Talking birds in real life and in print. Well, there are parrots. Are they less popular than they used to be? When small, children were sometimes put off by the apparently aggressive voice that came from the cage. Then there was Edgar Allen Poe's raven. All that is remembered from a schoolday reading of it is that the poet addressed it at length and regularly there came the words: "Quote the Raven `Nevermore'." Liveliest of literary talking birds is Laurence Sterne's starling, as told in A Sentimental Journey.
He was in Paris and, going down the stairs, heard a voice which he took to be a child, which complained "it could not get out". Sterne could see nobody so went on his way. "On my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. `I can't get out; I can't get out'," said the starling. Sterne stood looking, and to every person who passed, the bird fluttered to that side with the same lamentation. Sterne (born in Clonmel in 1713) said: "God help thee but I'll get thee out!" He took both hands to the cage but could not get it open, so double-twisted was it with wire. The starling pressed its breast against the wire. Said Sterne: "I fear, poor creature, I cannot set thee at liberty." "No," said the starling, "I can't get out; I can't get out."
Sterne went off to Italy, and on return he bought the bird and its cage for a bottle of brandy. The starling, it appeared, had been caught by a lad who was groom to some Lord at Dover and took it with him to Paris. He taught it four words. Eventually Sterne brought the bird back to its country of origin. He told the story, he writes, to Lord A. who begged the bird of him. In a week the same Lord made a present of it to Lord B. and then it went to Lord C's gentleman who sold him to Lord D's for a shilling. Lord D gave him to Lord E and so on half round the alphabet. Then he passed to the lower house and as many commoners.
In other words, as little store is set by him as in Paris, Sterne writes. From that time to this "I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms. And let the heralds' officers twist his neck about it if they dare." Perhaps this is a parable. Perhaps it is nonsense, but A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne is a most readable book.