vignette
on the outside, of the fox making his obeisance to Noble the king of the
beasts, and the lioness his spouse--a beautiful paper and type within,
with red and blue illuminations interspersed at the heads of chapters
and paragraphs;--all this combined to whet our appetite for a delicious
treat. We read the preface and introduction, if not with pleasure, at
least with patience, and with wonderfully few misgivings as to the
truth, the worst feature in them being the tendency to Carlyleism, to
which, however offensive in itself, custom has made us somewhat callous.
But we had not perused a page or two of the reproduction in rhyme
itself, when we discovered that we were wandering in the regions of
Cockneyland, with one of its most distinguished natives for our guide.

Our immediate purpose is to offer an exposition, not of the old Reynard,
but of its present "reproduction." We may say, however, that we think
the original work is one peculiarly ill-suited to be appreciated or
reproduced by one of Mr Naylor's compatriots. It is a product of true
genius, humour, and sagacity. The author must have looked at beasts and
men with a keen eye, and from the vantage ground of a contemplative
mind; and he has worked out his thoughts in a plain and simple style of
illustration, and embodied them in easy and natural language. There is
much merriment in his work, but no straining after wit. There is all the
knowledge of the day that an accomplished man could be expected to
possess, but no parade of learning. There is no quaintness in the style,
and no effort in the verse. The age of _Hudibras_ had not come; and that
of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, or _Miss Kilmansegg_, was still further off.
The old Flemish writers of Reynard exhibit judgment as well as talent,
and their Low Saxon successor, though himself a reproducer, has asserted
a claim both to freedom and originality. The quiet, sensible, unaffected
treatment of their subject, which these old versifiers exhibit, where
the topics offered so much temptation to burlesque and extravagance, is
the thing of all others least likely to be comprehended or relished in
the meridian of Bow Bells.

But, then, Goethe has successfully translated the book; and, therefore,
Mr Naylor must do the same. This is a common mode of syllogising in
Cockayne. Homer, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, have done such and
such things, and therefore a Cockney is to do them also. Whatever may be
the precise min