Dog, the Wolf, and the Scheip," contains the form of process before the Ecclesiastical Court. It is a singular performance, will be entertaining to lawyers, and may, perhaps, suggest some observations not to be found in books.' Concurring as we do in this view, we think we may be allowed to offer some little commentary on the text.

According to Henryson, the Dog, wishing to make a groundless or calumnious claim against the Sheep, convenes him, not before any of the Civil tribunals, but before the Consistory or Ecclesiastical Court, where he expects more easily to accomplish his object. In this selection the poet seems to show that he was of the same mind as Dr. Johnson, who, when asked by his friend Walmsley of Doctors' Commons how he could possibly involve his heroine, Irene, in greater distress than he had done in the early part of his play, replied that he could throw her into the Spiritual Court. There is little doubt that in the middle ages-and perhaps the tendency continued down to a later period-the Episcopal judicatories, in their exercise of consistorial jurisdiction, were instruments of considerable oppression. The peculiarity of the questions with which they were chiefly conversant, the vague nature of the principles involved in them, as designed pro salute animæ, and not directed to ordinary matters of patrimonial interest, and the exemption of the judges from the usual means of control and remedies of review were all calculated to render their procedure vexatious and their decisions arbitrary. Their general character is given by one who must have known them well-Peter of Blois, who, in the latter part of the twelfth century, was settled in England, and was successively Chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Archdeacon of Bath and London. In a letter to the Official of the Bishop of Chartres in France, he exhorts him to retire from his office, on the ground of the iniquitous doings. which it involved :—

Tota officialis intentio est ut ad opus Episcopi sue jurisdictioni commissas miserrimas oues quasi vice illius tondeat, emungat, excoriet. ... Cause et judicia, quibus te imprudenter, ne dicam impudenter, immisces, potius consuetudinario et seculari jure deciduntur. Officium officialium hodie est jura confundere, suscitare lites, transactiones rescindere, innectere delationes, supprimere veritatem, fovere mendacium, questum sequi, equitatem vendere, inhiare exactionibus, versutias concinnare. Si mihi credis, imo si credis in Deum, relinque maturius officialis officium, ministerium damnationis, rotam malorum, et spiritum vertiginis qui te ad inania circumvolvit. Miserere anime tue placens Deo, cui placere non potes cum isto perditionis officio.'-Petri Blessensis Epistola, xxv. p. 44.1

1 Quoted from the Liber Officialis Sancti Andreæ (Abbotsford Club).

Another glimpse behind the scenes is given us in the following story, told by Mr. Innes in his Sketches, and taken from the Chronicle of Lanercost, anno 1277

'A certain knight of Robertston had an estate in Annandale, the tenants of which, running riot from too much prosperity-præ opibus lascivientes-committed all sorts of offences, which brought them to the Official's Court, and filled the purse of the Archdeacon with their fines. At length the landlord declared that for any such offences the tenants should be ejected from his land, which produced a great reformation, and a diminution of the Archdeacon's profits. The Archdeacon met the knight, and accosting him, superbo supercilio, asked him who had constituted him judge for the reforming of such matters. The knight replied that he had made the rule for the sake of his property, and not as interfering with the Churchman's jurisdiction, but added," I see if you can fill your bag with their fines, you have no care who takes their souls." Ad hæc conticuit exactor criminum et amator transgressionum.'-Chron. Laner. 1277.

Lord Medwyn, or whoever else wrote the Preface to the Official's Book of St. Andrews, was of opinion, and probably with reason, that the Episcopal Courts in Scotland were latterly, through the learning and virtue of men like Bishop Elphinstone, rescued from the odium and corruption that had before attached to them; but it may be doubted how far this improvement was general; and the satire of Henryson would not probably have been directed against them without good grounds. We may observe that the ecclesiastical officials always contrived to make a rich harvest out of the cases before them, and, in particular, out of the fines and penalties inflicted. In the administration, also, of intestate successions, they claimed a handsome quot, or percentage, out of the free executry; and it deserves notice that this exaction, which was continued by the lay commissaries established at the Reformation, was only finally abolished in the present century.

The subject of the Dog's action against the Sheep is a loaf of bread alleged to have been lent, and for which he demands payment. This dispute is not in its own nature of an ecclesiastical character; but the Bishops' Courts early encroached upon the secular jurisdiction in every possible way, and on every possible pretence. As Mr. Erskine tells us, the clergy had the address to establish in themselves a proper jurisdiction, not only in questions of tithes, patronage, scandal, breach of vow, and in other matters which might with some propriety be styled ecclesiastical, but in every cause which they could find the smallest colour to give that name to.' Even where the claim was merely pecuniary, and had no conceivable connexion in its own nature with the church or religion, they established a jurisdiction in such suits as might be brought by widows,

or orphans, or other persona miserabiles who were supposed to need the Church's protection,-a circumstance which seems to explain a passage in the quotation we are about to make :Esope ane tale puttis in memory

How that ane Dog, because that he was pure,
Callit ane Sheep to the Consistory

Ane certain bread fra him for to recure :

Ane fraudful Wolf was judge that time, and bure
Authority and jurisdiction;

And on the Sheep send furth ane strait Summòn.'

The citation in ecclesiastical causes, we know, was made under pain of excommunication, which, after being pronounced and remaining for some time in force, might be followed up by imprisonment and seizure of goods by the secular authorities: 'I, Maister Wolf, partless of fraud and guile, Under the pains of high suspension,

Of great cursing, and interdictiòn,

Schir Sheep, I charge thee straitly to compeir,
And answer to ane Dog before me here.'

