Ad solam dominum usque pipilabat.”
In Lyly’s “Mother Bombie,”
“Cry
Phip, phip, the sparrows as they fly.”
And Skelton, the Poet Laureate of Henry VIII.’s reign, wrote a long poem entitled “Phylyppe Sparrow,” on the death of a pet bird of this species. Shakespeare thus names it in King John (Act i. Sc. 1):—
“Gurney. Good leave, good Philip.
Bastard. Philip! sparrow!”
We are told of Cressida, when getting ready to meet her lover, that—
“She fetches her breath so short as a new-ta’en sparrow.”
Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 2.