Beasts of Chase. . 209 



" Forth from their portals rushed th' intrepid pair. 

 Opposed ibeir breasts and stood themselres the war. 

 So two wild boars spring forioos from their den. 

 Roused with the cries of d(^ and Toke of men. 

 On every side the crackling trees they tear. 

 And root the shrubs, and lay the forest bare ; 

 They gnash their tusks, with fire their eyeballs roll. 

 Till some wide wound lets out their mighty souL" 



Ovid, in his description of the beast, has the following 

 lines — 



" Sanguine et igne micant ocnii, riget horrida cervix, 

 £t setae, densis similes hastilibus horrent, 

 Stantque velut vallam, velut alta hastilia setae. 

 Fervida cum rauco latos stridore per armos 

 Spuma fluiu" 



In these two p)as?ages are contained the sum total of the 

 English poets' wild boar : Homer's simile and Ovid's 

 description have sufficed. 



This animal, by the way, affords us a standard by which 

 to measure our own manhood with that of the "heroic," 

 chivalrous, and historical days. "The destruction of a 

 wild boar,"' we read, "ranked in the middle ages among 

 the deeds of chivalry, and won for a warrior almost as much 

 renown as the slaying of an enemy in open lists." Think 

 of this, you jolly hog-hunters of India ! Regret, when you 

 next ride to pig, with a single spear in your hand, that you 

 did not Uve in the past, when, if you had gone after the 

 same beast in armour, javelined, and sworded, you might 

 have been a hero. Look at yoiu^ trophies of tushes and 

 lament Each pair of those in the days of the Earl Guy 

 might have made you a national hero for life and perhaps 

 even a Saint of Christendom thereafter ! 



In Windsor Forest the redoubtable Earl " did all to — 

 kill" a "grisly bore," and he Uves for ever a mirror of 

 heroism. 



o 



