40 LOVE S MEINIE. 



and demoiselle ; and the feminine form " oiselle " 

 thus snatched for itself some of the delightfulness 

 belonging to the title of a young lady. Then note 

 that " esperitel " does not here mean merely spiritual, 

 (because all angels are spiritual,) but an "angle 

 esperitel " is an angel of the air. So that, in English, 

 we could only express the meaning in some such 

 fashion as this : — 



They perfected all their service of Love, 

 These maiden birds that I tell you of. 

 They sang such a song, so finished-fair, 

 As if they were angels, born of the air. 



39. Such were the fancies, then, and the scenes, in 

 which Englishmen took delight in Chaucer's time. 

 England was then a simple country ; we boasted, for 

 the best kind of riches, our birds and trees, and our 

 wives and children. We have now grown to be a 

 rich one; and our first pleasure is in shooting our 

 birds ; but it has become too expensive for us to 

 keep our trees. Lord Derby, whose crest is the 

 eagle and child — you will find the northern name 

 for it, the bird and bantling, made classical by Scott 

 — is the first to propose that wood-birds should have 

 no more nests. We must cut down all our trees, 

 he says, that we may effectively use the steam- 

 plough ; and the effect of the steam-plough, I find by 

 a recent article in the " Cornhill Magazine," is that 



