The Kiftg of the Beasts. 15 



Artax. : So have I heard on Afric's burning shoie 

 Another lion give a grievous roar, 

 And the first lion thought the last a bore. 



Or, as in Swift's delightful " Hyperbole on a Lion : " 



" lie roar'd so loud and looked so wondrous grim, 

 His very shadow durst not follow him." 



The prodigious fervour of the lion's attack — or rather the 

 exaggerated ideas once entertained of the general fierceness 

 of the animal — has stereotyped Chaucer's comparison " as 

 feres as a lion" — "as lions fierce." 



" Ne in Belmarie there n'is so fell leon 

 That hunted is, or for his hunger woi>d. 

 Ne of his prey desireth so the blood 

 As Palamon." 



And again — 



" This Palamon 

 In his fighting were as a wood icon." 



So Thomson and Parnell — 



" On just reason, once his fury routed, 

 No lion springs more eager to his prey. 

 Blood is a pastime." 



" So proud, inhuman, numberless and strong. 

 Like desert lions on their prey they go.'' 



Hence numerous metaphors taken from the same aspect of 

 the animal have become almost proverbs with poets of the 

 Eliza Cook calibre — " She'll take a blow and face a foe, 

 like a lion turned to bay " — " Go face the hungry lion in his 

 path," &c. But the ferocity idea is certainly elongated to 

 absurdity when we read that — 



" The lion may yield, let him sink, let him bleed, 

 But seek not to tame him, to bind and to lead ; " 



for as a matter of fact the lion has been very frequently 



