What better could have filled his journal?”
To go back to the Nursery (the Original Poets were scarcely more than children when they wrote), Jane’s talking beasts quickened the old stuff of fables by a new sense of likeness and incongruity. The spider and his wife (Jane loved spiders) are as real to a child as any married couple of his acquaintance. He follows their fortunes with personal concern; he would forego a feast to dine with them:
“One day when their cupboard was empty and dry
His wife, (Mrs. Hairy-leg Spinner,)
Said to him, ‘Dear, go to the cobweb, and try
If you can’t find the leg or the wing of a fly,
As a bit of a relish for dinner’”.
The Cow and the Ass, meeting where the child may see them on any summer day, reconcile nonsense and natural history. The small actor can take both parts, and laughs the more at his own drollery.
“‘Take a seat,’ cried the cow, gently waving her hand.
‘By no means, dear Madam,’ said he, ‘while you stand.’