One great part of the joculator's profession was the teaching of bears, apes, horses, dogs, and other animals, to imitate the actions of men, to tumble, to dance, and to perform a variety of tricks, contrary to their nature; and sometimes he learned himself to counterfeit the gestures and articulations of the brutes. The engravings which accompany this chapter relate to both these modes of diverting the public, and prove the invention of them to be more ancient than is generally supposed. The tutored bear lying down at the command of his master, represented by the engraving No. 51, [756] is taken from a manuscript of the tenth century; and the bear in No. 59 [757] is from another of the fourteenth. I have already had occasion to mention these two delineations; and the two following, from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, [758] require no explanation.
71. Tutored Bear.—XIV. Century.
72. Tutored Bear.—XIV. Century.
The next represents