of agonising flies. Such a sight was not
pretty to look at. One day, to relieve my
benevolent vision from such an eye-sore, I
seized the tumbler from the console where it
stood half-veiled by a pastille-burner, and
madly emptied through the window its
contents into the street, but on an old lady's
bonnet! I had not the presence of mind of
the nearly detected pickpocket, who cried
"Stop thief!" nor the man who sneezed the
loudest sneeze in the world (as he was apt to
do), in Fleet Street, and who, when all the
world turned round to look, turned round too.
I stood, quietly transfixed, at the window,
while the most respectable of old ladies
screamed, looked up, saw the tumbler in my
hand, repeated her scream, and lodged such
an information against me as took me to
Bow Street, extracted from me the price of a
new bonnet, and bound me over with
penalties to keep the peace.

The moral of this long parenthesis (for it is
a parenthesis) brings me back (digressively)
to the point which I desired to prove,—
namely, that no man—not even Nero—could
amuse himself by killing flies. The remedy
would be worse than the disease. Bad
enough as fly-killing is, even by proxy, still,
to touch, squeeze, pinch, press out the existence
of the enemy with your own fingers!—
ga!—call that amusement! Nero might
have fiddled while Rome was burning; but
kill flies for his amusement—never! If he
really did kill flies (fly-paper and tumbler-
traps being unknown in the pagan ages), it
was that he might say, "There are so many
flies the less: I have benefited mankind!"
And who can doubt but that the imperial
monster (as you love to call him) did benefit
mankind. Much as flies abound, who knows
how much more, but for Nero, they might
have abounded?

In a spirit similar to my own, Robert
Southey as I very well know, used to bestow
on spiders great laudation as public benefactors.
"Do not kill them, Betty," he used to
say to his maid—"Do not sweep away their
webs. The more spiders and cobwebs, the
fewer flies!" Moreover Robert Southey
cherished wasps, which he would never allow
to be chased from his apartment, because he
believed (and I suppose Natural History
vouches for the fact), that the wasp is the
born enemy of the fly, and drives out that
worst Egyptian plague from a room by sting
and bur. In short, like Doris, in Gay's
Fable, Southey thought it sin to

              Murder wasps like vulgar flies,

and—(accepting the wasp story as true)—I
agree with him. Anybody that will do the
dirty work of fly-killing, without dirtying
either the hands or the imagination, shall be
welcome. But is there no middle way?

I relapse to milder thoughts. Before me
comes a vision of a curious toy made of numberless
pieces of wood fitted together at right
angles, so as to form a quantity of little boxes,
each containing a shot or a pebble, something to
make, if shaken, a rattling noise. The crossed
piece of wood projected beyond the boxes in
the manner of those pointed sheaths which
enclose the filbert nut, the whole producing a
complicated bristly sort of chandelier-like
thing, which was to be hung in the centre of
an apartment for the flies to settle on; while
occasionally (if there were children in the
house), the pendant ornament might be set
a-swinging and shaking and rattling for the
delectation of baby. Of course these unrefined
machines were only to be met with in cottages;
yet I can remember in the house of an aunt
of mine, an old maid, that a delicate imitation
of the cottage fly-perch was hung in a recess
of the drawing-room. This was an airy
construction of different coloured cut papers,
pink, green, and blue—light as a gossamer—
of a globy shape—meshy like a fishing-net—
and all done by no hands but those of fairly
fair, namely my virgin aunt. There seems to
me something Sterne-like, in this tender
consideration for the flies. Dear creatures! they
shall have a perch, a nice swinging perch, to
sit and dream upon, while they may fancy
the coloured papers to be grass and flowers—
that is if a house-fly can fancy anything.
Ah! how these associations recall old days.

My aunt Selina's room comes back to me
with the recollection of aunt Selina's fly-trap.
The pretty green paper; the work-box with
one bit of snowy muslin, half-embroidered,
peeping out of it (it was a Tunbridge-ware
box); and the room, though pure as Dian's
temple, not cold nor uninteresting. There
were many curiosities about it that had been
brought by my Uncle Jim, the sailor, from
the East Indies, pearly shells—tiny china
cups (both always dusted by my aunt herself)
and a globe of the most translucent glass,
hermetically sealed, three-quarters full of
water, on or in which (oh miracle!) floated,
at different heights, beautiful ships, large line
of battle ships, with ropes and sails, manned
by tiny heroes; swans, moreover, and fish of
astounding colours, each and all made of spun
glass, were hanging in the globe. Why they
were so assembled there was a marvel to me.
Nay, I remember there was a balloon with a
car attached to it, in which sat a gentleman
and lady, who, in defiance of probability or
possibility, oscillated some fathoms below the
swans and the ships, yet with every appearance
of nature and comfort.

In this charming room, if I remember
rightly, there were no fly-specks on any of
the beautiful objects it contained: yet the
bright gilt picture frames (containing Indian
views and family portraits on a small scale),
were never (that I know of) villainously
encased in that yellow gauze, which my sister
Jane insists upon protecting the frames with
(large looking glasses and all) in our drawing-
room. To what end? To catch the London
smoke and dirt, I do believe; they seem to