Book: Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2

J >> John Wilson >> Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2




O heavens and earth!--forests and barn-yards! what a difference with a
distinction between a GOLDEN EAGLE and a GREEN GOOSE! There, all neck
and bottom, splay-footed, and hissing in miserable imitation of a
serpent, lolling from side to side, up and down like an ill-trimmed
punt, the downy gosling waddles through the green mire, and, imagining
that King George the Fourth is meditating mischief against him, cackles
angrily as he plunges into the pond. No swan that "on still St Mary's
lake floats double, swan and shadow," so proud as he! He prides himself
on being a gander, and never forgets the lesson instilled into him by
his parents, soon as he chipt the shell in the nest among the nettles,
that his ancestors saved the Roman Capitol. In process of time, in
company with swine, he grazes on the common, and insults the Egyptians
in their roving camp. Then comes the season of plucking--and this very
pen bears testimony to his tortures. Out into the houseless winter is he
driven--and, if he escapes being frozen into a lump of fat ice, he is
crammed till his liver swells into a four-pounder--his cerebellum is cut
by the cruel knife of a phrenological cook, and his remains buried with
a cerement of apple sauce in the paunches of apoplectic aldermen, eating
against each other at a civic feast! Such are a few hints for "Some
Passages in the Life of a Green Goose," written by himself--in foolscap
octavo--published by Quack and Co., Ludgate Lane, and sold by all
booksellers in town and country.

Poor poets must not meddle with eagles. In the "Fall of Nineveh," Mr
Atherstone describes a grand review of his army by Sardanapalus. Two
million men are put into motion by the moving of the Assyrian flag-staff
in the hand of the king, who takes his station on a mount conspicuous to
all the army. This flag-staff, though "tall as a mast"--Mr Atherstone
does not venture to go on to say with Milton, "hewn on Norwegian hills,"
or "of some tall ammiral," though the readers' minds supply the
deficiency--this mast was, we are told, for "_two strong men_ a task;"
but it must have been so for twenty. To have had the least chance of
being all at once seen by two million of men, it could not have been
less than fifty feet high--and if Sardanapalus waved the royal standard
of Assyria round his head, Samson or O'Doherty must have been a joke to
him. However, we shall suppose he did; and what was the result? Such
shouts arose that the solid walls of Nineveh were shook, "and the firm
ground made tremble." But this was not all.

"At his height,
A speck scarce visible, the eagle heard,
And felt his strong wing falter: terror-struck,
Fluttering and wildly screaming, down he sank--
Down through the quivering air: another shout,--
His talons droop--his sunny eye grows dark--
His strengthless pennons fail--plump down he falls,
Even like a stone. Amid the far-off hills,
With eye of fire, and shaggy mane uprear'd,
The sleeping lion in his den sprang up;
Listen'd awhile--then laid his monstrous mouth
Close to the floor, and breathed hot roarings out
In fierce reply."

