4o8 NETHER LOCHABER. 



ventured on an assertion that at first siglit seems so curiously 

 extravagant, that a vrarhler ^^ 'pours her throat" It is to he 

 observed, however, that the really beautiful and expressive phrase 

 is not original, but second-hand as regards Gray. He borrows it 

 from Pope, in whose Essay on Man (Ep. iii.), published ten or 

 a dozen years before Grays ode, occurs this line — 



" Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat I " 



But it is a pity to separate the line from its context, and as the 



passage is not too well known, we may be pardoned for quoting 



it:— 



" Has God, thou fool I worked solely for thy good. 

 Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food ? 

 Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, 

 Por him as kindly spread the flowery lawn ; 

 Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings ? 

 Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. 

 Js it for thee the linnet pours his throat ? 

 Loves of his own, and raptures swell the note. 

 The bounding steed you pompously bestride 

 Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. 

 Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain ? 

 The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. 

 Thine the full harvest of the golden year ? 

 Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer : 

 The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, 

 Lives on the labours of this Lord of all. " 



It wiU be seen that Gray makes his nightingale — his "Attic 

 warbler " — feminine, " pours her throat," while Pope, more correctly, 

 makes his linnet songster a mate, "pours his throat;" and Pope 

 who, indeed, from his habits of life, must have known more about 

 bii-ds than Gray, is right, for it is the males of song-birds that sing, 

 and not the females. Milton makes the same mistake as Gray, 

 and adds to the blunder by saying that the nightingale sings " the 

 summer long," which it does not. It is curious that our English 

 poets should so frequently err, as Gray did, in attributing the 



