My lord, there are a variety of things necessary to absolute secrecy.  There is nothing more inconvenient to a political character than that gross and unmanageable quantity of flesh and blood that fortune has decreed that every mortal should carry about with him.  The man who is properly initiated in the arcana of a closet, ought to be able to squeeze himself through a key hole, and, whenever any impertinent Marplot appears to blast him, to change this unwieldy frame into the substance of the viewless winds.  How often must a theoretical statesman like myself, have regretted that incomparable invention, the ring of Gyges!  How often must he have wished to be possessed of one of those diabolical forms, described by Milton, which now were taller than the pole, and anon could shrink into the compass of an atom!

But I forget the characteristic of my profession.  It is not ours, my lord, to live in air-built castles, and to deal in imaginary hypotheses.  On the contrary, we are continually talking of the weakness and the frailty of humanity.  Does any man impeach one of our body of bribery and corruption?  We confess that these practices may seem to run counter with the fine-spun systems of morality; but this is our constant apology, human affairs can be no otherwise managed.  Does any man suggest the most beautiful scheme of oeconomy, or present us with the most perfect model of liberty?  We turn away with a sneer, and tell him that all this is plausible and pretty; but that we do not concern ourselves with any thing but what is practicable.

In conformity to these ideas, I beg leave, my lord, to recal the fantastic wishes that have just escaped me.  To be corporeal is our irrevocable fate, and we will not waste our time in fruitlessly accusing it.  My lord, I have one or two little expedients to offer to you, which, though they do not amount to a perfect remedy in this case, will yet, I hope, prove a tolerable substitute for those diabolical forms of which I was talking.

I need not put your lordship in mind how friendly to such practices as ours, is the cover of darkness, and how convenient those little machines commonly called back-stairs.  I dare say even your lordship, however inconsequently you may often conduct yourself, would scarcely think of mid-day as the most proper season of concealment, or the passing through a crowded levee, the most natural method of entering the royal closet unobserved.

But, my lord, you will please to recollect, that there are certain attendants upon the person of the sovereign whom I find classed in that epitome of political wisdom, the Red Book, under the name of pages.  Most wise is the institution, (and your lordship will observe that I am not now deviating into the regions of fable) which is common to all the Eastern courts, of having these offices filled by persons, who, upon peril of their life, may not, in any circumstances whatsoever, utter a word.  But unfortunately in the western