2 1 8 The Poets and Nature. 



But as by depredations wasps proclaim 

 The fairest fruit, so these the fairest fame. 



Humming, like flies, around the newest blaze 

 The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw, 

 Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise." 



Youth hovering round dangerous temptation, and desire 

 for beauty, have of course their poetical counterfeits in 

 insects, that flutter into flames and rifle flowers. In the 

 first catastrophe the moth is properly the usual victim, but 

 sometimes the fly, as Ben Jonson's simpleton, 



" In his mistress' flame, playing like a fly, 

 Was turned to cinders by her eye." 



Or Byron's " youthful friend," 



" E'en now thou'rt nightly seen to add 

 One insect to the fluttering crowd ; 

 And still thy trifling heart is glad 

 To join the vain and court the proud. 



There dost thou glide from fair to fair, 

 Still simpering on with eager haste ; 

 As flies along the gay parterre 

 That taint the flowers they scarcely taste." 



A more original fancy than the majority is, however, 

 Mackay's : 



"And there were other suitors, human flies, 

 That ever drone and buzz at honey pots ; 

 With busy wings, lank legs, and suckers dry, 

 For want of golden sweets ; that long to light 

 Upon the paths of widows richly dower'd, 

 And settle there ; insatiate as wasps 

 That dig their feelers into luscious pears 

 Or burrow into peach or apricot." 



Mallett, too, finds in the bluebottle the suggestion for an 

 excellent stanza : 



" Still hov'ring round the fair at sixty-four, 

 Unfit to love, unable to give o'er ; 



