FOX 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 wily 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 him 
nearer to us. 
Verily, it is a sad story that the records tell, 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 : 
‘Who first with harmony informed our 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 indulgence uf the 
predatory instinct they have inherited. It appears from 
Chaucer’s evidence, that “Russel, the fox,” alias Reynard, 
(for like 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 wives to repaire.” 
This was of course only one of his accustomed jokes; and 
although he certainly seemed to be “on the sneak” when 
crouching 
as in a bed of wortes, still he lay,” 
no intimate admirer of his ancestral glory would have sus 
