76 INSTINCT AND REASON. 



badly-furnished larder; for such mistakes we commit 

 also in judging of our fellow-men. But there are many 

 beautiful instances on record in which dumb creatures 

 have shown themselves capable beyond question of faith- 

 ful friendship, and therefore as possessing at least the 

 beginnings, if not any high advancement, of a moral 

 nature. None perhaps is more beautiful than that told 

 by Henry Brookes, a writer of the last century, about 

 one of the lions in the Tower of London. A little 

 spaniel picked up in the streets was thrown into the 

 cage of the largest of these beasts, called for his size 

 the king's lion. ' Immediately the little animal trem- 

 bled, and shivered, and crouched, and threw itself on 

 its back, and put forth its tongue, and held up its 

 paws, in supplicatory attitudes, as an acknowledgment 

 of superior power, and praying for mercy. In the 

 meantime the lordly brute, instead of devouring it, 

 beheld it with an eye of philosophic inspection. He 

 turned it over with one paw, and then turned it over 

 with the other, and smelled to it, and seemed desirous 

 of courting a further acquaintance. From this day the 

 strictest friendship commenced between them, a friend- 

 ship consisting of all possible affection and tenderness on 

 the part of the lion, and of the utmost confidence and 

 boldness on the part of the dog, insomuch that he would 

 lay himself down to sleep, within the fangs and under 

 the jaws of his terrible patron.' 



The sequel of the story is pathetic. To tell it briefly, 

 in twelve months the little spaniel sickened and died. 

 The lion at first supposed him to be asleep, but finding 



