pleasures goes without saying, as 
 all boys do this. But I did so systematically, doggedly, and 
 triumphantly. Fifteen years later I went back to my old 
 school. They wanted to hear " an old boy's " adventures as 
 a traveller and a war-correspondent, and I met many of my 
 masters, and to them I confessed the unsuspected obliquities 
 of my school career. I had never in seven years learned 
 one single proposition of Euclid. No, not even the first. 
 I had never achieved an algebraic equation. No, not one. 
 I loathed mathematics with a profundity that even the loath- 
 ing for rhubarb and magnesia could not surpass. So I 
 shirked and cribbed during these lessons with such resolution 
 and judgment that I was actually able to leave school 
 congratulating myself on never having done a proposition 
 or a sum in a legitimate way. At mathematical examinations 
 I used to send up blank papers, or coolly return myself as 
 absent. 
 
 In after life, when I first began to write for publication, I 
 found myself handicapped by my total ignorance of precise 
 terms, such as mathematics teaches, so, at my leisure, I read 
 Logic and Metaphysics for three years, and thus qualified 
 for the Professor's Chair of these sciences at the Allahabad 
 College in India. The balance was thus equalised, you say, 
 but was it ? I found myself with all my sympathy for nature 
 to the good. For no man, when his ideas are fixed, his 
 
Night- Butter flies and Day-Moths. 1 9 1 
 
 character made, can deliberately, and in cold blood, set 
 about putting himself in a business-like way in sympathy 
 with nature. Such attempts end in mere sentimentalism, 
 gush, and vulgarity. His love of nature must have been 
 acquired when a boy. It can only come from association 
 with wild things : the handling of flowers and birds' eggs, 
 and butterflies ; the watching creatures going to and fro about 
 their daily duties and pleasures " idling," in fact, as some 
 people call it, in the open air. Now, no grown-up man can 
 methodically commence doing that. He has other things 
 to attend to. But any adult can make up in three years, if 
 he chooses, for the mathematical deficiencies of his teens. 
 
 Arithmetic has, by that time, sufficiently taught itself. 
 Euclid turns out to be only common-sense. As for algebra, 
 I have never been able to trace its influence anywhere 
 either in conversation, business, or literature. It may be 
 very useful, just as writing lessons may be in " caligraphy," 
 in which O thrice-excellent Sellick, you will bear me out 
 I achieved as a boy considerable honours, my round-hand 
 being (even to this day) a thing of beauty. And yet, gentle 
 reader, I feel inclined sometimes to sit down and out of the 
 fulness of my heart weep when I think of the kind of manu- 
 script which I send in to printers. Those of my own house- 
 hold even cannot sometimes decipher my writing if I may 
 call it such. It is simply execrable. So that my writing- 
 lessons have not permanently advantaged me any more than 
 my evasive treatment of " Euclid " has injured me. 
 
 But there was something which I learned when at school 
 which has never left me, and to which I am largely indebted 
 for such measure of success as may have attended me, and 
 that is " sympathy " with all sorts and conditions of creatures, 
 founded upon a just appreciation of them itself based on 
 sound, first-hand, though assuredly very "unscientific " know- 
 ledge. I have learnt all my natural history from nature, 
 who is the most unscientific teacher possible. 
 
192 The Poets and Nature* 
 
 Of men and women I know little : their faces, gestures, 
 demeanour are almost without significance to me. I am 
 therefore always wrong in my estimates of men and women, 
 and to my constant misfortune. For this reason I cannot 
 read Dickens for more than a few pages at a time with 
 pleasure. He bores me when he is not funny. For this 
 reason I never never go to a theatre, except under com- 
 pulsion, or else to laugh. On the other hand, I will not say 
 how much I have read Darwin, or how often I go to the 
 Zoo. My natural sympathies, therefore, are outside of 
 humanity. 
 
 As for example : my able namesake F. W. Robinson the 
 novelist would walk over Waterloo Bridge, and while walk- 
 ing over would receive a magazine-article-full of impressions 
 character sketches and so forth. I walk across with him, 
 but on arriving at the other end I have simply traversed so 
 many yards. That I passed a lot of people, I know, because 
 most of them would not get out of my way but little more. 
 Well, perhaps a very pretty girl or an extraordinarily fat man 
 may have awakened an instant's interest ; but virtually, after 
 crossing the bridge, I find I have acquired no ideas what- 
 ever. My mind has received no impressions. Now, on the 
 other hand, if I were to take F. W. across a meadow, he 
 might go from stile to stile and at the end of the walk have 
 nothing more than a general idea of grass, and, perhaps, a 
 more definite one of sheep ; while I have reached the stile 
 with enough in my head for an article in the Gentleman's. 
 Put a magpie down on Waterloo Bridge, and the whole 
 scene changes at once for me. Put a shepherd and his 
 boy into the meadow, and the whole scene changes at once 
 forF. W. 
 
 Now F. W., I admit (in deference to human perjudices), 
 recognises and sympathises with a nobler range of subjects 
 than I do. But admitting this, I still would not concede, 
 even to him, the right of taking liberties with animals. If 
 
Night- Butterflies and Day-Moths. 1 9 3 
 
 he should sketch a gluttonous, fat, lazy, sensual man, and 
 end up by saying " in fact, a regular pig," the novelist would 
 be just as far beyond his authority as if I, having described 
 some animal as cunning, heartless, and voracious, should 
 sum up with "in fact, a regular solicitor." The latter would 
 sound the more unjust to the majority. Because every one 
 knows that solicitors, taken as a class, are not necessarily 
 cunning, heartless, or voracious ; and very many know, no 
 doubt, individual solicitors who are positively straight- 
 forward, kind-hearted, and moderate in fees; while nobody, 
 except a very few pig-breeders, knows anything of swine as a 
 class, and it is only a small minority that can even speak to 
 the character of any one individual porker. Yet the one 
 generalisation would, in fact, be quite as unjust as the 
 other. 
 
 How does this read ? " The hyaena is as ugly as most 
 old pawnbrokers, with the voice of a female politician, the 
 shifty eye of a professional company-director, and a slink 
 in the hind-quarters suggestive of a private detective. 
 Though feeding as indiscriminately as a city alderman, it 
 always, like a newspaper-editor, shirks conflict with those 
 who can retaliate," and so on. How does it read ? Does it 
 not seem prejudiced and unsympathetic? That is just my 
 complaint against the poets who, studying only mankind, 
 insist on fitting in all the rest of creation into their ideas 
 about humanity, 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 ARACHNE AND THE POETS. 
 
 SPIDERS are best known by inference. Cobwebs ; ergo 
 spiders. But the insects 1 themselves are not much in 
 evidence. It is not their nature to come to the front; 
 they are of a conspiring kind. 
 
 Yet it is very curious, considering their extraordinary 
 numbers, how comparatively seldom they are seen. A 
 light brought suddenly into a dark room will sometimes 
 betray one guiltily flat on the wall, with its legs all spread 
 out round it in the very act of sudden surprisal. In cob- 
 webbed cellars, too, there is at every turn the suspicion of 
 long legs suddenly withdrawn into grey tunnels, of shrinkings 
 away, and stealthy evanishments. But it is only the suspicion. 
 During an autumn walk they may be seen in shrubberies 
 or out in the country, basking complacently in the centre of 
 their beautiful nets that a fly ought to be able to see a mile 
 off comfortable dowager-spiders, as Wyatt says, "obvious to 
 flies." Or in summer, if you care to look in the garden, you 
 may find them everywhere (and very beautiful many of them 
 are), and you will see that most awful of little creatures, the 
 cat-spider, hunting for prey on the woodwork of your window 
 or the sunniest patches of the wall where the flies like to 
 settle. 
 
 Laugh if you like, but in all seriousness it is very exciting 
 
 1 I call spiders "insects" all through. P. R. 
 194 
 
A rachne and the Poets. 195 
 
 to watch this queer little tiger at work. It moves hardly 
 faster than the minute hand of a watch. Indeed it does 
 not seem to move at all, but rather as if the fly it was stalking 
 was a magnet drawing the spider towards it involuntarily. 
 The eye can hardly note the legs stir at all ; and yet, as you 
 watch, the interval between the tiny beast of prey and its 
 victim steadily, perceptibly, decreases. And at last it is 
 within leaping distance. And it gets ready. But with what 
 exasperating slowness ! Will it never jump ? And when it 
 does, you do not see it. The act is too rapid for the eye 
 to catch. But there all the same is the fly with the cat-spider 
 on its back rolling over and over. And the eyesight of the 
 small panther ! The lynx is purblind by comparison. And 
 as for its courage, the wild boar even does not excel it. 
 Indeed, it is so brave as to be almost tame. If you threaten 
 it with your finger, it turns fiercely on you, retreating back- 
 wards, and very soon it loses all fear of you, and will go 
 after any fly it sees in spite of you. 
 
 In India I have, at Dholpur, seen the natives hunt ravine 
 deer with the cheetah, and I have often gone hawking, both 
 with the shahin off the wrist and the shikra in the hand. 
 But the cat-spider is just as good, and if I had as much 
 leisure as Queen Christina of Sweden, I should like to train 
 these little insects. 
 
 Cruel ? Not at all. At least not to my thinking nor to 
 that of Providence. 
 
 What a study in animal life it is, this crouching atom, so 
 small and yet so fatally deadly. The ledge of the window- 
 pane is a trifle rough ; see how the spider takes advantage 
 of every little pimple or speck of paint. Or it is smooth ; 
 see how it slips over the edge and, knowing it is quite out 
 of its victim's sight, makes short rushes, coming cautiously 
 up to peer over the edge after each rush to see if the fly has 
 changed its position. And then when it gets exactly under 
 the fly, watch it come up on the level ! Is the fly washing 
 
196 The Poets and Natiire. 
 
 its face ? The spider advances. Does the fly stop washing 
 its face as if disquieted ? The spider stops, too. And then 
 the lightning spring, the rough and tumble, the fearful 
 tenacity of its ferocious grasp. It is a wonderful bit of 
 nature: straight from the jungles. And educational ; giving 
 glimpses under the surface ; a light on the real life-story of 
 insects. 
 
 Moreover, this particular spider is curious among its kind 
 in that it turns its head on its shoulders to look about it. 
 If a bird flies past the window it turns like lightning. It 
 will watch a person cross a room. Some of its eyes being 
 on the very top of its head, it can see behind it. No terrier 
 ever looked more knowing or cocked its head more cleverly. 
 All the same, it gives the little creature a very uncannily 
 intelligent look. 
 
 This digression has taken me from my point which was 
 that spiders are better known by their works than by their 
 persons. In the poets this truth is singularly illustrated by 
 the fact that fifty references to cobwebs might be found for 
 every one to spiders. If the insects were unsuitable for 
 poets' purposes this would not be strange. But, on the 
 contrary, they are full of "morals," all of which are abun- 
 dantly recognised in rhyme, and suggest to the fancy an 
 almost unusual number of metaphors, similes, and images. 
 The chief of these Southey compendiously reproduces in 
 the following verses from his poem " To a Spider " : 
 
 " Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways 
 
 Of Satan, sire of lies ; 
 Hell's huge black spiders ; for mankind he lays 
 
 His toils as thou for flies. 
 When Betty's busy eye runs round the room, 
 
 Woe to that nice geometry, if seen ! 
 But where is he whose broom 
 
 The earth shall clean ? 
 
 Spider ! of old thy flimsy webs were thought, 
 And 'twas a likeness true, 
 
A rachne and the Poets. 1 9 7 
 
 To emblem laws in which the weak are caught, 
 
 But which the strong break through. 
 And if a victim in thy toils is ta'en, 
 
 Like some poor client is that wretched fly 
 I'll warrant thee thou'lt drain 
 
 His life-blood dry. 
 
 And is not thy weak work like human schemes 
 
 And care on earth employed ! 
 Such are young hopes and love's delightful dreams 
 
 So easily destroyed ! 
 So does the statesman, whilst the avengers sleep, 
 
 Self-deem'd secure, his wiles in secret lay, 
 Soon shall destruction sweep 
 
 His work away. 
 
 Thou busy labourer ! one resemblance more 
 
 Shall yet the verse prolong, 
 For, spider, thou art like the poet poor, 
 
 Whom thou hast helped in song. 
 Both busily, our needful food to win, 
 
 We work, as nature taught, with ceaseless pains 
 Thy bowels thou dost spin, 
 i I spin my brains." 
 
 Parallel passages to each of these may be easily quoted 
 for Southey was a careful reader and a generous borrower. 
 Thus, as to the web-weaving of Beelzebub, from Burns : 
 
 " Ah Nick ! ah Nick ! it is na fair, 
 First showing us the tempting ware, 
 Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare, 
 
 To put us daft, 
 Syne weave, unseen, thy spider's snare 
 
 O' hell's damned waft." 
 
 The simile of law, solicitors' clerks, " human insects 
 catering for human spiders " " men of law " (Crabbe) : 
 
 1 ' There in his web th' observant spider lies, 
 And peers about for fat intruding flies. 
 Doubtful at first, he hears the distant hum, 
 And feels them fluttering as they nearer come ; 
 They buzz and blink and doubtfully they tread 
 On the strong bird-lime of the utmost thread ; 
 
198 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 But when they're once entangled by the gin, 
 With what an eager clasp he draws them in. 
 Nor shall they 'scape till after long delay, 
 And all that sweetens life is drawn away." 
 
 And then as to the brittleness of the laws (Beattie) : 
 
 1 ' Laws, as we read in ancient sages, 
 Have been like cobwebs in all ages 
 Cobwebs for little flies are spread, 
 And laws for little folks are made ; 
 But if an insect of renown, 
 Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone, 
 Be caught in quest of sport or plunder, 
 The flimsy fetter flies in sunder." 
 
 The statesman's futile subtlety (Garth) : 
 
 " Or spider-like, spin out our precious all, 
 Our more than vitals spin (if no regard 
 To great futurity) in curious webs 
 Of subtle thought and exquisite design 
 (Fine network of the brain) to catch a fly ! 
 The momentary buzz of vain renown, 
 A name ! a mortal immortality." 
 
 Or Churchill's 
 
 " Henceforth, secure, let ambushed statesmen lie, 
 Spread the court- web, and catch the patriot fly." 
 
 And hopes in general (Wordsworth) : 
 
 1 ' Hopes, what are they ? Beads of morning 
 Strung on slender blades of grass ; 
 Or a spider's web adorning 
 In a strait and treacherous pass." 
 
 The simile of the poor poet spinning his brains into 
 " lines " is used more than once, and also applied to other 
 11 lines " of thought, as in Cowper, of commentators : 
 
 " Comment after comment, spun as fine 
 As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line," 
 
 and Churchill's critics : 
 
 " Let wits, like spiders, from the tortured brain 
 Fine draw the critic web, with curious pain." 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 1 99 
 
 When addressed as the actual insect in nature, spiders 
 are generally "cruel," "delusive," "false," and "venomous." 
 One poet calls them "villains;" another, "wily ruffians, 
 gaunt and grim." They are "blood-bloated" and "all- 
 bellied." Yet it is immensely to the credit of poets that 
 they should in the case of this insect so notoriously 
 unpopular and unprepossessing have been so often fair to 
 it. Such justice is eminently unpoetical that is to say, 
 extremely rare in poetry, for, as a rule, poets adopt vulgar 
 prejudices, and punctually inculcate them. It is true that 
 in legends spiders are more often benign than malignant, 
 affording another illustration of the tendency of folk-lore to 
 look upon ugliness only as the masquerading domino of an 
 enchanted goodness, and on misfortune in figure as the 
 disguise of fortune of other kinds. So toads are often 
 beneficent; serpents nearly always so. Humanity, in the 
 real heart of it, is tenderly sympathetic. When the proper 
 time comes everybody hopes bad will turn back to good, 
 and ugly to beautiful. Folk-tale always ends in the recovery 
 of lost possessions, the resumption of original charms. 
 
 But poets are not, as a rule, appreciative of the deeper 
 sense of animal legends. Superficial ideas, such as the 
 accidents of Holy Writ or the traditions of heraldry afford, 
 they reproduce and elaborate, but they seldom catch the 
 true spirit of the humanities about animals. So it has 
 always seemed to me. The present instance, then, is 
 exceptional and of some interest. 
 
 Its explanation, no doubt, is the poets' admiration of 
 industry. So the spider is " grave," " patient," " industrious," 
 and " a house- wife," and more than one bard comes forward 
 to directly praise the insect. Southey, a very hard-working 
 man himself, has a strong fellow-feeling with it : 
 
 " Spider ! thou need'st not run in fear about 
 To shun my curious eyes, 
 
2Oo The Poets and Nature. 
 
 I won't humanely crush thy bowels out 
 
 Lest thou shouldst eat the flies ; 
 
 Nor will I roast l thee, with a damn'd delight 
 
 Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see ; 
 
 For there is one who might 
 
 One day roast me. 
 
 Then shrink not, old free-mason, from my view, 
 But quietly, like me, spin out the line ; 
 Do thou thy work pursue 
 As I will mine." 
 
 Mackay has an excellent defence to offer in the poem 
 commencing 
 
 1 ' Though fear'd by many, scorned by all, 
 Poor spider on my garden wall ; 
 Accursed as ugly, cruel, sly, 
 And seen with an averted eye, 
 Thou shalt not lack one friend to claim 
 Some merit for thy injured name." 
 
 So he takes each charge in turn. As for its being " ugly," 
 says he, you have only to look closer to see "a creature 
 robed in brilliancy, with supple and resplendent limbs " and 
 as for " cruel ! " must not spiders eat to live ? And if 
 thou, poor spider, art cruel 
 
 " Because thou takest, now and then, 
 A fly, thy mutton, to thy den," 
 
 what shall we call man who is perpetually killing, not from 
 necessity, but for amusement ? 
 
 "And then we call thee sly, forsooth, 
 As if from earliest dawn of youth 
 We did not lay our artful snares 
 For rabbits, woodcocks, larks, and hares ; 
 Or lurk all day by running brooks 
 To capture fish with cruel hooks, 
 And with a patient deep deceit, 
 Betray them with a counterfeit." 
 
 1 Southey, in his rummaging of zoological legends and folk-lore, was 
 familiar with the frequency with which roasting spiders as specifics against 
 various evils is inculcated. P. R. 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 201 
 
 And then he goes on to plead that the beauty of the spider's 
 skilful web alone " might for some venial faults atone ; " 
 while its patience in calamity, "its courage to endure or 
 wait," its " self-reliance," claim several stanzas : 
 
 " Should stormy wind or thunder-shower 
 Assail thy web ; in evil hour 
 Should ruthless hand of lynx-eyed boy, 
 Or the prim gardener's rake, destroy 
 The clever mathematic maze 
 Thou spreadest in our garden ways, 
 No vain repinings mar thy rest, 
 No idle sorrows fill thy breast. 
 
 Thou mayst perchance deplore thy lot, 
 Or sigh that fortune love thee not ; 
 But never dost thou sulk and mope, 
 Or lie and groan, forgetting hope ; 
 Still, with a patience calm and true, 
 Thou workest all thy work anew, 
 As if thou felt that Heaven is just 
 To very creature of the dust. 
 
 And that the Providence, whose plan 
 Gives life to spiders as to man, 
 Will ne'er accord its aid divine 
 To those who lazily repine." 
 
 Historical spiders except that which, with the assistance 
 of the "bird of Mecca," saved Mahomet from his pursuers, 
 and the other that Bruce said he took inspiration from, are 
 not honoured in verse. The latter legend is very befittingly 
 done into rhyme by Eliza Cook. What does the patriotic 
 Scot say to this as a setting for that immortal myth : 
 
 ' ' It soon began to cling and crawl 
 Straight up, with strong endeavour ; 
 But down it came with a slippery sprawl, 
 As near to the ground as ever." 
 
 Nor may the spider of the dungeon in Chillon be 
 forgotten : 
 
 " With spiders I had friendship made, 
 And watch'd them in their sullen trade, 
 Had seen the mice by moonlight play, 
 And why should I feel less than they ? 
 
202 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 We were all inmates of one place 
 And I, the monarch of each race, 
 Had power to kill yet, strange to tell ! 
 In quiet we had learn'd to dwell." Byron. 
 
 Oflegends of the insect several are worth notice. Thus, 
 that which Phillips, in his " Cider " l refers to : 
 
 ' ' Happy lerne ! whose most wholesome air 
 Poisons envenomed spiders, and forbids the baleful toad ; " 
 
 and Green notices in the line, 
 
 "As spiders Irish wainscot flee." 
 
 The superstition being that, not only did St. Patrick drive 
 all " vermin " out of the island, but communicated to bog- 
 oak the property of keeping spiders off. Is it not a 'tradi- 
 tion that there are no spiders, for this reason, in the House 
 of Commons, the woodwork being all of Irish oak ? 
 
 " That Apulian spider's poisonous sting, healed by the 
 pleasing antidote of sonnets," is, of course, the tarantula, as 
 specified in Oldham : 
 
 "Some are at sound of christened bell forgiven, 
 And some by squirt of holy water shriven ; 
 Others by anthems played are charmed away, 
 As men cure bites of the tarantula." 
 
 Or in Herbert's lines : 
 
 " As peculiar notes and strains 
 Cure tarantula's raging pains." 
 
 That the spider is venomous is of course a scientific fact. 
 Its jaws, so to speak, are perforated exactly like a viper's 
 tooth, and communicate with a poisonous secretion, which 
 thus passes into any wound inflicted. In the poets the fatal 
 gift is of course as much exaggerated as the deadliness of 
 
 1 The context is as follows : 
 
 " More happy in her balmy draughts (enriched 
 With miscellaneous spices) and the root 
 For thirst-abating sweetness praised, which wide 
 Extend her fame." 
 
 What plant is the poet referring to? 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 203 
 
 owls' hootings or the balefulness of toads' spittings. But 
 never surely so delightfully set forth as in Spenser's original 
 exposition of the Vanities : 
 
 "An hideous dragon, dreadfull to behold, 
 Whose backe was arm'd against the dint of speare, 
 With shields of brasse that shone like burnisht golde, 
 And forked sting, that death in it did beare, 
 Strove with a spider, his unequall peare ; 
 And bad defiance to his enemie, 
 The subtill vermin, creeping closely neare, 
 Did in his drinke shed poyson privilie ; 
 Which, through his intrailes spredding diversly, 
 Made him to swell, that nigh his bowels burst, 
 And him enforst to yield the victorie, 
 What did so much in his owne greatnesse trust. 
 O, how great vainnesse is it then to scorne 
 The weake, that hath the strong so oft forlorne ! " 
 
 And King Endymion had a cohort of gigantic spiders, 
 and they spun a web from the Moon to the Morning Star, 
 and upon this, the Field of Gossamer, was fought the most 
 fantastic fight that ever the gods saw. Three days it raged, 
 the Moon-folk and the Sun-folk fighting; till King 
 Endymion cut away the web, and thus, in one appalling, 
 overwhelming act, closed the fearsome strife. Do you 
 remember, too, how in Laputa the professor intended that 
 spiders should supersede silkworms, for, said he, they not 
 only spin silk but they weave it as well ; and how to make 
 the tissue complete, he fed them on beautifully tinctured 
 flies ? And why should he not have done so ? 
 
 " I've plans for weaving velvet 
 From the spider's web so thin." 
 
 In the Islands of the Blessed they are apparelled in spiders' 
 webs, naturally stained purple, for Idmon, the dyer in purple, 
 was father of Arachne. 
 
 1 ' Weaving spiders come not near ; 
 Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence ! " 
 
 Poor spiders ! Titania wore their web, and yet would not 
 have her weavers near her. 
 
2O4 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence ! " Yet Puck 
 swings on their threads, "hung between two branches of a 
 briar," the fairies' lutes are strung with gossamer; their 
 steeds reined with "smallest spiders' web," and Titania's 
 " waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs." 
 
 " Then the Interpreter showed them into the very best 
 room of the house, a very bare room it was, so he bid them 
 look round about, and see if they could find anything 
 profitable there. Then they looked round and round for 
 there was nothing to be seen but a very great spider on the 
 wall and that they overlooked. 
 
 "Mercy. Then said Mercy, Sir, I see nothing. 
 
 "But Christiana held her peace. 
 
 "Interpreter. But, said the Interpreter, look again. 
 
 " She, therefore, looked again, and said, Here is not any- 
 thing but an ugly spider, who hangs by her hands upon the 
 wall. 
 
 " Then said he, Is there but one spider in all this spacious 
 room? 
 
 " Then the water stood in Christiana's eyes, for she was a 
 woman of quick apprehension ; and she said, Yea, Lord, 
 there are more here than one. Yea, and spiders whose 
 venom is far more destructive than that which is in here.", 
 
 This is a delightful passage, spoilt, perhaps, to some by 
 the fact that the translators of the Bible ought probably to 
 have said lizards instead of spiders, and that the " semam " 
 of the original is still an undetermined quantity. Not that 
 such a detail disturbs the poets. For them this insect is of 
 one species only and without varieties. It is " the spider " 
 that spins web "out of her own bowels." And yet how 
 prodigious, far-reaching, and deep-searching in its influences 
 on the economy of insect life is this many-tribed insect. 
 
 Who has not at one time or another thought the lives of 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 205 
 
 insects enviably free from care ? When out among the 
 heather, or resting some summer's noon under a tree, how 
 happy the small-winged folk, sunning themselves on the 
 flower-heads, seem to be, without, apparently, any troubles 
 or even responsibilities. They zigzag and flutter about as if 
 time and place were nothing to them. This field or the, 
 next what does it matter ? Now, or by-and-by ? 
 
 But whenever I hear any one envy the life of flies, I think 
 to myself, " My friend, you have forgotten the spiders" 
 Sunshine and wings and flowers a delightful combination, 
 no doubt. But think of the spiders. It is worth while to 
 do so, for it may turn over quite a new page in nature for you. 
 
 Imagine, for instance, that the insects which you see 
 "dancing" in the air, out of pure light-heartedness, too 
 happy even to sit still on a flower, or even to make their 
 choice on which one they will settle, as you imagine, are 
 afraid to alight. 
 
 Fancy, if you can, that every blossom, every tempting 
 twig, has a hungry spider upon it, and that the flies know it, 
 .and dare not rest. What, then, becomes of all their light- 
 heartedness, of the gladsomeness that keeps them so buoy- 
 antly ever on the wing? From every resting-place, bright 
 petal or green leaf, keen, patient eyes are looking out and 
 up at the winged things half-minded to settle and yet afraid. 
 Fangs are working and mumbling together in the excitement 
 of expectation, legs are drawn up all ready to spring and 
 the fly knows it. It hovers over the welcome perch, the 
 tempting honey, but instinct tells it of a peril that is 
 ambushed ; its courage fails it, and, just as you think it is 
 going to settle, it is gone. How "frivolous," "giddy," and 
 all the rest of it, it seems, this fly in the summer's sunshine, 
 dancing from flower to flower, does it not ? But, are you 
 sure that the fly did not see something ? Look close your- 
 self at the purple cushion of that scabious. Nothing ? Look 
 closer. Nothing still? Look underneath. Ah? Now, 
 
206 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 suppose yourself a fly, and that spider as large as yourself, 
 and then conceive, if you can, the blood-curdling horror of 
 such an apparition suddenly confronting you. If you had 
 human wits about you before you met it, the odds are that 
 you would be a gibbering idiot for ever afterwards. Human 
 reason could not possibly stand the shock of such a fearful 
 sight. Spiders the size of bullocks would kill at sight. 
 
 " Mock the majesty of man's high birth, 
 Despise his bulwarks, and unpeople earth." 
 
 No wonder then that the fly was reluctant to settle on 
 the scabious, and that it " danced " about the flower so long, 
 and eventually decided not to sit down. But the "giddiness" 
 and " light-heartedness " has all gone out of the picture. 
 
 Of course I do not assert that my idea is correct. It may 
 be only a fancy. But it is, at any rate, perfectly safe to 
 assume that, in a very large number of cases, the precipitancy 
 of a fly's departure is due to a very proper discretion, and 
 not to silliness. Also, that very often indeed when an insect 
 seems unreasonable in its sudden changes of intention, it 
 has, as a matter of fact, the best of all reasons for its conduct, 
 namely, escape from death. 
 
