INTRODUCTION 1 1 



Almost to bursting ; and the big round tears 



Cours'd one another down his innocent nose 



In piteous chase ; and thus the hairy fool, 



Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, 



Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook, 



Augmenting it with tears." Act ii. Sc. I. 



Although the deer, as the nobler animal, has received 

 more attention from our poet than the fox and the hare, 

 yet the two last-named are by no means forgotten : — 



" The fox [who] barks not when he would steal the lamb " 

 {Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. i) ; 



who, when he " hath once got in his nose,'' will " soon 

 find means to make the body follow" (Henry VI. Part III. 

 Act iv. Sc. 7) ; and— 



" Who ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up, 

 Will have a wild trick of his ancestors " 



{Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 2) ; 



receives his share of notice, although it is not always in 

 his praise, and " subtle as the fox " has become a proverb 

 [Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 3). 



From the "subtle fox" to the "timorous hare," the 

 transition is easy. What " more a coward than a hare " ? 

 {Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 5.) 



In Roxburgh and Aberdeen, as we learn from Jamie- 

 son's " Scottish Dictionary," a hare is termed " a bawd," 



