our ideas, in connexion with them, must then be of a gross material character, just as we may speak in poetry, of the "wild boar of the wilderness," while the tame hog of the sty is a thing wholly forbidden.

The elephant is allowed to be the most sagacious of the brute creation; but his sagacity is celebrated chiefly in anecdotes of trick and cunning, which qualities being the very reverse of what is elevated or noble in human nature, he possesses, in spite of his curious formation and majestic power, little claim to poetical interest.

The dog very properly stands next in the scale of intellect; and so far as faithful attachment is a rare and beautiful trait in the character both of man and brute, the dog may be said to be poetical; but we are too familiar with this animal to regard him with the reverence which his good qualities might seem to demand. We feed him on crusts and garbage; or we see him hungered until he becomes greedy, and neglected until he becomes servile, and spurned until he threatens a vengeance which he dares not execute.

The claims of the horse to the general admiration of mankind are too well understood to need our notice here, especially as they have already been examined in a former chapter. To the horse belong no associations with ideas of what is gross or mean. His most striking attribute is power; and the ardour with which he enters into the excitement of the chase, or the battle, gives him a character so nearly approaching to what is most admired in the human species, that the ancients delighted to represent this noble animal, not as he is, but with distended nostrils, indicating a courage almost more than animal, with eyes animated with mental as well as physical energy, and with the broad intellectual forehead of a man.

acuteness of sensation; but they are sufferings still, borne with a meekness that looks so much like the Christian virtue, resignation, that, in contemplating the hard condition of this degraded animal, the heart is softened with feelings of sorrow and compassion, and we long to rescue it from the yoke of the oppressor.

I have often thought there was something peculiarly affecting in the character of the young ass-something almost saddening to the soul, in its sudden starts of short-lived frolic. In its appearance there is a strange unnatural mixture of infant glee, with a mournful and almost venerable gravity. Its long melancholy ears are in perfect contrast with its innocent and happy face. It seems to have heard, what is seldom heard in extreme youth, the sad forebodings of its latter days; and when it crops the thistle, and sports among the briers, it appears to be with the vain hope of carrying the spirit of joy along with it, through the after vicissitudes of its hard and bitter lot.

The cow is poetical, not from any quality inherent, or even imagined to be inherent in itself, but from its invariable association with rich pastures and verdant meadows, and as an almost indispensable ornament to pictures of quiet rural scenery. Time was when the cow was poetical from her association with rosy maidens tripping over the dewy lawn, and village swains tuning the rustic reed; but since the high magnifier of modern investigation has been applied to pastoral subjects, milkmaids have been pronounced to be too homely for the poet's theme; village swains have been detected in fustian garments; and both, with their flocks, and their herds, and with pastoral poetry altogether, have been dismissed from the theatre of intellectual entertainment.

Nothing, however, that has yet been effect

liable, has destroyed the poetical character of the deer. Our associations with the deer are far removed from every thing gross or familiar; we think of it only as a free denizen of the woods, swift in its movements, graceful in its elastic step, delicate in all its perceptions, and tremblingly alive to the dangers which threaten it on every hand. We imagine it retiring from the broad clear

light of day, into the seclusion of the mountain glen; stooping in silence and solitude to drink of the pure waters in their bubbling and melodious flow; gazing on through the rocky defile, or in amongst the weedy hollows on the banks of the stream, with its clear calm eye, that looks too full of love and tenderness to be betrayed, yet ever watchful, from an instinctive sense of the multiplied calamities which assail the innocent and helpless; listening to the slightest sound of earth or air, the rustling of the spray that springs back from the foot of the fairy songster, or the fall of the leaf that flickers from bough to bough; and then-as the zephyr swells, and the gathering breeze comes like a voice through the leafy depths of the forest-bounding over the mossy turf, and away along the sides of the mountainaway to join the browsing herd, and give them intelligence of an approaching, but unseen foe. Or, when the chase is ended, and the wounded deer returns to pant away its parting breath in the same glen where it | gambolled upon the dewy grass, a careless and sportive fawn, he comes back with weary foot and bleeding bosom, to slake his burning thirst in the same fountain where so often he has bathed his vigorous and elastic limbs.

The woods are still peaceful, the birds sing on, regardless of his groans, the stream receives the life-blood from his wound, his brethren of the faithless herd again are browsing on the distant hills, and alone in his mortal agony he weeps and dies.

