nuing). "Shakespeare, our best guide,
philosopher, poet, thinker, and prophet, had fitly and most
appropriately even foretold this very matter with regard to the Lion;
maybe had prophesied it, when he told us there were sermons in stone
and good in everything."
_Judge_ (awakening, after dozing). "Good gracious! I always
understood it was bronze."
_Counsel_. "Ahem! Yes, my Lord, that is to say stone pedestal, bronze
beast."
_His Lordship_. "Very well, but when you quote for a purpose always
quote with exact correctness."
_Counsel_ (proceeds). "Did not the creature his Lordship had referred
to as the great Pyg--Pyg--Pyg-----"
_His Lordship_ (prompting). "No, no, not a pig, a Lion."
_Counsel_ (bows, and with a supreme effort of memory recollects the
word Pygmalion). "Had not the great Pygmalion so created Galatea that
she verily became endowed with life, and may we not suppose that the
genius of Sir Edwin Landseer, or whoever carved this wondrous lifelike
Lion, might not also have endowed it with some such strange new form of
existence? Was it reasonable to suppose that what had happened to
Beauty might not also happen to the Beast? Take the simple exquisite
statement of this child, this little boy Ridgwell, confirmed by his
sister."
_Judge_ (prompting). "No, no, you can only be actually confirmed by a
Bishop."
_Counsel_. "I spoke of another confirmation, my Lord."
_His Lordship_. "Well, the issue, the issue, what does it show?"
_Counsel_. "My Lord, I will explain at some length carefully."
His Lordship immediately relapses into another short but placid slumber.
_Counsel_. "This child Ridgwell, with the imagination worthy of
Christian in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, states simply, and you have
heard for yourselves how beautifully, that the Lion walked and talked
with him; and as I have used the touching illustration of the Pilgrim's
Progress, with which you are all familiar, I say this child is not
alone in his belief that the Lion came to life. There are others to
testify, others to write of it, among them a well-known Writer and
Poet. This Lion has not been left without a Bunyan."
_His Lordship_ (waking almost with a start). "No, no! ridiculous; you
are mixing matters. All the Lion had was a swelling in the foot caused
by a thorn--I know the fable well."
_Counsel_. "My Lord, believe me, I spoke of a different matter."
_His Lordship_. "Well, you must not really wander f
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