the shot in broken bones! What more characteristic than the fate of Bruin, when ill-counselled to introduce his stupid head into Rustifill's half-split log; has the wedges whisked away, and stands clutched there, as in a vice, and uselessly roaring, disappointed of honey, sure only of a beating without parallel! Not to forget the Mare, whom, addressing by the title of Good-wife, with all politeness, Isegrim, sore-pinched with hunger, asks whether she will sell her foal, she answers that the price is written on her hinder hoof; which document the intending purchaser, being an Erfurt graduate,' declares his full ability to read; but finds there no writing, or print, save only the print of six horse-nails on his own mauled visage. And abundance of the like, sufficient to excuse our old epos on this head, or altogether justify it."'

Grimm denies that there exists in the story any tendency to satire, but several of the incidents related go far to prove that the author of the version from which Goethe drew the materials for Reineke Fuchs, at all events, had in view some of the abuses that had crept into the administration of the Church of Rome, and fully intended to put in a ridiculous point of view some of the customs of the Middle Ages.

The exact time when the events of the story may be supposed to have taken place naturally cannot be determined, as, although some of them may have been suggested to the author by contemporary occurrences, the general thread of the narrative consists simply of such imaginative incidents as might occur to the mind of a man of humour well acquainted with the habits of the animals that constitute his dramatis persona.

1 See article on

"German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries," in the “Foreign Quarterly Review,” No. XVI., and “ Miscellanies" (1872), iii., p. 204.

The locality where these events are supposed to have occurred is identified by the mention of the names of several places in Flanders:-Aachen, more familiar under the name of Aix-la-Chapelle, and Hüsterlo, the place where King Emmerich's treasure is falsely reported by Reineke to be buried, is situated near Ghent.

Of the literary productions to which the popularity of the story of Reynard the Fox has given rise at various times the following may be noted.

The Latin poem entitled, "Ecbasis cujusdam captivi pro Tropologiam," published by Grimm and Andreas Schmeller in 1838. This consists chiefly of the story of the lion's illness told by the wolf as explanatory of the feud between the fox and himself, and the king's anger against the fox, who alone among the animals neglected to attend and bring medicines for his recovery. A decree is issued against the fox, who, however, unexpectedly appears at Court, and manages to cure the lion and punish the wolf by having the hide of the latter torn off to envelop the former while it is still hot. The names of the beasts in this poem are not those used in the Reynardine stories. The Latin poem entitled "Isengrimus," printed by Grimm from a MS. of the fourteenth century. In this for the most part the beasts have the Reynardine names. It contains only two stories, viz.: the Sickness of the Lion, and the Pilgrimage of the Goat. The sick lion, lying in a cool place at the side of a wood, orders a general assemblage of the beasts, and proclaims a solemn peace. The fox does not appear at first, but subsequently comes and suggests as a remedy for the lion's complaint that he should be enveloped in the fresh hide of a wolf of the age of threeand-a-half years, and proving that Isengrim is just of that age, gets the lion to order him to be flayed, and flays him accordingly, thus wreaking his venegeance on his enemy

the wolf. From various circumstances connected with this poem, it is evident that it was written in South Flanders in about the first half of the twelfth century, and it is therefore probable that the tales were current in the preceding century.

The latter poem was incorporated into another work, entitled "Reinardus Vulpes," published by Moore in 1832. This contains several incidents similar to those in the later versions of the Reynardine story, but not related in the same order. It seems unnecessary to enter into the details of these.

The next is the first High German poem on the subject of Reynard the Fox. It was contained in a subsequent work of an unknown author, who lived fifty years later than Heinrich der Glichesære, or Glichsenore, its author, and was discovered by Grimm, who found it in the library at Cassel, to be a portion of the Reinhart as originally written. In this the illness of the lion is accounted for by his having trampled down the nests and killed thousands of ants because they would not recognize his authority. The king of the ants vows vengeance, and the lion is bitten so severely that he looks on it as a judgment of heaven for having neglected his duties. A Court is then assembled, and various incidents are told of the same nature as in the more modern versions. There appears to have been a number of Norman French poems treating the story of Reynard the Fox in various ways, but the source to which Goethe's version may be directly traced is the Low German poem of Reineke de Fos, attributed by some to Heinrich von Alkmar, and by others to Nicolaus Baumann. Innumerable editions and translations of this poem have appeared from time to time, and contributed greatly to the popularity of the story. The particular translation with which we are now concerned is that by Gottsched, pub

lished at Leipzig and Amersterdam in 1752, entitled, "Heinrichs von Alkmar Reineke der Fuchs mit schönen Kupfern, nach der Ausgabe von 1498." The plates were by Albert van Elverdingen, and are identical with those of which a few were used in the "Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox," issued by Felix Summerly. Goethe's Hexameters are said by himself to have been something between a translation and an independent version, and the work is described by Carlyle as being, "for poetical use infinitely the best like some copy of an ancient, bedimmed, halfobliterated woodcut, but now done on steel, on India paper, and with all manner of graceful and appropriate appendages."

Other translations into High German, Danish, Swedish, and Latin have since appeared. Of the German transla-. tions the most interesting to the English public is one by D. W. Soltau, first published at Berlin in 1803, and afterwards in 1823 at Brunswick, on account of a subsequent translation into doggrel English verse by the same author, which possesses no merit but its quaintness. Of other English translations the best known is that of Caxton, published by him in 1481. It is clear, however, from references to the story in Chaucer and elsewhere, that it had been known in England in far earlier times. Caxton's version is in prose, and contains the same incidents as Goethe's work: it has been republished in 1844, in the twelfth volume of the Transactions of the Percy Society, with a preface by W. Thoms, and it is from this preface that the information embodied in this Introduction has been derived.

It will be seen what store of incidents is comprised in the story. These are, of course, not of Goethe's invention, and he is only responsible for the versification of Gottsched's translation into hexameters, which are as good as they can

be expected to be in a language that lends itself to this particular metre but little better than does our own.

For the following translation the editor is not solely responsible, having availed himself of numerous suggestions made by a friend. Many instances occur in which there has been a doubt as to the advisability of adopting a literal rendering in spite of its making the versification rough, or a freer translation which might lend itself to a smoother line. In all such cases he has endeavoured to steer, as far as possible, a middle course, but in no case, although not adopting the actual wording of his original, knowingly to depart from its sense. The difficulty of hitting the happy medium must be his excuse for the shortcomings of a work at which he has earnestly laboured, and which he now submits, with a prayer for reasonable criticism, to the judgment of the public. The few notes have mostly been taken from Herr Strehlke's edition in Hempel's series.