In bats and bed-bugs, fleas and flies.
“Thus, when a monarch or a mushroom dies,
Awhile extinct the organic matter lies;
But, as a few short hours or years revolve,
Alchymic powers the changing mass dissolve;
Born to new life unnumber’d insects pant,” &c.
Temple of Nature, Canto iv.
It has been a matter of curious inquiry among some of my corresponding garreters, whether this philosopher himself, in the latter stages of his existence, enjoyed much consolation from reflecting that the “organic matter” which entered into his own composition, was about to be employed for the important purpose of giving “new life” to “unnumbered insects.”
Vast “monuments of past delight.”