BIRDS OF THE NIGHT. 103 



or gloomy descriptions, have enlivened our associations 

 connected with his image ; and he deserves therefore in a 

 special degree to be classed among those animals which 

 w^e call picturesque. 



Though the Owl was selected by the ancients as the 

 emblem of wisdom, the moderns have practically re- 

 nounced this idea, which had its foundation in the gravity 

 and not in the real character of the bird, which possesses 

 only tlie sly and sinister traits that mark the feline race. 

 A very different train of associations and a new series of 

 picturesque images are now suggested by the figure of the 

 Owl, who has been more correctly portrayed by modern 

 poetry than by ancient mythology. He is now univer- 

 sally regarded as the emblem of ruins and of desolation, 

 — true to his character and habits, which are intimately 

 allied with this description of scenery. 



I will not enter into a speculation concerning the na- 

 ture and origin of those agreeable emotions which are so 

 generally produced by the sight of objects that suggest 

 ideas of ruins. It is happy for us that by the alchemy 

 of poetry we are able to turn some of our misfortunes 

 into sources of melancholy pleasure, after the poignancy 

 of grief has been assuaged by time. Nature has also 

 benevolently provided that many an object that is capa- 

 ble of communicating no direct pleasure to our senses 

 shall affect us agreeably through the medium of sentiment. 

 Thus, the image of the Owl awakens the sentiment of 

 ruin ; and to this feeling of the human soul we may trace 

 the pleasure we derive from the sight of this bird in his 

 appropriate scenery. Two Doves upon the mossy branch 

 of a tree, in a wild and beautiful sylvan retreat, are the 

 pleasing emblems of love and constancy; but they are 

 not more suggestive of poetic fancies than an Owl sitting 

 upon an old gate-post near a deserted house. 



I have alluded in another page to the faint sounds we 

 13 



