The chief native attendant of the Czar
bore a name that has lately become familiar
enough in English ears: he was called Prince
Menzikoff. His English attendant was
Osborne Marquis of Carmarthen, afterwards
the second Duke of Leeds. The marquis
was a naval officer of talent and distinction;
and this selection by the king was in every
way appropriate.

His visit was one of entire privacy, and
consequently without those courtly ceremonies
attending his arrival which usually
accompanied the visits of kings and emperors
and their ambassadors. He came to this
country from the Hague with Vice-Admiral
Mitchell, and arrived among us on Tuesday
the eleventh of January, sixteen hundred
and ninety-seven-eight. His arrival was
soon made public, but the privacy of his visit
was still as far as possible maintained. On
the day after his arrival he went incognito in
a hackney-coach to Kensington, to see William
the Third and his court at dinner, —
dining in public being then a custom still
lingering about royalty. On the following
day he called on the Marquis of Caermarthen
in Leicester Square, then an invalid, having
hurt his leg at the fire which, only a week before
the Czar arrived among us, ceased to make
Whitehall the palace of a sovereign. On the
Friday following he received a visit from King
William the Third. It was a private visit,
made by the king in the coach of the Earl of
Romney, the brother of Algernon Sidney, and
the handsome Sidney of De Grammont's Memoirs.
The Czar accompanied the king in
Lord Romney's coach as far as Whitehall,
where he stepped into his own carriage, and,
attended by the Guards, went in his robes to
the House of Peers. The penny-a-liner of
the time, from whom we derive these particulars,
adds: " His Czarish majesty was
there, it is said, incognito." But this I see
reason to doubt.

Peter the Great while in England was as
shy and unwilling to be seen as Peter the
Wild Boy. He was present at a ball given at
Kensington by King William in honour of
the birthday of the Princess Anne, afterwards
queen; or rather he may be said to have seen
the ball, for his shyness confined him to a small
room, from which he could see without being
seen. When he saw King William on his
throne in the House of Lords (a sight he had
expressed a particular wish to see), it was not
from the gallery nor from below the bar of
the house, but from a gutter in the house-top,
from which he was enabled to peep
through a window into the house. He retired
from this unpleasant point of view sooner,
it is said, than he intended; for he made so
ridiculous a figure (says Lord Dartmouth,
who was present) that neither king nor
peers could forbear laughing.

He was taken to all our London sights at
that time of any moment. To the lions and
armouries in the Tower; to the monuments
and wax figures in Westminster Abbey; to
Lambeth Palace; to the masquerade on the
last night of the Temple revels; and to the
two theatres in Drury Lane and Dorset
Gardens. He was chiefly attracted by the
Tower and the performances at Drury Lane.
The wild beasts and implements of war were
adapted to his rougher nature, while the
charms of a Miss Cross, the original Miss
Hoyden, in Vanbrugh's Relapse, and the
first actress who had Miss prefixed to her
name in playbills, were so engaging that the
rough Czar of Russia became enamoured of
her beauty. Of this Miss Cross the story is told
in the Spectator, that when she first arrived
in the Low Countries, she was not computed
to be so handsome as Madam van Brisket
by near half a ton. There is a fine old
mezzotinto which still preserves to us the
beautiful features that won the youthful
heart of Peter the Great.

He did not speak English, nor is he known
to have been at all desirous of learning it.
Few of his sayings have therefore been preserved.
Three, however, have reached us.
He told Admiral Mitchell that he considered
the condition of an English admiral happier
than that of a Czar of Russia. To King
William he observed, " If I were the adviser
of your majesty, I should counsel you to
remove your court to Greenwich, and to convert
St. James's once more into an hospital."
When in Westminster Hall, he inquired who
the busy gentlemen were in wigs and gowns;
and being told they were lawyers— " Lawyers!"
said he; " why, I have but two in my
whole dominions, and I design to hang
one of them the moment I get home."

The Marquis of Caermarthen was very
attentive to the wishes of the Czar. On
Tuesday last (records the penny-a-liner of the
period) the Marquis of Caermarthen treated
the Czar of Muscovy in a splendid manner.
He took him to Chatham to a launch,- and to
Spithead to a naval review. They went to
Spithead by the old Portsmouth road, and
returned the same way, resting at Godalming
for a day, where (at the King's Arms Inn, in
the High Street) they had two meals: breakfast
and dinner. The bills of fare on the
occasion have been preserved by Wanley, the
learned keeper of Lord Oxford's library.
They were thirteen at table (an uncomfortable
number), and twenty-one in all.
At breakfast they had half a sheep, a quarter
of lamb, ten pullets, twelve chickens, nine
quarts of brandy, six quarts of mulled wine,
seven dozen eggs, with salad in proportion.
At dinner they had five ribs of beef (weight
three stone), one sheep (weight, fifty-six
pounds three-quarters), a shoulder of lamb,
and a loin of veal boiled, eight pullets, eight
rabbits, two dozen and a half of sack, and
one dozen of claret. Here is a bill reminding
us by its locality and rabbits of Mary
Tofts, who has given an unhappy celebrity to
the pleasant little post-town of Godalming