130 
BIBDS IN A VILLAGE, 
This was obvious — almost a truism ; but the illus- 
tration by means of which he brought it home to 
his hearers was certainly born of a poetic imagina- 
tion. The life of the ordinary person he likened to 
that of the canary in its cage. And here, dropping 
his lofty didactic manner, and — if I may coin 
a word — smalling his deep, sonorous voice to a 
thin reedy treble, in imitation of the tenuous 
fringilline pipe, he went on with lively language, 
rapid utterance, and suitable brisk movements and 
gestures, to describe the little lemon-coloured 
housekeeper in her gilded cage. Oh, he cried, 
what a bright, busy bustling life is hers, with so 
many things to occupy her time ! how briskly she 
hops from perch to perch, then to the floor, and 
back from floor to perch again ! how often she drops 
down to taste the seed in her box, or scatter it 
about her in a little shower ! how curiously, and 
turning her bright eyes critically this way and 
that, she listens to every new sound and regards 
every object of sight! She must chirp and sing, 
and hop from place to place, and eat and drink, 
and preen her wings, and do at least a dozen 
different things every minute ; and her time is so 
fully taken up that the narrow limits confining her 
are almost forgotten — the wires that separate her 
from the great world of wind-tossed woods, and of 
blue fields of air, and the free, buoyant life for 