What think ye of that, John Audubon, Charles Buonaparte, J. Prideaux
Selby, James Wilson, Sir William Jardine, and ye other European and
American ornithologists? Pray, Mr Atherstone, did you ever see an
eagle--a speck in the sky? Never again suffer yourself, oh, dear sir! to
believe old women's tales of men on earth shooting eagles with their
mouths; because the thing is impossible, even had their mouthpieces had
percussion-locks--had they been crammed with ammunition to the muzzle.
Had a stray sparrow been fluttering in the air, he would certainly have
got a fright, and probably a fall--nor would there have been any hope
for a tom-tit. But an eagle--an eagle ever so many thousand feet
aloft--poo, poo!--he would merely have muted on the roaring multitude,
and given Sardanapalus an additional epaulette. Why, had a string of
wild-geese at the time been warping their way on the wind, they would
merely have shot the wedge firmer and sharper into the air, and answered
the earth-born shout with an air-born gabble--clangour to clangour.
Where were Mr Atherstone's powers of ratiocination, and all his
acoustics? Two shouts slew an eagle. What became of all the other
denizens of air--especially crows, ravens, and vultures, who, seeing two
millions of men, must have come flocking against a day of battle? Every
mother's son of them must have gone to pot. Then what scrambling among
the allied troops! And what was one eagle doing by himself "up-by
yonder?" Was he the only eagle in Assyria--the secular bird of ages? Who
was looking at him, first a speck--then faltering--then fluttering and
wildly screaming--then plump down like a stone? Mr Atherstone talks as
if he saw it. In the circumstances he had no business with his "sunny
eye growing dark." That is entering too much into the medical, or rather
anatomical symptoms of his apoplexy, and would be better for a medical
journal than an epic poem. But to be done with it--two shouts that slew
an eagle a mile up the sky, must have cracked all the tympana of the two
million shouters. The entire army must have become as deaf as a post.
Nay, Sardanapalus himself, on the mount, must have been blown into the
air as by the explosion of a range of gunpowder-mills; the campaign
taken a new turn; and a revolution been brought about, of which, at this
distance of place and time, it is not easy for us to conjecture what
might have been the fundamental features on which it would have
hinged--and thus an entirely new aspect given to all the histories of
the world.

What is said about the lion, is to our minds equally picturesque and
absurd. He was among the "far-off hills." How far, pray? Twenty miles?
If so, then without a silver ear-trumpet he could not have heard the
huzzas. If the far-off hills were so near Nineveh as to allow the lion
to hear the huzzas even in his sleep, the epithet "far-off" should be
altered, and the lion himself brought from the interior. But we cannot
believe that lions were permitted to live in dens within ear-shot of
Nineveh. Nimrod had taught them "never to come there no more"--and
Semiramis looked sharp after the suburbs. But, not to insist unduly upon
a mere matter of police, is it the nature of lions, lying in their dens
among far-off hills, to start up from their sleep, and "breathe hot
roarings out" in fierce reply to the shouts of armies? All stuff! Mr
Atherstone shows off his knowledge of natural history, in telling us
that the said lion, in roaring, "laid his monstrous mouth close to the
floor." We believe he does so; but did Mr Atherstone learn the fact from
Cuvier or from Wombwell? It is always dangerous to a poet to be too
picturesque; and in this case, you are made, whether you will or no, to
see an old, red, lean, mangy monster, called a lion, in his unhappy den
in a menagerie, bathing his beard in the sawdust, and from his toothless
jaws "breathing hot roarings out," to the terror of servant-girls and
children, in fierce reply to a man in a hairy cap and full suit of
velveteen, stirring him up with a long pole, and denominating him by the
sacred name of the great asserter of Scottish independence.

Sir Humphry Davy--in his own science the first man of his age--does not
shine in his "Salmonia"--pleasant volume though it be--as an
ornithologist. Let us see.

"POIET.--The scenery improves as we advance nearer the lower parts of
the lake. The mountains become higher, and that small island or
peninsula presents a bold craggy outline; and the birch-wood below it,
and the pines above, make a scene somewhat Alpine in character. But what
is that large bird soaring above the pointed rock, towards the end of
the lake? Surely it is an eagle!

"HAL.--You are right; it is an eagle, and of a rare and peculiar
species--the grey or silver eagle, a noble bird! From the size of the
animal, it must be the female; and her eyrie is in that high rock. I
dare say the male is not far off."

Sir Humphry speaks in his introductory pages of Mr Wordsworth as a lover
of fishing and fishermen; and we cannot help thinking and feeling that
he intends Poietes as an image of that great Poet. What! William
Wordsworth, the very high-priest of nature, represented to have seen an
eagle for the first time of his life only then, and to have boldly
ventured on a conjecture that such was the name and nature of the bird!
"But what is that large bird soaring above the pointed rock, towards the
end of the lake? Surely it is an eagle!" "Yes, you are right--it is an
eagle." Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha! Sir Humphry--Sir Humphry--that guffaw
was not ours--it came from the Bard of Rydal--albeit unused to the
laughing mood--in the haunted twilight of that beautiful--that solemn
Terrace.

