ing tale:
Grant succour in this hour of wail!
But yesterday, the huntsman's cry
Surprised him in the act to fly
With Scratchclaw's body, which you see
Kill'd by his murd'rous tooth--ah me!
'Tis here as witness of my woe--
Oh that my hardhap to your heart may go!'
Enraged, the King: 'Sir Badger, ho!
The monk your uncle (troth!) doth know
To keep his fast,--the holy man!--
Match me the like of this who can?
What need of further question here?
Draw nigh and listen, Chanticleer!
Ourself your daughter dead will see
Entomb'd with all solemnity
Of dirge and mass, in her last slumber,
And vigils also without number.
This done, from these our lieges true
We'll crave their help and counsel too,
Touching the murder and the vengeance due.'
To Bruin then the King thus spake:
'Bruin! look well you undertake
This journey with dispatch--'Tis I,
Your Sov'reign, calls upon you--fly!
Be wise and wary: Reynard's guile
Is practised in each crafty wile.'"

Neither of the translators is here very good, and Naylor is perhaps as
near hitting the nail on the point (to use the phrase of a friend of
ours of the Fogie Club) as his competitor. He still gives us, however, a
great many silly superfluities, though some of them we have ventured to
cut out.

Finally, as our readers may begin to think they have enough of this, we
shall close our comparative view by some quotations from the Wager of
Battle, by which the Wolf and the Fox ultimately terminate their
disputes.

SOLTAU.

"The trumpets then began to sound,
And next the wardens did appear,
And call'd the champions forth, to swear.
Growler advanced, his oath to take;
He swore, that Reynard was a rake,
A murd'rer, and a treach'rous wight,
For which assertion he would fight.
"Then Reynard in his turn did swear,
That Growler was a perjurer;
To prove his charge, he did defy him,
Because he basely did belie him.
"The wardens then admonish'd both,
To fight with honour and good troth.
This being done, the lists were clear'd,
Where both the combatants appear'd.
"The combatants with equal rage
And fury now began t'engage.
The Wolf, by dint of strength and art,
Attack'd the Fox with leap and start;
But Reynard, being shrewd and light,
Avoided him by cunning flight,
And while he ran, he did not fail
To water well his rugged tail.
When Growler meant to hold him fast,
He nim