though thou put him to school
to learn Psalms,
ever are his ears turned
to the green grove.
No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit.
These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and show that such fables had already found their place in the popular poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled “Of the Beetle (serabo) and his Wife.” “A beetle, flying through the land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, ‘I have flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as this,’ pointing to the dunghill.” The application is equally droll with the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, “Thus many of the clergy, monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners.”
No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity.
