2l8 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



sively it lies upon the palm of my hand. Nay, do not 

 glance at it so contemptuously, but think think O think 

 what a glorious and immortal Sermon could be preached 

 upon this living Text, could we but find a Poet-Preacher 

 to expound it from the Laws of Nature as the Immortal 

 Bard of Avon might have done had he known as much 

 concerning it as what we since his time have learned. 

 Think what he might and could have said thereon ; he that 



could feel, and has said that 



" The poor beetle that we tread upon 

 In corp'ral sufferance feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies." (a) 



(a) I must not permit the reader to take the above quotation in 

 the sense in which, apparently, it is put. 



In " An Essay on the Beneficent Distribution of the Sense of 

 Pain," by G. A. Rowell (Oxford, 1857), that writer says: "It is a 

 very general opinion that death, under any circumstances, must be the 

 cause of pain ; and that even the smaller insects, when dying, are sus- 

 ceptible of pain in a high degree. Shakespeare is often quoted in sup- 

 port of this idea ; and we are often told with great pathos, that 



The poor beetle which we tread upon, 

 In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies. 



Had Shakespeare written these lines in the sense in which they are 

 usually quoted, he would have appeared as a very indifferent naturalist ; 

 but it is a libel on the memory of the great poet of nature so to 

 quote them. The lines occur in Measure for Measure, in the scene 

 where Isabella, in persuading her brother to submit to his fate with 

 fortitude, says : 



The sense of death is most in apprehension; 

 And the poor beetle, &c. 



It is evident that (taking the whole passage) Shakespeare's meaning 

 was, not that the pain of death in the beetle is great, but that it is 

 little or nothing in man. And there can be no doubt, that this is a 

 correct view of the question ; for, however painful the causes producing 

 death may be, there are ample proofs that no actual pain occurs from 

 death itself." 



