44 The Poets Beasts. 



and swift," and again, "sleeping in beauty on the mangled 

 prey, as panthers sleep ; " Wordsworth — 



" He was a lovely youth ! I guess 

 The panther in the wilderness 

 Was not so fair as he," 



and so with others. In the East a " panther waist," " panther 

 elegance," is a stereotyped phrase in the description of 

 Oriental beauty. But even in these (Dryden's having a 

 covert significance), the touch of the beast of prey is not 

 wanting — it is fleet of foot, a thing of the wilderness, sleeping 

 on its mangled prey — while in the majority of references it 

 is a downright wild beast — " skulking," the guilty accomplice 

 of wolves, " the bloody panther " by which A. Wilson must 

 mean the cougar or puma, or else mean nothing, for there 

 is no large spotted carnivore in North America, "ruthless 

 panther," "furious pard," and so forth. At sunset it rushes 

 out after prey " from the roots of Lebanon," ravages the red 

 man's " fold " (in E. Cook — whom the Saints preserve !) ; 

 "in his desperate fierceness, defying and bold;" is found 

 (in Glover) on Hydaspes' side or Eastern Indus cooling his 

 "reeking jaws" after "feasting on the blood of some torn 

 deer," 



" Which nigh his cruel grasp 

 Had roamed unheeding in the secret shade ; " 



and very often besides is spoken of as a fierce carnivorous 

 brute — which, in spite of its beauty and fragrance, the 

 ])anther or leopard undoubtedly is. To kill this animal, 

 therefore, was, the poets tell us, " the highest glory and 

 the greatest joy " of North American foresters, and its spoils 

 " the prime trophy " of Ethiopian spears. Somerville, 

 therefore, includes the panther in the beasts of chase, and 

 gives the following singular receipt for the successful hunt- 

 ing of the beast, though it might be objected that the carry- 