But of all the animal creation, birds have ever been the poet's favourite theme. In the beauty of their form and plumage, in their soaring flight, in their sensitiveness and timidity, and in the lightness and vividness of their movements, there is something to our conceptions so intimately connected with spirituality, that we can readily sympathize with the propensity of the imaginative, to imbody, in these gentle and ethereal beings, the souls of their departed friends; and of the superstitious, to regard them as winged messengers laden with the irrevocable decrees of an oracular fate.

It is a curious fact, that, in our ideal personifications of angelic forms, we do not perceive that they lose any thing of their intellectual or celestial character, by having

appended to them the entire wings of a bird. Whether, from this association, we have learned to consider birds as less material than other animals, or whether, from the aerial flight of birds, the artist and the poet have learned to represent angelic beings as borne along the fields of air on feathery wings, it is certain that the capacity of flight loses none of its poetical sublimity and grace, by being connected in our notions with the only means of which we have any knowledge.

Birds, in their partiality for the haunts of man, offer a striking appeal to the sensitive and benevolent mind. Why should they cast themselves into the path of the destroy-er, or expose their frail habitations to the grasp of his unsparing hand? Is it that they feel some "inly touch of love" for their imperious master, or that they seek from his power what his mercy too often denies? or would they ask, in the day of their distress, for the sparings of his plenty, and pay him back with the rich melody of their summer songs? Whatever may be the cause, they flock around him, as if the manly privilege of destruction had never been exercised upon their defenceless community. Yet, mark how well they know the nature of creation's lord. They tremble at his coming, they flutter in his grasp, they look askance upon him from the bough, they regard him with perpetual suspicion, and, above all, some of their species will forsake their beloved and carefully constructed habitations, if he has but profaned them with his touch. It can be no want of parental affection which drives them to this unnatural alternative, for how diligently have they toiled, with what exquisite ingenuity have they constructed their children's home, how faithfully have they watched, how patiently have they waited for the fulfilment of their hopes! Yet, in one fatal moment, the silken cord that strung together their secret joys is broken. Another spring may renew their labours and their loves, but they know it not. Their all was centred in that narrow point, and to them the hopes and the labours of a whole life are lost. The delicacy of perception which enables them to detect the slightest intrusion upon the sacred mysteries of their nest, gives them a character of

I wish to be understood to refer to the ideas which their habits naturally excite, not to the facts which they elicit. We know that birds are by no means distinguished, above other animals by their intellectual capacity, but so wonderful, so far beyond our comprehension, is the instinct exhibited in their transient lives, that instead of having always in mind the providential scheme which provides for the wants and wishes even of the meanest insect, we are apt to indulge our imaginations by attaching to the winged wanderers of the air, vague yet poetical ideas of their own mental endowments, and half believe them to be actuated by a delicacy of sense and feeling, in many cases superior to our own. Whether this belief, with which the minds of children are so strongly imbued, and which lingers about us long after we have become acquainted with its fallacy, be any bar to the progress of philosophical knowledge, I am not prepared to say; but certainly it is the very essence of poetical feeling; and for one visionary who would scruple to kill a bird for dissection because it had been the companion of his woodland walks, there will remain to be a thousand practical men who would care little what strains had issued from that throat, if they could but ascertain how the throat itself was constructed. It is precisely the same principle which inspires us with the sublimest ideas of the majesty of the universe, by imbodying in the stars, the mountains, the ocean, or the pealing thunder, some unseen, but powerful intelligence, that offers for our enjoyment a never-ending companionship in the woods and wilds, through an ideal personification of every thing sweet and fair. It is this principle which makes us hail the periodical return of certain birds, as if they had been thinking of us, and of our fields and gardens, in that far distant land, of which they tell no tidings; and, taking into consideration the changes of the seasons, had consulted upon the best means of escaping the dangers of the threatening storm: as if they had spread their feeble wings to bear them over the wide waste of inhospitable waters from the energy of their own hearts, and had come back to us from their own unchangeable and fervent love.

If it be poetry to gaze upon the mighty

ocean with that strange, deep wonder with which we regard the manifestations of a mysterious, but concentrated and individual power-to feel that he stretches his unfathomable expanse from pole to pole-that he ruffles his foaming mane and rushes bellowing upon the circling shore-or that he lies slumbering in his silent glory, beneath the blaze of our meridian sun, and through the still midnight of the island gardens that gem the South Pacific; it is not less in unison with poetic feeling, nor less productive of ecstatic thought, to personify the trees, and the flowers, and the rippling streams, and to welcome with gratitude the fairy forms and glad voices that come to tell us of returning spring.

