Allied to a love of fabling was that of allegory, which, as soon as literary activity began to appear in the early church, produced an abundant harvest. This tendency exhibited itself in the first progress of thought in England. Philippe de Than, one of the most ancient Anglo-Norman poets, wrote a work describing the character of each bird and beast, upon which he grounded moral reflections. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1253, was celebrated for a copious dissertation on mystical divinity, and a poem is extant ascribed to him, called the "Castle of Love" by Leland, in which the creation and redemption are represented as an allegory--our Lord being supposed to enter a magnificent castle, the body of the Virgin. The "Gesta Romanorum" strongly exhibits the want of discrimination at this time, for although the dramatis personae are generally Roman Emperors, the deepest Christian mysteries are supposed to be shadowed forth by their actions. Some of the stories are evidently invented to enforce religious teaching. We read of an angel accompanying a hermit on his wanderings, the angel robs or murders all who receive him, but explains afterwards that it is for their good. He gives a golden goblet to a rich man who refuses to entertain them, to comfort him in this world, as he will go to hell in the next. Vincent of Beauvais, a learned Dominican of France, who flourished in the thirteenth century, observes that it was a practice of preachers to rouse their congregation by relating a fable of AEsop. In the British Museum there is a collection of two hundred and fifteen stories, romantic, allegorical, and legendary, evidently compiled for the use of monastic preachers. Mystic similitudes were at this time greatly affected in all branches of learning. In the "Romaunt of the Rose," the difficulties of a lover are represented under the form of a man seeking a rose in an inaccessible garden. This flower, alchemists considered to be emblematic of the Philosopher's Stone, while theologians referred it to the white rose of Jericho--a state of grace into which the wicked could not enter. CHAPTER II. Anglo-Saxon Humour--Rhyme--Satires against the Church--The Brunellus--Walter Mapes--Goliardi--Piers the Ploughman--Letters of Obscure Men--Erasmus--The Praise of Folly--Skelton--The Ship of Fools--Doctour Doubble Ale--The Sak full of Nuez--Church Ornamentation--Representations of the Devil.