Poietes having been confirmed, by the authority of Halieus, in his
belief that the bird is an eagle, exclaims, agreeably to the part he
plays, "Look at the bird! She dashes into the water, _falling like a
rock_ and raising a column of spray--she has _fallen from a great
height_. And now she rises again into the air--_what an extraordinary
sight_!" Nothing is so annoying as to be ordered to look at a sight
which, unless you shut your eyes, it is impossible for you not to see. A
person behaving in a boat like Poietes, deserved being flung overboard.
"Look at the bird!" Why, every eye was already upon her; and if Poietes
had had a single spark of poetry in his composition, he would have been
struck mute by such a sight, instead of bawling out, open-mouthed and
goggle-eyed, like a Cockney to a rocket at Vauxhall. Besides, an eagle
does not, when descending on her prey, fall like a rock. There is
nothing like the "_vis inertiae_" in her precipitation. You still see the
self-willed energy of the ravenous bird, as the mass of plumes flashes
in the spray--of which, by the by, there never was, nor will be, a
column so raised. She is as much the queen of birds as she sinks as when
she soars--her trust and her power are still seen and felt to be in her
pinions, whether she shoots to or from the zenith--to a falling star she
might be likened--just as any other devil--either by Milton or
Wordsworth--for such a star seems to our eye and our imagination ever
instinct with spirit, not to be impelled by exterior force, but to be
self-shot from heaven.

Upon our word, we begin to believe that we ourselves deserve the name of
Poietes much better than the gentleman who at threescore had never seen
an eagle. "She has fallen from a great height," quoth the
gentleman--"What an extraordinary sight!" he continueth--while we are
mute as the oar suspended by the up-gazing Celt, whose quiet eye
brightens as it pursues the Bird to her eyrie in the cliff over the cove
where the red-deer feed.

Poietes having given vent to his emotions in such sublime
exclamations--"Look at the bird!" "What an extraordinary sight!" might
have thenceforth held his tongue, and said no more about eagles. But
Halieus cries, "There! you see her rise with a fish in her talons"--and
Poietes, very simply, or rather like a simpleton, returns for answer,
"She _gives an interest which I hardly expected to have found in this
scene_. Pray, are there _many of these animals_ in this country?" A poet
hardly expecting to find interest in such a scene as a great Highland
loch--Loch Maree! "Pray, are there many _of these hanimals in this
country_?" Loud cries of Oh! oh! oh! No doubt an eagle is an animal;
like Mr Cobbett or Mr O'Connell--"a very fine animal;" but we
particularly, and earnestly, and anxiously, request Sir Humphry Davy
not to call her so again--but to use the term bird, or any other term he
chooses, except animal. Animal, a living creature, is too general, too
vague by far; and somehow or other it offends our ear shockingly when
applied to an eagle. We may be wrong, but in a trifling matter of this
kind Sir Humphry surely will not refuse our supplication. Let him call a
horse an animal, if he chooses--or an ass--or a cow--but not an
eagle--as he loves us, not an eagle; let him call it a bird--the Bird of
Jove--the Queen or King of the Sky--or anything else he chooses--but not
an animal--no--no--no--not an animal, as he hopes to prosper, to be
praised in Maga, embalmed and immortalised.

Neither ought Poietes to have asked if there were "_many_ of these
animals" in this country. He ought to have known that there are not
_many_ of these animals in any country. Eagles are proud--apt to hold
their heads very high--and to make themselves scarce. A great many
eagles all flying about together would look most absurd. They are aware
of that, and fly in "ones and twos"--a couple perhaps to a county.
Poietes might as well have asked Mungo Park if there were a great many
lions in Africa. Mungo, we think, saw but one; and that was one too
much. There were probably a few more between Sego and Timbuctoo--but
there are not a "great many of those animals in that country"--though
quite sufficient for the purpose. How the Romans contrived to get at
hundreds for a single show, perplexes our power of conjecture.

