There are passions, whose indulgence is so exceedingly flattering to the natural vanity of men, that they will gratify them, though persuaded that the gratification will be attended by disappointment and misery. The love of power and sovereignty is of this class. It has been a general belief, ever since the kingly office was established among men, that cares and anxiety were the constant attendants of royalty. Yet this general conviction never made a single person decline an opportunity of embarking on this sea of troubles. Every new adventurer flatters himself that he shall be guided by some happy star undiscovered by former navigators; and those who, after trial, have relinquished the voyage—Charles, Christina, Amadeus, and others—when they had quitted the helm, and were safely arrived in port, are said to have languished, all the rest of their lives, for that situation which their own experience taught them was fraught with misery. Henry the Fourth of England did not arrive at the throne by the natural and direct road. Shakespear puts the following Address to Sleep, into the mouth of this monarch: ——O Sleep! O gentle Sleep! Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush’d with busy night-flies to thy slumber; Than in the perfum’d chambers of the Great, Under the canopies of costly state And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull God! why ly’st thou with the vile In loathsome beds; and leav’st the kingly couch? A watch-case, or a common ’larum bell? Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge; And in the visitation of the winds,—— Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deaf’ning clamours in the slipp’ry shrouds,—— Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; And, in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a King?—— However eager and impatient this Prince may have formerly been to obtain the crown, you would conclude that he was quite cloyed by possession at the time he made this speech; and therefore, at first sight, you would not expect that he should afterwards display any excessive attachment to what gives him so much uneasiness. But Shakespear, who knew the secret wishes, perverse desires, and strange inconsistencies of the human heart, better than man ever knew them, makes this very Henry so tenaciously fond of that which he himself considered as the cause of all his inquietude, that he cannot bear to have the crown one moment out of his sight, but orders it to be placed on his pillow when he lies on his death-bed.