 The purple cushion of the scabious, so warm with the sun 
 shining full on it, and each of the little flowerets that compose 
 the disc so full of fragrant honey, is the very ideal of a resting- 
 place for a fly. And so, too, thinks the fly, till there grows 
 up gradually over the edge of the flower two fine green legs 
 tipped with little claws. Then it is time to be off there 
 is none to waste. If the fly stands upon the order of its going, 
 there will follow the legs a pair of grass-green nippers, 
 exquisitely sharp at the points, toothed, too, on the inner 
 side, and hollowed like a cobra's fang to carry poison. And 
 above the grass-green nippers will be two rows of eyes as 
 bright as diamonds and that is the last the fly will remember. 
 So it wisely goes at once. 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 207 
 
 The knowledge of this prevalence of spiders goes some 
 way to give a just appreciation of insect life. At any rate, 
 without it, any idea of that life must be as ridiculously 
 incomplete as if we were to think of mice in kitchens without 
 cats and traps. 
 
 For myself, I know this perpetual recurrence of spiders 
 and their webs in every crook and cranny of the country 
 makes me think of insect existence as anything but careless. 
 It rather seems to me a constant ambuscade. Fortunately, 
 the flies do not know it, or I should think they would 
 abondon life in despair ; and fortunately, too, they have no 
 nerves, or they would go mad with horrors and the appre- 
 hension of them. To me, then, there is always present in 
 the quietest scenes in nature an underlying grimness which 
 makes insect life very real and serious. 
 
 The birds seem merely an awkward incident in fly-life ; 
 their prodigious havoc among the winged things only 
 occasional and local as compared with the ubiquitous and 
 universal spiders'. The former, no doubt, are active and 
 voracious and very numerous. But what is their activity, 
 voracity, or their numbers by comparison with the myriads 
 of these little, subtle, and nimble blood-suckers ? They are 
 everywhere among the grass, in the herbage, the under- 
 growth, the shrubs, the trees, in the hedges and the ditches, 
 on railings, tree-trunks, walls, and the ground; creeping, 
 hiding, web-spinning, leaping, they cover the earth in a 
 universal conspiracy. 
 
 Darwin's revelation of that awful force, the earth-worm, 
 revolutionised my ideas of the under-world. Till then I 
 had considered it inert or passive, the solid basis and 
 ground-work of the shifting, active life of the upper-world. 
 I had never regarded it as itself a scene of a pitiless diligence 
 in ruin, the laboratory of a vast disintegrating agency that is 
 incessantly toiling to bury cities and destroy every vestige 
 of man's occupation of the earth. 
 
so8 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 With something of the same completeness came upon me 
 the discovery of the all-pervading presence of spiders. 
 Science calls them by the names of beasts of prey, and it 
 was well to do so. For if you will take a foot of ground 
 out in the country any summer's day as your sphere of 
 observation, and watch for a while, you will see the cat-spider 
 come creeping along, suddenly springing as it goes at every- 
 thing that looks like a fly ; the wolf-spider pass rapidly 
 across with business-like directness ; the lynx-spider sidle 
 from blade to blade. Or spread a handkerchief under a 
 bush, and strike the branches with a stick. Spiders come 
 tumbling out, or hang in mid-air by the threads that, even 
 against so sudden an alarm, they have all prepared. 
 
 So far, then, the spider in verse. But, as I said at start- 
 ing, the creature is infinitely better known by its handicraft 
 than its presence, and poetical references to its web are in 
 porportion more numerous. There is, however, but little 
 variety in the treatment. Occasionally the web is called 
 "arras," "tapestry," "the lonely spider's thin grey pall," a 
 "clue," a "bower," but, as a rule, it is either the open air 
 " filmy," " silken " thread that catches the garden fly : 
 
 " So the false spider when her nets are spread, 
 Deep ambush'd in her silent den does lie ; 
 And feels far off the trembling of her thread, 
 Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly, 
 Then if at last she finds him fast beset, 
 She issues forth and runs along her bower ; 
 She joys to touch the captive in her net 
 And drag the little wretch in triumph home." Dryden. 
 
 Or the dusty-covered cobweb of the attic or cellar and 
 neglected library : 
 
 1 ' For a deep dust (which time does softly shed 
 Where only time does come) their covers bear, 
 On which grave spiders streets of web had spread 
 Subtle and slight, as the grave writers were." 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 209 
 
 Or other vacant rooms where 
 
 " Her disembowelled web 
 Arachne in a hall or kitchen spreads 
 Obvious to vagrant flies ;'she secret stands 
 Within her woven cell ; the humming prey, 
 Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils 
 Inextricable ; nor will aught avail 
 Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue. 
 The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone, 
 A butterfly, proud of expanded wings 
 Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares 
 Useless resistance make : with eager strides 
 She, towering, flies to her extended spoils." Wyatt. 
 
 Or again in Montgomery : 
 
 1 ' Around thy bell o'er mildewed leaves 
 His ample web a spider weaves ; 
 A wily ruffian gaunt and grim, 
 His labyrinthine toils he spreads 
 Pensile and light, their glossy threads 
 Bestrewed with many wing and limb ; 
 Even in thy chalice he prepares 
 His deadly poison and delusive snares. 
 
 Swift as death's own arrows dart, 
 On him the spider springs, 
 Wounds his side with dexterous art 
 Winds the web about his wings ; 
 Quick as he came, recoiling then, 
 The villain van'shes in his den. 
 
 The desperate fly perceives too late 
 
 The hastening crisis of his fate ; 
 
 Disaster crowds upon disaster, 
 
 And every struggle to get free 
 
 Snaps the hopes of liberty, 
 
 And draws the knots of bondage faster." 
 
 This " triumphant " descent of the spider upon its victim 
 is a very favourite fancy of the poets; and, though I 
 have never myself recognised any such exultation in the 
 demeanour of the little fly-catcher, I have often imagined 
 that I detected a high-stepping affected way about it when, 
 having done up its prey into a parcel, it minces off to its 
 
 o 
 
2 1 o The Poets and Nature. 
 
 dining-room with its dinner dangling behind it. At any rate, 
 there was abundant self-satisfaction, and not without cause 
 either. For, taking nature all round, I know no episode 
 that excels in interest the successful web-spinning of spiders. 
 Savages are laboriously ingenious in trap-setting, but 
 "Arachne" gives them points at every stage. And how 
 curious the poets' fancy of nature admiring herself, so 
 satisfied with the perfection of her own spider that she 
 copies it in flowers : 
 
 " Fair Cypripedia, with successful guile, 
 Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile 
 A spider's bloated paunch and jointed arms 
 Hide her fair form, and mask her blushing charms ; 
 In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies, 
 And on quick wing the panting plunderer flies." Darwin. 
 
 Did the poets know that " gossamer" was spiders' web? 
 Many certainly did not ; some are doubtful : some undoubt- 
 edly did. Thus, Darwin, accurately excellent, speaks of the 
 adventurous flight of the newly hatched gossamer-spider : 
 
 " So shoot the spider brood at breezy dawn 
 Their glittering network o'er th" autumnal lawn ; 
 From blade to blade connect with cordage fine 
 The unbending grass, and "live along the line." 
 
 And again, in " Prince Arthur," is the line : 
 
 "On the buoyant air sublimely borne." 
 
 And again, in Charlotte Smith : 
 
 " Small, viewless aeronaut, that by the line 
 Of gossamer suspended, in mid-air 
 Float'st on a sunbeam. Living atom, where 
 Ends thy breeze-guided voyage ? With what design 
 In aether dost thou launch thy form minute, 
 Mocking the eye ? Alas, before the veil 
 Of dense clouds shall hide thee, the pursuit 
 Of the keen swift may end thy fairy sail." 
 
 And here too ever-welcome Hardis : 
 
Arachne and the Poets. 2 1 1 
 
 " So dangles o'er the brook, depending low 
 The spider artist, till propitious breeze 
 Buoy him athwart the stream : from shore to shore 
 He fastens his horizontal thread, 
 Sufficient bridge, and, traversing alert, 
 His fine spun radii flings from side to side, 
 Shapes his concentric .circles without art, 
 And, all accomplish'd, couches in the midst, 
 Himself the centre of his flimsy toils." 
 
 But some were in doubt (and I even suspect Southey), while 
 others undeniably held the theory that the " gossamer " was 
 condensed dew. That Spenser should speak of "the fine 
 nets of scorched dew " is not remarkable, nor that is it 
 Cowley ? should have : 
 
 ' ' Cobwebs that do fly 
 In the blue air, caused by the autumnal sun 
 That boils the dew that on the earth doth lie." 
 
 Nor, perhaps, that Quarles should say 
 
 1 ' And now autumnal dews are seen 
 To cobweb every green." 
 
 But when I find Thomson speaking of "the filmy threads of 
 dew evaporate," the superstition seems to me to have lived 
 too long, even among poets. 
 
 As "gossamer " the poets perpetually admire the glistening 
 threads. But as cobwebs they abhor it, especially (which I 
 think delightfully poetic) when they remember it is spun 
 out of the insect's "bowels." Sometimes, as in Pope's 
 appreciative lines on " the spider's parallel designs," or 
 Crabbe's straightforward admiration of its diligent "geo- 
 metry," Arachne fares well at her wheel, but, as a rule, she 
 is considered sinister and treacherous : 
 
 1 ' The subtle spider never spins 
 But on dark days her shiny gins ; " 
 
 and her devices for securing food, so patiently worked out, 
 so admirably efficient when complete, are looked upon as 
 wicked frauds upon the confiding flies, snares for the inno- 
 
2 1 2 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 cently unwary. Yet it should be noted, as Butler notes it, 
 that 
 
 ' ' Spiders never seek the fly, 
 But leave him of himself to apply." 
 
 Herein the justice of Dryden's wit, " obvious to vagrant flies." 
 In metaphor they are usurers, attorneys, murderers, and 
 Jews. But, for myself, greatly as they mar my pleasure in 
 the country by constantly intruding upon pleasant scenes 
 the evidences of strife and suffering, I have somehow as kind 
 a liking for spiders as for flies, and, as Scott says, feel as 
 tenderly for spiders "as if I were a kinsman of King Robert 
 of happy memory." Nor would any notice of the poets' 
 spider be complete without quotation of Spenser's admirable 
 stanzas : 
 
 " In this gardin, where young Clarion 
 was wont to solace him, a wicked wight, 
 the foe of fayre things, th' author of Confusion 
 the shame of Nature, the bondslave of Spight 
 had lately built his hateful mansion 
 'and, lurking closely, in awaite now lay 
 how he might any in his trap betray. 
 
 And weaving straight a net with manie a fold 
 about the Cave, in which he lurking dwelt, 
 with fine small cords about it stretched wide 
 So finely sponne that scarce they could be spide. 
 
 Not anie damzell, which her vaunteth most 
 
 in skillfull knitting of soft silken twyne, 
 
 nor anie weaver, which his worke doth boast 
 
 in diaper, in damaske, or in lyne, 
 
 nor anie skil'd in workmanship emboss'd 
 
 might in their diverse cunning ever dare 
 
 with this so curious networke to compare. 
 
 Eftsoones her white streight legs were altered 
 to crooked crawling shankes, of marrowe empted ; 
 and her fair face to foule and loathsome hane 
 and her fine corpes to a hag of venim graine. 
 
 Eftsoones that damzell, by her heavenly might 
 she turned into a wicked butterflie, 
 in the wide aire to make her wand'ring flight ; 
 and all those flowres with which so plenteouslie 
 
A rachne and the Poets. 2 1 3 
 
 her lap she filled had, that bred her spight 
 
 she placed in her wings, for memorie 
 
 of her pretended crime, though crime none were ; 
 
 since which that I lie them in her wings doth beare. 
 
 His breast plate first that was of substance pure 
 before his noble heart he firmely bound, 
 that mought his life from yron death assure, 
 and ward his gentle corps from cruell wound, 
 for it by arte was framed to endure 
 no lesse than that which vulcan mad e shield, 
 Achilles' life from fate of Troyan field. 
 
 And then about his shoulders broad he threw 
 an hairie hide of some wilde beast, whom he 
 in salvage forest by adventure slew, 
 and reft the spoyle, his ornament to bee 
 which, spredding all his backe with dreadfull view 
 made all, that him so horrible did see 
 thinke him Alcides with the lyon's skin, 
 when the Noemean conquest he did win. 
 
 Upon his head his glittering burgamet, 
 
 the which was wrought by wonderous device 
 
 and curiously engravin, he did set, 
 
 the metal was of rare and passing price ; 
 
 Not Bilbo steele, nor brass from Corinth fet, 
 
 Nor costly Aricalchi from strange Phcenicet, 
 
 But such as could both Phoebus' arrowes ward, 
 
 and th' hayling darts of heaven beating hard. 
 
 Therein two deadly weapons fix'd he bore 
 strongly outlanced towards either side, 
 like two sharp speares, his enemies to gore 
 Like as a warlike brigandine, applyde 
 to fight, layes forth her tread full pike afore, 
 the engines which in them sad death doo-bayde ; 
 so did this flic outstretch his dreadful homes, 
 yet so as him their terror more adornes. 
 
 Lastly, his shinie wings, as silver bright 
 painted with thousand colours, passing farre 
 all painters' skill, he did about him dight : 
 not half so manie sundrie colours arre 
 in Iris' bowe, ne heaven doth shine so bright 
 distinguished with manie a tvvinckling starre 
 nor Junoe's bird, in her ey-spotted traine 
 so many goodly colours doth containe." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 FLIES: "THE HOSTS OF ACHOR." 
 
 FLIES and spiders are naturally associated. To the fly the 
 association is grim enough, and among the most appealing 
 sounds in nature is the long-drawn cry of the captive shrilling 
 its life out in the spider's web. And yet, extending a suffi- 
 cient sympathy to the victims, I am tolerably content to 
 know that the spinner's toil has not been all in vain. 
 When I see the glistening husk of an empty bluebottle 
 hanging outside a cob-webbed chink, rattling like a calabash 
 on a savage's door-post, I drop the tributary tear to departed 
 worth; but remembering, anon, the burly trespasser that 
 one slumberous afternoon in midsummer filled my room 
 for an hour together with the intermittent horror of its buzz 
 as maddening in the suddenness of its cessations as in the 
 heartiness of its recommencements, now quartering the 
 carpet, now hurtling about on the ceiling, everywhere by 
 turns and nowhere long I cannot but admire the kindliness 
 of nature in bestowing on the poor spider the gift of spinning 
 webs. 
 
 " Wouldst fill the wholesome universe with flies 
 and make the air too thick for human health ? 
 Death is no evil. Cease, O foolish man 
 thy querulous moaning, and consider death 
 no longer as thy foe." 
 
 Those who think that the foremost function of the poet 
 is the drawing of morals should be content with the treat- 
 ment which "flies" receive in verse. 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of Achor." 215 
 
 At the outset, however, it should not be forgotten as I 
 have carefully proved in a previous page that, poetically, 
 insect, vermin, and reptile are interchangeable terms. Thus 
 despicable humanity in general ; or specific classes of un- 
 popular persons and unpopular callings ; or individuals held 
 in contempt are each and all described indifferently as 
 insect, vermin, reptile. But the first of these terms is used 
 to denote the " winged " variety of the obnoxious. Not as 
 an invariable rule, of course, for poets do not hesitate to 
 speak of both vermin and reptiles as " by the light air up- 
 borne." Still, as a broad distinction, insects mean in poetry 
 winged insects, and still more specifically "flies." And 
 though among these occasionally the butterfly, moth, dragon- 
 fly, beetle, and other creatures are spoken of as flies, that 
 word may be accepted as individualising those household 
 insects, the domestic musca, and the bluebottle. Vanities 
 and the transient and fleeting phases of human life are, of 
 course, symbolised under the ephemerids " the swarm that 
 in the noontide beam are born." The May-fly, fire-fly, 
 horse-fly, and so forth, are each used for their special purpose. 
 But in the first place, and the majority of places, the fly of 
 poetry is the common object of our window panes, the 
 imagines Diavoli et hereticorum of Luther in fact, the 
 house-flies. 
 
 So far by way of premise. Now the poet's vermin and 
 reptiles are, we have seen, "engendered" by the sun's heat 
 out of mud and slime. In this origin " insects" therefore 
 share. "Sire of insects, mighty Sol !" says Pryor, apostro- 
 phising flies. It is "the rank fly," "corruption's insect," 
 Pope's 
 
 " Morning insects that in muck begun 
 Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun." 
 
 From such an origin, of course, only the vile can emanate 
 and such as have a natural sympathy with corruption. So 
 in metaphor the fly represents, more frequently than any 
 
2 1 6 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 other class, the base-born and base, the maggot-bred and 
 maggot- breeding. 
 
 " Of pension'd patriots and privileged slaves, 
 That party-coloured mass, which nought can warm 
 But quick corruption's heat, whose ready swarm 
 Spread their light wings in Bribery's golden sky, 
 Buzz for a period, lay their eggs, and die." Moore. 
 
 " Those gilded flies that, basking in the sunshine of a Court, 
 Fatten on its corruption ! what are they ? 
 The drones of the community ; they feed 
 On the mechanic's labour." Shelley. 
 
 " Oh ! that a verse had power and could command 
 Far far away these flesh-flies of the land ; 
 Who fatten without mercy on the fair, 
 And suck, and leave a craving maggot there." Cowper. 
 
 41 Ye tinsel insects whom a court maintains, 
 That count your beauties only by your stains, 
 Spin all your cobwebs." Pope. 
 
 Pope, it is seen, mixes up butterfly, blue-bottle, and spider ; 
 but then it is only Pope, and his meaning is obvious enough. 
 
 How curious, by the way, that want of generosity is in 
 poets which makes them take every opportunity that offers 
 to remind winged insects of their previous and more lowly 
 stage of existence. One would almost have expected them, 
 as moralists, to see the encouraging aspect of the trans- 
 formation of caterpillars into butterflies, and grubs into flies, 
 to have taught humility the lesson of hope, and industrious 
 obscurity the gospel of rewards on this side the grave. 
 
 The intermediate chrysalis stage is, again, most simply 
 eloquent of patient expectancy based upon a perfect faith. 
 The philosophers of old made much of these beautiful and 
 profound parables, and the many inspiriting readings they 
 offer to the student. But our poets, so rarely as almost to 
 justify my saying, never take heed of them. " The crawling 
 worm that turns to summer fly " is a vermin, a reptile ; and 
 the summer fly only a muck-worm in disguise, braving it 
 like a harlot, in finery for half the day : 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of Ac/ior" 217 
 
 " Diseased, decayed, to take up half a crown 
 Must mortgage her long scarf and matua gown, 
 Poor creature who, unheard of, as 1 a fly 
 In some dark hole must lie a whole half-year 
 That, for one month, she tawdry may appear." Rochester. 
 
 A masquerading maggot, a tawdry gaudy grub. And, say 
 the poets, "blood will out." The fine fly reveals in its 
 progeny its own descent. It is bound to betray itself, and 
 lay eggs which will turn to maggots. All this is very curious, 
 and somewhat puzzling. 
 
 However, to return to metaphors. Flies are " courtiers," 
 "sycophants," "beggars," "triflers," "rhymesters," "critics" 
 everything in fact that poets specially censure, and that 
 are elsewhere described as "vermin" or "reptiles": 
 
 " You like the gaudy fly your wings display, 
 And sip the sweets, and bask in your great patron's day." Dryden. 
 
 " Beggars like flys that oft return." Broome. 
 
 " Whether he measure earth, compute the sea, 
 Weigh sunbeams, carve a fly, or spit a flea, 
 The solemn trifler with his boasted skill 
 Toils much, and is a solemn trifler still." Cowper. 
 
 "Witlings, brisk fools, cursed with half-sense 
 That stimulates their impotence, 
 Who buzz in rhyme, and, like blind flies, 
 Err with wings for want of eyes." Green. 
 
 The fly-critic deserves more than one quotation, so here 
 are three, from Butler, Young, and Byron : 
 
 " Critics are like a kind of flies that breed 
 In wild fig-trees ; and, when they're grown up, feed 
 Upon the raw fruit of the nobler kind, 
 And, by their nibbling on the outward rind, 
 Open the pores ; and make way for the sun 
 To ripen it sooner than he would have done. 
 
 Slight peevish insects round a genius rise 
 As a bright day awakes the world of flies ; 
 With hearty malice, but with feeble wing. 
 (To show they live) they flutter and they stin< 
 
2 1 8 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 But as by depredations wasps proclaim 
 The fairest fruit, so these the fairest fame. 
 
 Humming, like flies, around the newest blaze 
 The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw, 
 Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise." 
 
 Youth hovering round dangerous temptation, and desire 
 for beauty, have of course their poetical counterfeits in 
 insects, that flutter into flames and rifle flowers. In the 
 first catastrophe the moth is properly the usual victim, but 
 sometimes the fly, as Ben Jonson's simpleton, 
 
 " In his mistress' flame, playing like a fly, 
 Was turned to cinders by her eye." 
 
 Or Byron's " youthful friend," 
 
 " E'en now thou'rt nightly seen to add 
 One insect to the fluttering crowd ; 
 And still thy trifling heart is glad 
 To join the vain and court the proud. 
 
 There dost thou glide from fair to fair, 
 Still simpering on with eager haste ; 
 As flies along the gay parterre 
 That taint the flowers they scarcely taste." 
 
 A more original fancy than the majority is, however, 
 Mackay's : 
 
 "And there were other suitors, human flies, 
 That ever drone and buzz at honey pots ; 
 With busy wings, lank legs, and suckers dry, 
 For want of golden sweets ; that long to light 
 Upon the paths of widows richly dower'd, 
 And settle there ; insatiate as wasps 
 That dig their feelers into luscious pears 
 Or burrow into peach or apricot." 
 
 Mallett, too, finds in the bluebottle the suggestion for an 
 excellent stanza : 
 
 " Still hov'ring round the fair at sixty-four, 
 Unfit to love, unable to give o'er ; 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of Achor" 219 
 
 A flesh-fly, that just flutters on the wing, 
 Awake to buzz, but not alive to sting ; 
 Brisk where he cannot, backward where he can, 
 The teasing ghost of the departed man." 
 
 Is " insect " a good synonym for man ? The poets think 
 it is, but I confess I do not agree with them. Not because 
 the word is itself absurd as applied to creatures with solidly 
 continuous bodies like men and women (for poetry does not 
 of necessity concern itself with the real meanings of words), 
 but because I am no pessimist, and think much too well of 
 my kind to allow that human beings are either reptiles, 
 vermin, or insects. 
 
 But reptiles and insects are words which, outside of poetry 
 and hyperbole, have exact meanings, and there is nothing 
 in the nature of these creatures to make their name a term 
 of reproach, or befitting as a synonym for worthless men. 
 
 What has an underhanded, sneaking coward in common 
 with the ineffable splendour of forest-ruling pythons? Where 
 does the comparison begin between the cringing, malice- 
 mongering woman-wretch and the awfulness of the elegant 
 and courageous vipers ? Why are the mischief-making and 
 the worthless called by the name of harmless, useful toads? 
 Does the crocodile properly illustrate small, pitiful hypocrisy? 
 No : I cannot admit that the baseness of humanity finds 
 any reflection in reptiles; nor yet in insects. It is, of 
 course, a gross degradation to a human being that he should 
 so lose all appearance of reason in his conduct as to seem 
 no better than an unreasoning insect. But meanwhile it 
 should not be forgotten that in this declension of humanity 
 from its own noble level there is no ground for making the 
 insect sink with the man. Because a filthy man descends 
 to the same pleasure in filth that a dung-beetle finds in the 
 dunghill, is the latter dirty ? Because he leaves his trail on 
 everything he touches, is the snail to be abused for defiling ? 
 Because he taints whatever he settles on, is the fly as 
 
22o The Poets and Nature. 
 
 noisome as he? Surely not. The dung-beetle, the snail, 
 and the fly are on their proper plane, and are cleanly, 
 industrious, and respectable. When a human being delights 
 to burrow and wallow in dirt, to beslime all he touches, to 
 deface and besmear the beautiful, he dishonours his own 
 reason, and becomes like something else which is itself 
 admirable, but for a man to resemble shameful. It is in 
 the act of resembling, and not the thing resembled, that the 
 shamefulness lies, and where reproach should fall. 
 
 Monkeys are as good as men. And yet, when men behave 
 like monkeys, they deserve to be whipped out of human 
 society. Does this sound irreconcilable? To tell a man 
 that he is no better than an ape does not necessarily imply 
 that the ape is worse than he. It does not convey the 
 compliment that he is as nimble, as clever, as moral, as good 
 a husband and father as the ape. It simply means that his 
 behaviour does not seem to be controlled by human reason. 
 The ape gets none the worse from the man doing so. It 
 remains what it is, a very admirable wild animal. 
 
 i. 3- 
 
 "Little fly, For I dance 
 
 Thy summer's play And drink and sing, 
 
 My thoughtless home Till some blind hand 
 
 Has brush'd away. Brush my wing. 
 
 2. 4. 
 
 Am not I If thought is life 
 
 A fly like thee? And strength and health, 
 
 Or art not thou And the want 
 
 A man like me ? Of thought is death, 
 
 5- 
 
 Then am I 
 A happy fly, 
 If I live 
 Or if I die." Blake. 
 
 Or, to call a man "a regular toad " is really to say that he 
 is a remarkably sagacious, patient, hard-working, and very 
 
Flies : " The Hosts of Achor" 2 2 1 
 
 useful creature. But what is meant by the reproach is, that 
 he is of a bloated, squat, and objectionable appearance, 
 unsociable, holekeeping. Well, even I do not think (in spite 
 of what those who have kept toads as pets have to say) these 
 creatures delectable in person and I know persons who 
 look very like toads, just as one knows people with profiles 
 like sheep, horses, baboons, and so forth. But I certainly 
 should not flatter any toad-resembling person if I found him 
 stupid, or irritable, lazy, or mischievous, by saying he was a 
 "regular toad/' 
 
 However, all this by way of digression, a " spontaneous 
 combustion ; " and to return to the original fact, which is, 
 that poets, as a class, are of the opposite way of thinking ; 
 and that when they detect a resemblance between a human 
 act and an insect one, they transfer to the latter all the rest 
 of the former's weaknesses, failings, and vices. 
 
 In direct association with man, the most familiar one is 
 the fly that will not let you sleep. "I fain had slept but 
 flies would buzz around " is not very poetical, but it is a very 
 truthful incident. Another is that which gets into the wine 
 you are drinking, and finds a Duke-of-Clarence death therein. 
 Whence Quarles has this moral 
 
 "The sun-delighting fly repairs at first 
 To the full cup ; only to quench her thirst. 
 But oftentimes she sports about the brink, 
 And sips so long till she be drowned in drink. 
 When wanton leisure shall present thine eye 
 With lavish cups : Remember but the fly." 
 
 And then there is the bluebottle that bangs into your room 
 on sultry afternoons and bangs out again a theme to which 
 the faithful Hurdis rises : 
 
 " At the door 
 
 Enters the flesh-fly, and with cheerful hum 
 Travels the house interior : on the pane 
 Thumps he and buzzes ; the resounding hall 
 Travels again ; and with a bounce departs : 
 
222 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Grateful remembrance leaving on the mind 
 Of still enjoyment in the musing hour 
 Of summer's drowsy noon, and pleasing thought 
 Oft interrupted by his brisk career." 
 
 And that other fly that settles on your face, and when you 
 slap it does not get slapped : 
 
 " Impatient at the foul disgrace 
 From insect of so mean a race ; 
 And, plotting vengeance on his foe, 
 With double fist he aims a blow : 
 The nimble fly escaped by flight ; 
 And skipp'd from this unequal fight. 
 The impending blow with all its weight 
 Fell on his own beloved pate." Somerville, 
 
 The urchin on his way to school stalks the contemplative 
 bluebottle on the sunny wall with all the precautions a Red 
 Indian would spend over a bear ; and, even then, the sudden 
 whisk with which his hand goes all ascrape along the wall, 
 proves as often as not unavailing. Either the fly was washing 
 his face, and did not get up off the bricks soon enough, or 
 else he was watching the urchin, as the wily bear often 
 watches the Redskin, and was off too soon. But, whatever 
 the reason, the fact remains that the bluebottle does not. 
 
