only in
confinement do they fulfil the ends of their existence--even the
skylark. Yet he sees them, one and all, subject to the most miserable
diseases--and rotting away within the wires. Why could not the Doctor
have taken a stroll into the country once or twice a-week, and in one
morning or evening hour laid in sufficient music to serve him during the
intervening time, without causing a single bosom to be ruffled for his
sake? Shoot them--spit them--pie them--pickle them--eat them--but
imprison them not; we speak as Conservatives--murder rather than immure
them--for more forgivable far it is to cut short their songs at the
height of glee, than to protract them in a rueful simulation of music,
in which you hear the same sweet notes, but if your heart thinks at all,
"a voice of weeping and of loud lament," all unlike, alas! to the
congratulation that from the free choirs is ringing so exultingly in
their native woods.

How prettily Clare writes of the "insect youth."

"These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose,
And where they fly for dinner no one knows--
The dewdrops feed them not--they love the shine
Of noon, whose sons may bring them golden wine.
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress--
When night repose, for they can do no less;
Then to the heathbell's purple hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer-day,
Now in the cornfields, now in the new-mown hay.
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With colour'd hoods and richly-burnish'd wings,
Are fairy folk in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid.
Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill."

Time has been--nor yet very long ago--when such unpretending poetry as
this--humble indeed in every sense, but nevertheless the product of
genius which speaks for itself audibly and clearly in lowliest
strains--would not have passed by unheeded or unbeloved; nowadays it
may, to many who hold their heads high, seem of