Hieroglyphic Tales | Page 6

and all tables, chairs, stools, cabinets and couches, were made
with only three legs; the last, howver, soon went out of fashion, as
being very inconvenient.
The prince, who, ever since his death, had had but a weakly
constitution, was a little fatigued with this excess of attentions, and
would often wish himself at home in his coffin. But his greatest
difficulty of all was to get rid of the youngest princess, who kept
hopping after him wherever he went, and was so full of admiration of
his three legs, and so modest about having but one herself, and so
inquisitive to know how his three legs were set on, that being the best
natured man in the world, it went to his heart whenever in a fit of

peevishness he happened to drop an impatient word, which never failed
to throw her into an agony of tears, and then she looked so ugly that it
was impossible for him to be tolerably civil to her. He was not much
more inclined to the second princess--In truth, it was the eldest who
made the conquest of his affections: and so violently did his passion
encrease one Tuesday morning, that breaking through all prudential
considerations (for there were many reasons which ought to have
determined his choice in favour of either of the other sisters) he hurried
to the old king, acquainted him with his love, and demanded the eldest
princess in marriage. Nothing could equal the joy of the good old
monarch, who wished for nothing but to live to see the consummation
of this match. Throwing his arms about the prince-skeleton's neck and
watering his hollow cheeks with warm tears, he granted his request, and
added, that he would immediately resign his crown to him and his
favourite daughter.
I am forced for want of room to pass over many circumstances that
would add greatly to the beauty of this history, and am sorry I must
dash the reader's impatience by acquainting him, that notwithstanding
the eagerness of the old king and youthful ardour of the prince, the
nuptials were obliged to be postponed; the archbishop declaring that it
was essentially necessary to have a dispensation from the pope, the
parties being related within the forbidden degrees; a woman that never
was, and a man that had been, being deemed first cousins in the eye of
the canon law.
Hence arose a new difficulty. The religion of the Quifferiquiminians
was totally opposite to that of the papists. The former believed in
nothing but grace; and they had a high-priest of their own, who
pretended that he was master of the whole fee-simple of grace, and by
that possession could cause every thing to have been that never had
been, and could prevent every thing that had been from ever having
been. "We have nothing to do, said the prince to the king, but to send a
solemn embassy to the high-priest of grace, with a present of a hundred
thousand million of ingots, and he will cause your charming
no-daughter to have been, and will prevent my having died, and then
there will be no occasion for a dispensation from your old fool at

Rome."--How! thou impious, atheistical bag of drybones, cried the old
king; dost thou profane our holy religion? Thou shalt have no daughter
of mine, thou three-legged skeleton--Go and be buried and be damned,
as thou must be; for as thou art dead, thou art past repentance: I would
sooner give my child to a baboon, who has one leg more than thou hast,
than bestow her on such a reprobate corpse--You had better give your
one-legged infanta to the baboon, said the prince, they are fitter for one
another--As much a corpse as I am, I am preferable to nobody; and who
the devil would have married your no-daughter, but a dead body! For
my religion, I lived and died in it, and it is not in my power to change it
now if I would--but for your part--a great shout interrupted this
dialogue, and the captain of the guard rushing into the royal closet,
acquainted his majesty, that the second princess, in revenge of the
prince's neglect, had given her hand to a drysalter, who was a
common-council-man, and that the city, in consideration of the match,
had proclaimed them king and queen, allowing his majesty to retain the
title for his life, which they had fixed for the term of six months; and
ordering, in respect of his royal birth, that the prince should
immediately lie in state and have a pompous funeral.
This revolution was so sudden and so universal, that all parties
approved, or were forced to seem to approve it. The old king died the
next day, as the courtiers said, for