Under the reign of Augustus, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, a lion was kept in the menagerie at Dresden, between whom and his attendant such a good understanding subsisted, that the latter used not to lay the food which he brought to him before the grate, but carried it into his cage. Generally the man wore a green jacket; and a considerable time had elapsed, during which the lion had always appeared very friendly and grateful whenever he received a visit from him.
Once the keeper, having been to church to receive the sacrament, had put on a black coat, as is usual in that country upon such occasions, and he still wore it when he gave the lion his dinner. The unusual appearance of the black coat excited the lion’s rage; he leapt at his keeper, and struck his claws into his shoulder. The man spoke to him gently, when the well-known tone of his voice brought the lion in some degree to recollection. Doubt appeared expressed in his terrific features; however, he did not quit his hold. An alarm was raised: the wife and children ran to the place with shrieks of terror. Soon some grenadiers of the guard arrived, and offered to shoot the animal, as there seemed, in this critical moment, to be no other means of extricating the man from him; but the keeper, who was attached to the lion, begged them not to do it, as he hoped he should be able to extricate himself at a less expense. For nearly a quarter of an hour, he capitulated with his enraged friend, who still would not let go his hold, but shook his mane, lashed his sides with his tail, and rolled his fiery eyes. At length the man felt himself unable to sustain the weight of the lion, and yet any serious effort to extricate himself would have been at the immediate hazard of his life. He therefore desired the grenadiers to fire, which they did through the grate, and killed the lion on the spot; but in the same moment, perhaps only by a convulsive dying grasp, he squeezed the keeper between his powerful claws with such force, that he broke his arms, ribs, and spine; and they both fell down dead together.[221]
A Woman killed by a Lion.
In the beginning of the last century, there was in the menagerie at Cassel, a lion that showed an astonishing degree of tameness towards the woman that had the care of him. This went so far, that the woman, in order to amuse the company that came to see the animal, would often rashly place not only her hand, but even her head, between his tremendous jaws. She had frequently performed this experiment without suffering any injury; but having once introduced her head into the lion’s mouth, the animal made a sudden snap, and killed her on the spot. Undoubtedly, this catastrophe was unintentional on the part of the lion; for probably at the fatal moment the hair of the woman’s head irritated the lion’s throat, and compelled him to sneeze or cough; at least, this supposition seems to be confirmed by what followed: for as soon as the lion perceived that he had killed his attendant, the good-tempered, grateful animal exhibited signs of the deepest melancholy, laid himself down by the side of the dead body, which he would not suffer to be taken from him, refused to take any food, and in a few days pined himself to death.[222]
The Lions in the Tower.
Lions, with other beasts of prey and curious animals presented to the king of England, are committed to the Tower on their arrival, there to remain in the custody of a keeper especially appointed to that office by letters patent; he has apartments for himself, with an allowance of sixpence a day, and a further sixpence a day for every lion and leopard. Maitland says the office was usually filled by some person of distinction and quality, and he instances the appointment of Robert Marsfield, Esq., in the reign of king Henry VI.[223] It appears from the patent rolls, that in 1382, Richard II. appointed John Evesham, one of his valets, keeper of the lions, and one of the valets-at-arms in the Tower of London, during pleasure. His predecessor was Robert Bowyer.[224] Maitland supposes lions and leopards to have been the only beasts kept there for many ages, except a white bear and an elephant in the reign of Henry III. That monarch, on the 26th of February, 1256, honoured the sheriff of London with the following precept:—“The King to the Sheriffs of London, greeting: We command you, that of the farm of our city ye cause, without delay, to be built at our Tower of London one house of forty feet long, and twenty feet deep, for our Elephant.” Next year, on the 11th of October, the king in like manner commanded the sheriffs “to find for the said Elephant and his keeper such necessaries as should be reasonable needful.” He had previously ordered them to allow fourpence a day for keeping the white bear and his keeper; and the sheriffs were royally favoured with an injunction to provide a muzzle and an iron chain to hold the bear out of the water, and also a long and strong cord to hold him while he washed himself in the Thames.
Stow relates, that James I., on a visit to the lion and lioness in the Tower, caused a live lamb to be put into them; but they refused to harm it, although the lamb in its innocence went close to them. An anecdote equally striking was related to the editor of the Every-Day Book by an individual whose friend, a few years ago, saw a young calf thrust into the den of a lion abroad. The calf walked to the lion, and rubbed itself against him as he lay; the lion looked, but did not move; the calf, by thrusting its nose under the side of the lion, indicated a desire to suck, and the lion then slowly rose and walked away, from mere disinclination to be interfered with, but without the least expression of resentment, although the calf continued to follow him.
On the 13th of August, 1731, a litter of young lions was whelped in the Tower, from a lioness and lion whelped there six years before. In the Gentleman’s Magazine for February, 1739, there is an engraving of Marco, a lion then in the Tower.
On the 6th of April, 1775, a lion was landed at the Tower, as a present to his late majesty from Senegal. He was taken in the woods, out of a snare, by a private soldier, who, being attacked by two natives that had laid it, killed them both, and brought away the lion. The king ordered his discharge for this act, and further rewarded him by a pension of fifty pounds a year for life. On this fact, related in the Gentleman’s Magazine for that year, a correspondent inquires of Mr. Urban whether “a lion’s whelp is an equivalent for the lives of two human creatures.” To this question, reiterated by another, it is answered in the same volume, with rectitude of principle and feeling, that “if the fact be true, the person who recommended the soldier to his majesty’s notice, must have considered the action in a military light only, and must totally have overlooked the criminality of it in a moral sense. The killing two innocent fellow-creatures, unprovoked, only to rob them of the fruits of their ingenuity, can never surely be accounted meritorious in one who calls himself a christian. If it is not meritorious, but contrary, the murderer was a very improper object to be recommended as worthy to be rewarded by a humane and christian king.” This settled the question, and the subject was not revived.