ers of apology. The fact was, that his Lordship had left England
several weeks before, charged with a most knotty and difficult mission
to the Neapolitan court; and though the question involved the misery of
imprisonment to some of the persons concerned, and had called forth
more than one indignant appeal for information in the House, the great
diplomatist sauntered leisurely over the Continent, stopping to
chat with a Minister here, or dine with a reigning Prince there, not
suffering himself to be hurried by the business before him, or in any
way influenced by the petulant despatches and telegrams which F. O.
persistently sent after him.

One of his theories was, that in diplomacy everything should be done
in a sort of dignified languor that excluded all thought of haste or of
emergency. "Haste implies pressure," he would say, "and pressure means
weakness: therefore, always seem slow, occasionally even to indolence."

There was no denying it, he was a great master in that school of his art
which professed to baffle every effort at inquiry. No man ever wormed
a secret from him that he desired to retain, or succeeded in entrapping
him into any accidental admission. He could talk for hours with a
frankness that was positively charming. He could display a candor that
seemed only short of indiscretion; and yet, when you left him, you found
you had carried away nothing beyond some neatly turned aphorisms and a
few very harmless imitations of Machiavelian subtlety. Like certain men
who are fond of showing how they can snuff a candle with a bullet, he
was continually exhibiting his skill at fence, with the added assurance
that nothing would grieve him so ineffably as any display of his ability
at your expense.

He knew well that these subtleties were no longer the mode; that men no
longer tried to outwit each other in official intercourse; that the
time for such feats of smartness had as much gone by as the age of high
neckcloths and tight coats; but yet, as he adhered to the old dandyism
of the Regency in his dress, he maintained the old traditions of finesse
in his diplomacy, and could no more have been betrayed into a Truth than
he could have worn a Jim Crow. For that mere plodding, commonplace race
of men that now filled "the line" he had the most supreme contempt; men
who had never uttered a smart thing, or written a clever one. Diplomacy
without epigram was like a dinner without truffles. It was really
pleasant to hear