-if we may so say--to effect a
compromise between the opinion which, through the influence of
classical poetry, generally prevailed as to the character of the
bird's music, and the opposing convictions which his own senses had
forced upon him. It was desirable to describe its strains according to
the popular fancy, and therefore he borrowed from Virgil such a
description of the bird's sorrow as under the assumed circumstances
did no violence to his own judgment.

Thomson is not the only poet in whom we fancy we detect some such
attempt at compromise. It appears to us that Villega, the Anacreon of
Spain, in the following little poem, which we give in Mr Wiffen's
translation, adopted, with a similar object, this idea of the
nightingale robbed of her young. The truthful and somewhat minute
description in the song, however, represents the bird's ordinary
performance, and but ill suits the circumstances under which it is
supposed to be uttered. The failure on the part of the poet may be
ascribed to his secret conviction, that the nightingale's was a
cheerful melody; and his labouring against that conviction to the
necessity he felt himself under of following his classical masters.

'I have seen a nightingale
On a sprig of thyme bewail,
Seeing the dear nest that was
Hers alone, borne off, alas!
By a labourer: I heard,
For this outrage, the poor bird
Say a thousand mournful things
To the wind, which on its wings
From her to the guardian sky
Bore her melancholy cry--
Bore her tender tears. She spake
As if her fond heart would break.
One while in a sad, sweet note,
Gurgled from her straining throat,
She enforced her piteous tale,
Mournful prayer and plaintive wail;
One while with the shrill dispute,
Quite o'er-wearied, she was mute;
Then afresh, for her dear brood,
Her harmonious shrieks renewed;
Now she winged it round and round,
Now she skimmed along the ground;
Now from bough to bough in haste
The delighted robber chased;
And alighting in his path,
Seemed to say, 'twixt grief and wrath:
"Give me back, fierce rustic rude!
Give me back my pretty brood!"
And I saw the rustic still
Answer: "That I never will!"'

Independently of the untruthfulness of which a naturalist would
complain in this description--for no birds under such circumstances of
distress sing, but merely repeat each its own pecul