Even to those who can read the elegant Latin in which he wrote, it is hoped that the notes and articles appended may be found interesting and useful. They have been gleaned from many different quarters, and to a great extent from books inaccessible to the ordinary student. This is specially the case with the _Sketch of Hungarian History during the Reign of Solyman_. In no modern writer were we able to find more than scattered hints and allusions to the history of Hungary during this important epoch, when it formed the battle-field on which the Christian and the Mussulman were deciding the destinies of Europe. The object of Busbecq’s mission was to stay, by the arts of diplomacy, the advance of the Asiatic conqueror, to neutralise in the cabinet the defeats of Essek and Mohacz. In this policy he was to a great extent successful. He gained time; and in such a case time is everything. What he says of Ferdinand is eminently true of himself.[6] There are victories of which the world hears much—great battles, conquered provinces, armies sent beneath the yoke—but there is also the quiet work of the diplomatist, of which the world hears little. In the eyes of those who measure such work aright, not even the hero of Lepanto or the liberator of Vienna will hold a higher place among the champions of Christendom than Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. _Removal of the Rubbish._ For the rebuilding of a house, it is absolutely necessary to remove the rubbish with which the site is encumbered. Unfortunately, the process is equally necessary in writing the life of Busbecq. There is rubbish of ancient date and rubbish of modern date, which cannot be ignored and must be removed. With regard to one story, a writer of the present time is specially bound to protest. It is to be found in the treatise of Monsieur Rouzière, entitled, _Notice sur Auger de Busbecq, Ambassadeur du Roi Ferdinand_ 1^{er} _en Turquie, et de l’Empereur Rodolphe II. en France_. There is the more need for warning the reader against it, because Monsieur Rouzière ushers in his narrative with a long tirade against similar inventions. ‘He is not,’ he tells us, ‘a professor of history, or one of those knights of the quill who wander from town to town discovering documents which, like the Sleeping Beauty, are waiting for the champion who is to break the enchanter’s spell.’ Monsieur Rouzière is specially bitter against ‘un Américain qui vient de mourir en parcourant l’Europe pour faire des découvertes historiques, et qui à l’Escurial avait fait la trouvaille d’une relation sur la mort de don Carlos écrite par son valet-de-chambre.’ With this preamble, he introduces his readers to the following story, which is simply a romance of his own creation: