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Andrea Barrofaldi and Vito Viti, too, figured on this occasion; the latter taking care to let all who would listen understand how closely he had been connected with "Sir Smees"; no longer viewed as an impostor, but honored as a hero. He even created a little difficulty in claiming a precedency for the toga over arms on the occasion; well knowing that if the vice-governatore got a conspicuous place in the ceremony, the podest

Under such governments, however, the love of equality is preposterous, and moderation itself is unnecessary. The object of every rank is precedency, and every order may display its advantages to their full extent. The sovereign himself owes great part of his authority to the sounding titles and the dazzling equipage which he exhibits in public.

When I compare with this great cause of nations the trifling points of honor, the still more contemptible points of interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the disputes about precedency, the lowering or the hoisting of a sail, the dealing in a hundred or two of wildcat-skins on the other side of the globe, which have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I stand astonished at those persons who do not feel a resentment, not more natural than politic, at the atrocious insults that this monstrous compound offers to the dignity of every nation, and who are not alarmed with what it threatens to their safety.

This choice is made without regard to age or sex, and the rest of the dogs take precedency according to their training or sagacity, the least effective being put nearest the sledge.

Just before the action, however, Schot, "scarcely able to blow a feather from his mouth," staggered on board his ship, and claimed the command. There was no disputing a precedency which he had risen from his death-bed to vindicate. There was, however, a short discussion, as the enemy's fleet approached, between these rival captains regarding the manner in which the Spaniards should be received.

Grotius had reason to be dissatisfied with him : he had been to visit him, and the Venetian gave him not the title of Excellency, nor the precedency due to an Ambassador of Sweden. Grotius determined to cease visiting him for some time.

Doubtless if Dorothy had shown any marked acknowledgment of the precedency of their rights any eagerness to conciliate the aborigines of the circle, the ladies would have been more friendly inclined; but while capable of endless love and veneration, there was little of the conciliatory in her nature. Hence Mrs.

In opposition to these arguments, it was urged by the malecontent party, that the court had discovered, on their part, but few symptoms of that mutual confidence to which they now so kindly invited the commons: that eleven years' intermission of parliaments the longest that was to be found in the English annals was a sufficient indication of the jealousy entertained against the people; or rather of designs formed for the suppression of all their liberties and privileges: that the ministers might well plead necessity, nor could any thing, indeed, be a stronger proof of some invincible necessity, than their embracing a measure for which they had conceived so violent an aversion, as the assembling of an English parliament: that this necessity, however, was purely ministerial, not national; and if the same grievances, ecclesiastical and civil, under which this nation itself labored, had pushed the Scots to extremities, was it requisite that the English should forge their own chains, by imposing chains on their unhappy neighbors? that the ancient practice of parliament was to give grievances the precedency of supply; and this order, so carefully observed by their ancestors, was founded on a jealousy inherent in the constitution, and was never interpreted as any peculiar diffidence of the present sovereign: that a practice which had been upheld during times the most favorable to liberty, could not, in common prudence, be departed from, where such undeniable reasons for suspicion had been afforded: that it was ridiculous to plead the advanced season, and the urgent occasion for supply; when it plainly appeared that, in order to afford a pretence for this topic, and to seduce the commons, great political contrivance had been employed: that the writs for elections were issued early in the winter; and if the meeting of parliament had not purposely been delayed till so near the commencement of military operations, there had been leisure sufficient to have redressed all national grievances, and to have proceeded afterwards to an examination of the king's occasion for supply: that the intention of so gross an artifice was to engage the commons, under pretence of necessity, to violate the regular order of parliament; and a precedent of that kind being once established, no inquiry into public measures would afterwards be permitted: that scarcely any argument more unfavorable could be pleaded for supply, than an offer to abolish ship money; a taxation the most illegal and the most dangerous that had ever, in any reign, been imposed upon the nation: and that, by bargaining for the remission of that duty, the commons would in a manner ratify the authority by which it had been levied; at least give encouragement for advancing new pretensions of a like nature, in hopes of resigning them on like advantageous conditions.

The remainder of the company was arranged in the order of precedency, which they held in the priests' colleges, and which bore no relation to their respective ages. But strictly as the guests were divided with reference to their rank, they mixed without distinction in the conversation.

The rivals sometimes knocked a pot or so over, with its luscious contents, in their contests for precedency, for cooks and kings have their failings in common; but, I must confess, that their Creole master always administered even-handed justice, by very scrupulously flogging them both.