More about Birds. 115 



of a song, yet to me it is noble and pleasing. By the way, I 

 would remark that I recollect nothing in Virgil, who is, and 

 ever shall be, the poet of nature, that leads me to suppose 

 that he considered the swan a bird of song. I will give one 

 or two passages which occur to me at this moment, which, 

 if not very precisely quoted, will certainly convey the poet's 

 meaning: — 



" Ceii quondam nivei liquida inter nubila cycni, 

 Cum sese e pastu referunt, et longa canoros 

 Dant per colla modos : sonat amnis et Asia longe 

 Pulsa palus. 



Nee quisquam aeratas acies ex agmine tanto 

 Misceri putet, aeriam sed gurgite ab alto 

 Urgeri volucrum raucarum ad litora nubem." JEneid. vii. 699. 



Now, I grant the word canoros, by a critic disposed to make 

 swans sing, might be translated warbling, melodious ; but its 

 true meaning is loud, shrill : but supposing the swan singers 

 translate the word warbling, how, in the name of fortune, will 

 such a translation agree with volucrum raucarum f raucus 

 meaning hoarse, harsh, jarring, unpleasant. 

 Again, Sir, in the following passage : — 



" Haud secus, atque alto in luco cum forte catervas 

 Consedere avium ; piscosove amne Padusae 

 Dant sonitum rauci per stagna loquacia cycni." JEneid. xi. 456. 



The word rauci appears again, and now actually as the de- 

 scriptive adjective to the substantive cycni. I recollect, how- 

 ever, one passage, which perhaps will be lugged in head and 

 shoulders against me, if I do not first point out that it is 

 nothing to the purpose. It is this : — 



" Namque ferunt, luctu Cycnum Phaethontis amati, 

 Populeas inter frondes umbramque sororum 

 Dum canit, et mcestum musa, solatur amorem." JEneid. x. 189. 



Here Cycnus certainly sings, but Cycnus is not a swan ; he is 

 a youth who was turned into a swan, because he mourned 

 when Jupiter capsized Phaethon, and soused him in the Po, 

 and turned his sisters into poplar trees, as the sequel of the 

 above quotation shows, and as is most ably set forth in the 

 following beautiful lines of Ovid : — 



" Adfuit huic monstro proles Stheneleia Cycnus, 

 Qui tibi raaterno quamvis a sanguine junctus, 

 Mente tamen, Phaethon, propior fuit. Ille, relicto 

 (Nam Ligurum populos, et magnas rexerat urbes) 

 Imperio, ripas virides, amnemque querelis 

 Eridanum implerat, silvamque sororibus auctam : 

 Cum vox est tenuata viro : canaeque capillos 

 Dissimulant plumae : collumque a pectore longum 

 I 2 



