climates in which we reside, the thing is otherwise.  The institution of mutes is unknown to us.  The lips of our pages have never been inured to the wholesome discipline of the padlock.  They are as loquacious, and blab as much as other men.  You know, my lord, that I am fond of illustrating the principles I lay down by the recital of facts.  The last, and indeed the only time that I ever entered the metropolis, I remember, as my barber was removing the hair from my nether lip:—­My barber had all that impertinent communicativeness that is incident to the gentlemen of his profession; he assured me, that he had seen that morning one of the pages of the back-stairs, who declared to him, upon the word of a man of honour, that he had that moment admitted a certain nobleman by a private door to the presence of his master; that the face of the noble lord was perfectly familiar to him, and that he had let him in some fifty times in the course of the past six months.

“How silly is all this!” added the page; “and how glad should I be”, licking his lips, “that it were but an opera girl or a countess!  And yet my mistress is the very best mistress that ever I see!” Oh this was poor, and showed a pitiful ambition_ in the man that did it!_ I will swear, my lord, that the nobleman who could thus have been betrayed, must have been a thick-headed fellow, and fit for no one public office, not even for that of turnspit of his majesty’s kitchen![A]

[Footnote A:  Vide Burke’s Speech upon Oeconomy. ]

My lord, if you would escape that rock, upon which this statesman terminated his political career, ever while you live make use of bribery.  Let the pages finger your cash, let them drink your health in a glass of honest claret, and let them chuckle over the effects of your lordship’s munificence.  I know that you will pour forth many a pathetic complaint over the money that is drawn off by this copious receiver, but believe the wisest man that now exists, when he assures you, that it is well bestowed.  Your lordship’s bounty to myself has sometimes amounted to near ten pounds in the course of a twelvemonth.  That drain, my lord, is stopped.  I shall receive from you no more.  Let then the expence, which you once incurred for my sake, be henceforth diverted to this valuable purpose.

I believe, my lord, that this is all the improvement that can be made upon the head of pages.  I think we can scarcely venture upon the expedient that would otherwise be admirable, of these interviews being carried on without the intervention of any such impertinent fellows, from whom one is ever in danger, without the smallest notice, of having it published at St. James’s-Market, and proclaimed from the statue at Charing-Cross.  If however you should think this expedient adviseable, I would recommend it to you not to mention it to your gracious master.  Courts are so incumbered and hedged in with ceremony, that the members of them are always prone to imagine