THE LION. 39 



It was while watching the lions at the court of Francis I. that 

 the fine lady dropped her glove into their den, and requested her 

 lover to fetch it out, which he did, and restoring it said, coldly, 

 " Here is your glove, madam ; see if you can find any one else who 

 would do the same for you that I have done," and thereupon left 

 her, never to return ; an incident that forms the theme of many a 

 well-known story in prose and verse. 



In England, as before mentioned, Henry III. (1235) first began 

 the practice of keeping lions in the Tower, which was continued, by 

 subsequent sovereigns, down to the time of William IV. Watching 

 combats between these animals and dogs, bulls, and bears, was 

 one of the favourite diversions of James I. 



A curious superstition became popular with regard to these 

 lions. It was customary to name them after the reigning kings, 

 and the fate of the monarchs and the animals was thought to be 

 bound up together. Earl Stanhope, in his " History of England," 

 quotes Lord Chesterfield as remarking in reference to the serious 

 illness that attacked Greorge II., "It was generally thought his 

 Majesty would have died, and for a very good reason — for the 

 oldest lion in the Tower, much about the king's age, died a 

 fortnight ago ! " 



Some superstitions regarding the hon exist even in England 

 at the present day, for Mr. Frank Buckland speaks of an appli- 

 cation being made but a few years ago to Mr. Bartlett, the 

 well-known Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, for some 

 hairs off the back of the lion ; the woman who wanted them stated 

 they were to give to a child to drive away fits. 



This belief must be of a very ancient date, probably from the 

 time of ^sculapius,^ although he says that the flesh— not the hair 



of a lion being made into soup, will help those troubled with a 



shaking of the joints or the palsie. According to Rasis, the 

 Arabian physician of the ninth century, the eye-teeth of a lion 

 hung about the neck of a young child, when he is forming his 

 second teeth, will prevent him from having any pain in them. 

 There were of course many other virtues attached to different 

 parts of these animals, as there were to every other species, by the 



6 See Topsell's History. 



