28 MIRTHFUL OR MELANCHOLY. 



very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and 

 falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be 

 lifted above earth, and say, * Lord, what music hast thou provided 

 for the saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on 

 earth ? ' 



We scarcely dare trust ourselves to speak of the poetical 

 associations connected with this bird, the name of which, 

 according to Pennant, is derived from two Saxon words, 

 signifying night and to sing. Now, although there can be 

 no doubt that 4 this shade-loving Philomela,' is a day as 

 well as a night songster, yet it must be confessed that it 

 is principally during the latter season that it is heard to the 

 greatest advantage ; this is most likely owing to the mind of 

 the hearer being at that solemn and silent season more 

 open and alive to the influence of sweet sounds. Then, 

 according to Milton, 



Is the pleasant time, 



The cool, the silent, save where silence yields 

 To the night warbling bird, that now awake 

 Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song. 



On the question of whether the strain of the Nightingale 

 is really of a sad and depressing, or a joyous and inspiriting 

 tendency, much has been said. The author last-mentioned 

 speaks of it as a 



Most musical, most melancholy bird. 



And we think that the majority of poets agree in giving to 

 its song a passionate and pathetic character ; by those of 

 antiquity, more especially, were its utterances supposed to 

 be those of sorrow and complaint; thus Homer in the 

 4 Odyssey ' says, 



So sweet the tawny Nightingale, 

 When spring's approaching steps prevail, 

 Deep in leafy shades complains, 

 Trilling her thick- warbled strains. 



And Hesiod, following what appears to have been the 

 generally received impression, places her in the pounce of 

 a hawk : 



