Bach--generally terminating with the modest request of a little private
parlance beneath the green wood bough, with no other witness than the
eos, or nightingale, a request which, if the poet himself may be
believed--rather a doubtful point--was seldom, very seldom, denied.

* * * * *

I cannot help thinking that it was fortunate for myself, who am, to a
certain extent, a philologist, that with me the pursuit of languages has
been always modified by the love of horses; for scarcely had I turned my
mind to the former, when I also mounted the wild cob, and hurried forth
in the direction of the Devil's Hill, scattering dust and flint-stones on
every side; that ride, amongst other things, taught me that a lad with
thews and sinews was intended by nature for something better than mere
word-culling; and if I have accomplished anything in after life worthy of
mentioning, I believe it may partly be attributed to the ideas which that
ride, by setting my blood in a glow, infused into my brain. I might,
otherwise, have become a mere philologist; one of those beings who toil
night and day in culling useless words for some opus magnum which Murray
will never publish, and nobody ever read--beings without enthusiasm, who,
having never mounted a generous steed, cannot detect a good point in
Pegasus himself; like a certain philologist, who, though acquainted with
the exact value of every word in the Greek and Latin languages, could
observe no particular beauty in one of the most glorious of Homer's
rhapsodies. What knew he of Pegasus? he had never mounted a generous
steed; the merest jockey, had the strain been interpreted to him, would
have called it a brave song!--I return to the brave cob.

* * * * *