of Nature has been so
profusely enriched by its GREAT AUTHOR; not to be taken as _substitutes_
for His revealed Word, but as harmonious adjuncts, bringing its great
truths more home to our understandings, just as the engravings in a book
are not designed as substitutes for the text, but to elucidate and
strengthen the ideas in the reader's mind.

While the poet draws from the butterfly many a pleasant similitude, and the
moralist many a solemn teaching, the artist (who should be poet and
moralist too) dwells upon these beings with fondest delight, finding in
them images of joy and life when seen at large in the landscape, and rich
stores of colour-lessons when studied at home in the cabinet.

The owners of many a name great in the arts have been enthusiastic
collectors of butterflies. Our distinguished countryman, Thomas Stothard,
was one of their devotees, and the following anecdote, extracted from his
published life, shows how he was led to make them his special study:--

"He was beginning to paint the figure of a reclining sylph, when a
difficulty arose in his own mind how best to represent such a being of
fancy. A friend who was present said, 'Give the sylph a butterfly's wing,
and then you have it.' 'That I will,' exclaimed Stothard; 'and to be
correct I will paint the wing {38} from the butterfly itself.' He sallied
forth, extended his walk to the fields, some miles distant, and caught one
of those beautiful insects; it was of the species called the Peacock. Our
artist brought it carefully home, and commenced sketching it, but not in
the painting room; and leaving it on the table, a servant swept the pretty
little creature away, before its portrait was finished. On learning his
loss, away went Stothard once more to the fields to seek another butterfly.
But at this time one of the tortoise-shell tribe crossed his path, and was
secured. He was astonished at the combination of colour that presented
itself to him in this small but exquisite work of the Creator, and from
that moment determined to enter on a new and difficult field--the study of
the insect department of Natural History. He became a hunter of
butterflies. The more he caught, the greater beauty did he trace in their
infinite variety, and he would often say that no one knew what he owed to
these insects--they had taught him the finest combinations in that
difficult branch of art--colouring."

The above doubtless has its parallel in the experience of many