fatal earnestness, that pleasures, however excessive, far from demoralising a highly accomplished prince, often made him merciful and generous, inasmuch as fine minds are never more predisposed to benevolence and clemency than when acted upon by their own enjoyments. Louis XV., the _bien aimé_, the well-beloved, was an unanswerable proof of this. And then, added the doctor, how entirely have the greatest men of all ages and all countries abandoned themselves to the most refined epicureanism,--from Alcibiades to Maurice of Saxony, from Anthony to the great Condé, from Cæsar to Vendome! Such conversations must make deep and dangerous impressions on a young, ardent, and virgin mind, and such theories could not be without their results. In the midst of this well regulated and virtuous court, accustomed, after the example of its ruler, to honest pleasures and harmless amusements, Rodolph, instructed by Polidori, dreamt of the dissipated nights of Versailles, the orgies of Choisy, the attractive voluptuousness of the Parc-au-Cerfs, and also, from time to time, of some romantic amours contrasting with these. Neither had the doctor failed to prove to Rodolph that a prince of the Germanic Confederation should not have any military pretension beyond sending his contingent to the Diet. The feeling of the time was not warlike. According to the doctor, to pass his time delightfully and idly amongst women and the refinements of luxury,--to repose from time to time from the animation of sensual pleasures, amidst the delightful attractions of the fine arts,--to hunt occasionally, not as a Nimrod, but as an intelligent epicurean, and enjoy the transitory fatigues which make idleness and repose taste but the sweeter,--this, this was the only life which a prince should think of enjoying, who (and this was his height of happiness) could find a prime minister capable of devoting himself boldly to the distressing and overwhelming burden of state affairs.