FOX HUNTING IN AMEKICA. 263 



chronicler, there are yet more grievous and solemn charges 

 laid to his door in the " Shepherd's Callender." I cannot 

 but devoutly hope that the grand old Spencer is rather, in 

 this case, after the confirmed manner of his " Faerie Queen," 

 indulging in metaphor, than telling a veritable incident out 

 of his own knowledge. His ominous words are concerning 



" A wily fox, that having spide, 



Where on a sunny bank the lambes doo play, 

 Full closely creeping by the hinder side, 

 Lyes in ambushment of his hoped prey, 

 Ne stirreth limbe till seeing readie tide, 

 He rushetli forth and snatcheth quite away 

 One of the little younglings unawares." 



This bloody, but cold and sneaking crime, wrought on in- 

 nocence, so white-wooled, gaily, meek and unsuspecting, is 

 too fearful to dwell upon. I can only drop the curtain here 

 for the present, hoping that Reynard may not prove guilty, 

 according to the poet's showing ! 



Certainly we are not much comforted when we take up the 

 character of the " Gray Fox." Comparisons are proverbially 

 odious, yet as an accurate historian, I have felt myself com- 

 pelled to make them. 



It must be admitted that the Gray Fox, as compared with 

 the Red, is something of a sneak ! They are both four-footed 

 Jesuits, to be sure, but the latter is stouter, and besides has 

 a family name, an ancestral glory to sustain ! He is the 

 Don Quixote of the foxes, and therefore we can well under- 

 stand his hen-roost chivalry, not to speak of his barn-yard 

 heroics ! 



Though we admit him to be great, we cannot help recog- 

 nizing the Gray Fox as the special embodiment of all the 

 blarney and lower cunning of the race. We are most familiar 

 with him at the South, and feel a sort of local jealousy for 

 his fame and character. We flatter ourselves that he can 

 afford to be guilty of a few peccadillos, since they are con- 

 trasted by such extraordinary attributes. 



