But then this is in bronze. In Nature, only one half of the world’s lions have any manes at all; and even of these, the African species, there are but few, so travellers assure us, that reflect in any considerable degree the dignity of Landseer’s effigies, while one writer speaks of “the blandness of his [the lion’s] Harold Skimpole-like countenance!”
Yet, after all, if we dethrone the lion, which of the beasts shall wear the crown? The elephant is infinitely superior, both morally and physically; but the ermine would hardly sit well upon the unwieldly pachyderm. The tiger is more courageous and as strong, but there is too much blood on its claws for a royal sceptre. Shall we give the beasts a dictator in the violent rhinoceros, or raise them an emir from the people by crowning the wild boar? But why have a monarchy at all? Let the quadrupeds be a republic.
But the. suggestion is quite worthy of consideration, Whether the modern ideal of the lion is not really due to a misconception of the object of our predecessors in making this animal so prominent. Originally, there is no doubt, the people fixed upon the lion as the king, not because he had any of the kingly virtues, but because he had all the kingly vices. They satirized monarchy under this symbol. By endowing him with royalty they intended, therefore, to mark him out for public odium, and not for public reverence, just as in more modern days the wolf has stood in Ireland for the landlord. With this explanation as a key, all the fables and stories told of the lion, which hitherto have misled the popular mind as to the regal qualifications of the lion, fall to pieces at once, and are seen to illustrate the failings and iniquities of the purple, and not its virtues or its grandeur.
