text:  Did the old Poet translate from plain English into the language of Birds and expect us to re-translate? Or are these blushes and this knighthood amongst birds merely regular adjuncts in any fable that attributes to the inferior creation human powers of reason and speech? It is curious that the _rapacious_ fowls are presented as excelling in high and delicate sentiment! They are the aristocracy of the birds plainly; yet an aristocracy described as of "ravine" seems to receive but an equivocal compliment