“One sort of dignity,” thought he, "consists with the purposes of him who regards his people as his servants, and another with the wishes of him who regards himself as the servant of his people. As for the monarchs who live in times when the struggle is which party shall be a slave, God’s mercy be on them and their people! Their throne moves, like an idol’s car, over the bones of those who have worshipped or defied their state; and they have fiends to act as mummers in their pageants, and defiled armour for their masques, and much dolorous howling in the place of a band of minstrels. In such days the people pay no tax, because the monarch has only to stretch forth his hand and take. It is a better age when the mummers are really merry, and minstrels make music that gladdens the heart like wine; and gaudy shows make man’s face to shine like the oil of the Hebrews: but it would be better if this gladdening of some made no heart heavy; and this partial heaviness must needs be where childish sports take place; and the gawds of a court like ours are but baby sports after all. When my little ones made a pageant in the meadow, there were ever some sulking, sooner or later, under the hedge or within the arbour, while there was unreasonable mirth among their fellows in the open sunshine,—however all might be of one accord in the study and at the board. And so is it ever with those who follow childish plays, be they august kings, or be they silly infants. But it is no April grief that clouds the faces of the people while their King is playing the master in order afterwards to enact the buffoon. They have spent more upon him than the handful of meadow-flowers that children fling into the lap to help the show; and they would do worse in their moods than pull these gay flowers to pieces, after the manner of a freakish babe. Remembering that it is the wont of honest masters to pay their servants, they are ill content to pay the very roofs from off their houses, and the seed from out of their furrows, to be lorded over, and for the greatest favour, laid at the gate to see Dives pass in and out in his purple and fine linen. It is ill sport for Dives to whistle up his dogs to lick the poor man’s sores when so black a gulf is opening yonder to swallow up his pomp. May be, his brethren that shall come after him shall be wiser; as all are apt to become as time rolls on. The matin hour decks itself gorgeously with long bright trains, and flaunts before men’s winking eyes, as if all this grandeur were not made of tears caught up for a little space into a bright region, but in their very nature made to dissolve and fall in gloom. But then there is an end of the folly, and out of the gloom step forth other hours, growing clearer, and more apt to man’s steady uses; so that when noon is come, there is no more pranking and shifting of purple and crimson clouds, but the sun is content to light men perfectly to their business, without