Halieus says--with a smile on his lip surely--in answer to the query of
Poietes--"Of this species I have seen but these two; and, I believe, the
young ones migrate as soon as they can provide for themselves; for this
solitary bird requires a large space to move and feed in, and does not
allow its offspring to partake its reign, or to live near it." This is
all pretty true, and known to every child rising or risen six, except
poor Poietes. He had imagined that there were "many of these animals in
this country," that they all went a-fishing together as amicably as five
hundred sail of Manksmen among a shoal of herrings.

Throughout these Dialogues we have observed that Ornither rarely opens
his mouth. Why so taciturn? On the subject of birds he ought, from his
name, to be well informed; and how could he let slip an opportunity,
such as will probably never be afforded him again in this life, of being
eloquent on the Silver Eagle? Ornithology is surely the department of
Ornither. Yet there is evidently something odd and peculiar in his
idiosyncrasy; for we observe that he never once alludes to "these
animals," birds, during the whole excursion. He has not taken his gun
with him into the Highlands, a sad oversight indeed in a gentleman who
"is to be regarded as generally fond of the sports of the field."
Flappers are plentiful over all the moors about the middle of July; and
hoodies, owls, hawks, ravens, make all first-rate shooting to sportsmen
not over anxious about the pot. It is to be presumed, too, that he can
stuff birds. What noble specimens might he not have shot for Mr Selby!
On one occasion, "the SILVER EAGLE" is preying in a pool within slug
range, and there is some talk of shooting him--we suppose with an oar,
or the butt of a fishing-rod, for the party have no firearms--but
Poietes insists on sparing his life, because "these animals" are a
picturesque accompaniment to the scenery, and "give it an interest which
he had not expected to find" in mere rivers, lochs, moors, and
mountains. Genus Falco must all the while have been laughing in his
sleeve at the whole party--particularly at Ornither--who, to judge from
his general demeanour, may be a fair shot with number five at an old
newspaper expanded on a barn-door twenty yards off, but never could have
had the audacity to think in his most ambitious mood of letting off his
gun at an Eagle.

But further, Halieus, before he took upon him to speak so
authoritatively about eagles, should have made himself master of their
names and natures. He is manifestly no scientific ornithologist. We are.
The general question concerning Eagles in Scotland may now be squeezed
into very small compass. Exclusive of the true Osprey (Falco Haliaetus),
which is rather a larger fishing-hawk than an eagle, there are two
kinds, viz.--the GOLDEN EAGLE (F. Chrysaetos), and the WHITE-TAILED or
CINEROUS EAGLE (F. Albicilla). The other two _nominal_ species are
disposed of in the following manner:--First, the RING-TAILED EAGLE (F.
Fulvus) is the young of the Golden Eagle, being distinguished in early
life by having the basal and central portion of the tail white, which
colour disappears as the bird attains the adult state. Second, the SEA
EAGLE (F. Ossifragus), commonly so called, is the young of the
White-tailed Eagle above named, from which it differs in having a brown
tail; for in this species the white of the tail becomes every year more
apparent as the bird increases in age, whereas, in the Golden Eagle, the
white altogether disappears in the adult.

It is to the RING-TAILED EAGLE, and, by consequence, to the GOLDEN
EAGLE, that the name of BLACK EAGLE is applied in the Highlands.

The White-tailed or Sea Eagle, as it becomes old, attains, in addition
to the pure tail, a pale or bleached appearance, from which it may merit
and obtain the name of Grey or SILVER EAGLE, as Sir Humphry Davy chooses
to call it; but it is not known among naturalists by that name. There is
no other species, however, to which the name can apply; and, therefore,
Sir Humphry has committed the very gross mistake of calling the Grey or
Silver Eagle (to use his own nomenclature) a very rare Eagle, since it
is the most common of all the Scots, and also--_a fortiori_--of all the
English Eagles--being in fact the SEA EAGLE of the Highlands.

