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Embassies an # Foreign Courts : a History of Diplomacy . By the Royito Englishman . London : Eoutledge and Co . ( 1 st Notice . )—Certain periodical cleansings are as necessary for our national , as for our domestic well-being . It is true they occasion much dust , ill temper , and fatigue ; nobody would be willingly " at home" upon a washing
day . Moreover , vanity , which was bursting with plethora in the fancied amplitude of possession , wanes towards marasmus , when we discover " a hole in our best coat , " a crack so extensive in our most valuable cabinet as to defy farther splicing and veneer ; that " the ring of our grandfather ' s , worth , " as we estimated , " forty marks , " turns out " mere copper , some eight-penny matter . " Nevertheless ,
though things are out of their places for a while , disorganization is the parent of remedy ; if superfluous ornaments long unswept have gendered dirt , we clear away cobwebs and come at hidden rents ; substitute new and strong , for old and useless furniture ; in a word , make a judicious clearance of abuses , and open our chambers to those unpaid but most efficient sanative commissioners— -light and ventilation .
To no man—not excluding the pseudo-prophet of the Times , that ex post facto wizard of the Pates- —is his country more indebted , as to literature , than to the Roving Englishman , whose writings , we need hardly say , at the present crisis are especially opportune . Systems , like books , have their passages of improvement and monotony ; the
Roving Englishman has discovered the qualification of a true traveller , in putting the mark , turning down the page for observation at the right places , particularly in connection with that subtle practice which teaches ambassadors—honest gentlemen !—how best to lie abroad for the good of their country !
Endowed with a singularly graphic power of description ; keen observation , a strong vein of original humour , and—we are enabled to state from authority—a position which gives him at once the entree to the most secret fastnesses of the diplomatic abuses he developes , he preserves throughout an equanimity of judgment , which renders his statements of indisputable value . If prejudice appear at all , it is
at least against injustice ; if the cautery of his satire becomes venom , it is when speaking of a fiddling plenipotentiary , who breaks open locks in one court , or a servile driveller , who has been forty years without learning its language at another . Doubtless the revelations he makes will startle those who buy their political opinions every morning for 4 * d . at Printing House Square ; for ourselves , we share not the surprisal , for we were prepared long ago to find that long
series of political misapprehensions , terminating in jealousies and war , were traceable to the same spirit of close patronage and improper promotion , of imbecility and ignorance in diplomacy , which has destroyed our troops and corrupted our official excellence . It appears that the author expected the public would soon ask certain questions about the progress and good behaviour of its ambassadors ; he thought that elderly gentlemen of the Stubbleian school do not receive new impressions very readily ; that their minds , or rather
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
Embassies an # Foreign Courts : a History of Diplomacy . By the Royito Englishman . London : Eoutledge and Co . ( 1 st Notice . )—Certain periodical cleansings are as necessary for our national , as for our domestic well-being . It is true they occasion much dust , ill temper , and fatigue ; nobody would be willingly " at home" upon a washing
day . Moreover , vanity , which was bursting with plethora in the fancied amplitude of possession , wanes towards marasmus , when we discover " a hole in our best coat , " a crack so extensive in our most valuable cabinet as to defy farther splicing and veneer ; that " the ring of our grandfather ' s , worth , " as we estimated , " forty marks , " turns out " mere copper , some eight-penny matter . " Nevertheless ,
though things are out of their places for a while , disorganization is the parent of remedy ; if superfluous ornaments long unswept have gendered dirt , we clear away cobwebs and come at hidden rents ; substitute new and strong , for old and useless furniture ; in a word , make a judicious clearance of abuses , and open our chambers to those unpaid but most efficient sanative commissioners— -light and ventilation .
To no man—not excluding the pseudo-prophet of the Times , that ex post facto wizard of the Pates- —is his country more indebted , as to literature , than to the Roving Englishman , whose writings , we need hardly say , at the present crisis are especially opportune . Systems , like books , have their passages of improvement and monotony ; the
Roving Englishman has discovered the qualification of a true traveller , in putting the mark , turning down the page for observation at the right places , particularly in connection with that subtle practice which teaches ambassadors—honest gentlemen !—how best to lie abroad for the good of their country !
Endowed with a singularly graphic power of description ; keen observation , a strong vein of original humour , and—we are enabled to state from authority—a position which gives him at once the entree to the most secret fastnesses of the diplomatic abuses he developes , he preserves throughout an equanimity of judgment , which renders his statements of indisputable value . If prejudice appear at all , it is
at least against injustice ; if the cautery of his satire becomes venom , it is when speaking of a fiddling plenipotentiary , who breaks open locks in one court , or a servile driveller , who has been forty years without learning its language at another . Doubtless the revelations he makes will startle those who buy their political opinions every morning for 4 * d . at Printing House Square ; for ourselves , we share not the surprisal , for we were prepared long ago to find that long
series of political misapprehensions , terminating in jealousies and war , were traceable to the same spirit of close patronage and improper promotion , of imbecility and ignorance in diplomacy , which has destroyed our troops and corrupted our official excellence . It appears that the author expected the public would soon ask certain questions about the progress and good behaviour of its ambassadors ; he thought that elderly gentlemen of the Stubbleian school do not receive new impressions very readily ; that their minds , or rather