SHAKSPEARE ON THE BEE. 



to her by the light which she holds out to him, a circumstance of 

 which Moore has availed himself with his usual felicity : 



''Beautiful as is the light 

 The glowworm hangs out to allure 

 Her mate to her green bower at night." 



14. The well-known economy of the bee was never more beauti- 

 fully described than by Shakspeare, who puts the following 

 comparison into the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury : 



"True ! therefore doth Heaven divide 

 The state of man in divers functions, 

 Setting endeavour in continual motion ; 

 To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 

 Obedience : for so work the honey bees ; 

 Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach 

 The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

 They have a king, and officers of sorts : 

 Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 

 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 

 Others, like soldiers armed in their stings, 

 Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; 

 Which pillage they with merry march bring home 

 To the tent royal of their emperor ! 

 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 

 The singing masons building roofs of gold ; 

 The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 

 The poor mechanic porters crowding in 

 Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 

 The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 

 Delivering o'er to executors pale 

 The lazy yawning drone." 



Henry F., Act. I., Scene 2. 



15. The phrase " as blind as a beetle," is as false as it is fami- 

 liar. In the rapid flight of this insect in the evenings of summer, 

 it often strikes the face of those who walk abroad, and hence is 

 erroneously inferred to be blind. 



Collins describes this insect in the well-known lines of his 

 Ode to Evening : 



" Now air is hushed, save where 

 The beetle winds his small but sullen horn, 

 As oft he rises midst the twilight path, 

 Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum." 



The poet, it will be observed, avoids falling into the popular 

 error of imputing blindness to the insect. 



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