Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/314

240 thought on this pretty argument from a nightingale? Let us put it into a syllogism—A nightingale sings, a nightingale sings , ergo and  are the same. Very quaint indeed, and out of the common way! But it has one little fault, that if a nightingale can sing more tunes than one, his syllogism must then be hushed. Mr B. seems to bring this argument with a very serious air; as if because the poet metaphorically calls the singing of a bird by the several names of human music, we may infer that all those names may signify one and the same thing. But in the very same page Aristophanes says, that the upupa, which we call the hoopoe, no very melodious bird, chanted a —

Mr B. therefore, by the very same reasoning, may give us another syllogism—The nightingale sings a, the hoopoe sings a , ergo the hoopoe sings like the nightingale. And by the same argument blackbirds will sing like them, for their notes too are —