QUOTATIONS AND NOTES.
117
and a thing easily to be observed by one that shall fix his eye some time on any part of the heavens, the white web, at a vast distance, very distinctly appearing from the azure sky.—But this is in Autumn only, and that in very fair and calm weather."
From the Encyclop. Brit.
Dr Darwin, whose imagination so happily applies every object of Natural History to the purposes of Poetry, makes the Goddess of Botany thus direct her Sylphs—
"Thin clouds of Gossamer in air display,
"And hide the vale's chaste lily from the ray."
These filmy threads form a part of the equipage of Mab:
"Her waggon spokes are made of spiders' legs,
"The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
"The traces of the smallest spider's web."
