280 A M Opp 1S MUSIC. 
thrush should hold himself bound to appear at 
a given point on a fixed date. How can we 
know the multitude of reasons, any one of which 
may detain him for twenty-four hours, or even 
for a week? It is enough for us to be assured, 
in general, that the first ten days of the month 
will bring this master of the choir. The pres- 
ent season he arrived on the 6th—the veery 
with him; last year he was absent until the 
8th ; while on the two years preceding he as- 
sisted at the observance of May-day. 
All in all, I must esteem this thrush our great- 
est singer ; although the hermit might dispute 
the palm, perhaps, but that he is merely a semi- 
annual visitor in most parts of Massachusetts. 
If perfection be held to consist in the absence 
of flaw, the hermit’s is unquestionably the more 
nearly perfect song of the two. Whatever he 
attempts is done beyond criticism ; but his range 
and variety are far less than his rival’s, and, for 
my part, I can forgive the latter if now and then 
he reaches after a note lying a little beyond his 
best voice, and withal is too commonly wanting 
in that absolute simplicity and ease which lend 
such an ineffable charm to the performance of 
the hermit and the veery. Shakespeare is not a 
faultless poet, but in the existing state of public 
opinion it will hardly do to set Gray above him. 
In the course of the month about which I am 
