| Number 13,485. | LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1828. | Price 7d. |
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The whole Reminiscences, wondrous and strange,
Of a small puppy-dog, that lived once in the cage
Of the late noble Lion at Exeter ’Change.
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Though the dog is a dog of the kind they call “sad,”
’Tis a puppy that much to good breeding pretends;
And few dogs have such opportunities had,
Of knowing how lions behave—among friends.
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How the animal eats, how he snores, how he drinks,
Is all noted down by this Boswell so small;
And ’tis plain, from each sentence, the puppy dog thinks
That the Lion was no such great things after all.
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Though he roared pretty well—this the puppy allows—
It was all, he says, borrow’d—all, second-hand roar;
And he vastly prefers his own little bow-wows
To the loftiest war-note the Lion would pour.
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’Tis, indeed, as good fun as a Cynic could ask,
To see how this cockney-bred setter of rabbits
Takes gravely the Lord of the Forest to task,
And judges of lions by puppy-dog habits.
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Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case)
With sops every day from the Lion’s own pan,
He lifts up his leg at the noble beast’s carcase,
And—does all a dog, so diminutive, can.
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However, the book’s a good book,—being rich in
Examples and warnings to lions high-bred,
How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen,
Who’ll feed on them living, and foul them when dead.
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Exeter ’Change. T. PIDCOCK.
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