hens in the barn-yard. One of the hens was his
favourite, the others filled subalternate parts. One day--

This storie is al-so trewe, I undertake
As is the book of Launcelot de Lake,
That wommen holde in ful gret reverence,

--he was looking for "a boterflye," and what should he see but a fox!
"Cok, cok!" he cries, with a jump, and means to flee.

"Gentil sire, allas! wher wol ye gon?
Be ye affrayed of me that am your freend?"

says the good fox; I came only to hear you sing; you have the family
talent:

My lord your fader (God his soule blesse!),

sang so well; but you sing better still. To sing better still, the cock
shuts his eye, and the fox bears him off. Most painful adventure! It was
a Friday: such things always befall on Fridays.

O Gaufred, dere mayster soverayn,
That whan the worthy King Richard was slayn
With shot, compleynedest his deth so sore,
Why ne had I now thy sentence and thy lore,
The Friday for to chide, as diden ye?[538]

Great commotion in the barn-yard; and here we find a picture charming
for its liveliness: "Out! harrow! and weyl-away! Ha, ha, the fox!" every
one shrieks, yells, runs; the dogs bark,

Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogges;

the ducks scream,

The gees for fere flowen over the trees,

and the bees come out of their hives. The prisoner is set free; he will
be more prudent another time; order reigns once more in the domains of
Chauntecleer.

Side by side with such tales of animals, we have elegant stories of the
Round Table, borrowed from the lays of "thise olde gentil Britons," and
which carry us back to a time when,

In tholde dayes of the King Arthour
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;
The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;

oriental legends, which the young squire will relate, with enchantments,
magic mirrors, a brass horse that transports its rider through the air,
here or there according as one touches a peg in its ears, an ancestor
doubtless of "Clavilegno," the steed of Don Quixote in the Duchesse's
park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of Caesar, of Nero, of
Holophernes, of Hugolino in the tower of hunger, taken from Roman
history, the Bible and Dante; adventures of chivalry, in which figures
Theseus, duke of Athens, where blood flows profusely, with all the
digressions and all the e