[clx. 285]

1822 July 8

Constitut. Code

Note (a)?

Securities

Factitious honor

?.4. Evils produced by it

Note (a)

Of this superfoetation of evil the most disastrous case is that which has place where the Monarch of a country receives a higher title: a Monarch with a title inferior to that of King, the title for example of King. To a King not to speak of a sceptre or a Palace belong a Crown, and a throne and a Crown: to this pair of implements a quality called splendor is necessary: the throne must have gold above it: the crown besides gold, pieces of natural glass called diamonds: by these ingredients or appendages by the help of a little manual labor, splendor in the physical sense is constituted. But to splendor in the physical sense must be added splendor in a superior sense, the metaphorical or hyperphysical sense. Appetite in all shapes is stimulated by the new title: the quantity of his superfluities must receice encrease: the quantity of the superfluities enjoyed by his Courtiers and his living instruments of government must be encreased: the number of these instruments themselves must receive encrease. Being admitted into the holy circle and fraternity of Kings his appearance must in every thing be if possible upon a par with theirs. The story /apophthegm/ /fable/ of the frog and the ox is realized /exemplified/ but with a disastrous variation. In the fable it was by himself that the frog was inflated /strained/ till he burst. Since a crown has been put by the English Ox upon the largest frog of Belgium, to raise himself upon a level with his creator

It is not by themselves but by the overgrown frog at the head of them, by the great frog with a crown on his head that the little frogs are burst.