Ye darksome Woods where Echo dwells, Where every bud with freedom swells To meet the glorious day:
DEAR MOTHER, I cannot exactly tell what happened before I came out of the shell; but, from circumstances, I can give you some information. When I came to life, amongst some scores of other little merry yellow creatures, I found myself, and all of us, enclosed in a thing, through which we, with our eight eyes, could see very well, but could not instantly get out. I soon perceived that we, in the egg state, wrapped in a white bag, as you left us, had been put into a thing called a bottle, by one of those great creatures whom we always call striders; but this was a particular one of that tribe, who wanted to play tricks with us - one whom they would perhaps call a philosopher. [1] Well, his own sense (if he had any) told him that we could not live without air; so he left the cork out, and went about his business; no doubt of much less consequence than the lives of all us prisoners - but that they do not mind. But how long were we prisoners? Why, as soon as ever we were out of the shell we began to spin, and linked our webs so thick together that the philosopher's bottle would hold us no longer. We climbed out in a crowd, and spread our webs over the room, up to the very ceiling. I shall never forget how the great booby stared when he saw us all climbing up our own rope-ladders! I wonder if those great creatures are not sometimes caught in webs spun by their fellow-creatures, and whether they are not sometimes put by hundreds into a bottle without possessing any means of escape? But I am but a child, and must live and learn before I talk more freely. Long life to you, dear mother, and plenty of flies. Yours ever, & c.
Dated "Home Wood." NEIGHBOUR, When we last met you seemed very lively and agreeable, but you asked an abundance of questions, and particularly wanted to know whether we nightingales really do, as is said of us, cross the great water every year, and return in the spring to sing in your English groves. Now, as I am but young, I must be modest, and not prate about what I cannot as yet understand. I must say, nevertheless, that I never heard my parents talk of any particular long journey which they had performed to reach this country, or that they should return, and take me and the rest of the family with them, at this particular time or season. I know this, that I never saw my parents fly further at one flight than from one side of a field to another or from one grove to the next. Who are they who call us "birds of passage"? [2] They certainly may know more of the extent of the GREAT WATERS than we can, neighbour Wren; but have they considered our powers, and the probability of what they assert? I am sure, if my parents should call on me to go with them, I shall be flurried out of my life. But it is my business to obey. I have so lately got my feathers, that I cannot be a proper judge of the matter. As to the swallows and many other birds going to a vast distance, there is no wonder in that, if you look at their wings; but how would you, for instance, perform such a journey - you who, even when you sing, put yourself into a violent passion, as if you had not a minute to live? We nightingales are the birds for song. This you will acknowledge, I dare say, though I have not begun yet. I will give you a specimen when I come back (if I am really to go), and you will hear me in "Home Wood" when it is dark, and you have crept into your little nest in the hovel.
I have often, during the spring and summer, heard you of a morning piping away in the hedges, sometimes as soon as I was up myself, and thought your singing pretty fair, and that you conducted yourself as you ought to do. But this I cannot say lately; for it is quite overstepping the bounds of decency and good manners when you and your brother pilferers, now the winter is come, make it your daily practice to come by scores, as you do, into our yard, and, without any ceremony, eat up all the barley you can lay your beaks to. I suppose when the spring comes again, and you find more to satisfy you outside a farmyard than within, you will be off to the hedges again. I shall let you alone, unless the barley runs short, which is to support my wives and children; when if you still venture to continue your pilferings, you must not be surprised should some of you feel the weight of my displeasure. I must go after my family, who are all out of my sight, since I have been writing this. Yours in haste, and a friend if possible,
DEAR AUNT, You cannot think how distressed I have been, and still am; for, under the bark of a large elm, which, I dare say, has stood there a great while, I had placed my whole family, where they were dry, comfortable, and, as I foolishly thought, secure. But only mark what calamities may fall upon earwigs before they are aware of them! I had just got my family about me, all white, clean, and promising children, when pounce came down that bird they call a woodpecker; when, thrusting his huge beak under the bark where we lay, down went our whole sheltering roof! and my children, poor things, running, as they thought, from danger, were devoured as fast as the destroyer could open his beak and shut it. For my own part, I crept into a crack in the solid tree, where I have thus far escaped; but as this bird can make large holes into solid timber, I am by no means safe. This calamity is the more heavy, as it carries with it a great disappointment; for very near our habitation was a high wall, the sunny side of which was covered with the most delicious fruits - peaches, apricots, nectarines, & c. - all just then ripening; and I thought of having such a feast with my children as I had never enjoyed in my life.
