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CHAPTER III. 

 THE LION {FELIS LEO). 



BuFPON says : " To study animals with, accuracy, we ought to view 

 them in their savage state, to accompany them into the retreats 

 which they have chosen for themselves, to follow them into the 

 deep cavern, and to attend them on the frightful precipices where 

 ttey enjoy unbounded liberty." This is so, no doubt, but as none 

 of us can study animals with this accuracy, we must be content to 

 watch them in captivity, and surely this fact need not diminish 

 our pleasure as we gaze on these splendid creatures. Then think 

 what art owes to them, not exactly as the royal patron, but as 

 the theme. " We can scarcely calculate," writes one of the 

 Reviews, " what sculpture would have missed without him, from 

 the gates of Mycene, the halls of Nineveh and Thebes, the throne of 

 Solomon and the courts of the Alhambra, down to Canova's monu- 

 ment in Rome — even when he is represented at the foot of the 

 Trafalgar Square column, with his forelegs (as shapeless as roUy- 

 poly puddings) stretched out straight, dog fashion, instead of 

 cat-elbowed, he is still a grand creature, albeit plethoric in his 

 dignity, like the porter in a ducal mansion or a Beef-eater in the 

 Tower." And remember the number of magnificent paintings he 

 has inspired, and which the grand similes his habits have suggested, 

 which, from the Bible downwards, enrich our literature. Even in 

 ancient Egypt lions appear to have been the object of special wor- 

 ship and devotion, for they are represented in Egyptian las-reliefs 

 to which an antiquity of 3000 years has been assigned. Again, 

 one of the most famous relics of ancient Greek art in the British 

 Museum — in fact, if we except the Marathonian tumulus, it is, 

 according to a writer in the Times, the only relic of the best 



