to act more on his own initiative, and speak as he often thought it
would be wise and well to speak? He was but forty-five years old,--in
the prime of life, in the plenitude of health and mental vigour,--was
he to pass the rest of his days guarded by detectives, flunkeys and
physicians, with never an independent word or action throughout his
whole career to mark him Man as well as Monarch? Nay, surely that would
be an insult to the God who made him! But the question which arose in
his mind and perplexed him was, How to begin? How, after passive
obedience, to commence resistance? How to break through the miserable
conventionalism, the sordid commonplace of a king's surroundings? For
it is only in medieval fairy-tales that kings are permitted to be
kingly.

Yet, despite custom and usage, he was determined to make a new
departure in the annals of modern sovereignty. Three years of
continuous slavery on the treadmill of the Throne had been sufficient
to make him thirst for freedom,--freedom of speech,--freedom of action.
He had tacitly submitted to a certain ministry because he had been
assured that the said ministry was popular,--but latterly, rumours of
discontent and grievance had reached him,--albeit indistinctly and
incoherently,--and he began to be doubtful as to whether it might not
be the Press which supported the existing state of policy, rather than
the People. The Press! He began to consider of what material this great
power in his country was composed. Originally, the Press in all
countries, was intended to be the most magnificent institution of the
civilized world,--the voice of truth, of liberty, of justice--a voice
which in its clamant utterances could neither be bribed nor biassed to
cry out false news. Originally, such was meant to be its mission;--but
nowadays, what, in all honesty and frankness, is the Press? What was
it, for example, to this king, who from personal knowledge, was able to