24 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



When the lion was young, 



In the pride of his might, 

 Then 'twas sport for the strong 



To embrace him in fight: 

 To go forth with a pine 



For a spear 'gainst the mammoth, 

 Or strike through the ravine 



At the foaming behemoth; 

 While man was in stature 



As towers in our time — 

 The first-born of nature. 



And like her, sublime." 





And something of the same rough stupendous cast from 

 nature's mould, must have been an old Briton of that young 

 time, when the first Roman came across, as the earliest navi- 

 gator to civilize — for it is certain, that if the Romans came 

 as conquerors, they came equally as civilizers. And though 

 they found the man savagely rude, yet, also, they found that 

 he had taken one step, at least, towards the investment of 

 civilization. From him Spencer took his famous pictui'e — 



"About his shoulders broad he threw 



An harie hide of some wild beast, whom hee 



In salvage forest by adventure slew, 



And reft the spoyle his ornament to bee, 



Which spreading all his back with dreadful view. 



Made all that him so horrible did see, 



Think him Alcides with the lyon's skin. 



When the Neamean conquest he did win." 



And now with the knotted club in hand, the round bull's- 

 hide shield advanced, with the long matted locks, hairy limbs, 

 and savage eyes, we have a pretty clear outline of the fierce 

 wild figm-es which met "with dreadful view" the Roman 

 gallies in the surf on their descent. 



They were strange times, too — those of the acorn-eating 

 Druids. The Man was, in fact, but a few degrees removed 

 above the brute, from which he 



" Reft the spoyle his ornament to bee," 



