Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird,

Whom art had never taught clefs,5 moods, or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice.

To end the controversy, in a rapture

-

Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly
So many voluntaries, and so quick,

That there was curiosity in cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method

Meeting in one full center of delight.

The bird (ordained to be

Music's true martyr) strove to imitate

These several sounds; which when her warbling throat
Failed in, for grief down dropped she on his lute,
And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness
To see the conqueror upon her hearse,

To weep a funeral elegy of tears.

He looked upon the trophies of his art,

Then sighed, then wiped his eyes; then sighed and cried,

66

Alas, poor creature! I will soon revenge

This cruelty upon the author of it.

Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,

Shall never more betray a harmless peace

To an untimely end." And in that sorrow,
As he was dashing it against a tree,

I suddenly stepped in.

5 clefs, certain musical characters.

el'e-gy, mournful song.

FORD.

79. THE MOCKING-BIRD'S SONG.

EARLY on a pleasant day,

In the poet's month of May,
Field and forest looked so fair,

So refreshing was the air,

That, in spite of morning dew,
Forth I walked where tangling grew
Many a thorn and breezy bush;
When the redbreast and the thrush
Gaily raised their early lay,
Thankful for returning day.

Every thicket, bush, and tree
Swelled the grateful harmony:
As it mildly swept along,
Echo seemed to catch the song;
But the plain was wide and clear, —
Echo never whispered near.
From a neighboring mocking-bird
Came the answering notes I heard.

Soft and low the song began:
I scarcely caught it as it ran
Through the melancholy trill
Of the plaintive whip-poor-will, -
Through the ringdove's gentle wail,
Chattering jay and whistling quail,
Sparrow's twitter, cat-bird's cry,
Redbird's whistle, robin's sigh;
Blackbird, bluebird, swallow, lark,
Each his native1 note might mark.

Oft he tried the lesson o'er,

Each time the louder than before;
Burst at length the finished song,
Loud and clear it poured along ;
All the choir in silence heard,
Hushed before this wondrous bird.
All transported and amazed,
Scarcely breathing, long I gazed.

Now it reached the loudest swell;
Lower, lower now it fell,-

Lower, lower, lower still,

Scarce it sounded o'er the rill.
Now the warbler ceased to sing;
Then he spread his russet2 wing,
And I saw him take his flight
Other regions to delight.

1 na'tive, natural.

2 rus'set, reddish brown.

J. R. DRAKE.

80. — DICKENS AND HIS RAVENS.

burned, strongly desired.

dis-in-ter', to dig up.

con-sid-er-a'tion, sum of money.

ex'em-pla-ry [egz'em-pler-y], commendable.

per-ni'cious [-nish'us], deadly.

1. THE raven, in the story of Barnaby Rudge, is a compound of two great originals, of which I have been at different times the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest

retirement in London by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first "good gifts," which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. slept in a stable, generally on horseback, and so terri

He

fied a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face.

2. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when in an evil hour his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death.

3. While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village public-house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this sage was to disinter all the cheese and halfpence his predecessor had buried in the garden, a work of immense labor and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind.

4. When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept that he would perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best; for his former master sent his respects with him, "and if I wished the bird to come out very strong, would I be so good as show him a drunken man," which I never did, having none but sober people at hand. But I could hardly have

respected him more, whatever the stimulating influences of this sight might have been.

5. He had not the least respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return, or for anybody but the cook, to whom he was attached, but only, I fear, as a policeman might have been. Once I met him unexpectedly, about half a mile off, walking down the middle of the public street, attended by a crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under those trying circumstances I never can forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers.

6. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and thence into his maw, which is not improbable, seeing that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden-wall by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed in splinters the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing, — but after some three years he too was taken ill, and died before the kitchen-fire. He kept his eyes to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of " Cuckoo !"

7. After this mournful deprivation I was for a long time ravenless. The kindness of another friend at length provided me with another raven. But he is not a genius. He leads the life of a hermit in my little orchard on the summit of Gad's Hill. He has no relish for society; he gives no evidence of ever cultivating his mind; and he has picked up nothing but meat since I have known him, except the faculty of barking like a dog.

CHARLES DICKENS.