I. THE ROBIN. 3 



though among the simplest and obscurest of 

 beings, have yet price in the eyes of their 

 Maker,„ and that the death of one of them 

 cannot take place but by His permission, has 

 long been the subject of declamation in our 

 pulpits, and the ground of much sentiment in 

 nursery education. But the declamation is 

 so aimless, and the sentiment so hollow, that, 

 practically, the chief interest of the leisure of 

 maijkind has been found in the destruction 

 of the creatures which they professed to be- 

 lieve even the Most High would not see perish 

 without pity ; and, in recent days, it is fast 

 becoming the only definition of aristocracy, 

 that the principal business of its life is the 

 killing of sparrows. 



Sparrows, or pigeons, or partridges, what 

 does it matter ? " Centum mille perdrices 

 plumbo confecit ; " * that is, indeed, too often 

 the sum of the life of an English lord ; much 

 questionable now, if indeed of more value than 

 that of many sparrows. 



3. Is it not a strange fact, that, interested in 

 nothing so much for the last two hundred years, 

 as in his horses, he yet left it to the farmers of 



* Tlie epitaph on Count Zachdarm, in " Sartor Resartus." 



