Nabob kept for a while the flame of war alive. A ihort anarchy
fucceeded, and brought a temporary ihame on the Britijh name,
inquiry ! fictitious ? was inftituted:
W h it b A nts.
A gude Scot once grumbled
Bruturn fulmen, meant only to fcare when it rumbold.
T he Fragment.
A different fate awaited the hero, and the Verres; a high fenfi-
bility of honor caufed C l i v e to fink beneath the mental
wounds infliited by his ungrateful country. Ferres, attacked In
the fame manner, remained calloufly unmoved. H a s t i n g s
fucceeded to the feven years perfecution; year after year paifed
on in the ordeal of our modern Arijltdes. Seven times was his
hand plunged into the fcalding fluid, and feven times did it
emerge with unbliftered marks of innocence, fecured by the
lotion o f political neceflity and good intentions. The box felt
conviition, and never bluihed ! Hajlings was overwhelmed
with expence, in repelling charges the refult o f envy and malice,
while Bengal was daily riling into wealth and profperity,
the effeits of his government. The feventh year of our dif-
grace ended to his everlafting fame. He was acquitted to the
content o f the nation, and he himfelf was faved from poverty I
in his old age by his thinking matters; and from that very
wealth with which he had filled the Indies, little confcious that
it might hereafter ever have been applied to prevent from him
the fad petition, d a t e o b o l u m BELISARIO ?
A t p. 18 o f the preceding volume I have given the marvellous
account related by Herodotus of the Ants o f India, which,
he
he fays, are equal in fize to foxes, and that they are the dif-
coverers of the gold in the fandy deferts o f 'Regiflan. Strabo,
lib. xv. p. 1032, relates the fame from Megajlbenes, both with
equal truth, yet neither one or the other want foundation for
their tale. In thefe we difcover the Termes Fatale, or White
Ants, fo frequent in the torrid zone; o f which, and o f their
various operations in forming their habitations, the late Mr.
Smeathman has given a moft curious hiftory in our Philofophical
Tranfaftions, and a moft credible one, for he confines their fize
to that Of our common ant. The antients make the hillocks
no larger than thofe of moles. My deceafed friend, with great
truth affirmed, that fome rife to the height of ten or twelve feet,
in which he is fupported by every veracious traveller o f the
prefent age.
T h e infea tribe are full of beauty, and full of miracle, but
their multitudes deter me from making the attempt to detail
the numerous tribes; like the feathered tribe, they increafe in
beauty in the torrid zone. The fun exalts their colors, and the
vegetables allotted for their food, gives them a magnitude unknown
in milder climates. I mutt not negleit the moft ufeful,
the induftrious b e e ; whether it is the fame with the European B ees.
1 cannot refolve, but its produits are the fame. Honey and
wax were in old times in Hindoojlan articles of commerce: they
are not, as I am informed, hived; they form their combs in
trees, pendent from the boughs, and are feen in multitudes
travelling on the furface to and from their cells. They are
killed by the fmoke of fires made beneath.
In India are two fpecies of moths, the Cocoon of which may M oths.
N m be