ed from _somebody_, unless a
minister were omniscient--yet I soon had good reason to believe I was
not designed for the man, whatever the original sin could be that made
me incapable of such a trust, and which I now begin to suspect.
Without direct answers to my proposals, how could I know whether I
helped my friends elsewhere, or betrayed them contrary to my
intentions! and accordingly I have for some time been very cautious
and reserved. But if your lordship will enter into any measures with
me to procure _the good of my country_, I shall be more ready to
_serve_ your lordship in this, or in some becoming capacity, than any
other minister. They who confided to my management affairs of a higher
nature have found me exact as well as secret. My impenetrable
negociation at Vienna (hid under the pretence of curiosity) was not
only applauded by the prince that employed me, but also proportionably
rewarded. And here, my lord, give me leave to say that I have found
England miserably served abroad since this change; and our ministers
at home are sometimes as great strangers to the genius as to the
persons of those with whom they have to do. At ---- you have placed
the most unacceptable man in the world--one that lived in a scandalous
misunderstanding with the minister of the States at another court--one
that has been the laughing-stock of all courts, for his senseless
haughtiness and most ridiculous airs--and one that can never judge
aright, unless by accident, in anything."

The discarded, or the suspected _private monitor of the Minister_
warms into the tenderest language of political amour, and mourns their
rupture but as the quarrels of lovers.

"I cannot, from all these considerations, but in the nature of a
lover, complain of your present neglect, and be solicitous for your
future care." And again, "I have made use of the simile of a lover,
and as such, indeed, I thought fit, once for all, to come to a
thorough explanation, resolved, if my affection be not killed by your
unkindness, to become indissolubly yours."

Such is the nice artifice which colours, with a pretended love of his
country, the sordidness of the political intriguer, giving clean names
to filthy things. But this view of the political face of our _Janus_
is not complete till we discover the levity he could carry into
politics when not disguised by more pompous pretensions. I shall give
two extracts from letters composed in a different spirit.

"I am