The Bee, when aware of his perilous state,
    Recovered his wit, though a moment too late. 
    “O treacherous Spider! for shame!” said he. 
    “Is it thus you betray a poor innocent Bee?”

    XVII.

    The cunning old rascal then laughed outright. 
    “My friend!” he said, grinning, “you’re in a sad plight. 
    Ha! ha! what a dunce you must be to suppose
    That the heart of a Spider could pity your woes!

    XVIII.

    “I never could boast of much honor or shame,
    Though slightly acquainted with both by name;
    But I think if the Bees can a brother betray,
    We Spiders are quite as good people as they.

    XIX.

    “I guess you have lived long enough, little sinner,
    And, now, with your leave, I will eat you for dinner. 
    You’ll make a good morsel, it must be confessed;
    And the world, very likely, will pardon the rest.”

    [Illustration:  THE SPIDER’S TRIUMPH.]

    MORAL.

This lesson for every one, little and great, Is taught in that vagabond’s tragical fate:  Of him who is scheming your friend to ensnare, Unless you’ve a passion for bleeding, beware!

IV.

GENIUS IN THE BUD.

Genius, in its infancy, sometimes puts on a very funny face.  The first efforts of a painter are generally rude enough.  So are those of a poet, or any other artist.  I have often wished I might see the first picture that such a man as Titian, or Rubens, or Reynolds, or West, ever drew.  It would interest me much, and, I suspect, would provoke a smile or two, at the expense of the young artists.

History does not often transmit such sketches to the world.  But I wish it would.  I wish the picture of the sheep that Giotto was sketching, when Cimabue, one of the greatest painters of his age, came across him, could be produced.  I would go miles to see it.  And I wish West’s mother had carefully preserved, for some public gallery, the picture that her son Benjamin made of the little baby in the cradle.  You have heard that story, I dare say.

Benjamin, you know, showed a taste for drawing and painting, when he was a very little boy.  His early advantages were but few.  But he made the most of these advantages; and the result was that he became one of the first painters of his day, and before he died, he was chosen President of the Royal Society in London.  How do you think he made his colors?  You will smile when you hear that they were formed with charcoal and chalk, with an occasional sprinkling of the juice of red berries.  His brush was rather a rude one.  It was made of the hair he pulled from the tail of Pussy, the family cat.  Poor old cat! she lost so much of her fur to supply the young artist with brushes, that the family began to feel a good deal of anxiety for her pussyship.  They thought her hair fell off by disease, until Benjamin, who was an honest boy, one day informed them of their mistake.  What a pity that the world could not have the benefit of one of the pictures that West painted with his cat-tail brush.