CHARLES THE FIRST 131 



to have occurred to any one of the earlier commen- 

 tators on the Bible, or students of nature, that the 

 best way of dealing with the story of the unnatural 

 conduct of the raven, might be to deny it altogether. 

 King Charles the First thought that the 

 miracle of the ravens bringing food to Elijah, 

 was made more miraculous by the character of 

 the birds. " He made," he writes, " the greedy 

 ravens to be the caterers of Elias, and to bring him 

 food." The same thought seems to have occurred 

 to Charles the First's great contemporary and 

 antagonist, Milton ; for while he describes in his 

 own sonorous language, in Paradise Regained, the 

 somewhat aldermanic feast which the "cook-fiend," 

 as Lamb calls Satan, had provided for the Most 

 Holy One, as a temptation in the wilderness, he 

 also, with deep and reverential insight, hints at the 

 simpler fare, "Nature's refreshment sweet," which 

 presented itself, in His sleep, to the "temperate 

 fantasies " of the famished Son of God.* 



" Him thought He by the Brook of Cherith stood, 

 And saw the ravens with their horny beaks 

 Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn, 

 Tho' ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought." 



* See Lamb's Essays on u Grace before Meat," Essays on 

 Elia } p. 126. 



