Bears and Wolves. 6i 



The cave, in which these Bears lay sleeping sound, 

 Was but of earth, and with her weightiness 

 Upon them fell, and did unawares oppress. 

 That, for great sorrow of their sudden fate, 

 Henceforth all worlds felicity I hate." 



As a performer on the village green, or as a retainer of 

 the household, " creeping close amongst the hives, to rend 

 an honeycombe," it has a distinct in4ividuality, but as a 

 wild beast none. Perpetually in use as an adjunct of savage 

 scenes, it never seems to be described from the life. It 

 always looms out from a distance, or from gloom, and 

 seldom comes close enough to us to be tangible or seen in 

 detail. It is a convenient beast, but a shado^\'y one, and 

 Butler (in his portrait of Potemkin) seems to me to sum up 

 with tolerable fairness the whole of the poets' bear-lore — 



" The gallant Bruin march'd next him, 

 With visage formidably grim, 

 And rugged as a Saracen, 

 Or Turk of Mahomet's own kin, 

 Clad in a mantle delle guerre 

 Of rough impenetrable fur ; 

 And in his nose, like Indian king, 

 He wore, for ornament, a ring ; 

 About his neck a threefold gorget, 

 As rough as trebled leathern target ; 

 Armed, as heralds cant, and langued, 

 Or, as the vulgar say, sharp-fanged ; 

 For as the teeth in beasts of prey 

 Are swords, with which they fight in fray. 

 So swords, in men of war, are teeth 

 Which they do eat their vittles with. 

 He was by birth, some authors write, 

 A Russian, some a Muscovite, 

 And 'mong the Cossacks had been bred, 

 Of whom we in Diurnals read. 

 That serve to fill up pages here, 

 As with their bodies ditches there. 

 Scrimansky was his cousin-german. 

 With whom he serv'd and fed on vermine ; 



