28 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeares Time. 
among the Jews. In every early history, except the 
Bible, we meet with some allusion to a favourite horse, 
or dog, or tame gazelle. No wonder Jessica, freed from 
the trammels of her Jewish home, could give a turquoise 
ring for a monkey! 
Another explanation as to the singular scarcity of 
allusions to animal life in the Bible may be suggested. 
The Jews appear to have been quite indifferent to the 
beauties of nature. The only traces of admiration of 
the external world are found in the writings of Job and 
Solomon. Job was not of Hebrew birth, and Solomon 
had by his large knowledge gained a wider sympathy 
with nature than his compatriots. It is almost incredible 
that a nation should wander for forty years through lands 
rich enough to furnish pasture for vast flocks and herds, 
materials for clothing, ornament, and manufactures, and 
that the chronicle of their Exodus should be absolutely 
deficient in a single reference to the rich animal life 
around them. Many species of birds and animals are 
indeed mentioned, but only to be avoided as unclean. 
From the list of creatures that mighi not be used as food, 
we gather the only information from a Jewish source 
respecting the fauna of Arabia or Palestine. 
A similar disregard of natural beauty exists in the 
Mohammedan scriptures. The poetry of nature animates 
every other mythology. Love of beauty led the Greeks 
to personify the waterfall and the rainbow, to find dryads 
in trees, nereids in running brooks, altars in stones, and 
gods in everything. The Grecian deities were sur¬ 
rounded in the imagination of their worshippers with 
all that was strong or lovely in nature. Zeus had his 
princely eagle; Phoebus, his dappled coursers; ox-eyed 
Hera, her peacock train ; whilst Aphrodite was born of 
the ocean froth, and Pan sat hidden in the tangled 
thickets. Even in the religion of the frozen North we 
find a loving sympathy with external nature. The sacred 
