70 INTRODUCTION. 



Mr. Elton, too, has 



" Thou trilling, soft, yet sprightly Nightingale ;" 

 but, unfortunately, this gentleman labours under similar dis- 

 advantage with Mr. Coleridge, (see below,) he has, in the 

 same volume, " Poems, 1804,'' the following lines, which I 

 quote rather for their beauty than to prove how inconsistent 

 some of our poets can occasionally be, 



" Soft as the Nightingale's re-murmuied moan, 

 When cradled on the branch in nioonlight rest, 

 The mazy warblings heave her wakeful breast." 



Akenside calls the song of the Nightingale, simply, 



" Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain." 



Pleasures of Imagination, Book iii. 



The late Mr. Fox, in a letter to Lord Grey, which has 

 been long since published, appears to have been of a similar 

 opinion with the preceding writers. A French writer in 

 Le Spectacle de la Nature, describing the Nightingale's 

 Song, has taken another view of it ; he says " Le Rossignol 

 va du serieux au badin ; d'un chant simple au gazouillement 

 le plus bizarre ; des tremblemens et des roulemensles plus 

 legers, a des soupirs languissans et lamentables qu'il 

 abandonne cnsuite pour revenir a sa gaiete naturelle;" 

 which implies that its song is, by turns, both gay and 

 grave. After all, and admittting, in which there will be no 

 difficulty, that some of the Nightingale's notes are uttered 

 quickly, yet, from the long pauses between the different 

 strains of the song, and many of the notes being 

 *' Of linked sweetness long drawn out," 



it still does appear to me most extraordinary that any one 

 should be disposed to call them merry, or even sprightly. 

 Yet, although I cannot admit that the Nightingale's notes 



