Lions and Lion-tamers—Manchester Jack—Van Amburgh—Carter’s Feats—What is a Tiger?—Lion-driving and Tiger-fighting—Van Amburgh and the Duke of Wellington—Vaulting Competition between Price and North—Burning of the Amphitheatre—Death of Ducrow—Equestrian Performances at the Surrey Theatre—Travelling Circuses—Wells and Miller—Thomas Cooke—Van Amburgh—Edwin Hughes—William Batty—Pablo Fanque.
He must have been a bold man who first undertook to tame and train a lion. It has been jocosely remarked that he must have been a courageous man who first ventured to eat an oyster; but a very different degree of courage must have been possessed by the man who first ventured upon familiarities with the tawny monarch of the African forests. The distinction is attributed to Hanno, the Carthaginian general; but the first public exhibition of trained lions was given in the Amphitheatre at Rome, where Mark Antony, seated in a car, with a lady by his side, drove a pair of lions round the arena. But we must come down to modern times for the first exhibition of tamed and trained lions and tigers in this country. Van Amburgh is generally credited with the distinction of having been the first lion-tamer of modern times; but I remember seeing, when a very small boy, the keeper of the lions in Wombwell’s menagerie enter the cage of a fine old lion, Nero; and sit on the animal’s back, open his mouth, &c. As this was more than forty years ago, the performer must have been ‘Manchester Jack,’ who was enacting the part of ‘lion king’ in Wombwell’s menagerie when Van Amburgh, an American of Dutch descent, arrived in England with his trained lions, tigers, and leopards.
It has been said that arrangements were made for a trial of skill and daring between the American and Manchester Jack, and that it was to have taken place at Southampton, but fell through in consequence of Van Amburgh showing the white feather. The story seems improbable, for Van Amburgh’s daring in his performances has never been exceeded.
‘Were you ever afraid?’ the Duke of Wellington once asked him.
‘The first time I am afraid, your Grace,’ replied the lion-tamer, ‘or that I fancy my pupils are no longer afraid of me, I shall retire from the wild beast line.’