in love on his behalf, had, contrary to every precedent of policy and

diplomacy, already fallen in love on his own account, and privately

contracted himself unto the fair daughter of a noble Athenian.

'Here we have a striking example of one of the manifold advantages of

civilisation and refinement. If the prince had lived in later days, he

might at once have married the object of his father's choice, and then

set himself seriously to work, to relieve himself of the burden which

rested heavily upon him. He might have endeavoured to break her

heart by a systematic course of insult and neglect; or, if the spirit of

her sex, and a proud consciousness of her many wrongs had upheld

her under this ill-treatment, he might have sought to take her life, and

so get rid of her effectually. But neither mode of relief suggested itself

to Prince Bladud; so he solicited a private audience, and told his

father.

'it is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their

passions. King Lud flew into a frightful rage, tossed his crown up to

the ceiling, and caught it again - for in those days kings kept their

crowns on their heads, and not in the Tower - stamped the ground,

rapped his forehead, wondered why his own flesh and blood rebelled

against him, and, finally, calling in his guards, ordered the prince

away to instant Confinement in a lofty turret; a course of treatment

which the kings of old very generally pursued towards their sons,

when their matrimonial inclinations did not happen to point to the

same quarter as their own.

When Prince Bladud had been shut up in the lofty turret for the

greater part of a year, with no better prospect before his bodily eyes

than a stone wall, or before his mental vision than prolonged

imprisonment, he naturally began to ruminate on a plan of escape,

which, after months of preparation, he managed to accomplish;

considerately leaving his dinner-knife in the heart of his jailer, lest the

poor fellow (who had a family) should be considered privy to his flight,

and punished accordingly by the infuriated king.

The monarch was frantic at the loss of his son. He knew not on whom

to vent his grief and wrath, until fortunately bethinking himself of the

lord chamberlain who had brought him home, he struck off his

pension and his head together.

Meanwhile, the young prince, effectually disguised, wandered on foot

through his father's dominions, cheered and supported in all his

hardships by sweet thoughts of the Athenian maid, who was the

innocent cause of his weary trials. One day he stopped to rest in a

country village; and seeing that there were gay dances going forward

on the green, and gay faces passing to and fro, ventured to inquire of

a reveller who stood near him, the reason for this rejoicing.

The Pickwick Papers