CONTENTS
[ PREFACE ]
[ Chapter 1 ]
[ Chapter 2 ]
[ Chapter 3 ]
[ Chapter 4 ]
[ Chapter 5 ]
[ Chapter 6 ]
[ Chapter 7 ]
[ Chapter 8 ]
[ Chapter 9 ]
[ Chapter 10 ]
[ Chapter 11 ]
[ Chapter 12 ]
[ Chapter 13 ]
[ Chapter 14 ]
[ Chapter 15 ]
[ Chapter 16 ]
[ Chapter 17 ]
[ Chapter 18 ]
[ Chapter 19 ]
[ Chapter 20 ]
[ Chapter 21 ]
[ Chapter 22 ]
[ Chapter 23 ]
[ Chapter 24 ]
[ Chapter 25 ]
[ Chapter 26 ]
[ Chapter 27 ]
[ Chapter 28 ]
[ Chapter 29 ]
[ Chapter 30 ]
[ Chapter 31 ]
[ Chapter 32 ]
[ Chapter 33 ]
[ Chapter 34 ]
[ Chapter 35 ]
[ Chapter 36 ]
[ Chapter 37 ]
[ Chapter 38 ]
[ Chapter 39 ]
[ Chapter 40 ]
[ Chapter 41 ]
[ Chapter 42 ]
[ Chapter 43 ]
[ Chapter 44 ]
[ Chapter 45 ]
[ Chapter 46 ]
[ Chapter 47 ]
[ Chapter 48 ]
[ Chapter 49 ]
[ Chapter 50 ]
[ Chapter 51 ]
[ Chapter 52 ]
[ Chapter 53 ]
[ Chapter 54 ]
[ Chapter 55 ]
[ Chapter 56 ]
[ Chapter 57 ]
[ Chapter 58 ]
[ Chapter 59 ]
[ Chapter 60 ]
[ Chapter 61 ]
[ Chapter 62 ]
[ Chapter 63 ]
[ Chapter 64 ]
[ Chapter 65 ]
[ Chapter 66 ]
[ Chapter 67 ]
[ Chapter 68 ]
[ Chapter 69 ]
[ Chapter 70 ]
[ Chapter 71 ]
[ Chapter 72 ]
[ Chapter 73 ]
[ Chapter 74 ]
[ Chapter 75 ]
[ Chapter 76 ]
[ Chapter 77 ]
[ Chapter 78 ]
[ Chapter 79 ]
[ Chapter 80 ]
[ Chapter 81 ]
[ Chapter the Last ]
[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
PREFACE
The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few following words about my experience of these birds.
The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, ‘good gifts’, which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable—generally on horseback—and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog’s dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death.