and wishing to be at once
cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool now, who travels in France
or Italy, till that tribe of wretches be swept home again. In two
or three years, the first rush will be over, and the Continent
will be roomy and agreeable." (Life, vol. ii., p. 319.) For
sketches of the English of seventeen years later, at the same
_spots_ (Wengern Alp and Interlachen), see, if you _can_ see, in
any library, public or private, at Geneva, Topffer's 'Excursions
dans les Alpes, 1832.' Douzieme, Treizieme, and Quatorzieme
Journee.

48. THE TAIL. Mr. Courthope does not condescend to italicize his
pun; but a swallow-tailed and adder-tongued pun like this must be
paused upon. Compare Mr. Murray's Tale of the Town of Lucca, to
be seen between the arrival of one train and the departure of the
next,--nothing there but twelve churches and a cathedral,--mostly
of the tenth to thirteenth century.

60. AFAR. I did not know of this weather sign; nor, I suppose,
did the Duke of Hamilton's keeper, who shot the last pair of
Choughs on Arran in 1863. ('Birds of the West of Scotland,' p.
165.) I trust the climate has wept for them; certainly our
Coniston clouds grow heavier, in these last years.

63. SOCIAL. Rightly sung by the Birds in three syllables; but the
lagging of the previous line (probably intentional, but not
pleasant,) makes the lightness of this one a little dangerous for
a clumsy reader. The 'i-al' of 'social' does not fill the line as
two full short syllables, else the preceding word should have
been written '_on_,' not 'upon.' The five syllables, rightly
given, just take the time of two iambs; but there _are_ readers
rude enough to accent the 'on' of upon, and take 'social' for two
short syllables.

64. HOLD. Short for 'to hold'--but it is a licentious
construction, so also, in next line, 'themselves' for 'they
themselves.' The stanza is on the whole the worst in the poem,
its irony and essential force being much dimmed by obscure
expression, and even slightly staggering continuity of thought.
The Rooks may be properly supposed to have taught men to dispute,
but not to write. The Swallow teaches building, literally, and
the Owl moping, literally; but the Rook does not teach
pamphleteer