THE REDBREAST. 189 



pet name is bestowed on the liouseliold bird. 

 Thus our Robin or Bob, is in some parts of 

 Sweden called Tommy Liden; in Norway, Peter 

 Ronsmed ; in Germany, Thomas Gierdet. Words- 

 worth alludes to these familiar names : — 



*' Art thou the bird whom man loves best, 

 The pious bird with the scarlet breast, 



Our little English Robin ; 

 The bird that comes about our doors 



"When autumn winds are sobbing ? 

 Art thou the Peter of Norway boors ? 



Their Thomas in Finland 



And Russia far inland ? 

 The bird that by some name or other 

 All men who know thee call brother." 



Most Englishmen have wept, during childhood, 

 over the fiction, which was then taken as a truth, 

 and which told of the redbreast and the babes of 

 the wood. It was but a poet's tale, though related 

 with simple beauty; and while it has helped to keep 

 up the privileged character of the bird, yet doubt- 

 less it had its origin in the favour in which Robin 

 had been held from still earlier times : — 



" Their pretty lips with blackberries 

 Were all besmear' d and dyed ; 

 And when they saw the darksome night. 

 They sate them down and cried. 



