abideth as it were a ship in the sea without stern and without
lodesman, and as chivalry without prince or duke.




VI

MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--BIRDS AND FISHES


In following out his plan of describing the productions of each
element before considering the next in order, Bartholomew was led to
consider air and its products early in his scheme. Accordingly his
twelfth book is devoted to birds, and his thirteenth to the
inhabitants of the waters. There is hardly any reason in these books
for omitting any part more than another except space, but the editor
hopes that those chosen will put the reader in possession of a key to
the more common allusions in pre-Restoration literature.

When the editor spoke of the wholesale way in which our author is
conveyed by Elizabethan poets, he had in mind this and the following
chapters. A single example will show this. Let the reader compare the
account of the peacock with the following stanza from Chester's
"Love's Martyr":

"The proud sun-braving peacocke with his feathers,
Walkes all along, thinking himself a king,
And with his voice prognosticates all weathers,
Although, God knows, but badly he doth sing;