He could not, do all that he would, disabuse himself of a very low estimate of men and their motives. He did not slide into this philosophy, as certain indolent people do, just to save them the trouble of discriminating; he did not acquire it by the hard teachings of adversity. No; it came upon him slowly and gradually, the fruit, as he believed, of calm judgment and much reflection upon life. As little did he accept it willingly; he even labored against the conviction: but, strive as he might, there it was, and there it would remain. His fixed impression was, that in every circumstance and event in life there was always a _dessous des cartes_,--a deeper game concealed beneath the surface,--and that it was a mere question of skill and address how much of this penetrated through men's actions. If this theory unravelled many a tangled web of knavery to him, it also served to embarrass and confuse him in situations where inferior minds had never recognized a difficulty! How much ingenuity did he expend to detect what had no existence! How wearily did he try for soundings where there was no bottom! Through the means of the Princess he had learned--what some very wise heads do not yet like to acknowledge--that the feeling of the despotic governments towards England was very different from what it had been at the close of the great war with Napoleon. They had grown more dominant and exacting, just as we were becoming every hour more democratic. To maintain our old relations with them, therefore, on the old footing, would be only to involve ourselves in continual difficulty, with a certainty of final failure; and the only policy that remained was to encourage the growth of liberal opinions on the Continent, out of which new alliances might be formed, to recompense us for the loss of the old ones. There is a story told of a certain benevolent prince, whose resources were, unhappily, not commensurate with his good intentions, and whose ragged retinue wearied him with entreaties for assistance. “Be of good cheer,” said he, one day, “I have ordered a field of flax to be sown, and you shall all of you have new shirts.” Such were pretty much the position and policy of England. Out of our crop of Constitutionalism we speculated on a rich harvest, to be afterwards manufactured for our use and benefit. We leave it to deeper heads to say if the result has been all that we calculated on, and, asking pardon for such digression, we join Sir Horace once more.