Addison was a true lover of nature, which he shows in two letters written by him to the Earl of Warwick (afterwards his son-in-law), when that nobleman was very young. "My dear Lord," he writes, "I have employed the whole neighbourhood in looking after Birds'-nests, and not altogether without success. My man found one last night, but it proved a hen's, with fifteen eggs in it, covered with an old broody Duck, which may satisfy your Lordship's curiosity a little; though I am afraid the eggs will be of little use to us. This morning I have news brought me of a nest that has abundance of little eggs, streaked with red and blue veins, that, by the description they give me, must make a very beautiful figure in a string. My neighbours are very much divided in their opinions upon them: some say they are a Skylark's; others will have them to be a Canary-Bird's; but I am much mistaken in the colour and turn of the eggs if they are not full of Tomtit's." Again, Addison writes:—"Since I am so near your Lordship, methinks, after having passed the day amid more severe studies, you may often take a trip hither and relax yourself with these little curiosities of nature. I assure you no less a man than Cicero commends the two great friends of his age, Scipio and Lælius, for entertaining themselves at their country-house, which stood on the sea-shore, with picking up cockle-shells, and looking after Birds'-nests."
In another letter Addison writes:—"The business of this is to invite you to a concert of music which I have found out in a neighbouring wood. It begins precisely at six in the evening, and consists of a Blackbird, a Thrush, a Robin-Redbreast, and a Bullfinch. There is a Lark, that, by way of overture, sings and mounts till she is almost out of hearing; and afterwards, falling down leisurely, drops to the ground as soon as she has ended her song. The whole is concluded by a Nightingale, that has a much better voice than Mrs. Tofts, and something of the Italian manner in her divisions. If your Lordship will honour me with your company, I will promise to entertain you with much better music, and more agreeable scenes, than you ever met with at the Opera; and will conclude with a charming description of a Nightingale out of our friend Virgil:—
"'So close, in poplar shades, her children gone,
The mother Nightingale laments alone;
Whose nest some prying churl had found, and thence
By stealth convey'd the unfeathered innocence:
But she supplies the night with mournful strains,
And melancholy music fills the plains.'"