282 



NOTES AND QUERIES. [2- s. no e?., Afril u. 'sr. 



The Fable of the "Countryman and the 

 Cockles " seems to me at once a ludicrous and an 

 unhappy text to select for such comments as Mr. 

 Wilson's. "The Dying Swan"* perhaps would 

 not exactly suit his purpose, though the poet feels 

 most keenly, of all other men, the truth that 

 Media vita, in Morte sumus, 



" And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall." 



AVhy not take that poor bird who — 



«< All forlorn 



Lean'd her breast up- till a thorn. 

 And then sang the dolefullest ditty. 

 That to hear it was great pity. 

 That to hear her so complain 

 Scarce I could from tears refrain ; 

 For her griefs so lively shewn. 

 Made me think upon my own"? 



Who, in fable lore, better exemplifies the truth 

 of the proverb, Yladilifj.ara ixad-fifnuTa, than the suf- 

 ferer who thus — 



" Expresses in her song, grief not to be exprest?" 

 I shall draw out the simile, for the benefit of 

 future essayists, somewhat after the manner of 

 those in Dr. Forster's Florilegium Sanctarum 

 Aspirationum : — 



As Philomel pours forth her sweetest notes at 

 night, and with her breast against a thorn : So in 

 the night of Sorrow, and pierced by the sharp thorns 

 of Adversity, the Heart gives utterance to its 

 truest melody ; and from the inmost depths of the 

 Soul, the Song of Eternity vibrates in thrilling 

 tone.f 



The same truth is beautifully expressed in Mr. 

 Taylor's "Ernesto": — 



« ' . The Tree 



Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched 

 By its own fallen leaves ; Man is made 

 In heart and spirit from deciduous hopes, 

 And things that seem to perish." 



And in Tennyson's "In Memoriam," with a 

 reference, apparently, to Shelley : 



" I hold it truth with him who sings. 

 To one clear harp in divers tones, 

 That Men may rise on stepping-stones 

 Of their dead selves to higher things." 



* " The Dying Swan" is given by L'Estrange amongst 

 Abstemius's Fables, under the title of " A Swan and a 

 Stork." — Fab. cclxvii. 



t Cf. Helps' Friends in Council, 4th edit., vol. i. pp. 18. 

 38. Mr. Wilson, in this Essay, is not content with dwell- 

 ing on the undeniable uses of Adversity and Sorrow, but 

 seems inclined to think, with Rousseau, " Chaque homme 

 qui pense est mechant," and that all things are pardon- 

 able to genius. Accordingly — he advocates, what may be 

 called the Calvinism of all Infanti Perduti, — the doctrine 

 of Philosophical Necessity, which tells us that Vice is 

 the effect of Error, and the offspring of Temperament and 

 surrounding Circumstances. After saying that "We do 

 not any longer hold that Cockles are roasted for their 

 sins, and sing from the natural depravity of their hearts " 

 (p. 147.), he proceeds, with magniloquent shallowness 

 and flippancy, to discuss " Necessity and Freewill." 



In conclusion, I may quote a passage on the 

 use of fables from Sir R. L'Estrange's preface : — 



" There's nothing makes a deeper impression upon the 

 minds of Men, or comes lively [livelier] to their under- 

 standing, than those instructive notices that are conveyed 

 to them by glances, insinuations, and surprize, and under 

 the cover of some Allegory or Kiddle. But what can be 

 said more to the honour of this Symbolical way of Mora- 

 lizing upon Tales and Fables, than that the Wisdom of 

 the Ancients has been still wrapt up in Veils and Figures ; 

 and their precepts, councils, and salutary monitions for 

 the ordering of our lives and manners, handed down to 

 us from all Antiquity under innuendos and allusions? 

 For what are the ^Egyptian Hieroglyphicks, and the 

 whole History of the Pagan Gods ; the Hints and Fictions 

 of the Wise Men of Old, but in effect, a kind of Philoso- 

 phical Mythology : which is, in truth, no other than a 

 more agreeable vehicle found out for conveying to us the 

 Truth and Reason of things, through the medium of 

 Images and Shadows." 



The English knight then refers to Scripture, con- 

 founding the Parable with the .^sopic Fable. 

 Dean Trench, in his noble work on " The Para- 

 bles of Our Lord," rightly deprecates this confu- 

 sion, and admirably observes : — 



" The Parable is constructed to set forth a truth, spiri- 

 tual and heavenly. This the Fable, with all its value, is 

 not. It is essentially of the earth, and never lifts itself 

 above the earth. It never has an higher aim than to incul- 

 cate maxims of prudential morality, industry, caution, fore- 

 sight; and these it will sometimes recommend even at the 

 expense of the higher self-forgetting virtues. The Fable 

 just reaches that pitch of morality which the world will 

 understand and approve. But it has no place in Scrip- 

 ture, and in the nature of things could have none, for the 

 purpose of Scripture excludes it ; that purpose being the 

 awakening of Man to a consciousness of a Divine Original, 

 the education of the reason, and of all which is spiritual 

 in Man, and not, except incidentally, the sharpening of 

 the understanding. For the purposes of the Fable, which 

 are the recommendation and enforcement of the pruden- 

 tial virtues, the regulation of that in Man which isyin- 

 stinct in beasts, in itself a laudable discipline, but by 

 itself leaving him only a subtle beast of the field, — for 

 these purposes, examples and illustrations taken from the 

 World beneath him are admirably suited. That World is 

 therefore the haunt and main region, though by no means 

 the exclusive one, of the Fable. The greatest of all Fables, 

 the Reineke Fuchs, affords ample illustration of all this: 

 it is throughout a glorifying of cunning as the guide of 

 life, and the deliverer from all evil." — Pp. 2, 3. 



With regard to the symbolism of the brute 

 creation, and the Fables of iEsop, see the Zoologia 

 Ethica (Pt. II. § XV., and Additional Remarks, 

 § V.) of the Rev. Wm. Jones of Nayland, a writer 

 whose mind and learning were equally profound. 



ElBIONNACH. 



PBNINSULAK PKECEDENTS. 



It is common enough, when hearing of a Penin- 

 sular precedent, to stamp it at once as worthless. 

 There were some, however, which might have 

 been followed with advantage in the Crimea, where 

 only those that were profitless found adoption. 



