recisely from the fact of its being new and untried I need you,'
was the reply, and his denial was not accepted.

Refusal was impossible; and with all the reluctance a man consents to what
his convictions are more opposed to even than his reasons, Lord Danesbury
gave in, and accepted the viceroyalty of Ireland.

He was deferential to humility in listening to the great aims and noble
conceptions of the mighty Minister, and pledged himself--as he could safely
do--to become as plastic as wax in the powerful hands which were about to
remodel Ireland.

He was gazetted in due course, went over to Dublin, made a state entrance,
received the usual deputations, complimented every one, from the Provost of
Trinity College to the Chief Commissioner of Pipewater; praised the coast,
the corporation, and the city; declared that he had at length reached the
highest goal of his ambition; entertained the high dignitaries at dinner,
and the week after retired to his ancestral seat in North Wales, to recruit
after his late fatigue, and throw off the effects of that damp, moist
climate which already he fancied had affected him.

He had been sworn in with every solemnity of the occasion; he had sat on
the throne of state, named the officers of his household, made a master of
the horse, and a state steward, and a grand chamberlain; and, till stopped
by hearing that he could not create ladies and maids of honour, he fancied
himself every inch a king; but now that he had got over to the tranquil
quietude of his mountain home, his thoughts went away to the old channels,
and he began to dream of the Russians in the Balkan and the Greeks in
Thessaly. Of all the precious schemes that had taken him months to weave,
what was to come of them _now_? How and with what would his successor,
whoever he should be, oppose the rogueries of Sumayloff or the chicanery of
Ignatief? what would any man not trained to the especial watchfulness of
this subtle game know of the steps by which men advanced? Who was to watch
Bulgaria and see how far Russian gold was embellishing the life of Athens?
There was not a hungry agent that lounged about the Russian embassy in
Greek petticoats and pistols whose photograph the English ambassador did
not possess, with a biographical note at the back to tell the fellow's name
and birthplace, what he was meant for, and what he cost. Of every interview
of his countrymen with the Grand-Vizier he was kept fully informed, and
whether