THE WOODPECKER. 229 
died soon afterwards, and the republic endured six centuries 
longer. 
This is grand, not ridiculous. It endured through this noble 
appeal to the citizen’s devotion. It endured through this silent 
response given to it by a great heart. Such actions are fertile; they 
make men and heroes; they prolong the life of states. 
To return to our bird: this workman, this solitary, this sublime 
prophet does not escape the universal law. Twice a-year he grows 
demented, throws off his austerity, and, shall it be said, becomes 
ridiculous. Happy he among men who plays the fool but twice 
a-year ! 
Ridiculous! He is not so because he loves, but because he loves 
comically. Gorgeously arrayed, and in his finest plumage, relieving 
his somewhat sombre garb by his beautiful scarlet grecque, he whirls 
round his lady-love ; and his rivals do the same. 
But these innocent workers, designed for the most serious labours 
—strangers to the arts of the fashionable world, to the graces of the 
humming-birds—know not in what way to manifest their duty, and 
present their very humble homage but by the most uncouth cur- 
vettings. Uncouth at least in our opinion; they are scarcely so in 
the eyes of the object of these attentions. They please her, and this 
is all that is needed. The queen’s choice declared, no battle can 
take place. Admirable are the manners of these good and worthy 
workmen. The others retire aggrieved, but with delicacy cherish 
religiously the right of liberty. 
Do the fortunate suitor and his fair one, think you, air their idle 
loves wandering through the forests? Not at all. They instantly 
begin to work. “Show me thy talents,” says she, ‘and let me see 
that I have not deceived myself.” What an opportunity for an 
artist! She inspires his genius. From a carpenter he becomes a 
joiner, a cabinet-maker; from a cabinet-maker, a geometer! The 
regularity of forms, that divine rhythm, appears to him in love. 
It is exactly the renowned history of the famous blacksmith of 
Anvers, Quintin Matsys, who loved a painter’s daughter, and who, to 