 Moreover, in flying away, it startles all the other flies for 
 yards around, and the happy hunting grounds which the 
 shiny-faced youth had found are suddenly desolated by his 
 single misadventure, just as a prairie is emptied of its bison 
 by the mischance of a rifle going off by accident. 
 
 When grown up, the same boy continues to catch flies, or 
 tries to. He buys gummy compositions, which he smears 
 upon paper, with the expectation that the insects will sit 
 upon it and become entangled on the viscous surface and 
 expire there. But he is doomed to disappointment wholesale, 
 for the flies come and make prodigious meals off the gummy 
 composition, and when they have done they walk round the 
 edge of the plate with toothpicks in their mouths, as proud 
 
Flies : ' ' The Hosts of A chor. " 223 
 
 as old gentlemen in white waiscoats who have just dined at 
 a grand restaurant. 
 
 Some of them eat too much, but they are not so mean- 
 spirited as to show it, or to advertise the stuff that kills them ; 
 for they creep away into remote places tobacco-jars, jam- 
 pots, tea-caddies, the family Bible, anywhere and turn 
 over flat on their back, and fold all their six legs across 
 their breasts, and die with the most decent composure 
 possible. 
 
 There is no triumph to be scored off such decease. The 
 small things confided in man, and got poisoned for doing so. 
 They thought, as it was intended they should, that the sticky 
 papers were laid out for their refreshment, and partook of 
 the cold collation with that artless trustfulness which, after 
 all, is one of the most agreeable features of the wild world. 
 But the adhesive stuff, neither liquid nor solid an 
 amphibious sort of mixture, so to speak had been laid on 
 guilefully, "and the same with intent to deceive," and the 
 flies therefore were as deliberately betrayed to their death as 
 those guests of Jung Bahadur's who were invited to supper, 
 but beheaded before they had time to begin. As a specimen 
 of hospitality, the treacled plate is execrable ; as a practical 
 joke, it is in the worst possible taste. 
 
 Thus far, then, the association of flies with human beings 
 which in the poets is so characteristically prominent but in 
 nature rather accidental, casual, and secondary. Far more 
 important in nature is the association between the fly and 
 spider. Each is the complement of the other ; each the 
 corollary to the other's proposition. From spider you 
 deduce fly ; it is arguing from the known to the known. The 
 one is as implicit in the other as bride in bridegroom. You 
 cannot imagine flies without spiders any more than you can 
 imagine matter without form. They go together like sub- 
 stance and shadow. The idea of either alone is an absurdity, 
 a negative quantity. Subtract flies from spiders and what 
 
224 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 remains ? And this intimate relativity is not lost sight of by 
 the poets. The literature of fly-spiderism is immense. 
 
 Their Fate sits toiling for the flies everywhere, three Fates 
 in one, spinning, measuring, and cutting into lengths ; and 
 there is a mathematical neutrality, a cold, calculated deliber- 
 ateness about the spider as it works that is significant of 
 assured success. How it tries each thread as it is finished : 
 how punctually it halts at each crossing of the strands to 
 secure the line : with what an air of " Now I'm ready for 
 dinner," it takes its seat. 
 
 Yet there are many delightful passages in poetry recog- 
 nising the fact that occasionally the silly fly does not walk 
 into the crafty spider's parlour to gossip, and that it does 
 sometimes break through " the flimsie nette," and make a 
 triumphant escape, leaving the spider with a great deal of 
 temper to make good, and a large hole in the net as well. 
 Thus Bloomfield enlarges on a bluebottle's scrapes. It had 
 escaped, it says, from a sparrow and then from a man's hand, 
 but flew "with such adour and glee" that it went headlong 
 into a cobweb, with its owner at home : 
 
 " Who so fiercely came out 
 
 Of his hole, that no doubt 
 He expected that I was secure. 
 
 But he found 'twould not do ; 
 
 For I found my way through, 
 Overjoyed at escaping, you're sure." 
 
 Another association, hardly more agreeable to the fly, is 
 that with fish. As a rule they perish of their own act, when, 
 " on the sunny shallows resting," they " tempt the watching 
 fish to spring," or when, as in Grahame, they provoke two 
 Fates in one : 
 
 " Dimpling the water glides, with here and there 
 A glossy fly skimming in circlets gay 
 The treacherous surface ; while the quick-eyed trout 
 Watches his time to spring ; or, from above, 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of Achor" 225 
 
 Some feather'd dam, purveying 'mid the boughs, 
 Darts from her perch, and to her plumeless young 
 Bears off the prize." 
 
 That birds should eat flies does not, somehow, affect the 
 poets. The spider is a crafty villain and a murderer, but 
 " the sweet songster " that carries off insects to its " callow 
 young " is only fulfilling a beautiful parental function. This 
 is, of course, in a way as it should be, for if it were not for 
 perjudices poetry would often be but flat stuff; yet it is worth 
 noting in passing. Owls are formally damned as fiendish 
 for singing to their mates at night; not so nightingales. 
 Storks are complimented on eating frogs, but a wolf must 
 not even look through the fence at mutton. 
 
 Hitherto the fly has figured only in its sadder aspects, as 
 the creature of corruption and an emblem of the corrupt, 
 the tormentor of man, the victim of spiders, the prey of 
 fishes and of birds. But it has its gayer side as the 
 persecutor of cattle and sheep, as what Hiawatha calls 
 
 " The stinging fly, the Almo," 
 
 but which our poets address as "the breeze." The poets 
 positively revel in this insect. For herds and flocks are 
 especially their delight ; and as it is impossible in summer 
 to contemplate either one or the other without becoming 
 aware of " the breeze " at work among them, the fly is worth 
 whole volumes. 
 
 Both sheep and cattle are of a monotonous sort to watch. 
 Unless outside influences operate, they are a dull lot. It 
 is not often they originate any excitement. Their summum 
 bonum is a complete placidity ; their idea of Elysium broad 
 meadows where some bird of the halcyon kind should brood 
 perpetually. But even on poets such unruffled scenes would 
 pall in time. Even Cowper and Wordsworth were annoyed 
 by the uneventful tranquillity of cow-happiness. So "the 
 breeze " comes as a boon and a blessing. 
 
226 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 The vagrant cur is acceptable as an incident ; the stranger 
 animal from another herd is welcome ; the calf a god-send 
 to "milky-mother" verse. But "the breeze "! What anima- 
 tion it at once imparts to the scene. "Teasing fly-time" ! 
 At ordinary times the herds are going to pasture or coming 
 back, eating or reposing. They chew the cud and get 
 milked. The heifer's bell tinkles drowsily at times. A 
 cow in the lane says " Moo." But the life is dull, say what 
 you will ; and if it had not been for " the fly that pricks the 
 gadding neate," I cannot imagine what some of our poets 
 would have done for pastoral verse. No set of cows, let 
 them be ever so variegated in colour, could well be sung of 
 more than once if they only grazed and lay down. As a 
 touch of spring in a rural poem, the " placid beeves," " un- 
 worried in the meads," are admirable once in a way and for 
 all; and "the calm pleasures of the pasturing herds" com- 
 plete the vernal scene very handsomely if not recurring too 
 frequently. 
 
 " The cattle are grazing, 
 Their heads never raising ; 
 There are forty feeding like one." 
 
 But when summer comes "the breeze-fly" comes with it, 
 and great is the relief of poets. " Good-bye to the balm, of 
 palpable and breathing calm." The herds are now " restless." 
 They rush from their tormentors into the water, and 
 "standing knee-deep, scare off with sudden head reversed 
 the insect swarm," or "fly with tufted tail erect to the 
 shade," " scampering madly." The whole field is astir with 
 swinging tails. Never still, the herd offers a perpetual suc- 
 cession of incidents to the poets, a kaleidoscope of cattle. 
 Feeding becomes a running fight with gad-flies, and even 
 he tranquil milking episode a skirmish 
 
 ' ' Even at the close of day 
 Unruly cows with marked impatience stay, 
 And vainly striving to escape their foes, 
 The pail kick o'er."BloomJield. 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of Achor." 227 
 
 Nor do the sheep fare much better, "what time the new- 
 shorn flock stand here and there, With huddled head, im- 
 patient of the fly." For the shearers are just then at work, 
 and 
 
 " The fretful ewe that moans an equal share, 
 Tormented with flies, her head she hides, 
 Or angry brushes from her new-shorn sides," 
 
 is a welcome touch of summer, which the poets gratefully 
 acknowledge by frequent use. 
 
 "Fell CEstrus buries in her rapid course 
 Her countless broods in stag, or bull, or horse ; 
 Whose hungry larva eats its living way, 
 Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day." Darwin. 
 
 The horse, too, with cruelly cropped tail, commands the 
 sympathy that is due. 
 
 " By the unclouded sun are hourly bred 
 The bold assailants that surround thy head, 
 Poor patient Ball ! and, with insulting wing, 
 Roar in thine ears, and dart the piercing sting. 
 
 In thy behalf the crest-waved boughs avail 
 More than thy short-dipt remnant of a tail, 
 A moving mockery, a useless name, 
 A living proof of cruelty and shame. 
 Shame to the man, whatever name he bore, 
 Who took from thee what man can ne'er restore ; 
 Thy weapon of defence, thy chiefest good, 
 When swarming flies contending suck thy blood." 
 
 Why are flies so unpopular? That everybody dislikes 
 them everybody knows. Luther hated them, and mas- 
 sacred them without mercy. He said they were " emissaries 
 of Diabolus, and the ghosts of heretics," because whenever 
 he was reading a pious book they paraded about upon it to 
 distract his attention, and soiled it. Long before Luther's 
 time, however, they were specially affiliated upon Beelzebub, 
 the patriarch prince of bluebottles. The monks abominated 
 them, and said they were immoral. Religious legends of 
 the Talmud are to the discredit of the dipterous vagabond. 
 
228 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 The Mussulman brings his slipper down on a fly "in the 
 name of the Prophet." In hot countries special engines are 
 prepared for their discomfiture and destruction prodigious 
 whisks of horsehair or yaktail, round flaps of leather attached 
 to long handles of cane. Sancho Panza cursed them as 
 being enemies to sleep ; and all through Southern Europe 
 they are under the ban of a universal execration. "Fly- 
 time " is in half the world a season of terrors ; when com- 
 merce hesitates to busy itself, social arrangements are in 
 abeyance, and everything is dislocated and in disorder, 
 simply because the flies are abroad. 
 
 One of the plagues of Egypt was the fly. It is one of the 
 penalties of Purgatory. All this is, of course, very much to 
 the discredit of this small satellite of man, this importunate 
 dependent of humanity. 
 
 Historically, flies are insignificant. In Philistia they had 
 a fly-god, Baalzeebub. Egypt, in her ancient litanies, prayed 
 to Achor for deliverance from them, but, judging from 
 modern Egypt, with but scant response. Cowley, in his ode, 
 makes the mistake of thinking Aaron's plague was a miscel- 
 laneous assortment of species, a mixed entomology let 
 loose wholesale upon the Pharaoh and his people. 
 
 " Harmful flies, in nations numberless, 
 Composed the mighty army's spurious host ; 
 Of different manners, different languages, 
 And different habits, too they were, 
 And different arms they bore ; 
 And some, like Scythians, lived on blood ; 
 And some on green, and some on flowery food. 
 And Acharon the airy prince led on this various host." 
 
 Now, Cowley, thinking to improve on the original, has 
 destroyed the whole horror of the plague ; for surely there 
 is something positively grotesque in avarious host of wasps, 
 gad-flies, hornets,. dragon-flies, bluebottles, bumble-bees, fire- 
 flies, mosquitoes, may-flies, gnats, sand-flies, midges, and all 
 the rest of them. 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of Achorr 229 
 
 The real, overwhelming, loathsome horror of the visitation 
 was of course this, that the land of Egypt suddenly swarmed 
 from end to end with house-flies, and no others. They did 
 not sting, nor bite. They did nothing aggressive, but simply 
 sat in sheets, in heaps, everywhere, acres of them, square 
 miles, crawling one over the other, ever-shifting clouds, 
 almost too thick to walk through, perpetually rising and re- 
 settling. 
 
 Who that has been in Egypt in the hot weather has not felt 
 the fly an almost intolerable burden, a presence almost too 
 nauseating for endurance ? And the bazaars ! Even un- 
 plagued they are a memory to shudder at. What is that 
 man yonder selling ? As some one passes, the black plaster 
 of flies lifts heavily for an instant off the wares on his stall. 
 They are ruddy in colour. What are they? Sweetmeats 
 dyed with pomegranate juice? Water-melons split to show 
 their rosy freshness ? Or meat ? The seller is asleep in the 
 corner, his clout over his head, and the flies hang in bunches 
 from every stain on the dirty rag. And worse, and worse, and 
 worse is seen, till the cumulative horror would shame an 
 English page to describe it, and sicken the reader. So 
 why did Cowley he often does it in the same poem 
 think to improve upon Divine vengeance, so simple and 
 yet so inconceivably shocking, by the elegancies of 
 variety ? 
 
 Moore has a poem on the Egyptians' worship of the hosts 
 of Achor, in which he turns the point to suit his own 
 political prejudices : 
 
 " The wise men of Egypt were secret as dummies, 
 And even when they most condescended to teach, 
 They packed up their meaning as they did their mummies 
 In so many wrappers 'twas out of one's reach. 
 They were also good people, much given to kings, 
 Fond of monarchs and crocodiles, monkeys and mystery, 
 Bats, hieophants, bluebottle flies, and such things : 
 As will partly appear in this very short history. 
 
230 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 A Scythian philosopher (nephew they say 
 
 To that other great traveller, young Anacharsis) 
 
 Stepped into a temple of Memphis one day, 
 
 To have a short peep at their mystical farces. 
 
 He saw a brisk bluebottle^?*' on an altar ; 
 
 Made much of and worshipped as something divine ; 
 
 While a large handsome bullock, led there in an halter, 
 
 Before it lay stabbed at the foot of the shrine. 
 
 Surprised at such doings, he whispered his teacher, 
 
 If 'tisn't impertinent, may I ask why 
 
 Should a bullock, that useful and powerful creature, 
 
 Be thus offered up to a bluebottle fly 1 
 
 No wonder, said t'other, you stare at the sight, 
 
 But we, as a symbol of monarchy view it : 
 
 That fly on the shrine is Legitimate Right, 
 
 And that bullock, the people that's sacrificed to it." 
 
 The fly that sat on the wheel and prided itself on the dust 
 that was raised, the other that flew up with the eagle and 
 nestled in its eyrie, and lo's bane, complete, I think, the 
 poets' record of legendary flies of note. 
 
 Yet, who admires the fly ? It'is true that Homer compares 
 the valiant Greeks to a fly ; and never was simile more apt. 
 For what can exceed the astonishing courage of this insect, 
 the reckless intrepidity of its assault, or the desperate persist- 
 ence of it ? Supposing, as some'one says, a man were out 
 walking, and a seven-acre field suddenly turned upside 
 down with him. For this is exactly what happens to a fly 
 every time you whisk it off with your hand. But it comes 
 back exactly to the same spot ! What man of us would do 
 as much ? It is true the fly has made itself familiar with 
 such sudden upheavals of an apparently solid surface, and 
 this argues no trifling degree of nerve and resource. If the 
 thing were a blockhead and a dunce, and got killed for its 
 clumsiness every time it sat down, it would be another affair 
 altogether ; and the bluebottle would be only a kind of Mr. 
 Feeble who gave in to the first giant he met. But this is 
 not so, for in the matter of lives it takes about nine cats to 
 make one fly. The insect graduates in adventure like the 
 
Flies : ' ' The Hosts of A chor? 2 3 1 
 
 Student of Santillane, accepts the most appalling disasters of 
 existence with the indifference of Sinbad, and treats bodily 
 peril with the lofty scorn of Don Quixote. 
 
 The fly in fact is an expert in the evasion of sudden 
 death. It is assailed by the equivalents of thunder and 
 lightning, of cannon-fire and volcanic explosion, but escapes 
 them all. Dynamite is sprung upon it without avail. It 
 laughs to scorn the shaking of the spear. Honest hostility 
 in fact is of no use. It would not care in the least for all 
 the king's horses and all the king's men. But against 
 treachery what courage is of avail ? Beset by the blandish- 
 ments of a false friendship, what heroism can be proof? 
 So the fly finds its end multitudinously in poisoned treacle, 
 and the insect that would have braved, if necessary, the 
 thunders of Assaye, falls a victim to the sticky insidiousness 
 of the catch-em-alive-ohs. Whether this is as it should be 
 is for the judgment of each individual. 
 
 But besides '' the fly " ordinary, there are other species 
 which the poets mix up with the domestic insects. Thus 
 the "bluebottle" becomes the gad-fly when we find it 
 "having tormented man, urge unsatisfied its course to tor- 
 ment the beast." As a matter of fact 
 
 " All the race of silver-winged flies 
 Which do possess the empire of the air " 
 
 are lumped together which perhaps is no more than is 
 justifiable, for after all, if poets became entomological, verse 
 would suffer. Still it is not justice, not even courtesy, to 
 nature. 
 
 The gad-fly, however, has a very distinct individuality. 
 It is "fell CEstrus;" "the maddening fly," "the humming 
 gad-fly," which (like the critic and author) "imprints its 
 malicious comments on the tender flank." In summer it 
 is of course supreme in bovicultural verse : 
 
232 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " And scorching sunbeams warm and sultry creep 
 Waking the teazing insects from their sleep : 
 And dreaded gad-flies with their drowsy hum 
 On the burnt wings of mid-day zephyrs come, 
 Urging each clown to leave his sports in fear, 
 To stop his starting cows that dread the fly : 
 Droning unwelcome tidings in his ear 
 That the sweet peace of rural morn's gone by." Clare. 
 
 The May-fly, always pitied as being ephemeral and the 
 prey for fishes, is often, and very charmingly, noticed as 
 " fluttering, for a summer's day, upon the glassy bosom of 
 the pool," or (Savage) " dancing on the stream till the 
 watery racer snatches it away." It is a regularly recurrent 
 feature of spring evenings as the " quick water-fly " or 
 "mazy insect." But, nevertheless, well as the poets knew 
 it, it is constantly found maggot-bred, living in courts or on 
 popular favour, and so forth, " for a day." 
 
 The dragon-fly is, curiously enough, a great favourite 
 with the poets. Every reference to it is admirable, as, for 
 instance, these examples : 
 
 "And forth on floating gauze, no jewell'd queen 
 So rich, the green-eyed dragon-flies would break 
 And hover on the flowers, aerial things, 
 With little rainbows flickering on their wings." Jean Ingelow. 
 
 " And just above the surface of the floods, 
 Where water-lilies mount their snowy heads, 
 On whose broad swimming leaves of glossy green 
 The shining dragon-fly is often seen." Clare. 
 
 ' ' Mark how clear 
 
 It sparkles o'er the shallows ; and behold 
 Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed 
 Yon glossy insect ; on the sand below 
 How the swift shadow flits." Southey. 
 
 Of course it is obvious that, except the naturalist Darwin, 
 who sees 
 
 " Fierce Libellula, with jaws of steel, 
 Ingulf an insect province at a meal," 
 
Flies: " The Hosts of ' Achor" 233 
 
 none of the poets really understood what the dragon-fly, the 
 dispeopler of the air, the tyrant of the pool, really is. They 
 do not recognise in the creature that 
 
 "with gauzy wings, 
 
 In gilded coat of purple, green, or brown, 
 That on broad leaves of hazel basking clings 
 Fond of the sunny day," Clare. 
 
 the vulture, the shark, the wolf the everything that is 
 poetically dreadful to the insect world that it is a carni- 
 vorous fly and singularly pitiless. Perhaps it is better that 
 they did not know it, for the insect, as it is, has adorned 
 their verse, and not suffered in the handling. 
 
 The " winged ichneumon " for her embryon young, that 
 "gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng," is also the 
 " false ichneumon." The gnat is in Hurdis "the minor 
 fly":- 
 
 " If yet the season to his race be kind, 
 Sharp stings the minor fly, chirurgeon keen, 
 With lancet petulant, the manly skin 
 Provoking, oft repuls'd, and slaking well 
 His thirst of blood, ere the vindictive hand 
 Of his vex'd patient fall, and with a frisk 
 The small phlebotomist indignant crush." 
 
 As diverse as the winged insects are the "maggots" and 
 "grubs" that breed them. But in their perfected and 
 imperfect forms they are employed equally indiscriminately 
 as typical of degraded humanity. Thus the meal-worm, "all 
 powdered o'er from tail to chin " (in Swift), " cheese-hoppers," 
 bookworms (as in Burns) : 
 
 " Through and through the inspired leaves, 
 Ye maggots, make your windings ; 
 But oh ! respect his lordship's taste, 
 And spare his golden bindings," 
 
 Apple-grubs that in the cider-press 
 
234 The Poets and Nat^lre. 
 
 " Oft unobserved invade the vital core, 
 Pernicious tenants ! and their secret caves 
 Enlarging hourly prey on the pulp." 
 
 The "gentle" (as in Clare) : 
 
 " For make-shifts oft crook'd pins to thread were tied, 
 And delve his knife with wishes ever warm 
 In rotten dunghills, for the grub and worm 
 The harmless treachery of his hooks to bait." 
 
 And many another, too, 
 
 " Not seen but understood, 
 That live in vinegar and wood. " 
 
 Only once, however, is the " maggot " defended, and that is 
 in Southey's " Filbert " : 
 
 " 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 very armour of his life ; 
 And thou shall do no murder, Nicholas." 
 
 To be "enkernelled" thus, regardless of the daily papers 
 and all the turmoil of life, must be delightful : 
 
 " The perfection this 
 Of snugness ! It were to unite at once 
 Hermit retirement, aldermanic bliss, 
 And Stoic independence of mankind." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 GRASSHOPPERS, CRICKETS, AND LOCUSTS. 
 
 LIKE the nightingale or the frog, the grasshopper lives in 
 verse chiefly from its "song." It is the minstrel among 
 the insects; the "piping" one. Not that all admire it, for 
 it is called "tiresome," "shrill," "creaking;" while Marvel 
 speaks of its note as a "squeaking laugh." Nor is this, on 
 occasion, a bad description; for I remember once, when 
 puzzled for my way on the Wiltshire Downs, fancying the 
 cricket's voice derisive. I was listening with both my ears 
 to catch if I could the sounds from some neighbouring sheep- 
 fold ; but all I heard was the jeering of the insect. But, like 
 church-bells, grasshoppers say just what the listener chooses 
 to hear. So its speech would work in well into fairy-tale as 
 a substitute for the ambiguous directions given to straying 
 heroes and heroines by mischievous elves, or that old man's 
 nod of the head, which in Red Indian stories means yes or 
 no, just as the inquirer wishes the answer to be the one or 
 the other. 
 
 " Twittering " is more than once the poet's epithet for the 
 sound (Leyden has "pittering," which, I suppose, is a 
 phonetic rendering), and, as a rule, it is amiably accepted as 
 after the manner of "singing." Mackay is original 
 
 " By the clink that sounds among the grass, 
 Like tempered steel on greaves of brass, 
 As the mail-clad grass-hoppers chirp and pass." 
 235 
 
236 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Byron has it " carolling," and others call it a " blithe singer " 
 cheering the mower and the rustic at their tasks. Both 
 Leyden and Lovelace are worth quoting, but what the latter 
 means is past comprehension. 
 
 " And pittering grasshoppers, confusedly shrill, 
 Pipe giddily along the glowing hill ; 
 
 Sweet grasshopper, who lov'st at noon to lie 
 Serenely in the green-ribbed clover's eye, 
 To sun thy filmy wings and emerald vest, 
 Unseen thy form, and undisturbed thy rest ! 
 Oft have I, listening, mused the sultry day, 
 And wondered what thy chirping song might say ; 
 When nought was heard along the blossomed lea 
 To join thy music, save the listless bee." 
 
 " Oh ! thou that swing'st upon the waving hair 
 Of some well-filled oaten beard, 
 Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear 
 Dropp'd thee from heaven. 
 
 The joys of earth and air are thine entire, 
 That with thy wings and feet dost hop and fly, 
 And when thy poppy works thou dost retire 
 To thy carved acorn bed to lie." 
 
 11 Hoarse " is an epithet frequently applied, but, as a rule 
 for instance Southey's, 
 
 " Hoarse grasshoppers their evening song 
 Sang careless as the dews of night descended," 
 
 and Leydon's, 
 
 1 ' The tuneful birds suppress the cheerful lay, 
 And to hoarse grasshoppers resign the day," 
 
 in relation to the insect at nightfall. Is there really any 
 change in its tone, as in that of frogs ? I have myself 
 thought that its vespers differed from its matins in being 
 deeper and less sprightly. At any rate, it is certain that the 
 creature constantly modulates its tones, and, listening to it, 
 it seems as if the small scraper got tired or inattentive ; its 
 
Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Locusts. 237 
 
 " voice " becomes irresolute, flat, false in quantity ; then it 
 pulls itself together and starts afresh clear, firm, and true. 
 It is very easy, if you have the whim to do so, to guess at 
 some of the grasshopper's moods from the way it sings. 
 
 It is worth, perhaps, saying that the grasshopper makes its 
 music by scraping the inner edge of its long hind legs against 
 the ridges of the wings, and the cricket by rubbing the 
 wing-covers against the wings. 
 
 " The cricket chirrup'd in his coat of mail ; 
 The brisk cicada answered him aloud 
 And rubb'd the emerald armour of his thighs " 
 
 Why they should make these noises is not obvious ; but 
 as it is only the male that is harmonious, the presumption is 
 that the music serves the same purpose as analogous accom- 
 plishments in birds as being an ornament to the " stronger " 
 sex and an attraction to the "weaker." The poets, by the 
 way, almost invariably address the chirping grasshopper as 
 " she," just as they always transfer the male nightingale's song 
 to the hen-bird. 
 
 Among the oddities of zoological folklore I find the grass- 
 hopper written down as an idle and thoughtless person. It 
 is of a loquacious kind, a chatterer, and therefore flighty, 
 irresponsible, a ne'er-do-weel It starves when hard times 
 come ; begs its bread in winter. So it figures as the opposite 
 of the ant ; a contrast to the silent and industrious emmet. 
 How old the idea may be no one can say ; but, at any rate, 
 it is as venerable as the most ancient Sanskrit legends. For 
 there we find the grasshopper spoken of as an improvident 
 individual and an unreliable. It runs a race with the ant, 
 but after making some astonishing leaps takes a nap, just as 
 the hare does when racing the tortoise, and of course the ant 
 plods in first. Again, it neglects to store its larder, and the 
 ant a detestable little prig in folklore gives it a good 
 lecturing when it ought instead to have helped the poor 
 
238 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 mendicant with a good grain of wheat. ^Esop reproduced 
 the idea, and the first of La Fontaine's fables is a version of 
 
 the Phrygian's 
 
 ' ' A grasshopper gay 
 Sang the summer away," 
 
 and, having nothing to eat in winter, 
 
 " A begging she went 
 To her neighbour the ant," 
 
 who asks her what did she all the rest of the year that she 
 now finds herself in such wretched case. The grasshopper 
 confesses she sang for all comers. "Sang indeed!" is the 
 emmet's unsympathetic reply, " Then now you must dance." 
 
 " The remiss 
 
 Dimetians, who along their mossy dales 
 Consume, like grasshoppers, the summer hour, 
 While round them stubborn thorns and furze increase, 
 And creeping briars." Dyer. 
 
