CHAPTER X. 



THE FOX — AND FOX HUNTING IN AMERICA. 



Reynard is a famous fellow, to be sure ! — ^it behooves me 

 to be somewhat careful in making my approaches to a person 

 of such world-wide celebrity. 



He is eminently an historical character, and one not lightly 

 to be dealt with, even from behind the ponderous shield of 

 science. His fame has been recounted, not alone in the sober 

 "chronicles of wasted time," but legend and romance have 

 given their voices to commemorate his deeds, and poets have 

 sung of them in high heroic strains. Witness that renowned 

 and venerable epic of the nursery, " Reynard the Fox," for 

 'what their antique pens would have expressed!" . 



But it must be confessed that your philosopher is a pro- 

 digious leveller. No antiquity is so remote that he will not 

 brush off the green rime of ages, to count the wrinkles on its 

 front ; no fame so awful or overshadowing, that he will not, 

 with familiar hands, stroke "the mane of darkness till it 

 smiles," and renders up the secrets of its glory. 



It is only from this point of view that we account for un- 

 conscious and remarkable coolness, with which astute Natu- 

 ralists have seized Master Reynard by the nape of the neck, 

 to drag him forth from beneath the misty obscurations of 

 time, and hold him in the common light of day before the 

 eyes of the astonished world. Seeing that they have done 

 so, in spite of all savage growlings of his outraged histori- 

 cal dignity, even I can take courage, though with humility, 

 to give him now an additional shake. I shall accordingly 

 proceed to "beat out his fui'," mathematically, so long as I 

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