OF SELBORNE. 59 



clock or larum, as the watchman that pro- 

 claims the divisions of the night. Thus the 

 poet elegantly styles him 



" the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 



" The silent hours." 



A neighbouring gentleman one Summer 

 had lost most of his chickens by a sparrow- 

 hawk, that came gliding down between a 

 faggot pile and the end of his house to 

 the place where the coops stood. The 

 owner inwardly vexed to see his flock thus 

 diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly 

 between the pile and the house, into which 

 the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Re- 

 sentment suggested the law of retaliation ; 

 he therefore clipped the hawk^s wings, cut 

 off his talons, and fixing a cork on his bill, 

 threw him down among the brood-hens. 

 Imagination cannot paint the^ scene that 

 ensued ; the expressions that fear, rage, 

 and retenge, inspired, were new, or at 

 least such as had been unnoticed before : 

 the exasperated matrons upbraided, they 

 eJlLecrated, they insulted, they triumphed. 



