This Lion or landlord,--for he was called both man and beast, by reason
of his having instructed the artist who painted his sign, to convey
into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore, as near a
counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass and devise,--was
a gentleman almost as quick of apprehension, and of almost as subtle a
wit, as the mighty John himself. But the difference between them lay in
this: that whereas Mr Willet's extreme sagacity and acuteness were
the efforts of unassisted nature, the Lion stood indebted, in no small
amount, to beer; of which he swigged such copious draughts, that most of
his faculties were utterly drowned and washed away, except the one
great faculty of sleep, which he retained in surprising perfection.
The creaking Lion over the house-door was, therefore, to say the
truth, rather a drowsy, tame, and feeble lion; and as these social
representatives of a savage class are usually of a conventional
character (being depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes
and of unearthly colours), he was frequently supposed by the more
ignorant and uninformed among the neighbours, to be the veritable
portrait of the host as he appeared on the occasion of some great
funeral ceremony or public mourning.
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