“A Mushroom their table, and on it was laid
A Water-Dock leaf, which a Table-Cloth made.”
There is “the sly little Dormouse” and “his blind Brother the Mole”; the Frog (found still in the same attitude by Alice in Wonderland) and the Squirrel, who watches the feast from a tree. The rest are mostly winged:
“... the Gnat and the Dragon-fly too,
With all their Relations, Green, Orange, and Blue.”
The Harlequin Spider performs feats on the tight line, a giant Bee hovers over an absurdly inadequate hive, a snail bigger than either offers to dance a Minuet; and at nightfall the Watchman Glow-worm is ready with his light.
The feast is soon done, but for a third reading it can be got by heart.
“A Sequel”, The Peacock “At Home”,[205] appeared in the same year, with a frank and humorous acknowledgment of its predecessor’s success. A pleasing mystery about its authorship was solved some years later in the preface of “The Peacock and Parrot on their Tour to discover the Author of ‘The Peacock At Home’.”
“A path strewed with flowers they early pursued,