[64] See such a scene in his _Diaries_, p. 145, where for the printed date “Nov. 8th 1674” read “Nov. 8th 1671” (cp. his _Account of the Greek Church_, Pref. p. xi). [65] Greek for priest: so the English in the Levant styled their parsons familiarly. [66] Among the State Papers at the P.R.O. (_Turkey_, 19) there are several letters from him to Lord Arlington and his secretary Joseph Williamson. The one in which Covel congratulates this very mediocre gentleman (to whom he was a perfect stranger) on his elevation to the post of Principal Secretary of State, dated “Pera, Jan. 8th 1674-5,” breaks all the records of adulation known even to that sycophantic age. [67] See Appendix VII. [68] See Appendix VIII. [69] My sketch of Dudley North is based on the _Life_ of him by Roger North. It is amusing to find the biographer, who idealised and idolised his brother, holding him up as a pattern of truthfulness, probity, and honour, and at the same time relating all the above facts, without the least suspicion of the impression that some of them might convey to an unbiassed reader. CHAPTER V STRENUA INERTIA We must now return to Sir John Finch. We left him in the middle of 1674 at Pera, and there we still find him at the end of the year. In the interval the Grand Vizir, after a successful summer’s campaign, had returned to Adrianople and taken up his winter pastime--negotiations for peace. French emissaries and Hungarian malcontents fostered these attempts with all their might in the hope of turning the attention of the Turks against their Austrian enemy. The Turks, Sir John understood, were “heartily weary of this lean warr in so cold and beggarly a country, having spent allready in it 13 Millions of Dollars,” but as the Poles were in precisely the same mood, Ahmed Kuprili, like a good diplomat, had no mind to come to terms in a hurry. Hostilities, therefore, were to be continued, but in a languid fashion, and to be pleasantly diversified with festivities. The Sultan had decided to pass the next season in mirth and jollity, celebrating the circumcision of his son and the marriage of his daughter. Both these interesting domestic events had been in contemplation since 1669--when the boy was about six and the girl not more than one year old; but circumstances over which the happy father had no control had caused their postponement. They were at last to take place in the spring of 1675, “with all the magnificence that at such a feast can be shown. The Records of the Serraglio here being to this effect sent for to Adrianople, it being 60 years since this publick festivall has bin celebrated.” So Sir John reported, adding, “My Audience I have designd’ to be at the same time that I may see the Grandeur of this Empire in all its glory; I imagine that I shall see a Great Army, Great Quantity of Excellent Horses; Most rich furniture and Livery’s as to Jewells and all Pompe of Embroaderys.”[70]