85 
King Lear, Act IV., sc. 6; Romeo and Juliet, Act IL, se. 8, and Act IL, se. A; 
Hamlet, Act IL, sc. 2, Act IV., se. 3, Act V., se. 1, and Act V., se. 2, and Titus 
Andronicus, Act IV., se. 1. 
CoLEOPTERA.—Shakespeare’s allusions to beetles are very fine and telling. 
_ What can be more so than this: 
Ere to black Hecate’s summons 
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hum 
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done 
A deed of dreadful note. 
Macbeth, Act ITTI., se. 4. 
The expression “shard-borne,” is not quite correct. The elytra of the beetle 
are uplifted during flight, it is true; but the gauzy wings that ply beneath them 
are the sustaining and propelling instruments. What particular species of beetle 
(if any), Shakespeare had in his mind when he penned these words we cannot 
tell. The Dor-beetle, Geotrwpes stercorurius, is a striking object, and flies in the 
dusk, and may have attracted his attention. : 
Scarcely less beautiful than the reference given above, is that to Lampyris 
noctiluca : ‘ 
The glow-worm shews the matin to be near 
And ’gins to pale his ineffectual fire. 
fbid, Act I, se. 1. 
Another fine passage is found in Measure for Measure, Act IIL, se. 1. 
Dar’st thou die ? 
The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies. 
Here, of course. the intention is not to give an increased idea of the pains of 
the beetle, but to make us think less of the death-throes of the giant—the giant 
suffers as little as the beetle. 
What a conception of depth is conveyed to us in the words: 
2 How fearful 
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low! — ; 
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 
Show scarce so gross as beetles. 
King Lear, Act IV., se. 6 
By Caliban in The Tempest, Act I., se. 2, and by the fairies in Midsummer 
Night’s Dream, beetles are spoken of as things to be dreaded. : 
In the 2nd Part of King Henry IV., Act IL, se. 4, there is a very curious 
metaphor : ; 
His face is Lucifer’s privy kitchen, 
Where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms. 
The malt-worms are the larve of Tenebrio moliter and Tenebrio obscurus. 
Other references to beetles will be found in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 
IIL, se. 1; Taming of the Shrew, Act IV., se. 1; Antony and Cleopatra, Act IIL, 
sc. 2; and Cymbeline, Act IIL., se. 3. 
Hemiprera.—In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I, se. 1, is an an 
play upon the word “luce.” Slender exalting Robert Shallow, “ Justice ) 
the Peace and corwm,” and “ cust-alorum,” and “ratolorum,” and“armgero, says: 
All his successors, gone before him, have done ’t; and all his ancestors that come after him, may; 
they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. 
To which Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh chaplain replies: 
The dozen white louses do become an old coat well, itagrees well passant ; it is a familiar beast to 
man, and signifies—love. 
The passage shews that Shakespeare had not forgotten his early escapade, 
and angry slur upon Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote : 
If lousy is lucy, as some folks miscall it, 
Then Lucy is lousy whatever befall it. 