It preys often on fish dead or alive; but not exclusively, as it also
attacks young lambs, and drives off the ravens from carrion prey, being
less fastidious in its diet than the GOLDEN EAGLE, which probably kills
its own meat--and has been known to carry off children; for a striking
account of one of which hay-field robberies you have but a few minutes
to wait.

As to its driving off its young, its habits are probably similar in this
respect to other birds of prey, none of which appear to keep together in
families after the young can shift for themselves; but we have never met
with any one who has seen them in the act of driving. It is stated
vaguely, in all books, of all eagles.

As to its requiring a large range to feed in--we have only to remark
that, from the powerful flight of these birds, and the wild and barren
nature of the countries which they inhabit, there can be no doubt that
they fly far, and "prey in distant isles"--as Thomson has it; but
Halieus needed not have stated this circumstance as a character of this
peculiar eagle--for an eagle with a small range does not exist; and
therefore it is to be presumed that they require a large one.

Further, all this being the case, there seems to be no necessity for the
old eagles giving themselves the trouble to drive off the young ones,
who by natural instinct will fly off of their own accord, as soon as
their wings can bear them over the sea. If an eagle were so partial to
his native vale, as never on any account, hungry or thirsty, drunk or
sober, to venture into the next parish, why then the old people would be
forced, on the old principle of self-preservation, to pack off their
progeny to bed and board beyond Benevis. But an Eagle is a Citizen of
the World. He is friendly to the views of Mr Huskisson on the Wool
Trade, the Fisheries, and the Colonies--and acts upon the old adage,

"Every bird for himself, and God for us all!"

To conclude, for the present, this branch of our subject, we beg leave
humbly to express our belief, that Sir Humphry Davy never saw the Eagle,
by him called the Grey or Silver, hunting for fish in the style
described in "Salmonia." It does not dislike fish--but it is not its
nature to keep hunting for them so, not in the Highlands at least,
whatever it may do on American continent or isles. Sir Humphry talks of
the bird dashing down repeatedly upon a pool within shot of the anglers.
We have angled fifty times in the Highlands for Sir Humphry's once, but
never saw nor heard of such a sight. He has read of such things, and
introduced them into this dialogue for the sake of effect--all quite
right to do--had his reading lain among trustworthy Ornithologists. The
common Eagle--which he ignorantly, as we have seen, calls so rare--is a
shy bird, as all shepherds know--and is seldom within range of the
rifle. Gorged with blood, they are sometimes run in upon and felled with
a staff or club. So perished, in the flower of his age, that Eagle whose
feet now form handles to the bell-ropes of our Sanctum at Buchanan
Lodge--and are the subject of a clever copy of verses by Mullion,
entitled "All the Talons."

We said in "The Moors," that we envied not the eagle or any other bird
his wings, and showed cause why we preferred our own feet. Had Puck
wings? If he had, we retract, and would sport Puck.

_Oberon._

"Fetch me this herb--and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league."

_Puck._

"I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes."

