ing us in a national capacity, they saddled the
responsibility on their honester fellow-countrymen. This, to me, had
something about it I could not clearly understand; but I have since
thought that if my eccentric uncle had lived to this day, and been in
possession of his crutch, a reckoning with General Pierce had been the
result. Either he had made the splinters fly, or that worthy
gentleman's ear tingle with certain facts relative to the manner in
which his gentry have strutted upon the stage we have before
mentioned. I say this of the old man because his regard for the
feelings of the nation was almost equal to his reverence for the
diplomatic body. And I am sure he, in the earnestness of his soul, had
prayed Mr. Pierce to take into his pious consideration the means of
remedying an evil so gross as that of his diplomatists making it the
fashion of paying their debts with that sacred character the comity of
nations has granted all missions. He would have told General Pierce
that he was but a man, whose little day would soon pass on the wheel
of time, but that the country had a name to maintain among the
nations, an exacting posterity to account to! Will his men in the
bye-ways have done anything to which it may recur with pride? The
stages we have twice named can answer.

"The story of Mr. Secretary Bolt, as facetiously related by my
great-uncle, when in one of his funny moods, may not be inappropriate
here, inasmuch as it bears a strong resemblance to certain realities
perpetrated at this day, but which my habitual modesty forbids me
transcribing here.

'Of Bolt, morally,' my great-uncle would say, 'nothing have I to say.'
This said, he would rub his hands awhile, and then continue: 'He was
correct of person--extremely so--had fine limbs, was tall of stature,
courtly in his movements, spoke with great preciseness, and a clear,
musical accent; had model features, was not a little vain of them, and
always employed a tailor prince, who dressed him with exact taste, but
at an enormous cost. His motion, too, was as graceful as needs be;
indeed nature had done well her part, lavishing on his person a goodly
number of those endowments so necessary to a modern diplomatist, whose
chief function is to ornament the drawing-room, and create a flutter
among certain of the fair sex. You must understand that in Europe, as
well as America, the corps diplomatic rules the roost of fashion, and,
in addition to its enrolling within i