in Surrey. I have often wondered if the
story of the Czar's two meals was
remembered by the Emperor Alexander when, in
eighteen hundred and fourteen, on the visit
of the allied sovereigns, he passed through
Godalming to Portsmouth, to return to the
capital of the Czar Peter!

There was a natural curiosity among the
English people to see a sovereign from so
remote a country as Muscovy; and Overton,
the printseller (he is immortalised by Pope),
took advantage of this desire, and borrowing
a plate from Holland of the effigies of his
Czarish majesty, immediately worked off
sufficient impressions to satisfy the public.
Other proofs of his popularity have been
preserved. A song in praise of the Czar of
Muscovy was performed on Thursday, the
tenth of February, in the Music Room of
York Buildings, the Hanover Square Rooms
of the then London; and the History of the
Ancient and Present State of Muscovy, by
Abel Eoper, was advertised to be published
this term—  the lawyer then, as indeed long
after, materially regulating the London
season.

I have discovered the name of the opera
which the Czar went to hear. It was Beaumont
and Fletcher's Prophetess, or the History
of Diocletian, with alterations and
additions, after the manner of an opera, made
by Betterton the great actor. It was a new
opera. The music was by Purcell, the dances
by Mr. Priest, and the scenes, machinery, and
clothes were costly and effective. It was a
perfectly successful piece, and there was
enough in it to attract the Czar, to whom
everything of the kind was an entire novelty.

A new entertainment was advertised for
Thursday, the seventeenth of February, sixteen
hundred and ninety-seven-eight. It
was at Exeter Change, in the Strand, and was
called (corruptly enough) A Redoubt after
the Venetian manner,- "where," continues
the advertisement, "there will be some
considerable Basset Banks and a variety of other
entertainments." No person was to be admitted
without a mask. Tickets were to be
had at the well-known chocolate-houses,
Ozinda's and White's, and the entertainment
was to begin exactly at ten o'clock at night.
Peter came from Deptford to London to see
this Venetian importation; but he found it
suppressed with six constables at the door
to prohibit the performance. To relieve his
disappointment— so a Mr. Bertie writes to
Dr. Charlett of Oxford— he fell to drinking
hard at one Mr. Morley's; and the Marquis
of Caermarthen, it being late, resolved to
lodge him at his brother-in-law's. Here (and
still with the Marquis) he dined the next
day drank a pint of sherry and a bottle of
brandy for his morning draught; after that,
about eight more bottles of sack, and so went
to the playhouse.

There was a cordial at this time fit for the
closet of any person of quality, and very popular
if we may believe the public advertisements,
called Nectar Ambrosia, the highest
cordial-  we are assured by the proprietor—
that ever was made in England. It was prepared
from the richest spices, herbs, and
flowers, and drawn from right Nantz brandy.
On Wednesday, the ninth of February, the
author of the new cordial called Nectar
Ambrosia, so much in vogue of late, presented
the Czar of Muscovy with a large bottle of it
curiously wrought in flint, which his Czarish
majesty very kindly accepted, and he, the
prince, and the rest of his nobles very highly
approved of it. The proprietor was Mr. John
How, living in Ram's Head Yard, in Fenchurch
Street; a man no doubt of many
trades, for I find that he was the publisher
in sixteen hundred and ninety-nine— of Ned
Ward's London Spy. Ned himself afterwards
kept a public-house, and may have had a finger
in the concoction of the Nectar Ambrosia, that
so took the Czar. This celebrated compound
was sold in bottles, price two shillings and
one shilling each, and in glasses of twopence
and one penny each. The newspapers inform
us, that the Czar afterwards sent for a quantity—
highly approving of it.

There was a great meeting while Peter was
in England, and at which he was expected to
have been present. This was the Newmarket
meeting, then the centre of attraction for
horse-racing, cock-fighting, and other kindred
pursuits. Led horses for the Czar- the papers
report- had been sent to the palace. The king
was there, attended by five dukes, eleven
earls; by barons, baronets, knights, and
squires. There was much that was attractive.
The famous Yorkshire horse, backed by Mr.
Boucher, was to run against Mr. Framptom's
Turk. The distance was four miles— the
weight that each was to carry was ten stone,
and the stake five hundred pounds. Among
the earls was a great captain, the future Duke
of Marlborough. Lord Godolphin also was
present- whose name, through his famed
"Arabian," is known to thousands who never
heard of the Godolphin ministry, nor Sid
Hamet's rod, made immortal by Dean Swift.

There was one person whom the Czar (while
in England) expressed a wish to meet, and that
was Edmund Halley, the great mathematician
and astronomer, whose practical acquaintance
with the variation of the compass and the
courses of the tides he rightly thought were
matters of great importance. Halley spoke
German fluently, and Peter was pleased
with the conversation of the illustrious
Englishman.

Religious enthusiasts sought eagerly to see
this ruler of barbaric millions. The Quakers
were, of course, the most pressing. William
Penn (he lived in Norfolk Street) had an
interview with him. The brother-in-law of
Robert Barclay (the apologist) managed to
converse with him on Quaker tenets, and to
obtain his acceptance of two copies of Barclay's
book. A teazing question was put by