Observations [by M. Davy] upon mr. Fox's letter to mr. Grey [on the song of the nightingale contained in lord Holland's preface to C.J. Fox's History of the early part of the reign of James ii].1809 - 16 pages |
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Page 16 - Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall Takes up again her lamentable strain Of winding woe ; till, wide around, the woods Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.
Page 5 - He made the persone, and the peple, his apes. But trewely to tellen atte last, He was in chirche a noble ecclesiast. Wel coude he rede a lesson or a storie, But alderbest he sang an ofFertorie : For wel he wiste, whan that song was songe, He muste preche, and wel afile his tonge, To winne silver, as he right wel coude : Therfore he sang the merier and loude.
Page 1 - In defence of my opinion about the nightingales, I find Chaucer, — who of all poets seems to have been the fondest of the singing of birds, — calls it a merry note...
Page 3 - And to the crowe, o false thefe, said he, I wol thee quite anon thy false tale. Thou song whilom, like any nightingale, Now shalt thou, false thefe, thy song forgon, And eke thy white fethers everich on, Ne never in all thy lif ne shalt thou speke ; Thus shul men on a traitour ben awreke. 17547 Thou and thin ofspring ever shul be blake, Ne never swete noise shul ye make, But ever crie ageins tempest and rain, In token, that thurgh thee my wif is slain.
Page 15 - Itys, and the comparison of her to Electra is rather as to perseverance by day and night, than as to sorrow. At all events, a tragic poet is not half so good authority in this question as Theocritus and Chaucer. I cannot light upon the passage in the Odyssey...
Page 7 - Dulce cantaverunt monachi in Ely, dum Canutus rex navigaret prope ibi, nunc milites navigate propius ad terram, et simul audiamus monachorum harmoniam', et caetera quae sequuntur, quae usque hodie in choris publice cantantur et in proverbiis memorantur.
Page 4 - I gan full well aspy Where she sat in a fresh grene laurer tree, On the further side even right by me, That gave so passing a delicious smell, According to the eglentere full well. Whereof I had so inly great pleasure, That, as me thought, I surely ravished was Into Paradise, where my desire Was for to be...
Page 3 - A yerd she had, enclosed all about With stickes, and a drie diche without, In which she had a cok highte Chaunteclere, In all the land of crowing n'as his pere. His vois was merier than the mery orgon, On masse dales that in the chirches gon. Wel sikerer was his crowing in his loge, Than is a clok, or any abbey orloge.
Page 3 - Now had this Phebus in his hous a crowe. Which in a cage he fostred many a day. And taught it speken, as men teche a jay. Whit was this crowe, as is a snow-whit swan, And contrefete the speche of every man He coude, whan he shulde tell a tale. Therwith in all this world no nightingale Ne coude by an hundred thousand del Singen so wonder merily and wel.
Page 16 - Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of Nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.