THE OWL AND THE RAVEN. 121 



We confess that it was with such emotions as the sight 

 of dumb creatures seldom awakens, that, in January last, 

 we saw the few survivors of this gentle dominion — an 

 owl from Borrowdale, suggestive of Coleridge and " Chris- 

 tabel," and a raven, the legacy of Dr Patrick NeilL 

 Surely if the creation did not cease to groan, the lords of 

 that creation would possess some joys to which they at 

 present are strangers, if they moved about so benign in 

 their bearing that the beasts of the field felt assured in 

 their presence, and so bountiful in their alms-giving as to 

 attach the very fowls of the firmament. As in the case 

 of the poet Cowper — whom Mr Wilson in his playfulness 

 and gentleness, as well as in his pensive and poetic attri- 

 butes, so remarkably resembled — this love of the lower 

 animals was only the outer zone of a comprehensive kind- 

 liness of nature, which, giving the loaf to the fellow-man, 

 had crumbs for the fellow-creatures ; and, as in the case 

 of the Olney bard, the bread cast on the winds and the 

 waters was found again. It was repaid in the friendly 

 look of every season, and in the recognising responsive 

 aspect of the whole creation. It came flying back on the 

 wings of swifts and swallows ; hints and reminiscences 

 of it were warbled in Alpine solitudes, and in the glens 

 of Arran ; and the storms of December brought it home 

 again to Woodville, tapping at the window, or twittering 

 with a summery sound amidst the falling snow. 



