A king on his throne!  Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye Levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at Babylon the Tremendous, when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone in the days of Macbeth; at Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the coronation of Louis le Grand; at Westminster Abbey, when the gentlemanly George doffed his beaver for a diadem; or under the soft shade of palm trees on an isle in the sea.

Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in heaven.  But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently ringing for his valet.

A king on his throne!  It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of Olympus; Satan, seen among the coronets in Hell.

A king on his throne!  It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over law-giving Sinai; the sun in our system:  planets, duke-like, dancing attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting.

A king on his throne!  After all, but a gentleman seated.  And thus sat the good lord, King Media.

Time passed.  And after trying and dismissing several minor affairs, Media called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one Jiromo, a foolhardy wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the majesty now sitting judge and jury upon him.

His guilt was clear.  And the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of palm plumes Media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or pursuivant, saying, “This to Jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his king’s compliments; say we here wait for his head.”

It was doffed like a turban before a Dey, and brought back on the instant.

Now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence suspicious-looking varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as Bruin.  They came muttering some wild jargon about “bulwarks,” “bulkheads,” “cofferdams,” “safeguards,” “noble charters,” “shields,” and “paladiums,” “great and glorious birthrights,” and other unintelligible gibberish.

Of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of Media.

“Go, kneel at the throne,” was the answer.

“Our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics,” was the rheumatic reply.

“An artifice to keep on your legs,” said the pursuivants.

And advancing they salamed, and told Media the excuse of those sour-looking varlets.  Whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their marrow-bones instanter, either before him or the headsman, whichsoever they pleased.

They preferred the former.  And as they there kneeled, in vain did men with sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to list to that strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and sockets, ever incident to the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers.