'It had been much more to the Honour of the Eagle's Conduct, and of the young Hero himself, first to ha' let him ha' fac'd his Enemy in the Field, and as soon as he had beaten him, the Ebronians would have acknowledg'd him fast enough; or his own Victorious Troops might have Proclaim'd him at the Gate of their Capital City; and if after all, the Success of the War had deny'd him the Crown he had fought for, he had the Honour to have shown his Bravery, and he had been where he was, a Prince of the Great Lip. A Son of the Eagle is a Title much more Honourable than a King Without a Crown, without Subjects, without a Kingdom, and another Man upon his Throne; but by this declaring him King, the old Eagle has put him under a necessity of gaining the Kingdom of Ebronia, which at best is a great hazard, or if he fails to be miserably despicable, and to bear all his Life the constant Chagrin of a great Title and no Possession.
'How ridiculous will this poor Young Gentleman look, if at last he should be forc'd to come Home again without his Kingdom? what a King of Clouts will he pass for, and what will this King-making old Gentlemen, his Father say, when the young Hero shall tell him, your Majesty has made me Mock King for all the World to laugh at.
''Twas certainly the weakest Thing that could be, for the Eagle thus to make him a King of that, which, were the probability greater than it is, he may easily, without the help of a Miracle, be disappointed of.
''Tis true, the Confederates talk big, and have lately had a great Victory, and if Talk will beat the King of Ebronia out of his Kingdom, he is certainly undone, but we do not find the Gallunarians part with any thing they can keep, nor that they quit any thing without Blows; It must cost a great deal of Blood and Treasure before this War can be ended; if absolute Conquest on one side must be the Matter, and if the Design on Ebronia should miscarry, as one Voyage thither has done already, where are we then? Let any Man but look back, and consider what a sorry Figure your Confederate Fleet in your World had made, after their Andalusian Expedition, if they had not more by Fate than Conduct, chopt upon a Booty at Vigo as they came back.
'In the like condition, will this new King come back, if he should go for a Kingdom and should not Catch, as the French Man call'd it. 'Tis in the Sense of the probability of this miscarriage, that most Men wonder at these unaccountable Measures, and think the Eagles Councils look a little Wildish, as if some of his great Men were grown Dilirious and Whymsical, that fancy'd Crowns and Kingdoms were to come and go, just as the great Divan at their Court should direct. This confusion of Circumstances has occasion'd a certain Copy of Verses to appear about the Moon, which in our Characters may be read as follows.
Wondelis Idulasin na Perixola Metartos,
Strigunia Crolias Xerin Hytale fylos;
Farnicos Galvare Orpto sonamel Egonsberch,
Sih lona Sipos Gullia Ropta Tylos.
'Which may be English'd thus.
Cæsar you Trifle with the World in vain,
Think rather now of Germany than Spain;
He's hardly fit to fill th' Eagle's Throne,
Who gives new Crowns, and can't protect his own.
'But after all to come closer to the Point, if I can now make it out that whatever it was before, this very Practice of declaring a second Son to be King of Ebronia, has publickly own'd the Proceedings of the King of Gallunaria to be Just, and the Title of his Grandson to be much better than the Title of the now declar'd King, what shall we call it then?
'In order to this, 'tis first necessary to examine the Title of the present King, and to enter into the history of his coming to the Crown, in which I shall be very Brief.