5 2 The Poets Beasts. 



When from the mountains round reverberates 

 The hungry wolves' deep yell ; on every side 

 Their fierce eyes gleaming as with meteor fires, 

 The famished troops come round." — Southey. 



To its craftiness — the stealthy "evening wolf" of the 

 Bible — the poets bear ready witness, but not probably 

 since Hobbinole discoursed with Diggon Davie on the 

 Kentish Downs has wolfish cunning received more amazing 

 and delicious testimony, Diggon tells his companion how 

 " a wicked wolfe, that with many a lambe had gutted his 

 gulfe," taught itself how to bark (" learned a curre's call "), 

 and then, dressing up in the fleece of one of its victims 

 (" his counterfeit cote "), allowed itself to be penned up with 

 the flock in the fold at night ; and how at midnight it would 

 begin to howl, at which Roflin the shepherd would send out 

 his big dog Lowder to scour the country, and how, while 

 Lowder was away scouring the country, the wolf would 

 " catchen his prey, a lambe, or a kid, or a weanall wast,^ 

 and with that to the wood would speede him fast." But 

 this was not the worst — 



" For it was a perilous beast above all, 

 And eke had he cond the shepheard's call, 

 And oft in the night came to the sheep-cote 

 And called Lowder, with a hollow throte. 

 As it the olde man selfe had beene ; 

 The dogge his maister's voice did it weene, 

 Yet half in doubt he opened the dore 

 And ranne out as he was wont of yore. 

 No sooner was out, but swifter than thought, 

 Fast by the hyde the wolfe Lowder caught, 

 And had not Roffy renne to the Steven,^ 

 Lowder had been slaine thilke same even." 



In metaphor the wolf does not fail to meet with its deserts, 

 or what are supposed to be such. Rapine, Lust, Cruelty, 

 Treachery are all wolves. Spenser sees Envy " riding on a 



' Youn^linj. * Noise. 



