THE LITTLE OWL.
[TO THE EDITOR or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR.,—ThC recent letters in your paper on this subject brought to my recollection a story in Edward FitzGerald's Letters about his "doing his little owl." I have hunted it up—see Letters to Fanny ifemble, p. 142. He was discussing the question whether or no he should publish his version of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. Here it is, if you care to reprint it
"I am very well content to pay my money for the little work which I have long meditated doing. I shall have done 'my little owl.' Do you know what that means ? No. Well, then, ray Grandfather had several Parrots of different sorts and Talents : one of them (` Billy,' I think) could only huff up his feathers in what my Grandfather called an owl fashion ; so when company were praising the more gifted Parrots, he would say, 'You will hurt poor Billy's feelings. Come ! Do your little owl, my dear ! ' You are to imagine a handsome, hair-powdered Gentleman doing this, and his Daughter—my Mother—telling of it. And so it is I do my little owl."
—I am, Sir, &c., J. W. R.
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