POX HUNTING IN AMERICA. 261 



He is still the glozing and subtle intriguant of the Greek 

 fables. The old " romaunt" is still being enacted, and " all 

 the beasts complain of the fox," daily and hourly, until king 

 lion roars in •wrath against his ivily minister. 



I fear there is no sober reform or hopeful redemption for 

 the sad scamp, since his quaint malfeasances, instead of be- 

 coming more tempered and ameliorated by time, have grown 

 only the more glaring and impudent as history brings biTin 

 nearer to us. 



Yerily, it is a sad story that the records teU, for Chaucer 

 found him still "a col fox, full of sleigh iniquitie," even in 

 his day. The young poet, in the prattle of his " garrulous 

 god, innocence," tells us a dreadful story of the morals and 

 manners of Reynard in his time. 



I think it should be blazoned now in the self-same words 

 of him 



" Wio first with harmony informed onr tongue," 



that it may be kept before the eyes of all modern and juvenile 

 Reynards, as a warning and example of the fearful conse- 

 quences following upon the unrestrained indtdgence of the 

 predatory instinct they have inherited. It appears from 

 Chaucer's evidence, that " Russel, the fox," alias Reynard, 

 (for hke all thieves and robbers he has an alias,) did 



" By high imagination forecast — " 

 (which hints, I suppose, at clairvoyance,) find his way 



"Into the yerde, there chaunticlere the faire 

 Was wont and eke his ynves to repaire." 



This was of course only one of his accustomed jokes ; and 

 although he certainly seemed to be "on the sneak" when 

 crouching 



" in a hed of wortes, still he lay," 



no intimate admirer of his ancestral glory would have sus- 



