[64] See such a scene in his Diaries, p. 145, where for the printed date “Nov. 8th 1674” read “Nov. 8th 1671” (cp. his Account of the Greek Church, Pref. p. xi).
[65] Greek for priest: so the English in the Levant styled their parsons familiarly.
[66] Among the State Papers at the P.R.O. (Turkey, 19) there are several letters from him to Lord Arlington and his secretary Joseph Williamson. The one in which Covel congratulates this very mediocre gentleman (to whom he was a perfect stranger) on his elevation to the post of Principal Secretary of State, dated “Pera, Jan. 8th 1674-5,” breaks all the records of adulation known even to that sycophantic age.
[67] See [Appendix VII].
[68] See [Appendix VIII].
[69] My sketch of Dudley North is based on the Life of him by Roger North. It is amusing to find the biographer, who idealised and idolised his brother, holding him up as a pattern of truthfulness, probity, and honour, and at the same time relating all the above facts, without the least suspicion of the impression that some of them might convey to an unbiassed reader.
CHAPTER V
STRENUA INERTIA
We must now return to Sir John Finch.