 In the poets the same fable frequently recurs. Spenser 
 starts it in the " Shepherd's Calendar "- 
 
 "And my poor muse hath spent her spare store, 
 Yet little good hath got, and much less gain, 
 Such pleasaunce makes the grasshopper so poor, 
 And beg for bread when winter doth her strain," 
 
 and others repeat it both of the grasshopper and the cricket. 
 Now this fancy is more curious than at first appears ; for 
 this reason. There is actually a grasshopper which lives 
 with ants, and shares their home with them, under some 
 such queer arrangement for reciprocity as makes it possible 
 for owls and snakes to share the marmot's dwelling. Upon 
 what terms the ant tolerates the grasshopper does not appear, 
 or how the grasshopper justifies its partnership. Yet there 
 it is. The modus vivendi has been found ; and incongruous 
 as the association seems, it must evidently have some 
 recommendations that satisfy both parties, or else it could 
 not exist. 
 
Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Locusts. 239 
 
 And failing fact, why not let fancy suggest an explanation ? 
 The ants find life dull, the ceaseless round of silent and 
 prosaic drudgery intolerable. So they pay with board and 
 lodging the minnesingers of the meadows, the troubadours 
 of the stubble, to live with them and cheer the toilers of their 
 austere republic with music. Thus too do we see men of 
 monotonous labour sitting at their work with singing-birds 
 hanging overhead. In the old sailing-ship days the fiddler 
 fiddled to the crew when at work. Music always lightens 
 labour of a mechanical kind. What new life the band puts 
 into the legs of marching soldiers ! In every country in the 
 world you will find the coolies, the porters, and those who 
 perform tedious and unvarying work, invariably chanting as 
 they toil. Overseers of all kinds encourage it. The fact is 
 as old as the hills as ant-hills. And so too (there is no harm 
 in such imaginings) the industrious emmet may perhaps, after 
 all, not be such a fanatic in the unwisdom of perpetual slaving 
 as has been thought. 
 
 But if my fancy be allowable, that the ants (do they not 
 keep wood-lice as housemaids ?) entertain musicians for the 
 brightening of their daily lives, the poet is at fault, and the 
 cricket's scraping "relieves the o'erlaboured bulk" and 
 teaches a " seasonable smile." All of which would be very 
 engaging for I consider the ceaseless moiling of ants 
 abominable. 
 
 Let this be as it may, the fact remains that grasshopper- 
 folk and ants do live together, and so the bottom falls 
 delightfully out of the fable which makes the one intolerant 
 of the other's idle habits. The grasshopper, the singer of 
 an idle hour, finds his friends in the appreciative citizens of 
 the little hills, and the pismire is no longer an unsympathetic 
 little prig. 
 
 Curious, too, is the notion that grasshoppers are short- 
 lived : is it from these creatures that the phrase " a short 
 life and a merry one " is taken ? 
 
240 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Of course it is pre-eminently a summer insect. 
 
 " Oh, it is pleasant in this summer time 
 To sit alone and meditate a rhyme, 
 To hear the bee plying his busy trade. 
 O ! grasshopper alert in sun and shade, 
 With bright large eyes and ample forehead bald, 
 Clad in cuirass cuishes emerald." Mackay. 
 
 Who does not remember the day in July when, out in the 
 meadow, or among the heather, or on cliffs that overlook the 
 sea, or in some woodland corner in the country, the grass- 
 hopper's voice "filled every pause"? How the little creature's 
 chirrup-chirrup reinforces the idea of a sultry midsummer 
 day ! What drowsiness it lends to it ! 
 
 "The forest deep, 
 
 That drowsy rustled to the sighing" gale ; 
 And still a coil the grasshopper did keep ; 
 Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep." Thomson. 
 
 In poetry this small lyrist " that lives on noonday dew " 
 whatever that may be is a favourite figure in nearly every 
 description of hot midday, whether the poet be one who is 
 faithful to facts from familiarity like a Bloomfield, Clare, 
 or Grahame or one who, like Marvel, Keats, or Shelley, 
 are always in fancy so delightfully in sympathy with the 
 spirit, if not always the letter, of nature's doings : 
 
 1 ' The poetry of earth is never dead ; 
 When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 
 And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 
 From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead : 
 
 That is the grasshopper's he takes the lead 
 
 In summer luxury he has never done 
 
 With his delights, for when tired out with fun, 
 
 He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed." Keats. 
 
 " Come, be happy ! lie thee down, 
 On the fresh grass newly mown, 
 Where the grasshopper doth sing 
 Merrily one joyous thing 
 In a world of sorrowing." Shelley. 
 
Grasshopper 's, Crickets , and Locusts. 241 
 Marvel too, among his meadows, is just as sympathetic : 
 
 " Oh, what unusual heats are here 
 Which thus our sun-burn'd meadows fear ! 
 The grasshopper its pipe gives o'er, 
 And hamstring'd frogs can dance no more ; 
 But in the brook the green frog wades, 
 And grasshoppers seek out the shades ; 
 Only the snake, that kept within 
 Now glitters in its second skin." Marvel. 
 
 Or the more naturalistic poets : 
 
 " It is high noon, 
 
 And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard 
 Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants." Thomson' 
 
 " Intense the viewless flood of heat descends 
 On hill and vale and wood and tangled brake, 
 And to the chirping grasshopper the broom 
 With crackling pod responds." Grahams. 
 
 Granted, then, that it is a summer insect that it is in the 
 days of heat one hears it most loquacious how odd it is 
 that the fable should have survived that it " died in October " ! 
 It does not, of course, do anything of the kind, but simply 
 withdraws into its place and sleeps through the winter. As 
 every one knows, it is a rule of nature every winged insect 
 shall die within the year (the occasional individuals that 
 survive the twelvemonth only proving the rule), for the stage 
 of wings is the last third of the creature's life. 
 
 After all, it would be very absurd if we did not recognise 
 among ourselves the stages of childhood, youth, middle age, 
 and old age, which together cover the span of our "three 
 score years and ten." An insect's stages proceed in a far 
 smaller compass, and the winged one is the last. It is 
 really the old age of the caterpillar or grub. Thus a grass- 
 hopper may be for two or three years a grub, for another six 
 months a hobbledehoy that is, a wingless thing, half grub, 
 half grasshopper and then for a further space a winged 
 grasshopper. In the last stage it marries, and there is an 
 
 Q 
 
242 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 end of its purpose. Nature has no further need for it, and 
 does not care whether it dies or not. 
 
 The slender fragility of the insect's appearance may have 
 suggested a feeble hold of life ; some grasshoppers look like 
 the mere spectres of insects. About others too there is a 
 vegetable, perishable look, as of thin grass-blades that a 
 frost would kill or heat shrivel up; a suspicion about their 
 sere and faded edges that they are already beginning to 
 wither. But the grasshopper has nothing to complain of as 
 to its length of life. It sings the summer in and the autumn 
 out, and goes to sleep with the year. 
 
 The cricket, the Pau-puk-keena of Hiawatha, " shrill and 
 ceaseless," differs but little from the grasshopper : 
 
 " Beside yon pool as smooth as glass, 
 
 Reflecting every cloud, 
 Securely hid among the grass, 
 The crickets chirrup loud." Clare. 
 
 And again, in Clare 
 
 " In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be, 
 
 Where all the noises that on peace intrude 
 Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee, 
 Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude." 
 
 As a matter of fact this insect is, I fancy, only the grass- 
 hopper over again (Keats goes afield to hear the " dappled " 
 cricket), but used under another name for the sake of variety, 
 for it not only "pipes," sings, "chirps," and (in Clare) 
 "chitters and twitters" o'er its dreams, and (in Leyden) 
 even " pitters," exactly like the grasshopper, but has all other 
 points in common with it; and besides there is no very 
 common out-of-doors cricket in England. Shenstone de- 
 scribes its voice as "tinkling," and Cowper calls it a 
 11 locust" in his appeal to the swallow : 
 
 "Attic maid ! with honey fed, 
 
 Dearest thou to thy callow brood 
 Yonder locust from the mead, 
 Destined their delicious food ? 
 
Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Locusts. 
 
 Ye have kindred voices clear, 
 
 Ye alike unfold the wing, 
 Migrate hither, sojourn here, 
 
 Both attendant on the Spring. 
 
 Ah ! for pity drop the prize ; 
 
 Let it not with truth be said 
 That a songster gasps and dies, 
 
 That a songster may be fed." 
 
 Once, and once only, in Garth, I find it called " sinister," 
 which is quite in keeping with homely superstitions. As 
 a rule Clare's domestic cricket that "by the fireside un- 
 molested sings " 
 
 " Blithe as the lark, as crickets gay, 
 That chirrup on the hearth " 
 
 finds more distinctive notice, and is universally a favourite. 
 "Crickets chirrup on the hearth, As if they shared the 
 children's mirth." The poet of the Pleasures of Melancholy 
 is " blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge ; " but Barry 
 Cornwall, referring to contemporary credulities, calls it the 
 "chilly midnight cricket" with "warning" voice. The 
 idea and one not altogether without foundation that 
 the superior comforts of fireside life lengthen the insect's 
 life, is often hinted at, and in the following from Charlotte 
 Smith, explicitly set forth : 
 
 " Little inmate full of mirth, 
 Chirping on my humble hearth, 
 Wheresoe'er be thy abode, 
 Always harbinger of good. 
 
 Though in voice and shape may be, 
 Form'd as if akin to thee, 
 Thou surpasses!, happier far, 
 Happiest grasshoppers that are ; 
 
 Their's is but a Summer song, 
 Thine endures the Winter long, 
 Unimpair'd, and shrill, and clear, 
 Melody throughout the year. 
 
 Neither night nor dawn of day 
 Puts a period to thy lay." 
 
244 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Underlying this, of course, is that pathetic main idea of 
 the poets that "life's a short summer." Men and women 
 are mere insects, "the summer swarm." So the poets, 
 whenever they meet with a beauty the song of birds, the 
 butterfly's colours, the glowworm's spark, a flower in its 
 prime see in it that which is transient, futile, doomed. 
 Both gaiety and merriment have in verse melancholy signi- 
 ficances ; night, winter, death, hold them in reversion. Let 
 the grasshopper chirp : it will die soon. 
 
 " Or, if a different image be recalled 
 By the warm sunshine, and the jocund voice 
 Of insects chirping out their careless lives, 
 On these soft beds of thyme-besprinkled turf, 
 Choose, with the gay Athenian, a conceit ; 
 A sound blithe race ! whose mantles were bedecked 
 With golden grasshoppers, 1 in sign that they 
 Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil." 
 
 Wordsworth, 
 
 A very different creature is the locust, "the scourge of 
 Allah," "the army of the One God." 
 
 " A fire devoureth before them ; and behind them a flame 
 burneth : the land is as the garden of Eden before them, 
 and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing 
 shall escape them. 
 
 " Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall 
 they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth 
 the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array." 
 
 Just as Job exhausted for all time to come the poetry of 
 the impregnable majesty of an individual strength in his 
 picture of Leviathan, so Joel, in the chapter of which I have 
 quoted two verses, exhausts the poetry of the irresistible 
 might of multitudes. No poet has ever bettered by a single 
 
 l "Witness that Royal Bourse he bade arise, 
 
 The Mart of merchants from the East and West ; 
 Whose slender summit, pointing to the skies, 
 Still bears, in token of his grateful breast, 
 The golden grasshopper, his chosen crest." Hood, 
 
Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Loc^lsts. 245 
 
 thought the verses of Job, nor any after him added a force 
 or a beauty to the lines of Joel. 
 
 The locust has but one aspect in poetry that of a multi- 
 tudinous evil 
 
 " As, borne by winds along, in baleful cloud, 
 Embody'd locusts from the wing descend, 
 On herb, fruit, flow'r, and kill the rip'ning year, 
 While waste behind, destruction in their track, 
 And ghastly famine wait." Mallet. 
 
 They serve, therefore, as a simile for anything that desolates 
 or devours "Gaul's locust host," or any other enemy of 
 Britain or of " Freedom ; " armies of all kinds ; the minions 
 of tyranny ; corrupt courtiers ; Jesuits. They are " tree- 
 blasting," "sky-clouding," "blackening all the ground," "in 
 darksome clouds," " hosts that desolate the earth and dim 
 the day," "barb'rous millions," "greedy troops," "endless 
 legions on sounding wings," " thick-phalanxed as when 
 plaguing Samarcand," " dire with horrid swarms." Nearly 
 every poet at one time or another has told "what deeds of 
 woe the locust can perform;" but their language toils in 
 vain after the consuming, overwhelming reality such as the 
 prophet saw it from the mountain side in Palestine " a 
 day of clouds and thick darkness a great people and a 
 strong." 
 
 Moore is ribald, of course, on a theme so serious : 
 
 " Then erst could Egypt, when so rich 
 In various plagues, determine which 
 She thought most pestilent and vile 
 Her frogs, like Benbow and Carlile ? 
 Croaking their native mud-notes loud 
 Or her fat locusts, like a cloud 
 Of pluralists, obesely lowering 
 At once benighting and devouring." 
 
 Milton's passage on the Plague is noble : 
 
 " As when the potent rod 
 Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, 
 
246 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud 
 Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, 
 That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung 
 Like night, and darkn'd all the land of Nile." 
 
 And Heber too rises to the theme : 
 
 " The dreadful wand, whose godlike sway 
 Could lure the locust from her airy way, 
 With reptile war assail their proud abodes, 
 And mar the giant pomps of Egypt's gods." 
 
 But I do not know where else in poetry to look for an 
 adequate reference to this terrific phenomenon of the locust, 
 the little insect which the Arabs grind up to make flour for 
 cakes, yet compared with which the devastating armies of 
 man are benevolent agencies. 
 
 Marlowe's little reference to the girl's traps to catch 
 locusts is pretty, and, when we think what the locusts really 
 are, pathetic too : 
 
 " A country virgin keeping of a vine, 
 Who did of hollow bulrushes combine 
 Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper." 
 
 I have myself followed both army and insect. 
 
 Where the army had passed, the villages were empty 
 shells, the green crops had been cut down lest they should 
 ripen, the melon-fields hacked to bits lest they should bear 
 fruit, the wells befouled with the carcasses of dead beasts. 
 Fire had been there, and the fury of swords. And yet there 
 was greenness left, and, though of a poor sort, gleanings for 
 animals. The injury done was not intolerable ; the land 
 was habitable. 
 
 In the other case there had been neither brand nor 
 blade, and no malevolence. And yet there was nothing 
 left, neither for the camel searching the tops of the mimosas 
 nor for the mule sniffing for herbage between the stones on 
 the ground. The earth was burned close. The bushes 
 were more bare than in mid-winter. The only well we 
 
Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Locusts. 247 
 
 found stank to the skies with a fathom's depth of dead 
 locusts. It was the difference between discomfort and 
 starvation, mischief and ruin. And Joel says, " The appear- 
 ance of them is as the appearance of horses ; and as horse- 
 men, so shall they run/' The translation probably is in 
 error, and, I should think, should read, " and their coming 
 is as the coming of horses and as horsemen, so shall they 
 run." 
 
 Their passing was like the rush of infinite cavalry at a 
 distance, the air all rattling with harness and glinting with 
 sparks of silver and steel and scarlet. "And the Lord 
 shall utter His voice before His army" that voice of the 
 whirlwind with which Jehovah spoke in the desert to Moses ; 
 the voice of nature real, earnest, indisputable, and authentic. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 LUCIFERS AND THE POETS. 
 
 " They made her a grave too cold and damp 
 For a soul so warm and true, 
 And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp 
 Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp 
 She paddles her white canoe. " Moore. 
 
 ONE of the most satisfying and impressive facts in nature is, 
 I think, the illumination by phosphorescent creatures of the 
 deep sea. Popularly, the ocean depths stand as a synonym 
 for more than sepulchral darkness, and in legends and poetry 
 some incidental lustre is imagined in order to make the 
 profundity fit for the habitation of the sea-folk. So their 
 cavern-palaces are lit up by gems. 
 
 Sometimes, as in Keats, where the hero follows the curves 
 of the shore in his sub-aqueous excursions, and so keeps in 
 the comparative shallows, the water is of course sufficiently 
 translucent to afford the Nereids' grottos and the mermaids' 
 haunts a soft dim light of deep sea-green. But the real 
 abysses of oceans are not the scenes of adventure either in 
 legend or in poetry, for these concern themselves only with 
 the smaller seas and with bays and straits and rocky coasts. 
 In the days when legends were making, the mid-ocean lay 
 outside the sphere of song-smiths' knowledge, and almost of 
 their speculation. It had its monarch, and he his court; 
 but their apparitions and apocalypses occurred only in waters 
 within the mariners' ken, and, as a rule, at such distance 
 from the shore that men standing on the cliff could point 
 
Liicifers and the Poets. 249 
 
 out with the arm to the haunts of the water-people, the 
 Mediterranean's bay-indented coasts, resounding Scandina- 
 vian fiords, or labyrinths of Grecian archipelagos. But the 
 veritable hollows of the sea, its more prodigious depths, 
 were a mystery that lay below even the soundings of fancy ; 
 so they remained a blank of intense darkness, these inmost 
 recesses of ocean. 
 
 Now, however, we have learned something of the truth ; 
 and one of the secrets that science has discovered is certainly 
 as fascinating as anything even in astronomy. For it is 
 known that (in many places at any rate) the ocean depths 
 are not dark at all, but illuminated perpetually by myriads 
 of living lamps ; and what is true of the known may possibly 
 be true of the unknown. 
 
 Down, down, down you may go till the sea is nearly at 
 freezing-point, the pressure two or three tons to the square 
 inch, and some four miles of water rolls between you and 
 the keels of over-passing ships; and yet all through the 
 descent, and when you can get no deeper, you will find that 
 the sea is still faintly luminous, and that the creatures about 
 you live in twilight, seeing each other come and go. 
 
 Myriads of tiny things, living closer than blades of grass 
 in a meadow, than leaves on forest trees, illustrate each their 
 own specks of space, till the whole territory is luminous, and 
 speck by speck, and inch by inch, cubic miles of sea glow 
 incandescent. Among these atoms, these motes of light, 
 move other and larger bodies, ranging from the great cyanea 
 with sparkling tentacles that trail fifty yards behind it, to the 
 monads invisible to the naked eye, yet which if a tumbler is 
 filled with them show light enough to read by. One jellyfish, 
 the largest invertebrate animal ever seen (it weighed two tons) 
 was stranded near Bombay, and for several nights its body 
 was visible half a mile away as a shapeless luminous mass. 
 Darwin tells us how his nets sparkled brightly the night after 
 they had been used to drag the deeps. A dead aurelia put 
 
250 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 into a quart of water made the whole so luminous that cards 
 could be comfortably played by its light. One night in a 
 phosphorescent sea a ship's crew beheld a water-spout as a 
 moving pillar of solid fire. Sir Wyville Thompson dredged 
 up from 600 fathoms mud that was like pure gold. A haul of 
 starfishes off the Shetlands flashed like brilliants in the nets. 
 Boats have rowed for miles over green lambent flames, a 
 forest of the luminous sea-pens. On the Patagonian coast, 
 after a storm, virgularia lay heaped so high on the beach that 
 at a distance it seemed as if the watch-fires of an army were 
 burning all along the shore. Off Somerstown for a week 
 together some disturbance drove the creatures of the depths 
 to the surface, and the crew of a vessel lying there read at 
 the portholes all night through. Holden tells us of wondrous 
 displays in the Southern Seas how, "drifting over coral 
 reefs, he saw the bottom studded with gleaming gems, yellow 
 and purple gorgonias bathed in soft lights, which, when lifted 
 to the surface, illuminated all about them with a mild radiance; 
 flashes of light came and went, appearing again in the distant 
 depths like spectres; the silver sand, turning over on the 
 oar that disturbed it, flashing with sparks of living light ; 
 processions went winding by, breaking up, and reforming in 
 aggregations of light, nebulae of breathing stars." Humbok, 
 passing through a zone of pyrosomas in the Gulf Stream, 
 could distinguish by their light far down below the surface 
 the forms of dolphins and other fishes, thrown up in strong 
 relief against the gleaming myriads. Naturalists have again 
 and again written down the descriptions of these creatures 
 by their own light. Off the Mauritius amazing scenes have 
 been beheld, especially after violent storms. Moseley 
 captured a pyrosoma four feet long, which when touched 
 glowed like metal at a white heat, and flashed for hours 
 afterwards in brilliant colours, as if chemicals were being 
 thrown on a molten surface. 
 
 But enough of facts. These few suffice, however, to show 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 25 1 
 
 how various, how important in combination, the light-givers 
 of the ocean are. Yet even they, the radiant bodies in motion, 
 do not suffice for nature. For she has made many, if not 
 all, the submarine corals phosphorescent, and much of the 
 deep-sea sand is filtrated with minute organisms that are on 
 occasion, or always, luminous. As if this were not enough 
 that she should provide the fishes with incandescent walls 
 and floors, and should set afloat in all directions moving 
 lamps nature has affixed to the rock-edges " where young 
 lampyris waves his plumes of gold," deep under water, and 
 to the dangerous cliffs which the mariner-fishes might strike 
 on if not for danger-signals, actual lighthouses, and with 
 revolving lights too ! These are some of the anemones, 
 which, as they throw out and withdraw their tentacles, 
 alternately show and extinguish a beacon on the brink of 
 projecting ledges or the entrances to gloomy caverns. Others, 
 again, like the pholas, are veritable lightships, having lustrous 
 bodies enclosed in shells, and steering their way along the 
 edges of the submarine cliffs as if warning off the incautious 
 navigator. 
 
 Is not all this wonderful ? But surely it surpasses all 
 the regular electric light "laid down" as it were, the 
 phosphorescent walls and so forth, the lighthouses and the 
 lightships that there should be races of fishes who carry 
 bull's-eye lanterns about with them. For what else is the 
 ipnops which we read of in the Challenger's voyages, whose 
 two eyes throw out blazing rays before it as it swims ? or what 
 else are the score of species which have their bull's-eyes on 
 their flanks, and, like a hansom with its lamp on either side, 
 shoot along by the light of the lights they carry ? 
 
 What a delightful range of subject and metaphor all this, 
 had it been known, would have offered to the poets of pre- 
 Tennysonian days ! How many old ideas would have had 
 to be dismissed ! how many more beautiful might have taken 
 their places ! 
 
252 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 As it was, the poets' only glimpses of nature's ingenuity 
 in lightening the darkness was " the earth-wandering star " 
 (the glow-worm), and the " traveller's friend " (the firefly). 
 Yet each in its small sphere is an exquisite touch. Indeed, 
 among the prettier devices of nature must take high rank 
 the " impassioned light " (as Darwin calls it) which the glow- 
 worm holds out to tell her winged Leander the way across 
 pathless wastes to her bower. It is true the Leander himself 
 sometimes shows a faint sympathy of incandescence; but 
 such luminosity is not more regular than beards on women's 
 chins. The privilege of shining belongs to the fair sex alone. 
 
 " When evening closes nature's eye, 
 The glow-worm lights her little spark 
 To captivate her favourite fly, 
 And tempt the rover in the dark. 
 
 Conducted by a sweeter star 
 
 Than all that deck the fields above, 
 
 He fondly hastens from afar 
 
 To soothe her solitude and love." Montgomery. 
 
 " Innocent as is the light 
 The glow-worm hangs out to allure 
 Her mate to her green bower at night." 
 
 No one who has watched the insect on its grassy bank can 
 have failed to notice that its light seems green. 
 
 " The fireflies played around the pillared stems, 
 And bore about their lanterns of green light, 
 Advancing and receding while the eye 
 Measured by them the depth of sylvan gloom." Faber, 
 
 Some poets, however, call it "silvery," which it surely never 
 is; others "golden," which it only sometimes is; and one, 
 Eliza Cook, l has " azure ray" 
 
 Shelley's "like aglow-worm golden, In a dell of dew" is, 
 like everything of Shelley's, exquisite. His admiration of 
 night and the natural features of night is always eminently 
 
 1 Did she get the idea from Charlotte Smith's " sapphire beam " of the 
 firefly? 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 253 
 
 noteworthy. His poems are full of delightful moths, and he 
 is tender to the owl, " sad Aziola." Both glow-worm and 
 firefly sparkle throughout his verse. And, indeed, who knew 
 the twilight and the starlit hours so well as he ? He has a 
 charming fancy about the glow-worm, that it lives in lilies, 
 and that the petals fold over it to keep it from the dew, which 
 otherwise might quench its tiny spark. In the " Sensitive 
 Plant," the flowers drooping at evening " fall into pavilions 
 white, purple, and blue, To roof the glow-worm from the 
 evening dew " ; and, again, in the " Witch of Atlas," 
 
 " A green and glowing light, like that which drops 
 From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell, 
 When earth o'er her face night's mantle wraps." 
 
 I do not understand the " dropping " of the light the poet 
 repeats it twice elsewhere for the glow-worm's light always 
 strikes me as being constant in place even though fluctuating 
 in degree. It certainly is not, as many poets describe it, 
 "glancing," or "glittering," nor can Cunningham's moral 
 commend itself from any point of view, whether real or 
 imaginative. 
 
 " How bright the little insects blaze 
 
 Where willows shade the way, 
 As proud as if their painted rays 
 Could emulate the day. 
 
 " Tis thus the pigmy sons of pow'r 
 
 Advance their vain parade, 
 Thus glitter in the darken'd hour, 
 And like the glow-worms fade." 
 
 The " modest " and " humble " glow-worm are both better, 
 and its light is best described in such of the poets' phrases as 
 " lustre mild," " pale lustre," " soft green light," or " harmless 
 ray." 
 
 Barry Cornwall has a sympathetic verse : 
 
 " Night's shining servant ! Pretty star of earth 
 I ask not why thy lamp does ever burn ; 
 Perhaps it is thy very life thy mind ; 
 
254 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 And thou, if robbed of that strange right of birth, 
 Might be no more than man when death doth turn 
 His beauty into darkness, cold and blind." 
 
 There is one idea, sufficiently obvious, which might occur 
 to any imaginative intelligence as he watches the insect 
 after nightfall " move with green radiance through the grass, 
 An emerald of light ; " but yet it is one which, remembering 
 not only the gentle circumstances of this little creature's 
 effulgence, its wingless groundling state, and the dangers 
 which its far-seen affection attracts, but admiring also its 
 curious beauty the little " fairy-lamp " of elfin revel, the wee 
 pale glimmer in the green I, for one, would rather forego. 
 What if the creature is only a grub-like obscurity by day, 
 and comes forth in the dark to shine and to allure? The 
 analogy ends there. For half of the insect world our day is 
 their night, while as for the glow-worm herself, her taper is 
 meant for one alone ; and just as among the Ana the wife 
 hangs up her wings after marriage, to show that she has 
 found a home and final abiding-place at last, so the glow- 
 worm, once mated, pales her useless fire and forgets that 
 once she shone. But not so the poets, who tatter the idea 
 to shreds. 
 
 The following represents compendiously the aspects which 
 it assumes : 
 
 " Thus oft we see a glow-worm gay 
 At large her fiery tail display, 
 
 Encouraged by the dark ; 
 And yet the sullen thing all day 
 Snug in the lonely thicket lay, 
 
 And hid the native spark." Fenton. 
 
 1 But thou, with spirit frail and light, 
 Wilt shine awhile and pass away, 
 
 As glow-worms sparkle through the night, 
 But dare not stand the test of day." Byron. 
 
 ' Confiding glow-worms, 'tis a night 
 Propitious to your earth-born light, 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 255 
 
 But, where the scattered stars are seen 
 
 In hazy straits the clouds between, 
 
 Each, in his station twinkling not, 
 
 Seems changed into a pallid spot." Wordsworth. 
 
 " Warm on her mossy couch the radiant worm, 
 Guards from cold dews her love-illumin'd form ; 
 From leaf to leaf conducts the virgin light, 
 Star of the earth, and diamond of the night." Darwin. 
 
 Its transcience, in that melancholy tendency of the poets 
 to see vanity in everything, is constantly adverted to ; its 
 light is "feeble," "fitful," a " soon-quenched " spark. In 
 the same vein, too, are the following : 
 
 " The man who first upon the ground 
 A glow-worm spied, supposing he had found 
 A moving diamond, a breathing stone ; 
 For life it had, and like those jewels shone ; 
 He held it dear ; till by the springing day 
 Informed, he threw the worthless worm away." Waller. 
 
