love's meinie. 30 



tlie locomotion of a swallow differs from that of an 

 engine. 



42. Not only from that of an engine ; bnt also from 

 that of animals in whose members the mechanism is so 

 complex as to give them a resemblance to engines. The 

 dart of the common honse-fly, for instance, in fnll 

 strength, is a more wonderful movement than that of a 

 swallow. The mechanism of it is not onlv more minute, 

 but the swiftness of the action so much greater, that the 

 vibration of the wing is invisible. But though a school- 

 boy might prefer the locomotive to the swallow, he would 

 not carry his admiration of finely mechanical velocity 

 into uncpialified sympathy with the workmanship of the 

 God of Ekron ; and would generally suppose that flies 

 were made only to be food for the more graceful fly- 

 catcher, — whose flner grace you will discover, upon reflec- 

 tion, to be owing to the very moderation and simplicity 

 of its structure, and to the subduing of that infinitude of 

 joints, claws, tissues, veins, and fibres which inconceivably 

 vibrate in the microscopic * creature's motion, to a quite 

 intelligible and simjjle balance of rounded body upon 

 edged plume, maintained not without visible, and some- 

 times fatigued, exertion, and raising the lower creature 

 into fellowship with the volition and the virtue of 

 humanity. 



* I call it so because the members and action of it cannot be seen 

 with the unaided eye. 



