that of the Christians; the double walls were gan,15 and the caliphs,16 was irretrievably subreduced by the cannon to a heap of ruins; in a dued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her circuit of several miles, some places must be empire only had been subverted by the Latins; found more easy of access or more feebly | her religion was trampled in the dust by the guarded; and, if the besiegers could penetrate Moslem conquerors. GILBERT WHITE (1720-1793) FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DEAR SIR, Selborne,* Nov. 23, 1773. In obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some account of the house martin tle domestic and familiar bird should happen or martlet; and, if my monography of this litto meet with your approbation, I may probably British Hirundines-the swallow, the swift, soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the and the bank martin. in a single point, the whole city was irrecover- In A few house martins begin to appear about the 16th of April; usually some few days later than the swallow. For some time after they appear, the Hirundines in general pay no attention to the business of nidification, but play and sport about either to recruit from the at all, or else that their blood may recover its fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate true tone and texture after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the middle of May, if the weather be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for its family. The crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed of such dirt or loam as comes most readily to hand, and is of broken straws to render it tough and tempered and wrought together with little bits tenacious. As this bird often builds against a perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first foundation firmly fixed, so that it may safely carry the superstructure. On this occabut partly supports itself by strongly inclining sion the bird not only clings with its claws, gate Phenar on the side of the harbour. the first heat of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the its tail against the wall, making that a fulvictors acknowledged that they should immediately have given quarter, if the valour of rum; and thus steadied, it works and plasters the materials into the face of the brick or the emperor and his chosen bands had not pre-stone. But then, that this work may not, while pared them for a similar opposition in every it is soft and green, pull itself down by its own part of the capital. In was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes,14 the Cha 13 The names of several Byzantine emperors. 15 Title of the king of the Avars, ally of Chosroes. 16 Ottoman sovereigns. A parish in Hampshire, England, where White lived and made the observations in natural history which were communicated to his friends, Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington. weight, the provident architect has prudence | over. The young of this species do not quit and forbearance enough not to advance her their abodes all together, but the more forward work too fast; but by building only in the birds get abroad some days before the rest. morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day These, approaching the eaves of buildings, and to food and amusement, gives it sufficient time playing about before them, make people think to dry and harden. About half an inch seems that several old ones attend one nest. They to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus care- are often capricious in fixing on a nesting. ful workmen when they build mud walls (in- place, beginning many edifices, and leaving formed at first perhaps by this little bird) them unfinished; but when once a nest is comraise but a moderate layer at a time, and then pleted in a sheltered place, it serves for sev desist; lest the work should become top-heavy, eral seasons. Those which breed in a readyand so be ruined by its own weight. By this finished house get the start, in hatching, of method in about ten or twelve days is formed those that build new, by ten days or a fortan hemispheric nest with a small aperture night. These industrious artificers are at their towards the top, strong, compact, and warm; labours in the long days before four in the and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for morning: when they fix their materials, they which it was intended. But then nothing is plaster them on with their chins, moving their more common than for the house sparrow, as heads with a quick vibratory motion. They soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hot its own, to eject the owner, and to line it after weather, but not so frequently as swallows. its own manner. It has been observed that martins usually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests: but instances are also remembered where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard, against a wall facing to the south. After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as Nature seldom works in vain, martins will breed on for several years together in the same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered and secure from the injuries of weather. The shell or crust of the nest is a sort of rustic-work full of knobs and protuberances on the outside: nor is the inside of those that I have examined smoothed with any exactness at all; but is rendered soft and warm, and fit for incubation, by a lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers; and sometimes by a bed of moss interwoven with wool. In this nest the hen lays from three to five white eggs. As the young of small birds presently ar rive at their helikia, or full growth, they soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with food from morning to night. For a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents; but the feat is done by so quick and almost imperceptible a sleight, that a person must have attended very exactly to their motions before he would be able to perceive it. Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation: but in this neighbourhood, every summer, is seen a strong proof to the contrary at a house without eaves in an exposed district where some martins build year by year in the corners of the windows. But, as the corners of these windows (which face to the south-east and south-west) are too shallow, the nests are washed down every hard rain; and yet these birds drudge on to no purpose from summer to summer, without changing their aspect or house. It is a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest is washed away, and bringing dirt-"generis lapsi sarcire ruinas. ''1 Thus is instinct a most wonderful unequal faculty, in some instances so much above reason, in other respects so far below it! Martins love to frequent towns, especially if there are great lakes and rivers As soon as the young are able to shift for at hand; nay, they even affect the close air themselves, the dams immediately turn their of London. And I have not only seen them thoughts to the business of a second brood: nesting in the Borough, but even in the Strand while the first flight, shaken off and rejected and Fleet Street; but then it was obvious from by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and the dinginess of their aspect that their feathers are the birds that are seen clustering and hov-partook of the filth of that sooty atmosphere. ering on sunny mornings and evenings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs of churches and houses. These congregatings usually begin to take place about the first week in August; and therefore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well Martins are by far the least agile of the four species; their wings and tails are short, and 1 "To repair the wreck L 2 A street extending north from London Bridge. therefore they are not capable of such surpris- | self in the loose mould, and continues still coning turns and quick and glancing evolutions cealed. as the swallow. Accordingly they make use of a placid easy motion in a middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They breed the latest of all the swallow kind; in 1772 they had nestlings on to October the 21st, and are never without unfledged young as late as Michaelmas.3 As the summer declines, the congregating flocks increase in numbers daily, by the constant accession of the second broods; till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they frequent the aits of that river where they roost. They retire (the bulk of them, I mean) in vast flocks together, about the beginning of October: but have appeared of late years in a considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, as late as November the 3rd and 6th after they were supposed to have been gone for more than a fortnight. They therefore withdraw with us the latest of any species. Unless these birds are very shortlived indeed, or unless they do not return to the district where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations somehow, and somewhere; for the birds that return yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds that retire. As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life and propensities; and perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower; and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers. While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell-snails; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead; and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence! a very amusing occurrence! to see such a similarity of feelings between the two phereoikoi! for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and the tortoise.-Letter L (or XCII). House martins are distinguished from their congeners by having their legs covered with soft downy feathers down to their toes. They are no songsters; but twitter in a pretty inward soft manner in their nests. During the More Particulars Respecting the Old Family time of breeding, they are often greatly molested with fleas.-Letter XVI (or LV). DEAR SIR, Selborne, April 21, 1780. The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentment by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it, that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden: however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried it3 Sept. 29. + islets Tortoise. Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord,* 'Much too wise to walk into a well:' and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha;5 but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun; because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, scald with safety.' He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a 5 A hedge in a ditch. *Imitations of Horace, II, ii, 191. large cabbage leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall: and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. Pitiable seems the condition of this poor cmbarrassed reptile; to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The Antiquities of Selborne. EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797) FROM THE SPEECH AT BRISTOL, 1780* Since you have suffered me to trouble you so much on this subject, permit me, gentlemen, to detain you a little longer. I am indeed most solicitous to give you perfect satisfaction. I find there are some of a better and softer nature than the persons with whom I have supposed myself in debate, who neither think ill of the Act of Relief, nor by any means desire the repeal; yet who, not accusing but lamenting what was done, on account of the consequences, have frequently expressed their wish that the late Act had never been made. Some of this description, and persons of worth, I have met with in this city. They conceive that the prejudices, whatever they might be, of a large part of the people ought not to have been shocked; that their opinions ought to have been previously taken, and much attended to; and that thereby the late horrid scenes might have been prevented. In 1699 a most tyrannical law against Roman Catholics had been passed. The abolition of this law in 1778, by the Act of Relief, aroused some fanatical opposition expressed' in cries of "No Popery" and in the Lord George Gordon riots. Burke is defending before his constituents his support of the repeal. Sir Samuel Romilly called the entire speech "perhaps the first piece of oratory in our language." I confess my notions are widely different, and I never was less sorry for any action of my life. I like the bill the better on account of the events of all kinds that followed it. It relieved the real sufferers; it strengthened the state; and, by the disorders that ensued, we had clear evidence that there lurked a temper somewhere which ought not to be fostered by the laws. No ill consequences whatever could be attributed to the Act itself. We knew beforehand, or we were poorly instructed, that toleration is odious to the