THE NIGHTINGALE. 
“ The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes 
such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, 
that it might make mankind to think that miracles had not 
ceased. He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps 
securely, should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the 
sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and 
redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth and 
say, £ Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in 
heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on earth ! ’ ” 
So saith simple pious Isaac Walton, and we eagerly endorse 
the sentiment of the good writer with a hearty amen. Like 
the skylark, the nightingale owes not his high position to 
capricious fashion or dazzling plumage, but solely by right of 
his surpassing excellence as a songster. The bird’s fame is as 
old as poetry itself, and “ lines to the nightingale ” may be 
found in books almost as ancient as the art of printing. Its 
music is the standard of perfection, and when critics grow 
rapturous in their eulogiums of some human songstress, the 
highest meed of praise they can bestow is, “ she sings like a 
nightingale.” 
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