Then, after a long pause,--"Your Excellency, it is, after all, impracticable, because the Devil has the secular counsellors mixed in among the ghostly; a half-_profane session-table_ cannot by any cabinet-making process be made over into a _holy chair_; there is, therefore, nothing to be wished--except a good digestion[213]--but a spirit of concord, that clerical and secular counsellors may properly feed upon the parties around which they sit, saving a couple of bones, that shall fall to us scribes and messengers. So have I often seen on the carcass of a dead horse starlings and ravens at once, in a motley row, sitting amicably together, and pecking away and devouring."---- My correspondent assures me that by these addresses the Court-Physician effected more with January than the Court-Chaplain by his. Many parties got their money, and some judges a most gracious letter, from the Prince's own hand. Before I arrive with our disguised span in the suburbs of St. Luna, one or two things are still to be mentioned. To January's soul more knee-pedals were attached than to a pianoforte, which the favorite's knee, while it seemed to bend itself, moved at its pleasure. He was always the son of the present moment, and the reflection of his company. If he read in Sully, then he did not neglect for a week at a time the Regency-College, and sent for the President of Finance. If he read in Frederick II., then he was for furnishing the imperial contingent and himself commanding it, and went forenoons to the parade. He contemplated with pleasure the ideal of a good government, whether in print or in a speech, and often attempted approximations to it, reformations, investigations, and compensations, for whole weeks,--with the exception of _retrenchments_, which, after all, are the only merit a prince can earn without the help of others. During the whole crusade he was a true Philosopher Antoninus, and stood ready everywhere to reward and to punish and to enact; he felt, too, that he could make it practicable, if one only did not absolutely require him to _labor_ and to _abstain_; under _that_ the other part also went to the Devil. In the beginning, he was pleased with the sentimental journey; when it was over, he was so again; but in the midst of it, all that was pressed out after the first runnings grew more and more bitter, and he wished for himself, instead of the country bill-of-fare, his dietetic dial-plate. Then, too, he had accustomed himself so much to valor, that, for want of it,--i. e. of his body-guard,--he was, so to speak, timid; hence, on one occasion, in the dark, at the tavern, he was while in bed, about to run through a young weaver with his cane-sword, because the weaver had confounded at night the princely bed with one of more peaceful contents. For the rest, all the rays of his favor now converged to a focus upon the single man of rank, the only courageous and confidential friend whom he had,--his Victor.