For there was something almost gigantic in the frivolities with which weeks and months of such precious time were now squandered.

Plenary powers--"commission bastantissima"-- from his sovereign had been announced by Alexander as in his possession; although the reader has seen that he had no such powers at all.

The mission of Rogers had quieted the envoys at Ostend for a time, and they waited quietly for the visit of Richardot to Ostend, into which the promised meeting of all the Spanish commissioners in that city had dwindled.

Meantime there was an exchange of the most friendly amenities between the English and their mortal enemies.

Hardly a day passed that La Motte, or Renty, or Aremberg, did not send Lord Derby, or Cobham, or Robert Cecil, a hare, or a pheasant, or a cast of hawks, and they in return sent barrel upon barrel of Ostend oysters, five or six hundred at a time.