ty of final failure; and the only policy that remained was to
encourage the growth of liberal opinions on the Continent, out of which
new alliances might be formed, to recompense us for the loss of the
old ones. There is a story told of a certain benevolent prince, whose
resources were, unhappily, not commensurate with his good intentions,
and whose ragged retinue wearied him with entreaties for assistance. "Be
of good cheer," said he, one day, "I have ordered a field of flax to be
sown, and you shall all of you have new shirts." Such were pretty much
the position and policy of England. Out of our crop of Constitutionalism
we speculated on a rich harvest, to be afterwards manufactured for our
use and benefit. We leave it to deeper heads to say if the result has
been all that we calculated on, and, asking pardon for such digression,
we join Sir Horace once more.

When Sir Horace Upton ordered post-horses to his carriage, he no more
knew where he was going, nor where he would halt, than he could have
anticipated what course any conversation might take when once started.
He had, to be sure, a certain ideal goal to be reached; but he was one
of those men who liked to think that the casual interruptions one meets
with in life are less obstruction than opportunity; so that, instead of
deeming these subjects for regret or impatience, he often accepted them
as indications that there was some profit to be derived from them,--a
kind of fatalism more common than is generally believed. When he set
out for Sorrento it was with the intention of going direct to Massa;
not that this state lay within the limits his functions ascribed to
him,--that being probably the very fact which imparted a zest to the
journey. Any other man would have addressed himself to his colleague in
Tuscany, or wherever he might be; while he, being Sir Horace Upton,
took the whole business upon himself in his own way. Young Massy's case
opened to his eyes a great question, viz., what was the position the
Austrians assumed to take in Italy? For any care about the youth, or any
sympathy with his sufferings, he distressed himself little; not that he
was, in any respect, heartless or unfeeling, it was simply that greater
interests were before him. Here was one of those "grand issues" that he
felt worthy of his abilities,--it was a cause where he was proud to hold
a brief.

Resolving all his plans of action methodically, yet rapidly; arranging
every detail in his o