POULTRY. 69 



Thej are almost a sacred bird, and seem to have been so regarded 

 from the earliest antiquity. Noah, after his forty days' wandering 

 upon a " sea without a shore," where 



" Angels did tire their wings, but found no spot whereon to rest," 



— Byron. 



felt his first flush of hope, when his returning Dove brought the 

 olive-token in its mouth. So, too, throughout the records of the 

 first dispensation, we find them chosen offerings in the Temple ser- 

 vices of the Jews, and in the second and perfected and crowning 

 dispensation of God to man, the Dove was the sacred emblem of the 

 Holy Sj)irit, resting upon the well-beloved Son, when 



" O'er his head, that humbly bent, 



The Baptist poured the wave." — Fletcher. 



Equally, too, was it held in veneration by the Gentile nations, and 

 the poetry of Greece and Rome is filled with allusions to the Dove, 

 and, always, as in the Sacred Writings, as emblematic of affection, 

 innocence and love. 



Glorious old Virgil, who in the midst of a corrupt and debauched 

 and licentious age, wrote not aline "which dying he could wish to 

 blot," and whose poetry we put, without hesitation, into the hands of 

 our children at school, has made frequent allusion to the Dove, and 

 always in a delightful way. Who can forget what Meliboeus says 

 to Tityrus, 



Here shall the pruner sing his merry lay, 

 While, mid the vines he toils, the livelong day ; 

 Here, too, the Dove his tender mate shall woo, 

 Nor, from the elm, the turtle cease to coo ! 



Ed. I. : 57 — 60 Done into English by the Committee ! ! 



And again, 



A gift I've found for her my soul loves best. 

 Where the wild pigeon builds his lofty nest. 



Eel. III. : 68—69. Do. by the Committee ! ! 



So too, jolly old Anacreon, whose poetry we commend as poetry, 

 but whose moral influence was decidedly vinous and villainous, says 

 in his exquisite " Ode to the Dove," (done so well into English by 

 Tom Moore, that the Committee venture not upon it !) 



" Tell me, whither, sweetest Dove, 

 Tell me, whither do you rove ? 

 Shedding thro' the air in showers. 

 Essence of the balmiest flowers." 



