chamber, and appointing a moderator; and this exercise they found useful
and pleasant, and improving their language. To this end likewise they had
public declamations in Latin, himself giving them the question, as "an
quodcunque evenerit sit optimum," etc., so that his house was like an
academy.


_March 23, 1653._

[SN: Whitelocke again negotiates with the Queen.]

Whitelocke attended the Queen; and after some discourses of pleasantries,
they fell upon the treaty, and Whitelocke said to her:--

_Whitelocke._ My business, Madam, is now brought to a conclusion.

_Queen._ Is it to your liking?

_Wh._ Pardon me, Madam, if I say it is not at all to my liking; for in
the articles which Grave Eric sent me there were many particulars to
which I could not agree, and I much wondered to receive such articles
from him, being persuaded that your Majesty was before satisfied by me in
most of the particulars in them.

_Qu._ What are those particulars?

The articles Whitelocke had in readiness with him, and his observations
upon them, having taken pains this morning to compare their articles with
his own, and to frame his objections upon them. The Queen wrote down the
objections with her own hand, and then entered into a debate with