16 The British Embassies, Ambassadors, and their Salaries. [JAN. 



of similar faculties; and a few years ago the Italians were at once 

 delighted and astonished by seeing his lordship select for his fellow- 

 diplomatist, an English music-master. The thing is beyond question. 

 The man had been a public teacher of singing in London, had even 

 exhibited his faculties at Vauxhall, and was known in the concerts about 

 town. The situation suited the music-master : if the pen was stubborn 

 in his touch, the piano at least was responsive ; and he throve accord- 

 ingly. 



It is worth while to pursue the fortunes of this lucky manipulator 

 of crotchets and quavers. After a few years' residence at the embassy, 

 a foolish Irish countess came in his way ; she was a widow, and with a 

 large jointure. The man of diplomacy and pianos fell desperately 

 in love with her at first sight, as was natural. The lady had something 

 of the ambassador's taste, and thought that a mastery of the keys must 

 comprehend all perfection. They married, and the secretary is now 

 master of the countess, and ten thousands a year. 



This is said in no disparagement of the man : he was a very well- 

 behaved, well-looking, and simple performer on the piano. Nor is it 

 said in the slightest disparagement of my Lord Burghersh, who, though 

 the most luckless composer on this side of the Styx, is yet a very honest 

 and well-behaved man, for an ambassador, and in Italy too ; and is by no 

 means a contemptible performer on the piano. 



But the blame is not his ; if he scribbles the most unmanageable 

 harmonies from morning till night, he has only to say, and with 

 acknowledged truth, that he has nothing else to do ; that he might have 

 done much worse things, and that, compared to the general life of the 

 ladies and gentlemen of all complexions round him, the most atrocious 

 discords, or the most illegitimate counter-point, may be a virtue. 



The subject is exhaustless ; but we must close. Of course, no one 

 will deny the importance of having agents at the leading foreign courts. 

 But those agencies ought to be conducted exclusively by sensible men, 

 and at the rate which would be the fair remuneration for a sensible man, 

 not pampered by the ridiculous extravagance of English high life. Let 

 us adopt the American standard in both, and perhaps we shall have our 

 public business done as well as the American. We must " broom 

 away," as Napoleon used to say, the whole insect brood of noble second 

 sons, and so forth ; and if we deprive noble lords of the opportunity of 

 feeding their families at the public expense in this quarter, we may 

 safely leave it to the peerage-instinct for the national money, to take 

 care that they shall not starve for want of a salary in some more 

 domestic shape. 



But the grand evil is, the ruinous and profitless waste that pervades 

 every part of the system. Of the expenditure of the inordinate sum of 

 300,0001. a-year, two-thirds might be returned to the public, and with 

 no less practical advantage than financial. We should have the business 

 not merely done, with the relief of an enormous burthen ; but with the 

 change of activity for indolence, and talent for hereditary blockheadism. 

 The race of buffoons would be put out; and if fewer returned to us, 

 degrading our manners by the fopperies of the Continent, and infecting 

 our morals by their vices ; we might be reconciled to the loss of those 

 " gay creatures of the element," those diamond snuff-box-men, those 

 " dulcissimi rerum," by the recollection that we escaped an infinite mass 

 of blunders, and saved TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS A-YEAR 

 besides. 



