The Ambassador Floored

Coleridge, in his Table Talk, truly says, "What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning, and a few other interesting men. Just before dinner, Lord —— called on Frere, and asked him to dinner. From the moment of his entry, he began to talk to the whole party, and in French, all of us being genuine English; and I was told his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France and had seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war. Of none of those things did he say a word; but went on, sometimes in English, and sometimes in French, gabbling about cookery, dress, and the like. At last he paused for a little, and I said a few words, remarking how a great image may be reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the Deluge, and the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost, and the ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood:—

"'And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine as that chew the cud,
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow.'

"Hereupon, Lord —— resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great majesty, and filled up the foreground. 'Ah! no doubt, my Lord,' said Canning; 'your elephants, wise fellows! stayed behind to pack up their trunks!' This floored the ambassador for half-an-hour."