PULICIAN PERFORMANCES. 215 



memorable occasion exhibited in proof thereof, perhaps, to 

 this very day, in the capital of Sweden ? 



Has not " a company " of fleas, for many years, attracted, 

 by its unrivalled performances, the curious sight-seers of 

 London ? Have they not there beheld a flea quadrille danced 

 to the fiddles of a flea orchestra ? Have they not laughed at 

 two pulician combatants, sword in hand, adjusting a point of 

 honour ? and (oh ! the burlesque on human greatness !) have 

 they not there seen a Napoleon mounted on a flea charger? 



It would have been much more fitting had the fallen con- 

 queror himself been personated by a flea, fettered in his am- 

 bitious leaps, and displayed, a prisoner, for the world to take 

 amusement in his despairing struggles. It appears, indeed, 

 that the flea quite as ill brooks captivity as did the imperial 

 prisoner of St. Helena ; for the Italian, Bertolotti, who was 

 the jailor and exhibitor of the London company, records in 

 a ' Memoir ' how that they will sometimes obstinately refuse 

 to move in chains, contracting their legs and antennae in the 

 most impertinent manner possible till their manacles are 

 removed. 



The flea, as compared with the generality of insects, is a 

 long-liver, for the Italian above quoted, speaks of having kept 

 one for twenty-three months, when it died apparently of age, 

 having grown gradually darker till it became nearly black. 

 In the days of its prime, its herculean task was to track a 

 man of war ; as its strength declined, its task-master lightened 



