Bears and Wolves. 8i 



" WTioever saw the wolves that he can say, 

 Like more inhuman us, so bent on prey, 

 To rob their fellow wolves upon the way. 



The fiercest creatures we in nature find 



Respect their figure still in the same kind ; 



To others rough, to these they gentle be, 



And live from noise, from feuds, from factions free." 



And again — 



" But man, the wildest beast of prey. 

 Wears friendship's semblance to betray ; 

 His strength against the weak employs, 

 And where he should protect, destroys." 



Not that I would be thought to defend our kind from these 

 charges, for they may be well founded. I only complain 

 of the wolf not being fished with the same net 



But the chief feature of the wolf-symbol appears to me 

 neglected — namely, the altogether disproportionate acces- 

 sion of horror that surrounds wolves when in a pack, as 

 compared with the solitary animal Individually the animal 

 is almost despicable, collectively it is terrific. Alone, the 

 wolf is a highwayman, an individual bandit : in company 

 they are furies. A small dog, a little child, a burning stick, 

 Campbell's " wolf-scaring faggot," a fluttering rag, a " bog}-- 

 trap" of any kind, will suffice to keep off a single wolf; 

 but a squadron of cavalry will hardly stop the rush of a 

 pack The hunter hears a solitary howl and looks to his 

 rifle ; but the wind brings down to him a chorus of voices, 

 and he thinks only of escape. Men ride down single wolves 

 in the snow and kill them with whips; but the hunters 

 become the hunted when a dozen wolves sweep down from 

 the rocks — 



" The death-doomed man 



Felt such a chill run through his shivering frame, 



As the night-traveller on the Pyrenees, 



Lone and bewildered on his wintry way, 



F 



