of the continent. When I witnessed it, we were shut up in a small room about eight feet square, nearly buried in the ground, from the surface of which just enough of the top of the building projected, to allow of a small window being made in it. From this we saw the sport. Among some hornbeams, as thickly planted as those we see in a nursery garden, and about as high, were tied the decoy-birds, and when any others visited them, we pulled the string of a clap-net, which closed upon the prey.
No otherwise, upon the further shore
Of fosse or of canal, the frogs we spy,
By cautious archer, practised in his lore,
Smote and transfixed, &c.
Stanza lxix. lines 1, 2, 3, 4.
The frog-hunter has changed his weapons, and frogs are now fished for in Italy.
As hunter watches for his prey,
In forest, with armed dogs.
Stanza lxxiii. lines 6 and 7.
I suppose with collars armed with spikes, as may yet be seen on the wolf-dogs in parts of Switzerland.
Or that it was not the Creator’s will
The church so soon her champion should bewail.
Stanza lxxvi. lines 5 and 6.
Had Ariosto lost sight of Orlando’s invulnerability, save in the sole of his foot, or is he to be defended for such an apparent oversight by a reference to the Innamorato, which represents the count as not insensible to contusions, though his skin is impenetrable?
