preparations were making.

But Alexander--at the very outset of the Doctor's eloquence--found it
difficult to suppress his feelings. "I can assure your Majesty," said
Rogers, "that his eyes--he has a very large eye--were moistened.
Sometimes they were thrown upward to heaven, sometimes they were fixed
full upon me, sometimes they were cast downward, well declaring how his
heart was affected."

Honest John even thought it necessary to mitigate the effect of his
rhetoric, and to assure his Highness that it was, after all, only he
Doctor Rogers, and not the minister plenipotentiary of the Queen's most
serene Majesty, who was exciting all this emotion.

"At this part of my speech," said he, "I prayed his Highness not to be
troubled, for that the same only proceeded from Doctor Rogers, who, it
might please him to know, was so much moved with the pitiful case of
these countries, as also that which of war was sure to ensue, that I
wished, if my body were full of rivers of blood, the same to be poured
forth to satisfy any that were blood-thirsty, so there might an assured
peace follow."

His Highness, at any rate, manifesting no wish to drink of such
sanguinary streams--even had the Doctor's body contained them--Rogers
became calmer. He then descended from rhetoric to jurisprudence and
casuistry, and argued at intolerable length the propriety of commencing
the conferences at Ostend, and of exhibiting mutually the commissions.

It is quite unnecessary to follow him as closely as did Farnese. When he
had finished the first part of his oration, however, and was "addressing
himself to the second point," Alexander at last interrupted the torrent
of his eloquence.

"He said that my divisions and subdivisions," wrote the Doctor, "were
perfectly in his remembrance, and that he would first answer the first
point, and afterwards give audience to the second, and answer the same
accordingly."

Accordingly Alexander put on his hat, and begged the envoy also to be
covered. Then, "with great gravity, as one inwardly much moved," the Duke
took up his part in the dialogue.

"Signor Ruggieri," said he, "you have propounded unto me speeches of two
sorts: the one proceeds from Doctor Ruggieri, the other from the lord
ambassador of the most serene Queen of England. Touching the first, I do
give you my hearty thanks for your godly speeches, assuring you that
though, by reason I have always followed the wars, I cannot be ignorant
of the ca