CHAPTEK XII. 
THE NIGHTINGALE 
(Luscinia philomela). 
“ Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, 
Most musical, most melancholy! 
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among 
I woo, to hear thy even song! ” 
Milton. 
The Nightingale is a speaking witness of the power of 
poetry over the human heart: we look on her as the 
muse of love. Other birds, also, offer speaking testimony 
when they sing,—but Pis only of their own love. The 
Nightingale stands alone in her renown. The Spaniards 
call' her “ Ruiseiior,” which means, as I have been told, 
king and master; titles well merited by this bird, for 
she is, undoubtedly, the most powerful, as well as 
the most beautiful and striking, of all songsters, and 
is on this account, in a certain sense, really a king, or 
rather a queen, amongst the rest, which rank far below 
her. No other bird’s song can vie with the strains of the 
Nightingale: she is a poetess in the widest and most 
beautiful meaning of the word; she embodies in her 
song the thoughts and feelings, joy and pain, longing and 
plaint, of love, in all their inmost depth, and gives the 
