hich he has not steeped himself to the lips? To the lips,
shall we say? nay, over head and ears--rolling and rollicking in sin.
Murder, and theft, and adultery; sacrilege, perjury, lying--his very
life is made of them. On he goes to the end, heaping crime on crime, and
lie on lie, and at last, when it seems that justice, which has been so
long vainly halting after him, has him really in her iron grasp, there
is a solemn appeal to heaven, a challenge, a battle ordeal, in which, by
means we may not venture even to whisper, the villain prospers, and
comes out glorious, victorious, amidst the applause of a gazing world.
To crown it all, the poet tells us that under the disguise of the animal
name and form the world of man is represented, and the true course of
it; and the idea of the book is, that we who read it may learn therein
to discern between good and evil, and choose the first and avoid the
last. It seemed beyond the power of sophistry to whitewash Reineke, and
the interest which still continued to cling to him seemed too nearly to
resemble the unwisdom of the multitude, with whom success is the one
virtue, and failure the only crime.

It appeared, too, that although the animal disguises were too
transparent to endure a moment's reflection, yet that they were so
gracefully worn that such moment's reflection was not to be come at
without an effort. Our imagination following the costume, did
imperceptibly betray our judgment; we admired the human intellect, the
ever ready prompt sagacity and presence of mind. We delighted in the
satire on the foolishnesses and greedinesses of our own
fellow-creatures; but in our regard for the hero we forgot his humanity
wherever it was his interest that we should forget it, and while we
admired him as a man we judged him only as a fox. We doubt whether it
would have been possible, if he had been described as an open
acknowledged biped in coat and trousers, to have retained our regard for
him. Something or other in us, either real rightmindedness, or humbug,
or hypocrisy, would have obliged us to mix more censure with our liking
than most of us do in the case as it stands. It may be that the dress of
the fox throws us off our guard, and lets out a secret or two which we
commonly conceal even from ourselves. When we have to pass an opinion
upon bad people, who at the same time are clever and attractive, we say
rather what we think that we ought to feel than what we feel in reality;
whil