230 The Poets and Nature. 



A Scythian philosopher (nephew they say 



To that other great traveller, young Anacharsis) 



Stepped into a temple of Memphis one day, 



To have a short peep at their mystical farces. 



He saw a brisk bluebottle fly on an altar ; 



Made much of and worshipped as something divine ; 



While a large handsome bullock, led there in an halter, 



Before it lay stabbed at the foot of the shrine. 



Surprised at such doings, he whispered his teacher, 



If 'tisn't impertinent, may I ask why 



Should a bullock, that useful and powerful creature, 



Be thus offered up to a bluebottle fly ? 



No wonder, said t'other, you stare at the sight, 



But we, as a symbol of monarchy view it : 



That fly on the shrine is Legitimate Right, 



And that bullock, the people that's sacrificed to it." 



The fly that sat on the wheel and prided itself on the dust 

 that was raised, the other that flew up with the eagle and 

 nestled in its eyrie, and lo's bane, complete, I think, the 

 poets' record of legendary flies of note. 



Yet, who admires the fly ? It'is true that Homer compares 

 the valiant Greeks to a fly ; and never was simile more apt. 

 For what can exceed the astonishing courage of this insect, 

 the reckless intrepidity of its assault, or the desperate persist- 

 ence of it ? Supposing, as some'one says, a man were out 

 walking, and a seven-acre field suddenly turned upside 

 down with him. For this is exactly what happens to a fly 

 every time you whisk it off with your hand. But it comes 

 back exactly to the same spot ! What man of us would do 

 as much ? It is true the fly has made itself familiar with 

 such sudden upheavals of an apparently solid surface, and 

 this argues no trifling degree of nerve and resource. If the 

 thing were a blockhead and a dunce, and got killed for its 

 clumsiness every time it sat down, it would be another affair 

 altogether ; and the bluebottle would be only a kind of Mr. 

 Feeble who gave in to the first giant he met. But this is 

 not so, for in the matter of lives it takes about nine cats to 

 make one fly. The insect graduates in adventure like the 



