Ants and Butterflies. 1 69 



newts and adders. None the less, the ant-and-molehill 

 association is sufficiently original. Did the poets really 

 think that ants made mole-hills ? It looks like it. 



Thus, we read in " Quarles," that man is " a pismire 

 crawling on this mole-hill earth," and if we analyse the 

 cerebration here, we can only conclude that the poet had in 

 his mind some vague idea that the industry of the pismire 

 had erected the " hill "which he calls a " mole-hill." King 

 says, "as bees from hive, from mole-hill ants." Phineas 

 Fletcher, again, has, "Earth a mole-hole, men but ants." 

 Eliza Cook sees us as "ants in a mole-hill running in and 

 out," and Mackay speaks of "the Babel-burrows," where 

 " the little emmets come and go." So, too, in Watts 



" Yet once a day drop down a gentle look 

 On the great mole hill, and with pitying eye 

 Survey the busy emmets round the heap, 

 Crowding and bustling in a thousand forms 

 Of strife and toil." 



Watts, by the way, is particularly given to the ant-and-mole- 

 hill idea 



" Be gone for ever mortal things ; 

 Thou mighty mole-hill, earth, farewell ! 

 Angels aspire on lofty wings, 

 And leave the globe for ants to dwell." 



These instances may, perhaps, be thought sufficient, but I 

 cannot help also quoting country-gentleman Somerville, who, 

 as being a country-gentleman, should, if any poet should, 

 most assuredly have known the difference between ant- 

 hills and mole-hills 



" She looks beneath 



Contemptuous, and beholds from far this earth, 

 This molehill earth and all its busy ants 

 Lab'ring for life." 



Some of my critics have said of me that I am microscopic 

 in my fault-finding, and, now and again, that I do not make 



