A PARTICULAR REVIEW 23 



Thomson's is a more refined gallant, sans peur, 

 with a breast flaming with chivalrous ardour, walking 

 gracefully and crowing defiantly. His swan, like 

 190 Milton's, has oary feet, but it also suggests to his 

 imagination the magnificent moving spectacle of a 

 three-masted merchant ship crowding all sail before a 

 favouring breeze. His pigeons are as live and as 

 lovely as Tennyson's, whose beautiful description he 

 anticipates, of ' a livelier iris changing on the burnished 

 dove '. But the passage is short enough to be quoted : 



The careful hen 



Calls all her chirping family around, 

 Fed and defended by the fearless cock, 



200 Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks 

 Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond 

 The finely chequered duck before her train 

 Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan 

 Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale, 

 And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet 

 Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle, 

 Protective of his young. The turkey nigh, 

 Loud-threatening, reddens; while the peacock spreads 

 His every-coloured glory to the sun, 



210 And swims in radiant majesty along. 



O'er the whole homely scene the cooing dove 

 Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls 

 The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck. 



It would almost seem that Thomson is half inclined Rooks. 

 to include rooks and sparrows among domesticated 

 birds. They are certainly birds which by their neigh- 

 bourhood have grown familiar with man. He is much 

 interested in rookeries, noting the rooks' preference for 

 the site of their airy city high among the boughs of 

 220 lofty elms and grey-grown venerable oaks ; and finding 

 much amusement in their polity and noisy parliaments. 



