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  TALE II.

  _The King and his three Daughters_.

  There was formerly a king, who had three daughters--that is, he wouldhave had three, if he had had one more, but some how or other the eldestnever was born. She was extremely handsome, had a great deal of wit, andspoke French in perfection, as all the authors of that age affirm, andyet none of them pretend that she ever existed. It is very certain thatthe two other princesses were far from beauties; the second had a strongYorkshire dialect, and the youngest had bad teeth and but one leg, whichoccasioned her dancing very ill.

  As it was not probable that his majesty would have any more children,being eighty-seven years, two months, and thirteen days old when hisqueen died, the states of the kingdom were very anxious to have theprincesses married. But there was one great obstacle to this settlement,though so important to the peace of the kingdom. The king insisted thathis eldest daughter should be married first, and as there was no suchperson, it was very difficult to fix upon a proper husband for her. Thecourtiers all approved his majesty's resolution; but as under the bestprinces there will always be a number of discontented, the nation wastorn into different factions, the grumblers or patriots insisting thatthe second princess was the eldest, and ought to be declared heiressapparent to the crown. Many pamphlets were written pro and con, butthe ministerial party pretended that the chancellor's argument wasunanswerable, who affirmed, that the second princess could not be theeldest, as no princess-royal ever had a Yorkshire accent. A few personswho were attached to the youngest princess, took advantage of this pleafor whispering that _her_ royal highness's pretensions to the crown werethe best of all; for as there was no eldest princess, and as the secondmust be the first, if there was no first, and as she could not be thesecond if she was the first, and as the chancellor had proved that shecould not be the first, it followed plainly by every idea of law thatshe could be nobody at all; and then the consequence followed of course,that the youngest must be the eldest, if she had no elder sister.

  It is inconceivable what animosities and mischiefs arose from thesedifferent titles; and each faction endeavoured to strengthen itselfby foreign alliances. The court party having no real object for theirattachment, were the most attached of all, and made up by warmth forthe want of foundation in their principles. The clergy in general weredevoted to this, which was styled _the first party_. The physiciansembraced the second; and the lawyers declared for the third, or thefaction of the youngest princess, because it seemed best calculated toadmit of doubts and endless litigation.

  While the nation was in this distracted situation, there arrived theprince of Quifferiquimini, who would have been the most accomplishedhero of the age, if he had not been dead, and had spoken any languagebut the Egyptian, and had not had three legs. Notwithstanding theseblemishes, the eyes of the whole nation were immediately turned uponhim, and each party wished to see him married to the princess whosecause they espoused.

  The old king received him with the most distinguished honours; thesenate made the most fulsome addresses to him; the princesses were sotaken with him, that they grew more bitter enemies than ever; and thecourt ladies and petit-maitres invented a thousand new fashions upon hisaccount--every thing was to be ? la Quifferiquimini. Both men and womenof fashion left off rouge to look the more cadaverous; their cloathswere embroidered with hieroglyphics, and all the ugly characters theycould gather from Egyptian antiquities, with which they were forced tobe contented, it being impossible to learn a language that is lost; andall tables, chairs, stools, cabinets and couches, were made with onlythree legs; the last, howver, soon went out of fashion, as being veryinconvenient.

  The prince, who, ever since his death, had had but a weaklyconstitution, was a little fatigued with this excess of attentions,and would often wish himself at home in his coffin. But his greatestdifficulty of all was to get rid of the youngest princess, who kepthopping after him wherever he went, and was so full of admirationof his three legs, and so modest about having but one herself, and soinquisitive to know how his three legs were set on, that being the bestnatured man in the world, it went to his heart whenever in a fit ofpeevishness he happened to drop an impatient word, which never failed tothrow her into an agony of tears, and then she looked so ugly that itwas impossible for him to be tolerably civil to her. He was not muchmore inclined to the second princess--In truth, it was the eldest whomade the conquest of his affections: and so violently did his passionencrease one Tuesday morning, that breaking through all prudentialconsiderations (for there were many reasons which ought to havedetermined his choice in favour of either of the other sisters) hehurried to the old king, acquainted him with his love, and demanded theeldest princess in marriage. Nothing could equal the joy of the good oldmonarch, who wished for nothing but to live to see the consummation ofthis match. Throwing his arms about the prince-skeleton's neck andwatering his hollow cheeks with warm tears, he granted his request, andadded, that he would immediately resign his crown to him and hisfavourite daughter.

  I am forced for want of room to pass over many circumstances that wouldadd greatly to the beauty of this history, and am sorry I must dash thereader's impatience by acquainting him, that notwithstanding theeagerness of the old king and youthful ardour of the prince, thenuptials were obliged to be postponed; the archbishop declaring that itwas essentially necessary to have a dispensation from the pope, theparties being related within the forbidden degrees; a woman that neverwas, and a man that had been, being deemed first cousins in the eye ofthe canon law.

  Hence arose a new difficulty. The religion of the Quifferiquiminians wastotally opposite to that of the papists. The former believed in nothingbut grace; and they had a high-priest of their own, who pretended thathe was master of the whole fee-simple of grace, and by that possessioncould cause every thing to have been that never had been, and couldprevent every thing that had been from ever having been. "We havenothing to do, said the prince to the king, but to send a solemn embassyto the high-priest of grace, with a present of a hundred thousandmillion of ingots, and he will cause your charming no-daughter to havebeen, and will prevent my having died, and then there will be nooccasion for a dispensation from your old fool at Rome."--How! thouimpious, atheistical bag of drybones, cried the old king; dost thouprofane our holy religion? Thou shalt have no daughter of mine, thouthree-legged skeleton--Go and be buried and be damned, as thou must be;for as thou art dead, thou art past repentance: I would sooner give mychild to a baboon, who has one leg more than thou hast, than bestow heron such a reprobate corpse--You had better give your one-legged infantato the baboon, said the prince, they are fitter for one another--As mucha corpse as I am, I am preferable to nobody; and who the devil wouldhave married your no-daughter, but a dead body! For my religion, I livedand died in it, and it is not in my power to change it now if Iwould--but for your part--a great shout interrupted this dialogue, andthe captain of the guard rushing into the royal closet, acquainted hismajesty, that the second princess, in revenge of the prince's neglect,had given her hand to a drysalter, who was a common-council-man, andthat the city, in consideration of the match, had proclaimed them kingand queen, allowing his majesty to retain the title for his life, whichthey had fixed for the term of six months; and ordering, in respect ofhis royal birth, that the prince should immediately lie in state andhave a pompous funeral.

  This revolution was so sudden and so universal, that all partiesapproved, or were forced to seem to approve it. The old king died thenext day, as the courtiers said, for joy; the prince of Quifferiquiminiwas buried in spite of his appeal to the law of nations; and theyoungest princess went distracted, and was shut up in a madhouse,calling out day and night for a husband with three legs.