38 The Poets Beasts. 



Stops short, and maddens at the monarch's growl ; 

 And through his eyes darts all his furious soul. 

 Half willed, yet half afraid to dare a bound, 

 He eyes his loss, and roars, and tears the ground," 



Yet in spite of the poets I am of opinion that a very 

 considerable dignity attaches to the Raja of the Jungles. 

 Sportsmen know well what a solitude the tiger creates for 

 itself by its simple presence, and what an overwhelming 

 awe possesses all wild life when its voice is heard. The 

 wild boar, it is true, will turn upon it, but then the wild 

 boar is the type among the beasts of a chivalry that is 

 Quixotic in its rashness ; and the tiger by this presump- 

 tuous conduct often arrives at pork that he could not other- 

 wise have captured. Sometimes, however, he is killed by the 

 boar. But what supremacy in the world is not challenged at 

 some time or another by foolhardy subjects or overweening 

 rivals ? Does the lion " walk his kingly path " unchallenged ? 

 On the contrary, he has to yield the path very often. 



In the tiger's manner of life, lording it over the unrivalled 

 jungles of India, there is an undoubted majesty, while its 

 amazing physical powers bespeak the monarch of a king- 

 dom where might is right, and befit it as the steed of Hari 

 and the emblem of Shiva. 



In metaphor, therefore, though frequently recurring, the 

 tiger has but a very narrow range. Spenser's Spumnador 

 rides on one — 



" Upon a tygre swift and fierce he rode, 

 That as the winde ran underneatii his load, 

 While his long legs nigli raught unto the ground." 



All very bloodthirsty personages, like royal enemies of 

 Great Britain, "daring the lion," or their soldiers — "Gallia's 

 tigers," for instance, who " fight with tiger zeal ; " or disre- 

 putable heroes of the Byronic Corsair or Moore's Ghebir 

 type ; or wicked sycophants of the powerful, or oppressors 



