Moscow that night, as the Tsar and his ladies were very anxious to
enjoy the spectacle. The return of the cooks from Moscow and the
preparation of dinner, though a mitigation, was no cure for wounded
pride, and Lord Carlisle, calling Marvell to his side, and with his
assistance, concocted a letter in Latin to the Tsar, complaining
bitterly of their ill-treatment _inter fumosi gurgustii sordes et
angustias sine cibo aut potu_, and going so far as to assert that had
anything of the kind happened in England to a foreign ambassador, the
King of England would never have rested until the offence had been
atoned for with the blood of the criminals. When, some forty years
afterwards, Peter the Great asked Queen Anne to chop off the heads of
the rude men who had arrested his ambassador for debt, he had, perhaps,
Marvell's letter before him.

On the 6th of February Lord Carlisle and his suite made their public
entry into Moscow; but so long a time was occupied over the few versts
they had to travel, that it was dusk before the Kremlin was reached.

The formal reception of the ambassador was on the 11th of February.
Marvell was in the ambassador's sledge and carried his credentials upon
a yard of red damask. The titles of the Russian Potentate would, if
printed here, fill half a page. All the Russias, Great, Little, and
White, emperies more than one, dukedoms by the dozen, territories,
countries, and dominions--not all easy to identify on the map, and very
hard to pronounce--were read out in a loud voice by Marvell. At the end
of them came the homely title of the Earl and his offices, "his
Majesty's Lieutenant in the Counties of Cumberland and Westmorland."

The letters read and delivered, the Tsar and his Boyars rose in their
places simultaneously, and their tissue vests made so strange, loud, and