unexpected a noise as to provoke the ever too easily moved risibility
of the Englishmen.[109:1] When Marvell and the rest of them had ceased
from giggling, the Tsar inquired after the health of the king, but the
distance between his Imperial Majesty and Lord Carlisle being too great
for the question to carry, it had to be repeated by those who were
nearer the ambassador, who gravely replied that when he last saw his
master, namely on the 20th of July then last past, he was perfectly
well. To the same question as to the health of "the desolate widow of
Charles the First," Carlisle returned the same cautious answer. He then
read a very long speech in English, which his interpreter turned into
Russian. The same oration was rendered into Latin by Marvell, and
presented. Over Marvell's Latin trouble arose, for the Russians were
bent on taking and giving offence. Marvell had styled the Tsar
_Illustrissimus_ when he ought, so it was alleged, to have called him
_Serenissimus_. Marvell was not a schoolmaster's son, an old scholar of
Trinity, and Milton's assistant as Latin Secretary for nothing. He
prepared a reply which, as it does not lack humour, has a distinct
literary flavour, and is all that came of the embassy, may here be given
at length:--

"I reply, saith he, that I sent no such paper into the
Embassy-office, but upon the desire of his Tzarskoy Majesty's
Councellor Evan Offonassy Pronchissof, I delivered it to him, not
being a paper of State, nor written in the English Language wherein I
treat, nor put into the hands of the near Boyars and Councellors of
his Tzarskoy majesty, nor subscribed by my self, nor translated into
Russe by my Interpreter, but only as a piece of curiosity, which is
now restored me, and I am possessed of it; so that herein his
Tzarskoy majestie's near Boyars and Councellors are doubtless ill
grounded. But again I say concerning the value of the words