of a steady depth of dulness, which at last grows almost sublime), was
wont to tell his Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A well-trained
Army and a full Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this
Pragmatic Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would believe. So the
bright old Eugene dictated,--or, we hope and guess, he only gave his
clerks some key-word, and signed his name (in three languages, "Eugenio
von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary matter,--probably
taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he wears it in both
waistcoat-pockets;--has (as his Portraits still tell us) given up
breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a flash in him as of
Heaven's own lightning; but now growing very old and snuffy.

Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,--it was such
shadow-huntings of the Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic
Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage, which
lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty nearly broke the hearts
of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and their Mother and Father. For there never
was such negotiating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven, in
the pious times. And the open goings-forth of it, still more the secret
minings and mole-courses of it, were into all places. Above ground and
below, no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree
or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, agreed
to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above ground, in sight of the sun; and
rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror, he found
the Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance doubly sure, had been
under the foundations of his very house for long years past, and had all
but brought it down about him in the most hideous manner!--

THIRD SHADOW: IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OSTEND COMPANY.

Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence in these
times, and which likewise proved a shadow, much disturbance as it
gave mankind, was his "Ostend East-India Company." The Kaiser had
seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland; he had taken up a
creditable notion about commerce and its advantages. He said to himself,
Why should not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these
English and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He instituted (OCTROYA)
an "Ostend East-India Company," under due Patents and Imperial
Sheepskins, of date 17th December, 1722,