CLEANLINESS OF THE SPIDER. 291 



materials for a work published in 1797, on Arachnology, or 

 the art of interpreting weather from the webs and motions of 

 the spider race ; while in times more recent, " itna lella 

 ragna," on his dungeon wall, became the pet of Silvio Pellico. 

 The above and like instances are worth considering. If we 

 wonder how the web of a spider can hang secure, supporting 

 its own weight and that of its occupant on a single line, with 

 no other point of attachment but the bare surface of a wall, 

 must we not infinitely more admire how the heart of man can 

 cling for support to objects most trifling, uncongenial, and 

 repulsive ? So let us not deem anything in creation without 

 its moral as well as natural use, seeing that even a spider's 

 thread (to speak figuratively) has been strengthened into a 

 tough cable, helping to preserve from utter shipwreck the 

 mind of a poor prisoner when tossing on that sapping ocean of 

 solitude, which has engulfed some in inanition or in madness. 

 To return to the virtues of Arachne, we shall close our list 

 of her recommendable qualities by that of cleanliness, wherein 

 she rivals even her direst enemy of the broom, even the 

 worthiest descendant of such assiduous maidens as were wont, 

 in the days of Faery, to receive ever and anon a silver recom- 

 pense in the shape of " a sixpence in their shoe." As such a 

 maiden, with her carpet and her curtains, for ever sweeping 

 and shaking, and thereto adding the personal propriety of 

 never failing to " clean herself ' when her work is over, so 

 does the domestic spinner with her web, shaking it and 



