Some Books of the Week
IN the Middle Ages, the attempt to draw spiritual meanings from the world of nature was continual ; unfortunately the world of nature was very much neglected in the process. The beasts who• occur in Bishop Theobald's Physiologus, translated by Lt.-Col. Alan Wood Rendell (Bumpus, 10s. 6d.), are interesting creatures and excellently adapted to point morals. The lion, when he smells a hunter coming, hurries to rub out his footprints with his tail. The stag feeds upon snakes and, heated internally by their poison, must dash off to find cooling fountains to drink from. The snake itself, if it sees a man naked, flees at once ; but if he is wearing clothes it attacks him and tries to kill him. The most charming of these mediaeval poems is on the constancy of the turtle-dove. None of them has much literary merit, but they help us to see into the mediaeval spirit and culture.
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