[Picture: The Wild Beasts in the Tower]
But no sight in the Tower is more interesting than the wild beasts:
lions, tigers, leopards, bears, monkeys, &c. As they are confined in
cages, with iron gates before them, there is no danger, if people keep
their distance; but some dreadful accidents have happened, by children
going within reach of the paws of the lion, she bear, or tiger.
Don’t be frighten’d, young lady, to look at the lion,
You see he can’t spring through the grating of iron;
But if you were wand’ring, like poor Mungo Park,
In Africa’s forests, bewilder’d and dark;
And there, where no refuge or hut could be found,
Should hear his fierce roar thro’ the valleys around;
Or there, by the moonlight, astonish’d to stand,
And see his huge shadow glide by on the sand;
Oh, then you might tremble with terror, and fly
And hide ’mid the palm-tree till he had passed by:
An enemy fierce and all-powerful then,
But now a poor captive confined in his den.