LIFE OF WILSON. cxciii 



found in a torpid state, is unquestionably true. Mr. Collinson 

 gives the evidence of three gentlemen who were eye-witnesses 

 to a number of sand-martins being drawn out of a cliff on the 

 Rhine, in the month of March, 1762."* One should suppose 

 that Smellie was too good a logician to infer that, because swal- 

 lows had been found in the state described, they had remained 

 in that state all winter. A little more knowledge of the sub- 

 ject would have taught the three gentlemen observers, that the 

 poor swallows had been driven to their retreat by cold weather, 

 which had surprised them in their vernal migration; and that 

 this state of numbness, falsely called torpidity ', if continued 

 for a few days, would for ever have destroyed them. 



It is now time to resume the subject of Wilson's Ornitholo- 

 gy, as the reader will, probably, consider that we have trans- 

 gressed the limits which our digression required. 



Dr. Drake, in his observations upon the descriptive abilities 

 of the poet Bloomfield, thus expresses himself: " Milton and 

 Thomson have both introduced the flight of the sky-lark, the 

 first with his accustomed spirit and sublimity; but proba- 

 bly no poet has surpassed, either in fancy or expression, the 

 following prose narrative of Dr. Goldsmith. " Nothing," ob- 

 serves he, " can be more pleasing than to see the Lark warbling 

 upon the wing; raising its note as it soars, until it seems lost 

 in the immense heights above us; the note continuing, the bird 

 itself unseen; to see it then descending with a swell as it comes 

 from the clouds, yet sinking by degrees as it approaches its 

 nest; the spot where all its affections are centred; the spot 

 that has prompted all this joy." This description of the de- 

 scent of the bird, and of the pleasures of its little nest, is con- 

 ceived in a strain of the most exquisite delicacy and feeling, "t 



I am not disposed to dispute the beauty of the imagery of the 

 above, or the delicacy of its expression; but I should wish the 

 reader to compare it with Wilson's description of the Mocking- 



* Philosophy of Natural History, chap. 20. 

 I Drake's Literary Hours, No. 39, Edition of 1820, 

 VOL. I. B b 



