Elector of Bavaria, the Regent of Wirtemberg, the Landgraves of
Hesse Cassel and Hesse Darmstadt, and a long train of sovereign
princes, sprung from the illustrious houses of Brunswick, of
Saxony, of Holstein, and of Nassau. The Marquess of Gastanaga,
Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, repaired to the assembly
from the viceregal Court of Brussels. Extraordinary ministers had
been sent by the Emperor, by the Kings of Spain, Poland, Denmark,
and Sweden, and by the Duke of Savoy. There was scarcely room in
the town and the neighbourhood for the English Lords and
gentlemen and the German Counts and Barons whom curiosity or
official duty had brought to the place of meeting. The grave
capital of the most thrifty and industrious of nations was as gay
as Venice in the Carnival. The walks cut among those noble limes
and elms in which the villa of the Princes of Orange is embosomed
were gay with the plumes, the stars, the flowing wigs, the
embroidered coats and the gold hilted swords of gallants from
London, Berlin and Vienna. With the nobles were mingled sharpers
not less gorgeously attired than they. At night the hazard tables
were thronged; and the theatre was filled to the roof. Princely
banquets followed one another in rapid succession. The meats were
served in gold; and, according to that old Teutonic fashion with
which Shakspeare had made his countrymen familiar, as often as
any of the great princes proposed a health, the kettle drums and
trumpets sounded. Some English lords, particularly Devonshire,
gave entertainments which vied with those of Sovereigns. It was
remarked that the German potentates, though generally disposed to
be litigious and punctilious about etiquette, associated, on this
occasion, in an unceremonious manner, and seemed to have
forgotten their passion for genealogical and heraldic
controversy. The taste for wine, which was then characteristic of