Jesting with kings, particularly uninvited--why, it was as if a swimmer, however experienced, should venture within the smooth but death-bearing current of Niagara, which inevitably carries all within its power over the Falls. People have played little teasing jokes with elephants, and when the jokers have forgotten all about it the gravely majestic beast has put his foot upon the offender, and crushed the humour out of him for ever. It has been just so with malice-bearing monarchs, and with courtiers who thought they might joke with them. The incarnation of all such monarchs existed in the person of an African king named Chaka. He was given to joking at others, and woe betide them if they did not burst with ecstacy at the joke; but if a ‘fellow of infinite humour’ happened to cap the royal joke with a better, Chaka broke into hilarity, which he ended by exclaiming, ‘Cut off that wretch’s head; he has made me laugh.’ The Cæsars must have been almost as dreadfully dangerous men to joke with as Chaka. The great Julius, indeed, after he became great, had no leisure for jesting, but was the object of some popular jokes which he took with indifference. The guests of Augustus were afraid to ‘crack a joke’ in his presence. They would whisper one to a neighbour, and then turn pale if the emperor invited them to ‘speak up.’ The imperial table was as grand and dull as that of the copper Augustus, Louis the Fourteenth, and the emperor had recourse to merryandrews, just as the Grand Monarque had to harlequins. But the harlequins of those days were gentlemen and scholars. The grim Tiberius, on the other hand, was remarkably facetious. His delight was to puzzle his learned guests with unanswerable questions, such as, ‘What was the name of the song the Syrens sang?’ and the like. Fancy half a dozen members of the Society of Antiquaries dining with her Majesty and being gravely asked who built the marble halls the Bohemian girl dreamt she dwelt in? or what was the Christian name of the ‘Minstrel Boy?’ and at what period ‘Auld lang syne’ had been young? Nevertheless, Tiberius was a nicer man to deal with than Caligula, all of whose jests were brutally cruel, in words, and oftener in deeds. What a serious joke was that when, having nothing on but the linen apron of a victim-slayer, he raised the mallet, and instead of slaying the beast, knocked out the brains of the sacrificing priest! Claudius was too huge a feeder to have appetite for wit; but he would have eaten the whole beast that his predecessor should have killed. Yet Claudius, half beast himself, had a good deal of the scholar in him; as Nero had, who loved science, admired art, was mildly witty, and therewith as savage as an insane hyæna. We must except the occasions of his visiting the theatre, when he sat in an upper seat, and found delight in flinging nuts down upon the bald head of the prætor below. That official was as proud of the attention as if every nut had been an especial honour.