Prince Abino Jassima was in the Temple of Inari, who, being the God and the Protector of Foxes, ought to have a temple in the Bishoprick of Durham, and in Leicestershire, and wherever Foxes are preserved. Foxes' lungs, it seems, were then as much esteemed as a medicine by the Japanese, as Fox-glove may be by European physicians; and a party of Courtiers were fox-hunting at this time in order to make use of the lungs in a prescription. They were in full cry after a young fox, when the poor creature ran into the temple, and instead of looking for protection to the God Inari, took shelter in Prince Jassima's bosom. The Prince on this occasion behaved very well, and the fox-hunters very ill, as it may be feared most fox-hunters would do in similar circumstances. They insisted upon his turning the fox out; he protested that he would commit no such crime, for a crime it would have been in such a case; they attempted to take the creature by force, and Prince Jassima behaved so bravely that he beat them all, and set the fox at liberty. He had a servant with him, but whether this servant assisted him, has not been recorded; neither is it stated that the Fox God, Inari, took any part in the defence of his own creature and his princely votary; though from what followed it may be presumed that he was far from being an unconcerned spectator. I pass over the historical consequences which make “the hunting of that day” more important in Japanese history, than that of Chevy Chace is in our own. I pass them over because they are not exactly pertinent to this place. Suffice it to say that King Jassima, as he must now be called, revenged his father's murder upon these very hunters, and succeeded to his throne; and then, after his victory, the fox appeared, no longer in vulpine form, but in the shape of a lady of incomparable beauty, whom he took to wife, and by whom he became the happy father of our Astrologer, Abino Seimei. Gratitude had moved this alopegyne, gynalopex, fox-lady, or lady-fox, to love; she told her love indeed,—but she never told her gratitude: nor did King Jassima know, nor could he possibly suspect, that his lovely bride had been that very fox whose life he had with so much generosity and courage preserved,—that very fox, I say, “another and the same;”—never did he imagine, nor never could he have imagined this, till an extraordinary change took place in his beautiful and beloved wife. Her ears, her nose, her claws and her tail began to grow, and by degrees this wonderful creature became a fox again! My own opinion is, that she must have been a daughter of the great Fox-God Inari himself.