views in every respect, but Christianity extends them to a degree beyond the light of nature. How mean must the most exalted potentate upon earth appear to that eye which takes in innumerable orders of blessed spirits, differing in glory and perfection! How little must the amusements of sense, and the ordinary occupations of mortal men, seem to one who is engaged in so noble a pursuit, as the assimilation of himself to the Deity, which is the proper employment of every Christian! And the improvement which grows from habituating the mind to the comprehensive views of religion must not be thought wholly to regard the understanding. Nothing is of greater force to subdue the inordinate motions of the heart, and to regulate the will. Whether a man be actuated by his passions, or his reason, these are first wrought upon by some object, which stirs the soul in proportion to its apparent dimensions. Hence irreligious men, whose short prospects are filled with earth, and sense, and mortal life, are invited, by these mean ideas, to actions proportionably little and low. But a mind, whose views are enlightened and extended by religion, is animated to nobler pursuits by more sublime and remote objects. There is not any instance of weakness in the freethinkers that raises my indignation more, than their pretending to ridicule Christians, as men of narrow understandings, and to pass themselves upon the world for persons of superior sense, and more enlarged views. But I leave it to any impartial man to judge which hath the nobler sentiments, which the greater views; he whose notions are stinted to a few miserable inlets of sense, or he whose sentiments are raised above the common taste, by the anticipation of those delights which will satiate the soul, when the whole capacity of her nature is branched out into new faculties? He who looks for nothing beyond this short span of duration, or he whose aims are co-extended with the endless length of eternity? He who derives his spirit from the elements, or he who thinks it was inspired by the Almighty? N° 71. TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1713. Quale portentum neque militaris Nec Jubæ tellus generat, leonum HOR. 1 Od. xxii. 13. No beast, of more portentous size, In the Hercinian forest lies; Nor fiercer in Numidia bred, With Carthage were in triumph led.-RoscoMMON. I QUESTION not but my country customers will be surprised to hear me complain that this town is, of late years, very much infested with lions: and will, perhaps, look upon it as a strange piece of news when I assure them that there are many of these beasts of prey, who walk our streets in broad day-light, beating about from coffee-house to coffee-house, and seeking whom they may devour. To unriddle this paradox, I must acquaint my rural reader that we polite men of the town give the name of a lion to any one who is a great man's spy. And whereas I cannot discharge my office of Guardian, without setting a mark on such a noxious animal, and cautioning my wards against him, I design this whole paper as an essay upon the political lion. It has cost me a great deal of time to discover the reason of this appellation, but after many disquisitions and conjectures on so obscure a subject, I find there are two accounts of it more satisfactory than the rest. In the republic of Venice, which has been always the mother of politics, there are near the doge's palace several large figures of lions curiously wrought in marble, with mouths gaping in a most enormous manner. Those who have a mind to give the state any private intelligence of what passes in the city, put their hands into the mouth of one of these lions, and convey into it a paper of such private informations as any way regard the interest or safety of the commonwealth. By this means all the secrets of state come out of the lion's mouth. The informer is concealed; it is the lion that tells every thing. In short there is not a mismanagement in office, or a murmur in conversation, which the lion does not acquaint the government with. For this reason, say the learned, a spy is very properly distinguished by the name of lion. I must confess this etymology is plausible enough, and I did for some time acquiesce in it, until about a year or two ago I met with a little manuscript which sets this whole matter in a clear light. În the reigh of Queen Elizabeth, says my author, the renowned Walsingham had many spies in his service, from whom the government received great advantage. The most eminent among them was the statesman's barber, whose surname was Lion. This fellow had an admirable knack of fishing out the secrets of his customers, as they were under his hands. He would rub and lather a man's head, until he had got out every thing that was in it. He had a certain snap in his fingers and a volubility in his tongue, that would engage a man to talk with him whether he would or no. By this means he became an inexhaustible fund of private intelligence, and so signalized himself in the capacity of a spy, that from his time a master spy goes under the name of a lion. Walsingham had a most excellent penetration, and never attempted to turn any man into a lion whom he did not see highly qualified for it, when he was in his human condition. Indeed the speculative men of those times say of him, that he would now and then play them off, and expose them a little unmercifully; but that, in my opinion, seems only good policy, for otherwise they might set up for men again, when they thought fit, and desert his service. But, however, though in that very corrupt age he made use of these animals, he had a great esteem for true men, and always exerted the highest generosity in offering them more, without asking terms of them, and doing more for them out of mere respect for their talents, though against him, than they could expect from any other minister whom they had served never so conspicuously. This made Raleigh (who professed himself his opponent) say one day to a friend, 'Pox take this Walsingham, he baffles every body; he won't so much as let a man hate him in private.' True it is, that by the wanderings, roarings, and lurkings, of his lions, he knew the way to every man breathing, who had not a contempt for the world itself; he had lions rampant whom he used for the service of the church, and couchant who were to lie down for the queen. They were so much at command, that the couchant would act as the rampant, and the rampant as couchant, without being the least out of countenance, and all this within four-and-twenty hours. Walsingham had the pleasantest life in the world; for, by the force of his power and intelligence, he saw men as they really were, and not as the world thought of them. All this was principally brought about by feeding his lions well, or keeping them hungry, according to their different constitutions. Having given this short but necessary account of 1 3 this statesman and his barber, who, like the tailor in ̈ Shakspeare's Pyramus and Thisbe, was a man made as other men are, notwithstanding he was a nominal lion, I shall proceed to the description of this strange species of creatures. Ever since the wise Walsingham was secretary in this nation, our statesmen are said to have encouraged the breed among us, as very well knowing that a lion in our British arms is one of the supporters of the crown, and that it is impossible for a government, in which there is such a variety of factions and intrigues, to subsist without this necessary animal. A lion, or a master-spy, hath several jackalls under him, who are his retailers in intelligence, and bring him in materials for his report; his chief haunt is a coffee-house, and as his voice is exceeding strong, it aggravates the sound of every thing it repeats. As the lion generally thirsts after blood, and is of a fierce and cruel nature, there are no secrets which he hunts after with more delight, than those that cut off heads, hang, draw, and quarter, or end in the ruin of the person who becomes his prey. If he gets the wind of any word or action that may do a man good, it is not for his purpose, he quits the chase and falls into a more agreeable scent. He discovers a wonderful sagacity in seeking after his prey. He couches and frisks about in a thousand sportful motions to draw it within his reach, and has a particular way of imitating the sound of the creature whom he would insnare; an artifice to be met with in no beast of prey, except the hyæna and the political lion. You seldom see a cluster of newsmongers without a lion in the midst of them. He never misses taking his stand within ear-shot of one of those little ambitious men who set up for orators in places of public If there is a whispering-hole, or any public resort. |