62 The Poets Beasts. 



And when these fail'd he'd suck his claws, 

 And quarter himself uponr his paws." 



Unlike the Puritans, who hated bear-baiting — not because 

 it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the 

 spectators — the poets condemn the pastime as being cruel 

 to Bruin. 



" How barbarously man abuses power ! 

 Talk of the baiting, it will be replied 

 Thy welfare is thy owner's interest, 

 But wert thou baited it would injure thee, 

 Therefore thou art not baited. For seven years — 

 Hear it, O heaven ! and give ear, O earth ! — 

 For seven long years this precious syllogism 

 Hath baffled justice and humanity." — Southey. 



Their sympathy is always with the bear that has "off-shakt" 

 the "curres," and when the "cruell dogs" get the better 

 of him the poets punctually note that the bear was chained 

 or muzzled. They use the simile of " ragged roaring bears 

 rearing up against the baiters " ^ for nobles attacked by 

 those of lower degree, or for men of might beset by 

 numbers. They knew well the spectacle — 



" When through the town, with 

 Slow and solemn air, led by the nostril, 

 Walked the muzzled bear." 



The Bankside bear-garden and Hockley Hole were familiar 

 names, and the dancing Bruin has given at least three poets 

 the subject for a poem, Leyden drawing the ** moral " from 

 the exhibition that men learnt to dance from the bear, and 

 might still improve their own saltations by imitating it — 



" From bears the dancer's art at first began. 

 To monkey next it past and then to man ; 



^ Hood borrows tiie expression for the waves during a storm. " Black, 

 jagged billows rearing up in war, like ragged roaring bears against the 

 baiter." 



