200 The Poets Beasts. 



" That trespassed and the treasure stole, 

 Found his lean body fitted to the hole ; 

 Till, having fatted, he was forced to stay, 

 And, fasting, starve his stolen bulk away," 



and those of the Mouse Tower on the Rhine, while the 

 morals and wise saws derived from the same animal are 

 unexpectedly numerous. 



" I hold a mouse's wit not worth a leke, 

 That hath but one hole for to stenten lo." —Chaucer. 



" 'Tis a bold mouse that nestles in a cat's ear, 

 I gave the mouse a hole and she is become my heir." — Herbert. 



" Dronke as a mous." — Chaucer. 



" The mouse 

 Finds no pleasure in a poor man's house. — Quarks. 



" State vermin, gnawing into labour's bread." — E. Cook. 



" Show him a mouse's tail and he will guess, 

 "With metaphysic swiftness, at the mouse." —Keats. 



Women, it is proverbial, dread mice. Says Crabbe — 



" She who will tremble if her eye explore 

 The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor." 



But they do not, as a rule, altogether dislike them, or 

 Suckling might regret his pretty simile, who writes — 



•' Her feet beneath her petticoat 

 Like little mice crept in and out, 

 As if tliey feared the light." 



^ Pope has it weakly — 



" The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole, 

 Can never be a mouse of any soul." 



So Herbert — 



" Tlie mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken." 



