As soon as they were convinced he was dead, the princess, putting on every mark of despair and concern, issued to the divan, where she was immediately proclaimed empress.  The emperor, it was given out, had died of an hermorrhoidal cholic, but to shew her regard for his memory, her imperial majesty declared she would strictly adhere to the maxims by which he had governed.  Accordingly she espoused a new husband every night, but dispensed with their telling her stories, and was graciously pleased also, upon their good behaviour, to remit the subsequent execution.  She sent presents to all the learned men in Asia; and they in return did not fail to cry her up as a pattern of clemency, wisdom, and virtue:  and though the panegyrics of the learned are generally as clumsy as they are fulsome, they ventured to allure her that their writings would be as durable as brass, and that the memory of her glorious reign would reach to the latest posterity.

TALE II.

The King and his three Daughters.

There was formerly a king, who had three daughters—­that is, he would have had three, if he had had one more, but some how or other the eldest never was born.  She was extremely handsome, had a great deal of wit, and spoke French in perfection, as all the authors of that age affirm, and yet none of them pretend that she ever existed.  It is very certain that the two other princesses were far from beauties; the second had a strong Yorkshire dialect, and the youngest had bad teeth and but one leg, which occasioned her dancing very ill.

As it was not probable that his majesty would have any more children, being eighty-seven years, two months, and thirteen days old when his queen died, the states of the kingdom were very anxious to have the princesses married.  But there was one great obstacle to this settlement, though so important to the peace of the kingdom.  The king insisted that his eldest daughter should be married first, and as there was no such person, it was very difficult to fix upon a proper husband for her.  The courtiers all approved his majesty’s resolution; but as under the best princes there will always be a number of discontented, the nation was torn into different factions, the grumblers or patriots insisting that the second princess was the eldest, and ought to be declared heiress apparent to the crown.  Many pamphlets were written pro and con, but the ministerial party pretended that the chancellor’s argument was unanswerable, who affirmed, that the second princess could not be the eldest, as no princess-royal ever had a Yorkshire accent.  A few persons who were attached to the youngest princess, took advantage of this plea for whispering that her royal highness’s pretensions to the crown were the best of all; for as there was no eldest princess, and as the second must be the first, if there was no first, and as she could not be the second if she was the first, and as the chancellor had proved that she could not be the first, it followed plainly by every idea of law that she could be nobody at all; and then the consequence followed of course, that the youngest must be the eldest, if she had no elder sister.