TEEE- AND GRASSHOPPERS ALIKE WELCOME. 



deep the damage they effected, direful was the penalty they 

 had to pay ; when boiled, and their green coats reddened, like 

 those of lobsters or of shrimps, they were served up, zfriand 

 repas, a dainty dish, to porkers. Returning again to our theme : 



" The shepherd gladly heareth thee, 

 More harmonious than he ; 

 Thee country hinds with gladness hear, 

 Prophet of the ripened year !" 



The Grecian lyrist, and the Grecian shepherd, and the Gre- 

 cian hind, were all accustomed, doubtless, to welcome with 

 becoming joyfulness the earliest strains of their summer tree- 

 hopper, which, however intrinsically harsh, would seem, in 

 their ears, full fraught with melody, as singing of verdure 

 present, and of golden stores to come, wherein they were each 

 to have his portion. So with our grasshopper; his petty 

 larcenies overlooked or forgiven, his merry chirpings might 

 sound, perhaps, no less cheery of promise in the ear of Eng- 

 lish peasant, were it not, alack ! that they can meet so seldom 

 with cheerful echoes in his heart. 



AYe know not how it was with the Damons and the Phillises 

 of our golden age (if they, or it, ever existed save in fable) ; 

 but in these, our iron times, what shepherd or what hind (of 

 poets we say nothing) can have an ear for chirp of merry 

 grasshopper, or song of joyous bird, or bleat of playful 

 lambkin, when the cry of starving children follows him each 

 morning from his sorry threshold, and each evening meets him 



