and a mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly!
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou
Hast kill'd him!
(_Titus Andronicus._)

Shakespeare has abundance of this idyllic miniature painting, for
which all the literature of the day shewed a marked taste.

Tamora says:

My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad,
When everything doth make a gleeful boast?
The birds chant melody on every bush,
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun,
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind
And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground.
(_Titus Andronicus._)

And Valentine in _Two Gentlemen of Verona_:

This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns;
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale's complaining notes
Tune my distresses and record my woes.

Like this, in elegiac sentimentality, is Romeo:

Before the worshipp'd sun
Peer'd forth the golden window of the east....
Many a morning hath he there been seen
With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew.

_Cymbeline, Winter's Tale_, and _As You Like It_ are particularly
rich in idyllic traits; the artificiality of court life is contrasted
with life in the open; there are songs, too, in praise of woodland
joys:

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
(_As You Like It._)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen
Altho' thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho unto the green holly!
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly![4]
(_As You Like It._)

Turning again to comparisons, we find birds used abundantly:

More pity that the eagle should be mewed
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
(_Richard III._)

True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings.
(_Richard III._)

As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort
Ris