Mistress Cuckoo 



petent to retort, that the cream of many a 

 matter lies on the top. 



Wherever a sentiment of the beautiful is con- 

 veyed in sound, the poet's ear discovers music, 

 whether that sound be intrinsically and at all 

 times musical, or only accidentally so, by virt- 

 ue of reactionary influence from surrounding 

 scenes, or association of ideas. Nature's music 

 is a subjective as well as an objective matter ; 

 and, therefore, what is musical for one may not 

 be so for another. Again, what is actually 

 hideous at close range, like the hoot of an owl, 

 the scream of a crow or jay, or even the squawk 

 of a duck, may need only distance and appro- 

 priate setting to be tempered into a delightful 

 impression that is essentially musical. A re- 

 verberation of thunder, which has been well 

 called Nature's diapason, is, in scientific sense, 

 utterly unmusical; but, in an equally true 

 poetic sense, its nature is precisely that of the 

 grandest oratorio, as an audible expression of 

 sublimity. Yet even here we must distinguish 

 between the inherent capacity of thunder to 

 impress us, and its indebtedness to adventitious 

 circumstances for nearly all its power over the 

 mind. If the same reverberation were pro- 

 duced at the level of the earth, and by me- 