 " If on some balmy breathing night of Spring 
 The happy child to whom the world is new 
 Pursues the evening moth of mealy wing, 
 Or from some heath-flower beats the sparkling dew, 
 He sees before his inexperienced eyes 
 The brilliant glow-worm like a meteor shine 
 On the turf bank 
 
 Yet with the morning shudders to behold 
 
 His lucid treasure, rayless as the dust. " Charlotte Smith. 
 
 How the nightingale and the glow-worm made sad ac- 
 quaintance is a fable that is well known. So Marvel's opening 
 stanzas of " The Mower " are all the more delightful : 
 
 " Ye living lamps, by whose dear light 
 The nightingale does sit so late, 
 And studying all the Summer night 
 Her matchless song does meditate. 
 
 Ye country cornets, that portend 
 No war, nor prince's funeral, 
 Shining with no higher end 
 Than to presage the grass's fall. 
 
256 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame 
 To wand'ring mowers shows the way, 
 That in the night have lost their aim 
 And after foolish fires do stray." 
 
 But more generally accepted is the version that points the 
 moral of the danger of lamp-carrying when the enemy is 
 abroad in the night : 
 
 " The glow-worm must shine, though the light which it shows 
 But guides the attack of its wandering foes." 
 
 And so it happened in the fable, for the bird was looking on 
 while the insect crept in conspicuous phosphorescence in 
 the herbage below : 
 
 " Nor spares, enamoured of his radiant form, 
 The hungry nightingale the glowing worm ; 
 Who with bright lamp alarms. the midnight hour, 
 Climbs the green stem, and slays the sleeping flower." Darwin. 
 
 Moore, too, relates the episode, drawing the moral from the 
 fable : 
 
 " The prudent nymph, whose cheeks disclose 
 The lily and the blushing rose, 
 From public view her charms will screen, 
 And rarely in the. crowd be seen ; 
 This simple truth shall keep her wise, 
 The fairest fruits attract the flies. 
 One night a glow-worm, proud and vain, 
 Contemplating her glittering train, 
 Cried, ' Sure there never was in nature 
 So elegant, so fine a creature.' 
 She spoke : attentive, on a spray, 
 A nightingale forbore his lay, 
 He saw the shining morsel near, 
 And flew, directed by the glare ; 
 Awhile he gazed with sober look, 
 And thus the trembling prey bespoke : 
 ' Deluded fool ! with pride elate, 
 Know 'tis thy beauty brings thy fate ; 
 Less dazzling, long thou might'st have lain 
 Unheeded on the velvet plain, 
 Pride soon or late degraded mourns, 
 And beauty wrecks whom she adorns." " 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 257 
 
 But Cowper represents the nightingale as won over to mercy 
 by the glow-worm's appeal : 
 
 " ' Did you admire my lamp,' quoth he, 
 ' As much as I your minstrelsy, 
 You would abhor to do me wrong, 
 As much as I to spoil your song ; 
 For 'twas the self-same Power Divine 
 Taught you to sing and me to shine ; 
 That you with music, I with light, 
 Might beautify and cheer the night. 
 The songster heard his short oration, 
 And, warbling out his approbation, 
 Released him." 
 
 Wordsworth sees it offering " nightly sacrifice " to the skies ; 
 and Savage is excellent in his glow-worm's "glimmering 
 through the night, And scattering like hope through fear a 
 doubtful light." For it often seems, when watching "in the 
 grass-green haze the glow-worm's living light," that they are 
 trembling every minute on the point of going out. 
 
 With the necessary differences on account of its being a 
 foreigner, and therefore comparatively unfamiliar, the firefly 
 is virtually a repetition of the glow-worm but on wings. 
 
 Columbus finds (in Rogers's verse), the firefly "spangling 
 the locks of many a maid ; " and, again, the poet familiar 
 with " the shining race in Tuscan groves " sees the Roman 
 Floretta "spangling her hair with stars." In Moore they 
 frequently recur, once in connection with "the favourite 
 tree of that luxurious bird which lights up the chambers of 
 its nest with fireflies ; " and again as used in palace illumina- 
 tion 
 
 " The chambers were supplied with light 
 
 By many strange but safe devices, 
 Large fireflies, such as shine at night 
 Among the Orient's flowers and spices." 
 
 Once upon a time, when I was at large in the United States, 
 I took that wonderful trip from San Francisco to St. Louis 
 by the Texas and Southern Pacific railways. I have notable 
 
258 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 memories of that journey, and many touches of nature 
 remain on the mind the huge sea-lions in the Pacific below 
 the ClifT House at San Francisco, clambering on their rocks 
 of refuge, sprawling, scuffling, splashing; the owl-lands of 
 New Mexico, where bird and snake and ground-squirrel 
 live together ; the cities of the prairie dogs ; the bee-ranches ; 
 the leagues of yucca in full flower; the wonders of the 
 cactus. 
 
 But above them all stands out the firefly country of Texas 
 and Arkansas, where the land is all swamp, and the old hag- 
 gard trees, tapestried with ragged moss, wade ankle-deep in 
 brown stagnant water. The forest glades are long pools, 
 and wherever a vista opens there is a thin bayou stretching 
 away between aisles of sombre moss-ragged trunks. There 
 is a strange antediluvian gloom about the place this forest 
 standing in a lagoon. 
 
 The world was something like this when the Deluge was 
 subsiding. Uttermost silence abides here ; except when a 
 turtle stirs in the mud, or a water-snake makes a ripple on 
 the dull pools. Sunlight ! Not a ray of light ever pierces to 
 the roots of the trees. But at sunset, when the orb goes 
 down rosy-red behind the water-logged trees, and their 
 trunks stand out black against the glaring sky, and the pools 
 about their feet take strange tints of copper and purpled 
 bronze what a sight it is ! 
 
 The railway pierces an avenue straight as an arrow for 
 miles and miles through the belt of forest. On either side 
 along the track lie ditches filled with water. And at sunset 
 the ditches seem all filled with blood, and the sky seen 
 away in the distance underneath the trees hangs like a furious 
 crimson curtain. 
 
 And as soon as the sun begins to set the awesome forest- 
 swamps awake, the sluggish waters lap and mumble upon 
 the snags as the creatures that live in them arouse them- 
 selves, and out from the rotten heaps comes the frog, and 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 259 
 
 out from their dormitories on the boughs the katy-did. 
 "Yank," falters the one. " Katy did? replies the other. 
 And thereupon the spell is broken. 
 
 As if by some talisman, the charm of the enchanted sleep 
 is snapped, and in an instant there grows upon the air such 
 a volume of sound as beggars language. The fatal word 
 of the fairy-story is spoken, and on the instant the tem- 
 pests rage. Every inch of swamp has its " mud-compeller " 
 in full song, every inch of forest overhead its katy-did in 
 ceaseless clamour, assailing and pursuing the flying train. 
 It sounds as if the whole country were screeching and jeer- 
 ing at the carriages as they fly by. Stop thief ! stop thief ! 
 Katy-drV// Yank! Yank! 
 
 No wonder Greece thought of the frog as it did ! We 
 in England know nothing of the " damnable iteration " of 
 its multitudinous noting. But Arkansas does. Like the 
 stars past counting, and the wrinkles on the sea beyond 
 arithmetic, the pen shrinks from description of the din. It 
 is like launching on " the tenth wave " for an infinite nata- 
 tion upon cycles of floods. The subject is impossible ; for 
 the air vibrates, throbs, seems bursting, and ready to crack 
 with, the soulless metallic babel of the frogs. Yank ! Yank ! 
 Yank ! And yet through it, over it, under it, all round it, 
 shrills supreme the strident cry of the cicadas, without 
 number and without shame, countless katy-dids swearing 
 their confidences to all the reluctant stars. It is no use 
 trying to talk in' the carriage ; all you hear is " Yank ! 
 Katy-did ! Yank ! Yank ! Katy-aft/." 
 
 It was enough to make Arkansas a memory for ever. And 
 yet, whenever I remember that most strange railway journey, 
 it is neither swamp, nor frog, nor katy-did that first recurs 
 to me, but the fireflies. The black night, with its glistening 
 pools, its interminable clamour of brazen-throated batrachians 
 and tin-lunged cicadas are forgotten, while recollection con- 
 jures up afresh that miracle of the lantern-bearing myriads. 
 
260 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 As far as the eye could reach into the water-logged forests, 
 and up in the air among the invisible branches of invisible 
 trees, flickered in inextricable bewilderment hosts of fire- 
 flies. The air was thick with them. And such flighty fitful 
 creatures as exasperated the intelligence, perpetually striking 
 matches as if to look for something, and then blowing them 
 out again, flick ! flick ! flick ! in countless millions ; and all 
 apparently desperate of any other purpose but to confound 
 confusion. The frogs sounded as the sand of the shore for 
 multitudes, and there were at least two katy-dids for every 
 frog ; and yet multiply the frogs by the katy-dids and you 
 would not get the total of the fireflies. It seemed as if 
 each "yank" and "katy-did" struck out fireflies just as 
 flint and steel strike flashes, or as if the recriminations of 
 batrachian and insect caught fire as they flew and peopled 
 the inflammable air with phosphorescent points of flame ; a 
 battery of din perpetually grinding out showers of sparks. 
 
 In the poets, however, it flits, " a bright earth-wandering 
 star," "tall majestic trees between ;" it plays "around the 
 pillared stems," sparkles "in deep cedars" and "through 
 the brakes," lights up " forest bowers." But the " emerald " 
 light no longer serves, for " the fireflies' lanterns of green 
 light " now becomes as inaccurate as before it was correct. 
 Shelley repeats his glow-worm fancy in the lines 
 
 " Carved lamps and chalices which shone, 
 In their own golden beams, each like a flower, 
 Out of whose depth a firefly shakes his light, 
 Under a cypress in a starless night." 
 
 In another poem he has both insects together a license of 
 geography that entomology scarcely, I fancy, authorises. 
 
 1 ' Day had awakened all things that be 
 The lark, the thrush, and the swallow free ; 
 
 Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn, 
 Glow-worms went out on the river's brirn, 
 Like lamps which a student forgets to trim ; 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 261 
 
 The beetle forgot to wind his horn, 
 
 The crickets were still in the meadow and hill ; 
 
 Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun, 
 
 Night's dreams and terrors, every one, 
 
 Fled." 
 
 Without much industry the poets discover that (like the 
 glow-worm) the firefly is only luminous in the dark : 
 
 " This morning when the earth and sky 
 
 Were burning with the blush of spring, 
 I saw thee not, thou humble fly, 1 
 Nor thought upon thy glowing wing." 
 
 So, again, Rogers, who, to do that poet justice, had 
 evidently (from the last two lines) really noticed a firefly : 
 
 " There is an insect, that, when evening comes, 
 Small though he be, and scarce distinguishable, 
 Like evening clad in soberest livery, 
 Unsheaths his wings, and through the woods and glades 
 Scatters a marvellous splendour. On he wheels, 
 Blazing by fits as from excess of joy, 
 Each gush of light a gush of ecstasy." 
 
 But perhaps it is worth noting as the experience of one 
 who has travelled that the firefly does not show the traveller 
 the way. Of course in imagination it seems obvious that it 
 must ; but this is just one of those occasions when imagina- 
 tion is useless. For the sober fact is very much to the con- 
 trary. 
 
 To the traveller the firefly is an unmitigated nuisance. 
 Seen at first, it pleases; the spectacle is engaging. But 
 when the myriads break from their resting-places as night 
 
 1 Moore's moral is this 
 
 ' ' But now the skies have lost their hue, 
 
 And sunny lights no longer play, 
 I see thee, and I bless thee too 
 
 For sparkling o'er the dreary way. 
 Oh ! let me hope that thus for me, 
 
 When life and love shall lose their bloom, 
 Some milder joys may come like thee, 
 To light, if not to warm, the gloom." 
 
262 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 draws on, and flicker up and down in mazy multitudes, the 
 result is utterly baffling and bewildering. 
 
 And herein (of which I believe I am now the first true 
 exponent) lies the secret of the legend of the will-o'-the-wisp 
 and the ignis fatuiis generally. 
 
 Naturally enough, a belated traveller looks upon a light 
 as a friend. There is a firefly in his path. Therefore it 
 is his friend. By-and-by he cannot see his path. But 
 there is another firefly. So he thinks, That is "another 
 friend." Alas ! it is anything but that, and will lead 
 whomsoever follows it into uttermost swamp and jungle 
 the natural habitats of the creature. This is no effort 
 of imagination. 
 
 In the years that are gone I was riding in Sind, the second 
 march beyond Jacobabad, and for several miles at midnight 
 my way lay through woodland. A straight road, at least 
 twelve feet wide, had been driven through it for our artillery 
 and waggons to go by, and it was as flat and soft as tan. 
 Had the night been pitch-dark I could have cantered the 
 whole way. But, as it happened, the place was ablaze with 
 fireflies, and / could not see an inch before me. Wherever 
 there was a natural glade or break in the vegetation, to right 
 or left, there at once opened out a glittering vista of these 
 dancing, flickering creatures. You could see, apparently, 
 a road, lamp-lighted, straight before you. But turn round. 
 It was the same behind you. There was a straight road. 
 Look to the right or the left. There, too, stretching away 
 into a hazy confusion of twinkling points, were straight roads 
 too. Stupidly mazed, I once got my horse's head round ; 
 but the beast was more sensible than I, and told me the 
 right direction, and I listened to it. 
 
 So to speak of fireflies being a help to the traveller is 
 utter nonsense; they are the most provoking distracting 
 mischief-makers possible. Leave a path alone, and even 
 on the darkest night a sober man may learn to distinguish 
 
Lucifer s and the Poets. 
 
 263 
 
 it. But light up tens of millions of fireflies in the bushes 
 on either side, in all the openings in the undergrowth, and 
 the path, even though twelve feet wide and straight as an 
 arrow, is nowhere. It is one of the frauds of poetry, but, 
 all the same, one of the charms of nature. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 DEBORAH: "THE HONEY-BEE." 
 
 SUPREME among the poets' insects is the honey-bee. 
 Indeed, it occupies quite as large a space in verse as 
 either the dog or the nightingale, the dolphin or the rose, 
 among the bards' beasts, birds, " fishes," and flowers. 
 
 For Deborah the name "being translated means the 
 honey-bee" abounds, even on the surface of its small 
 brown individuality with morals and metaphors and similes. 
 Chief of these are its diligence, as " the busy bee ; " its 
 "sweet alchemy," as the honey-gatherer; its "skilful 
 architecture," as the artist "that builds its golden house 
 downward ; " its sense of discipline, as a citizen under a 
 constitutional government : 
 
 ' ' Creatures that by a rule of nature teach 
 The art of order to a peopled kingdom." 
 
 Besides these, the insect has many engaging traits and 
 habits, each of which suffices for endless illustration of 
 human analogies; and so, through all the poets' "im- 
 memorial" lines, is heard "the murmuring of innumerable 
 bees." 
 
 Yet of all bee-facts and bee-fictions nothing attracts the 
 poetic fancy more than the honey-gatherer's association 
 with flowers. 
 
 In April, when the sallow is abloom with golden catkins, 
 
 faintly fragrant, like Australian wattles, the first of the honey- 
 
 264 
 
Deborah : " The Honey- Bee." 265 
 
 folk are abroad, and the voices of them busy at their work 
 fill the streamside with a sweet premonition of summer's 
 June, and the dreamy murmurings of bee-beleaguered 
 hives. 
 
 "This renovating season, too, calls forth 
 The humming tribes, for now the million leaves 
 And downy flowers, or river-loving palms, 
 Afford material for the curious cell ; 
 And oft, e'en in this chill ambiguous month, 
 The labourer returns with loaded thighs." Grahame. 
 
 And so all summer and autumn through, with lavish choice 
 of flowers, to spare November, when the ivy " my yellow 
 bees in the ivy-bloom" tempts here and there the last 
 labourers of the hive. 
 
 The foxglove is a favourite bee haunt. 
 
 "The bee's low tune in the foxglove's bell." 
 
 ' ' Where the bee's deep music swells 
 From the trembling foxglove bells." 
 
 And no one who has passed along the copse-side, or sat 
 on the bank among the foxgloves, can have missed that 
 deep hum of a full content as the bumble-bee scrambled 
 from flower to flower, leaving them all " wagging their sweet 
 heads," as it suddenly made up its mind for home, and 
 flew off on heavy wings, drawing out behind it as it went 
 a tapering note. 
 
 ' ' To keep her slender fingers from the Sun 
 Pan through the pastures oftentimes hath run, 
 To pluck the speckled foxgloves from their stem, 
 And on her fingers neatly placed them." 
 
 It is a delightful flower, the pet of legend, and a grace to 
 every spot. 
 
 " Upon the thistle-tops and heather bells." 
 
 I have myself seen bumble-bees in their velvet jerkins 
 belted with yellow, probing the thistle heads ; but I often 
 wondered why. There is a scent about the flowers, it is 
 
266 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 true, but the honey, such as there is, must be very hard 
 to find, and is thin when found. 
 No wonder the poet says 
 
 " Plying his earnest task, 
 The bee in the bells of thyme." 
 
 What a musical line it is ! And whether thyme has bells 
 or not, the bees love the flower, and I remember many a 
 time and oft, when I lived in White of Selborne's country, 
 lying on the bank crushing the wild thyme where it grew, 
 listening all the time I read to the murmur of a multitude 
 of bees, with the air about me aromatic with the Attic 
 herb. 
 
 ' ' And from the knotted flowers of thyme 
 When the woodland banks are deck't, 
 See the bee his load collect ; 
 Mark him turn the petals by, 
 Gold-dust gathering on his thigh, 
 As full many a hum he heaves, 
 While he pats th' intruding leaves 
 Lost in many a heedless spring, 
 Then wearing home on weary wing." Clare. 
 
 So too, as often as I think of my Kentish heath, "gleam- 
 ing in purple and gold " the purple of heather and the 
 gold of the whins I remember the flower and the insect 
 together, and that device of chivalry, the bee on the tuft of 
 heather. 
 
 I do not know them, "humming among the cowslips," or 
 " busy in the golden broom ; " though, as Bloomfield and 
 Clare are beautifully observant, I expect the bees know 
 both. But who can have missed 
 
 " In immemorial elms, 
 The murmur of innumerable bees ; " 
 
 or in the garden, when the currant-bushes are in flower, the 
 myriad voices of the early swarms; or the space-pervading 
 drowsiness of the " honey-flies," on the new-blown heath ; or 
 " haunt of birds and bees, the purple moorland ; " or " the 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee." 267 
 
 sycamore musical with bees ; " or the bean-field, heavy with 
 evening scent ; or the " honey'd lime all murmurous with 
 bees ; " or the orchard trees, apple and pear and plum, 
 beset by marauding hosts of happy plunderers; or busy 
 about Keats' "globes of clover," so that the whole field 
 is humming, and the restless butterfly can hardly find a 
 blossom to sip at undisturbed ? 
 
 ' ' Crowds of bees are giddy with clover, 
 Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet." 
 
 Jean Ingelow puts her bees in the white trefoil 
 
 " Murmuring in the milk-white bloom 
 As babes will sigh for deep content." 
 
 Others in "the trumpets of the eglantine," and, let 
 antiquaries say what they choose, Milton in the lines 
 
 1 ' Sweet briar or the vine 
 Or the twisted eglantine," 
 
 meant the honeysuckle, the 
 
 " Honeysuckle full of clear bee-wine " 
 
 of Keats' delicious verse; and so too mean the other 
 poets that make the same slip. Sometimes they call it 
 woodbine, "suckling the bee with honey and the moth" 
 (Hurdis), and sometimes eglantine, but they always mean 
 the same sweet plant, the honeysuckle, emblem of fidelity 
 in love, and beloved by bees. 
 
 To clear the way before coming to the poets' Deborah 
 in her home-life, and as explanatory of their allusions, I 
 must return for a paragraph or two to the old subject of 
 the natural history of the real bee. The shorter my 
 reference the better. 
 
 In Spring, then, the community consists of only one fertile 
 female bee, "the queen," and a staff of workers, "the 
 neuters," and as soon as ever the warmer weather enables 
 
268 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 the half-dormant creatures to move about, the latter com- 
 mence their toil. The hive is thoroughly cleaned up and 
 set to rights after the wear and tear of a winter's habitation, 
 and as soon as the flowers begin to bloom, and buds to 
 show, they begin the work of collecting honey to refill the 
 cells which have been emptied during the cold weather; 
 pollen for mixing with honey and making " bee-bread " to 
 feed the coming grubs with; and " propolis," the resinous 
 exudation of buds, for use as glue, caulking, and varnish for 
 repairing, fastening up, and finishing off the cells. These 
 cells are built of "wax" (a substance which the bees do 
 not collect, but which exudes from their bodies, an involun- 
 tary secretion), and are made of four sizes, for holding the 
 grubs of " neuters," " drones " (or male-bees), and " queens " 
 respectively, and as jars for honey and bee-bread. They 
 are as a rule six-sided. But this form results not from 
 any hexagonal design on the part of the bees, but from the 
 manner of their building, and the pressure upon one another 
 of six cylinders being built simultaneously. The exceptions 
 are the cells upon the edges of the comb, or isolated cells, 
 for these, having no such pressure on their sides, remain 
 cylindrical. In each cell the queen deposits an egg, which 
 hatches into a grub; this again turns into a chrysalis, and 
 from the chrysalis in about three weeks' time, more or 
 less, from the laying of the egg there emerges a bee. 
 According to the size of the cell in which the egg was 
 laid, and the kind of food upon which the grub was fed, 
 the bee that emerges is either a neuter or male. In a 
 few cells, which are often shaped like acorns and are much 
 larger than the rest, are laid eggs of which the grubs are fed 
 entirely upon a special " royal " jelly instead of ordinary 
 bee-bread, and these grubs turn into queens, or would do 
 so if the old queen did not, on discovering that another 
 female had come forth, go round and kill the rest. The 
 young queen that has already issued is carefully protected 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee." 269 
 
 by the workers from the old one, and she soon flies abroad 
 upon her wedding tour, and then returns to the hive. 
 Meanwhile, the old queen has been very restless, and after 
 the young queen's return she leaves the hive accompanied 
 by a mob of neuters, to found a new colony. This is a 
 " swarm." The new queen very soon commences her duty 
 of laying eggs at the rate of a hundred an hour, and lay- 
 ing in the course of a year about two hundred thousand 
 and the males, being no longer required, are massacred by 
 the workers. And so the Summer and Autumn pass, the 
 queen assiduously laying eggs; the neuters as diligently 
 rearing the young, piling up honey, and dying. And so 
 to Winter, when the hive becomes partially dormant until 
 Spring comes round again. 
 
 Such in briefest outline is hive-life, and absolutely bare 
 as it is, sufficiently interesting. But the actual details 
 which would fill it out in a completer chronicle (but 
 with which this article has nothing to do, except where the 
 poets refer to them) are such that fancy and legend cannot 
 exaggerate their wonders, and severest science is unable 
 to refrain from admiration and amazement. These details, 
 however, belong to the natural history of bees, and not 
 to the unnatural history of the poets' insect. 
 
 Many poets give sketches of the life of the honey- 
 gatherers : 
 
 " All hands employ'd, the royal work grows warm 
 Like lab'ring bees on a long summer's day, 
 Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm 
 And some on bells of tasted lilies play ; 
 With glewy wax some new foundations lay 
 Of virgin comb, which from the roof are hung, 
 Or tend the sick, or educate the young." Dryden. 
 
 " As in the winged commonwealth of Bees 
 (Whose careful summer-providence foresees 
 Th' approaching fruitless winter, which denies 
 The crown of labour) some with laden thighs 
 
270 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Take charge to bear their waxy burthens home, 
 
 Others receive the welcome load ; and some 
 
 Dispose the wax, others the plot contrive ; 
 
 Some build the curious comb, some guard the hive, 
 
 The armed Centinels ; others distreine 
 
 The pure honey from the wax, some traine 
 
 And discipline the young, while others drive 
 
 The sluggish Drones from their deserved hive." Quarks. 
 
 No other insect avails itself so cordially of human 
 co-operation. The silkworm, for instance, is delicate, 
 fastidious, and whimsical. The cochineal is obstinate, 
 implacable, and barbarous in its diet. But the honey-bee 
 asks for nothing from its cultivator but cleanliness, protec- 
 tion from extremes of temperature, and occasional assistance 
 in food and drink. Once put up a hive in a sheltered spot, 
 near water if possible, but in any case within easy flight of 
 pasturage, and the qombs will be kept as regularly filled 
 with exemplary honey as if the insects had signed con- 
 tracts for the work, and the queen-bee herself had gone 
 guarantee for their fulfilment. It is not even necessary to 
 pamper Deborah's sweet taste, since the insect knows far 
 better than man can tell it the flowers which pay best, and 
 can give it in wax and honey the fullest returns for its labour. 
 In the waste hedge-strips of the field, the purple corners of 
 spinney and copse, it finds the true bee pastures, ditches 
 filled with teazel, burr-dock, and dandelion, wild cabbage, 
 and wild turnips, banks overgrown with trefoils, rest-harrow, 
 thistle, and nettle. 
 
 Gardens brilliant with all that gardeners delight in will 
 not cause the bee to stop when it is on its way to a field 
 of sainfoin, nor can all the triumphs of horticulture let the 
 colours be never so bright, the perfumes never so dainty 
 tempt it to alight when on the wing towards a hedge 
 that is overgrown with honeysuckle, or a lane entangled 
 in clematis. Nature herself has taken great care of the 
 bee: 
 
Deborah : " The Honey- Bee" 271 
 
 " I know where the meadow-sweets exhale 
 And the white valerians load the gale, 
 I know the spot the bees love best." 
 
 And on the bosom of the hills, 
 Wooing the bees, the modest heather 
 Waves to the wind its hardy bells." 
 
 From flower to flower the busy bee 
 
 With anxious labour flies, 
 Alike from scents which give distaste 
 By fancy as disgusting placed, 
 
 Repletes his useful thighs. 
 Nor does his vicious taste prefer 
 The fopling of some gay parterre, 
 
 The mimicry of Art, 
 But where the meadow- violet dwells, 
 Nature replenishing his bells, 
 
 Does ampler store impart." 
 
 The centre figure of the home-life of bees is of course 
 the queen-bee, one of the chiefest wonders of the ani- 
 mated world. Volumes of facts have been published of 
 the almost incredible life-history of this insect, of its crea- 
 tion artificially by the drudges of the hive, of its terrible 
 life. A truly awful insect ; a made-up monster as it were 
 with a body complete in all its parts, but no soul, no heart. 
 Of the idolatrous devotion of the hive to this tyrant, literally 
 of their own construction, endless fanciful prose has been 
 written, but in verse it finds scarcely more than such passing 
 notice as when the Midsummer Fairies 
 
 " Huddle in a heap and trembling stand 
 All round Titania, like the queen -bee's band." 
 
 Then too the drones, the queen's paramours, "vex'd 
 and murmuring," says Keats, "like any drone shut out 
 from the fair bee-queen," whom the neuters pamper and 
 caress, until one day when, the population being equal to 
 the space, they fall upon the honey-fattened stingless throng 
 and sting them all to death ! 
 
272 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " As they sat, 
 
 A bee alighted on a clover tuft 
 Ceased for an instant its laborious hum, 
 And peer'd in petals of the purple flowers 
 With busy pleasure. ' There,' said Montague, 
 ' Yon little insect, wiser than mankind, 
 Might teach the world a lesson that it needs. 1 
 1 What ! in its ruthless murder of the drones 
 And pampering of a fat luxurious queen ? ' 
 ' Not so, but in its love of daily toil, 
 A toil unselfish. In the social hive 
 One labours for the whole community, 
 And the community for every one. 
 Toil is their joy. 1 " 
 
 1 ' Without a soul ! unless the bees have souls ! 
 These yield a blind obedience to their chief, 
 And feed and swaddle it and make it fat, 
 And toil and moil until th' appointed hour 
 When in hot swoop they fall upon the drones, 
 And kill the fluttering fathers of the state 
 Or may be choose another sovereign." Mackay. 
 
