devotion of the Corsicans to him would have been an impossibility.
About this time Von Neuhoff disappears again till 1748. Some persons state that he resided in Holland, but he can hardly have been inactive, for that was contrary to his nature. In 1749 we find him again in London, and this visit was eventful for him, as it has been to many adventurers before and since. The king of Corsica was arrested for debt; but I must remark, in his justification, that they were debts which he incurred for the liberation of Corsica. The purveyors of arms and ammunition locked him up, and Government, on whom he fancied he had claims, would not help him: it denied in toto any negotiations with him. From this moment the poor monarch was a ruined man. He was removed to the King’s Bench, and spent nearly the whole of his days there. It was a terrible change for a man accustomed from his earliest youth to restless and incessant activity. The courage and noble resignation with which he accepted his fall at the outset, soon gave way, and he showed that he was not a true hero, but only an adventurer. On March 27, 1752, he appeared at Westminster, with other King’s Bench prisoners, before a Parliamentary Commission, and broke out into bitter complaints of the treatment he was compelled to put up with. The members took pity on him, and procured him a more comfortable room; but they could do no more, unless they paid the enormous sums he owed his creditors.
Want and hunger tormented the man who had once really worn a royal crown, and he made an appeal to public charity. The London actors first took up his cause. Garrick gave a performance in his behalf, which produced a considerable sum; but for all that, Von Neuhoff’s condition was so deplorable, that he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape in 1755, which naturally entailed stricter confinement. But his misfortunes were not ended yet. In the same year an Act of Parliament was passed, by which all insolvent debtors were set at liberty. Through this act Von Neuhoff became free, and the ex-king of Corsica positively had not a roof to shelter him. In May, 1756, he made an affecting appeal for assistance in the newspapers: he wished to return and die in his native land. But which was the poor adventurer’s native land? even at his birth he possessed none. A few of his former aristocratic friends gave him some assistance, but it must have been inconsiderable, for he was unable to leave the country: at any rate, he was not long a burden to his friends, for he died in December, 1756, aged sixty-one. The parish buried him, and I believe that his grave is still pointed out in Old St. Pancras churchyard.
Such was the end of Theodore, King of Corsica. I call the Westphalian Adventurer a king, because since his day, history has given a kingly title to adventurers who had much less claim to it than Theodore von Neuhoff. A brave nation fighting for its liberty had given him the crown, while others were invested with it at the caprice of a mighty despot. The Westphalian adventurer, at any rate, was King of Corsica, just as fairly as, some fifty years later, a Corsican adventurer was King of Westphalia.
PRINCE HASSAN AND THE OGRE.
Easter Monday, about seventeen thousand years ago, fell on Tuesday, the 1st of April; and, on that very day, the gallant young Prince Hassan, heir-apparent of All the Cashmeres, went out with hound and horn to hunt the deer. A fine buck was soon found; but as it went away twice as fast as the dogs could run after it, and the dogs ran twice as fast as the prince could gallop, and the prince gallopped twice as fast as anybody else, you will not be surprised to hear that, after three hours’ hard riding, his royal highness found himself quite alone; and moreover, on looking round him, he perceived that he was in a place where he had never been before,—a dismal valley closed in with rocks, and without a trace of a road to lead him home. To complete his misfortunes, his horse—from which he had dismounted for a moment—ran away on its own account; and, after serious reflection, he was obliged to conclude that he had lost his way, and didn’t know what to do.
Presently, however, he espied in the hill-side the mouth of a large cavern; and as he was exhausted with heat and thirst, he determined to enter it, in hopes of finding shelter and water. To his delight there was a cool spring rising just inside; but no sooner had he knelt down and taken a draught, than he heard a dreadful roar from the bottom of the cavern; and, looking up, he beheld a frightful ogre, who came up to him in two strides, and caught him by the waist between his finger and thumb. This monster’s head was as big as a haystack; his mouth was like a great oven, with rows of grinders like immense quartern loaves; his eyes were like the red lamps that you see on railways; and as for his nose, it was such an object that there really is nothing in the world ugly enough for me to compare it to. Few ogres are handsome; but this one was so horrid and nasty, even for an ogre, that none of the other ogres would live with him, and no ogress would marry him; so he was forced to sulk by himself in this solitary bachelor cavern. His name was Uglymuggimo; but the prince didn’t know that.
“I’ll teach you to come into my house and drink my water, without my leave,” said the ogre in a dreadful voice; “all’s fish that comes to my net; and I shall swallow you as you would an oyster,—if you had any in Cashmere.”
So saying, he went to his cupboard and took out the pepper-castor and vinegar-cruet, each of which was the size of a sentry-box.
“I am sure I am very sorry to have offended you, sir,” said the prince (though the ogre held him so tight that he could hardly speak), “I meant no harm; and as for swallowing me, I really think you had better not. I don’t say this on my own account; but I am certain I’m not fit to eat; you will find me very nasty, you will, indeed.”
“Ho, ho,” said the ogre, “so much the better! The nastier things are, the more I like them! There’s nothing that I can’t swallow! Why, if you could bring me anything I couldn’t swallow, I’d give you leave to cut off my head.”
“Begging your honour’s pardon,” said the prince, “I think I have seen a great many things that a nice, clean, good-looking gentleman like