But secrecy is the very essence of deep and insidious conduct.  I would advise your lordship to bring even your own name into question, as little as possible.  My lord Chesterfield compares a statesman, who has been celebrated for influence during the greatest part of the present reign, to the ostrich.  The brain of an ostrich, your lordship will please to observe, though he be the largest of birds, may very easily be included in the compass of a nut-shell.  When pursued by the hunters, he is said to bury his head in the sand, and having done this, to imagine that he cannot be discovered by the keenest search.  Do not you, my lord, imitate the manners of the ostrich.  Believe me, they are ungraceful; and, if maturely considered, will perhaps appear to be a little silly.

There is a contrivance that has occurred to me, which, if it were not accompanied with a circumstance somewhat out of date, appears to me in the highest degree admirable.  Suppose you were to treat the lords of the bedchamber with a sight of St. Paul’s cathedral?  There is a certain part of it of a circular form, commonly called the whispering gallery.  You have probably heard, that by the uncommon echo of this place, the weakest sound that can possibly be articulated, is increased by that time it has gone half round, into a sound, audible and strong.  Your lordship, with your flock of geese about you, would probably be frolic and gamesome.  You may easily contrive to scatter them through the whole circumference of this apartment.  Of a sudden, you will please to turn your face to the wall, and utter in a solemn tone the royal opinion.  Every body will be at a loss from whence the mandate proceeds.  Some of your companions, more goose-like than the rest, will probably imagine it a voice from heaven.  The sentence must be two or three times repeated at proper intervals, before you can contrive to have each of the lords in turn at the required distance.  This will demand a considerable degree of alertness and agility.  But alertness and agility are qualities by which your lordship is so eminently distinguished, that I should have very few apprehensions about your success.  Meanwhile it will be proper to have a select number of footmen stationed at the door of the gallery, armed with smelling-bottles.  Some of your friends, I suspect, would be so much alarmed at this celestial and ghost-like phenomenon, as to render this part of the plan of singular service.

But after all, I am apprehensive that many of the noble lords to whom I allude, would be disgusted at the very mention of any thing so old-fashioned and city-like, as a visit to this famous cathedral.  And even if that were not the case, it is proper to be provided with more than one scheme for the execution of so necessary a purpose.  The question is of no contemptible magnitude, between instructions viva voce, and a circular letter.  In favour of the first it may be said, that a letter is the worst