Poets seldom err so—yet I remember a mistake of Coleridge’s about that commonest of all birds, the Rook. “My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last Rook Bent its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had crossed the mighty orb’s dilated glory, When thou stood’st gazing; or, when all was still, _Flew creaking o’er thy head_; and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of life!” TALBOYS. There is much silliness in the Sibylline Leaves. For Charles read Charlotte. ’Tis more like Love than Friendship—effeminate exceedingly; and, “no sound is dissonant which tells of life,” reminds one of the Sunday Jackasses on Blackheath. NORTH. “‘_Flew creaking._’ Some months after I had written this line,” says Coleridge in a note, “it gave me pleasure to find that Bartram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. ‘When these birds move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate, and regular; and even when at a considerable distance, or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers; their shafts and webs, upon one another, creak as _the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea_.’” That a Rook may fly “creaking” when moulting, or otherwise out of feather, I shall not take upon me to deny; but in ordinary condition, he does not fly “creaking.” Coleridge was wont, in his younger days, to mistake exceptions for general rules. In such a case as this, a moment’s reflection would have sufficed to tell him that there could not have been “creaking” without let or hindrance to flight—and that the flight of a rook is easy and equable—“The blackening train o’ craws to their repose.” What creaking must have been there! But Burns never heard it. TALBOYS. One Burns, as an observer of nature, is worth fifty Coleridges. NORTH. Not an arithmetical question. Why, even dear Sir Walter himself occasionally makes a slip in this way. “Beneath the broad and ample bone, That buckled heart to fear unknown, A feeble and a tim’rous guest The field-fare framed her lowly nest!” The Field-fare is migratory—and does not build here; in Norway, where it is native, it builds in trees—often high up on lofty trees—and in crowds. TALBOYS. I believe, sir, they have been known to breed in this country—and perhaps here they build on the ground. NORTH. Don’t be nonsensical. Our Great Minstrel knew wood-craft well; and hill-craft and river-craft; yet in his fine picture of Coriskin and Coolin,