half ox and half man, half
dog and half monkey.

All these stories remind us of the fabular period in old Greek history,
and bespeak a time, when both taste and knowledge were in their infancy;
but when, at the same time, the rays of the ideal were breaking upon the
mind, and "men appeared as trees walking."

Allied to a love of fabling was that of allegory, which, as soon as
literary activity began to appear in the early church, produced an
abundant harvest. This tendency exhibited itself in the first progress
of thought in England. Philippe de Than, one of the most ancient
Anglo-Norman poets, wrote a work describing the character of each bird
and beast, upon which he grounded moral reflections. Robert Grosseteste,
Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1253, was celebrated for a copious
dissertation on mystical divinity, and a poem is extant ascribed to him,
called the "Castle of Love" by Leland, in which the creation and
redemption are represented as an allegory--our Lord being supposed to
enter a magnificent castle, the body of the Virgin. The "Gesta
Romanorum" strongly exhibits the want of discrimination at this time,
for although the dramatis personae are generally Roman Emperors, the
deepest Christian mysteries are supposed to be shadowed forth by their
actions. Some of the stories are evidently invented to enforce religious
teaching. We read of an angel accompanying a hermit on his wanderings,
the angel robs or murders all who receive him, but explains afterwards
that it is for their good. He gives a golden goblet to a rich man who
refuses to entertain them, to comfort him in this world, as he will go
to hell in the next.

Vincent of Beauvais, a learned Dominican of France, who flourished in
the thirteenth century, observes that it was a practice of preachers to
rouse their congregation by relating a fable of AEsop. In the British
Museum there is a collection of two hundred and fifteen stories,
romantic, allegorical, and legendary, evidently compiled for the use of
monastic preachers. Mystic similitudes were at this time greatly
affected in all branches of learning. In the "Romaunt of the Rose," the
difficulties of a lover are represented under the form of a man seeking
a rose in an inaccessible garden. This flower, alchemists considered to
be emblematic of the Philosopher's Stone, while theologians referred it
to the white rose of Jericho--a state of grace into which the wicked
could not enter.

CHAPTER II.