The Poets He7'ds. 277 



possibilities that the alterations which have taken place 

 since their day in Islington and the neighbourhood would 

 be calculated to surprise. When they were in the flesh the 

 site of London was an agreeable forest, interspersed with 

 patches of marsh-land, affording the finest of grazing for 

 everybody. Occasionally, perhaps, a man painted blue 

 would come creeping along and whiz a pebble at them out 

 of a sling, and then scramble up the nearest tree as fast 

 as he could, or a carnivorous beast — lion, bear, or wolf, — 

 would come up from the jungles about King's Cross, and 

 make a meal off one of them. 



But if they came back now they would find but poor 

 pasturage in Islington. There is no great luxuriance of 

 meadow-grass in Pentonville, nor would oxen find much of 

 the old bush herbage left in St. John Street Road. On the 

 other hand, there would be no chance of azure aborigines 

 coming up from the Smithfield marshes to annoy them with 

 pebbles out of slings, or of lions and bears lying in wait to 

 eat them as they passed along to the Agricultural Hall. So 

 that, " taking one thing with another," it is not easy to say 

 whether the antiquated old cattle whom we find in the 

 Essex fossil-beds would prefer the present state of things or 

 the old. 



Imagine, for instance, an ancient auroch, accustomed all 

 his Ufe to fight for everything he wanted, seeing the modern 

 shorthorn in its stall. In his day, he would say, cattle were 

 cattle. They had horns wath which they could drill a hole 

 through a rhinoceros; long and sinewy legs that carried them 

 nimbly up the hills when tigers ran after them ; tough and 

 shaggy hides, loose-fitting, that stood them in good stead in 

 many a tussle for the lordship of the herd or the possession 

 of a juicy pasture. In his day it was the hardest head and 

 the stoutest heart that gained for their possessors all the 

 luxuries of life ; dexterity in defence and ferocity in attack 

 that won for them the reward of unmolested enjoyments ; 



