[Footnote 167: This fine passage does not occur in Chaucer, although his commencement of the battle is in the highest degree animated. Perhaps Dryden remembered Sidney's "Arcadia." "And now the often-changing fortune began also to change the hue of the battles. For at the first, though it were terrible, yet Terror was decked so bravely with rich furniture, gilt swords, shining armours, pleasant pensils, that the eye with delight had scarcely leisure to be afraid: but now all universally defiled with dust, blood, broken armour, mangled bodies took away the masque, and set forth Horror in his own horrible manner."--_Arcadia_, Book III.] [Footnote 168: Derrick's Edit. _The_.] [Footnote 169: Emetrius.] [Footnote 170: Another political sarcasm of the Tory poet, unauthorized by his original.] [Footnote 171: An "infernal fury," according to the best readings of Chaucer, though others, which Dryden probably followed, have "fire."] [Footnote 172: Folio Edit. _Not._] [Footnote 173: This sort of expostulation is common to many barbarous nations, and is said to be retained by the native Irish.] [Footnote 174: The French _launde_, means a wild, uncultivated meadow, or glade. The word _lawn_, which we have formed from it, has a more limited signification.] [Footnote 175: Derrick's Edit. _their._] THE COCK AND THE FOX. The accurate Tyrwhitt detected the original of this fable in the translation of "Æsop," made by Marie of France into Norman-French for the amusement of the court of England, by which that language was used down to the reign of Edward. But the hand of genius gilds what it touches; and the naked Apologue, which may be found in Tyrwhitt's "Preliminary Discourse," was amplified by Chaucer into a poem, which, in grave, ironical narrative, liveliness of illustration, and happiness of humorous description, yields to none that ever was written. Dryden, whom "The Hind and Panther" had familiarized with this species of composition, has executed a version at once literal and spirited, which seldom omits what is valuable in his original, and often adds those sparks which genius strikes out, when in collision with the work of a kindred spirit. THE COCK AND THE FOX; OR, THE TALE OF THE NUN'S PRIEST.