DIRECT INJURIES FROM MOTHS. 57 



Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso, near, 

 To pile a sacred altar here : 

 Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit ; 

 You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ ; 

 You reach'd me Philip's rustic strain 

 Pray take your mortal bards again. 



Come, bind the victim there he lies, 

 And here, between his num'rous eyes, 

 This venerable dust I lay, 

 From manuscripts just swept away. 



The goblet in my hand I take, 

 (For the libation 's yet to make) 

 A health to poets ! all their days 

 May they have bread as well as praise ; 

 Sense may they seek, and less engage 

 In papers fill'd with party rage. 

 But if their riches spoil their vein, 

 Ye Muses, make them poor again, 



Now, bring the weapon yonder blade 

 With which thy tuneful pens are made. 

 I strike the scales that arm thee round, 

 And twice and thrice I print the wound ; 

 The sacred altar floats with red, 

 And now he dies, and now he 's dead. 



There is hardly a thing on earth free from the 

 attacks of moths, or other insects. Our museums, 

 which present the finest specimens of insects, plants, 

 animals, and birds, often fall a sacrifice to these 

 destroyers; among which may also be ranked the 

 Tinea insectella. 



Ulloa mentions the maggot of a kind of moth, 

 which is peculiar to Carthagena, and called there the 

 Comegen. It is so extremely minute that it is not 



VOL. II. E 



