The King of the Beasts. 27 



force. Thus, in Hood, " Three monstrous seas came roar- 

 ing on like lions leagued together \ " or, in Hemans, " Like 

 angry lions wasting all their might." So Montgomer)', 

 " the ocean roaring in his wrath, mad as a Lybian wilder- 

 ness by night, with all its lions up, in chase or fight." In 

 Jean Ingelow, Time, "A. grim old lion gnawing lay, and 

 mumbled with his teeth a regal tomb." Into innumerable 

 other facets is the lion-stone cut. It does homage (in 

 Grahame) to the announcing angels of Bethlehem — 



" The prowling lion stops. 

 Awe-struck, with mane upreared, and flattened head, 

 And, without turning, backward on his steps 

 Recoils, aghast, into the desert gloom ; " 



it spares the prophet, thus characteristically " Emblem "-ed 

 by Quarles, — 



" Fierce Lyons roaring for their prey ! and then 

 Daniel throwne in ! and Daniel yet remaine 

 Alive ! There was a Lion in the Den 

 Was Daniel's friend, or Daniel had been slaine. 



Among ten thousand Lions, I'd not feare 

 Had I but only Daniel's Lion there ; " 



it is soothed, in Darwin for instance, by music — - 



" So playful Love on Ida's flowery sides 

 With ribbon rein the indignant lion guides ; 

 Pleased on his brindled back the lyre he rings 

 And shakes delirious rapture from the strings. 

 Slow as the pausing monarch stalks along 

 Sheaths his retractile claws and drinks the song ; " 



and is a pattern of connubial constancy — 



"The lion's constant to his only miss 

 And never leaves his faithful lioness. 

 And she's as chaste and true to him again." — Butler. 



This may be true of the lion — for Nature has enforced 

 monogamy upon nearly all dangerous or noxious (male) 



