ng from a precipice; and that, like him, all that you
would have gained by it would be broken limbs for life. If the fellow
had kept to his slack-rope and his stage, he would have been safe
enough, and gained some applause besides."

"But what is to be done in the House, without some hazard of the
kind?"

"Wrong--quite wrong. A great deal is to be done. Take myself for the
example. You see where I am, and yet I never made a _speech_ in my
life. From the beginning of my career, I never allowed any one to look
for any thing of the kind from me; and the consequence was, that by
some I was regarded as a much shrewder personage than I ever believed
myself to be; and by others was thought to know a great deal more than
I ever acquired."

"But will this account for the rapid distinctions of your public
life?"

"Perfectly, so far as they have gone. I obtained ministerial
confidence on the essential merits of being a safe man--one who made
no ambitious attempts to lower the crests of those above me. I escaped
the jealousy of those below me by adopting the style which mediocrity
assumes by nature. I was thus like the senior subaltern in a marching
regiment--I wore the same uniform with the colonel, and went through
the same exercise with the ensign. The field-officers knew that I
would not tread upon their heels, and every subaltern wished to see my
promotion, as a step to his own."

My official duties, the mere entrance into office, occupied me
laboriously for a while, and I felt all the habitual difficulties of
my noviciate. It had been fully my intention to follow the advice of
my experienced friend, and leave the hour which was to call for my
exertions in the House to the chances of the time. But that time came
more rapidly than I had expected. The public mind was fevered, hour by
hour; the news from the Continent was more and more startling; the
successes of the Republican armies had assumed a shape which our
desponding politicians regarded as invincibility, and which our
factious ones pronounced to be the ruin of Europe. The cabinet offered
only the prospect of a melancholy struggle. But six months before, it
had stood, strong as a citadel erected by the national hands, and
garrisoned by the spirit of the empire. It still stood, but it stood
dismantled; there were evident breaches in its walls, and the
fugitives of Opposition, rallying with the hope of success, advanced
again to the storm, headed by their great leade