hough agreeable to all, conveys positive and
durable pleasure only to those who have learned to associate with
their notes, in connection with the scenes of Nature, a thousand
interesting and romantic images. To many persons of this character it
affords more delight than the most brilliant music of the opera or the
concert. In vain, therefore, will it be said, as an objection, that
the notes of birds have no charm, save that which is derived from
association, and that, considered as music, they do not equal that of
the most simple reed or flageolet. It is sufficient to remark, that
the most delightful influences of Nature proceed from those sights and
sounds that appeal to the imagination and affections through the
medium of slight and almost insensible impressions made upon the eye
and the ear. At the moment when these physical impressions exceed a
certain mean, the spell is broken, and the enjoyment becomes sensual,
not intellectual. How soon, indeed, would the songs of birds lose
their effect, if they were loud and brilliant, like a band of
instruments! It is their simplicity that gives them their charm.

As a further illustration of this point, it may be remarked that
simple melodies have among all people exercised a greater power over
the imagination than louder and more complicated music. Nature employs
a very small amount of physical sensation to create an intellectual
passion, and when an excess is used a diminished effect is produced. I
am persuaded that the effect of a great part of our sacred music is
lost by an excess of harmony and a too great volume of sound. On the
same principle, a loud crash of thunder deafens and terrifies; but its
low and distant rumbling produces an agreeable emotion of sublimity.

The songs of birds are as intimately allied with poetry as with
music. The lark has been aptly denominated a "feathered lyric" by one
of the English poets; and the analogy becomes apparent when we
consider how much the song of a bird resembles a lyrical ballad in its
influence on the mind. Though it utters no words, how plainly it
suggests a long train of agreeable images of love, beauty, friendship,
and home! When a young person has suffered any severe wound of the
affections, he seldom fails, if endowed with a sensitive mind, to
listen to the birds as sharers in his affliction. Through them the
deities of the groves seem to offer him their consolation. By
indulging this habit of making companionship wit