it is clear some one hath
tampered with and altered my device. If I am accused of aught, let me at
least hear the charge, and see my accuser."

"That is but fair," said the King. "Bring our little friend from behind
the chimney-board. [Hudson being accordingly produced, he continued.]
There stands the Duke of Buckingham. Repeat before him the tale you told
us. Let him hear what were those contents of the bass-viol which were
removed that you might enter it. Be not afraid of any one, but speak the
truth boldly."

"May it please your Majesty," said Hudson, "fear is a thing unknown to
me."

"His body has no room to hold such a passion; or there is too little of
it to be worth fearing for," said Buckingham.--"But let him speak."

Ere Hudson had completed his tale, Buckingham interrupted him by
exclaiming, "Is it possible that I can be suspected by your Majesty on
the word of this pitiful variety of the baboon tribe?"

"Villain-Lord, I appeal thee to the combat!" said the little man, highly
offended at the appellation thus bestowed on him.

"La you there now!" said the Duke--"The little animal is quite crazed,
and defies a man who need ask no other weapon than a corking-pin to run
him through the lungs, and whose single kick could hoist him from Dover
to Calais without yacht or wherry. And what can you expect from an
idiot, who is _engoue_ of a common rope-dancing girl, that capered on a
pack-thread at Ghent in Flanders, unless they were to club their talents
to set up a booth at Bartholomew Fair?--Is it not plain, that supposing
the little animal is not malicious, as indeed his whole kind bear a
general and most cankered malice against those who have the ordinary
proportions of humanity--Grant, I say, that this were not a malicious
falsehood of his, why, what does it amount to?--That he has mistaken
squibs and Chinese crackers for arms! He says not he himself touched or
handled them; and judging by the sight alone, I question if the infirm
old creature, when any whim or preconception hath possession of his
noddle, can distinguish betwixt a blunderbuss and a black-pudding."

The horrible clamour which the dwarf made so soon as he heard this
disparagement of his military skill--the haste with which he blundered
out a detail of this warlike experiences--and the absurd grimaces which
he made in order to enforce his story, provoked not only the risibility
of Charles, but even of the statesmen around him, and added absurd