sake, with the same formal invitation
for the Venetian. Now the Venetian insisted again that Sir John should
deliver the invitation in the _same precise words_ as it had been given
to the Frenchman. Sir John, with his never-failing courtly docility,
performed it to a syllable. Whether both parties during all these
proceedings could avoid moving a risible muscle at one another, our
grave authority records not.

The Venetian's final answer seemed now perfectly satisfactory, declaring
he would not excuse his absence as the Frenchman had, on the most
frivolous pretence; and farther, he expressed his high satisfaction with
last year's substantial testimony of the royal favour, in the public
honours conferred on him, and regretted that the quiet of his majesty
should be so frequently disturbed by these _punctilios_ about
invitations, which so often "over-thronged his guests at the feast."

Sir John now imagined that all was happily concluded, and was retiring
with the sweetness of a dove, and the quietness of a mouse, to fly to
the lord chamberlain, when behold the Venetian would not relinquish his
hold, but turned on him "with the reading of another scruple, _et hinc
illae lachrymae!_ asking whether the archduke's ambassador was also
invited?" Poor Sir John, to keep himself clear "from categorical
asseverations," declared "he could not resolve him." Then the Venetian
observed, "Sir John was dissembling! and he hoped and imagined that Sir
John had in his instructions, that he was first to have gone to him
(the Venetian), and on his return to the archduke's ambassador." Matters
now threatened to be as irreconcileable as ever, for it seems the
Venetian was standing on the point of precedency with the archduke's
ambassador. The political Sir John, wishing to gratify the Venetian at
no expense, adds, "he thought it ill manners to mar a belief of an
ambassador's making," and so allowed him to think that he had been
invited before the archduke's ambassador!

This Venetian proved himself to be, to the great torment of Sir John, a
stupendous genius in his own way; ever on the watch to be treated _al
paro di teste coronate_--equal with crowned heads; and, when at a tilt,
refused being placed among the ambassadors of Savoy and the
States-general, &c., while the Spanish and French ambassadors were
seated alone on the opposite side. The Venetian declared that this would
be a diminution of his quality; _the first place of an inferior d