VI. 



SOME HARMLESS BEASTS. 



In proportion as beasts are harmless, and less useful there- 

 fore for comparison with the wickednesses and failings of 

 men, the poets appear to find them uninteresting. Amia- 

 bility among wild animals, unaccompanied by utility to man, 

 would seem to be considered a deviation from poetical 

 requirements which ought not to be encouraged. At any 

 rate, to the lover of wild nature, the poets' treatment of the 

 beasts appears to be a perpetual cynicism. But, inasmuch 

 as many of the "harmless" animals — the elephant, beaver, 

 deer, camel, bison, and so forth — contribute to the welfare 

 of human beings, the poets' survey of them, though of a 

 distant, half-hearted kind, is not unfriendly. 



Thus, they compliment the elephant, " the huge earth- 

 shaking beast " that hath " a serpent twixt his eyes," on its 

 unusual sagacity and on employing it in the service of man, 

 remember the beaver's fur in its favour, credit the camel with 

 conveying merchandise across deserts with great patience, 

 and do not overlook the claims of the bison upon the hunter 

 who eats him. Others, again, like the rhinoceros and hippo- 

 potamus, do not, so far as the poets know, contribute directly 

 to the comfort of humanity, nor do they attack man. They 

 are addressed therefore not only without acrimony, but with- 

 out sentiment of any kind. Each is a name for a very large 



