was rendered into Latin by Marvell, and presented.  Over Marvell’s Latin trouble arose, for the Russians were bent on taking and giving offence.  Marvell had styled the Tsar Illustrissimus when he ought, so it was alleged, to have called him Serenissimus.  Marvell was not a schoolmaster’s son, an old scholar of Trinity, and Milton’s assistant as Latin Secretary for nothing.  He prepared a reply which, as it does not lack humour, has a distinct literary flavour, and is all that came of the embassy, may here be given at length:—­

“I reply, saith he, that I sent no such paper into the Embassy-office, but upon the desire of his Tzarskoy Majesty’s Councellor Evan Offonassy Pronchissof, I delivered it to him, not being a paper of State, nor written in the English Language wherein I treat, nor put into the hands of the near Boyars and Councellors of his Tzarskoy majesty, nor subscribed by my self, nor translated into Russe by my Interpreter, but only as a piece of curiosity, which is now restored me, and I am possessed of it; so that herein his Tzarskoy majestie’s near Boyars and Councellors are doubtless ill grounded.  But again I say concerning the value of the words Illustrissimus and Serenissimus compared together, seeing we must here from affaires of State, fall into Grammatical contests concerning the Latin tongue; that the word Serenus signifieth nothing but still and calm; and, therefore, though of late times adopted into the Titles of great Princes by reason of that benigne tranquility which properly dwells in the majestick countenance of great Princes, and that venerable stillness of all the Attendants that surround them, of which I have seen an excellent example when I was in the presence of his Tzarskoy majesty, yet is more properly used concerning the calmness of the weather, or season.  So that even the night is elegantly called Serena by the best Authors, Cicero in Arato 12, Lucretius i. l. 29. ‘Serena nox’; and upon perusing again what I have writ in this paper, I finde that I have out of the customariness of that expression my self near the beginning said, And that most serene night, &c.  Whereas on the contrary Illustris in its proper derivation and signification expresseth that which is all resplendent, lightsome, and glorious, as well without as within, and that not with a secondary but with a primitive and original light.  For if the Sun be, as he is, the first fountain of light, and Poets in their expressions (as is well known) are higher by much than those that write in Prose, what else is it when Ovid in the 2. of the Metamorphoses saith of Phoebus speaking with Phaethon, Qui terque quaterque concutiens Illustre caput, and the Latin Orators, as Pliny, Ep. 139, when they would say the highest thing that can be exprest upon any subject, word it thus, Nihil Illustrius dicere possum.  So that hereby may appear to his Tzarskoy Majestie’s near Boyars and Counsellors what diminution there