contributing some characteristic part to his incarnation. It was during the latter half of the seventeenth century, when, as we have seen, criminal prosecutions of animals were still quite frequent and the penalties inflicted extremely cruel, that Racine caricatured them in Les Plaideurs, where a dog is tried for stealing and eating a capon. Dandin solemnly takes his seat as judge, and declares his determination to “close his eyes to bribes and his ears to brigue.” Petit Jean prosecutes and L’Intime appears for the defence. Both address the court in florid and high-flown rhetoric and display rare erudition in quoting Aristotle, Pausanias and other ancient as well as modern authorities. The accused is condemned to the galleys. Thereupon the counsel for the defendant brings in a litter of puppies, _pauvres enfants qu’on veut rendre orphelins_, and appeals to the compassion and implores the clemency of the judge. Dandin’s feelings are touched, for he, too, is a father; as a public officer, also, he is moved by the economical consideration of the expense to the state of keeping the offspring of the culprit in a foundling hospital, in case they should be deprived of paternal support. To the contemporaries of Racine the representation of a scene like this had a significance, which we fail to appreciate. It strikes us as simply farcical and not very funny; to them it was a mirror reflecting a characteristic feature of the time and ridiculing a grave judicial abuse, as Cervantes, a century earlier, burlesqued the institution of chivalry in the adventures of Don Quixote. (See Appendix R.)