That, I guess, was the Machiavellian stroke of Art they had done; without investigating Haddock and Company [as indignant Honorable Members did], I will wager, That and nothing more! "In any case, the Termagant, finding no Seventy-fours there, and the wind good, despatches swiftly her Transports and War-ships to Barcelona; swiftly embarks there her 15,000, France cautiously assisting; and lands them complete, 'by the middle of December,' Haddock feebly opposing, on the Genoa coast: 'Have at the Milanese, my men!' Which obliges Charles Emanuel to end his cunctations, and rank at once in defence of that Country, [Adelung, ii.

535, 538 (who believes in the "stroke of art"): what kind of "art" it was, learn sufficiently in _Gentleman's Magazine,_ &c.

of those months.] lest he get no share of it whatever.

And so the game began.

Europe admired, with a shudder, the refined stroke of art; for in cunning they equal Beelzebub, those perfidious Islanders;--and are always at it; hence their greatness in the world.