and Petrarch being staunch advocates for the first opinion, while Coleridge insists upon it that her notes are any thing but melancholy; however this may be, it is requisite to mention in correction of a very common error that the song of the nightingale is not confined to the evening; the bird about the middle of this month sings both early

Di dolcezza émpie il cielo e le campagne

Con tante nòte sì pietóse e scorte."-Sonnetto lxxiv.
"The nightingale that oft so sweetly grieves
Perchance her young, or fondly cherish'd mate,
Whose notes harmonious breathe at Heav'n's gate
Whilst earth responds the woe her bosom heaves."

S. Woollaston. On the other hand, Chaucer calls the nightingale's song merry; and Coleridge is eloquent upon the same side of the question.

"All is still!

A balmy night, and though the stars be dim,

Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find

A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

And hark! the nightingale begins its song, 'Most musical, most melancholy' bird!—

A melancholy bird? O, idle thought!

In nature there is nothing melancholy;

But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

Or slow distemper, or neglected love,

And so, poor wretch, filled all things with himself,

And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale

Of his own sorrows;-he and such as he,
First nam'd these notes a melancholy strain;
And many a poet echoes the conceit;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still,
Full of meek sympathy, must heave those sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My friend, and my friend's sister, we have learnt
A different lore; we may not thus profane

and late throughout the day. Nor is our Fauna yet exhausted. The red-breast, the throstle, the storm-cock, the blackbird, and the black-cap, join in the general harmony. The cuckoo also, though he sometimes appears towards the end of March, may also be set down as belonging to the middle of April; according to the old Devonshire rhymes,

"In the month of April

He opens his bill;
In the month of May
He singeth all day;
In the month of June
He alters his tune;

In the month of July
Away he doth fly."

In Norfolk they have a sort of rhyming proverb much to the same purpose, but making the bird's sojourn with us a month later;

In addition to these, partridges are still heard by night;

Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance. 'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates,
With fast, thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music."

* Bray's "Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy."

+ Forster's Perennial Calendar, p. 182; but I have taken the liberty

the bat makes his appearance; and that singular little creature, the mole-cricket, utters its low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without intermission, like the chattering of the fern-owl. It inhabits the sides of canals, and swampy wet soils, in which just below the surface it forms long winding burrows and a chamber neatly smoothed and rounded, of the size of a moderate snuff-box, in which about the middle of May it deposits its The ridges eggs to the number of nearly a hundred. which this insect raises in its subterraneous progress interrupt the evenness of gravel walks; and the havoc it commits in beds of young cabbages, legumes, and flowers, renders it a very unwelcome guest in a garden.* Still less pleasant visitors about this time are the snakes, snails, earth-worms and beetles.

The Flora of April is equally extensive with the Fauna. Among the principal ornaments of the season are the crown-imperial; the chequered daffodil; the wall-flower, which, where the plant is old, now begins to blow and continues in flower during the early part of summer, though the younger specimens do not blow till May; and the garden-hyacinth, and the oriental narcissus which are seen in blossom out of doors. Daffodils also, jonquils, the early sweet-scented tulip, and the anemone begin to

of arranging the verse somewhat differently, and more in accordance with the rhymes. He also gives some curious old lines from Heywood in regard to this bird

"In April, the Coocoo can sing her song by rote;

In June, of tune she can not sing a note;

At first, koo-coo, koo-coo, still can she do;

At last, kooke, kooke, kooke; six kookes to one koo."

The same authority-that is, Forster - informs us "the cuckoo begins early in the season with the interval of a minor third; the bird then proceeds to a major third; next to a fourth, then to a fifth, after which his voice breaks out without attaining a minor sixth.”

* Vide Forster's Perennial Calendar, p. 198.

169

flower, while the crowsfeet multiply on all sides, and the dandelion almost turns the meadows into a field of yellow; the ladies' smock too and the speedwell are also abundant; and the early flowers, such as the violet and the heart's ease, still continue in full profusion; but the snow-drop has disappeared, and in its place we have the snow-flake, the graceful cowslip, and in less abundance the bulbous crowfoot, to be soon followed by the harebell, that loves the sides of fields, sloping banks, and shady places, which it renders quite blue with its flowers. Not less beautiful are the trees at this season. The laurel, almond, peach, apricot, nectarine, cherry, and many other fruit-trees blossom on all sides, while the beech, the horsechestnut, the elm, and the larch open their leaves, and are clothed in a light but glowing green, that in its repose is to the full as pleasing to the eye as the gaudiest of the flowers.

Such was April, though of late years it has hardly deserved so fair a character, having like some other folks grown worse as it has grown older. winter has been less severe with us, spring and summer In proportion as have deteriorated, as if nature required the bracing colds of winter to restore her strength after the teeming of the two preceding seasons.

All Fool's Day.-The custom of making April fools on the first day of this month is exceedingly old as well as general. Both Maurice and Colonel Pearce have shown that it prevailed in India, and the latter says, that it forms a part of the Huli Festival.-"During the Huli, when mirth and festivity reign among the Hindoos of every class, one subject of diversion is to send people on errands and expeditions that are to end in disappointment, and raise a laugh at the expense of the person sent. The Huli is always in March, and the last day is the general holiday. I have never yet heard any account of the origin of this

I

English custom; but it is unquestionably very ancient, and is still kept up even in great towns, though less in them than in the country. With us it is chiefly confined to the lower class of people, but in India high and low join in it; and the late Sourajah Doulah, I am told, was very fond of making Huli fools, though he was a Mussulman of the highest rank. They carry the joke here so far as to send letters making appointments in the names of persons, who it is known must be absent from their houses at the time fixed upon; and the laugh is always in proportion to the trouble given."*

Upon this Maurice † has well observed, that the origin of the custom is to be sought in the ancient practices amongst the Eastern people of "celebrating with festival rites the period of the Vernal Equinox, or the day when the new year of Persia anciently began." But, however derived, the name at least existed among the Romans, for we find the following pertinent passage in Plutarch,- Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools? was it because this day was given, as Juba writes, to those who were ignorant of their tribe? or was it because it was permitted to those, who had not sacrificed, like the rest, at the Fornacalia in their tribe, on account of business, travelling, or ignorance, to recover their festival on this occasion."

Brand is inclined to believe that All Fools' Day is only

* Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 334.

+ Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 71.

* Κεφαλαίων Καταγραφη Ρωμαικα, 89-Plut. Op. Tomus ii. p. 115. Qrto. Oxon: 1726. Sir Henry Ellis, who was directed to this passage by the Rev. W. Walter, Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, calls it "a singular passage." In what its singularity consists I am at a loss to conceive. If there be anything at all out of the way in the business, it is that a writer of so much pretension as Sir Henry should need a finger-post to direct him on the road to Plu