Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 403, December 5, 1829», страница 6

BUTTERFLIES

The splendid appearance of the plumage of tropical birds is not superior to what the curious observer may discover in a variety of Lepidóptera; and those many-coloured eyes, which deck so gorgeously the peacock's tail, are imitated with success in Vanéssa Io, one of our most common butterflies. "See," exclaims the illustrious Linnaeus, "the large, elegant, painted wings of the butterfly, four in number, covered with small imbricated scales; with these it sustains itself in the air the whole day, rivalling the flight of birds, and the brilliancy of the peacock. Consider this insect through the wonderful progress of its life, how different is the first period of its being from the second, and both from the parent insect. Its changes are an inexplicable enigma to us: we see a green caterpillar, furnished with sixteen feet, creeping, hairy, and feeding upon the leaves of a plant; this is changed into chrysalis, smooth, of a golden lustre, hanging suspended to a fixed point, without feet, and subsisting without food; this insect again undergoes another transformation, acquires wings and six feet, and becomes a variegated white butterfly, living by suction upon the honey of plants. What has nature produced more worthy of our admiration? Such an animal coming upon the stage of the world, and playing its part there under so many different masks! In the egg of the Papilio, the epidermis or external integument falling off, a caterpillar is disclosed; the second epidermis drying, and being detached, it is a chrysalis; and the third, a butterfly. It should seem that the ancients were so struck with the transformations of the butterfly, and its revival from a seeming temporary death, as to have considered it an emblem of the soul, the Greek word psyche signifying both the soul and a butterfly. This is also confirmed by their allegorical sculptures, in which the butterfly occurs as an emblem of immortality." Swammerdam, speaking of the metamorphosis of insects, uses these strong words: "This process is formed in so remarkable a manner in butterflies, that we see therein the resurrection painted before our eyes, and exemplified so as to be examined by our hands." "There is no one," says Paley, "who does not possess some particular train of thought, to which the mind naturally directs itself, when left entirely to its own operations. It is certain too, that the choice of this train of thinking may be directed to different ends, and may appear to be more or less judiciously fixed, but in a moral view, if one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is that which regards phenomena of nature with a constant reference to a supreme intelligent Author. The works of nature want only to be contemplated. In every portion of them which we can decry, we find attention bestowed upon the minuter objects. Every organized natural body, in the provisions which it contains for its sustentation and propagation, testifies a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly directed to these purposes. We are on all sides surrounded by bodies wonderfully curious, and no less wonderfully diversified." Trifling, therefore, and, perhaps, contemptible, as to the unthinking may seem the study of a butterfly, yet, when we consider the art and mechanism displayed in so minute a structure, the fluids circulating in vessels so small as almost to escape the sight, the beauty of the wings and covering, and the manner in which each part is adapted for its peculiar functions, we cannot but be struck with wonder and admiration, and must feel convinced that the maker of all has bestowed equal skill in every class of animated beings; and also allow with Paley, that "the production of beauty was as much in the Creator's mind in painting a butterfly, as in giving symmetry to the human form."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

LADY MORGAN'S EGOTISM

We know, and posterity will say the same, that there was never such a paragon as her ladyship; that her house in Kildare-street, Dublin, will be to future ages, what Shakspeare's house in Henley-street, Stratford-upon-Avon, is now; that pilgrims from all corners of the civilized globe will pay their devotions at her shrine; and that the name of Morgan will be remembered long after the language in which she has immortalized it has ceased to be a living tongue. WE are not the persons to deny this; for WE are but too proud of being able to call ourselves her contemporary; but we do dislike (and her ladyship will, forgive us for saying so)—we do dislike the seeming vanity of proclaiming this herself. She is a very great woman; an extraordinary woman; an Irish prodigy; popes and emperors have trembled before her; all Europe, all Asia, all America, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, ring with her praises; there never has been such "a jewel of a woman," as her own countrymen would say. She knows this, and we know it; and "our husband" knows it; every body knows it; then why need she tell us so a hundred times over in her "Book of the Boudoir?"

There is another little circumstance which we would take the liberty of mentioning. It is, that she is much too scrupulous, much too delicate in naming individuals, unless they happen to be dead. When she mentions a civil thing said to her by a prince, a duke, or a marquess, we never get at the person. It is always the Prince of A–, or the Duke of B–, or the Marquess of C–, or Count D–, or Lady E–, or the Marchioness of F–, or the Countess of G–, or Lord H–, or Sir George I–, and so on through the alphabet. Now we say again, that we have no doubt all these are the initials of real persons, and that her ladyship is as familiar with the blood royal and the aristocracy of Europe, as "maids of fifteen are with puppy-dogs;" but the world, my dear Lady Morgan—an ill-natured, sour, cynical, and suspicious world, envious of your glory, will be apt to call it nil fudge, blarney, or blatherum-skite, as they say in your country; especially when it is observed that you always give the names of the illustrious dead, with whom you have been upon equally familiar terms of intimacy, at full length; as if you knew that dead people tell no tales; and that therefore you might tell any tales you like about dead people. We put it to your own good sense, my dear Lady Morgan, as the Duke of X– would call you, whether this remarkable difference in mentioning living characters, and those who are no longer living, does not look equivocal? For you know, my dear Lady Morgan, that Prince R– and Princess W–, by standing for any body, mean nobody.—Blackwood's Magazine.

CURE FOR SUPERSTITION

We find the following curious anecdote translated from a German work, in the last Foreign Quarterly Review:—

A poor protestant who had fallen from his horse and done himself some serious injury which had obviously ended in derangement, came to a Catholic priest, declaring that he was possessed, and telling a story of almost dramatic interest. In his sickness he had consulted a quack doctor, who told him that he could cure him by charms. He wrote strange signs on little fragments of paper, some of which were to be worn, some to be eaten in bread and drunk in wine. These the poor madman fancied afterwards were charms by which he had unknowingly sold himself to the devil. The doctor, he fancied, had done so before, and could only redeem his own soul by putting another in the power of Satan. "I know that this is my condition," said the poor madman, "by all I have seen and heard, by all I have suffered, by the change which has taken place in me, which has at length brought me to my present condition. All I cannot reveal; the little I can and dare tell must convince you. Often has my tormentor pent me up in the stove, and let me lie among the burning brands through the live long night. Then I hear him in my torment talking loud, I know not what, over my head. All prayer he forbids me, and he makes me tell whether I would give all I have or my soul for my cure. Then he speaks to me of the Bible; but he falsifies all he tells me of, or he tells me of some new-born king or queen in the kingdom of God. I cannot go to church; I cannot pray; I cannot think a good thought; I see sights of horror ever before me, which fill me with unutterable fear, and I know not what is rest; my one only thought is how soon the devil will come to claim his wretched victim and carry me to the place of torment." The poor creature had a belief that a Roman Catholic priest had the power of exorcism. The priest was most kind to the poor maniac, and tried to convince him of the power and goodness of God, and his love to his creatures. It need not be said that this was talking to the wind. In fine, he said, "Well, I will rid you of your tormentor. He shall have to do with me, and not with you, in future." This promise had the desired effect; and the priest followed it up by advising the maniac to go to a good physician, to avoid solitude, to work hard, to read his Bible, and remember the comfortable declarations of which he had been just reminded, and if he was in any doubt or anxiety, to go to his parish minister.