Dated Lincoln and Ely Fens. DEAR COUSIN, I suppose I must call you so, though I declare I know not how we are related. But, though I am thought so very wild and shy, I have still a kind of fellow-feeling for you; and, if you have not gone to the spit before this comes to you, I should be glad of your reply in a friendly way. You know very well that you are intended to be eaten, and so are we - when they can catch us. I understand that you never fly and that you seldom waddle above a meadow's length from your pond, where you keep puddling and groping from daylight till dark. This, I assure you, is not the life that I lead. We fly together in vast numbers in the night, for many miles over this flat, wet country; so, as to water, we have an inexhaustible store: we may swim ourselves tired. But, I dare say, every station of our duck-lives is subject to some disadvantages and some calamities. Thus, with all our wildness, we are not secure; for we are taken sometimes by hundreds in a kind of trap which is called a decoy.
(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.) Old friend, you certainly have merit; You really are a bird of spirit.
(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.) I. As I roamed t'other day,
(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.) Excuse, Mr. Bee, this epistle, to one Whose time, from the earliest gleam of the sun
DISTRESSED NEIGHBOUR, I am sorry for your trouble, but cheer up your spirits, and though you are insulted, remember who it is that gives the affront, it is only the magpie; and depend upon it that in general the best way to deal with impudent fools is to be silent and take no notice of them. I should have enough to do if I were to resent all her impertinences. She will come sometimes round the ivy where I lodge in the old elm, or into the tower on the top of the hill; and there she will pimp and pry into my private concerns, and mob me, and call me "Old Wigsby" and "Doctor Winkum," and such kind of names, and all for nothing. I assure you it is well for her that she is not a mouse, or she should not long escape my talons; but who ever heard of such a thing as eating a magpie? I live chiefly on mice (when I am at liberty to catch them), but I have my complaints to make as well as you, for you know I hold a high situation in the Post-office, and I suppose you know, likewise, that the letters are brought in so very late that it often takes me half the night to sort them, and night is the very time when I ought to get my own food! At this rate of going on, and if the cats are industrious as usual, there will not be a mouse left for me, if I do not give up my place. I have heard that my family are famed for wisdom; but for my part I will not boast of any such thing: yet I am wise enough to know that other people in high offices expect either a good salary or perquisites, as a reward for their labour, or what is easier still, somebody to do all the work for them. If I hold in my present mind until next quarter, I will certainly send in my resignation. Thus you see what an important thing it is to suit the person to the office, or the office to the person on whom it is conferred; for had the magpie, for instance, been secretary, every one of the letters would have been peeped into, for a certainty, for nothing can escape her curiosity. I will try to bear with my situation a little longer, and believe me to be
DEAR LITTLE BOB, I remember your peaceful singing on the top of your shed, near my late dwelling, and I remember also that I promised to write you some account of my journey. You may recollect that, at the close of your summer, when flies became scarce, we all assembled on a sunny morning, on the roof of the highest building in the village, and talked loudly of the flight we intended to take. At last came the day appointed, and we mounted up in a vast body and steered southward. Being hatched in England, I had thought your valleys and streams matchless in beauty; and for anything I know to the contrary they certainly are; but I am now a traveller, and have a traveller's privilege to say what I like. When we reached the great water I was astonished at its width, but more still to see many travelling houses going at a prodigious rate, and sending forth from iron chimneys columns of black smoke over the face of the water, reaching further than you ever flew in your life; they have a contrivance on each side which puts the waves all in commotion, but they are not wings. My mother says that in old times, when swallows came to England, there were no such things to be seen. We crossed this water, and a fine sunny country beyond it, until I was tired, and we now found flies more abundant, though the oldest amongst us assure me that we must travel further still, over another wide water, into a country where men's faces are of the same colour as my feathers, black and tawny; but travellers see strange things. When I come to England again I will endeavour to find out your village. [5] I hope, for your sake, you may have a mild winter and good lodgings. This is all the news worth sending, and I must catch flies for myself now, you know.
(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.) 'Twas the blush of the spring, vegetation was young, And the birds with a maddening ecstasy sung
Genius of the Forest Shades! Lend thy pow'r, and lend thine ear! A Stranger trod thy lonely glades,
Written At Clare-Hall, Herts. June 1804. Welcome silence! welcome peace! O most welcome, holy shade!