The Red Cloud chief., 1877-06-14
ROYAL NUMERALS.

ROYAL NUMERALS.
We lighted the other day, in Mr.. r.
b. Smiths Lectures on "MOhammed and
MOhammedanism," on the following
curious passage:
"PeOple call the conquerer of Con-
stantinOple, 800 years later, Mohammed
the Second. But l do not think they
s7er speak Of the Prophet as Moham-
med the First; and perhaps the uncon.
sc!ous homage thus rendered to him
b7a world which ostensibly, and still
v ny lately, did him such scant Justice
Is the highest tribute that can be given
70 his greatness"
malicious reader ventured to parody
Mr.. Smiths reckoning, by saying that
people call the King of England who
began to reign in 1927 George the Sec
Ond, but that they do not ever speak of
the patron Saint of England as George
the First" 1t is certainly odd if Mr..
Smith never heard of Sultan M0homet
the First, who, if not a man quito on
the scale of his grandson. fills no unim-
portant place in Ottoman history. But
it does certainly sound as if the pane
gyrist Of the Prophet fancied that, as
Napoleon the Third was third without
any Second, 30 Mohomet the Second
was Second without any First. Some
ingenious maker of Latin verses might
parody the lines of Horace
Unde nil majus generatur ipso,
Nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum-
in favor of the man whose greatness
was lilo uIiIcr way, ana consisted, not
in having no children to be second after
him, but in having no fathers to be first
before him. The whole thing becomes
yet more funny when we look q few
pages back and find Mr.. Smith quite
aware of the existence of Sultan Ma
hOmet the Fourth, which suggests
that, on MI. Smiths reckoning, the odd
Mahomets are. perhaps by some uncon-
scious form of homage, left out. Ma
hOmet the Second was really great
enough to count as two, like the "very
fat lord" whose vote, counted "a ten,
gave us the Habeas Corpus Act. But
one hardly sees why such a privilege
should be extended to MahOmet the
Fourth. Still, if Mr.. Smith chooses to
count his Sultans in alternate rows,
like the houses in some London streets
it does not concern us. His numera-
ton has set us on a little train of
thought, and so far we thank him.
There is certainly something remark
able in the way in which, while some
kings are best known by some surname
or nickname. in the "a of others the
mere numeral has itself become q kind
of surname. 1t is like some of the
great dates of history, where the mere
number of the year becomes clothed
W it'll a kind of living being, and the
m ,re figures call up the picture of some
g teat event with its long train of
C suses and consequences. If we speak
MCharles the First, Charles the Fifth,
Charles the Twelfth, there is no need
to explain that we mean the First of
England, the Fifth of the Empire, and
the Twelfth of Sweden. The names
speak forthemselves, even though there
was nothing to point out of what line
of sovereigns We were speaking. A pic
ture of Charles the Fifth, a coin of
Charles the Fifth, if mentioned in the
most casual way, would convey to every
one the notion of the Emperor, not of
Charles the Fifth of France or of any
other country that may number five
Charleses. There are to be sure excep-
tons to every rule, and We can remem.
Der how, when a question was set in the
Oxford Schools, Give notices of the
City OF Rome from Charles the Great
to Charles the Fifth" a candidate came
and asked his examiner whether the
Charles the Fifth that was meant v,s
the Emperor or the King of Franco.
As the Emperor certainly had some
thing to do with the City of Rome and
he King of France had certainly
nothing. the doubt can be set down
only = one Of those singular instances
of ~perversity which we do light ON
aver and anon. Charles the Fifth the
Emperor is so completely Charles the
fifth that people seem sometimes
amazed to 6nd that he was not numeri.
cally Charles the Fifthin all his domin-
ions. We have seen him spoken of a
Charles tho Fifth Of Spain. With this
the description of q later
King Of Spain q Charles the Second
must seem q mysterious from the other
side . the description Of Nahomet the
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