Читать книгу Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681 онлайн

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To the Ambassador also the Rev. John was very acceptable. Going everywhere, seeing everybody, and hearing everything, the divine had much to say that was useful for a diplomat to know, particularly about Greek Patriarchs, Latin friars and their quarrels; a subject, as we shall see hereafter, by no means foreign to an English ambassador’s business in those days. Precluded by his dignity from crossing the water in person, Sir John could employ the Rev. John as a channel of communication between Pera and the Phanar. And the Rev. John, as one gathers from his own voluminous writings, was versatile enough to act as the friend of all contending parties in turn, according to the exigencies of the political vane, far too worldly-wise to let consistency interfere with preferment. For Covel, though content with the present, never forgot the future; he was not less anxious to get on than Rycaut, only built on softer, more supple and sinuous lines, he glided where the other stumbled.ssss1 Altogether an astonishingly brisk, jovial, garrulous parson of six-and-thirty this, full of harmless little vanities, human levities, and healthy little profanities.