IMPRISONED BIRDS [To the Editor of the SrEcTaTon.] Sin,— The
article in the Spectator of November st:hol, on " Imprisoned Birds," by Lord Howard of Penrith, brings to mind that a knowledge of the truth of this matter was expressed by Chaucer in The Monciple's Tole more than 500 years ago. It runs as follows :
Tak any brid, and put it in a cage, And do al thyn entente, and thy corage To fostre it tendrely with mete and drinks, Of elle deynteer that thou canst bethinke, And kepe it al so clenly as thou_ may ; Aldhough his cage of gold be never so gay, Yet bath this brid, by twenty thousand fold, Lever in a forest, that is rude and cold, Gon eta wormes and swieh wretchedness. For over this brid wol doon his bisinesso To escape out of his cage, if he may His liberty this brid desireth ay."
Then on reading what Lord Howard says about watching the flight of birds as "something indescribably exhilarating --- one recalls the vivid words on this subject by the late Poet Laureate in his last work The Testament of Beauty.
"Birds are of all animals the nearest to men for that they lake delight in both music and dance, and gracefully schooling leisure to enliven filo war the earlier artists moreover- in their airy flight (which in its swiftness symboleth man's soaring thought) they lute no rival but man, and easily surpass in their free voyaging his most desperate daring, altho' he bath fed and sped his ocean-slaps WI lire.'
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