4 
The Illustrated Boolc of Plgeons. 
a good easy soul when toasting his toes comfortably after a good dinner. Anxiously I watched 
through a glass door the opening of that note and the reading it, for stay in the room I dared not ; 
but I saw it caused a smile, and took that as a good omen, although, of course, the paternal 
pocket and corn-bin would of necessity have to be drawn upon. My stratagem succeeded, and 
after a little banter about my scorching the letter, I had a hearty ally in the one to whom I 
addressed it, and who then and after saved his boy from much sin by allowing him to fill the 
garden of the old house at home (bless its old roof-tree and the venerable one whom it yet covers) 
with many pets — Bantams, Hawks, Plovers, Rabbits, and at length Pigeons.” 
Yes: clergymen have always had a soft place in their hearts for this sort of thing. We 
think of one as we write, known as an occasional and successful exhibitor of — let us see — Nuns, 
of course ; what else should they be ? Another keeps and sometimes shows Fantails ; but by far 
the larger number have their pigeons round them because they feel the want of them — that want 
which lies so deep in the human breast. Thus does another clergyman, George Crabbe, write 
of the pigeon and other kindred fancies — he is writing, by the way, of a tradesman’s family in 
the busy town : — 
“ True pleasure hails them from some favourite source, 
And health, amusement, children, wife, or friend 
With life’s dull views their consolations blend. 
Nor these alone possess the lenient power 
Of soothing life in the desponding hour. 
Some favourite studies, some delightful care, 
The mind with trouble and distresses share ; 
And by a coin, a flower, a verse, a boat. 
The stagnant spirits have been set afloat. 
#*##*# 
Oft have I smiled the happy pride to see 
Of humble tradesmen in their evening glee, 
When of some pleasing, fancied good possessed, 
Each grew alert, was busy, and was blessed. 
Whether the call-bird yield the hour’s delight, 
Or — magnified in microscope — the mite ; 
Or whether Tumblers , Croppers, Carriers seize 
The gentle mind, they rule it and they please.” 
It would indeed be hard to put the whole matter better than Crabbe here expresses it. 
Well he understood the power of such pursuits to “soothe life ;” to artfully drive out of the mind 
for a season trouble and distress; to “set afloat the stagnant spirits.” And well, too, did he 
understand that the mind accessible to such influences must be essentially a “ gentle” one ; far 
away as such an assertion is from the ignorant scoff we used to hear, and for which we can imagine 
no reason beyond the fact that in every generation many fanciers have been artisans. But this 
bad old spirit is passing away: men arc coming to recognise, as Crabbe did, the “gentle” 
character of such pleasures, and that even a working-man, so far as he manifests such tastes, and 
loves to cultivate such beauty as he can, is raised by it, and made by so much a better man. 
He is in the way to learn the grand lesson, that only by patience and perseverance can we ever 
attain the highest good ; and he is preserved from many dangers by his love for the beautiful 
objects of his care. This last fact is not the smallest benefit, to many, of our “Fancy;” and 
many illustrations of it occur to us. We well remember on one occasion the warm-hearted 
manner in which we were received at a country house by a motherly lady whose son we had been 
the indirect means of leading into the kindred poultry-fancy, and expressing to him our sense of 
