The Cuckoo and the Cock.
"How Proudly and sonorously you sing, my dear Cock!"
"But you, dear Cuckoo, my light, how smoothly flows your long-drawn-out note! There is no such singer in all the rest of our forest."
"To you, my dear gossip, I could listen for ever."
"And as for you, my beauty, I swear that, when you are silent, I scarcely know how to wait till you begin again. Where do you get such a voice from?—so clear, so soft, and so high! But no doubt you were always like that; not very large in stature, but in song—a regular nightingale."
"Thanks, gossip. As for you, I declare, on my conscience, you sing better than the birds in the garden of Eden. For a proof of this, I appeal to public opinion."
At this moment a Sparrow, which had overheard their conversation, said to them,
"You may go on praising one another till you are hoarse, my friends; but your music is utterly worthless."
Why was it that, not being afraid to sin, the Cuckoo praised the Cock? Simply because the Cock praised the Cuckoo.[1]
- ↑ This is said to allude to the perpetual interchange of compliments which used to take place between the editors of the "Northern Bee"—Grech and Bulgarine.
