ODE OP ANACREON. 



Grecian poet chose the grasshopper, so eminently a creature 

 of life, living through every hour of its single summer, as a 

 representative of surpassing bliss, deserving the apostrophe of 



" Happy insect ! what can be 

 In happiness compared to thee ?" 



But know you not, says the entomologist, that these lines 

 of Anacreon have been only by error and mistranslation as- 

 signed to the English grasshopper, at cost of the Grecian 

 tree-hopper, to whom they properly belong ? True ; but if 

 we examine, somewhat entomoloyicallt/, the well-known ode 

 commencing with the above couplet, we shall perhaps find 

 that each of the attributes, real or figurative, which it assigns 

 to the classic songster of the tree, suit as well, and some 

 of them much better, our rustic songster of the grass. 



We may notice in the first place, that the tree-hopper, 

 called by the Greeks Tettlx, by the Latins Cicada, received 

 also from the former the title of " Earth-born/' a title lofty 

 in its lowliness, because it was an implied acknowledgment 

 from men of Athens and of Arcadv of a common origin with 



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themselves an admission that the insect was their brother, 

 sprung (as they fabled) from the earth, their common parent, 

 whence, also, they wore golden tree-hoppers in their hair. 

 The Grecians would have learnt, however, by a little closer 

 observation, that instead of springing full-formed from the 

 ground, as their goddess Minerva full-armed from the pa- 

 rental head, the infant tree-hopper was accustomed to emerge 



