[5] Stanhope to his son, March 14, 1698: "Our Court is in great disorder: the grandees all dog and cat, Turk and Moor. The King is in a languishing condition, so weak and spent as to his principles of life that there is only hope of preserving him for a few weeks.... The general inclination is altogether French to the succession, their aversion to the Queen having set them against all her countrymen, and if the French King will content himself that one of his younger grandchildren be King of Spain, he will find no opposition either from grandees or common people. The King is not in a condition to give audience, speaking very little and that not much to the purpose. The terms in which they express it to me is that he is _embelecado_, _atolondrado_, _and dementado_. He fancies the devils are very busy in tempting him." [6] "The King is so very weak he can scarcely lift his hand to his head to feed himself, and so extremely melancholy that neither his buffoons, dwarfs, nor puppet shows, all of which show their abilities before him, can in the least divert him from fancying everything that is said or done to be a temptation of the Devil, and never thinking himself safe with out his confessor and two friars by his side, whom he makes lie in his chamber every night" (Stanhope to the Earl of Portland. March 14, 1698). [7] How fit the King was to undergo such a regime as this may be judged by Stanhope's letter to his son, dated Madrid, June 15, 1698: "Our gazettes here tells us every week that his Catholic Majesty is in perfect health, and it is the general answer to all inquiries. It is true that he is abroad every day but _hærct lateri lethalis arundo_; his ankles and knees swell again, his eyes bag, the lids red as scarlet, and the rest of his face a greenish yellow. His tongue is _trabada_, as they express it; that is, he has such a fumbling in his speech, those near him hardly understand him, at which he sometimes grows angry, asks if they all be deaf." [Illustration: Tailpiece] {321} A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. [Illustration: PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN. (_After the painting by Velasquez._) {323} [Illustration: Headpiece] _A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA._[1]