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And now, when all the feathered tribe
Scarce greet us with a note,

Oh come, and charm my pensive dame
With thy melodious throat!

'Safe from the winter's piercing cold,
The blast that bends the trees;

The falling snow, and rigid frost,

That numbs with every breeze;

'Return, sweet bird, and make thy home

With me, thy friend sincere;
Repay my kindness with a song,

And I'll protect thee here!'

And you know, papa," continued she, ardently, that Robins often like to live in houses during the winter; and that we have read of one that lived in a greenhouse, and another in a chapel, and another that came every year, for fifteen years (and till it died, in the winter of 1787), into Bristol cathedral, and used to follow the verger to be fed; and, when there was service, used to perch upon one of pinnacles of the great organ, and sing when the organ was played;—and to which Robin one of the clergy of the cathedral* addressed these verses, and more, of which last, however, I have no copy:

'Sweet social bird! whose soft harmonious lays
Swell the glad song of thy Creator's praise,

Say, art thou conscious of approaching ills,
Fell winter's storms-the pointed blast that kills?
Shunn'st thou the savage North's unpitying breath,
Or cruel man's more latent snares of death?
Here dwell secure; here, with incessant note,
Pour the soft music of thy trembling throat:

Here, gentle bird, a sure asylum find;

Nor dread the chilling frost, nor boisterous wind!'

"You know, papa," she added still, "that the Robin which went every year to live in Lady Eddington's

*The Rev. Samuel Love, one of the Minor Canons.

conservatory, where a small hole was left for him to go in and out, used generally to come in September and go away in February; and so, you know, it would make him so happy if we were to keep him till February, which will soon be here ?"

"My dear Emily," replied, at length, her considerate and benevolent papa, "we must not make ourselves accomplices with puss, to take from little Robin his liberty; and, as to your poetry, which is very pretty, and which you have read very prettily, it does not appear that either that, or any other of your stories, apply to the forcible imprisonment of a Red-breast, but only to invitations, if it should be chosen to accept them. This, too, I am quite sure, is all that you mean yourself; and very shortly we will give Robin his choice, either to go or stay. At present, he is hardly recovered from his fright; but, as soon as we think we see him uneasy at his situation, we will open the window for him, for a little while; when, if he chooses to go, he must go, but only, as I hope, to continue his welcome visits. You know, my dear, that he has hitherto lived out of doors, cold as the weather has been; and that he showed no inclination to stay with us, even for a quarter of an hour, when you released him before; so that we must certainly leave him his choice still, and not take advantage of his accident of to-day, to make him our captive; an act which, after all, we might perpetrate rather from the vice of selfishness, than from the virtue of hospitality. Recollect, too, the opinion of one more poet, about the captivities of our wild birds, to join with the other poems upon your list:

'Th' aërial chorister, no longer free,
Wails and detests man's civil cruelty:

Still dumb th' imprisoned sylvan bard remains

(Your human bards make music with their chains);
And when, from his exalted cage, he sees

The hills, the dales, the lawns, the streams, the trees;
He looks on courtly food with loathing eyes,

And sighs for liberty, and worms, and flies!'

Emily, after hearing these observations from her papa, acknowledged all the error of her first idea, and professed an entire content that I should have my choice allowed me; and, while the party were still waiting to see what I would do, Mr. Paulett summed up, as it were, the doctrine which he would have his children understand, as to the exercise of any peculiar humanity toward the tribe of Red-breasts.

"You are sensible, my dears," said he, "of the general duty which I inculcate, of humanity and tenderness toward all things; and among others, toward all the members of the brute creation; and you know that I am in the habit of partly inferring the reality of our duty in this respect, from the traditionary recognition of it which has come down to us from all ages and nations; a respect for antiquity, and for universal sentiment and opinion, which I cherish upon this, as upon many other subjects, because mankind has always felt as we now feel, and because the testimony of ancient sentiments and opinions must greatly encourage us to place confidence in the justice of similar sentiments and opinions among ourselves. But while, in part, I thus appeal, to ancient and traditionary authority, in support of general humanity, and of humanity to the inferior animals in particular; I think it right to explain to you, and this from antiquity also, the highest, at least, of the motives which have dictated any peculiar affection or reverence for the Red-breast; which motive, also, does in itself

inculcate a high moral lesson, and the right understanding of which may save you from some mistaken notions, and even from the danger of superstitious misapprehensions, in respect of these little birds.

"If we compare the Red-breast with so many of the other species of small birds which frequent our fields and gardens, it must be acknowledged that the list of its exclusive recommendations, is, as we have before remembered, so long as almost to make me desist, at this time, from recurring to it. There is the pleasingness of its figure and colours; the gentleness of its habits; the sweetness of its morning and evening song; the season of its advances; the wants and hardships under which it is labouring; and the uniformity and confidence with which it approaches us; but it is its confidence alone that sanctifies it to our hearts. It is its familiar entrance of our dwellings; it is its approaches to our tables and our hearths; it is its frank and confiding appeals to our hospitality; that is, to our bounty, to our sufferance, and to our protection;-it is these things which make, as they have so long made, the Redbreast sacred in the eyes of mankind; and that, whether in consideration for the poor bird itself, or of the great principle, and great type and symbol, which it involves. 'Jove guards the guest; Jove avenges the stranger and the poor; Jove rewards their benefactors, and punishes their evil-doers;' these were the humane and pious maxims, the lofty and benignant principles, insisted upon, hour after hour, by all antiquity; and, besides that this same antiquity made no distinction between the love of God for any of the creatures of God, but believed them to be all the equal objects of his jealous care and universal tenderness, it attached also a high value to the universal and undeviating

maintenance of great principles, never turning to the right or to the left to excuse a departure from them, under the smallest or least important circumstances. To infix in the human heart the universal obligation, it relaxed not, for a moment, from the stern demand of its fulfilment in all cases; and taught and infused a horror of its neglect or violation, minute and superstitious as it often appears to our narrower practice, but salutary as tending earnestly to insure its influence upon every occasion. This was a powerful method of disciplining the human mind; and the depth of the influence is proved by the lastingness of those impressions which it has formed and left upon every people, even to this day; taught by parent to child, and by one man to another, and forming the faith and practice of the multitude-'the rural faith'-without the aid of, and often in immediate contradiction, with the lessons of all our modern schools! It is thus, my children, that I account for this ancient and special prejudice in favour of the Red-breast, and of some other birds and beasts; and thus that, losing sight for the moment of all particular applications of the principle; of all questions of hospitality, even in the most sacred and exalted sense; and of all particular modes of returning confidence with trustworthiness; I sum up all the practice, and all the lesson, intended by antiquity, and persisted in by every modern people, in relation to the Red-breast, and to some other creatures similarly confiding in mankind, into this one rule;That we are never to abuse the confidence reposed in us ; never to be faithless to those who place themselves at our mercy; never to reward the dependence placed upon us, by the infliction of injury upon our dependents. This, my dearest Emily and Richard, is the moral of our treatment of the Red-breast; this is our natural motive;