The Mute Swan. 97 



The Swan was dedicated to Apollo and tlie ]\Iuses, and it was a common 

 belief amongst the ancients, that the body of a Swan was allotted as the future 

 residence of a poet. The legend of the death-song of the dying Swan was held 

 by many Greek and Latin poets and historians, but discredited by others, of whom 

 Pliny was one. In modern times it has served the purpose of a pretty poetical 

 fiction. The late Lord Tennyson has embodied the idea in his poem " The Dying 

 Swan." 



"The wild Swan's death-hj'nin took the soul 

 Of that waste place with joy; 

 Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear 

 The warble was low and full and clear." 



***«*-* '■'■■■ 



" But anon her awful jubilant voice, 

 With a music strange and manifold, 

 Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold. 



****** 



Till— 



"The desolate creeks and pools among. 

 Were flooded over with eddying song." 



Shakespeare makes frequent allusions to the Swans' death dirge, as — 



" I will play the Swan, and die in music." 



Othello — Act 5, Sc. 2. 



and in many other passages. 



Although known as the Mute Swan, it is perfectly true it utters at times a 

 few plaintive notes, particularly in the spring, or when swimming with its young. 

 Colonel Hawker represents it as a melody made up of two notes, C, and the minor 

 third, E flat. 



In the present day we can hardly realize the value formerly set on the pos- 

 session of Swans by our forefathers. Thousands were kept by the crown, the 

 nobility, lay and clerical, rich city companies, guilds, town corporations, and 

 colleges. No banquet was complete without its quota of Swans, Peacocks, and 

 Herons. In fact, our ancestors appeared never to be tired of roast cygnet in 

 season, which was about Christmas time. In the celebrated banquet, the fare bill 

 of which has been so frequently quoted, given at the " intronization " of George 

 Nevell, 1464, Archbishop of York, four hundred Swans were provided. In these 

 days roast Swan is not a fashionable diet ; I have tried cygnets, both tame and 

 wild, and much prefer a fat stubble-fed Goose. 



The laws regulating the keeping of Swans in the middle ages seem, by the 

 light of the present, very arbitrary. All Swans were Royal birds and the King's 

 property, and permission to duly qualified subjects was given, by a grant from the 

 Crown to keep them, at the same time a special and registered Swan mark being 

 granted. These Swan marks were cut on the upper mandible of the bird, the 



Vol. IV. R 



