For thou dost know, oh Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself; and now reigns here, A very--very--_Peacock_. Horatio. You might have rhymed. Hamlet. 'to which,' continues this political philosopher,--that is, to which preceding anecdote--containing such unflattering intimations with regard to the obstinacy of nature, in the limits she has set to the practical abilities of those _animals_, not enlarging their natural gifts out of respect to the Athenian selection (an anecdote which supplies a rhyme to Hamlet's verse, and to many others from the same source)--'_to which the custom of so many people_, who canonize the KINGS they have chosen _out of their own body_, and are not content only to honour, but adore them, _comes very near. Those of Mexico_ [for instance, it would not of course do to take any nearer home], after the ceremonies of _their_ king's coronation are finished, _dare no more look him in the face_; but, as if they _deified_ him by his royalty, _among_ the oaths they make him take to _maintain their religion and laws_, to be valiant, just and mild; he moreover swears,--_to make the sun run his course in his wonted light,--to drain the clouds at a fit season,--to confine rivers within their channels,--and to cause all things necessary for his people to be borne by the earth_.' '(They told me I was everything. But when the rain came to wet me once, when the wind would not peace at my bidding,' says Lear, 'there I found them, there I smelt them out.)' This, in connection with the preceding anecdote, to which, in the opinion of this author, it comes properly so very near, may be classed of itself among the suggestive stories above referred to; but the bearing of these quotations upon the particular question of style, which must determine the selection here, is set forth in that which follows.