mediocrity, and of the failures of almost every man of brilliant
faculties. The latter fly too high, and thus make no way along the
ground. They always alight on the same spot; while the weaker, but
wiser, have put one foot before another, and have pushed on. Sheridan,
at this moment, has no more weight in the House than he had within a
twelvemonth after taking his seat. Fox, with the most powerful
abilities, is looked on simply as a magnificent speechmaker. His only
weight is in his following. If his party fell from him to-morrow, all
his eloquence would find its only echo in bare walls, and its only
panegyric in street-placards. Pitt is a man of business, complete,
profound, indefatigable. If you have his talents, copy his prudence;
if you have not, still copy his prudence--make it the interest of men
to consult you, and you must be ultimately successful."

I laughingly observed, that the "Nullum numen abest" had been honoured
with an unexpected illustration.

"Sir," said the minister, fixing his keen grey eye upon me, "if Eton
had never taught any other maxim, it would have been well worth all
the tail of its longs and shorts. It is the concentration of wisdom,
personal, private, and public; the polar star of politics, as probably
you would say; or, as in my matter-of-fact style should express it,
the fingerpost of the road to fortune."

But there never was a time when all the maxims of political wisdom
were more required. A long succession of disasters had already broken
down the outworks of the continental thrones. The renown of the great
armies of Germany was lost; the discipline of the Prussian, and the
steady intrepidity of the Austrian, had been swept before the wild
disorder of the French. Men began to believe that the art of war had
been hitherto unknown, and that the enemy had at length mastered the
exclusive secret. Monarchy came to be regarded as only another name
for weakness; and civilized order for national decrepitude. A kind of
superstition stole over the minds of men; the signs of European
overthrow were discovered in every change; calculations were calmly
raised on the chances of existence to the most powerful dynasties; the
age of crowns was in the move, the age of republics was in the
ascendant; and while the feebler minds looked with quiescent awe on
what they regarded as the inevitable tide of events, the more daring
regarded the prospect as a summons to prepare for their part of the
spoil. T