Punctual to the appointed hour--for ambition is as punctual to appointments as love--Mr. Cunningham Falconer made his appearance at nine, and was presented by his father to Lord Oldborough, who received him, not with any show of gracious kindness, but as one who had been forced upon him by circumstances, and whom, for valuable considerations, he had bargained to take into his service. To try the young diplomatist’s talents, Lord Oldborough led him first to speak on the subject of the Tourville papers, then urged him on to the affairs of Germany, and the general interests and policy of the different courts of Europe. Trembling, and in agony for his son, the commissioner stood aware of the danger of the youth’s venturing out of his depth, aware also of the danger of showing that he dared not venture, and incapable of deciding between these equal fears: but soon he was re-assured by the calmness of his son. Cunningham, who had not so much information or capacity, but who had less sensibility than his father, often succeeded where his father’s timidity prognosticated failure. Indeed, on the present occasion, the care which the young diplomatist took not to commit himself, the dexterity with which he “helped himself by countenance and gesture,” and “was judicious by signs,” proved that he was well skilled in all those arts of _seeming wise_, which have been so well noted for use by “the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind.” Young though he was, Cunningham was quite sufficiently slow, circumspect, and solemn, to deserve to be ranked among those whom Bacon calls _Formalists_, “who do nothing, or little, very solemnly--who seem always to keep back somewhat; and when they know within themselves that they speak of what they do not know, would, nevertheless, seem to others to know that of which they may not well speak.” Lord Oldborough listened to whatever he said, and marked all that he did not say with an air of attentive composure, which, as Mr. Falconer thought, augured well for his son; but now and then there was, for scarcely a definable portion of time, an expression of humour in his lordship’s eye, a sarcastic smile, which escaped the commissioner’s observation, and which, even if he had observed, he could not, with his limited knowledge of Lord Oldborough’s character, have rightly interpreted. If his lordship had expressed his thoughts, perhaps, they might have been, though in words less quaint, nearly the same as those of the philosophic statesman, who says, “It is a ridiculous thing, and fit for a satire to persons of judgment, to see what shifts these _formalists_ have, and what prospectives to make superficies to seem body that hath depth and bulk.”