 For a long time it was supposed that the sovereign 
 of the hive was a male, " the king ; " and I think this 
 sentence from Pliny is worth quoting, " Hath the king 
 of the bees alone no sting, and is he armed only with 
 majesty? or hath nature bestowed on him a sting and 
 yet denied him only the use thereof? For certain it is, 
 that this great commander over the rest does nothing 
 with his sting, and yet a wonder it is to see how they all 
 readily obey him." Virgil has a king-bee, and he describes 
 how his subjects defend their monarch : 
 
 "Onward they troop, and brandishing their wings, 
 Fit their fierce claws and point their poison'd stings, 
 Throng to the imperial tent, their king surround, 
 Provoke the foe, and loud defiance sound." 
 
 That the queen-bee has a sting is abundantly proved 
 every year by her using that weapon to kill her possible 
 rivals, but it is one of the curiosities of bee-life that, 
 however irritated (and her subjects treat her with the 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee." 273 
 
 scantest possible ceremony on occasion), she never uses 
 her sting against them. " Majestate tantum " (by majesty 
 alone), was therefore a favourite motto of principalities 
 and powers. Among others it was the motto on the bee- 
 crest of Louis XII. of France, "Pere du Peuple." But 
 the fancy was surely stretched to the snapping-point 
 when the " Maid " of Orleans was given a queen-bee for her 
 impresa. 
 
 When the hive is over-crowded, the conservative party 
 of the community secedes from the parent-stock, taking 
 the old queen with it, to found a new colony. As soon 
 as the owner or a friendly neighbour hears "the murmuring 
 sound of the swarming bees," he comes out the practice 
 is still almost universal among the countryfolk and striking 
 a key on a pan, or jingling the fire-irons together, " calls " 
 the swarm. 
 
 " So on a Sabbath morn 
 Cloudy and calm, with not one sunny gleam 
 To lure them forth, I've seen a num'rous swarm 
 (Whether attracted by the silence deep 
 And pause of rural toil, or sudden struck 
 By that instinctive impulse which directs 
 More wisely than proud Reason's rule) rush out 
 In myriads and take wing : while mingling sounds 
 Of distant church-bells and the jangling pan 
 Essayed in vain to stop the living cloud." Grahame. 
 
 If not attracted, the insects settle on any projection, 
 by preference a bough, and "hanging bee by bee, Make 
 a long sort of rope below the tree" (King), a "pensile 
 cluster," and clinging together, with their queen in the 
 centre, form a ball : 
 
 ' ' Not closer, orb in orb, conglobed are seen 
 The buzzing bees about their dusky queen." Pope. 
 
 The "calling" of bees by metallic sounds is often 
 referred to ; thus in Swift, Moore, Young, and Waller : 
 
 s 
 
274 T/ie Poets and Nature. 
 
 " So by the kettle's loud alarm 
 The bees are gathered to a swarm." 
 
 " New legions soon 
 
 Pour to the spot like bees of Kamzaroon 
 To the shrill timbrel's summons." 
 
 1 So swarming bees that on a summer's day, 
 In airy rings and wild meanders play, 
 Charmed with the brazen sound, their wand'rings end. 
 
 ' So wandering bees would perish in the air, 
 Did not a sound proportioned to their ear 
 Appease their rage, invite them to the hive, 
 Unite their force, and teach them how to thrive." 
 
 Of the homeward flight of the bee, the load it carries, 
 its satisfied hum, and the directness of its course a "bee- 
 line " has passed into a proverb for straightness there are 
 many pretty recognitions. Not that Rogers, casting about 
 for illustrations of the Pleasures of Memory, is specially 
 felicitous : 
 
 " Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell ? 
 Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell ? 
 With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue 
 Of varied scents, that charmed her as she flew ? 
 Hail, Memory, hail ! thy universal reign 
 Guards the least link of being's glorious chain." 
 
 for bees seldom return by the same way that they go. 
 
 The mother-bee is never in any sense a sovereign. She 
 is simply an egg-producing machine, which has been con- 
 structed by the "horny-handed" toilers of the hive, and 
 (as one may always expect the proletariat to do when they 
 are the masters), they take good care to let their " queen " 
 understand that she is their property and the work of their 
 hands. Every possible care is taken of her as a valuable 
 machine, that she shall not be injured or go astray. She 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee" 275 
 
 is stoked with food incessantly, and a certain number of 
 workers are always in attendance to see to the cleanliness 
 of every part of their patient egg-layer and her surroundings. 
 Having made only one perfect female, they are most anxious 
 to save themselves loss of time and, as they think them, of 
 earnings, by any accident to her. But affection there is 
 none. When she is getting used up, and either does not 
 lay eggs fast enough, or begins to lay undersized ones, or 
 drone-eggs only, they hustle her off the premises, and let 
 the poor creature die at the door x>f the hive from cold 
 and hunger. Or if by mismanagement there happen to be 
 superfluous " queens," the horny-handed display an abomin- 
 able eagerness in having the redundant females done to 
 death. They themselves are sexless, or rather are abortive 
 females, and it is not difficult from a human standpoint to 
 understand the bitter glee with which these horrid neuters 
 assist in the murder of the perfect females, who if permitted 
 to live, would enjoy those privileges of the sex which are 
 denied to their misformed selves. And yet, atrocious to 
 relate, these very neuters are able of their own act, by the 
 mere fact of having accidentally eaten some of the "royal 
 jelly," to lay eggs, and these eggs, monstrous ova that they 
 are, actually produce bees ! Has nature offered anywhere 
 in all her works a more baffling problem of all-round per- 
 plexity than this ? 
 
 Then too the drone, with his big silly head, and his eyes 
 meeting atop and giving him a foolish blank-eyed look, think- 
 ing himself so fine a fellow. Watch him come out of the hive 
 on a fine morning. How cautiously he pokes out his feelers 
 to see if it be cold or not ; how he stops up the doorway 
 against the industrious neuters, who have been up and at 
 work since daybreak ; how he loiters on the ledge, elaborat- 
 ing his toilet, exasperating the laden folk who cannot find 
 room to settle. And then he thinks of breakfast, and flies 
 off with a slow heavy droning flight to the nearest flowers. 
 
276 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Among these he spends his days, or goes off to court some 
 "queen" out on her nuptial flight and summoning her 
 suitors. Then the season of courtship and nuptials comes 
 to an end. But the burly drone does not know it, and goes 
 blundering into the hive as usual, and goes to sleep full 
 of honey and fatigued with pleasure. And the horrible 
 awakening ! The hive is all astir, and the voices of the 
 workers are hot and hoarse. They are rushing about in 
 all directions, dragging out the drones from where they lie 
 asleep, stabbing them to death, and dragging their bodies on 
 to the sunny ledge, dropping them over on to the ground 
 beneath. The massacre does not take long. For the 
 drones have no stings, and can do no more when the 
 poisoned poniards slip in between their scales than shrill 
 for mercy; which is never granted. So they die in the 
 midsummer of their pleasure. 
 
 "She," for in poetry the working neuter is always ad- 
 dressed as feminine, is both the wax-producer, "working 
 her formal rooms in waxen frame " (Spenser), and the honey- 
 gatherer. She 
 
 " Gives us food that may with nectar vie, 
 And wax that does the absent sun supply." Waller. \ 
 
 Apart from its industry, the bee's skill, both in "distilling " 
 nectar and as a scientific architect, meets with very adequate 
 Thus : 
 
 ' ' Spring's unfolded blooms 
 Exhaling sweetness, that the skilful bee 
 May taste at will, from their selected spoils, 
 To work her dulcet food." Akenside. 
 
 " The busy tribe 
 
 Of bees, so emulous, are daily fed 
 With heaven's peculiar manna. Tis for them, 
 Unwearied alchemists, the blooming world 
 Nectareous gold distils." Hurdis. 
 
Deborah: " The Honey -Bee" 277 
 
 ' ' The bee observe, 
 
 She too an artist is, and laughs at man, 
 Who calls on rules the sightly hexagon 
 With truth to form, a cunning architect, 
 Who at the roof begins her golden work, 
 And builds without foundation. How she toils, 
 And still from bud to bud, from flow'r to flow'r, 
 Travails the livelong day." Hurdis. 
 
 Among the legends of flowers there is one that tells how 
 a fair Corinthian was turned in a moment of Olympian 
 pique into a rose, and her crowding suitors into the thorns 
 that defend the beauty of the flowers. A few of the 
 more forward became insects, and among them was the 
 drone. 
 
 But the honey-bee is not one of the number wherein 
 the ancients showed their wisdom, for bees, being '.wise 
 insects, do not lurk and hover in roses. These flowers 
 give an undivided industry to the production of perfumes, 
 and secrete no honey. The bee wants honey, not perfume. 
 The whole soul of the roses is in attar. As for the fragrant 
 distillations which help gods and heroes to mead, metheglin 
 and hydromel, they care nothing. Their laboratories are 
 only for scent. The parable of this the poets have missed. 
 Yet it is a little curious that such beauty should be 
 honeyless. The rose is passing fair to the eye, and kind to 
 every breeze that woos, but it has no sweetness at heart : 
 it is a barren loveliness of face and form. Perhaps as queen 
 of the garden it is becoming that she should not encourage 
 the Ixions of the hive ; and that when the bees, giddy with 
 the perfumed gold dust of the lilies, attempt her charms, 
 she should baffle them with cold, sweet, powderless petals, 
 tempting as Hybla, but "vain as painted fruits." So the 
 bees, except when on rare occasions pollen fails them, never 
 assail the roses. But the poets, not unpoetically, give those 
 flowers pre-eminence in the honey-seeker's eyes : 
 
278 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 "The rose 
 
 That was the queen of all the sunny year, 
 She, in whose perfumed halls the wild bee lingers, 
 Lightening his toil with song." 
 
 The fancy is very beautiful, but in fact the bee, when it 
 happens to go by accident to a rose, does not linger there. 
 On the contrary, it hurries away from the sweet deceiver, 
 grumbling hugely in deep demur. 
 
 It is much in the same spirit that the Oriental poets 
 and Moore, Byron, Shelley, and others after them represent 
 the rose and nightingale in constant association. It is true 
 that in the East, the bulbuls sing as often in the rose shrubs 
 as in any others ; but the poets' association is apart from 
 this ; it is proper to fancy that sweets go to the sweet, and 
 the more beautiful to the more beautiful. 
 
 So, too, several poets have bees in "jessamine bowers." 
 For myself, I doubt the honey-gatherer's caring for the 
 flower. I know (from personal knowledge) of only one 
 jessamine "bower." Butterflies come there, and sleepy 
 two-winged flies, with large ox-heads and half-transparent 
 bodies. So do the moths with glowing eyes the wonder 
 of a moth's eyes ! and shoulders wrapped in tippets of fur. 
 But bees, except, I think, in blundering chance, come never. 
 I do not think their tongues can reach the honey at the 
 bottom of the jessamine tube. 
 
 But the poets do not extend the error to their other 
 favourite flowers, such as the primrose, violet, or hyacinth, 
 for, except where one talks of the bee, "o'er sun-flowers 
 singing " (by which the heliotrope, it may be, is intended), 
 the flowers of the garden are not associated with them. 
 
 Next only to the song of birds, the voice of the bee 
 attracts the poets. Nor indeed could it well be otherwise, 
 for who could write of flowers, or of sunshine, or of summer, 
 without mention of it, and mentioning it without admiration ? 
 The great majority of the poets accept its " drowsiness " as 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee" 279 
 
 the chief feature of the bee's voice. It is "deep music, 
 pleasant melody to the weary traveller" (Southey), "lulling" 
 (Leyden), a "lullaby" (Charlotte Smith), "inviting sleep 
 sincere " (Thomson), " low vexed song " (W. Morris), " sad 
 murmuring tune " (W. Morris), " plaintive, inviting to rest, 7 ' 
 " sleep-inviting," " drowsy " (Shelley). But Eliza Cook goes 
 too far when she says that bees "go droning by, and hum 
 themselves to sleep," which is exactly what they do not do. 
 Far more accurate seems Shelley's " soft strain," and Milton's 
 " singing at her work." The bee is not itself drowsy, 
 though its hum decidedly " invites to sleep," suggestive also 
 above, all other sounds, of peace. Rural poets, Clare, 
 Grahame, Hurdis, Bloomfieldj and no doubt others, speci- 
 ally connect it with the Sabbath day, more struck perhaps 
 by it on that day " from the pause of rural toil." 
 
 It is in many poets a note of gladness, a "joyous chorus," 
 and eloquent of gratitude : 
 
 " And lo ! within my lonely bow'r 
 Th' industrious bee from many a flow'r 
 Collects the balmy dews. 
 For me, she says, the gems are born, 
 For me their silken robe adorn, 
 Their fragrant breath diffuse." 
 
 ' ' Sweet murmurer, may no rude storm 
 This hospitable scene deform, 
 Nor check thy gladsome toils ; 
 Still may the buds unsully'd spring. 
 Still show'rs and sunshine court thy wing 
 To these ambrosial spoils." Akenside. 
 
 ' ' On hanging cobwebs shone the dew, 
 And thick the wayside clovers grew, 
 The feeding bee had much to do, 
 So fast did honey-drops exude ; 
 She sucked and murmured, and was gone, 
 And lit on other blooms anon, 
 The while I learned a lesson on 
 The source and sense of gratitude. " Jean Ingelow. 
 
280 The Poets and Nature \ 
 
 1 ' The vagrant bee that sings 
 For what he gets thereby, 
 Nor comes unless he brings 
 
 His pocket on his thigh." Mary Howitt. 
 
 and Shelley, addressing Night, has the line, " My sweet child 
 Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noontide bee." 
 
 Hurdis sums up from nature the various tones of the 
 different bee voices : 
 
 1 ' Where the cherry spreads its flowery tufts, 
 'Tis pleasure to survey the snowy pomp, 
 And pause in contemplation of the hum 
 Of mingled bees industrious, that invade 
 And rifle in succession every flower ; 
 Some large and gifted with the voice profound 
 Of mellow bass, some with the loftier pipe 
 Of tenor soft, of small soprano some, 
 That fancy oft may deem she hears distinct, 
 The sweet coincidence of fellow-tones 
 Producing harmony's full chord divine ; " 
 
 One or two eccentricities of descriptions are worth noting. 
 "Bagpiping" is Montgomery's epithet for the bee's hum, 
 while Mackay at least half-a-dozen times calls the bee 
 "trumpet-toned," its voice that of a "booming trumpet," 
 and speaks of the "buzzing of bees in trumpet-tones," 
 and, most ridiculous horror of all (though " buzzing " in a 
 "trumpet-tone" is hard to beat) 
 
 " Sounding a (rump like a martial call 
 On a clarion of brass." 
 
 Could anything be more odious as a description of the 
 sound that Keats calls " a bee's demur," and which makes 
 the foxgloves musical ? The trumpet idea had been prettily 
 used by Mrs. Hemans as a "drowsy bugle," and Hood, 
 before her, speaks of the fairies and 
 
 " Their horns of honeysuckle blooms 
 Sounding upon the air most soothing soft, 
 Like humming bees." 
 
Deborah : ( ' The Honey-Bee. " 281 
 
 while, earlier still, Faber has the exquisite line in which 
 he hears the bees 
 
 " Blowing the trumpets of the eglantine." 
 
 That he meant woodbine does not matter ; for on this point 
 he errs with Milton, and the fancy is beautiful enough 
 to justify many errors of petty fact. But "the trumpets 
 of the eglantine" are a very different matter from "a 
 trump like a clarion of brass." Both Byron and Keats 
 rank the bee's voice among the most beautiful of sounds, 
 with "the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of 
 children and their earliest words." 
 
 In Moore's fantastic botany, such strange blossoms as 
 the Arura "just oped," saffron (better known as the crocus) 
 in full flower, the Nilia, 
 
 " Lulling is the song 
 
 Of Indian bees at sunset, when they throng 
 Around the fragrant Nilia, and deep 
 In its fragrant blossoms hum themselves to sleep ; " 
 
 and the Sihu-thorn are met with tempting the hive-people. 
 If the poet had really known the East, with its legends 
 of flower and bee, or even the mango only, when the 
 love-god Camdeo takes up his bow in the Spring, and goes 
 forth, his arrows barbed with mango-blossom, his bow-string 
 a cord of bees, 
 
 " He bends the luscious cane, and twists the string 
 With bees, how sweet ! but, ah ! how keen their sting." 
 
 Sir W. Jones. 
 
 It is only in Moore, too, that we find the "voluptuous " 
 and the "sated" bee asleep in "the languished noon" 
 in the hearts of flowers a natural license of imagination, 
 and, curiously enough, true to nature, as bees are often 
 found drugged to sleep in the bosom of the flowers they 
 went to rifle. 
 
 The "bee's sweet alchemy" is a sufficiently engaging 
 
282 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 phrase, and no doubt the assiduous insect, seeking the 
 " mellifluous streams, its balmy spoils," and " pleased with 
 the sweet variety of many-tempered flowers," is a wonder- 
 worker, for it blends the good with the bad into the 
 gracious " nectar of the hive." 
 
 For this the poets perpetually admire it : 
 
 " Hush'd at her voice, pert Folly's self is still, 
 And dulness wonders while she drops her quill 
 Like the armed bee, with art most subtly true, 
 From pois'nous vice she draws a healing dew." Pope. 
 
 " The labouring bees, 
 
 That in the Summer heap their winter's food, 
 Plied to their hives sweet honey from those flowers, 
 Whereout the serpent strengthens all his powers." Greene. 
 
 Nature, that gives the bee so feat a grace 
 To find honey of so wondrous fashion, 
 Hath taught the spider out of the same place 
 To fetch poison by strange alteration." VVyatt. 
 
 " E'en bees, the little alms-men of Spring flowers, 
 Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers." Keats, 
 
 Yet the legend is as old as language, and as widespread 
 as sunlight, that bees can make poison as well as honey ; 
 and sober history records instances where men, and even 
 armies, have suffered from eating rashly from combs stored 
 with dangerous juices. 
 
 " Even as those bees of Trebizond, 
 Which from the sunniest flowers that glad 
 With their pure smiles the gardens round, 
 Draw venom first that drives men mad." Moore. 
 
 Once when I was at Midhurst, I tasted a bottle of mead 
 which my host had found in his cellar, overlooked for many 
 years. It was my only experience of " bees' nectar," and it 
 more than satisfied all the expectations that romance had 
 
Deborah: " The Honey-Bee" 283 
 
 encouraged. As soon as the cork was withdrawn it was a 
 heavy August day, with the windows wide open to the 
 clover-field on one side and the pine-woods on the other 
 there floated through the house, and hung about it after- 
 wards for hours, a most wonderful fragrance of herbs and 
 flowers. 
 
 A year later I was in the Mauritius, walking "sous les 
 filaos " in the gardens at Pampelmousse (is that the way to 
 spell it?), when a "something" of the same scent reached 
 me ; and once again, in the offices of the Grande 
 Chartreuse, in Carey Street, off the Strand, when "the 
 monks" were showing me their museum, I smelt it, and 
 said " Mead." 
 
 " What is it like ? " Certainly not the drink that Phillips, 
 in his Cider, thus odiously describes as a gargle : 
 
 " The Britons squeeze the work 
 Of sed'lous bees, and mixing odorous herbs, 
 Prepare balsamic cups, to wheezing lungs 
 Medicinal, and short-breath'd ancient sires." 
 
 But what it is like I cannot say : 
 
 11 The bee shall sip the fragrant dew from flowers, 
 To give metheglin for his morning hours ; " 
 
 but no bank of wild flowers ever yet gave me the odours 
 of metheglin. The Vikings knew it well ; so in Gray's 
 poem on the descent of Odin : 
 
 " Mantling in the goblet, see 
 The pure bev'rage of the bee. 
 O'er it hangs the shield of gold, 
 'Tis the drink of Balder bold." 
 
 And again, in his Death of Noel, we have it on the poet's 
 word how 
 
 1 ' From the golden cup they drink 
 Nectar that the bees produce." 
 
 But how do the bees, "collecting the various odours 
 
284 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 of the Spring/' get that wondrous heather and pine, that 
 hyacinth and underbloom, that heliotrope and thyme, 
 all together into one comb ? 
 
 1 ' As bees mixed nectar draw from fragrant flowers " 
 
 is trite enough, even for Young ; but in mead the nectar is 
 not mixed. 
 
 Each flower is there authentic and indisputable. Waller 
 is utterly wrong who sings 
 
 " Sweetest, you know the sweetest of things 
 Of various flowers the bees do compose, 
 Yet no particular taste it brings 
 Of violet, woodbine, pink, or rose." 
 
 For call it what you will, metheglin or hydromel, soma or 
 mead, the compound is " nectar, drink of gods," the whole 
 woodside in a bottle, Pan with all his poems in a glass. 
 
 You may think I rhapsodise. It is not so, as others 
 who have drunk mead twenty years old will tell you. 
 
 Southey addresses the bee as a miser, warning it that 
 it will not live to enjoy the fruits of its toil : 
 
 "Thou art a miser, thou busy busy bee, 
 
 Late and early at employ ; 
 Still on thy golden stores intent, 
 
 Thy summer in reaping and hoarding is spent 
 
 What thy winter will never enjoy : 
 What lesson this for me, thou busy busy bee ! 
 
 Little dost thou think, thou busy busy bee, 
 
 What is the end of thy toil, 
 When the latest flowers of the ivy are gone, 
 
 And all thy work for the year is done, 
 
 Thy master comes for the spoil : 
 Woe then for thee, thou busy busy bee ! " j 
 
 The fact is true enough, but not always for the reason 
 which Southey gives. For it is a deplorable fact that a 
 worker-bee lives only six weeks, so that all the earlier 
 toilers are dead before the time arrives for consuming 
 
Deborah: " The Honey-Bee" 285 
 
 the stored honey. Against the cruelty of suffocating 
 bees to get at the combs (a practice now fast going out 
 of fashion), Thomson, in his Autumn, protests : 
 
 "Ah, see where, robb'd and murder'd in that pit, 
 Lies the still-heaving hive, at evening snatch'd 
 Beneath the cloud of guilt concealing night, 
 And fix'd o'er sulphur ; while not dreaming ill, 
 The happy people in their waxen cells 
 Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes 
 Of temperance, for winter poor, rejoiced 
 To mark, full flowing round, their copious store. 
 Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends, 
 And, used to milder scent, the tender race 
 By thousands tumble from their honeyed domes, 
 Convolv'd and agonising in the dust. 
 And was it then for this you roam'd the Spring 
 Intent from flower to flower ; for this you toil'd 
 Ceaseless the burning Summer heats away ; 
 For this in Autumn search'd the blooming waste, 
 Nor lost one sunny gleam ? For this sad fate ? 
 Ah, man, tyrannic lord, how long, how long 
 Shall prostrate nature groan beneath your rage, 
 Awaiting renovation, when obliged 
 Must you destroy ? Of their ambrosial food 
 Can you not borrow, and in just return 
 Afford them shelter from the wintry winds ; 
 Or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own 
 Again regale them on some smiling day ? 
 See where the stony bottom of their town, 
 Looks desolate and wild ; with here and there 
 A helpless member, who the ruin'd state 
 Survives, lamenting, weak, cast out to death." 
 
 while Grahame pleads for their being fed in the early 
 Spring : 
 
 " Now profit prompts, if pity ask in vain, 
 To save the falling state ; nor large the boon 
 They crave the refuse of the summer spoil, 
 Or syrup of the cane in bour-tree 1 trough 
 Pushed softly in, will help them, till the down 
 Hang on the willow tree, than which no flower 
 Yields fruit more grateful to the frugal tribe." 
 
 Elder. 
 
286 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 These wretched workers are no sooner out of their cells 
 than they go to work at first in the hive, on menial jobs, 
 "doing the chores," and then in the toil of collecting 
 honey, pollen, and propolis. Their bodies therefore are 
 mere portmanteaus. Inside they are bags for holding 
 fluid honey, and outside they have six pockets, into which 
 they exude wax, and two trough-like receptacles on their 
 thighs for holding pollen. Miserable little omnibuses. 
 All day long they fly from " the Bank " to the flower, and 
 from the flowers back to " the Bank," full inside and full out. 
 Even the fur upon their backs is used to augment their 
 loads, for the pollen of the flowers catches in it and sticks ; 
 and when they get home they are tooth-combed out by 
 attendants. It is a dreadful life, and a very immoral one, 
 for what is the end of it ? A comfortable winter of leisure 
 and luxury, in a warm hive, with plenty of companions 
 and abundant food? Not a bit. of it. The toilers who 
 secrete the wax and build the cells, who collect the honey 
 and the bee-bread to fill those cells "against winter," are 
 all dead before winter comes 
 
 " So bees to feed another's need, 
 From flowers doe honey gather." 
 
 They live only about six weeks. And if by any accident 
 they should come to harm, be maimed, or sick, they are 
 either murdered or thrust out from the hive, to die as they 
 please on the ledge outside the door. 
 
 Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes. Yet, sexless, soul- 
 less, as these assiduous little "neuters" are, there is a great 
 pathos in the thought that nothing but the feeding which they 
 might have had separates them from the life of a " mother- 
 bee," who lives several years, is always attended to with un- 
 ceasing care, and defended from every vexation and want, 
 and who, by the accident of a different diet for a week, 
 is endowed with every feminine susceptibility, and achieves 
 the highest ambitions of her sex is repeatedly married, 
 
Deborah: " The Honey-Bee" 287 
 
 numerously widowed, and multitudinously a mother. And 
 all this time the supreme bliss of it ! is the one and only 
 " woman " in the whole hive, the object of every anxiety, 
 the centre of all attention, the cherished "luck" of the 
 commonwealth and its palladium. Poor little neuters. 
 No wonder with your half-awakened female instincts you 
 rush so madly backwards and forwards about your work 
 is it to keep thought away? and so soon wear out the 
 great true hearts beating in your misformed bodies. 
 
 As telling the hours of the day, even the days of the week, 
 and the months of the year, the poets have constructed a 
 bee-calendar 
 
 " The light of morn, with hum of bees, 
 Steals through the verdurous matting of fresh trees." Keats. 
 
 And the poets meet it busy among the heather, as they 
 stand upon the hill to greet the rising sun (Hurdis) : 
 
 " The active bee out at early morn, 
 Just as the opening flowers are born." Charlotte Smith.. 
 
 It is Noon and 
 
 " Glossy bees do fieldward pass." Keats. 
 
 and 
 
 ' ' Beneath the fervour of the noontide beam 
 All nature's works in placid stillness pause, 
 Save man and his joint-labourer, the horse, 
 The bee, and all the idly busy insect tribe." Grahame. 
 
 " It was noon, and in flowers that languished around, 
 In silence reposed the voluptuous bee." 
 
 It is Evening : 
 
 " The sun is low sinking behind the trees, 
 And crossing the path hum home the bees." Clare. 
 
 It is Sunday no day of rest for the little drudge and 
 the bee's hum sounds louder than usual, marking the 
 Sabbath with more audible canticles. So in Mary Hewitt's 
 
2 88 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 Sunday," when all else around bespeaks the seventh day, 
 the bee " hums in the clover," as if, from the contrasting 
 quiet of the fields and lanes, the absent cries of men at 
 work with their horses, of the shepherd and his dogs, the 
 creaking of deep-cutting wheels, the troubadour of the 
 flowers were in fuller voice. So too in Grahame's 
 "Sabbath." 
 It is Winter and 
 
 " The bees in hives idly wait, 
 The call of early Spring." Coivper. 
 
 A warm day in February tempts them forth : 
 
 " Sometimes, deceived by promise premature 
 Of spring's approach, or pinched by empty combs, 
 Forth from the hive some straggling bees will peep, 
 And buzzing on the outside of their porch 
 Will try their wings, but not attempt to fly." Grahame. 
 
 But Spring really comes : 
 
 " Winter is past the little bee resumes 
 Her share of sun and shade, and o'er the lea 
 Hums her first hymnings to the flowers' perfumes, 
 And wakes a sense of gratefulness in me." Clare. 
 
 " The empty bee, that lately bore 
 Into the common measure all her store, 
 Flies 'bout the painted fields with nimble wing, 
 Deflow'ring the fresh virgins of the Spring." Carew. 
 
