i S6 The Poets and Nature. 



" All glossy, gay-enamelled all with gold, 

 The silly tenant of the summer air 

 In folly lost, of nothing taking care." 



Thus basely born, and being, as it were, fortuitous and 

 ephemeral not really butterflies, but only grubs on the 

 wing they are sometimes regarded as positively con- 

 temptible and beneath the appreciation of sensible men. 

 Thus Shenstone, addressing collectors, says 



11 Hail, curious wights ! to whom so fair 



The form of mortal fly is, 

 Who deem those grubs beyond compare 

 Which common-sense despises." 



So, too, Pope contemptuously relegates butterfly-collecting 

 to " curious Germans." The insect is of no value " swiche- 

 talking is ne worth a boterflie." 



But from all the above I do not mean it to be understood 

 that the poets did not admire butterflies. On the contrary, 

 their verse is full of compliments to their actual beauty. 

 This admiration, however, is so very common, indeed so 

 universal, that it would have been impossible for poets not 

 to share in it ; and quotation of their approving epithets is 

 equally unnecessary. Indeed, it will be seen that even 

 when depreciating the insects their physical charms are 

 punctually admitted. None the less, it is curious to note 

 how this wrong way of regarding the animal world that is, 

 from human standpoints and transferring our own failings 

 to all other creatures, is consistently adhered to by poets, 

 who should remember that some writers, judging in the same 

 erroneous way, have actually called the poets themselves 

 'butterflies." 



Some special phrases of admiration are, however, well 

 worth noting; as for instance when the poet, more suo, 

 exceeds the already-sufficing measure of the creatures' 

 natural beauty. Thus Keats in fancy has a "golden" 

 butterfly, but it was born of a flower, a fairy insect, and led 