The apparitor, or officer chosen to execute the writ, is Sir Corbie Raven,'

'Quha pykit had full mony scheipis ee :'

and he duly discharges his function by summoning the Sheep to appear before the Wolf,

'Peremptourlie, within twa days or three.' The execution is made before witnesses, and indorsed upon the writ.

The clerk of such courts was generally a notary, which may have led to Henryson's having personally assisted at such proceedings. In this case the Fox officiates in that capacity, while the Gled and Graip, i.e., the kite and vulture, appear as Advocates for the Dog. The Sheep has no counsel, but when called upon to plead he makes answer by objecting to the tribunal and whole proceeding

'Here I decline the Judge, the time, the place.'

The mode of proceeding when a judge was thus refused on the ground of enmity or other personal objection was very peculiar, and consisted in an arbitration between the judge and party to have the objection disposed of.

This is explained in Oughton's Ordo Judiciorum, a wellknown book of practice in Ecclesiastical Law:-.

'Si quis fuerit conventus coram Judice, sibi suspecto ac minus indifferente: Primo et ante omnia facienda est Recusatio in scriptis,

continens specificè causas hujusmodi Recusationis: Utpote; Quia Judex est tibi inimicus (et specificandæ sunt hujusmodi Inimicitia) vel quia est Consanguineus partis Adversæ; vel quia lites et Controversiæ, inter se et Judicem Recusatum pendent (specificando easdem) et similia. Et in conclusione hujusmodi Materiæ Recusatoriæ, tenetur Recusans referre causas Recusationis hujusmodi ad Arbitros. Et adstatim nominandi sunt, ex parte Recusantis Arbitri duo vel tres Probi viri, et Judex (in isto casu Recusatus) tenetur nominare tot Arbitros pro parte sua. Et isti Arbitri Judices fient et judicabunt de causis Recusationis hujusmodi.'

This, accordingly, is the course here followed. The Bear, and the Brock, or Badger, as arbiters, the matter took on hand;' and after a long disputation, and examination of authorities, decided that the objection was unfounded, and the cause proceeds. The Sheep is very speedily cast, and ordered,—

'Under the pains of interdiction,

The soume of silver, or the breid to pay.
The Sheep, dreidand mair executiòn,

Obeyand to the sentence, he couth tak

His way unto ane merchand of the toun,

And sauld the woll that he bure on his bak;

Syne bocht the breid, and to the Dog couth mak

Ready payment as it commandit was:

Nakit and bair, syne to the feild couth pass.'

It is very plain that no one but a professional man could have given so minute and exact an account of the usual procedure in these courts; but we think it may further be inferred that Henryson was not in orders, as in that case he would scarcely have ventured to satirize so palpably the ecclesiastical tribunals.

In the morality that follows, the silly Sheep is compared to the poor Commons that daily are oppressed by tyrant men.' The animals of prey are the emblems of corrupt officers of justice, who enrich themselves by an abuse of their functions. The Wolf is a sheriff, who, having bought from the king some of the numerous forfeitures of goods and estates which were then common, carries about with him a corrupt jury, in order to enforce his claims. The Raven is a Coroner or Crowner, who, being intrusted under the Justiciar with the citation and arrest of accused persons for trial at Circuit, corrupts the record or 'Porteouss' of the Indictments, by the deletion or insertion of the names of the accused, and so extorts bribes from different parties whom he thus threatens.

The Porteous here referred to was the portable roll of indictments prepared for the Circuit Air, and which continued to be in use till our own time. It is an old English as well as a Scotch

word, and is applied to any manual, including prayer-books or breviaries. The Promptorium Parvulorum contains it in this form: Poortos booke. Portiforium, breviarium.'

That the offices of Sheriff and Coroner were at this period liable to great abuse, and needed a close and constant control over them, may be gathered from the Act of James III., 1487, c. 103, which directs that the Sheriff and the Crowner 'suld thoill ane assise the last day of the aire' (Circuit). The words of the Act are,—

'It is statute and ordained, that there be charge given to the Justice, that he in time to cum, the last day of this aire, give ane assise to the Schireffe and Crowner, gif they have used and done their office treulie. And gif they be convict and foundin false therein, that they be punished therefore, after the forme of law and their demerites.'

It would be interesting to know if this Act or Henryson's fable were the first in date.

The complaints of the Sheep as to the miseries and oppressions inflicted on him are given with heartfelt earnestness and considerable power, but we have not room for further extracts.

Neither have we room for an analysis of the other Æsopean Fables of Henryson; but we would particularly refer to the tale of the 'Uplandis and the Burges Mouse,' which is told with a very happy circumstantiality. In the Lion and the Mouse,' and the Preaching of the Swallow,' there are also passages which would well deserve quotation.

Several of the remaining fables of Henryson belong obviously to the cycle of Reynard the Fox. That very celebrated model of the Animal-Epic seems to have had its native home or habitat in Flanders and the north-east of France, and its characters and topics cannot, we believe, be traced as having any popular currency among the Anglo-Saxons, or among the mixed Teutonic races of England and Scotland. In Scotland we seem to have had some tradition of our own with regard to the Fox, who was known among the Scottish peasantry by the name of Lowrie, which Henryson treats as a diminutive of Laurence. But the origin or connexion of the name of Tod Lowrie is, we confess, quite unknown to us. The wolf still existed in Scotland at this time, but seems to be the subject of no native tradition. The French or Flemish Reynard, however, was freely imported as an exotic production into several of the countries surrounding the North Sea, and the invention of printing was soon applied to the task of multiplying translations of it in various directions. A Low German version, in rhyme, made from the Flemish, was printed at Lubeck in 1498, and was long looked