"A musical instrument-maker, at Wurtzburg, in Bavaria, has been lately
sen- tenced to solitary confinement for an unlimited term, and to do penance before the King's bust, as guilty of high treason and insult towards his Majesty's person."
Had the criminal tecused the King of beating time incorrectly ? or questioned his Majesty's skill as a musician in any other way ? The sentence to do penance before the King's bust, film s such an air of ludicrousness over the affair, that it is not possible to suppose that the offence was anything more heinous than a mor- tification of the Rhyal vanity. It is charitable to suppose that the " unlimited term ' means till the King has recovered his temper. Kings may still venture to excite the''disgu it and derision of the people with impunity. It would require a Czar to have made the sentence imprisonment for life, banishment, or death. But We have an example of the horrible acts of fully the " mild des- pots" of the Continent commit, out of a childish petulance, and with eyes obstinately blind to the moral effect of these acts of petty tyranny upon the public mind.
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