and most definite evidence to a man’s disadvantage that can be conceived.  It may easily be traced.  It can scarcely be denied.  The sense of it cannot readily be explained away.—­It must be confessed there is something in this; and yet, my lord, I am by all means for a letter.  A voice may often be overheard.  I remember my poor old goody used to say, (heaven rest her soul!) That walls had ears.  There are some lords, my dear friend, that can never think of being alone.  Bugbears are ever starting up in their prolific imagination, and they cannot be for a moment in the dark, without expecting the devil to fly away with them.  They have some useful pimp, some favourite toad-eater, that is always at their elbow.  Ever remember, so long as you live, that toad-eaters are treacherous friends.  Beside, it would be a little suspicious, to see your lordship’s carriage making a regular tour from door to door among the lords of the bed-chamber.  And I would by no means have Pinchbeck’s dark-lanthorn brought into common use.  Consider, my lord, when that is worn out, you will not know where to get such another.

A letter may be disguised in various ways.  You would certainly never think of signing your name.  You might have it transcribed by your secretary.  But then this would be to commit your safety and your fame to the keeping of another.  No, my lord, there are schemes worth a hundred of this.  Consider the various hands in which a letter may be written.  There is the round hand, and the Italian hand, the text hand, and the running hand.  You may form your letters upon the Roman or the Italic model.  Your billet may he engrossed.  You may employ the German text or the old primero.  If I am not mistaken, your lordship studied all these when you were a boy for this very purpose.  Yes, my lord, I may be in the wrong, but I am confidently of opinion, that this is absolutely the first, most important, and most indispensible accomplishment of a statesman.  I would forgive him, if he did not know a cornet from an ensign, I would forgive him, if he thought Italy a province of Asia Minor.  But not to write primero! the nincompoop! the numbscul!

If it were not that the persons with whom your lordship has to correspond, can some of them barely spell their native tongue, I would recommend to your lordship the use of cyphers.  But no, you might as well write the language of Mantcheux Tartars.  For consider, your letters may be intercepted.  It is true, they have not many perils to undergo.  They are not handed from post-house to post-house.  There are no impertinent office-keepers to inspect them by land.  There are no privateers to capture them by sea.  But, my lord, they have perils to encounter, the very recollection of which makes me tremble to the inmost fibre of my frame.  They are ale-houses, my lord.  Think for a moment of the clattering of porter-pots, and the scream of my goodly hostess.  Imagine that the blazing fire smiles through the impenetrable window, and that the kitchen shakes with the peals of laughter.  These are temptations, my lord, that no mortal porter can withstand.  When the unvaried countenance of his gracious sovereign smiles invitation upon him from the weather beaten sign-post, what loyal heart but must be melted into compliance.