126 NETHER LOCHABER. 



tear consequent on the labours of nidification, incubation, and love- 

 making throughout the spring and summer ; but it is equally true 

 that it is only in spring, as Mr. Tennyson correctly asserts, that 

 our wild birds assume their gaudiest and gayest attire, every colour 

 and shade of colour in the individual bird's feathering there and 

 then only being at its best and brightest. And when we remember 

 that spring is the season of love and incipient song, we should be 

 very much surprised, and with good reason, if the fact were other- 

 wise. So far as our recollection serves us, Mr. Mortimer Collins, 

 or any one else, will find it rather difficult to catch Mr. Tennyson 

 tripping in the direction indicated. We should say that the Poet 

 Laureate was rather remarkable than otherwise for his fidelity to 

 nature and truth in all his local colouring. 



Some time ago, by the way, we had occasion to call attention to 

 the exceeding frequency of misquotation in our current literature, 

 and in quarters, too, where one would least expect it. Here is a 

 curious and very unpardonable instance, all things considered. In 

 a review of the South Kensington Handbooks, in the Times of the 

 18th January, a sentence opens thus "It is well-known that 

 weary lies the head that wears a crown 1 ?" Every one will see 

 that the manifest intention here is to quote from the monologue of 

 the poor harassed and sleepless King in Shakespeare's Henry IV. 

 (part second), one of the finest things that even Shakespeare ever 

 wrote, and we had thought too well-known by every one with any 

 pretensions to literature to be misquoted. The concluding lines 

 are these : 



" Can'st thou, partial sleep, give thy repose 

 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ; 

 And in the calmest and most stillest night, 

 With all appliances and means to boot, 

 Deny it to a king ? Then, happy, low, lie down : 

 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 



