CHAPTER V.

IT IS ASSERTED BY THOSE LEARNED MEN WHO HAVE DEVOTED THEIR LIVES TO
THE STUDY OF THE MANNERS AND HABIT OF INSECT SOCIETY, THAT WHEN A
SPIDER HAS LOST ITS LAST WEB, HAVING EXHAUSTED ALL THE GLUTINOUS
MATTER WHEREWITH TO SPIN ANOTHER, IT STILL. PROTRACTS ITS INNOCENT
EXISTENCE, BY OBTRUDING ITS NIPPERS ON SOME LESS WARLIKE BUT MORE
RESPECTABLE SPIDER, POSSESSED OF A CONVENIENT HOME AND AN AIRY
LARDER. OBSERVANT MORALISTS HAVE NOTICED THE SAME PECULIARITY IN
THE MANEATER, OR POCKET-CANNIBAL.

Eleven o'clock, A.M., Samuel Adolphus Poole, Esq., is in his parlour,
--the house one of those new dwellings which yearly spring up north of
the Regent's Park,--dwellings that, attesting the eccentricity of the
national character, task the fancy of the architect and the gravity of
the beholder--each tenement so tortured into contrast with the other,
that, on one little rood of ground, all ages seemed blended, and all
races encamped. No. 1 is an Egyptian tomb!--Pharaohs may repose there!
No. 2 is a Swiss chalet--William Tell may be shooting in its garden! Lo!
the severity of Doric columns--Sparta is before you! Behold that Gothic
porch--you are rapt to the Norman days! Ha! those Elizabethan mullions--
Sidney and Raleigh, rise again! Ho! the trellises of China--come forth,
Confucius, and Commissioner Yeh! Passing a few paces, we are in the land
of the Zegri and Abencerrage:

'Land of the dark-eyed maid and dusky Moor.'