As he was wandering among the barren sands, and almost dead with heat and hunger, he saw a cave in the side of a rock. He went into it, and finding at the farther end of it a place to sit down upon, rested there for some time. At length, to his great surprise, a huge, overgrown lion entered at the mouth of the cave, and seeing a man at the upper end of it, immediately made towards him. Androcles gave himself for gone; but the lion, instead of treating him as he expected, laid his paw upon his lap, and, with a complaining kind of voice, fell a licking his hand. Androcles, after having recovered himself a little from the fright he was in, observed the lion's paw to be exceedingly swelled by a large thorn that stuck in it. He immediately pulled it out, and, by squeezing the paw very gently, made a great deal of corrupt matter run out of it, which probably freed the lion from the great anguish he had felt for some time before. The lion left him, upon receiving this good office from him, and soon after returned with a fawn which he had just killed. This he laid down at the feet of his benefactor, and went off again in pursuit of his prey. Androcles, after having sodden the flesh of it by the sun, subsisted upon it until the lion had supplied him with another. He lived many days in this frightful solitude, the lion catering for him with great assiduity. Being tired, at length, of this savage society, he was resolved to deliver himself up into his master's hands, and suffer the worst effects of his displeasure, rather than be thus driven out from mankind. His master, as was customary for the proconsuls of Afric, was at that time getting together a present of all the largest lions that could be found in the country, in order to send them to Rome, that they might furnish out a show to the Roman people.

Upon his poor slave's surrendering himself into his hands, he ordered him to be carried away to Rome, as soon as the lions were in readiness to be sent, and that, for his crime, he should be exposed to fight with one of the lions in the amphitheatre, as usual, for the diversion of the people. This was all performed accordingly. Androcles, after such a strange run of fortune, was now in the area of the theatre, amidst thousands of spectators, expecting every moment when his antagonist would come out upon him. At length, a huge monstrous lion leaped out from the place where he had been kept, hungry, for the show. He advanced with great rage towards the man, but, on a sudden, after having regarded him a little wistfully, fell to the ground, and crept towards his feet with all the signs of blandishment and caress. Androcles, after a short pause, discovered that it was his old Numidian friend, and immediately renewed his acquaintance with him. Their mutual congratulations were very surprising to the beholders, who, upon hearing an account of the whole matter from Androcles, ordered him to be pardoned, and the lion to be given up into his possession. Androcles returned, at Rome, the civilities which he had received from him in the deserts of Afric. Dion Cassius says, that he himself saw the man leading the lion about the streets of Rome, the people every where gathering about them, and repeating to one another, "Hic est leo hospes hominis, hic est homo medicus leonis." "This is the lion who was the man's host, this is the man who was the lion's physician.”

No. 140.-FRIDAY, August 24.

·quibus incendi jam frigidus ævo Laomedontiades, vel Nestor is hernia possit.

Juv

I HAVE lately received a letter from an astrologer in Moorfields, which I have read with great satisfaction. He observes to me, that my lion at Button's Coffee-house was very luckily erected in the very month when the sun was in Leo. He farther adds, that, upon conversing with the above-mentioned Mr, Button, (whose other name, he observes, is Daniel, a good omen still, with regard to the lion, his cohabitant) he had discovered the very hour in which the said lion was set up; and that, by the help of other lights, which he had received from the said Mr. Button, he had been able to calculate the nativity of the lion. This mysterious philosopher acquaints me that the sign of Leo in the heavens immediately precedes that of Virgo; "by which," says he, "is signified the natural love and friendship the lion bears to virginity, and not only to virginity, but to such matrons, likewise, as are pure and unspotted;" from whence he foretels the good influence which the roarings of my lion are likely to have over the female world, for the purifying of their behaviour, and bettering of their manners. He then proceeds to inform me, that, in the most exact astrological schemes, the lion is observed to affect, in a more particular manner, the legs and the neck, as well as to allay the power of the Scorpion, in those parts which are allotted to that fiery constellation. From hence, he very naturally

prognosticates that my lion will meet with great success, in the attacks he has made on the untuckered stays and short petticoat; and that, in a few months, there will not be a female bosom or ancle uncovered in Great-Britain. He concludes, that by the rules of his art, he foresaw, five years ago, that both the pope and myself should, about this time, unite our endeavours in this particular, and that sundry mutations and revolutions would happen in the female dress.

I have another letter by me, from a person of a more volatile and airy genius, who, finding this great propension in the fair sex to go uncovered, and, thinking it impossible to reclaim them entirely from it, is for compounding the matter with them, and finding out a middle expedient between nakedness and clothing. He proposes, therefore, that they should imitate their great grandmothers, the Briths or Picts, and paint the parts of their bodies which are uncovered with such figures as shall be most to their fancy.

The bosom of the coquette," says he, "may bear the figure of a Cupid, with a bow in his hand, and his arrow upon the string. The prude might have a Pallas, with a shield and Gorgon's head.' In short, by this method, he thinks every woman might make very agreeable discoveries of herself, and at the same time show us what she would be at. But, by my correspondent's good leave, I can by no means consent to spoil the skin of my pretty countrywomen. They could find no colours half so charming as those which are natural to them; and though, like the old Picts, they painted the sun itself upon their bodies, they would still change for the worse, and conceal something more beautiful than what they exhibited.

I shall, therefore, persist in my first design, and endeavour to bring about the reformation in neck and

legs, which I have so long aimed at. Let them but raise their stays and let down their petticoats, and I have done. However, as I will give them space to consider of it, I design this for the last time that my lion shall roar upon the subject during this season, which I give public notice of for the sake of my correspondents, that they may not be at an unnecessary trouble or expense in furnishing me with any informations relating to the tucker before the beginning of next winter, when I may again resume that point, if I find occasion for it. I shall not, however, let it drop, without acquainting my reader that I have written a letter to the pope upon it, in order to encourage him in his present good intentions, and that we may act by concert in this matter. Here follows the copy of my

letter.

To Pope Clement the Eighth, Nestor Ironside
greeting.

"DEAR BROTHER,

I HAVE heard, with great satisfaction, that you have forbidden your priests to confess any woman, who appears before them without a tucker, in which you please me well. I do agree with you, that it is Impossible for the good man to discharge his office, as he ought, who gives an ear to those alluring penitents that discover their hearts and necks to him at the same time. I am labouring, as much as in me lies, ta stir up the same spirit of modesty among the women of this island, and should be glad we might assist one another in so good a work. In order to it, I desire that you will send me over the length of a Roman lady's neck, as it stood before your late prohibition, We have some, here, who have necks of one, two, and