THE ROARING OF THE LION.
IT is shaking its mane—its voice is swelling like the distant storm —the British Lion smells taxes, and is rousing from its lair ! It has fixed the greedy eye of indignant destruction on the Window- tax ; and, as Minerva threw a terrible immensity into the voice of Achilles, so does the B. L. lend his roar to the men of Marylebone arrayed against any window-taxing Ministry whatsoever. It is awful the way in which the men of Marylebone and Lord Duncan declare their resolve that a window-tax shall not be.
B. L. snuffs the Income-tax, and roars through a reverend gen- tleman at Waltham, that the farmers must destroy it ; and, tre- mendously submissive, the farmers intimate that they will rebel. Paper too is to be devoured, and tea, and carriages, and malt, and soap, and all our taxes. So says Lion in his wrath. But will it last ? The indignant King of Beasts grows old and drowsy, and these fits of vigilance pass away. He has but dozes of wakefulness. Very lately he sustained a grievous affront from Prince Albert and his colleagues of the Industry Commission, at which he glared revenge—for a time ; but it is over. An attempt was made to include his special subjects, the prize beasts, in the Exposition of Industry—exposing the British Lion in a gimcrack cosmopolitan Exposition, cheek by jowl with the Gallic Cock! He threatened to dissolve his Royal Agricultural Society ; as Medsea slew her children out of spite to Jason, hero of the Golden. Fleece, the first free-trader. But the Prince of the Society of Arts, astutely mild, and mindful of the sops with which Ulysses soothed a yet more terrible brute, proposed a compromise : he of- fered at a mouthful Bushy Park, uncontaminated by town smoke or manufacturing stains, and only asked to retain the implements. The King of Beasts is appeased : relinquishing the ignobler fee- torylike implements, he walks off' to the parts beyond Richmond. And there, amidst other prize cattle, will the British Lion be seen, next summer, whisking the flies off his sleek sides, and smothering the angry regrets for Protection under the involun- tary contentment of the obese.
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