in the wake of busy enterprise and mercantile activity-in amassing the gold which was to be freely bartered for the purchase of privileges from needy barons, made bankrupt by the costly rage for crusading in the Holy Land. These were times of earnestness and endeavour— everything was earnest; men were earnest, and so were their thoughts -their writings; even the romance of life consisted in its reality. Action was the sphere of the higher and ruling, as fact and unsophistical observation of things as they were, the province of the recluse and reflecting classes. In the camp was bustle and alarum; at the mart was venture and enterprise; in the Church no sleeping, and in the cloister no lassitude: princes, priests, peasants and peers, were alike busy, and alike observed. Even the Schoolmaster' was out and abroad-and then, more than at any time since, men lived suò ferulá of the satirical spirit of the age: apologues, apopthegms, fables, didactic tales, and pointed pithy diatribes, soaring at the higher quarries, and stooping to the meanest game, were hurtling their shafts through the air, and helping the Walpurgis din of human life.'-Introduction, p. 22.

It was then, as the eloquent Görres remarks, That in a climax of bitter and earnest significance, 'Reynard the Fox-that great world panorama-was evoked, and stood out in relief, the literal shadow of an imperishable age.'

But it is time to turn to the story, and the opening verses will give the reader a good specimen of the hearty, merry, downright style in which the whole tale is told:

'Now Pentecost, the Feast, by some
Called merry Whitsuntide,' was come!

The fields shewed brave, with kingcups dight,
And hawthorns kercheft were in white:

Her low. breathed lute the freshening rill
Unto the wakened woods 'gan trill;
Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,
The Cuckoo tuned his herald-note:
The meads were prankt in gold and green,
Andleetel fowles' of liveried sheen,
Their pipes with Jubilate ! swelling,
From bush and spray were philomelling-
The breeze came balmy from the west,
And April, harnessed in her best,
The laughing sun led forth to see—
When Noble (Lion-King was he,

And sceptre swayed o'er Bird and Beast)
Held ancient ways, and kept the Feast.

The trumpets clanged loud proclamation

The courtiers coursed throughout the nation-
Full many a Brave and many a Bold
Came hastening in troops untold-
Valiant worthies, Lords of Feud-

From russet glade and good green wood;

Long-Bill, and Maggie, the Crane and the Pie,
With all the elite nobility.—

For as the King was full intent

On entertaining all who went

With royal cheer and deep bibation,

They scented far the invitation,

Great and little, all, save one

True model of his mother's son:

The Fox. . . . '—pp. iii, iv.

And he, conscious of his many evil doings, kept away. Many and grievous are the charges brought against him; and the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hare, in turn, ask justice of the king. Greybeard the badger, however, undertakes to vindicate Reynard, which he does in an excellent piece of special pleading, ending with a compliment to the king, and an assurance that

'Reynard's an estimable man—

He brooks not evil deeds to scan:

And since the King's last peace, you'll find,
Its breach hath shunned of every kind.
One daily meal he scarce partakes,
And lives, like Anchorite, on cakes.
With stripes his body chasteneth sore-
All out of godliness-nay, more—
The holy man coarse sackcloth wears,
Eschews all flesh-on salt fish fares:
No tempter can the saint entice
From Malepart, his fortalice:

In cloister-cell, pinched, wan, and wasted,
He moans his sins, and leaves untasted
All day his frugal meal, to fast,

Till penance lift his load at last.'—p. xiij.

The reader will readily perceive in these sly hits at the devotees of the day, how irritating to the clergy was the 'Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox. The ingenuity of the badger might have prevailed, had not chanticleer, with a sorrowing train, come forward to complain of this fasting anchorite having killed nineteen out of twenty-four chickens! The king, therefore, waxes very wrath, and sends Bruin, the bear, to command his attendance. Bruin sets off with humourous self-importance, not doubting but he shall be more than a match for the crafty fox. Reynard welcomes him right lovingly, and on pretence of showing him a store of honey in the stump of a tree, leads the poor bear to place his paws in it, and then, withdrawing the wedge, leaves him fast prisoner. The cat is next dispatched for the refractory culprit; and he is beguiled by the story of fat mice in the parson's barn, and caught fast in a noose. Both vic

tims, after many disasters, appear before the king, and relate their misfortunes. Unable to obtain a more trusty messenger, the badger is now sent; and Reynard, secure in his matchless cunning, boldly sets off to court. On the way, being very devout, he proposes to make confession of his past sins, and, after detailing sundry vulpine enormities, he prays absolution :—

'Greybeard considerately revolved

How best such sins might be absolved.
At length, a twig he snapped from tree,
And said: 'Coz! give yourself stripes three
With this small twig; thereafter do

As furthermore I tell to you.

