1 8 Ihe Poets Beasts. 



You are never, of course, to be in any doubt as to the 

 capacity of the lion for being terrible on occasion — " Mind 

 you, Todgers's can do it when it likes." But, on the other 

 hand, Hercules can calm down to the distaff, and Mars 

 play with pet sparrows. Did not Coeur-de-Lion himself 

 withdraw his hand on one or two occasions from commit- 

 ting unnecessary murders ? So just as the partial historian 

 tempers the crimson story of the first Richard with dabs 

 and specks of white clemency, so the poet, afraid of finding 

 his monarch-beast a complete Nero, qualifies its blood- 

 thirstiness with legendary and mythical suggestions of an 

 occasional magnanimity. Thus Moore diverges from his 

 usual importraiture to call it, in one of his Fables, "gene- 

 rous lion," and Dryden (using generous in the best sense, 

 as Prior has " the hungry lion's gen'rous rage ") goes on to 

 say — 



" So when the gen'rous lion has in sight 

 His equal match, he rouses for the fight. 

 But when his foe lies prostrate on the plain 

 He sheatlis his paws, uncurls his angry mane, 

 And, pleas'd with the bloodless honours of the day, 

 Walks over, and disdains tli' inglorious prey : " 



which is industriously untrue to fact — while sheathing his 

 paivs is an extraordinary performance even for a poet's lion. 

 The bear really does act in the whimsically magnanimous 

 way described in the above lines. But not the lion. 



"The royal disposition of that beast to prey on nothing 

 that doth seem as dead " is a fiction, 



" And I no less her anger dread 

 Than the poor wretch that feigns him dead 

 While some fierce lion doth embrace 

 His lifeless corpse and licks his face. • 

 Wrapt up in silent fear he lies, 

 Torn ail to pieces if he cries." 



This reads well enough in Waller's song, but it is deplorably 



