In the "Bestiare Divin" of Guillaume this antagonism of the elephant and dragon is again referred to, and indeed we find it an accepted belief throughout the Middle Ages. Pliny's work was held for centuries in the greatest admiration, and to add " as Pliny saith " to any statement, no matter how wild, was considered amply sufficient. Guillaume's description of the dragon is as follows-" C'est le plus grand des animaux rampants. Il nait en fthiopie : it a la gueule petit, le corps long et reluisant comme or fin. C'est 1'ennemie de 1'elephant ; c'est avec sa queue qu'il triomphe de lui : 1k est, en effet, le principe de sa force ; sa gueule ne porte point venin de mort." The book of Guillaume is a fair type of several books of the sort written by ecclesiastics during the Middle Ages. Such books were an attempt to show that all the works of nature were symbols and teachers of great Scriptural truths ; hence, while much that they give is interesting, their statements always require to be received with great caution. If the facts of the case got at all in the way of a good moral, so much the worse for the facts ; and if a little or a great modification of the true state of the case could turn a good moral into one much better, the goodness of the intention was held to amply justify the departure from the hampering influence of the real facts. The MS. of Guillaume dates from the thirteenth century, and is at present preserved in the
National Library in Paris. The writer was a Norman priest. The work has been very well reproduced in a French dress by Hippeau, a compatriot of the writer. As we simply wish in our extract to bring out the belief in the antagonism between the elephant and the dragon, we forbear to add any moral teachings that a more or less morbid symbolism was able to deduct from the supposititious fact; but we shall have occasion to quote again more than once from the " Bestiare," and doubtless the peculiar, connection between scientific error and religious truth will have an opportunity of making itself felt in one or more of these extracts.
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