can be no mistake. Talleyrand,
Nesselrode, Metternich, Lord Whitworth, and several more, have too
long given the tone to this peculiar walk to admit of any error
concerning it; however, your little folk will not be denied the
pleasures of their great acquaintance. They will have their diplomacy,
and they will be laughed at: look at the Yankees. There is not a
country in Europe, there is not a state however small, there is not a
Coburgism with three thousand inhabitants and three companies of
soldiers, where _they_ haven't a minister resident with
plenipotentiary powers extending to every relation political and
commercial, although all the while the Yankees would be sorely
puzzled to point out on the map the _locale_ of their illustrious
ally, and the Germans no less so to find out a reason for their
embassy. Happily on this score, the very bone and marrow of diplomacy
is consulted, and secrecy is inviolable; for, as your American knows
no other tongue save that spoken on the Alleghanies, he keeps his own
counsel and theirs also.

Have you never in the hall of some large country house, cast your eye,
on leave-taking, at the strange and motley crew of servants awaiting
their masters--some well fed and handsomely clothed, with that look of
reflected importance my lord's gentleman so justly wears; others, in
graver, but not less respectable raiment, have that quiet and
observant demeanour so characteristic of a well-managed household.
While a third class, strikingly unlike the other two, wear their
livery with an air of awkwardness and constraint, blushing at
themselves even a deeper colour than the scarlet of their breeches.
They feel themselves in masquerade--they were at the plough but
yesterday, though they are in powder now. With the innate
consciousness of their absurdity, they become fidgetty and uneasy, and
would give the world for "a row" to conceal the defaults of their
breeding. Just so, your petty "diplomate" suffers agony in all the
quiet intercourse of life. The limited opportunities of small states
have circumscribed his information. He is not a man of the world, nor
is he a political character, for he represents nothing; nothing,
therefore, can save him from oblivion or contempt, save some political
convulsion where any meddler may become prominent; he has thus a bonus
on disturbance: so long as the company behave discreetly, he must stay
in his corner, but the moment they smash the lamps and shy the
deca