text:  What can be more probable than that the fineness of the finest season within memory the occurrence of a moment of leisure in the life of a monarch ruling a fifth of the habitable globe roused the curiosity of an intelligent mind excited like that of his great ancestor Peter by a wish to see the national improvements of the great country of engineering shipbuilding and tunnelling; perhaps with Ascot races--the most showy exhibition of the most beautiful horses in the world--to wind up the display might tempt a man of vigorous frame and active spirit to gallop across Europe and give seven brief days to England! An additional conjecture has been proposed by the papers presumed to be best informed in cabinet secrets; that this rapid journey has had for its distinct purpose the expression of the Imperial scorn for the miserable folly and malignant coxcombry of the pamphlet on the French navy; which has excited so much contempt in England and so much boasting in France and so much surprise and ridicule every where else in Europe