Poole’s English Parnassus.
CHAPTER I.
Never were such rejoicings heard of before as those which took place at the Court of King Katzekopf when it was announced that Queen Ninnilinda had got a little boy. It was what everybody had been wishing for, hoping for, expecting, year after year, but no little boy came; and so, at length, folks began to despair, and to settle it in their own minds that, whenever King Katzekopf died, the crown would go to his second cousin nine times removed, one of the Katzekopfs of Katzenellenbogen-Katzevervankotsdarsprakenluftschlosser, whom nobody knew or cared about.
So when Queen Ninnilinda had an heir, the nation almost went beside itself with joy. The church bells rang till they cracked; the guns of the citadel were fired till they grew so hot that they went off of themselves; oxen were roasted whole in the great square (my dear reader, never attempt to roast an ox whole, either on your own birthday, or on that of anybody else; the thing is an impossibility, half the meat is sure to be raw, and the other half burnt, and so good beef is spoiled); the two chief conduits of the city no longer poured forth water, but one spouted out cowslip-wine, and the other raspberry-vinegar; the lake in front of the palace was filled with small beer (this, however, was a failure, as it killed the fish, and folks said that the beer tasted muddy); an air-balloon hovered over the principal streets, and showered down carraway comfits and burnt almonds; Punch was exhibited all day for nothing; the prisons were all thrown open, and everybody paid the debts of everybody else.
Such being the state of things out of doors, you will readily believe that within the palace, the joy was of the most exuberant kind. Everything was in confusion; people ran up-stairs and down-stairs, jostling against one another, and always forgetting whither they were going, and for what they had been sent. Some were laughing, and some were crying, but the greater part were all talking at once, each making his own remarks, and nobody listening to his neighbour. The lords of the bed-chamber were laying wagers upon the likelihood of a new creation of peers; the maids of honour were discussing the probable colour of the infant prince’s eyes; the pages were speculating upon an increase of salary; nay, the very scullions were counting on a brevet for the kitchen.
But if all his court were thus in such a frenzy of pleasurable emotion, what must have been the condition of King Katzekopf himself? It must be confessed, that, in the main, his Majesty was one of those easy, indolent, careless sort of folks, who are content to let things take their own course, and who can very seldom be roused to make an exertion of any kind. But the birth of an heir had thrown even him into a state of excitement. Happily, he was a king, and so he had it in his power to give vent to his emotions in the manner which was most agreeable to him, for if such unwonted exhilaration had been pent up too long, there is no saying what the consequences might not have been. Fortunately, however, there was a safety-valve, through which he was enabled to let off the steaming overflow of his spirits.
So first he sent for the Yeoman of the Mouth, and bespoke a roast goose, with plenty of sage and onions, for his dinner; then he summoned the Master of the Robes, and ordered himself four new suits of clothes; then the head Confectioner was commanded to prepare materials for the manufacture of the largest christening-cake that the world had ever seen; and, lastly, he called together his Privy Council, and having created the new born infant Commander in Chief, and Lord High Admiral, Inspector General of everything and everybody, and settled on him the Crown revenues accruing from the sale of shrimps and periwinkles, his Majesty in a fervour of patriotism and paternal pride, rang the bell, and desired that the nurse, Mrs. Yellowlily, should bring the heir apparent into the Council-chamber.
Accordingly, in a few moments, the folding doors were thrown open, and nurse Yellowlily appeared with her precious charge swathed in a mantle of sky-blue taffety and silver, supported by two of the royal rockers.
“No indeed!” said the Lord Chancellor, dropping his mace and the great seal, and clasping his hands, as he fixed his eyes on the ceiling, “never was such a lovely infant seen!”