Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/282

274 Matilda Fitzwalter to the less admirable King John. The "allegory on the banks of the Nile" is the type of one who affects to regret that which his own evil passions have brought about. I give the passage in full as it is rich in unnatural history—

The belief that the dove had no gall gave that bird an importance with sentimentalists which it has now lost. Lovers were formerly pleased to attribute the same physiological defect to their mistresses, and consequently Drayton did not neglect to credit his "Idea" therewith.

The Bestiaries made good use of this and of other idiosyncrasies of the dove in likening it to the Holy Spirit, of whom it may be accounted the self-chosen symbol. Raulin, an eccentric French preacher who died in 1514, gave many reasons why the bird was thus highly honoured; the first being, "A dove is without gall and is