1808.] ’ Ona Plan for recording Alphabetical Sounds. 
concerning the canary-bird’s chirping. 
Pretty Dick, and swect, sweet, are, as far 
as_my most diligent observation has ex- 
“tended, its universal interpretations. 
The duck’s uote is generally called 
geuck; but Pope; in his Imitation of 
Chaucer, writes itrather differently thus: 
fiss stared ;.and grey ducke crieth, gusake. 
I believe che Aen’s note is variously 
pronounced chuck,—-cluck, and clock. — 
Shakspeare gives us the ow/’s song in 
ene of his own: : 
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 
Tu-whit, tu-whoo: a merry note, &c. 
The jack-daw’s note we have on the 
authority of Cowper, im an epigram on 
the speculations of that bird ‘from a 
steeple : : 
He sees that this great round-about 
The world, withail its motley rout, 
Church, army, physic, law, 
Its customs and its businesses, 
Are no concern at all of his; 
And says— What says he ?-—Caw. 
7 
The same note is given to the crow.in 
the jest-bocks, by a traveller who heard 
that bird in Scotland. “ Caw, caw, aud 
bed d, if you stay in such a country 
as this when you have wings to fly 
away,” 
The nightingale’s song I remember 
seeing introduced in some juvenile ver- 
ses, describing her to 
_ sit snug, 
And charm the ear with jug, jug, jug. 
There is a small bird called, from its 
note, pee-wit ; and Mr. Ashe, in the first 
volume of his entertaining Travels lately 
published, mentions an American bird 
which, for a similar reason, 1s named 
whip-poor-Will. 
Jf Tremember right from my school- 
days, it is stated in one of the notes to 
the Delphin edition of Ovid’s Meta- 
anorphoses, that the frog’s croak resem- 
bles the (French?) pronunciation of the 
Latin words sub agua, sub aqua. 
But I beg leave to suggest to your cor- 
respondent, whether his plan would not 
adinit of being extended so as to include 
likewise the soundsafforded by tnanimate 
objects. For this extension there are 
certainly ample materials; a few of 
which, at presént occurring to my mind, 
T shall exhibit. 
One of the most prominent instances 
at this seasdn of festivity (Whitsuntide) 
is thatof church-bells ; but this indeed 1s 
rather scanty, hardly exceeding ding 
dum: 
507 
dong, though Shakspeare carries it one 
step further : ; 
g 
e 
Let usaliring Fancy’s knell. 
Pit begin it: digg dong bell. 
As for the prophecy found in them by 
Winttington; and the contradictory adé 
monitions by a’ widow in asinealar story 
related (I think) in the Curiosities of Li- 
ferature, f abandon them as not much te 
the present parpose. 
On speaking of a watch or a clock, it 
is unnecessary to add asingle ward of con- 
finmation in assigning to them tick-tack. 
But a most invaluable record of this 
kind is preserved in Tristram Shandy, 
/ where thesounds of the strings of a violin, 
in putting them into tune (shey were of 
course, at. the time, out of tune), are thus 
accurately delineated; #tr-r-7-ing— 
twing—twange-—prut, trut, trut, prut 
—ir-a, ¢,i,0,u—twane—trut, prui—did- 
dle diddle, diddle diddle, diddie diddle, 
twaddle diddle, tweddle diddle, 
twiddle diddie, twoddle diddle, tauddle 
diddle: prut, trui—krish, krash, krushs 
diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, 
hum, dum, drum: trat prut, prut trut. 
There are two other expressions very 
weil established for musical sounds, but £ 
am reluctantly-obltved to give them ap, 
asin the first of the following quotations 
they are appropriated to no particular 
instrument, and in the second are ap- 
plied to instraments which they do not 
seem at ail to suit: 
Some say that signior Bononcini, | 
“Compared to Handel, ’s a mere ninny. 
Others averthat to him Handel 
Ts scarcely fit to hold a candle. 
Strange that such difference there should he 
"Twixt tzweedle-dum and teveedle-dee! 
: : _‘Erigram. 
Sound the trumpet, beat the drum 
Tweedleadee and teweedle-cum: 
 Lirerary Macazine. 
te 
The sound of a postition’s whip is also 
given by ‘Tristram Shandy as. crack, 
crack, crack. 
In Pope’s Thad, a spear or an arrow in 
the air may abuitdantly be seen to whiz. 
A bsw-string, when pulled, is, said te 
twang, on the same authority; which is 
also confirmed by a song of Garrick’s: 
My heart would you hit, 
Tip your arrow with wit, 
And it comes tv my heart with a twang. 
The noise of a fly's wings in motion 
is given by Shakspeare ; 
; Poor harmless fly, 
That with his pretty duzzing melody, 
Came here to make us merry, and thou hast 
kill’d him! : 
The 
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