26 BRITISH BIRDS 



rivalry but even of society evoke his admiration. 

 Everybody should know his St. Kilda eagle. Here is 

 his first sketch of its picture : 



High from the summit of a craggy cliff 



Hung o'er the green sea grudging at its base, 200 



The royal eagle draws his young, resolved 



To try them at the sun. Strong-pounced, and bright 



As burnished day, they up the blue sky wind, 



Leaving dull sight below, and with fixed gaze 



Drink in their native noon : the father-king 



Claps his glad pinions, and approves the birth ! 



The rather ludicrous image in the last line made 

 Thomson remodel the passage, and in the process the 

 second line was unfortunately sacrificed. Its racy 

 vigour should have preserved it. son 



EDITOR. 



NOTES 



LINE 3. as Johnson has said. See The Lives of the Poets, the 

 latest and the best of all Johnson's contributions to literature, 

 published 1779-81. He was over seventy when The Lives began 

 to appear. 



19. One alone, The redbreast, $c. See Winter, 11. 245-56. 

 (These lines on the redbreast did not appear in the first edition. 

 They were a happy afterthought.) 



34. the manse parlour. Southdean manse, at the foot of Carter 

 Fell, where the poet's infancy and boyhood were passed. He 

 was born at Ednam, in the same county of Roxburghshire as 

 Southdean, but only a few months after his birth he was taken 

 to Southdean on his father's promotion to that parish. 



53. he could never have seen or heard it in Scotland. The 

 nightingale scarcely ever comes farther north than Yorkshire ; 

 never crosses the Cheviots, or even the Tyne. 



