Wogan's poetry, however, was of quite a different kind, and had Gaydon
looked at it a trifle more closely, he would have experienced some
relief. It was all about the sorrows and miseries of his unfortunate
race and the cruel oppression of England. England owed all its great men
to Ireland and was currish enough never to acknowledge the debt. Wogan
always grew melancholy and grave-faced on that subject when he had the
leisure to be idle. He thought bitterly of the many Irish officers sent
into exile and killed in the service of alien countries; his sense of
injustice grew into a passionate sort of despair, and the despair
tumbled out of him in sonorous Latin verse written in the Virgilian
measure. He wrote a deal of it during this month of waiting, and a long
while afterwards sent an extract to Dr. Swift and received the great
man's compliments upon its felicity, as anyone may see for himself in
the doctor's correspondence.
How the month passed for James Stuart in Rome may be partly guessed from
a letter which was brought to Wogan by Michael Vezozzi, the Chevalier's
body-servant.
The letter announced that King George of England had offered the
Princess Clementina a dowry of £100,000 if she would marry the Prince of
Baden, and that the Prince of Baden with a numerous following was
already at Innspruck to prosecute his suit.
"I do not know but what her Highness," he wrote, "will receive the best
consolation for her sufferings on my account if she accepts so
favourable a proposal, rather than run so many hazards as she must needs
do as my wife. For myself, I have been summoned most urgently into Spain
and am travelling thither on the instant."
Wogan could make neither head nor tail of the letter. Why should the
King go to Spain at the time when the Princess Clementina might be
expected at Bologna? It was plain that he did not expect Wogan would
succeed. He was disheartened. Wogan came to the conclusion that there
was the whole meaning of the letter. He was, however, for other reasons
glad to receive it.
"It is very well I have this letter," said he, "for until it came I had
no scrap of writing whatever to show either to her Highness or, what I
take to be more important, to her Highness's mother," and he went back
to his poetry.
Misset and his wife, on the other hand, drove forward to the town of
Colmar, where they bought a travelling carriage and the necessaries for
the journey. Misset left his wife at Colmar, but returned every
twenty-four hours himself. They made the excuse that Misset had won a
deal of money at play and was minded to lay it out in presents to his
wife. The stratagem had a wonderful success at Schlestadt, especially
amongst the ladies, who could do nothing day and night but praise in
their husbands' hearing so excellent a mode of disposing of one's
winnings.