oose to employ unsuitable tools. We want to shave with a hatchet
instead of a razor; for be it remarked, as no things are so essentially
unlike as those that have a certain resemblance, there is nothing in
nature so remote from the truly feminine finesse as the mind of a male
"old woman."

It is simply to the flaws and failures of female intelligence that the
parallel applies. A very pleasant old parson, whom I knew when I was a
boy, and who used to discourse to me much about Edmund Burke and Gavin
Hamilton, told me once that he met old Primate Stewart one day returning
from a visitation, and turned his horse round to accompany the carriage
for some distance. "Doctor G.," said the Archbishop, "you remind me most
strikingly of my friend Paley."

"Oh, my Lord, it is too much honour: I have not the shadow of a
pretension to such distinction."

"Well, sir, it is true; I have Paley before me as I look at you."

"I am overwhelmed by your Lordship's flattery."

"Yes, sir; Paley rode just such another broken-down old grey nag as
that."

Do not therefore disparage my plan for the employment of women in
diplomacy by any ungenerous comparisons with the elderly ladies at
present engaged in it. This would be as unfair as it is ungallant.

There are a variety of minor considerations which I might press into the
cause, but some of them would appeal less to the general mind than to
the official, and I omit them--merely observing what facilities it would
give for the despatch of business, if the Minister, besieged, as he
often now is, by lady-applicants for a husband's promotion, instead of
the tedious inquiry, "Who is Mr D.?--where has he been?--what has he
done?--what is he capable of?" could simply say, "Make Mrs T. Third
Secretary at Stuttgart, and send Mrs O'Dowd as Vice-Consul to Simoom!"

A MASTERLY INACTIVITY.

It is no small privilege to you "gentlemen of England who live at home
at ease," or otherwise, that you cannot hear how the whole Continent is
talking of you at this moment. We have, as a nation, no small share of
self-sufficiency and self-esteem. If we do not thank God for it, we are
right well pleased to know that we are not like that Publican there,
"who eats garlic, or carries a stiletto, or knouts his servants, or
indulges in any other taste or pastime of 'the confounded foreigner.'"
The 'Times' proclaims how infinitely superior we are every morning; and
each traveller--John Murray in hand--expounds i