In the rage for TITLES the ancient lawyers in Italy were not satisfied
by calling kings ILLUSTRES; they went a step higher, and would have
emperors to be _super-illustres_, a barbarous coinage of their own.

In Spain, they published a book of _titles_ for their kings, as well as
for the Portuguese; but Selden tells us, that "their _Cortesias_ and
giving of titles grew at length, through the affectation of heaping
great attributes on their princes to such an insufferable forme, that a
remedie was provided against it." This remedy was an act published by
Philip III. which ordained that all the _Cortesias_, as they termed
these strange phrases they had so servilely and ridiculously invented,
should be reduced to a simple superscription, "To the king our lord,"
leaving out those fantastical attributes of which every secretary had
vied with his predecessors in increasing the number.

It would fill three or four of these pages to transcribe the titles and
attributes of the Grand Signior, which he assumes in a letter to Henry
IV. Selden, in his "Titles of Honour," first part, p. 140, has preserved
them. This "emperor of victorious emperors," as he styles himself, at
length condescended to agree with the emperor of Germany, in 1606, that
in all their letters and instruments they should be only styled _father_
and _son_: the emperor calling the sultan his son; and the sultan the
emperor, in regard of his years, his _father_.

Formerly, says Houssaie, the title of _highness_ was only given to
kings; but now it has become so common that all the great houses assume
it. All the great, says a modern, are desirous of being confounded with
princes, and are ready to seize on the privileges of royal dignity. We
have already come to _highness_. The pride of our descendants, I
suspect, will usurp that of _majesty_.

Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and his queen Isabella of Castile, were only
treated with the title of _highness_. Charles was the first who took
that of _majesty_: not in his quality of king of Spain, but as emperor.
St. Foix informs us, that kings were usually addressed by the titles of
_most illustrious_, or _your serenity_, or _your grace_; but that the
custom of giving them that of _majesty_ was only established by Louis
XI., a prince the least majestic in all his actions, his manners, and
his exterior--a severe monarch, but no ordinary man, the Tiberius of
France. The manners of this monarch were most sordid; in public
au