2 26 The Poets' Beasts. 



The hare is certainly one of the best hunted of animals, 

 and Swift puts its perpetual pursuit delightfully into rhyme — • 



" A hare had long escaped pursuing hounds, 

 By often shifting into distant grounds, 

 Till finding artifices vain. 

 To save his life he leaped into the main ; 

 But there, alas, he could no safety find, 

 A pack of dogfish had him in the wind. 

 He scours away ; and, to avoid the foe, 

 Descends for shelter to the shades below. 

 There Cerberus lay watching in his den, 

 He had not seen a hare the Lord knows when. 

 Out bounced the mastiff with the triple head, 

 Away the hare with triple swiftness fled. 

 Hunted from earth and sea and hell, he flies 

 (Fear lent him wings) for safety to the skies : 

 Sirius, the fiercest of the heavenly pack, 

 Failed but an inch to seize him by the back ! " 



Over this universal huntedness of the hare, the poets 

 maintain a very even quarrel. Some applaud the sport, 

 others condemn it. While Gay goes into raptures over 

 coursing, Somerville calls it a " mean, murderous " pastime, 

 and gravely invokes the retributive hand of Heaven upon 

 the " vile crew " who follow it— 



" Nor the tim'rous hare 

 O'ermatched destroy, but leave that vile off"ence 

 To the mean muru'rous coursing crew, intent 

 On blood and spoil. O blast their hopes, just Heaven ! 

 And all their painful drudgeries repay 

 With disappointment and severe remorse." 



Not that Somerville was not really more cruel than Gay 

 (who was merely thoughtless), but he thought coursing 

 hares was wasting them. He insistctl on their being hunted 

 with beagles. Drayton has a straightforward description 

 of coursing without effusion of sentiment which Dryden 

 seems to borrow (for the occurrence can hardly be called a 

 familiar one) — 



