196 The Poets and Nature. 



its face ? The spider advances. Does the fly stop washing 

 its face as if disquieted ? The spider stops, too. And then 

 the lightning spring, the rough and tumble, the fearful 

 tenacity of its ferocious grasp. It is a wonderful bit of 

 nature : straight from the jungles. And educational ; giving 

 glimpses under the surface; a light on the real life-story of 

 insects. 



Moreover, this particular spider is curious among its kind 

 in that it turns its head on its shoulders to look about it. 

 If a bird flies past the window it turns like lightning. It 

 will watch a person cross a room. Some of its eyes being 

 on the very top of its head, it can see behind it. No terrier 

 ever looked more knowing or cocked its head more cleverly. 

 All the same, it gives the little creature a very uncannily 

 intelligent look. 



This digression has taken me from my point which was 

 that spiders are better known by their works than by their 

 persons. In the poets this truth is singularly illustrated by 

 the fact that fifty references to cobwebs might be found for 

 every one to spiders. If the insects were unsuitable for 

 poets' purposes this would not be strange. But, on the 

 contrary, they are full of "morals," all of which are abun- 

 dantly recognised in rhyme, and suggest to the fancy an 

 almost unusual number of metaphors, similes, and images. 

 The chief of these Southey compendiously reproduces in 

 the following verses from his poem " To a Spider " : 



" Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways 



Of Satan, sire of lies; 

 Hell's huge black spiders ; for mankind he lays 



His toils as thou for flies. 

 When Betty's busy eye runs round the room, 



Woe to that nice geometry, if seen ! 

 But where is he whose broom 



The earth shall clean ? 



Spider ! of old thy flimsy webs were thought, 

 And 'twas a likeness true, 



