The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul 28.1.4

28.1.4

for in that point this King and people are very pregnant and scrupulous, full of iealousie and trickes. For that, notwithstanding the King conceited himselfe, yet by the passages I will deliuer my opinion of this conceit, which (knowing I had neuer seene the Picture, and by Ignorance was guiltlesse) hee would not presse hard vpon me ; but I suppose he vnderstood the Morall to be a scorne of Asiatiques, whom the naked Satyre represented, and was of the same complexion, and not vnlike ; who, being held by Venus, a white woman, by the Nose, it seemed that shee led him Captiue. Yet he reuealed no discontent, but rould them vp, and told me he would accept him also as a Present : for the Saddle and some other small Toyes, he would fit me with a gift to his Sonne, to whom he would write according to promise, so effectually that I should need no Sollicitor in many [my ?] businesses; with as many complements, excuses, professions and protestations as could come from any very Noble or very base minde in either extreame. Yet he left not, but enquired what meant the figures of the beasts, and whether they were sent me to giue to him. I had vnderstood they were very ridiculous and ill shaped ordinary creatures, the varnish off, and no beauty other then a lumpe of wood. I was really ashamed, and answered: It was not my fault: those that seized them must beare the affront: but that they were not entended to him, but sent to shew the formes of certaine beasts with vs.