wrote an epigram against the black book-worm ("Anthol. Pal.," ix. 251):
Pest of the Muses, devourer of pages, in crannies that lurkest,
Fruits of the Muses to taint, labour of learning to spoil;
Wherefore, oh black-fleshed worm! wert thou born for the evil thou workest?
Wherefore thine own foul form shap'st thou with envious toil?
The learned Mentzelius says he hath heard the book-worm crow like a cock unto his mate, and "I knew not," says he, "whether some local fowl was clamouring or whether there was but a beating in mine ears. Even at that moment, all uncertain as I was, I perceived, in the paper whereon I was writing, a little insect that ceased not to carol like very chanticleer, until, taking a magnifying glass, I assiduously observed him. He is about the bigness of a mite, and carries a grey crest, and the head low, bowed over the bosom; as to his crowing noise, it comes of his clashing his wings against each other with an incessant din." Thus far Mentzelius, and more to the same purpose, as may be read in the "Memoirs of famous Foreign Academies" (Dijon, 1755-59, 13 vol. in quarto). But, in our times, the learned Mr. Blades having a desire to exhibit book-worms in the body to the Caxtonians at the Caxton
