ion, whether he would or not. When the great
Elliston was enacting the part of King George the Fourth, in the play of
"The Coronation," at Drury Lane, the galleries applauded very loudly
his suavity and majestic demeanor, at which Elliston, inflamed by the
popular loyalty (and by some fermented liquor in which, it is said, he
was in the habit of indulging), burst into tears, and spreading out his
arms, exclaimed: "Bless ye, bless ye, my people!" Don't let us laugh at
his Ellistonian majesty, nor at the people who clapped hands and yelled
"bravo!" in praise of him. The tipsy old manager did really feel that
he was a hero at that moment; and the people, wild with delight and
attachment for a magnificent coat and breeches, surely were uttering
the true sentiments of loyalty: which consists in reverencing these and
other articles of costume. In this fifth act, then, of his long royal
drama, old Louis performed his part excellently; and when the curtain
drops upon him, he lies, dressed majestically, in a becoming kingly
attitude, as a king should.

The king his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much
occasion for moralizing; perhaps the neighboring Parc aux Cerfs
would afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great
grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis
the well-beloved; who understood that loneliness is one of the necessary
conditions of divinity, and being of a jovial, companionable turn,
aspired not beyond manhood. Only in the matter of ladies did he
surpass his predecessor, as Solomon did David. War he eschewed, as his
grandfather bade him; and his simple taste found little in this world to
enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate and the frying of pancakes. Look,
here is the room called Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own hands,
he made his mistress's breakfast:--here is the little door through
which, from her apartments in the upper story, the chaste Du Barri came
stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble, gloomy old man. But of
women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had palled
upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign;--after having
exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his
hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and
stale; used up to the very dregs: every shilling in the national purse
had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant
ministers of sta