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FOX HUNTING IN AMERICA, 268 
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 
ss___. 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 rusheth 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 asneak! 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. 
