Shakspeare was a victim to the popular belief, and says in “Troilus and Cressida,”—
“The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy.
His legs are for necessity, not for flexure.”
Donne, in his “Progress of a Soul,” sang of nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant,—
“The only harmless great thing.
Yet nature hath given him no knee to bend.
Himself he up-props, on himself relies;
Still sleeping stands.”
I have previously referred to the fact that the mammoth was considered by the Chinese to be an underground, rat-like creature; and in many countries the bones of fossil elephants have been considered those of giants.