He went to Florence, and was more pleased with a nail, which was at one end iron and the other gold, than by all the glories of painting and sculpture with which the Etrurian Athens was then fresh and redolent. He sojourned for some time at Rome, but hastily left the city when the Pope was about to bless him. This refusal of an old man's benediction proceeded from the vanity of his character. Though perfectly indifferent to Christianity, when he entered Rome he ostentatiously said to the master of the English college, that he came not to the city to study controversies, but to view its antiquities; and if, without scandal to the religion in which he had been born and educated, he might take this liberty, he would gladly spend some time there. A decorous submission to the usages of Rome would not have gained him the world's talk; and, therefore, he hastily quitted the Consistory when the blessing was about to be given, knowing that such a bold act of contempt on the religion of the place would be bruited every where. The remainder of his adventures on the Continent is not worthy of record. He returned to England; and, in 1616, he was sent to France as the English ambassador. Previously to his setting off, he engaged to fight a duel, though the day fixed for the circumstance was Sunday; but when he arrived at Paris on a Saturday night, he refused to accept an invitation of the Spanish ambassador for an interview the next morning, because Sunday was a day, which, as he alleged, he wholly gave to devotion. The spirit of duelling was far more powerful in his mind than the love of conformity to religious decencies; but it cost him nothing; indeed, it only aggrandised his importance to decline the visit of the Spanish ambassador on a Sunday. He remained some time in France, maintaining the honour of his country on all occasions; particularly with reference to the mighty question, whether his coachman, or that of the Spanish ambassador, should take precedence. Sir Edward was instructed by his court to mediate between Louis XIII. and his Protestant subjects; but, instead of conducting the affair with coolness and political sagacity, he quarrelled with Luines, the minister of the French king. Complaints of his conduct were sent to England, and he was recalled. The death of the offended statesman happened soon afterwards, and Herbert was again dispatched to France. The next remarkable event in his life was the publication of his book "_De Veritate_," whose object it was to show the all-sufficiency of natural religion. But he, who denied the necessity of a revelation to the human race, of matters concerning their eternal salvation, fancied that Heaven expressly revealed to him its will that his book should be published. Such are the inconsistencies of infidelity! "A godless regent trembling at a star!"