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Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield by Isaac Disraeli
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ROYAL PROMOTIONS.


If the golden gate of preferment is not usually opened to men of real
merit, persons of no worth have entered it in a most extraordinary
manner.

Chevreau informs us that the Sultan Osman having observed a gardener
planting a cabbage with some peculiar dexterity, the manner so attracted
his imperial eye that he raised him to an office near his person, and
shortly afterwards he rewarded the planter of cabbages by creating him
_beglerbeg_ or viceroy of the Isle of Cyprus.

Marc Antony gave the house of a Roman citizen to a cook, who had
prepared for him a good supper! Many have been raised to extraordinary
preferment by capricious monarchs for the sake of a jest. Lewis XI.
promoted a poor priest whom he found sleeping in the porch of a church,
that the proverb might be verified, that to lucky men good fortune will
come even when they are asleep! Our Henry VII. made a viceroy of Ireland
if not for the sake of, at least with a clench. When the king was told
that all Ireland could not rule the Earl of Kildare, he said, then shall
this earl rule all Ireland.

It is recorded of Henry VIII. that he raised a servant to a considerable
dignity because he had taken care to have a roasted boar prepared for
him, when his majesty happened to be in the humour of feasting on one!
and the title of _Sugar-loaf-court,_ in Leadenhall-street, was probably
derived from another piece of munificence of this monarch: the widow of
a Mr. Cornwallis was rewarded by the gift of a dissolved priory there
situated, for some _fine puddings_ with which she had presented his
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