hing sharper than the sharpest words would soon be wanted to protect
England and herself from impending doom. For there was something almost
gigantic in the frivolities with which weeks and months of such
precious time were now squandered. Plenary powers--"commission
bastantissima"--from his sovereign had been announced by Alexander as in
his possession; although the reader has seen that he had no such powers
at all. The mission of Rogers had quieted the envoys at Ostend for a
time, and they waited quietly for the visit of Richardot to Ostend, into
which the promised meeting of all the Spanish commissioners in that city
had dwindled. Meantime there was an exchange of the most friendly
amenities between the English and their mortal enemies. Hardly a day
passed that La Motte, or Renty, or Aremberg, did not send Lord Derby, or
Cobham, or Robert Cecil, a hare, or a pheasant, or a cast of hawks, and
they in return sent barrel upon barrel of Ostend oysters, five or six
hundred at a time. The Englishmen, too; had it in their power to gratify
Alexander himself with English greyhounds, for which he had a special
liking. "You would wonder," wrote Cecil to his father, "how fond he is of
English dogs." There was also much good preaching among other
occupations, at Ostend. "My Lord of Derby's two chaplains," said Cecil,
"have seasoned this town better with sermons than it had been before for
a year's apace." But all this did not expedite the negotiations, nor did
the Duke manifest so much anxiety for colloquies as for greyhounds. So,
in an unlucky hour for himself, another "fond and vain" old
gentleman--James Croft, the comptroller who had already figured, not much
to his credit, in the secret negotiations between the Brussels and
English courts--betook himself, unauthorized and alone; to the Duke at
Bruges. Here he had an interview very similar in character to that in
which John Rogers had been indulged, declared to Farnese that the Queen
was most anxious for peace, and invited him to send a secret envoy to
England, who would instantly have ocular demonstration of the fact. Croft
returned as triumphantly as the excellent Doctor had done; averring that
there was no doubt as to the immediate conclusion of a treaty. His
grounds of belief were very similar to those upon which Rogers had
founded his faith. "Tis a weak old man of seventy," said Parma, "with
very little sagacity. I am inclined to think that his colleagues are
taking him in,