60 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER, 



gave myself an opportunity of contemplating what 

 they were about, and this for many days toge 

 ther, without giving them the least disturbance, 

 Thus, I could discover their economy, their 

 passions, and their enjoyments. The microscope, 

 on this occasion, had given what nature seemed 

 tc have denied to the objects of contemplation. 

 The base of the flower extended itself under its 

 influence to a vast plain ; the slender stems of 

 the leaves became trunks of so many stately 

 cedars ; the threads in the middle seemed co 

 lumns of massy structure, supporting at the top 

 several ornaments ; and the narrow spaces be 

 tween were enlarged into walks, parterres, and 

 terraces. On the polished bottoms of these, brighter 

 than Parian marble, walked in pairs, alone, 

 or in larger companies, the winged inhabitants ; 

 these from little dusky flies, for such only the 

 naked eye would have shown them, were raised 

 to glorious glittering animals, stained with living 

 purple, and with a glossy gold, that would have 

 made all the labours of the loom contemptible in 

 the comparison. I could, at leisure, as they 

 walked together, admire their elegant limbs, 

 their velvet shoulders, and their silken wings ; 

 their backs vying with the empyrean in its blue ; 

 and their eyes, each formed of a thousand others, 

 outglittering the little planes on a brilliant ; above 

 description, and too great almost for admiration. 

 I could observe them here singling out their fa 

 vourite females ; courting them with the music of 

 their buzzing wings with little songs, formed for 

 their little organs ; leading them from walk to walk, 

 among the perfumed shades, and pointing out to 

 their taste the drop of liquid nectar, just burst 

 ing from some vein within theliving trunk here 

 were the perfumed groves, the more than mystic 

 shades of the poet s fancy realized. Here the 

 happy lovers spent their days in joyful dalliance, 

 or, in the triumph of their little hearts, skipped 

 after one another from stem to stem, among the 

 painted trees, or winged their short flight to the 

 close shadow of some broader leaf, to revel un 

 disturbed in the heights of all felicity.&quot; 



This picture of the splendour and felicity of 

 insect life, may, to certain readers, appear 

 somewhat overcharged. But those who have 

 been much in the habit of contemplating the beau 

 ties of the animal and vegetable world, through 

 microscopes, can easily enter into all the views 

 which are here described. I have selected this 

 example, for the purpose of illustrating the un 

 bounded goodness of the Creator, in the vast 

 profusion of enjoyment he has communicated, 

 even to the lowest tribes of animal existence., 

 and as a specimen of those invisible worlds 

 which exist beyond the range of our natural 

 vision. Fur it appears that there is a gradation 

 of worlds downward as well as upward. How 

 ever small our globe may appear when compared 

 with the sun and with the immensity of starry 

 systems which lie dispersed through the infinity 



of space, there are worlds filled with myriads 

 of living beings, which, in point of size and ex 

 tent, bear as small a proportion to the earth, as 

 the earth bears to the vast assemblage of the 

 celestial worlds. A single flower, a leaf, or a 

 drop of water, may appear as large and as diver 

 sified in its structure, to some o4 the beings 

 which inhabit it, as the whole earth appears to 

 the view of man ; and a thousand scenes of mag 

 nificence and beauty may be presented to their 

 sight, of which no distinct conception can be 

 formed by the human mind. The many thousands 

 of transparent globes, of which their eyes are 

 composed, mav magnify and multiply the objects 

 around them without end, so that an object 

 scarcely visible to the eye of man may appear 

 to them as a vast extended universe. 



&quot;Having examined,&quot; says St. Pierre, &quot;one 

 day, by a microscope, the flowers of thyme, I dis 

 tinguished in them, with equal surprise and de 

 light, superb flagons with a long neck, of a sub 

 stance resembling the amethyst, from the gullets 

 of which seemed to flow ingots of liquid gold. I 

 have never made observations of the corolla, 

 simply of the smallest flower, without finding it 

 composed of an admirable substance, half trans 

 parent, studded with brilliants, and shining in 

 the most lively colours. The beings which live 

 under a reflex thus enriched, must have ideas 

 very different from ours, of light, and of the othei 

 phenomena of nature. A drop of dew, filtering in 

 the capillary and transparent tubes of a plant, 

 presents to them thousands of cascades ; the same 

 drop fixed as a wave on the extremity of one of 

 its prickles, an ocean without a shore ; evaporat 

 ed into air, a vast aerial sea. It is credible, then, 

 from analogy, that there are animals feeding on 

 the leaves of plants like the cattle in our meadows 

 and on our mountains, which repose under the 

 shades of a down imperceptible to the naked eye, 

 and which, from goblets formed like so many 

 suns,quafTnectarof the colour of gold and silver.&quot; 



Thus it appears, that the universe extends to 

 infinity on either hand ; and that whenever mat 

 ter exists, from the ponderous globes of heaven 

 down to the invisible atom, there .he Almighty 

 Creator has prepared habitations ibr countless 

 orders of existence, from the seraph to the ani- 

 malcula, in order to demonstrate his boundless 

 beneficence, and the infinite variety of modes by 

 which he can diffuse happiness through the uni 

 versal system. 



&quot; How sweet to muse upon His skill Jisplay d 

 Infinite skill ! in all that he has made ; 

 To trace in nature s most, minute design 

 The signature and stamp of power divine; 

 Contrivance exquisite, expressed with ease, 

 Where unassisted sight no beauty sees ; 

 The shapely limb and lubricated joint, 

 Within the small dimensions of a point: 

 Muscle and nerve miraculously spun, 

 His mighty work who speaks and it is .lone j 

 Th invisible in things scarce seen reveal d; 

 To whom an atom is an ample field !&quot; 



Cowper s Retirttntrt, 



