Nay more; the very birds of the air, those that be not Hawks, are both
so many and so useful and pleasant to mankind, that I must not let them
pass without some observations. They both feed and refresh him; feed him
with their choice bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices. I
will not undertake to mention the several kinds of Fowl by which this is
done: and his curious palate pleased by day, and which with their very
excrements afford him a soft lodging at night. These I will pass by, but
not those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their
curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of
art.
As first the Lark, when she means to rejoice, to cheer herself and those
that hear her; she then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends higher
into the air and having ended her heavenly employment, grows then mute,
and sad, to think she must descend to the dull earth, which she would
not touch, but for necessity.
How do the Blackbird and Thrassel with their melodious voices bid
welcome to the cheerful Spring, and in their fixed months warble forth
such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to!
Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as
namely the Laverock, the Tit-lark, the little Linnet, and the honest
Robin that loves mankind both alive and dead.
But the Nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
loud musick out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make
mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the
clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the
doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth,
and say, "Lord, what musick hast thou provided for the Saints in Heaven,
when thou affordest bad men such musick on Earth!"
And this makes me the less to wonder at the many Aviaries in Italy, or
at the great charge of Varro's Aviary, the ruins of which are yet to be
seen in Rome, and is still so famous there, that it is reckoned for one
of those notables which men of foreign nations either record, or lay up
in their memories when they return from travel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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