* * * * *

  The mighty Master smiled to see,
  Infant-in-Arms, young Germany,
  Jove’s nursling, quit his cot and pap,
  And, quite a promising young chap,
  Grown out of baby-shoes and bottle,
  And “draughts” which teased his infant throttle,
    Get rid of ailments, tum-tum troubles,
    Tooth-cutting pangs, and “windy” bubbles,
    A tremendous time beginning;
      Fighting still, all foes destroying:—­
      “A world-empire’s worth the winning! 
      Its fair foretaste I’m enjoying. 
        The new god now sits beside ye,
        Take the gifts he will provide ye! 
        He’s your young Orbilian schooler,
        Your Hereditary Ruler!”
  (The Brandenburgers bellow loud applause.)
  “My course is right, and glorious is my Cause!!!”
    The Prince, the god unable to restrain,
        Rose from his chair,
        With Jovian air,
    And, hanging up his thunderbolts with care,
    What time his eagle gave a gruesome glare,
    The nectar gulped again and yet again: 
  Then stooping his horned helmet firm to jam on,
  Voted himself the New God—­Jupiter-(G)Ammon!

* * * * *

        “Let ALEXANDER yield the prize
          To WILHELM of the Iron Crown;
        He raised himself unto the skies,
          I bring Olympus down!!!”

* * * * *

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No.  XI.—­TO PLAUSIBILITY.

MY DEAR PLAU,

I SHOULD be the most ungrateful dog if I failed to acknowledge the pleasure I have received during my life from the society of your friends and proteges.  I don’t speak of mere material, meat-and-money advantages.  Probably, if a strict account could be stated, it might be found that in these paltry matters a balance, large or small, was still due to me.  Who knows?  Strict accounts are hateful; and even if I did lose here and there I did it, I fancy, with my eyes open, and was not sorry to indulge these gentlemen with the idea that their fascinations had conquered me.  No.  What I speak of is rather the genuine pleasure I have derived from some of the finest acting (in ordinary life, not on the boards) that the world ever saw, acting in which I protest that the tears, the sighs, the misery, the gallantry, the courage, the loyal sentiments and the honourable promises all rang with so sincere a sound that the very actor himself was subdued like the dyer’s hand to the colours he worked in, until he believed himself to be the most unjustly persecuted of mankind, the most upright of gentlemen, or whatever the special emotion he simulated required that he should seem to be for the moment.  That he might possibly be