36 The Poets and Nature. 



molested in the house which it enters, but respected, and 

 even caressed." Far different was the fate of the cobra that 

 intruded upon my lecture-room. For I got up, and, keeping 

 my ruler in my hand, went towards the snake. Turning to 

 my class, I said, " It is a very sacred animal, I know but 

 not in a lecture-room." And therewith, while the poor crea- 

 ture was still continuing its sing-song oscillation, I knocked 

 it over with a smart tap on the head from my ebony sceptre. 

 " Besides," I continued, " the Government has placed a 

 reward of fourpence-halfpenny on its head," and I took 

 up my white sun-umbrella, which was leaning against the 

 wall, and, putting the point of it under the writhing thing, 

 jerked it clear out through the doorway into the sunlight. 

 And before I got back to my chair there was a rush of wings to 

 the doorway, and the next instant a couple of kites were 

 carrying the cobra away in halves into two separate parishes. 



So it will be understood that I have not for the natural 

 serpent any superstitious reverence. On the other hand, 

 it may be objected that I am not a fit person to undertake 

 the criticism of poets on a subject so full of suggestive fancies. 

 In self-defence, therefore, I venture to say that I have written 

 much upon this fascinating subject, and not altogether, I 

 hope, without sympathy with the beautiful myths of antiquity 

 and the engaging credulities of more modern ignorance ; and 

 to escape, therefore, the charge of not recognising the aspects 

 from which poets survey the reptile world, I will repeat here 

 a paragraph from a paper which I once took the liberty of 

 putting into Mr. Ruskin's mouth as a lecture on snakes. 



" Without a horizon on any side of him, the speaker could 

 hold high revel among a multitude of delightful phantasies, 

 and make holiday with all the beasts of fable. Ranging 

 from Greek to Saxon, and from Latin to Norman, Mr. 

 Ruskin could traverse all the cloudlands of myth and the 

 solid fields of history, lighting the way as he went with feli- 

 citous glimpses of a wise fancy, and bringing up in quaint 



