OF SELBORXE. 225 



family bewuro. The gallant chanticleer has, at command, his 

 amorous phrases, and his terms of defiance. But the sound 

 by which he is best known is his crowing : by this he has been 

 distinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or laruin, 

 as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night. 

 Thus the poet elegantly stiles him : 



" the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 



"The silent hours." 



A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most of 

 his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding down be- 

 tween a faggot pile and the end of his house to the place 

 where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see 

 his flock thus diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between 

 the pile and the house, into which the caitiff dashed and was 

 entangled. Resentment suggested the law of retaliation ; he 

 therefore clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and, 

 fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood- 

 hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued ; the 

 expressions that fear, rage, and revenge, inspired, were new, 

 or at least such as had been unnoticed before : the exasperated 

 matrons upbraided, they execrated, they insulted, they tri- 

 umphed. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting their 

 adversary till they had torn him in an hundred pieces. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne. 

 " monstrent" 



a 



" Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles ' 

 " Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet. 



GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make orna- 

 ment subservient to utility ; a pleasing eye-trap might also 

 contribute to promote science : an obelisk in a garden or park 

 might be both an embellishment and an heliotrope. 



Q 