Who that has tasted the delights of poetry. would be deprived of this power of the imagination to people the air and animate the whole creation? Let the critic smile-let the tradesman count his perce, and reckon up how little imagination has ever added to his store-let the modern philosopher examine the leaf, and the flower, and the bird's wing, and pronounce them equally material and devoid of mind-let the good man sav that poetry is a vain pursuit, and that these things are not worthy of our regard; I main- ! tain that these notions, visionary as they are. tend to innocent enjoyment, and that innocent enjoyment is not a vain pursuit, because it may, and ought to inspire us with love and gratitude towards Him who has not only given us a glorious creation to enjoy. but faculties to enjoy it with, and imagination to make the most of it.

We

With the swallow we associate the evercheering idea of returning summer. watch for its coming, and rejoice to hear the merry twittering voice, that seems to tell of a life of innocent and careless glee—an existence unruffled by a storm. As the summer advances, and we seek shelter from the noon-day heat in the deep shade of the leafy boughs that wave around the margin of the glassy stream, it is here that the swallow is not unfrequently our sole companion; and ever as we call to remembrance its swift yet graceful flight, we picture it darting from the pendent branches of the willow, stooping to cool its arrowy wing upon the surface of the glancing waters, and then away, swifter

than thought, into mid air, to sport one moment with aerial beings. Again it sweeps in silence past our feet, over the spiral reeds, around, above us, gliding through the shadows, and flickering through the sunshine; but never resting, and yet never weary; for the spirit than animates its bounding bosom, and stretches forth its giddy wing, is one that knows no sleep until light has vanished from the world, no sadness until the sweets of summer are exhausted. And then arises that vague mysterious longing for a milder sphere—that irrepressible energy to do and dare what to mere reason would appear impracticable; and forth it launches with its faithful companions, true to the appointed time, upon the boundless ocean of infinitude, trusting to it knows not what, yet trusting still. With the cuckoo, our associations are in some respects the same as with the swallow, except that we are in the habit of regarding it simply as a voice; and what a voice! How calm, and clear, and rich! How full of all that can be told of the endless profusion of summer's charms!—of the hawthorn, in its scented bloom, of the blossoms of the apple, and the silvery waving of the fresh green corn, of the cowslip in the meadow, and the wild rose by the woodland path; and last, but not least in its poetical beauty, of the springing up of the meek-eyed daisy, to welcome the foot of the traveller, upon the soft and grassy turf.

Above all other birds, the dove is most intimately and familiarly associated in our minds with ideas of the quiet seclusion of rural life, and the enjoyment of peace and love. This simple bird, by no means remarkable for its sagacity, so soft in its colouring, and graceful in its form, that we cannot behold it without being conscious of its perfect loveliness, is in some instances endowed with an extraordinary instinct, which adds greatly to its poetical interest. That species called the carrier pigeon, has often been celebrated for the faithfulness with which it pursues its mysterious way, but never more beautifully than in the following lines by Moore.

"The bird let loose in eastern skies,

When hastening fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, or flies
Where idler wanderers roam;

But high she shoots through air and light, Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Or shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from every stain
Of sinful passion free,
Aloft through virtue's purer air,
To steer my flight to thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay,
My soul, as home she springs,
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,

Thy freedom on her wings."

But neither the wonderful instinct of this undeviating messenger, nor even the classical association of the two white doves with the queen of love and beauty, are more powerful in awakening poetical ideas than the simple cooing of our own wood pigeon, heard sometimes in the silent solemnity of summer's noon, when there is no other sound but the hum of the wandering bee, as he comes laden and rejoicing home, when the sun is alone in the heavens, and the cattle are sleeping in the shade, and not a single breath of air is whispering through the boughs, and the deep dark shadows of the elm and the sycamore lie motionless upon the earth-or, in the cool evening, when the shadows, less distinct, are lengthened out upon the lawn, and the golden west is tingwith a brighter hue, when the shepherd is ing here and there the bright green foliage numbering his flock, and the labourer is returning to his rest, it is then that the soft sweet cooing of the dove, bursting forth, as it were, from the pure fount of love and joy within its breast, sounds like the lullaby of nature, and diffuses over the mind that holy calm which belongs to our best and happiest feelings.

From the timid moor cock, the "whirring partridge," and the shy water fowl that scarcely dares to plume its beauteous wing in the moonlight of our autumnal evening, when the floods are high, and the wind rushes whispering through the long sere grass, down to the russet wren that looks so gravely conscious of the proprieties of life, there is scarcely one class of the feathered tribe to which imagination does not readily and naturally assign an intellectual, or rather a moral character, associating it with feelings and capabilities, of which the little flutterer is (perhaps happily for itself) unconscious.