[102] "Hic mihi stultam aliquam et indoctam fabulam, ex Speculo opinor historiali, aut Gestis Romanorum, in medium adferunt, et eandem interpretantur allegoricè, tropologicè, et anagogicè."—Stultitiæ laus. Basil. 1780, 8vo, p. 261.
[103] Amœnit. eccles., i. 807.
[104] Observ. on Italy, ii. 108.
[105] This MS. is in the author's possession, as well as another of the same work with considerable variations. A third is in the library of the Royal Society, No. 292, and there ascribed to Odo de Ceriton. Concerning this person, who was tutor in theology to the celebrated John of Salisbury, see Bale, Script. Brytann. catal. pars i. p. 221, edit. 1559. Tanner, Bibl. Britannico-Hibernic. p. 560. A great deal of confusion, and yet not more than is often found on similar occasions, has been made concerning this work and its author. It has been confounded with a moral treatise on natural history called Bestiarium, from which it is totally different. If the reader be desirous of perplexing himself with further inquiries concerning this subject, he may consult Fabricius, Bibl. med. ætat., i. 93, & v. 466, edit. 1734. Cave, Script. eccles. p. 572. Pitts, p. 245. There is another similar but anonymous work among the Harl. MSS., No. 219, that has some fables not in the others, and wants many in both.
[107] That is, "Though the wolf come to the priest, and be set to his book to learn psalms, yet is one of his eyes ever turned towards the wood." A similar fable is among those composed by Marie de France in the twelfth century. A curate having tamed a wolf, undertook to teach him to read. "Now," says he to the scholar, "repeat after me, A." The wolf articulated A. "Good," says the curate; "now say B." The wolf cried "bee, bee;" but thinking he heard the bleating of the sheep, away he ran to the fold. This apologue is probably from the East. See the story of Bohetzad and his ten vizirs in the continuation of the Arabian nights' entertainments. The other seems to have been borrowed from the celebrated and interesting romance of Reynard the Fox, evidently composed long before the twelfth century.
[108] Printed at Nuremberg, 1485. Paris, 1500. Basil, sine anno, in folio.
[109] Michael Neander, apud Schelhorn. Amœnit. ecclesiast. i. 798.
[110] Diss. on the Gesta Romanorum, p. lxxxvi.
[111] The Repertorium or Reductorium morale is an extraordinary performance for the time in which it was composed. It contains a system of natural history that may be consulted with advantage, even by modern students; but it is obscured by unlimited credulity and the grossest absurdities, which may nevertheless have their use in exhibiting the folly of learning when unaccompanied by judgment. The good monk is even occasionally witty, but without design. In speaking of the noise which frogs make, he compares them to the lawyers, "Tales sunt causidici et advocati quod vero isti sunt clamosi, quia clamando litigant ad invicem."