The Poets Flocks. 253 



the strange shepherding of Orpheus, " when lambs would 

 scorn their food to hear his lay, and savage beasts stand by 

 as tame as they " (Cowley), and many another fancy of a 

 pastoral antiquity, finds a place in our poets' verse ; while 

 the similes, analogies, morals, and metaphors from the sheep 

 of Scripture, the classics, or folk-lore individuality are innu- 

 merable. The Lamb of the Messiah — 



" Tell me, was he a Shepherd or a Lamb? 



Shepherd and Lamb at once. He took each name. 

 Since then our God a Shepherd's name doth wear. 

 The name of lamb who will not wish to bear ? 

 And who will not be shepherd, since God deigns 

 To be a Lamb for suffering of sin's pains." — Crashaux. 



Of Pentecost, of sacrifice, " the useful beast on Isaac's pile 

 consumed " (Cowley), the flocks of David and of the shep- 

 herds of Bethlehem, afford again and again an image or a 

 thought — 



" h. deceitful concnbine, who shore me 



Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece," 



Una with her milk-white lamb, Joan of Arc with her crook, 

 Don Quixote's army of Pentapolin. 



Being thus prepossessed in favour of sheep, it is almost 

 a natural sequence that the poets should be prejudiced 

 against the goat, which is the moral antithesis of their 

 favourite animal. Allan Ramsay's fable admirably illustrates 

 this difference of sentiment A ram "of upright, hardy 

 spirit, really a homed head of merit," who all summer and 

 autumn through had led his family to abundant pastures, 

 takes them, as winter comes on. "to crop contented frozen 

 fare, with honesty, on hills blown bare." Then he meets 

 a goat who by his rascally trespassing upon fields and 

 gardens had earned the hatred of all his neighbours, and 

 who, anxious if possible to secure a friend, offers to give 

 the ram some of his coat, which is close and intact, while 



