Page:The German Novelists (Volume 1).djvu/31

 origin losing itself in the mists of antiquity. Neither do they add any thing to the value of the work under discussion, at all commensurate to the abundance and ingenuity of the researches it has elicited. What degree of certainty, indeed, can be expected, when the only true guide, that of comparison of dates, and the local intrinsic evidence of the work, has been doubtless mystified by the wily sir Reynard, who chose to leave us only vague hypothetical conjectures. Without presuming to enter into the mazes of antiquarian research, which fortunately for the readers of a work of entertainment, lies as far beyond the editor’s ambition as his skill, he may be allowed to deduce, from the arguments set before him, the probability of sir Reynard having brought his learned pursuers to fault by his usual ruse de guerre; returning to his original seat, on finding himself hard pressed, so slily and softly, as to render it impossible for the best trained scent to track him back to his native spot, whether in French Flanders, Holland, Italy, Germany, or in the East. He may probably have had his origin in the ancient Kelila and Dimna in these last regions; the nurse of oral animals, more