 And so the Summer, " with its flowers and bees," when the 
 swarms " rush out in myriads and take wing," and moorland 
 and meadow and blossoming tree are musical with "the 
 murmuring of innumerable bees." 
 
 The "wild" bee of poetry is the humble-bee. Some- 
 times it is specified by name, as in Clare's " drone of heavy 
 humble-bees," and Cowper's " drone-pipe of heavy humble 
 bees," and in Carew's voice of spring that " wakes in hollow 
 tree the drowsie Cuckow and the Humble-bee." 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee" 289 
 
 Elsewhere it is only " the wild-bee," but there can be no 
 doubt of the insect intended " the bees that in the neigh- 
 bouring trunk make honey-hoards" (Coleridge), the "wild 
 bee voyaging deep-toned " (Grahame), whose " deep drowsy 
 murmurs pass, like a low thrill of harp-strings, through the 
 grass" (Mrs. Hemans), "with sudden buzz slung past the 
 ear" (Leyden) : 
 
 "the buzz 
 
 Angrily-shrill of moss-entangled bee, 
 
 That soon as loosed booms with full twang away." Hurdis. 
 
 There are in England many, more than a dozen, kinds of 
 " humble-bees," and two of these are mentioned by name 
 in verse. In " Midsummer Night's Dream " Bottom asks 
 Cobweb to " kill him a red-tipped humble-bee on the top of 
 a thistle : and good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag," and 
 in "Alls Well that Ends Well" it is the "red-tailed humble- 
 bee." This beautiful and familiar insect is the "lapidary" 
 bee, which builds by preference among or between stones. 
 It is an excitable insect, and fierce in defence of its home, 
 and is probably the bee referred to by Grahame. 
 
 " Should they find a sable swarm's retreat, 
 Deep-earthed, the mining spade must lay it bare ; 
 Nor unresisting do the inmates yield, 
 Their little state : forth at the first alarm 
 They swarming rush, and chacing in long train 
 The flying foe, deal sharp not deadly wounds ; 
 Rallied at length, the assailants to the charge, 
 With doublets doffed attack the stinging tribes." 
 
 Another is called the "yellow-banded and "yellow-girted," 
 and is the equally common "ground " humble-bee. Poets 
 have another variety, "the brown-bee," but I cannot 
 identify it. 
 
 ' ' The mower 
 Draws from the grass the brown-bee's honied nest." Leyden. 
 
 " The younger wights with busy eye explore 
 The foggage, where, concealed with mickle art, 
 The brown-bee's cups in rude formed clusters lie." Grahame. 
 
 T 
 
290 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 William Morris too has " o'er the bindweed the brown 
 bee passes." Or is this only another form of the " brown 
 bird," so frequent in his verse ? 
 
 There is also the " mountain-bee." For instance : 
 
 " When hums the mountain-bee in May's glad ear." Wordsworth, 
 
 ' ' The mountain-bee was roving with his minstrelsy across 
 The scented wild weeds." Campbell. 
 
 " Wild as a mountain-bee." Hurdis, 
 
 Can this be a poetic " variety " only, like the " mountain- 
 lark " (possibly an error in sound for " mounting lark," which 
 is so very common a phrase in verse), or " mountain- wolf," 
 as superadding a special " wildness " to the species ? 
 
 The "poetical" character of the bee is summed up 
 excellently in Churchill's " Gotham " : 
 
 " The hive is up in arms, expert to teach, 
 Nor proudly to be taught unwilling ; each 
 Seems from her fellow a new zeal to catch ; 
 Strength in her limbs, and on her wings despatch, 
 The bee goes forth ; from herb to herb she flies, 
 From flow'r to flow'r, and loads the lab'ring thighs, 
 With treasured sweets, robbing those flow'rs which, left, 
 Find not themselves made poorer by the theft. 
 Ne'er doth she flit on pleasure's silken wing, 
 Ne'er doth she loit'ring let the bloom of spring 
 Unrifled pass, and on the downy breast 
 Of some fair flower indulge untimely rest. 
 Ne'er doth she, drinking deep of those rich dews 
 Which chymist night prepared, that faith abuse 
 Due to the hive, and selfish in her toils, 
 To her own private use convert the spoils. 
 Love of the stock first called her forth to roam, 
 And to the stock she brings her booty home." 
 
 This loyalty finds frequent recognition. Thus in Crabbe 
 
 " Like wounded bees that at their home arrive, 
 Slowly and weak but labouring for the hive." 
 
 So in Gay's fable of " the degenerate bees," when certain 
 
Deborah: '" The Honey-Bee'' 291 
 
 members of the hive try to corrupt the community by de- 
 scribing the pleasures of idleness and luxury, "a stubborn 
 bee " gets up, and " with honest indignation warm " replies 
 to their base counsels ; 
 
 " Shall luxury corrupt the hive 
 And none against the torrent strive ? 
 Exert the honour of your race ; 
 He builds his rise on your disgrace. 
 'Tis industry our state maintains ; 
 'Twas honest toil and honest gains 
 That raised our sires to power and fame. 
 Be virtuous ; save yourselves from shame. 
 Know that in selfish ends pursuing, 
 You scramble for the public ruin." 
 
 "Vagrant" and ''vagabond" are, next to "busy" and its 
 synonyms, the most frequent epithets of the honey-seeking 
 bee, a libertine for the purpose chartered. It is a lover 
 with a roving commission, and as a trifler with the affections 
 of flowers, far more seriously detrimental than the butterfly, 
 the insect which is so perpetually being reproached by poets 
 for fickle love and wandering fancy. The simile of incon- 
 stancy is obviously on the surface, and at once suggested 
 by the habits of the bee ; but it is very curious that this 
 practical, prosaic, honey-grubbing little brown fly should live 
 in verse as a far more dangerous flirt than that gallant 
 brilliant courtier the butterfly, and be held up as a warning 
 to pretty blossoms of the dangers to be apprehended from 
 " deflowering " insects. As thus in Moore : 
 
 1 ' He. What the bee is to the flowret 
 When he looks for honey dew, 
 Through the leaves that close embower it, 
 That, my love, I'll be to you. 
 
 " She. What the bank with verdure glowing 
 Is to waves that wander near, 
 Whispering kisses, while they're going, 
 That I'll be to you, my dear. 
 
292 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 11 She. But they say the bee's a rover, 
 
 Who will fly when sweets are gone, 
 And, when once the kiss is over, 
 Faithless brooks will wander on. 
 
 ' ' He. Nay, if flowers will lose their looks, 
 If sunny bank will wear away, 
 'Tis but right that bees and brooks 
 Should sip and kiss them while they may." Moore. 
 
 ' ' Love the result is of all the graces 
 Which flow from a thousand several faces." Waller. 
 
 " With the bee he doth rejoice 
 Every minute to change choice, 
 Counting he were then in bliss, 
 If that each fair face were his." Greene. 
 
 Yet here and again, with an effort of fancy, this destroying 
 angel of the peace of flowers, the breaker of the hearts of 
 lilies, is spoken of as constant in love : 
 
 ' ' Thus, as the bee from bank to bower 
 Assiduous sips at every flower, 
 But rests on none till that be found 
 Where most nectareous sweets abound." Cowper. 
 
 " The bee through many a garden roves, 
 
 And hums his lay of courtship o'er ; 
 But when he finds the flower he loves, 
 
 He settles there and hums no more." Moore. 
 
 So it will be seen that in character the bee has violent 
 contrasts, now with honest music assiduous in toil, now 
 frivolously trifling with the innocence of virgin flowers. 
 As busy, it is held up to the idle grasshopper as an example, 
 otherwise it is lectured as listless, drowsy, vagrant. 
 
 Allan Ramsay describes the bee as a prig of the first 
 magnitude : 
 
 " Before her hive a paughty Bee 
 Observ'd a humble midding Flie, 
 
Deborah: " The Honey-Bee" 293 
 
 And proudly speer'd what brought her there, 
 
 And with what front she durst repair 
 
 Among the regents of the air. 
 
 ' It sets ye well,' the Flie reply'd, 
 
 ' To quarrel with sic saucy pride ! 
 
 They're daft indeed who've ought to do 
 
 With thrawn contentious fowk like you. ' 
 
 ' Why, scoundrel, you ! ' return'd the Bee, 
 
 ' What nation is sae wise as we ? 
 
 Best laws and policy is ours, 
 
 And our repast the fragrant flowers. 
 
 No sordid nasty trade we drive, 
 
 But with sweet honey fill the hive 
 
 Honey maist gratefu' to the taste, 
 
 On which the gods themselves may feast. 
 
 Out of my sight, vile wretch ! whose tongue 
 
 Is daily slacking throw the dung ; 
 
 Vile spirits, filthily content 
 
 To feed on stinking excrement ! ' 
 
 The Flie replied in sober way, 
 
 ' Faith, we maun live as well's we may. 
 
 Glad poverty was ne'er a vice, 
 
 But sure ill-natur'd passion is. 
 
 Your honey's sweet, but then how tart 
 
 And bitter's your malicious heart. 
 
 In making laws you copy heaven, 
 
 But in your conduct how uneven ! 
 
 To fash at ony time a fae, 
 
 Ye'll never stick yer'sells to slae, 
 
 And skaith yer'sell mair sickerly 
 
 Than e'er ye can your enemy. 
 
 At that rate ane had better have 
 
 Less talents, if they can behave 
 
 Discreet, and less their passions' slave.' " 
 
 The bee has no large place in classic tale or fable. 
 
 1 ' In such a palace Aristseus found 
 Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale 
 Of his lost bees to her maternal ear." 
 
 Cowper refers here to a legend that has many versions, 
 and though it is difficult and not a little impious to try 
 nowadays to decide which is right, the main facts appear 
 to be these. Aristaeus was a young prince who kept bees. 
 He fell in love with Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, and one 
 
294 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 day, in the prosecution of his suit, that is to say, when 
 chasing her across country, as appears to have been the 
 fashion of love-making in those days, the lady was so 
 stung by his bees that she died. Orpheus thereupon 
 appealed to the gods, who in response swept all the bees 
 off the face of Greece. Aristaeus complained to his mother, 
 who in turn appealed to her father, Proteus, who showed 
 the youth how to get back his beloved insects. He 
 sacrificed a number of fat kine to the ghost of Eurydice, and 
 from their carcases issued swarms of bees. 
 Hence Butler's lines : 
 
 " The learned write, an insect ' breeze ' 
 Is but a mongrel sort of bees, 
 That fall before a storm on cows, 
 And sting the founders of their house, 
 From whose corrupted flesh that breed 
 Of vermin did at first proceed." 
 
 That bees ballasted themselves with pebbles and other 
 make-weights when flying against the wind is an artifice 
 of which they share the credit with cranes. " Bees that 
 are employed in carrying off honey choose always to have 
 the wind with them if they can. If haply there do arise 
 a storm while they be abroad, they catch up some little 
 stony grit, to balance and poise themselves against the 
 wind. (Some say that they take it and lay it upon their 
 shoulders). And withal they fly low by the ground under 
 the wind when it is against them, and keep along the 
 bushes, to break the force thereof" all of which, except 
 the line in brackets, is an excellent description enough of 
 the flight of some of the carnivorous bees as they come 
 home laden with the numbed honey-bees, spiders, or cater- 
 pillars, with which they store their egg-cells, as food for 
 their grubs when hatched. 
 
 Once upon a time there was in France an Order of 
 the Mouche k Miel, and the oath taken by knights when 
 
Deborah: " The Honey- Bee" 295 
 
 joining was sufficiently curious. "I swear, by the bees 
 of Hymettus, to be loyal and obedient to the Directress 
 of the Order, to wear all my life the medal of the Fly, and 
 to fulfil, as long as I live, the statutes of the Order ; and, if 
 I am false to my oath, may honey turn in my mouth to gall, 
 wax in my hands to grease, the flowers I gather to nettles, 
 and may wasps and hornets be for ever stinging me." 
 
 In metaphor, simile, and moral, the poetic bee abounds. 
 Thus swarming suggests colonisation : 
 
 " Of Britain to invite her to cast off 
 Her swarms, and in succession send them forth." 
 
 " Their surcease grew so great, as forced them at last 
 To seeke another soyle (as Bees doe when they caste)." Drayton. 
 
 Young on the same simile introduces the key-and- 
 saucepan : 
 
 1 ' Each soul 
 
 That ever animated human clay 
 Now wakes, is on the wing ; and when, oh ! where 
 Will the swarm settle? When the trumpet's call 
 As sounding brass collects us, round Heaven's throne 
 Conglobed we bask in everlasting day 
 (Paternal splendour) and adhere for ever." 
 
 Its voice affords similes for populous haunts of man : 
 
 " And there the murmur of the neighbouring quay 
 Dwells like the humming of a drowsy bee." Faber. 
 
 " Bee-like, bubbling, busy hum 
 Of cities." Byron. 
 
 Sweet soft speech, mellifluous : 
 
 11 The working bees' soft melting gold, 
 That which the waxen mines enfold, 
 Flows not so sweet as do the tones 
 Of his 1 tuned accents." Crashaw. 
 
 Cupid's. 
 
296 The Poets and Nature. 
 
 " On his eloquent accents fed and hung 
 Like bees on mountain flowers." Shelley. 
 
 " Her words were like a stream of honey fleeting, 
 The which doth softly trickle from the hive." Spenser. 
 
 "Plus mellis quam fellis" was the appropriate motto of 
 the bee-crest of the eloquent St. Ambrose. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AARON'S rod, 66. 
 Adder (English), 41. 
 Analogies ; see Metaphor. 
 Anantas, 72. 
 
 Angling, Poets and, 1 1 7 seqq. 
 Ants, 161 scqq.; and mole-hills, 168. 
 Archaeopteryx, 22. 
 Asp, 37, 39- 
 
 BARBEL, 123. 
 
 Barnacles, 151. 
 
 Basilisk, 37, 66, 101. 
 
 Beelzebub, 64, 227; Satan, 57 ; 
 
 Lucifer, 64, 197. 
 Bees, 264 seqq. 
 Behemoth, 13, 137. 
 Bluebottle ; see Fly. 
 Boa, 39. 
 
 Book-worm, 223. 
 Bream, 123. 
 
 Bull-frogs, 96 ; Bull-toads, 103. 
 Bumble-bees ; see Humble-bees. 
 Butterflies, 161, 164, 178 seqq. 
 
 CARP, 115, 123. 
 Cantharis, 128. 
 
 Caterpillars, 162, 166, 185, 241. 
 Cattle and flies, 226. 
 Cerastes, 40. 
 Chameleon, 24-28. 
 Chub, 123. 
 
 Cleopatra and asp, 38, 71. 
 Cobra, 35. 
 
 Cobwebs, 6, 194, 196,203, 208 seqq. 
 Cockatrice, 37, 101. 
 Codfish, 114, 123. 
 Conger, 123. 
 
 Courtiers (vermin), 7, 8, 27, 217, 
 245- 
 
 Cowards (chameleons), 27. 
 
 Crab, 128 seqq. 
 
 Cricket, 235. 
 
 Critics, 3, 7, 8, 84, 198, 217. 
 
 Crocodile, 12 seqq.; King of, 15 ; 
 
 " zic-zac " and, 16. 
 Crustaceans, 145 seqq. 
 
 DACE, 124. 
 
 Darkness and poets, i8r, 182. 
 Davideis, the, 64. 
 Desolation, 39, 49, 245. 
 Dog-fish, 115. 
 Dolphins, 152 seqq. 
 Dory, 124. 
 Dragon-fly, 232. 
 Duplicates in sea of all land 
 animals, no. 
 
 EDEN, snake in, 57 seqq. 
 
 Eel, 124, 144. 
 
 Efts, 31. 
 
 Envy, 65, 79, 104. 
 
 Error, 8 1. 
 
 Errors (notable), 13, 14, 17, 32,39, 
 40, 43, 51, 66, 80, 98, 102, 
 138, 141, 143, 157, 165, 169, 
 178, 254, 278. 
 
 FAITHLESSNESS, 8, 82, 83, 85, 88, 
 
 219. 
 
 Fire-flies, 248. 
 Fish crests, 148. 
 Fish surnames, 148. 
 Fishes, 109 ; monstrous sea-things, 
 
 109 seqq. ; in legend, myth, 
 
 &c., 114; character of, 115; 
 
 of the angle, 117. 
 Flounder, 125. 
 
298 
 
 Index. 
 
 Flowers and snakes, 5> 5 1 ? 87 ; 
 
 and spiders, 205 ; and bees, 
 
 264 seqq. 
 
 Fly-spiderism, 204. 
 Flying-fish, 131, 134. 
 Frogs, 90 seqq. ; their croaking, 
 
 94 ; and fleur-de-lys, 95 ; 
 
 mute, 96; in myth, &c., 97; 
 
 in Arkansas, 258. 
 Furies, 69, 89. 
 
 GAD-FLY, 226, 231. 
 
 Gaiety a vice, 183. 
 
 Gallants, 26, 183 seqq.; see Women. 
 
 Glow-worm, 6, 252. 
 
 Golden grasshopper, 244. 
 
 Gorgons, 69, 89. 
 
 Gossamer ; see Cobwebs. 
 
 Grampus, 138. 
 
 Grasshopper, 235 seqq. 
 
 Grass-snake (English), 54, 8r. 
 
 Grayling 
 
 Gudgeon, 126. 
 
 HALIBUT, 126. 
 
 Herring, 126, 138. 
 
 Heraldic (Tortoise), 22 ; (Shell- 
 fish), 148; (Dolphin), 155; 
 (Bees), 273, 294, 296. 
 
 Honey, 271, 276, 282, 293. 
 
 Harlots, 84. 
 
 Humble-Bees, 265, 288 seqq. 
 
 Hypocrisy (Reptile), 4, 14. 
 
 ICHNEUMON-FLY, 233. 
 
 Indian (Snakes), 72, 78 ; (Croco- 
 diles), 13; (Tortoises) 18 ; 
 (Lizards), 26, 28; (Cobras), 
 35; (Flies), 28; (Grasshop- 
 pers), 237 ; (Bees), 281. 
 
 Insect, 8 seqq.^ 219. 
 
 Ireland, no spiders in, 202. 
 
 JEALOUSY, 65, 82. 
 
 Jesuits (vermin), &c., 3, 7, 8, 
 
 145, 245. 
 Jews, 212. 
 
 KATYDIDS, 258. 
 
 King of, Crocodiles, 15 ; of Her- 
 rings, 127; of Bees, 272. 
 
 LAMPREY, 114, 127. 
 
 Laocoon, 70. 
 
 Lamia, the, 47, 75. 
 
 Lawyers vermin, 7, 8, 84, 126, 197, 
 
 245- 
 
 Leviathan, 13. 68, 140. 
 Legends ; see Myths. 
 Lizards, 22 seqq. ; green, 28 ; 
 
 legends, 30. 
 Lobster, 128, 147. 
 Locust, 235. 
 Love, Lovers (Chameleon), 27, 83 ; 
 
 see Women. 
 Lucifer, 64. 
 Luminous creatures, 248. 
 
 MACKEREL, 127. 
 
 Maggots, 233, 234, 241. 
 
 Man, a reptile, vermin, &c., I, 7 
 seqq. 
 
 Marine monsters, 109. 
 
 May-fly, 232. 
 
 Mead, 282. 
 
 Medusa, 69, 89. 
 
 Metaphor and Simile (Rep- 
 tiles), 49 ; (Insects), 10 ; (Tor- 
 toises), 22; (Lizards), 24 
 seqq.; (Snakes), 49, 78 seqq, ; 
 (Toads), 104; (Ants and 
 Butterflies), 161, 172; 
 (Spiders), 196 ; (Flies), 215 
 seqq. ; (Grasshoppers), 244 
 seqq. ; (Glow-worms), 253 ; 
 (Bees), 272, 295, 
 
 Minnow, 127. 
 
 Misers (Ants), 175, 176; (Bees), 
 284. 
 
 Mole-hills and Ants, 168. 
 
 Moths, 178. 
 
 Mullet, 127. 
 
 Murex, 131. 
 
 Music (the First Lyre), 19. 
 
 Mute frogs, 96 ; fishes, 142. 
 
 Myths and Legends (Tortoise), 18 
 seqq. ; (Lizards), 28, 30 seqq.; 
 (Snakes), 5 1,55 seqq.; (Frogs), 
 94 seqq. ; (Toads), 101 ; (Sea- 
 monsters), 109 seqq., 124, 
 127, 132 seqq., 146, 153 
 seqq. ; (Ants), 177 ; (Spiders), 
 
Index, 
 
 299 
 
 201 ; (Grasshoppers), 237 
 seqq.; (Bees), 277, 293 seqq. 
 
 NAUTILUS, 131, 134. 
 Newts, 31. 
 
 Newspaper editor (Reptile), 4. 
 Nile mud, insect-producing, 9. 
 
 OTTER and Fish, 122. 
 Oysters, 130 seqq. 
 
 PADDOCK ; see Toad 
 
 Paradise, 57. 
 
 Parasites (vermin), 7, 8, 217. 
 
 Pearls, 149. 
 
 Perch, 128. 
 
 Pike, 28, 128. 
 
 Plagues of Egypt, 91, 228, 245. 
 
 Plants and snakes, 50, 51, 87 ; and 
 
 spiders, 205 ; and bees, 264 
 
 seqq. 
 
 Politicians (turncoat), 26, 198. 
 Pompilus, 132. 
 Porkpisce, 158. 
 Porpoise, 156 seqq. 
 Prawns, 148. 
 Pride, 81. 
 Puff-adder, 39. 
 Python, 68. 
 
 QUEEN-BEE, 267, 271-275. 
 
 RATTLESNAKES, 34, 38. 
 
 Red Indian (Myths), 18, 38, 
 
 242, 325. 
 
 Remora, 131, 133. 
 Remorse, 81, 215 seqq. 
 Reptiles, I seqq., 215. 
 Riches (insects), 8, 9. 
 Roach, 128. 
 Roses and snakes, 50 j and bees, 
 
 277. 
 Ruskin on snakes, 36. 
 
 SALMON, 118, 128, 129. 
 
 Sargus, 128. 
 
 Satan, and snakes, 57 seqq. ; Beel- 
 zebub, 64, 197, 227 ; Lucifer, 
 64, 196. 
 
 Scent of fishes, 125. 
 
 Sea-monsters, 109. 
 
 Seals, 112. 
 
 Servility (Reptile), 3, 4. 
 
 Shark, 114, 135, 143. 
 
 Shell-fish, 145 seqq. 
 
 Shells, 149. 
 
 Shesh, 72. 
 
 Shrimps, 148. 
 
 "Silver" Moths, 181, 189. 
 
 Simile ; see Metaphor. 
 
 Slander (Serpent), 79 ; (Moth), 
 182. 
 
 Snakes, 6, 33 seqq. ; blue, 40, 89 ; 
 errors as to stings, &c., 43 
 seqq.; harmless, 48 ; on wands, 
 48 ; character of, 49 ; move- 
 ments, 49; among flowers, 50; 
 plant antipathies of, 49, 51 ; 
 as wise in herbs, 52 ; tradi- 
 tions of, 55 seqq. ; in Eden, 
 57 ; crested, 43, 62, 68 ; cast- 
 ing skin, 45, 87 ; power of 
 fascinating, 46 ; leaping, 47 ; 
 in myths, &c., 69 ; in meta- 
 phor, &c., 78 seqq. ; as slimy, 
 45, 87. (See for each species 
 individually.) 
 
 Sole, 128. 
 
 Spiders, 194. 
 
 Sturgeon, 128. 
 
 Sycophants, 4, 7, 8, 217. 
 
 Sword-fish, 131, 135. 
 
 TADPOLES ; see Frog. 
 
 Tarantula, 202. 
 
 Tench, 129. 
 
 Toads, n, 97, 100 seqq., 220. 
 
 Toadstones, 101. 
 
 Toadstools, 105. 
 
 Torpedo, 135. 
 
 Tortoise, 16 seqq. ; legends and 
 
 myths of, 18. 
 Traditions ; see Myths. 
 Treason, 88, 219 ; see Faithless. 
 Treasure-finders and guardians, 
 
 78, 97- 
 
 Tree of Knowledge, 62, 63, 64. 
 Trout, 129. 
 Turbot, 128, 
 Turncoats, 26. 
 Turtle ; see Tortoise. 
 
300 
 
 Index. 
 
 UNFAIRNESS of poets, 4 seqq., n, 
 29, 193, 215; see Errors. 
 
 VERMIN, 7 seqq., 215, 219. 
 
 Viper ; see Adder. 
 
 Voices (Cetaceous), 142 ; (of Fish). 
 142 ; (Frogs), 93 ; (Toads), 
 106 ; (Grasshoppers, Crickets, 
 Locusts, &c.), 325 ; (Katydid 
 and Frogs), 259 ; (Bees), 265 
 seqq., 280, 287, 288 seqq. 
 
 WATER-SNAKES, 40. 
 Weaver fish, 129. 
 
 Whale (see Behemoth, Leviathan), 
 121, 137 seqq. 
 
 Whipsnake, 38. 
 
 Whiting, 129. 
 
 Wild bees, 265, 288 seqq. 
 
 Women, 22 ; (Chameleons), 27 ; 
 (and Snakes), 46, 48, 75, 
 84, 85 ; (and Butterflies), 183 ; 
 (and Spiders), 210; (and 
 Flies), 218; (Glow-worm), 
 252, 254; (and Bees), 284, 
 291. 
 
 ZIC-ZAC plover and crocodile, 16. 
 
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 Mr. Jervis. 
 
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 Gabriel Conroy. 
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 Maid of Athens. 
 
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 The Burnt Million. 
 
 The Word and the Will, 
 
 Under Two Flags. 
 Idalla. [Gage. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaines 
 Tricotrin. | Puck. 
 Folle Farine. 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 Pa'carel. | Signa. 
 Princess Napraxine. 
 Two Wooden Shoes. 
 
 The Family Scapegrace 
 A County Family. 
 Less Black than We're 
 
 Painted. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 In Peril and Privation. 
 Mystery of Mirbridge. 
 High Spirits. |By Proxy. ! 
 By WILL PAYNE.-Jerry the Dreamer. 
 
 Sunny Stories. 
 A Trying Patient. 
 A Modern Dick Whit- 
 tington. 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 
 Outlaw and Lawmaker. 
 Christina Chard. 
 
 ' As a Watch in the Night.' 
 By E. C. PRICE. -Valentina. 
 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 Miss Maxwell's Affections. 
 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 Peg Wofflngton ; and Griffith Gaunt. 
 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 Hard Cash. 
 Cloister <fc the Hearth. 
 Never Too Late to Mend 
 The Course of True 
 Love ; and Single- 
 heart <fc Dbubleface. 
 Autobiography of a 
 Thief; Jack of all 
 Trades ; A Hero and 
 a Martyr ; and The 
 Wandering Heir. Characters. 
 
 By FRANK RICHARDSON. 
 The Man who Lost His Past. 
 
 By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 Weird Stories, A Rich Man't ~ 
 
 Mrs. Tregaskiss. 
 Nulma. | Madame Izan. 
 
 . 
 
 Love Little, Love Long. 
 The Double Marriage. 
 Foul Play. 
 
 Put Y'rself in His Place 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 A Simpleton. 
 A Woman Hater. 
 The Jilt, & otherStories : 
 & Good Stories of Man. 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 Readiana ; and Bible 
 Characters. 
 
CHATTO & VVINDUS, Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 29 
 
 By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE 
 
 Like Ships upon Sea. I Mabels Progress. 
 Anne Furness. 
 
 By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 The Way we Live Now. I Scarborough's Family. 
 Frau Frohmann. The Land Leaguers. 
 
 Marion Fay. 
 
 By IVAN 1 TURGENIEFF, &c. 
 Stories from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN. 
 Choice Works. Pudd'nhead Wilson. 
 
 THE PICCADILLY (3/6) NOVKLS continued. 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES. 
 Barbara Bering. | Meriel. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 The Hands of Justice. | Woman in the Dark. 
 By ALBERT ROSS. -A Sugar Princess. 
 J. RUNCIMAN Skippers and Shellbacks. 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 Round the Galley Fire. My Shipmate Louise. 
 " lone onWide Wide Sea. 
 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 
 On the Fo'k'sle Head The Phantom Death. 
 
