moves me to indignation that two respectable nations, naturally made for friends, should take to cutting one another's throats for a paltry island, not better than Bagshot Heath, and which if it were merged in the ocean, would be no loss to either. Let it be with nations as with individuals: if ye _can_ help it, don't quarrel at all--'tis more conformant to your social nature; but if ye _must_ quarrel, for heaven's sake let it not be for trifles, for objects of the lowest contempt.' But when this Spanish difficulty was happily got over, to the general satisfaction of the country, which, he says, 'does not wish a war, whatever wicked patriots may endeavour;' he adds, 'None make such audacious use of the word _people_ as these do--a word which often means no more than themselves, and their ignorant or interested followers.' His son, the first Earl of Malmesbury, was perhaps the ablest diplomatist whom England has produced; certainly he was second to none in the long roll of distinguished men who have served the State as ambassadors and ministers in foreign countries. There is an anecdote of his boyhood, narrated by his relative Lord Shaftesbury, which perhaps may be taken as an indication of the courage and self-reliance which the youth was afterwards to display in a very different form. As his mother was walking one day with some friends before her house in the Close at Salisbury, she descried some one climbing up the spire of the cathedral; and having obtained a glass the better to observe so perilous a feat, she immediately dropped it, exclaiming, 'Good heavens! it is James!' The astonished lady had discovered her only son upon the apex of the tallest steeple in Great Britain. Of his life at Oxford, he himself (taking a retrospect in 1800) gives a poor account, either as regards learning or amusements. He says that the set of men with whom he lived were very pleasant, but very idle fellows. 'Our life was an imitation of high life in London: luckily, drinking was not the fashion; but what we did drink was claret, and we had our regular round of evening card parties, to the great annoyance of our finances. It has often been a matter of surprise to me how so many of us [Charles Fox, Lord Auckland, Bishop North, and others] made our way so well in the world, and so creditably.' From Oxford he went to the University of Leyden; and as he became a favourite with our Minister at the Hague, young Harris had ample opportunities of mingling in the court life, and also of studying carefully the political affairs of Holland--a knowledge which he was afterwards destined to turn to most valuable account. In the following year (1767) he made a journey to Prussia, Poland, and Paris; and in 1768, although only in his twenty-second year, he was appointed secretary of embassy at the Court of Madrid. In this post, an opportunity arising, the youth greatly distinguished himself; for, having been temporarily left chargé