72 INTRODUCTION. 



this respect I have myself offended. See the Nightingale's 

 Song. 



I must just add, that Mr. Coleridge himself has not 

 always been of the opinion stated above: for in his volume 

 of poems, published in 1796, he has an Effusion to the 

 Nightingale, in which is the following line : 



"Then warblest sad thy pity pleading strains." 



In conclusion, let us hear what Lord Byron says : 

 "This rose to calm my brother's cares, 

 A message from the Bulbul* bears ; 

 It says to night he will prolong 

 For Selim's ear his sweetest song ; 

 And though his note is somewhat sad, 

 He'll try, for once, a strain more glad ; 

 With some faint hope his altered lay, 

 May sing these gloomy thoughts away." 



Bride of Abydos. — Canto I. 



His lordship, in a note, after alluding to the controversy 

 as to the opinions of the ancients on the subject, adds, " I 

 dare not venture a conjecture on the point, though a little 

 inclined to the ' errare mallem, &c.' if Mr. Fox was 

 mistaken." 



See more concerning the Nightingale in the note on this 



bird in Part I. and also the following letter from Mr/ 



Sweet, of Chelsea, a gentleman who has kept several of our 



birds of passage the whole year through, and has had many 



opportunities of observing some curious facts concerning 



tliem. 



Chelsea, Dec. 7*/i,l826. 

 Sir, 



Several of my birds are now in song, though their 



song is not so loud nor so fine as it is when the days begin to 



* Bulbul : the Turkish name for the Nightingale. 



