t time, and partly because he
always feels that if people won't look for his meaning, they should not
be told it. My own special function, on the contrary, is, and always
has been, that of the Interpreter only, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress;'
and I trust that Mr. Courthope will therefore forgive my arranging his
long cadence of continuous line so as to come symmetrically into my own
page, (thus also enforcing, for the inattentive, the rhymes which he is
too easily proud to insist on,) and my division of the whole chorus
into equal strophe and antistrophe of six lines each, in which,
counting from the last line of the stanza, the reader can easily catch
the word to which my note refers.

123. We wish to declare,
How the birds of the air
All high institutions designed,
And, holding in awe
Art, Science, and Law,
Delivered the same to mankind. 6

To begin with; of old
Man went naked, and cold,
Whenever it pelted or froze,
Till _we_ showed him how feathers
Were proof against weathers,
With that, _he_ bethought him of hose. 12

And next, it was plain,
That he, in the rain,
Was forced to sit dripping and blind,
While the Reed-warbler swung
In a nest, with her young
Deep sheltered, and warm, from the wind. 18

So our homes in the boughs
Made _him_ think of the House;
And the Swallow, to help him invent,
Revealed the best way
To economize clay,
And bricks to combine with cement. 24

The knowledge withal
Of the Carpenter's awl,
Is drawn from the Nuthatch's bill;
And the Sand-Martin's pains
In the hazel-clad lanes
Instructed the Mason to drill. 30

Is there _one_ of the Arts,
More dear to men's hearts?
To the bird's inspiration they owe it;
For the Nightingale first
Sweet music rehearsed,
Prima-Donna, Composer, and Poet. 36

The Owl's dark retreats
Showed sages the sweets
Of brooding, to spin, or unravel
Fine webs in one's brain,
Philosophical--vain;
The Swallows,--the ple