8 The Poets and Nature. 



Coming lower down, we find the polecat called vermin 

 by Chaucer, the rat by many, the mole "vermin impotent 

 and blind " by Butler, the woodlouse, spider, housefly, and 

 a number of insects by others. So that "reptile" and 

 " vermin " are virtually interchangeable terms with the poets. 

 Each denotes or connotes the meanest individuals of every 

 class of beings those which the poets individually consider 

 the meanest but in either case they go so far wrong as to 

 borrow a creature's name in 'order to convey an odious 

 meaning, and then transfer the odium which they arbitrarily 

 and capriciously attach to the word back to the creature. 



A further curious complication in this high-handed con- 

 fusion of terms is the use of the word " insect." It is em- 

 ployed as synonymous with reptile and vermin. Thus, man 

 generally is an insect, and so too are special classes of men, 

 notably faithless friends, courtiers, all kinds of sycophants 

 and parasites, and pleasure-seekers generally and riches. 



" The insect tribes of humankind, 

 Each with its busy hum, or gilded wing, 

 Its subtle webwork, or its venom'd sting." Rogers. 



"All the vast stock of human progeny, 

 Which now, like swarms of insects, crawl 

 Upon the surface of earth's spacious ball, 

 Must quit this hillock of mortality 

 And in its bowels buried lie '' Oldham. 



"The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born, 

 Gone to salute the rising morn." Gray. 



1 Ye tinsel insects whom a court maintains, 

 That count your beauties only by your stains, 

 Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day ; 

 The Muse's wing shall brush you all away." Pope. 



The nameless insects of a court." Thomson, 



