8 COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA, 



Erro. The sentiments are beautiful; but 1 don't like 

 Sapphics altogether ; I was made read them at school, and, par 

 consequence, don't much like them now I've left ; and, it's my 

 opinion, Sapphics don't do for the English language. There 

 is one part, the last verse I think it is — 

 Amb. — 



No ! Like these creatures, trouble, toil, and prison, 

 Chequer his pathway to a bright hereafter, 

 When he sliall mount him to the happy regions, 

 Made to receive him. 



Erro. It is that alone makes life worth living for — the 

 belief in that ; there is but little on this earth — 



Ent. Pish ! Excuse me, Roey. I must stop that strain. 

 Melancholy, avaunt! This earth has lots of flowers worth 

 plucking, and you can find them as easily as any one. 



Ven. How any one, with his stores of knowledge, can 

 indulge in that stupid, nervous, Byronic kind of misanthropy, 

 I can't think. 



Ent. a contented mind, like the rosy morning sun, tinges 

 every earthly object with its own beauteous hue, bathes in 

 sunshine the face of universal nature : fame is not honourable ; 

 the bad attain it as easily as the good; and riches, to me, 

 seem scarcely to gild the future more than the present. 



Amb. But fancy does paint for us a future brighter than the 

 present, though beyond the reach of riches, or any earthly 

 gratification. 



Ent. Alas, fancy has no pinions that will bear us beyond 

 the tomb ! 



Ven. We have wandered into a useless discussion from 

 talking of the Sapphics of Rusticus. As Erro observes, they 



will not do for English. I shewed them to my friend Dr. S , 



who I consider an excellent judge; he acknowledged they 

 were full of beauty, and as good as English Sapphics could be ; 

 but the fact is, Sapphics do not suit the genius of our lan- 

 guage. 



Ent. Genius of our language ! Not suit the genius of 

 those people who have no genius, I take you to mean. Oh, 

 Genius, thou undefined and undefinable creature ! — thou art 

 not talent, nor wisdom, nor learning ! What art thou, then, 

 airy being, that floatest around and about and above us, instan- 

 taneously wafting from thy bright — thy ambrosial wing — to 



