INVESTIGATION OF INSECTS: 589 
the Crearor, the study of them, in conjunction with 
that of the written Word, will be highly beneficial to us, 
and at the same time that it ministers to our temporal 
enjoyment will promote our eternal interests. 
Taking this view, I cannot better close our correspon- 
dence on the subject that has so long occupied us, than 
in the pious words of one of our most admired poets: 
“ Happy if full of days—but happier far, 
If, ere we yet discern life’s evening star, 
Sick of the service of a world that feeds 
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds, 
We can escape from custom’s idiot sway, 
To serve the Sovereign we were born t’ obey. 
Then sweet to muse upon his skill display’d 
(Infinite skill) in all that he has made! 
To trace, in Nature’s most minute design, 
The signature and stamp of pow’r divine, 
Contrivance intricate, express’d with ease, 
Where unassisted sight no beauty sees, 
The shapely limb and lubricated joint, 
Within the small dimensions of a point, 
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun, 
His mighty work, who speaks and it is done, 
Th’ Invisible in things scarce seen reveal’d, 
To whom an atom is an ample field : 
To wonder at a thousand insect forms, 
These hatch’d, and those resuscitated worms, 
New life ordain’d and brighter scenes to share, 
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air, 
Whose shape would make them, had they bulk and size, 
More hideous foes than fancy can devise; ~ 
With helmet-heads and dragon-scales adorn’d, 
The mighty myriads, now securely scorn’d, 
Would mock the majesty of man’s high birth, 
Despise his bulwarks, and unpeople earth : 
