Mistress Cuckoo 
petent to retort, that the cream of many a 
matter lies on the top. 
Wherever a sentiment of the beautiful is con- 
veyed in sound, the poet’s ear discovers music, 
whether that sound be intrinsically and at all 
times musical, or only accidentally so, by virt- 
ue of reactionary influence from surrounding 
scenes, or association of ideas. Nature’s music 
is a subjective as well as an objective matter ; 
and, therefore, what is musical for one may not 
be so for another. Again, what is actually 
hideous at close range, like the hoot of an owl, 
the scream of a crow or jay, or even the squawk 
of a duck, may need only distance and appro- 
priate setting to be tempered into a delightful 
impression that is essentially musical. A re- 
verberation of thunder, which has been well 
called Nature’s diapason, is, in scientific sense, 
utterly unmusical; but, in an equally true 
poetic sense, its nature is precisely that of the 
grandest oratorio, as an audible expression of 
sublimity. Yet even here we must distinguish 
between the inherent capacity of thunder to 
impress us, and its indebtedness to adventitious 
circumstances for nearly all its power over the 
mind. If the same reverberation were pro- 
duced at the level of the earth, and by me- 
LLY 
