First in majesty as in might, the monarch of the brute creation asserts an undisputed claim to occupy the foremost place in our delineation of the inhabitants of this Royal Menagerie. Who is there to whom his stately mien, his unequalled strength, his tremendous powers of destruction, combined with the ideas generally entertained of his dauntless courage, his grateful affection, and his merciful forbearance, are not familiar “as household words?” When we speak of a Lion, we call up to our imaginations the splendid picture of might unmingled with ferocity, of courage undebased by guile, of dignity tempered with grace and ennobled by generosity; in a word, of all that combination of brilliant qualities, the imputation of which, by writers of all ages, has placed him by universal consent above other beasts, and invested him with regal attributes. Such, indeed, is the outline which we have been taught to frame to ourselves of this noble animal; and beautifully has this imaginary sketch, for such in a great measure it will be found on closer examination, been filled up by the magic pencil of Buffon, who, in this, as in too many other instances, suffered himself to be borne along by the strong tide of popular opinion. Yielding to the current, instead of boldly stemming it, he has added the weighty sanction of his authority to those erroneous notions which were already consecrated by their antiquity, and has produced a history of the Lion, which, however true in its main facts, and however eloquent in its details, is, to say the least, highly exaggerated and delusive in its colouring. The Lion of Buffon is, in fact, the Lion of popular prejudice; it is not the Lion, such as he appears to the calm observer, nor such as he is delineated in the authentic accounts of those naturalists and travellers who have had the best means of observing his habits, and recording the facts of which they have been themselves eye witnesses.