"A _fly_ your honour."--_Brighton Cliff_
Talk of musquitoes!--a musquito is a gentleman who honourably runs you
through with a small sword, and from whom (as from a mad dog) we may
easily seek a defence in--_muslin_.
But your rory-tory, hurly-burly blue-bottle, is no better than a bully.
His head is a _humming-top_, and his tight blue little body like a
tomahawk, cased in glittering steel, which he takes a delight in
whirling against your head. I really believe, that to confine a nervous
man in a room with one of these winged tormentors, on a July day, would
inevitably destroy him in less than an hour.
He rudely and unceremoniously bumps away all sober reflection,--(I
wonder whether the phrenological Spurzheim ever felt the _bumps_ of a
blue-bottle!) then his whimsical vagaries effectually defy repose; now
settling with his tickling bandy legs upon your nose, and industriously
insinuating his sharp proboscis, and anon abruptly buzzing in your
ear--no secret--off he shoots again to his own music.
Now, truly, his _hum-drum_ puts me in mind of the whirring tone of the
hurdy-gurdy, while his _ad libitum_ bumping against the booming
window-panes sounds, to my fancy, like the unskilful accompaniment of a
double drum, beaten by some unmusical urchin.
The house spider who spreads with so much care his beautiful nets for
gnats, and moths, and smaller flies, finds alike his labour and his
toils in vain to secure this rampaging rogue; and, indeed, when the
turbulent blue-bottle chances, in his bouncing random flight, to get
entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so
loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably
takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the
cracked wainscot--like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter
a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the
security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may speedily reel into
another _beat_.
Your noisy people generally grow taciturn in their cups--but Sir
Blue-bottle, though he drinks deep draughts of your wine, particularly
if it abound in sweetness, is never changed. He is naturally giddy, and
according to entomologists, always sees more than double, while his head
was never made to be turned. So may you hope for peace--only in his
flight or death!--_Absurdities: in Prose and Verse_.
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