Set down the twig; then over it
Jump thrice: and turn about a bit :
Then back again, and kneel down low :
(Nor sign of hate nor malice, shew)
And kiss the rod. This is expedient :
It 'tokeneth you are obedient.
Behold the penance I impose !
And from its due observance flows
Forgiveness of all sins on earth,
Committed from the hour of birth.'
Then Reynard cheerfully obeyed,
And straight dispatched the penance laid.
The Badger, next, the Fox did raise,
And said, 'My son, now go your ways:
Reform your manners; banish hence
All ill, with prayer and penitence,-
Sure means to obliterate the past-
Obey the law; observe each fast :
Keep well the Church's ordinances :
Leave fowl shun all seductive fancies :
Molest no more your neighbour's wife :
Reflect: amend your reckless life :
Theft, inurder, wrong of every kind,
Abhor, and certain grace you'll find!'
Quoth Reynard, then, So be it: I

Will walk a new life till I die!'-pp. lxxij, lxxiij.

How biting is this satire. Reynard arrives at court, and in answer to the vituperations of King Noble, professes his absolute submission to him, as humbly as he had before done to holy church. But this is of no avail; he is condemned to the gallows-tree, he is brought forth, and the rope is about his neck, when, while the crowd are awaiting his last dying speech, he assures them something weighs most heavily on his mind, and it is, that his father has hoarded up an immense store of wealth, where, he only knew, and which was intended for the

purpose of overturning the state. King Noble, and the queen, now prick up their ears, command the rope to be loosed, and conjure the fox,

By his last hope

Of mercy and of happiness

Hereafter, he would straight confess
The whole of what he knew concerning
The treason.'

Reynard's speech is an admirable specimen of cunning knavery, playing, alternately, on the fears and covetous propensities of the weakminded. He involves friends and enemies alike in the charge of treason, and then paints so seductively the immense store of gold, silver, and precious stones of which he alone knows the whereabout, that the easily-beguiled monarch begins to deem him his most stedfast friend, and he and the queen, both urge him to disclose the spot where this vast treasure is concealed. Reynard now, on promise of full pardon, tells them a fine roundabout story; begs them to go, unaccompanied, to the place, and, above all, to be particular as to the hard names which he pronounces. The king very naturally proposes to Reynard to accompany them, but the wily fox suddenly recollects that he is excommunicated, and, therefore, what a disgrace would it be for the king to go

With Reynard out a pilgriming.
'Twas but the other day that he

Did sentence him to death! now see!
He takes to honour, love, and cherish

Whom holy church casts out to perish!'

The gullible monarch, therefore, agrees that Reynard shall at once set out to Rome for absolution; and he, according, takes leave in the most devout fashion, begging the prayers of every

one.

Again, is the knavery of the fox discovered; he has killed the hare, and he is proclaimed outlaw. In the discussions respecting this, there is much sly satire; and the forms of the feudal law courts are ridiculed with a rough humour which appears to us a strong internal proof that Reynard the Fox,' in its finished form, was the production of one of the burgher class. Reynard, however, does not wait for his assailants, but boldly sets out once again for the court. On the road, he meets Jocko, the baboon, who is going to Rome, and who promises, for a consideration,' to relieve Reynard from the toil of going thither himself, which he, apparently with great devotion, accepts. To beguile the way, he discourses freely of church and state,-the following is a specimen of his expositions :

' And then began

Reynard a world of things to scan:
Disserting much, from King to Clown,
The vices of the Court and Town.
But chief the Hierarchy lent
The staple to his argument:
And many a sad, severe reflection,
With sign of much sincere affection,
On holy men and things he uttered:
Like bitter bread, with honey buttered,
It smacked; and so the Badger thought,
As on his mind the sarcasm wrought.
The fond regretful tone he used
In his anathemas, infused

A spicy flavour over all—

The sugared spoon that stirred the gall!

The King by rapine lived, he said,

As others did: and on this head

The difference, he asserted flat,

Was just no more than 'round the hat!'
What 's virtue in the one, was vice

In t' other, by distinction nice.

But were it not for monks and priests,
He said, who rioted at feasts,

And in excess of every sort

Grew fat, and frolicsome for sport,
And in their wantonness of heart
Such bad example did impart,
That others of less holy station
Could not escape contamination-
He never had to sin inclined,

Nor steeped in wickedness his mind:
To carnal thoughts had ne'er descended;
Nor had his feet once thither tended
Where Mother Church forbad to stray,

Had not her Sons first led the way.

Yes, Greybeard! Just look at the clergy!

Good mixed with bad!—and yet, e'er heard ye
Of any greater sins to others

Ascribed, than to our surpliced brothers ?'-pp. clxxiij,

clxxiv.

Arrived at court, his ready wit again saves him; and he excites the interest of the queen by a second story, of a wonderful comb and looking glass which, he assures her, he had sent by the hare for her especial use; but, to obtain possession of which, the hare had doubtless been murdered by his companion. The progress of doubt in King Noble's mind, as to whether, after all, the Fox