3o6 The Poets Beasts. 



Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb, 



They were too busy to bark at him ! 



From a Tartar's skull they had stripped the flesh, 



As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh ; 



And their white tusks crunched o'er the whiter skull. 



As it slipped through their jaws when their edge grew dull, 



As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, 



When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed ; 



So well had they broken a lingering fast 



With those who had fall'n for that night's repast. 



The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, 



The hair was tangled round his jaw ; 



But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf. 



There sat a vulture flapping a wolf, 



Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away, 



Scared by the dogs, from the human prey ; 



But he seized on his share of a steed that lay, 



Picked by the birds, on the sands of the bay, 



And see, worms of the earth, and fowls of the air. 



Beasts of the forest, all gathering there ; 



All regarding man as their prey, 



All rejoicing in his decay." 



By the way, were pariah-dogs ever a feature of English 

 life ? Or how is it that Spenser, Chaucer, and others talk so 

 often of vagrant curs that beset well-bred dogs; of "a sort 

 of hungry dogs y-met, about a carcass in the common way," 

 and so forth. It is very probable that we once had pariahs, 

 just as every other half-civilised country still has them. 

 This opens up, it seems to me, rather an interesting point 

 for inquiry and research. At any rate, our older poets 

 evidently sa7v them in packs quarrelling over offal on the 

 roads. 



When, therefore, the poets speak of dogs they mean the 

 tamed descendants of the creatures which were given to 

 man by a compassionate Providence to be his eyes and 

 ears, and which centuries of experience have proved to be 

 tlie best servants beyond all comparison that humanity has 

 ever dignified into utility. Under domestication the dog 



