SYMBOL OF THE SORDID. 115 



beetle ? Like it, are they not for ever toiling, from rise to set 

 of sun, to amass and roll together their corrupt riches ? And 

 for what purpose ? Not to diffuse, but to bury them, even as the 

 beetle, in the earth of their sordid selfishness. Sometimes, like 

 them, they may amass also for the benefit of offspring off- 

 spring, perhaps, with inherited instincts for sordid accumulation 

 chips of the old block, who, when they come after, continue 

 to roll on, in the same useless heaps, the same filthy lucre, 

 which in wide and generous distribution would become as 

 manure to fertilize the soil. 



Verily, shade of Sir Thomas Gresham, tlion princely mer- 

 chant ! save but for respect for thee, and for the remnant of 

 noble traders which, with the baser sort, are now wont to as- 

 semble in the modern halls surmounted by thy ancient grass- 

 hopper, we would even tear down that classic, youthful, 

 rural, mirth-loving insect, and set up, in its stead, a gigantic 

 Scarabseus, which, stripped of its fabulous, but clothed in all 

 its veracious attributes, would be, of all symbols, most appro- 

 priate to surmount a temple of Mammon. 



But if we spare the grasshopper, we would venture to sug- 

 gest, for the edifice in question, another Scarabsean finish, 

 which, however little ornamental, might be of infinite use. On 

 some conspicuous station, grinning grimly at the grasshopper 

 (the Athenian emblem of perpetual youth), we would elevate a 

 great black effigy, not oftheScarafaussacer, but of the " church- 

 yard beetle/'' in the form of a huge vane, so thai, whenever 



