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ably no mortal man will ever be able to imagine how insects think or feel or hear or even see. Not only are their

senses totally different from those of animals, but they appear to have a variety of special senses about which we cannot know anything at all. As for their existence, it is full of facts so atrocious and so horrible as to realize most of the imaginations of old about the torments of hell. Now, for these reasons to make an insect speak in poetry-to put one's thoughts, so to speak, into the mouth of an insect—is no longer consistent with poetical good judgment. No; we must think of insects either in relation to the mystery of their marvellous lives, or in relation to the emotion which their sweet and melancholy music makes within our minds. The impressions produced by hearing the shrilling of crickets at night or by hearing the storm of cicadae in summer woods-those impressions indeed are admirable subjects for poetry, and will continue to be for all time.

When I lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on insects, I told you that nearly all the English poems on the subject were quite modern. I still believe that I was right in this statement, as a general assertion; but I have found one quaint poem about a grasshopper, which must have been written about the middle of the seventeenth century or, perhaps a little earlier. The date of the author's birth and death are respectively 1618 and 1658. His name, I think, you are familiar with-Richard Lovelace, author of many amatory poems, and of one especially famous song, "To Lucasta, on going to the Wars"-containing the celebrated stanza

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not honour more.

Well, as I said, this man wrote one pretty little poem on a grasshopper, which antedates most of the English poems on insects, if not all of them.

THE GRASSHOPPER

O Thou that swing'st upon the waving ear
Of some well-filled oaten beard,

Drunk every night with a delicious tear

Dropt thee from heaven, where now th'art rear'd!

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire
To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then,
Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,
And all these merry days mak'st merry men
Thyself, and melancholy streams.

A little artificial, this poem written at least two hundred and fifty years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of the conceits are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term "oaten beard," the poet means an ear of oats; and you know that the grain of this plant is furnished with very long hair, so that many poets have spoken of the bearded oats. You may remember in this connection Tennyson's phrase "the bearded barley" in the "Lady of Shalott," and Longfellow's term "bearded grain" in his famous poem about the Reaper Death. When a person's beard is very thick, we say in England today "a full beard," but in the time of Shakespeare they used to say "a well filled beard"-hence the phrase in the second line of the first stanza.

In the third line the term "delicious tear" means dew,which the Greeks called the tears of the night, and sometimes the tears of the dawn; and the phrase "drunk with dew" is quite Greek-so we may suspect that the author of this poem had been reading the Greek Anthology. In the third line of the second stanza the word "poppy" is used for sleep-a very common simile in Elizabethan times, be

cause from the poppy flower was extracted the opiate which enables sick persons to sleep. The Greek authors spoke of poppy sleep. "And when thy poppy works," means, when the essence of sleep begins to operate upon you, or more simply, when you sleep. Perhaps the phrase about the "carved acorn-bed" may puzzle you; it is borrowed from the fairy-lore of Shakespeare's time, when fairies were said. to sleep in little beds carved out of acorn shells; the simile is used only by way of calling the insect a fairy creature. In the second line of the third stanza you may notice the curious expression about the "gilt plaits" of the sun's beams. It was the custom in those days, as it still is in these, for young girls to plait their long hair; and the expression. "gilt plaits" only means braided or plaited golden hair. This is perhaps a Greek conceit; for classic poets spoke of the golden hair of the Sun God as illuminating the world. I have said that the poem is a little artificial, but I think you will find it pretty, and even the whimsical similes are "precious" in the best sense.

CHAPTER XVI

NOTE UPON AN UGLY SUBJECT

THE ugly subject is the literature of hate.

Hitherto we have been chiefly and properly concerned with the literature of higher things-love, beauty, heroism, courage. Can there be a literature of ugliness?—or, is moral ugliness or any kind of ugliness a fit subject for art?

Do you know that this is a very hard question to answer in these days? The old Greeks would have answered it unqualifiedly. Perhaps that is the best way to answer it. We need not long discuss whether a single statue or a single picture of something merely ugly and foul ought to be made or not. The public judgment would answer such a question effectively. But it is very different if we ask whether there is any reason for representing the ugly figure in a general way. Drama at once furnishes us an answer. The figures of drama are horrible as well as beautiful, bad as well as good, and the greater the dramatist, as a rule, the greater the evil in his bad character. In Shakespeare, for example, the dark side serves to make visible the bright side; evil is the shadow that brings out the brilliancy of the picture.

So there can be no dispute as to the place of the evil and the ugly in drama and in dramatic fiction. But it is quite another matter, when we have to consider an attempt to portray the ugliness and the evil all by itself. Is that right? Is it art? I do not think it is. But if I say that I do not think it is right, I am raising at once an endless and perfectly useless question about the moral purpose in art. If I were asked to give a reason why I do not think it is right to represent what is ugly in a statue or in a picture, I should be obliged to take refuge in an emotional expression of the feelings which the ugly arouses in me. So

that my argument would be reduced to something like this: "I do not like it, because it hurts my feelings, grates upon my nerves, spoils my pleasure in life." And that is only a personal argument. Not all people feel the same way. There was a Spanish painter who used to paint putrefied corpses, and he still has admirers.

Now the literature of satire mostly belongs to the ugly side of existence. When we were considering the history of eighteenth century literature, we were obliged to remark the cruelty and malignity which the literary men displayed in that age. They wrote, in the most perfect of verse, the most abominable things about each other; they very frequently slandered each other in a most shameful manner; with words they painted pictures of each other quite as horrible as those pictures of rotten corpses which the Spanish artist made. And, like that Spanish artist, they still have admirers. Students are obliged as a duty to read some of the eighteenth century satires; all the great critics admire them. Good old Dr. Johnson did not; he declared the most admired of them to be a useless display of malignity and jealousy. But people laugh at Dr. Johnson's moral judgment in these days. Much greater scholars than Dr. Johnson persist in praising many things that he condemned.

In the face of this high testimony to the value of the satirical literature of the eighteenth century, we cannot merely rely like Dr. Johnson upon our moral feelings. We must think about the matter-we must try to find a good clear reason for the praise given to wicked things cleverly said by men like Pope. Are we to praise clever wickedness? Have we any right to admire it? Or would not such admiration be proof that we are not particularly good ourselves?

The real answer to the problem can only be found by the perception of something in the wicked cleverness which is not wicked cleverness. Here excellence of verse forms

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