considerations (for there were many reasons which ought to have
determined his choice in favour of either of the other sisters) he
hurried to the old king, acquainted him with his love, and demanded the
eldest princess in marriage. Nothing could equal the joy of the good old
monarch, who wished for nothing but to live to see the consummation of
this match. Throwing his arms about the prince-skeleton's neck and
watering his hollow cheeks with warm tears, he granted his request, and
added, that he would immediately resign his crown to him and his
favourite daughter.

I am forced for want of room to pass over many circumstances that would
add greatly to the beauty of this history, and am sorry I must dash the
reader's impatience by acquainting him, that notwithstanding the
eagerness of the old king and youthful ardour of the prince, the
nuptials were obliged to be postponed; the archbishop declaring that it
was essentially necessary to have a dispensation from the pope, the
parties being related within the forbidden degrees; a woman that never
was, and a man that had been, being deemed first cousins in the eye of
the canon law.

Hence arose a new difficulty. The religion of the Quifferiquiminians was
totally opposite to that of the papists. The former believed in nothing
but grace; and they had a high-priest of their own, who pretended that
he was master of the whole fee-simple of grace, and by that possession
could cause every thing to have been that never had been, and could
prevent every thing that had been from ever having been. "We have
nothing to do, said the prince to the king, but to send a solemn embassy
to the high-priest of grace, with a present of a hundred thousand
million of ingots, and he will cause your charming no-daughter to have
been, and will prevent my having died, and then there will be no