the meaning of which was this: Both my brother and myself, for the
sake of varying our intellectual amusements, occupied ourselves at
times in governing imaginary kingdoms. I do not mention this as any
thing unusual; it is a common resource of mental activity and of
aspiring energies amongst boys. Hartley Coleridge, for example, had
a kingdom which he governed for many years; whether well or ill, is
more than I can say. Kindly, I am sure, he would govern it; but, unless
a machine had been invented for enabling him to write without effort,
(as was really done for our fourth George during the pressure of
illness,) I fear that the public service must have languished deplorably
for want of the royal signature. In sailing past his own dominions,
what dolorous outcries would have saluted him from the shore--"Hollo,
royal sir! here's the deuse to pay: a perfect lock there is, as tight
as locked jaw, upon the course of our public business; throats there
are to be cut, from the product of ten jail deliveries, and nobody
dares to cut them, for want of the proper warrant; archbishoprics there
are to be filled; and, because they are _not_ filled, the whole nation
is running helter skelter into heresy--and all in consequence of your
majesty's sacred laziness." _Our_ governments were less remissly
administered; since each of us, by continued reports of improvements
and gracious concessions to the folly or the weakness of our subjects,
stimulated the zeal of his rival. And here, at least, there seemed to
be no reason why I should come into collision with my brother. At any
rate, I took pains _not_ to do so. But all was in vain. My destiny
was, to live in one eternal element of feud.

My own kingdom was an island called Gombroon. But in what parallel of
north or south latitude it lay, I concealed for a time as rigorously
as ancient Rome through every century concealed her real name.
[12] The object in this provisional concealment was, to regulate