6 BY-WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



sac, a stopping-place, of all argument of the 

 question. Indeed, it is a very romantic dis 

 tance that separates the bird from most of us. 

 Chaucer s groves and Shakespeare s woods 

 shake out from their leaves a fragrance that 

 reaches us along with a song which is half the 

 bird s and half the poet s. We connect the 

 nightingale s music with a dream of chivalry, 

 troubadours, and mediaeval castles. It is as 

 dear to him who has heard it only in the 

 changes rung by the Persian, French, and 

 English bards as it is to him whose chamber 

 window opens on a choice haunt of the bird 

 in rural England. 



I might dare to go further and claim that I, 

 who have never heard a nightingale sing, can 

 say with truth that its music is, in a certain 

 way, as familiar to me as the sound of a run 

 ning stream or the sough of a spring breeze. 

 I often find myself reluctantly shaking off 

 something like a recollection of having some 

 where, in some dim old grove, heard the voice 

 that Keats imprisoned in his matchless ode. 

 There is a sort of aerial perspective in the 

 mere name of the nightingale ; it is like some 

 of those classical allusions which bring into a 

 modern essay suggestions with an Infinite dis 

 tance in them. So thoroughly has this been 

 felt that it may safely be said that the nightin 

 gale has been more frequently mentioned by 

 our American writers, good, bad, and indiffer 

 ent, than any one of our native birds. No 

 doubt it ought to provoke a smile, this gushing 

 about a music one has never heard ; but, like 

 the music of the spheres and the roar of the 

 ocean, the nightingale s voice is common 

 property, and we all take it as a sort of hered- 



