24 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



When the lion was ypimg, 



In the pride of his might, 

 Then 'twas sport for the strong 



To embrace him in fight: 

 To go forth with a pine 



For a spear 'gainst the mammoth. 

 Or strike through the ravine 



At the foaming behemoth; 

 "while nian was in stature 



As towers in our time-—. 

 The first-born of nature, 



And like her. sublime." 



And sometliiiig of the same rough stupendous cast from 

 nature's mould, must hare been an old Briton of that young 

 time, when the' first Eoinan came across, as the earliest navi- 

 gator to ciTilize — for it is certain, that if the Romans came 

 as conquerors, they came equally as civilizers. And though 

 they found the man savagely rude, yet, also, they found that 

 he had taken one step, at least, towards the investment of 

 civilization. From him Spencer took his famous picture — ' 



"About his shoulders broad he threw 

 An harie hide of some wild beast, whom hee 

 In salvage forest by adventure slew. 

 And reft the spoyle his ornament to bee, , 

 ' Which spreading all his back with dreadful view, 

 Made all that him po horrible did see. 

 Think him Alcides with the lyou's skin. 

 When the Neamean conquest he did win." 



And now with the knotted club in hand, the round bull's- 

 hide shield advanced, with the long matted locks, hairy limbs, 

 and savage eyes, we have a pretty clear outline of the fierce 

 wild figures which met "with dreadful view" the Roman 

 gallies in the surf on their descent. 



They were strange times, too — ^those of the acprn-eating 

 Druids. The Man was, in fact, but a few degrees remoyed 

 above the brute, from wMch he 



" ^Beft the spoylejiis ornament to bee," 



