r, in
senates, or in the field. I may be prejudiced in favour of the choice
which I made so long since, and which I have never found reason to
repent. But I have not the slightest wish to prejudice any one in its
favour. There is no profession which more requires a peculiar mind;
contentment, with whatever consciousness of being overlooked; patience,
with whatever hopelessness of success; labour, for its own sake; and
learning, with few to share, few to admire, and fewer still to
understand."

"If my father had lived," said I, "it was his intention to have tried my
chance in diplomacy."

"Probably enough; for he had figured in that line himself. I remember
him secretary of embassy at Vienna. Perhaps you will scarcely believe,
that I, too, have had my experience on the subject? Accident once made
me an attache to our envoy at Naples. The life is an easy one. Idleness
was never more perfectly reduced to a system, than among the half dozen
functionaries to whom the interests of the British empire were entrusted
in the capital of the Lazzaroni. As the Frenchman said of the Academy,
'We had nothing to do, and we did it.'"

"Italy," said I, "is the land of pleasure, and the Lazzaroni are its
philosophers, but one cannot sleep like them in the face of day, and all
day long. Let what will come, I have no desire to be a weed on the
shore."

"No; we had our occupations; for we had the attendance on the court
days--a business of as much formality, as if the fate of mankind
depended on it. Then we had the attendance on the opera at night, a
matter nearly as tiresome. The post from England reached Naples but once
a-week, and scarcely once a month conveyed any intelligence that was
worth the postage. But, if politics were out of the question, we had
negotiation in abundance; for we carried on the whole diplomacy of the
opera-house in London, engaged _primo tenores_, and settled the rival
claims of _prima donnas_; gave our critical opinions on the merits of
dancers worthy of appearing before the British _cognoscenti_; and
dispatched poets, ballet-masters, and scene-painters, to our managers,
with an activity worthy of the purest patriotism. What think you of the
bar?"

"I have no head for its study; and no heart for its employment."

"It leads more rapidly to rank than any other profession under the sun;
profit beyond counting, and a peerage. Those are no bad things."

"Both capital, if one could be secure of them. But they t