LION. 
•232 
him in mv court yard ; from that time he was ne- 
ver permitted to be loose, except when brought 
into the house to be exhibited to my friends. 
When he was five years old, he did some mischief 
by pawing and playing with people in his frolick- 
some moods ; having griped a man one day a little 
too hard, I ordered him to be shot, for fear of in - 
curring the guilt of what might happen ; on 
this, a friend, who happened to he then at dinner 
with me, begged him as a present : — how he came 
here I know not/' 
Here sir George ended ; and the duke of Tus- 
cany assured him that the lion had been given to 
him by the very person on whom sir George had 
bestowed him. 
An instance of recollection and attachment oc- 
curred not many years since in a lion belonging to 
the dutchess of Hamilton. It is thus related by 
Mr. Hope : 
“ One day I had the honour of dining with the 
dutchess of Hamilton. After dinner, the company 
attended her grace to see a lion fed that she had 
in the court. While we were admiring his fierce- 
ness, and teasing him with sticks to make him 
abandon his prey and fly at us, the porter came 
and informed the dutchess, that a serjeant with 
some recruits at the gate begged to see the lion. 
Her grace, with great condescension and good 
nature, asked permission of the company to admit 
the travellers. They were accordingly admitted 
at the moment the lion was growling over his 
prey. The serjeant, advancing to the cage, called 
* Nero, Nero, poor Nero, don't you know me ?* 
The aninjal instantly turned his head to look at 
him ; then rose up, left his prey, and came, wag- 
ging his tail, to the side of the cage. The man 
put his hand upon liim, and patted him ; telling 
ms,, at the same time, that it was jthree years 
