Felicia Hemans

“ A jeu-d'esprit produced at this time, which owed its origin to a simple remark on the unseasonableness of the weather, made by Mrs Hemans to Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, whom she was in the habit of seeing at Sir David Wedderburn's. "It is so little like summer," she said, "that I have not even seen a butterfly." "A butterfly!" retorted Mr Sharpe, "I have not even seen a wasp!" ”

“ Of filmy wing are feeble? Honey here
(Scarce as its rhyme) thou find'st not. Ah, beware
Thy golden mail, to starved Arachne dear!2 [2]
Though fingers famed, that thrill the immortal lyre,
Have pent thee up, a second Asmodeus,
I wail thy doom—I warm thee by the fire,
And blab our secrets—do not thou betray us! ”

“ The next morning, as if in confutation of this calumny, a wasp made its appearance at Lady Wedderburn's breakfast table. Mrs Hemans immediately proposed that it should be made a prisoner, inclosed in a bottle, and sent to Mr Sharpe: this was accordingly done, and the piquant missive was acknowledged by him as follows:—
"SONNET TO A WASP, IN THE MANNER OF
MILTON, &c, BUT MUCH SUPERIOR.
Poor insect! ”