_The King and his three Daughters_.
There was formerly a king, who had three daughters--that is, he would
have had three, if he had had one more, but some how or other the eldest
never was born. She was extremely handsome, had a great deal of wit, and
spoke French in perfection, as all the authors of that age affirm, and
yet none of them pretend that she ever existed. It is very certain that
the two other princesses were far from beauties; the second had a strong
Yorkshire dialect, and the youngest had bad teeth and but one leg, which
occasioned 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 his
queen died, the states of the kingdom were very anxious to have the
princesses married. But there was one great obstacle to this settlement,
though so important to the peace of the kingdom. The king insisted that
his eldest daughter should be married first, and as there was no such
person, it was very difficult to fix upon a proper husband for her. The
courtiers all approved his majesty's resolution; but as under the best
princes there will always be a number of discontented, the nation was
torn into different factions, the grumblers or patriots insisting that
the second princess was the eldest, and ought to be declared heiress
apparent to the crown. Many pamphlets were written pro and con, but
the ministerial party pretended that the chancellor's argument was
unanswerable, who affirmed, that the second princess could not be the
eldest, as no princess-royal ever had a Yorkshire accent. A few persons
who were attached to the youngest princess, took advantage of this plea
for whispering that _her_ royal highness's pretensions to the crown were
the best of all; for as there was no eldest princess, and as the second
must be the first, if there was no first, and as she could not be the
second if she was the first, and as the chancellor had proved that she
could not be the first, it followed plainly by every idea of law that
she 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 these
different titles; and each faction endeavoured to strengthen itself
by foreign alliances. The court party having no real object for their
attachment, were the most attached of all, and made up by warmth for
the want of foundation in their principles. The clergy in general were
devoted to this, which was styled _the first party_. The physicians
embraced the second; and the lawyers declared for the third, or the
faction of the youngest princess, because it seemed best calculated to
admit of doubts and endless litigation.
While the nation was in this distracted situation, there arrived the
prince of Quifferiquimini, who would have been the most accomplished
hero of the age, if he had not been dead, and had spoken any language
but the Egyptian, and had not had three legs. Notwithstanding these
blemishes, the eyes of the whole nation were immediately turned upon
him, and each party wished to see him married to the princess whose
cause they espoused.
The old king received him with the most distinguished honours; the
senate made the most fulsome addresses to him; the princesses were so
taken with him, that they grew more bitter enemies than ever; and the
court ladies and petit-maitres invented a thousand new fashions upon his
account--every thing was to be à la Quifferiquimini. Both men and women
of fashion left off rouge to look the more cadaverous; their cloaths
were embroidered with hieroglyphics, and all the ugly characters they
could gather from Egyptian antiquities, with which they were forced to
be contented, it being impossible to learn a language that is lost; and
all tables, chairs, stools, cabinets and couches, were made with only
three legs; the last, howver, soon went out of fashion, as being very
inconvenient.
The prince, who, ever since his death, had had but a weakly
constitution, was a little fatigued with this excess of attentions,
and would often wish himself at home in his coffin. But his greatest
difficulty of all was to get rid of the youngest princess, who kept
hopping after him wherever he went, and was so full of admiration
of his three legs, and so modest about having but one herself, and so
inquisitive to know how his three legs were set on, that being the best
natured man in the world, it went to his heart whenever in a fit of
peevishness he happened to drop an impatient word, which never failed to
throw her into an agony of tears, and then she looked so ugly that it
was impossible for him to be tolerably civil to her. He was not much
more inclined to the second princess--In truth, it was the eldest who
made the conquest of his affections: and so violently did his passion
encrease one Tuesday morning, that breaking through all prudential
considerations (for there were many reasons which ought to have
determined his choice in favour of either of the other sisters) he
hurried to the old king, acquainted him with his love, and demanded the
eldest princess in marriage. Nothing could equal the joy of the good old
monarch, who wished for nothing but to live to see the consummation of
this match. Throwing his arms about the prince-skeleton's neck and
watering his hollow cheeks with warm tears, he granted his request, and
added, that he would immediately resign his crown to him and his
favourite daughter.
I am forced for want of room to pass over many circumstances that would
add greatly to the beauty of this history, and am sorry I must dash the
reader's impatience by acquainting him, that notwithstanding the
eagerness of the old king and youthful ardour of the prince, the
nuptials were obliged to be postponed; the archbishop declaring that it
was essentially necessary to have a dispensation from the pope, the
parties being related within the forbidden degrees; a woman that never
was, and a man that had been, being deemed first cousins in the eye of
the canon law.
Hence arose a new difficulty. The religion of the Quifferiquiminians was
totally opposite to that of the papists. The former believed in nothing
but grace; and they had a high-priest of their own, who pretended that
he was master of the whole fee-simple of grace, and by that possession
could cause every thing to have been that never had been, and could
prevent every thing that had been from ever having been. "We have
nothing to do, said the prince to the king, but to send a solemn embassy
to the high-priest of grace, with a present of a hundred thousand
million of ingots, and he will cause your charming no-daughter to have
been, and will prevent my having died, and then there will be no
occasion for a dispensation from your old fool at Rome."--How! thou
impious, atheistical bag of drybones, cried the old king; dost thou
profane our holy religion? Thou shalt have no daughter of mine, thou
three-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 my
child to a baboon, who has one leg more than thou hast, than bestow her
on such a reprobate corpse--You had better give your one-legged infanta
to the baboon, said the prince, they are fitter for one another--As much
a corpse as I am, I am preferable to nobody; and who the devil would
have married your no-daughter, but a dead body! For my religion, I lived
and died in it, and it is not in my power to change it now if I
would--but for your part--a great shout interrupted this dialogue, and
the captain of the guard rushing into the royal closet, acquainted his
majesty, that the second princess, in revenge of the prince's neglect,
had given her hand to a drysalter, who was a common-council-man, and
that the city, in consideration of the match, had proclaimed them king
and queen, allowing his majesty to retain the title for his life, which
they had fixed for the term of six months; and ordering, in respect of
his royal birth, that the prince should immediately lie in state and
have a pompous funeral.
This revolution was so sudden and so universal, that all parties
approved, or were forced to seem to approve it. The old king died the
next day, as the courtiers said, for joy; the prince of Quifferiquimini
was buried in spite of his appeal to the law of nations; and the
youngest princess went distracted, and was shut up in a madhouse,
calling out day and night for a husband with three legs.