hilosophedom croak.

The misery is, such a time cannot last! Squandering, and Payment by Loan
is no way to choke a Deficit. Neither is oil the substance for quenching
conflagrations;--but, only for assuaging them, not permanently! To the
Nonpareil himself, who wanted not insight, it is clear at intervals,
and dimly certain at all times, that his trade is by nature temporary,
growing daily more difficult; that changes incalculable lie at no great
distance. Apart from financial Deficit, the world is wholly in such a
new-fangled humour; all things working loose from their old fastenings,
towards new issues and combinations. There is not a dwarf jokei, a cropt
Brutus'-head, or Anglomaniac horseman rising on his stirrups, that
does not betoken change. But what then? The day, in any case, passes
pleasantly; for the morrow, if the morrow come, there shall be counsel
too. Once mounted (by munificence, suasion, magic of genius) high enough
in favour with the Oeil-de-Boeuf, with the King, Queen, Stock-Exchange,
and so far as possible with all men, a Nonpareil Controller may hope
to go careering through the Inevitable, in some unimagined way, as
handsomely as another.

At all events, for these three miraculous years, it has been expedient
heaped on expedient; till now, with such cumulation and height, the pile
topples perilous. And here has this world's-wonder of a Diamond Necklace
brought it at last to the clear verge of tumbling. Genius in that
direction can no more: mounted high enough, or not mounted, we must fare
forth. Hardly is poor Rohan, the Necklace-Cardinal, safely bestowed in
the Auvergne Mountains, Dame de Lamotte (unsafely) in the Salpetriere,
and that mournful business hushed up, when our sanguine Controller once
more astonishes the world. An expedient, unheard of for these hundred
and sixty years, has been propounded; and, by dint of suasion (for
his light audacity, his hope and eloquence are matchless) has been got
adopted,--Convocation of the Notables.

Let notable persons, the actual or virtual rulers of their districts,
be summoned from all sides of France: let a true tale, of his Majesty's
patriotic purposes and wretched pecuniary impossibilities, be suasively
told them; and then the question put: What are we to do? Surely to adopt
healing measures; such as the magic of genius will unfold; such as, once
sanctioned by Notables, all Parlements and all men must, with more or
less reluctance, submit to.

C