am.

LION.--But here am I, in myself a positive majesty, degraded into a
petty-larceny scoundrel; yes, all my inherent attributes compromised by my
position. Oh, Hercules! when I remember my native Africa--when I reflect on
the sweet intoxication of my former liberty--the excitement of the
chase--the mad triumph of my spring, cracking the back of a bison with one
fillip of my paw--when I think of these things--of my tawny wife with her
smile sweetly ferocious, her breath balmy with new blood--of my playful
little ones, with eyes of topaz and claws of pearl--when I think of all
this, and feel that here I am, a damned rabbit-sucker--

UNICORN.--Don't swear.

LION.--Why not? God knows, we've heard swearing enough of all sorts in our
time. It isn't the fault of our position, if we're not first-rate
perjurers.

UNICORN.--That's true: still, though we are compelled to witness all these
things in the courts of law, let us be above the influence of bad example.

LION.--Give me the pot. Courts of law? Oh, Lord! what places they put us
into! And there they expect me--_me_, the king of the animal world, to
stand quietly upon my two hind-legs, looking as mildly contemptible as an
apoplectic dancing-master,--whilst iniquities, and meannesses, and tyranny,
and--give me the pot.

UNICORN:--Brother, you're getting warm. Really, you ought to have seen
enough of state and justice to take everything coolly. I certainly must
confess that--looking at much of the policy of the country, considering
much of the legal wickedness of law-scourged England--it does appear to me
a studied insult to both of us to make us supporters of the national
quarterings. Surely, considering the things that have been done under our
noses, animals more significant of the state and social policy might have
been promoted to our places. Instead of the majestic lion and the graceful
unicorn, might they not have had the--the--

LION.--The vulture and the magpie.

UNICORN.--Excellent! The vulture would have capitally typified many of the
wars of the state, their sole purpose being so many carcases--whilst, for
the courts of law, the magpie would have been the very bird of legal
justice and legal wisdom.

LION.--Yes, but then the very rascality of their faces would at once have
declared their purpose. The vulture is a filthy, unclean wretch--the bird
of Mars--preying upon the eyes, the hearts, the entrails of the victims of
that scoundrel-mountebank, Glory; w