ion of complaints by other beasts, the sufferings inflicted
by Reynard on the messengers sent to summon him to Court, and his
escapes, by mixture of fraud and force, when he is no longer able to
avoid putting in an appearance, supply the natural continuation.

[Sidenote: _Its complications._]

But from this, at least in the French versions, the branches diverge,
cross, and repeat or contradict each other with an altogether
bewildering freedom. Sometimes, for long passages together, as in the
interesting fytte, "How Reynard hid himself among the Skins,"[141] the
author seems to forget the general purpose altogether, and to devote
himself to something quite different--in this case the description of
the daily life and pursuits of a thirteenth-century sportsman of easy
means. Often the connection with the general story is kept only by the
introduction of the most obvious and perfunctory devices--an intrigue
with Dame Hersent, a passing trick played on Isengrim, and so forth.

[Footnote 141: Meon, iii. 82; Martin, ii. 43.]

[Sidenote: _Unity of spirit._]

[Sidenote: _The Rise of Allegory._]

Nevertheless the whole is knit together, to a degree altogether
unusual in a work of such magnitude, due to many different hands, by
an extraordinary unity of tone and temper. This tone and this temper
are to some extent conditioned by the Rise of Allegory, the great
feature, in succession to the outburst of Romance, of our present
period. We do not find in the original _Renart_ branches the
abstracting of qualities and the personification of abstractions which
appear in later developments, and which are due to the popularity of
the _Romance of the Rose_, if it be not more strictly correct to say
that the popularity of the _Romance of the Rose_ was due to the taste
for allegory. Jacquemart Gielee, the author of _Renart le Nouvel_,
might personify _Renardie_ and work his beast-personages into knights
of tourney; the clerk of Troyes, who later wrote _Renart le
Contrefait_, might weave a sort of encyclopaedia into his piece. But
the authors of the "Ancien Renart" knew better. With rare lapses, they
exhibit wonderful art in keeping their characters beasts, while
assigning to them human arts; or rather, to put the matter with more
correctness, they pass over the not strictly beast-like performances
of Renart and the others with such entire unconcern, with such a
perfect freedom from tedious after-thought of explanation, that no
sense