Rinaldo is a knight in Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered” (Canto XVIII, 17-40), who enters an enchanted wood, and, by cutting down a tree in spite of the nymphs and phantoms that endeavor in every way to stop him, breaks the spell; the Christian army are thus enabled to enter the grove and obtain timber for their engines of war.

LXI.  THE ENGLISH SKYLARK.

Elihu Burritt (b. 1810, d. 1879). “the learned blacksmith,” was born in New Britain, Conn.  His father was a shoemaker.  Having received only a limited amount of instruction at the district school, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith about 1827.  During his apprenticeship he labored hard at self-instruction.  He worked at his trade many years, from ten to twelve hours each day, but managed, in the meantime to acquire a knowledge of many ancient and modern languages.  He made translations from several of these, which were published in the “American Eclectic Review.”  In 1844 he commenced the publication of “The Christian Citizen.”  His leading literary works are “Sparks from the Anvil,” “A Voice from the Forge,” “Peace Papers,” and “Walks to John o’ Groat’s House.”  From the last of these the following selection is abridged.

1.  Take it in all, no bird in either hemisphere equals the English lark in heart or voice, for both unite to make it the sweetest, the happiest, the welcomest singer that was ever winged, like the high angels of God’s love.  It is the living ecstasy of joy when it mounts up into its “glorious privacy of light.”

2.  On the earth it is timid, silent, and bashful, as if not at home, and not sure of its right to be there at all.  It is rather homely withal, having nothing in feather, feature, or form to attract notice.  It is seemingly made to be heard, not seen, reversing the old axiom addressed to children when getting noisy.

3.  Its mission is music, and it floods a thousand acres of the blue sky with it several times a day.  Out of that palpitating speck of living joy there wells forth a sea of twittering ecstasy upon the morning and evening air.  It does not ascend by gyrations, like the eagle and birds of prey.  It mounts up like a human aspiration.

4.  It seems to spread its wings and to be lifted straight upwards out of sight by the afflatus of its own happy heart.  To pour out this in undulating rivulets of rhapsody is apparently the only motive of its ascension.  This it is that has made it so loved of all generations.

5.  It is the singing angel of man’s nearest heaven, whose vital breath is music.  Its sweet warbling is only the metrical palpitation of its life of joy.  It goes up over the rooftrees of the rural hamlet on the wings of its song, as if to train the human soul to trial flights heavenward.

6.  Never did the Creator put a voice of such volume into so small a living thing.  It is a marvel—­almost a miracle.  In a still hour you can hear it at nearly a mile’s distance.  When its form is lost in the hazy lace work of the sun’s rays above, it pours down upon you all the thrilling semitones of its song as distinctly as if it were warbling to you in your window.