learned Flögel, in his History of Comic Literature,[1] the German Fox would appear to have been a singular favourite with most nations. Upwards of forty editions are mentioned, among which three were published in England, besides others which do not appear to have come within the scope of the German writer. The English prose version of 1694, from which the following specimen of the work has been abridged, is one of them, consisting of a free translation, and occasional abridgment of the edition of 1498, upon which most of the subsequent editions, indeed, both in Germany and elsewhere, seem to be founded.
The German edition of 1498 appeared at Lubec in small 4to, accompanied by woodcuts, in a rude style of illustration and with a preface of four pages, from the pen of Henry Von Alkmar, the work itself consisting of two hundred and forty-one pages. It is composed in common heroic metre, the heroic metre of low Dutch; a copy is still preserved in the Ducal Library at Wolfenbüttel, with the following motto:
Nun in der Werlde blyket,
Sic hominis est ratio
Gelyk dem vosse geschicket.
At the close is found the date, Anno Domini, 1498, Lubek. It was first made known by Professor
- ↑ Geschichte der Komischen Litteratur, vol. iii. p. 40, Liegnitz and Leipsic, 1786.
