him in some fifty times in the
course of the past six months.

"How silly is all this!" added the page; "and how glad should I be",
licking his lips, "that it were but an opera girl or a countess! And yet
my mistress is the very best mistress that ever I see!" _Oh this was
poor, and showed a pitiful ambition__ in the man that did it!_ I will
swear, my lord, that the nobleman who could thus have been betrayed,
must have been a thick-headed fellow, and fit for no one public office,
not even for that of _turnspit of his majesty's kitchen_![A]

[Footnote A: Vide Burke's Speech upon Oeconomy. ]

My lord, if you would escape that rock, upon which this statesman
terminated his political career, ever while you live make use of
bribery. Let the pages finger your cash, let them drink your health in a
glass of honest claret, and let them chuckle over the effects of your
lordship's munificence. I know that you will pour forth many a pathetic
complaint over the money that is drawn off by this copious receiver, but
believe the wisest man that now exists, when he assures you, that it is
well bestowed. Your lordship's bounty to myself has sometimes amounted
to near ten pounds in the course of a twelvemonth. That drain, my lord,
is stopped. I shall receive from you no more. Let then the expence,
which you once incurred for my sake, be henceforth diverted to this
valuable purpose.

I believe, my lord, that this is all the improvement that can be made
upon the head of pages. I think we can scarcely venture upon the
expedient that would otherwise be admirable, of these interviews being
carried on without the intervention of any such impertinent fellows,
from whom one is ever in danger, without the smallest notice, of having
it published at St. James's-Market, and proclaimed from the statue at
Charing-Cross. If however you should think this expedient adviseable, I
would recommend it to you not to mention it to your gracious master.
Courts are so incumbered and hedged in with ceremony, that the members
of them are always prone to imagine that the form is more essential and
indispensable, than the substance. Suppose then, my lord, you were, by
one of those sly opportunities, which you know so well how to command,
to take off the key in wax, and get a picklock key made exactly upon the
model of it. The end, my lord, take my word for it, would abundantly
sanctify the apparent sordidness of the means. In this situation I
cannot help picturi