THE BITTERN. 267 
Now the Bittern would not probably be much ag- 
grieved at being voted carrion, provided his imputed 
carrion-dom, as Willis would probably designate the 
condition, procured him immunity from the gun. 
But to be shot first and thrown away afterward, 
would seem to be the very excess of that condition 
described by the common phrase of adding injury to 
insult. 
Under this state of mingled persecution and degrada- 
tion, it must be the Bittern’s best consolation that, in the 
days of old, when the wine of Auxerre, now the com- 
mon drink of republican Yankeedom, which annually 
consumes of it, or in lieu of it, more than grows of it 
annually in all France, was voted by common consent 
the drink of kings—he, with his congener and com- 
patriot the Heronschaw, was carved by‘knightly hands, 
upon the noble deas under the royal canopy, for gentle 
dames and peerless damoiselles; nay, was held in such 
repute, that it was the wont of prowest chevaliers, when 
devoting themselves to feats of emprise most perilous, 
to swear “before God, the bittern, and the ladies!” an 
honor to which no quadruped, and but two plumy 
bipeds, other than himself, the heron and the peacock, 
were admitted. 
Those were the days, before gunpowder, “ grave of 
chivalry,” was taught to Doctor Faustus by the Devil, 
who did himself no good by the indoctrination, but 
exactly the reverse, since war is thereby rendered less 
