178 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



The merry cricket, puling fly, 



The piping gnat for minstrelsy : 



And now we must imagine first 



The elves present, to quench his thirst, 



A pure seed pearl of infant dew, 



Brought and besweeten'd in a blue 



And pregnant violet ; which done, 



His kitling eyes begin to run 



Quite through the table, where he spies 



The horns of papery butterflies, 



Of which he eats, and tastes a little 



Of what we call the cuckoo's spittle ; 



A little furze-ball pudding stands 



By, yet not blessed by his hands, 



That was too coarse; but then forthwith 



He ventures boldly on the pith 



Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sag 



And well be-strutted bee's sweet bag; 



Gladding his palate with some store 



Of emmet's eggs : what would he more ? 



But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh, 



A bloated earwig and a fly : 



With the red capp'd worm that's shut 



Within the concave of a nut, 



Brown as his tooth ; a little moth. 



Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth, 



With wither'd cherries, mandrakes' ears, 



Moles' eyes ; to these the slain stag's tears j 



The unctuous dewlaps of a snail ; 



The broke heart of a nightingale 



O'ercome in music ; 



{ -This done, commended 



Grace by his priest, the feast is ended." 



Having considered insects as adding to the general stock of food, I shall 

 next request your attention while I detail to you how far the medical 

 science is indebted to them. Had I addressed you a century ago, I could 

 have made this an ample history. Amongst scores of infallible panaceas, 

 I should have recommended the wood-louse as a solvent and aperient ; 

 powder of silk-worm for vertigo and convulsions ; millepedes against the 

 jaundice ; earwigs to strengthen the nerves ; powdered scorpion for the 

 stone and gravel ; fly- water for disorders in the eyes ; and the tick for 

 erysipelas. I should have prescribed five gnats as an excellent purge ; 

 wasps as diuretics ; lady-birds for the colic and measles ; the cockchafer 

 for the bite of a mad dog and the plague ; and ants and their acid I should 

 have loudly praised as incomparable against leprosy and deafness, as 

 strengthening the memory, and giving vigour and animation to the whole 

 bodily frame. 1 In short, I could have easily added to the miserably 

 meagre list of modern pharmacopoeias, a catalogue of approved insect- 

 remedies for every disease and evil 



that flesh is heir to ! " 



But these good times are long gone by. You would, I fear, laugh at my 

 prescriptions notwithstanding the great authorities I could cite in their 



* For this list of remedies, see Lesser, L. ii. 171173. 



