Cats. 



55 



both died from their wounds. It is the marvellous agility 

 of the cat which makes him such a terrible enemy ; to say 

 that he " flies " at you is scarcely a iigure of speech. How- 

 ever, the wild cat, when he knows that he is observed, 

 generally seeks refuge, as King Charles did at Boscobel, 

 in the leafy shelter of some shadowy tree, and there the 

 deadly leaden hail too surely follows him, and brings him 

 to earth again. 



Cats have the advantage of being very highly connected, 

 since the king of beasts is their blood-relation, and it is 

 certain that a good deal of the interest we take in them is 

 due to this august relationship. What the merhn or the 

 sparrow-hawk is to the golden eagle, the cat is to the great 

 felines of the tropics. The difference between a domestic 

 cat and a tiger is scarcely wider than that which separates 

 a miniature pet dog from a bloodhound. It is becoming 

 to the dignity of an African prince, like Theodore of Abys- 

 sinia, to have lions for his household pets. The true 

 grandeur and majesty of a brave man are rarely seen in 

 such visible supremacy as when he sits surrounded by 

 these terrible creatures, he in his fearlessness, they in 

 their awe ; he in his defenceless weakness, they with that 

 mighty strength which they dare not use against him. 

 One of my friends, distinguished alike in literature and 

 science, but not at all the sort of person, apparently, to 

 command respect from brutes who cannot estimate intel- 

 lectual greatness, had one day an interesting conversation 

 with a lion-tamer, which ended in a still more interesting 

 experiment. The hon-tamer affirmed that there was no 

 secret in his profession, that real courage alone was neces- 



The story of the escape of King Charles II. of England is told in Sir 

 W. Scott's " Woodstock " ; and in Harrison Ainsworth's " Boscobel or the 

 Royal Oak." 



