Letter XIXTo The Honourable Daines BarringtonSelborne, Feb. 14, 1774.Dear Sir,I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to find that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual candour: nor was I less pleased to find that you made objections where you saw reason.As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the ancients did not attend to specific differences like modern naturalists: yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to incline me to suppose that in the two passages quoted the poet had his eye on the swallow.In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, who is a great songster; but not the martin, which is rather a mute bird; and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not the martin; since the former does frequently build within the roof against the rafters; while the latter always, as far as I have been able to observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices.As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it: yet the epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose back and wings are very black; while the rump of the martin is milk-white, its back and wings blue, and all its under part white as snow. Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy) of the martin well represent the sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns which Juturna gave to her brother’s chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged Aeneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat loquacious.** Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis ædesPervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas:Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circumStagna sonat …We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise the springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 1764; which was a remarkable year for floods and high waters. The land-springs, which we call lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say when the lavants rise corn will always be dear; meaning that when the earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn-vales must be drowned; and so it has proved for these ten or eleven years past. For land-springs have never obtained more since the memory of man than during that period; nor has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of grain, considering the great improvements of modern husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two ago would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore pamphlets and newspaper letters, that talk of combinations, tend to inflame and mislead; since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends us more favourable seasons.The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the county of Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad: and our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains, looks poorly; and the turnips rot very fast.
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774.
Dear Sir,
I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to find that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual candour: nor was I less pleased to find that you made objections where you saw reason.
As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the ancients did not attend to specific differences like modern naturalists: yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to incline me to suppose that in the two passages quoted the poet had his eye on the swallow.
In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, who is a great songster; but not the martin, which is rather a mute bird; and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not the martin; since the former does frequently build within the roof against the rafters; while the latter always, as far as I have been able to observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices.
As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it: yet the epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose back and wings are very black; while the rump of the martin is milk-white, its back and wings blue, and all its under part white as snow. Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy) of the martin well represent the sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns which Juturna gave to her brother’s chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged Aeneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat loquacious.*
* Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis ædesPervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas:Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circumStagna sonat …
We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise the springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 1764; which was a remarkable year for floods and high waters. The land-springs, which we call lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say when the lavants rise corn will always be dear; meaning that when the earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn-vales must be drowned; and so it has proved for these ten or eleven years past. For land-springs have never obtained more since the memory of man than during that period; nor has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of grain, considering the great improvements of modern husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two ago would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore pamphlets and newspaper letters, that talk of combinations, tend to inflame and mislead; since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends us more favourable seasons.
The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the county of Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad: and our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains, looks poorly; and the turnips rot very fast.