Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Locusts. 245 



thought the verses of Job, nor any after him added a force 

 or a beauty to the lines of Joel. 



The locust has but one aspect in poetry that of a multi- 

 tudinous evil 



" As, borne by winds along, in baleful cloud, 

 Embody'd locusts from the wing descend, 

 On herb, fruit, flow'r, and kill the rip'ning year, 

 While waste behind, destruction in their track, 

 And ghastly famine wait." Mallet. 



They serve, therefore, as a simile for anything that desolates 

 or devours "Gaul's locust host," or any other enemy of 

 Britain or of " Freedom ; " armies of all kinds ; the minions 

 of tyranny corrupt courtiers ; Jesuits. They are " tree- 

 blasting," "sky-clouding," "blackening all the ground," "in 

 darksome clouds," " hosts that desolate the eanh and dim 

 the day," " barb'rous millions," "greedy troops," "endless 

 legions on sounding wings," " thick-phalanxed as when 

 plaguing Samarcand," " dire with horrid swarms." Nearly 

 every poet at one time or another has told " what deeds of 

 woe the locust can perform ; " but their language toils in 

 vain after the consuming, overwhelming reality such as the 

 prophet saw it from the mountain side in Palestine " a 

 day of clouds and thick darkness a great people and a 

 strong." 



Moore is ribald, of course, on a theme so serious : 



" Then erst could Egypt, when so rich 

 In various plagues, determine which 

 She thought most pestilent and vile 

 Her frogs, like Benbow and Carlile ? 

 Croaking their native mud-notes loud 

 Or her fat locusts, like a cloud 

 Of pluralists, obesely lowering 

 At once benighting and devouring." 



Milton's passage on the Plague is noble : 



1 ' As when the potent rod 

 Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, 