intolerant; freedom to oppressors; property to robbers; and all kinds and degrees of prosperity to the envious. We knew that all these kinds of men would gladly gratify their evil dispositions under the sanc tion of law and religion if they could; if they could not, yet, to make way to their objects, they would do their utmost to subvert all religion and all law. This we certainly knew; but, knowing this, is there any reason, because thieves break in and steal, and thus bring detriment to you, and draw ruin on themselves, that I am to be sorry that you are in the possession of shops, and of warehouses, and of wholesome laws to protect them? Are you to build no houses because desperate men may pull them down upon their own heads? Or, if a malignant wretch will cut his own throat because he sees you give alms to the necessitous and deserving, shall his destruction be attributed to your charity, and not to his own deplorable madness? If we repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, is left for our faults and follies? It is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural temper, which beneficence can fret and sour, that is to be lamented. It is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and corrected. ward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate anything but themselves? Does evil so react upon good as not only to retard its motion, but to change its nature? If it can so operate, then good men will always be in the power of the bad; and virtue, by a dreadful reverse of order, must lie under perpetual subjection and bondage to vice. If fro As to the opinion of the people, which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed. -Nearly two years' tranquillity which fol lowed the Act, and its instant imitation in Ireland, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a great measure, the effect of insidious art, and perverse industry, and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate and much more general than I am persuaded it was. When we know that the opinions of even the page or two more, but this is enough for my greatest multitudes are the standard of recti- measure-I have not lived in vain. tude, I shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience; but if it may be doubted whether Omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such things as they and I are possessed of no such power. Νο man carries further than I do the policy of making government pleasing to the people; but the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice. I would not only consult the interest of the people, but I would cheerfully gratify their humours. We are all a sort of children that must be soothed and managed. I think I am not austere or formal in my nature. I would bear, I would even myself play my part in, any innocent buffooneries to divert them; but I never will act the tyrant for their amusement. If they will mix malice in their sports, I shall never consent to throw them any living sentient creature whatsoever, no, not so much as a kitling, to torment. And now, gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as it were, to make up my account with you, let me take to myself some degree of honest pride on the nature of the charges that are against me. I do not here stand before you accused of venality, or of neglect of duty. It is not said that, in the long period of my service, have in a single instance sacrificed the slightest of your interests to my ambition, or to my fortune. It is not alleged that, to gratify any anger or revenge of my own or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing any description of men, or any one man in any description. No! the charges against me are all of one kind: that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far, further than a cautious policy would warrant, and further than the opinions of many would go along with me. In every accident which may happen through life-in pain, in sorrow, in depression and distress-I will call to mind this accusation, and be comforted. "But, if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness, I may chance never to be elected into Parliament."' It is certainly not pleasing to FROM REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLU TION IN FRANCE* Yielding to reasons, at least as forcible as those which were so delicately urged in the compliment on the new year,† the king of France will probably endeavour to forget these events and that compliment. But history, who exercises her awful censure over the proceedkeeps a durable record of all our acts, and be put out of the public service; but I wish to be a member of Parliament to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat. I deceive myself indeed most grossly if I had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the visions and imagina-ings of all sorts of sovereigns, will not forget tions of such things, than to be placed on the most splendid throne of the universe, tantalized with a denial of the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other than the greatest curse. Gentlemen, I have had my day. I can never sufficiently express my gratitude to you for having set me in a place wherein I could lend the slightest help to great and laudable designs. If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property and private conscience; if by my vote I have aided in securing to families the best possession, peace; if I have joined in reconciling kings to their subjects, and subjects to their prince; if I have assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the citizen, and taught him to look for his protection to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to the good-will of his countrymen; if I have thus taken my part with An address from the Assembly had been pre the best of men in the best of their actions, I can shut the book-I might wish to read a either those events, or the era of this liberal refinement in the intercourse of mankind. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her to save herself by flight-that this was the last proof of 1 Spoken sarcastically; see beginning of third paragraph. These reflections grew out of a correspondence which Burke had with "a very young gentleman of Paris," and they retain the tone of a personal letter. They were published in 1790. sented to the King and Queen Jan. 3, 1790, felicitating them upon the new year and begging them to forget the past in view of the good they might do in the future. |