"Ah! no doubt, my Lord," said
Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their
trunks!" This floored the ambassador for half an hour.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were
distinguished men. [2] Read Lloyd's State Worthies. The third-rate men of
those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed
not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in
which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere
compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience--not, as now, by
parliamentary interest.
[Footnote 1: Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c.]
[Footnote 2:
Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a veteran
diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the
reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following
terms:--
O embajadores, puros majaderos,
Que si los reyes quieren enganar,
Comienzan por nosotros los primeros.
_Nuestro mayor negocio es, no danar,
Y jamas hacer cosa, ni dezilla,
Que no corramos riesgo de ensenar._
What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very
carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this
passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding
remark--_that their principal business is just to do no mischief_.
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