king, I needed not this intoxicating draught; once I detested the hot
brandy wine, and quaffed no other fount but nature's rill. It dashes not
more quickly o'er the rocks than I did, as, with blunderbuss in hand,
I brushed away the early morning dew, and shot the partridge, snipe, or
antlered deer! Ah! well may England's dramatist remark, "Uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown!" Why did I steal my nephew's, my young
Giglio's--? Steal! said I? no, no, no, not steal, not steal. Let me
withdraw that odious expression. I took, and on my manly head I set, the
royal crown of Paflagonia; I took, and with my royal arm I wield, the
sceptral rod of Paflagonia; I took, and in my outstretched hand I hold,
the royal orb of Paflagonia! Could a poor boy, a snivelling, drivelling
boy--was in his nurse's arms but yesterday, and cried for sugarplums and
puled for pap--bear up the awful weight of crown, orb, sceptre? gird
on the sword my royal fathers wore, and meet in fight the tough Crimean
foe?'

And then the monarch went on to argue in his own mind (though we need
not say that blank verse is not argument) that what he had got it was
his duty to keep, and that, if at one time he had entertained ideas of a
certain restitution, which shall be nameless, the prospect by a CERTAIN
MARRIAGE of uniting two crowns and two nations which had been engaged
in bloody and expensive wars, as the Paflagonians and the Crimeans had
been, put the idea of Giglio's restoration to the throne out of the
question: nay, were his own brother, King Savio, alive, he would
certainly will the crown from his own son in order to bring about such a
desirable union.

Thus easily do we deceive ourselves! Thus do we fancy what we wish is
right! The King took courage, read the papers, finished his muffins
and eggs, and rang the bell for his Prime Minister. The Queen, after