The King of the Beasts. 3 



wooded and, if possible, rocky places, where it can lie 

 hidden and pounce upon passing prey. If it misses its 

 aim it sulks, but does not pursue. 



Of 'course, the imaginary lion, the lion of the poets, is 

 a very different animal. It is a king of " sandy deserts," 

 reigning in a majestic solitude. It courts danger by pro- 

 voking men to combat, and never knows when it is beaten.^ 

 It scorns a weak foe, and generously overlooks everything 

 not its equal — for which perhaps the poets might quote that 

 episode near Bethel when the lion killed the prophet, but 

 refused to harm his ass. There is only one rebel against its 

 authority, Spenser's "prowd, rebellious unicorn." 



But much of the poets' mistaken eulogy is condoned by 

 their fidelity to tradition, and the result is that, while the 

 lion is credited with noble qualities that he does not possess, 

 he is also debited with many very culpable human weak- 

 nesses. So, though the poets must be held largely respon- 

 sible for the perpetuation of the ideas of the royalty, 

 magnanimity, and general infallibility of the lion, there can 

 be no doubt that, taken as a whole, their presentation of 

 the " King of the Beasts " is a tolerably fair one. It is 

 not, perhaps, quite so impartial as the American poets' 

 exposition of their country's " Eagle " — but then that, as I 

 have said elsewhere, is what might be called in vulgar 

 English " altogether phenomenal " — but it will stand, never- 

 theless, like Landseer's bronzes, as being a thoroughly 

 gratifying and sufficiently accurate statement of the lion's 

 pretensions. For the poets assume the attitude of his- 

 torians rather than of courtiers towards " the forest king," 

 and — 'following the old fabulists faithfully — compound a 

 sovereign that has both the virtues of royalty and the weak- 

 nesses. Thus, though the lion is regal, it is at times tyran- 



^ Solomon himself says that it is "the strongest among beasts, 

 and turneth not away from any." But Solomon probably did not 

 know of the tiger. 



