I will fubjoin a few descriptions from our older Poets. Niccols has been very minute on this head:

The little Philomel with curious care

Sitting alo her ditties did prepare,

And many tunes, whose harmonie did paffe
All mußke elfe that ere invented was;

One while the meane part she did sweetly warble,
The tennor now, the bafe and then the treble:

Then all at once with many parts in one

Dividing sweetly in divifion;

Now fome sweete straine to mind she doth restore,
Which all the winter thee had conn'd before,
And with fuch cunning deskants thereupon,
That curious art ne'er doctrin'd any one
With lute, with violl, or with voice in quire
That to her matchlesse musike might aspire.

The Cuckow, p. 12, 1607.

Bird-fanciers are accustomed to call the practice of old birds teaching their young to fing, recoring; from this circumftance Drayton very poetically and fancifully dates the origin of music, which I think exceeds what Lucretius has advanced on the same subject, Lib. 5. 1378 line.

Philomel in fpring
Teaching by art her little one to fing;
By whof cl ar voice fweet music first was found
Before Amphion ever knew a found.

The Owl.

Browne, a very minute observer, and sometimes an accurate defcriber of
Nature and rural objects, has remarked the fame property of this Bird:

Under whose shade the Nightingale would bring
Her chirping young, and teach them bow to fing.

Brit. Past. 1 B. 5 Song.

In mentioning the time before fun-rife, he introduces it again :

Not a bird hath taught her young,
Nor her morning's lesson fung

In the shady grove:
But the Nightingale in darke *
Singing, woke the mounting Larke

She records her love.

Shepheard's Pipe. 3 Eclog.

But Browne attributes the custom of teaching, to other birds as well as the
Nightingale, defcribing a place of retirement, he says,

Wherein melodious birds did nightly harbour:
And on a bough, within the quickning spring,
Would be a teaching of their young to fing.

Song 3. B. r.

See Andrew Marvel's " Appleton House," who touches upon the Nightingale, p. 65. Vol. I. Cooke's Edit.

Drayton describes with great fpirit a confort of birds, in which the Nightingale is highly diftinguished:

When Phœbus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No fooner doth the earth her flowery bosom wave,
At fuch time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feath'red sylvans fing:
And in the lower grove, as on the rifing knole,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole,
Those quirifters are perch't with many a speckled breaft.
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring East
Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's fight:
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and vallies ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all compos'd of founds, about them every where.
The Throstel, with shrill sharps; as purposely he song
T' awake the lustless sun; or chiding, that so long
He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill:
The Woofel near at hand, that hath a golden bill:
As nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us fee
That from all other birds his tunes should different be:
For, with their vocal founds, they sing to pleasant May:
Upon his dulcet pipe the Merle doth only play.
Wben in the lower brake, the Nightingale hard-by,
In such lamenting ftrains the joyful bours doth ply,
As though the other birds she to ber tunes would draw.
And, (but that Nature by her all-constraining law)

This is Milton's:

-as the wakeful bird

Sings darkling

38. B. 3. P. Loft.

Each

Each bird to ber own kind this feason doth invite,

They elfe, alone to bear that charmer of the night,
(The more to use their ears) their voices fure would spare,

That moduleth ber tunes s fo admirably
fet

As

man to

rare,

in parts at first had learn'd

of her.

Poly-Olbion, 13 Song.

See likewise a very minute and accurate description in Sylvester's Du Bartas, p. 44. Fol. Edit. 1641. See p. 1319. 4. Vol. 1536 ibid. Drayton Oldy's

Edition.

To accumulate yet more instances, of a fimilar nature would be neither difficult nor unpleasing:

Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus,

Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore. VIRG.

To him who has been "long in populous cities pent," who has feldom been accustomed to view " each rural fight" with poetical eyes, and to " each rural found" has turn'd a deaf or an undelighted ear, these notices, it is feared, will feem most diminutive and frivolous; but to others who have heard from this bird

-Strains that might create a foul

Under the ribs of Death,

in the luxurious groves of Hertfordshire, it is hoped, however unimportant they may be, that they will at least be confidered as not incurious.

Page 118. - for weedes at Normandie by this in porches groe. Meaning, that they had fo exhausted their country (Normandy) by the forces they had draughted from it already, that its cities were left defolate and uninhabited. The expreffion is aukward; but the idea is forcible, and not unlike what Thomson says of the effects of the plague:

Empty the streets, with uncourb verdure clad;
Into the worst of desarts fudden turn'd

The chearful haunt of men.

Page 119.

Summer, 1060.

Yea pardon hath he to depart, &c.

Thus Henry the 5th to his foldiers:

dont with one more:

Rather proclaim it (Westmoreland) through my hoft,

That he which hath no ftomach to this fight,

Let him depart. SHAKSPEARE.

Page 120.

this is my ground or grave.

See the Speech of Alric in Claudian on invading Italy.

Hanc ego vel victor regno, vel morte tenebo
Victus humum.

De Bell. Gent. 530.

Page Page 126.

And in the faces of their foes your women, in despight,
Should fling their fuckling babes.

How exquifitely unnatural is a profeffion of lady Macbeth's in this way:

I have giv'n fuck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me,
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck't my nipple from his boneless gums
And dafht the brains out, had I but so sworn
As you have done to this-

Page 125. Her name is written indifferently Voadicea, Boodicea, Bunduica, and Bondicea. Selden's Notes on Drayton.

Those who may be inclined to examine into the hiftory of this nation, are referred to a very masterly enquiry, entituled, "A Differtation on the origin and progrefs of the Scythians or Goths," by the able and ingenious Mr. Pinkerton, lately published. To this Gentleman (if there is not an impertinence in the manner of my doing it,) I would recommend as a motto for many of his works the following verse:

Πρὸς σοφίην μὲν ἔχειν τόλμαν, μάλα σύμφορόν ἐστι.

Poet Min. Græci. p. 515. 1635 Edit. Cantabrig.

Page 127. For the circumstances of this interview, see Livý 11. Lib. See alfo Plutarch's life of Publicola.

SUPPLEMENT.