Chapter 60

Belshazzar On The Bench

Now, Media was king of Odo. And from the simplicity of his manners
hitherto, and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we
foolishly doubted that fact, no skepticism could have survived an
illustration of it, which this very day we witnessed at noon.

For at high noon, Media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols
of state; and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try
all causes brought before him, and fulminate his royal decrees.

This divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an
avenue of regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their
majestical canopy.

The crown of the island prince was of the primitive old Eastern
style; in shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a
foraging cap by his sacred majesty King Nimrod, who so lustily
followed the hounds. It was a plaited turban of red tappa, radiated
by the pointed and polished white bones of the Ray-fish. These
diverged from a bandeau or fillet of the most precious pearls;
brought up from the sea by the deepest diving mermen of Mardi. From
the middle of the crown rose a tri-foiled spear-head. And a spear-
headed scepter graced the right hand of the king.

Now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a
very fine sight to behold. He looks very much like a god. No wonder
that his more dutiful subjects so swore, that their good lord and
master King Media was demi-divine.

A king on his throne! Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye
Levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at
Babylon the Tremendous, when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone
in the days of Macbeth; at Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the
coronation of Louis le Grand; at Westminster Abbey, when the
gentlemanly George doffed his beaver for a diadem; or under the soft
shade of palm trees on an isle in the sea.

Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that
Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he
behold it in heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the
Persians, or the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his
car, was not a whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently
ringing for his valet.

A king on his throne! It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of
Olympus; Satan, seen among the coronets in Hell.

A king on his throne! It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over
law-giving Sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing
attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting.

A king on his throne! After all, but a gentleman seated. And thus sat
the good lord, King Media.

Time passed. And after trying and dismissing several