the honor of a Royal interview. [Benekendorf,
vii. 33; Forster, ii. 270.] Let them learn to keep one balance, and
one set of weights, in their Law-Court hence forth.--This is an actual
scene, of date Berlin, 1731, or thereby; unusual in the annals of
Themis. Of which no constitutional country can hope to see the fellow,
were the need never so pressing.--I wish his Majesty had been a thought
more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine! Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut
being only Schlubhut's chattel; this musketeer, his Majesty's own
chattel, he did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some
preliminary dusting!--

His Majesty was always excessively severe on defalcations; any
Chancellor, with his Exchequer-bills gone wrong, would have fared ill
in that country. One Treasury dignitary, named Wilke (who had "dealt in
tall recruits," as a kind of by-trade, and played foul in some slight
measure), the King was clear for hanging; his poor Wife galloped to
Potsdam, shrieking mercy; upon which Friedrich Wilhelm had him whipt by
the hangman, and stuck for life into Spandau. Still more tragical--was
poor Hesse's case. Hesse, some domain Rath out at Konigsberg, concerned
with moneys, was found with account-books in a state of confusion,
and several thousands short, when the outcome was cleared up. What has
become of these thousands, Sir? Poor old Hesse could not tell: "God is
my witness, no penny of them eyer stuck to me," asseverated poor
old Hesse; "but where they are--? My account-books are in such a
state;--alas, and my poor old memory is not what it was!" They brought
him to Berlin; in the end they actually hanged the poor old soul;--and
then afterwards in his dusty lumber-rooms, hidden in pots, stuffed into
this nook and that, most or all of the money was found! [Forster (ii.
269), &c. &c.] Date and document exist for all these cases, though my
Dryasdust gives none; and the cases are indubitable; very rhadamanthine
indeed. The soft quality of mercy,--ah, yes, it is beautiful and
blessed, when permissible (though thrice-accursed, when not): but it is
on the hard quality of justice, first of all, that Empires are built up,
and beneficent and lasting things become achievable to mankind, in this
world!--

SKIPPER JENKINS IN THE GULF OF FLORIDA.

A couple of weeks before Schlubhut's death, the English Newspapers are
somewhat astir,--in the way of narrative merely, as yet. Ship Rebecca,
Captain Robert Jenkins Ma