How infinitely more poetical are wings like these than seven-league
boots! We declare, on our conscience, that we would not accept the
present of a pair of seven-league boots to-morrow--or, if we did, it
would be out of mere politeness to the genie who might press them on us,
and the wisest thing we could do would be to lock them up in a drawer
out of the reach of the servants. Suppose that we wished to walk from
Clovenford to Innerleithen--why, with seven-league boots on, one single
step would take us up to Posso, seven miles above Peebles! That would
never do. By mincing one's steps, indeed, one might contrive to stop at
Innerleithen; but suppose a gad-fly were to sting one's hip at the
Pirn--one unintentional stride would deposit Christopher at Drummelzier,
and another over the Cruik, and far away down Annan water! Therefore,
there is nothing like wings. On wings you can flutter--and glide--and
float and soar--now like a humming-bird among the flowers--now like a
swan, half rowing, half sailing, and half flying adown a river--now like
an eagle afloat in the blue ocean of heaven, or shooting sunwards,
invisible in excess of light--and bidding farewell to earth and its
humble shadows. "O that I had the wings of a dove, that I might flee
away and be at rest!" Who hath not, in some heavy hour or other, from
the depth of his very soul, devoutly--passionately--hopelessly--breathed
that wish to escape beyond the limits of woe and sin--not into the world
of dreamless death; for weary though the immortal pilgrim may have been,
never desired he the doom of annihilation, untroubled although it be,
shorn of all the attributes of being--but he has prayed for the wings of
the dove, because that fair creature, as she wheeled herself away from
the sight of human dwellings, has seemed to disappear to his imagination
among old glimmering forests, wherein she foldeth her wing and falleth
gladly asleep--and therefore, in those agitated times when the spirits
of men acknowledge kindred with the inferior creatures, and would fain
interchange with them powers and qualities, they are willing even to lay
down their intelligence, their reason, their conscience itself, so that
they could but be blessed with the faculty of escaping from all the
agonies that intelligence, and reason, and conscience alone can know,
and beyond the reach of this world's horizon to flee away and be at
rest!

Puck says he will put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.
At what rate is that per second, taking the circumference of the earth
at 27,000 miles, more or less? There is a question for the mechanics,
somewhat about as difficult of solution as Lord Brougham's celebrated
one of the Smuggler and the Revenue Cutter--for the solution of which he
recommended the aid of algebra. It is not so quick as you would imagine.
We forget the usual rate of a cannon-ball in good condition, when he is
in training--and before he is at all blown. So do we forget, we are
sorry to confess, the number of centuries that it would take a good,
stout, well-made, able-bodied cannon-ball, to accomplish a journey to
our planet from one of the fixed stars. The great difficulty, we
confess, would be to get him safely conveyed thither. If that could be
done, we should have no fear of his finding his way back, if not in our
time, in that of our posterity. However red-hot he might have been on
starting, he would be cool enough, no doubt, on his arrival at the goal;
yet we should have no objection to back him against Time for a
trifle--Time, we observe, in almost all matches being beat, often indeed
by the most miserable hacks, that can with difficulty raise a gallop.
Time, however, possibly runs booty; for when he does make play, it must
be confessed that he is a spanker, and that nothing has been seen with
such a stride since Eclipse.

O beautiful and beloved Highland Parish! in whose dashing glens our
beating heart first felt the awe of solitude, and learned to commune
(alas! to what purpose?) with the tumult of its own thoughts! The
circuit of thy skies was indeed a glorious arena spread over the
mountain-tops for the combats of the great birds of prey! One wild cry
or another was in the lift--of the hawk, or the glead, or the raven, or
the eagle--or when those fiends slept, of the peaceful heron, and
sea-bird by wandering boys pursued in its easy flight, till the
snow-white child of ocean wavered away far inland, as if in search of a
steadfast happiness unknown on the restless waves. Seldom did the eagle
stoop to the challenge of the inferior fowl; but when he did, it was
like a mailed knight treading down unknown men in battle. The hawks, and
the gleads, and the ravens, and the carrion-crows, and the hooded-crows,
and the rooks, and the magpies, and all the rest of the rural militia,
forgetting their own feuds, sometimes came sallying from all quarters,
with even a few facetious jackdaws from the old castle, to show fight
with the monarch of the air. Amidst all that multitude of wings
winnowing the wind, was heard the sough and whizz of those mighty vans,
as the Royal Bird, himself an army, performed his majestic evolutions
with all the calm confidence of a master in the art of aerial war, now
shooting up half-a-thousand feet perpendicular, and now suddenly
plump-down into the rear of the croaking, cawing, and chattering
battalions, cutting off their retreat to the earth. Then the rout became
general, the missing, however, far outnumbering the dead. Keeping
possession of the field of battle, hung the eagle for a short while
motionless--till with one fierce yell of triumph he seemed to seek the
sun, and disappear like a speck in the light, surveying half of Scotland
at a glance, and a thousand of her isles.

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