[91]. "Ay me, Alas."
Messalina's monkey was, I should fancy, of the kind called a marmoset, "blacke and greene." "Their agilitie and manner of doing is admirable, for that they seeme to have reason and discourse to go upon trees, wherein they seeme to imitate birds." There are so few of these far fair cousins of ours in poetry that I cannot forbear adding a note of Mr. Nahum's from Sir John Maundeville's Travels.
" ... From that City, (that is to say Cassay—the City of Heaven), men go by Water, solacing and disporting themselves, till they come to an Abbey of Monks—that is fast by—that be good religious men after their Faith and Law. In that Abbey is a great Garden and a fair, where be many Trees of diverse manner of Fruits. And in this Garden, is a little Hill, full of delectable Trees. In that Hill and in that Garden be many divers Beasts, as of Apes, Marmosets, Baboons, and many other divers Beasts. And every day, when the Monks of this Abbey have eaten, the Almoner has the remnants carried forth into the Garden, and he smiteth on the Garden Gate with a Clicket of Silver that he holdeth in his hand, and anon all the Beasts of the Hill and of divers places of the Garden, come out, a 3000 or a 4000 of them; they approach as if they were poor men come a-begging; and the Almoner's servants give them the remnants, in fair Vessels of Silver, clean over gilt. And when they have eaten, the Monk smiteth eftsoons on the Garden Gate with the Clicket; and then anon all the Beasts return again to their places that they came from. And they say that these Beasts be Souls of worthy men, that resemble in likeness the Beasts that be fair: and therefore they give them meat for the love of God."
[92]. "O Happy Fly."
And here is another of these creatures—"a sleepy fly that rubs its hands," in Mr. Hardy's words—William Blake's:
Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.