me; and I shall always be thankful to you for any intelligence or information that any of you may be pleased to give me.’ Mr Hammond did not appear at all surprised at my answer; and I shall always respect him for what he said upon hearing it. His words were nearly these:--‘Well, I must say that I think you take the _honourable_ course, and I most sincerely wish it may also be the _profitable_ one.’ I ought not, upon this occasion, to omit to say that I always understood that Lord Grenville, who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was not one of those who approved of the baseness and dependence of the press.” He also ventured to remind Mr. Hammond “of the fable of the wolf and the _mastiff_, the latter of which, having one night, when loose, rambled into a wood, met the former all gaunt and shagged, and said to him, ‘Why do you lead this sort of life? See how fat and sleek I am! Come home with me and live as I do, dividing your time between eating and sleeping.’ The ragged friend having accepted the kind offer, they then trotted on together till they got out of the wood, when the wolf, assisted by the light of the moon, the beams of which had been intercepted by the trees, spied a _crease_, a little _mark_, round the neck of the mastiff. ‘What is your fancy,’ said he, ‘for making that mark round your neck?’ ‘Oh!’ said the other, ‘it is only the mark of my collar that my master ties me up with.’ ‘Ties you up!’ exclaimed the wolf, stopping short at the same time; ‘give me my ragged hair, my gaunt belly, and my _freedom_;’--and, so saying, he trotted back to the wood.” Opportunities for reflecting upon the comparative states of dependence and independence crowded apace. He could scarcely turn, among his new circle of friends, without discovering some new Government parasite, some new candidate for ministerial favour, some new office-hunter or aspiring sinecurist. Mr. Pitt disdained the society of newspaper-people, but was only too willing to pay them for their praises. And it must not be left unnoticed that the practice of liberally rewarding this class of writers has often been justified by circumstances. The case in point, viz. the fight which was going on against democracy, required that the enemy should be fought with his own weapons; only it very unfortunately happened that all the talent was on the other side, and, where quality was lacking, the fight must needs be kept up with the aid of gold and silver. Mr. Cobbett would, indeed, have been worth buying, if his price could have been named; while there was a Paine, or a Thelwall, or a Godwin to be withstood. The following brilliant and humorous passage of Cobbett’s, written in his old age, will complete our illustration of this topic:--