The Czar Nicholas had a similar weakness, and he used his eyes to frighten or fascinate people. Playing them mildly, he subdued Lieutenant Royer into ecstatic admiration; and, according to Mr. Turnerelli, Nicholas once, with one of his terrible glances, terrified a Swedish Admiral into the Russian service. On another occasion, happening to encounter a poor fellow who had strolled into a private part of the Imperial park, the Czar gazed at him with such lightning in his glance, that the intruder was stricken with brain fever;--an amount of flattery which even Patch never piled up as tribute to the withering power of the terrible looks of Henry VIII. Patch indeed had cause to be afraid of Henry, for his rude essay to make the melancholy Monarch merry, is rewarded by a kicking; for which, however, the King makes compensation. Patch gets an angel, to buy him points; but Will, who contrived that his cousin fool should incur the punishment, obtains a new cap and suit for his pains; for, sayeth he, “so long as the King lives, the Cardinal’s fool must give way to the King’s fool.” But in the latter there is some sound sense, as, for instance, when he exclaims: “Dost hear, old Harry, I am sure the true faith is able to defend itself, without thee!” For some such remark, Wolsey styles him “a shrewd fool.” Will is ready to do anything but flatter, which is against his vocation; and get drunk, which is against his health; but he no sooner declines to follow Patch to the cellar, when he foregoes his resolution, and foolishly drinks away his wit, but sleeps it back again. Its awakening is first tried on the new Queen Catherine; and it is in the accomplished jester’s vein. “Look to thy husband, Kate, lest he cozen thee; provide civil oranges enough, or he’ll have a lemon, shortly.” This play upon the word _leman_, or “mistress,” was subsequently employed by Heywood, the “King’s Jester,” to point a jest made in the hearing of Queen Mary. Will, however, is much more addicted to uttering bitter sentences against Wolsey, than jokes on the King, Queen, or little Prince Edward. He is especially severe on the “Smoake pence,” a most unpopular tax levied by the priest, and turned, as Will implies, to the Cardinal’s especial profit. The jester proposes to the King, that Wolsey shall be permitted to take the chimneys, since there were bricks enough in the land, or materials for them, to build others. But he protests against the coin of the realm being carried away, seeing, as he says, that there is no mint whence new money can be issued. Indeed nothing can exceed the boldness of Will’s jokes against the Cardinal, except the nastiness of those levelled at the ladies. Both are doubtless traditional, and we may believe that they were uttered with impunity, from the stereotyped speech of the King, “Well, William, your tongue is privileged.”