The
emperor, himself a sacred and sequestered creature, might be supposed to
enjoy the secret tutelage of the Supreme Deity; but a council, composed of
subordinate and responsible agents, could _not_. Again, the auspices of
the emperor, and his edicts, apart even from any celestial or supernatural
inspiration, simply as emanations of his own divine character, had a value
and a consecration which could never belong to those of a council--or to
those even which had been sullied by the breath of any less august
reviser. The emperor, therefore, or--as with a view to his solitary and
unique character we ought to call him--in the original irrepresentable
term, the imperator, could not delegate his duties, or execute them in any
avowed form by proxies or representatives. He was himself the great
fountain of law--of honor--of preferment--of civil and political
regulations. He was the fountain also of good and evil fame. He was the
great chancellor, or supreme dispenser of equity to all climates, nations,
languages, of his mighty dominions, which connected the turbaned races of
the Orient, and those who sat in the gates of the rising sun, with the
islands of the West, and the unfathomed depths of the mysterious
Scandinavia.
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