 A Voyage to the Cape. Is He the Man ? 
 
 Book for the Hammock. Good Ship 'Mohock.' 
 
 Mysteryof 'Ocean Star' The Convict Ship. 
 
 Jenny Harlowe. Heart of Oak. 
 
 An Ocean Tragedy. The Tale of the Ten. 
 
 A Tale of Two Tunnels. The Last Entry. 
 
 The Death Ship. 
 
 By DORA RUSSELL.-Driftol Fate. 
 By HERBERT RUSSELL. True Blue. 
 BAYLE ST. JOHN. -A Levantine Family. 
 
 By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
 Dr. Endicott s Experiment. 
 Under False Pretences. 
 By M. P. SHI EL. -The Purple Cloud. 
 By GEORGE R. SIMS. 
 
 In London's Heart 
 
 By 
 
 Dagonet Abroad 
 
 Once Upon a Christmas 
 
 Time. 
 
 Without the Limelight. 
 Rogues and Vagabonds. 
 
 Mary Jane's Memoirs. 
 Mary Jane Married. 
 The Small-part Lady. 
 A Blind Marriage. 
 
 The Outsider. 
 Beatrice & Benedick. 
 A Racing Rubber. 
 
 Biographs of Babylon. 
 
 By UPTON SINCLAIR.-prince Hagen. 
 
 By HAWLEY SMART. 
 
 Without Love or Licence ~ 
 The Master of Rathkelly. 
 irfxng Odds. 
 
 ByJ. MOYR SMITH. 
 
 The Prince of Argolis. 
 By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
 A Secret of the Sea. I A Minion of the Moon. 
 The Grey Monk. Secret Wyvern Towers. 
 
 The Master of Trenance The Doom of Siva. 
 The Web of Fate. ' As it was Written. 
 
 Th Strange Experiences of Mr. Verschoyie. 
 
 Her Ladyship. 
 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 A Fellow of Trinity. The Tremlett Diamonds. 
 The Junior Dean. The Wooing of May 
 
 Master of St.Benedict's. A Tragic Honeymoon. 
 To his Own Master. A Proctor s Wooing. 
 Gallantry Bower. Fortune's Gate 
 
 In Face of the World. Bonnie Maggie Lauder. 
 Orchard Darner el. Mary Unwrn. 
 
 Mrs. Dunbar's Secret. 
 
 By JOHN STAFFORD. -Doris and I 
 By R. STEPHENS.- The Cruciform Mark 
 
 By R. NE1LSON STEPHENS 
 Philip Winwood. 
 
 R. A. STERNDALE. The Afghan Knife 
 R. L. STEVENSON. The Suicide Club ' 
 
 By FRANK STOCKTON. 
 The Younc Master of Hyson Hall 
 By SUNDOWNER. Toldby the Taffrail. 
 By ANNIE THOMAS. -The Sirens Web 
 
 By BERTHA THOMAS. 
 Tha Violin- Player. | In a Cathedral City. 
 
 Library of Humour. 
 The Innocents Abroad. 
 Roughing It; and The 
 
 Innocents at Home. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 Th* American Claimant. 
 AdventuresToinSawyer 
 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Prince and the Pauper. 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Adventures of 
 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of King Arthur. 
 Stolen White Elephant. 
 
 Tom Sawyer Abroad. 
 
 Tom Sawyer. Detective 1,000.000 Bank-note. 
 
 A Double-barrelled Detective Story. 
 C. C. F.-TYTLER. Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 WhatShe CameThrough , Mrs Carmichael's God- 
 desses. 
 
 Buried Diamon 
 The Blackball Ghosts 
 The Macdonald Lass. 
 Witch-Wife. | Sapphira 
 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 The Queen against Owen. 
 
 By ALBERT D. VANDAM. 
 A Court Trageoy. 
 
 By E. A. VIZETELLY. 
 The Scorpion. | The Lover's Progress 
 
 By FLORENCE WARDEN. 
 Joan, the Curate. | A Fight to a Finish. 
 
 By CY WARMAN.-Express Me 
 
 By A. WERNER. 
 Chapenga's White Man. 
 
 ~Jy WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 
 Rachel Langton. 
 
 A Honeymoon's Eclipse. 
 
 A Younsjr Dragon. 
 
 essenger, 
 
 For Honour and Life. 
 A Woman Tempted Him 
 
 The Old Factory. 
 Red Ryvington 
 
 Ra'ph Norbreck's Trust 
 Trust-money. 
 Sons of Belial. 
 Roy of Roy's Court. 
 With the &ed Eagle. 
 A Red Bridal. 
 Strange Crimes. 
 
 Her Two Millions. 
 Two Pinches of Snuff. 
 Nigel Fortescue. 
 Birch Dene. 
 The Phantom City. 
 A Queer Bacd. 
 Ben Clough. 
 
 Her Ladyship's Secret. 
 By ATHA WESTBURY. 
 The Shadow of Hilton Fernbrook. 
 
 By FRED WHISHAW. 
 A Forbidden Name. 
 
 By C. J. WILLS. An Easy-going Fellow. 
 By JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 
 
 Cavalry Life ; and Regimental Legends. 
 By E. ZOLA. 
 
 The Joy of Life. | His Masterpiece. 
 
 The Fortune of the Rougons. 
 Abbe Mouret's Transgression. 
 The Conquest of Plassans. | Germinal. 
 The Honour of the Army. 
 The Downfall. I His Excellency. 
 
 The Dream. I Money. I The Dram Shop. 
 Dr. Pascal. | Lourdes. Rome. I Paris. | Work 
 The Fat and the Thin | Fruitfulness. \ Truth.' 
 By ' ZZ. 'A Nineteenth Century Miracle. 
 
 CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS. 
 
 Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 25. each. 
 By ARTEMUS WARD. By GRANT ALLEN. 
 
 Philistia. | Babylon 
 Strange Stories. 
 For Maimia's Sake. 
 In all Shades. 
 Tha Beckoning Hand. 
 
 Artemus Ward Complete. 
 
 By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 
 Maid, Wiie. or Widow ? I A Life Interest. 
 Blind Fate. Mona's Choice. 
 
 Valerie s Fata. | By Woman's Wit. 
 
 By E. LESTER ARNOLD. 
 Phra the Phoenician. 
 
 oning j 
 
 The Devil's Die. 
 The Tents of Shera 
 The Great Taboo. 
 
 Dumares'q's Daughter. 
 Duchess of Powysland. 
 Blood Royal. [piece. 
 Ivan Greet's Master- 
 The Scallywag. 
 This Mortal Coil. 
 At Market Value. 
 Under Sealed Orders. 
 
30 CHATTO & WINDUS, Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 TWO-SHILLING NOVELS continued. 
 BY FRANK BARRETT. 
 
 Fettered for Life. 
 Little Lady Linton. 
 Between Life <fe Death. 
 Sin of Olga Zassoulich. 
 Folly Morrison. 
 Lieut. Barnabas. 
 Honest Davie. 
 A Prodigal's Progress. 
 Bv Sir W. BESANT and J. RICE. 
 
 By Celia's Arbour. 
 
 Chaplain of the Fleet. 
 
 The Seamy Side. 
 
 TheCaseofMr.Lucraft. 
 
 In. Trafalgar's Bay 
 
 Found Guilty. 
 A Recoiling Vengeance. 
 For Lova and Honour. 
 John Ford, &c. 
 Woman of IronBrace'ts 
 The Hardin* Scandal. 
 A Missing Witness. 
 
 r>y sir VY . E>cof 
 
 Ready- Money Mortiboy 
 My Little Girl. 
 
 With Harp and Crown, 
 This Son of Vulcan. 
 
 The Golden Butterfly. .1.* .1..... ,-. .,. 
 
 The Monks of Thelema. ! The Ten Years' Tenant. 
 
 By Sir WALTER BESANT. 
 AH Sorts and Condi- The Bell of St. Paul's. 
 
 tions of Men. 
 The Captains' Room. 
 All in a Garden Fair. 
 Dorothy Forster. 
 
 The Holy Rose. 
 Armorel of Lyonesse. 
 S.Kabherine's by Tower 
 Verbena Camellia Ste- 
 phanotis. 
 
 Uncle Jack. 
 
 The World Went Very 
 
 Well Then. 
 Children of Gibeon. 
 Herr Taulus. 
 For Faith and Freedom. 
 To Call Her Mine. 
 
 The Master Craftsman. 
 
 By AMBROSE B1ERCE. 
 In the Midst of Life. 
 
 By FREDERICK. BOYLE. 
 Camp Notes. I Chronicles of No-man'i 
 
 Savage Life. I Land. 
 
 BY BRET HARTE. 
 
 . 
 
 The Ivory Gate. 
 The Rebel Queen. 
 Beyond the Dreams of 
 
 Avarice. 
 
 The Revolt of Man. 
 In Deacon's Orders. 
 The City of Refuge. 
 
 Californian Stories. 
 Gabriel Conroy. 
 Luck of Roaring Camp. 
 An Heiress of Red Dog 
 
 Flip. I Maruja. 
 
 A Phyllis of the Sierras. 
 A Waif of the Plains. 
 Ward of Golden Gate. 
 
 By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 
 
 The Martyrdom of Ma- 
 deline. 
 
 The New Abelard. 
 The Heir of Linne. 
 Woman and the Man. 
 Rachel Dene. | Matt. 
 Lady Kilpatrick. 
 
 Shadow of the Sword. 
 A Child of Nature. 
 God and the Man. 
 Love Me for Ever. 
 Foxglove Manor. 
 The Master of the Mine. 
 
 Annan Water. 
 
 By BUCHANAN and MURRAY. 
 The Charlatan. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. 
 The Shadow of a Crime, j The Deemster. 
 A Son of Hagar. | 
 
 By Commander CAMERON. 
 The Cruise of the 'Black Prince.' 
 
 By HAYDEN CARRUTH. 
 The Adventures of Jones. 
 
 By AUSTIN CLARE. 
 For the Love of a Lass. 
 
 By Mrs. ARCHER CLIVE. 
 
 Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife. 
 
 By MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 
 The Cure of Souls. 
 By WILKII 
 
 Annadale. \ AfterDark. 
 No Name. 
 Antonina. 
 Basil. 
 Hide and Seek. 
 The Dead Secret. 
 Queen of Hearts. 
 
 1 me neo. BWIMIB. 
 J COLLINS. 
 
 My Miscellanies. 
 The Woman in White. 
 The Moonstone. 
 Man and Wife. 
 Poor Mies Finch. 
 The Fallen Leaves. 
 Jezebel's Daughter. 
 
 For Lack of Gold. 
 What will World Say ? 
 In Love and War. 
 For the King. 
 In Pastures Green. 
 Queen of the Meadow. 
 A Heart's Problem. 
 The Dead Heart. 
 By WILLIA 
 
 me Jtsraes 01 iarri 
 The Golden Shaft. 
 Of High Degree. 
 By Mead and Strei 
 Loving a Dream. 
 A Hard Knot. 
 Heart's Delight. 
 Blood-Money. 
 !Yl GILBERT. 
 
 Miss or Mrs.? 
 
 The Black Robe. 
 
 
 The New Magdalen. 
 
 Heart and Science. 
 
 neS By ERNEST GLANVILLE 
 
 The Frozen Deep. 
 The Law and the Lady 
 
 ' I Say No ! ' 
 The Evil Genius. 
 
 The Lost Heiress. 1 The Foasicker. 
 
 The Two ijestinies. 
 The Haunted Hotel. 
 A Rogue's Life. 
 
 Little Novels. 
 I.niracy of Cain. 
 Blind Love. 
 
 A Fag Colon^t. ^ BARINQ QQULD 
 Bed Spider. Eve. 
 
 By C. ALLSTON COLLINS. 
 
 The Ear Sinister. 
 By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS 
 
 Sweet Anne Page. 
 
 Transmigration. 
 From Midnight to Mid 
 night. 
 
 Sweet and Twenty. 
 The Village Comedy. 
 You Play me False. 
 ksmith 
 
 Blac 
 Frances. 
 
 and Scholar 
 
 night. 
 A Fight with Fortune. 
 
 By M. J. COLQUHOUN. 
 Every Inch a Soldier. 
 
 By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. 
 
 By MATT CRIM. 
 The Adventures of a Fair Rebel. 
 By H. N. CRELLIN. -Tales of the Caliph. 
 
 By B. M. CROKER. 
 Pretty Miss Neville. Village Tales and Jungle 
 Diana Barrington. Tragedies. 
 
 To Let.' Two Masters. 
 
 A Bird of Passage. Mr. Jervis. 
 
 Proper Pride. The Real Lady Hilda. 
 
 A Family Likeness. Married or Single ? 
 A Third Person. interference. 
 
 By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 The Evangelist ; or, Port Salvation. 
 
 By JAMES DE MILLE. 
 A Strange Manuscript. 
 
 By DICK DONOVAN. 
 The Man-Hunter. In the Grip of the Law. 
 
 Tracked and Taken. From Information Re- 
 
 Caught at Last I ceived. 
 
 Wanted ! Tracked to Doom. 
 
 Who Poisoned Hetty Link by Link 
 
 Duncan ? Suspicion Aroused. 
 
 Man from Manchester. Riddles Read. 
 A Detective s Triumphs 
 The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace. 
 The Chronicles of Michael Danevitch. 
 
 By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES. 
 A Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell. 
 By EDWARD EGGLESTON. 
 
 lOXy ' By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 The New 'Mistress. I The Tiger Lily. 
 
 Witness to the Deed. | The White Virgin. 
 By PERCY FITZGERALD. 
 
 Bella Donna. 
 Never Forgotten. 
 Polly. 
 Fatal Zero. 
 
 Second Mrs. Tillotson. 
 Seventy - five Brooke 
 
 Street. 
 The Lady of Brantome 
 
 By P. FITZGERALD and others. 
 
 , .v. 3,. FRANCILLON. 
 
 Olympia. King or Knave? 
 
 One by One. Romances of the Law, 
 
 A Real Queen. Ropes of Sand. 
 
 Queen Cophetua. A og and his Shadow 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC. 
 Seth's Brother's Wife. I The Lawton Girl. 
 Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE. 
 P^H. AR 
 
 Gray. 
 
 ree' 
 For Lack of Gold. The Braes of Yarrow. 
 
CHATTO & WiNDUS. Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 31 
 
 Love or a Hame. 
 
 David Poindcxter's Dis- 
 appearance 
 
 The Spectre 
 Camera. 
 
 of the 
 
 TWO-SHILLING NOVELS continued. 
 
 By ANDREW HALLIDAY. 
 
 Every-day Papers. 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY. 
 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Garth. - 
 
 Ellice Quentin. 
 
 Fortune B Fool. 
 
 Miss Cadogna. 
 
 Dust. 
 
 Beatrix Randolph. 
 
 By Sir ARTHUR HELPS. 
 
 Ivan de Biron. 
 
 By G. A. HENTY. 
 
 Rnjub the Juggler. 
 
 By HEADON HILL. 
 
 Zambra the Detective. 
 
 By JOHN HILL. 
 
 Treason Felony. 
 
 By Mrs. CASHEL HOEY. 
 
 The Lover's Creed. 
 
 By Mrs. GEORGE HOOPER. 
 
 The House of Raby. 
 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD. 
 
 Lady Verner's Flight. 
 
 The Red-House Mystery 
 
 The Three Graces. 
 
 Unsatisfactory Lover. 
 
 Lady Patty. 
 
 Nora Creina. 
 
 Professor's Experiment. 
 By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT. 
 That Other Person. I The Leaden Casket. 
 Self-Condemned. 
 
 By MARK KERSHAW. 
 
 Colonial Facts and Fictions. 
 
 By R. ASHE KING. 
 
 A Drawn Game. I Passion 3 Slave. 
 
 ' The Wearing of the Bell Barry. 
 
 By EDMOND LEPELLETIER 
 
 Madame Sans-Gene. 
 
 By JOHN LEYS. 
 
 The Lindsays. 
 
 By E. LYNN LINTON. 
 
 A Maiden all Forlorn. 
 
 In Durance Vile. 
 
 Marvel. 
 
 A Mental Struggle. 
 
 A Modern Circe. 
 
 April's Lady. 
 
 Peter's Wife. 
 
 Patricia Remball. 
 
 The World Well Lost. 
 
 Under which Lord ? 
 
 Paston Carew. 
 
 My Love / ' 
 
 lone. 
 
 With a Silken Thread 
 
 By HENRY W. LUCY. 
 
 Gideon Fieyce. 
 
 By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 
 
 Tho Atonement of Learn 
 
 Dundas. 
 
 Rebel of the Family. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 The One Too Many. 
 Dulcie Everton. 
 
 Donna Quixote. 
 Maid of Athens. 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. 
 
 Waterdale Neighbours. _...,. . ,. 
 
 My Enemy's Daughter The Comet of a Se 
 
 A Fair Saxon. The Dictator 
 
 Linley Rochford. Red Diamonds. 
 
 Miss Misanthrope. The Riddle Ring 
 
 Camiola 
 
 By HUGH MACCOLL. 
 Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 
 Heather and Snow. 
 
 By AGNES MACDONELL. 
 
 Quaker Cousins. 
 
 By W. H. MALLOCK. 
 
 The New Republic. 
 
 By BRANDER MATTHEWS 
 
 A Secret of the Sea. 
 
 By L. T. MEADE. 
 
 A Soldier of Fortune. 
 
 By LEONARD MERRICK. 
 
 The Man who was Good. 
 
 By Mrs. MOLESWORTH. 
 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
 By J. E. MUDDOCK 
 
 Stories Weird and Won- 
 
 derful. 
 The Dead Man's Secret. 
 
 From the Bosom of the 
 Deep. 
 
 A B ?TP' CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 A Model Father. A Bit of Human Nature 
 
 Joseph's Coat. First Person Singular ' 
 
 Coal* of Fire. Bob Martin's LisSeOirl. 
 
 Val Strange. | Hearts. Time's Revenges 
 
 Old Blazer s Hero. A Wasted Crime 
 
 The Way of the World In Direst Peril ' 
 
 Cynic Fortune. Mount Despair. 
 
 A Life s Atonement. A Capful o' Nails 
 By the Gate of the Sea. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERMAN. 
 
 One Traveller Returns. I The Bishops' Bible 
 Paul Jones's Alias. 
 
 By HUME NISBET. 
 Bail Up I I Dr.Bernard St. Vincent 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS. 
 Saint Ann's. | Billy Bellew. 
 
 By GEORGES OHNET. 
 pr Rameau. I A Weird Gift. 
 
 A Last Love. 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 Whiteiadies. I The Greatest Heiress in 
 
 The Primrose Path. . | England. 
 
 Held in Bondage. 
 
 Strathmore. 
 
 Chandos. 
 
 Idalia. 
 
 Under Two Flags. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine sGage 
 
 Tricotrin. 
 
 Puck. 
 
 Folle Farine. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 
 Fascarel. 
 
 Signa. 
 Prince 
 
 JIDA. 
 
 Two Lit. Wooden Shoes 
 Moths. 
 Bimbi. 
 Pipistrello. 
 A Village Commune. 
 Wanda 
 Othmar 
 Frescoes. 
 In Maremmji. 
 Guilderoy. 
 Ruffino. 
 Syrlin. 
 
 Santa Barbara. 
 Two Offenders. 
 Ouida's Wisdom, Wit, 
 and Pathos. 
 
 Princess Nanraxine. 
 In a Winter City. 
 Ariadne. 
 Friendship. 
 
 _ By MARGARET AGNES PAUL. 
 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 
 The Romance of a Station. 
 The Soul of Countess Adrian. 
 
 Murphy's Master. 
 
 A County Family. 
 
 At Her Mercy. 
 
 Cecil's Tryst. 
 
 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 The Foster Brothers. 
 
 Found Dead. 
 
 The Best of Husbands. 
 
 Walter's Word. 
 
 Halves. 
 
 Fallen Fortunes. 
 
 Humorous Stories. 
 
 200 Reward. 
 
 A Marine Residence. 
 
 Mirk Abbey 
 
 By Proxy. 
 
 Under One Roof. 
 
 High Spirits. 
 
 Carlyons Year. 
 
 From Exile. 
 
 For Cash Only. 
 
 The Canon's Ward. 
 
 The Talk of the Town. 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 A Perfect Treasure. 
 What He Cost Her. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 Glow-worm Tales. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 Sunny Stories. 
 Lost Sir Massmgberd. 
 A Woman's Vengeance. 
 The Family Scapegrace. 
 Gwendoline's Harvest 
 Like Father, Like Son. 
 Married Beneath Him. 
 Not Wooed, but Won 
 Less Black than We ra 
 
 Painted. 
 
 Some Private Views 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 The Mystery of Mir- 
 
 bridge. 
 
 The Word and the Will. 
 A Prince of the Blood. 
 A Trying Patient. 
 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 
 Miu Maxwell Affections. 
 
32 CHATTO & VV1NDUS, Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 TWO-SHTLLI NO NOVELS continued. 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 
 It is Never Too Late to 
 
 Mend. 
 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 The Double Marriage. 
 Put Yourself in ~ His 
 
 Place 
 Love Me Little, Love 
 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 
 Foul Play. 
 
 The Wandering Heir. 
 
 Hard Cash. 
 
 Singlehcartand Double- 
 lace. 
 
 Good Stories of Man and 
 other Animals. 
 
 Peg Womngton. 
 Griffith Gaunt. 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 A Simpleton. 
 
 Me Long. 
 The Cloister and the 
 
 Hearth. 
 
 Course of True Love 
 The Jilt. 
 Th Autobiography of Readiana. 
 
 a Thief. I A Woroan-Hater. 
 
 By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 Weird Stories. i The Uninhabited House. 
 
 Fairy Wjiter. The Mystery in Palace 
 
 Her Mother's Darling. | Gardens. 
 The Prince of Wales a The Nun's Curse. 
 
 Garden Party. Idle Talcs. 
 
 By P. W. ROBINSON. 
 Women are Strange. I The Woman in the Dark 
 The Hands of Justice. | 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 Round the Galley Fire. 
 
 On the Fo'k sle Head. 
 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 
 A Book for the Ham- 
 mock. 
 
 The Mystery of the 
 ' Ocean Star.' 
 
 The Romance of Jenny 
 Harlowe. 
 
 By DORA RUSSELL. 
 
 A Country Sweetheart. 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 
 Gaslight and Daylight. 
 
 By GEORGE R. SIMS. 
 
 An Ocean Tragedy. 
 My Shipmate Louise. 
 Alone onWideWide Sea 
 Good Ship ' Mohock. 1 
 The Phantom Death. 
 Is He the Man? 
 Hlart of Oak. 
 The Convict Ship. 
 The Tale of the Ten. 
 The Last Entry. 
 
 Zeph. 
 
 Memoirs of a Landlady. 
 Scenes from the Show. 
 The 10 Commandments. 
 Dagonet Abroad. 
 Rogues and Vagabonds. 
 
 The Ring o Bells 
 Mary Jane's Memoirs. 
 Mary Jane Married. 
 Tales of To-day. 
 Dramas of Life. 
 Tinkletop's Crime. 
 My Two Wives. 
 
 By HAWLEY SMART. 
 Without Love or Licence. I The Plunger 
 Beatrice and Benedick. Long Odds. 
 The Master of Rathkelly. | 
 
 By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
 The Mysteries of Heron 
 
 Dyke. 
 
 The Golden Hoop. 
 Hoodwinked. 
 By Devious Ways. 
 
 Back to Life. 
 
 The LoudwaterTragedy 
 
 Burgo s Romance. 
 
 Quittance in Full. 
 
 A Husband from the Sea 
 
 Orchard Damerel. 
 IntheFaceoft)iWorld. 
 The Tremlett Diamonds 
 
 By ARTHUR SKETCHLEY. 
 A Match in the Dark. 
 
 By R. A. STERNDALE. 
 
 The Afghan Knife. 
 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 
 A Fellow of Trinity. 
 The Junior Dean. 
 Manterof St.Benedicfs 
 To His Own Master. 
 
 By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 New Arabian Nights. 
 
 By ROBERT 5URTEES. 
 Handley Cross. 
 
 By WALTER THORNBURY. 
 Tales for the Marines. 
 
 By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 
 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
 By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE. 
 
 Like Ships 
 Sea. 
 
 upon the 
 
 .ue Furness. 
 Mabel's Progress. 
 
 By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 Frau Frohmann. The American Senator. 
 
 Marion Fay. 
 Kept in the Dark. 
 The Way We Live Now. 
 The Land-Leaguers. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN. 
 
 Mr. Scarborough's 
 
 Family. 
 GoldenLion of Granpere 
 
 A Pleasure Trip on the 
 
 Continent. 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 Tom Sawyer. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 Stolen White Elephant. 
 
 By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. 
 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 
 Bride's Pass j Lady Bell The Huguenot Family 
 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Prince and the 
 
 Pauper. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of King Arthur. 
 1,000,000 Bank-Not. 
 
 The Blackball Ghosts 
 What She Came Through 
 Beauty and the Beast. 
 
 Buried Diamonds. 
 St. Mungo's City. 
 Noblesse Oblige. 
 Disappeared. 
 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 The Queen against Owen. 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 Trust-Money. 
 
 By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON. 
 A Child Widow. 
 
 By J. S. WINTER. 
 Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legend*. 
 
 By H. F. WOOD. 
 The Passenger from Scotland Yard. 
 The Englishman of the Rue Cain. 
 
 By MARGARET WYNMAN. 
 My Flirtations. 
 
 NEW SERIES OF TWO 
 
 Picture cloth. 
 The Constable of St. Nicholas. By EDWIN 
 
 LF.STEK ARNOLD. 
 St. Katherine's by the Tower. By Sir WALTER 
 
 I5KSANT. 
 
 Aiuslie's Ju Ju. By HAROLD BINDLOS*. 
 Dora Myrl, the Lady Detective. By McD. 
 
 BODKIN, K.C. 
 
 Vincent Trill, Detective. By DICK DONOVAN. 
 
 Dark Deeds. By DICK DONOVAN. 
 
 A Crimson Crime. By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 
 The Red Shirts. By PAUL GAULOT. 
 
 The Track of a Storm. By OWEN HALL. 
 
 The Luck of Roaring Camp ; and Sensation Novels 
 
 Condensed. By BRF.T HARTH. 
 In a Hollow of the Hills. By BRH,T HARTE. 
 Colonel Starbottle's Client. By BRET HARTE. 
 A Protegee of Jack Hamlin'a. By BRET HARTE. 
 A Sappho of Green Springs. By BRET HARTE. 
 The Lady from Nowhere. By FERGUS HUME. 
 Plotters of Paris. By EDMUND MITCHELL. 
 The Temple of Death. By EDMUND MITCHELL. 
 
 SHILLING NOVELS. 
 
 flat backs. 
 
 Towards Eternal Snows. By E. MITCHELL. 
 
 TBC Luck of Gerard Ridgeley. By BERTRAM 
 
 M7TFORD. 
 
 The King's Assegai. By BERTRAM MITFORD. 
 
 Maid Marian and Robin Hood. Bv J.E.MUDDOCK 
 
 His Own Ghost. By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 Syrlin. By OUIDA. 
 
 The Waters of Edera. By OUIDA. 
 
 A Modern Dick Whittington. By JAMES PAYN. 
 
 The Drift of Fate. By DOKA RUSSELL. 
 
 A Country Sweetheart. By DORA RUSSELL. 
 
 In London s Heart. By G. "R. Si M. 
 
 The Young Master of Hyson Hall. By FRANK 
 
 STOCKTON. With 36 Illustration?. 
 The Tale of the Serpent. By SUNDOWNER. 
 Citoyenne Jacqueline. By SARAH TYTLF.R. 
 The Queen against Owen. By ALLF.N UPWARD. 
 Joan, the Curate. By FLORENCE WARDEN. 
 Sport and Spangles. By BYRON WEBBER. 
 Cavalry Life ; and Regimental Legends. By 
 
 JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LTD., Printers, 27, Pilgrim Street, London, E.C, 
 
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