one man hears what is to be said concerning a case, whilst another writes what is to be written on it, not hastily is it to be believed that the one operation will have much reference to the other.

Again, let it be considered in what frame of mind, from one cause or another, most of those are who seek these interviews. Suitors and claimants are the most numerous class. It may be supposed that the interests which they have, or conceive themselves to have, at stakethe importance to themselves of the objects which they have in view - would infallibly induce such parties as these at least, to take the utmost pains beforehand to make the interviews which they seek available to them. Yet most men who have been in office will have observed with how little preparation of their own minds even this class of persons do commonly present themselves to profit by the audience which they have solicited. One man is

humble and ignorant of the world, has never

set eyes on a minister before, and acts as if the mere admission to the presence of such a personage was all that was needful, which being accomplished he must naturally flourish ever after. Another is romantic and sanguine, his imagination is excited, and he has thought that he can do every thing by some happy phrase or lively appeal, which, in the embarrassment of the critical moment, escapes his memory, or finds no place, or the wrong place, in the conversation. A third brings a letter of introduction from some person who is great in his eyes but possibly inconsiderable in those of the minister; he puts his trust in the recommendation and appears to expect that the minister should suggest to him, rather than he to the minister, what is the particular object to be accomplished for him; he "lacks advancement," and that, he thinks, is enough said. A fourth has not made up his mind how high he shall

pitch his demands; he is afraid on the one hand to offend by presumption, on the other to lose by diffidence; he proposes, therefore, to feel his way and be governed by what the minister shall say to him; but the minister naturally has nothing to say to him- never having considered the matter and taking no interest in it. Thus it is that, through various misconceptions, the instances will be found in practice to be a minority, in which a claimant or suitor who obtains an interview has distinctly made up his mind as to the specific thing which he will ask, propose, or state. Still less does he forecast the several means and resources, objections and difficulties, conditions and stipulations, which may happen to be topics essential to a full development and consideration of his case.

In short it may be affirmed as a truth wellfounded in observation, though perhaps hardly to be credited upon assertion, that even in

matters personally and seriously affecting themselves, most men will put off thinking definitively till they have to act, to write, or to speak. There is no reason why the time of a minister should be employed in listening to the extempore crudities of men who are thus trusting themselves to the fortune of the mo

ment.

The precepts which (resting upon these remarks) may be offered as to this matter of interviews, are the following:

1st. A minister may not improperly allot two hours a day of two days in each week, to the purposes of such interviews as may be admitted (under the head of exceptions) to be not unprofitably granted; and of such also as, though they be otherwise unprofitable, are yet of advantage on the account of courtesy and of sparing needless unpopularity. By appointing all persons who seek interviews to come within these hours, the very fulness of the minister's

ante-chamber will evince, to each man who comes, the absurdity of expecting to occupy much of the attention which is to be shared out to so many. Of those who wait, the exceptions or reasonable applicants for interviews should be first called in; and after these are disposed of, perhaps the minister may venture to give orders that those who are only admitted for courtesy's sake should be ushered into his presence in succession, at intervals of five minutes, so that the entrance of one shall be the signal for the other to withdraw. Care must of course be taken not to put the rule in practice indiscriminately, in cases where extracivility is of any special importance.

2d. All applicants for interviews should be required to send in on the day preceding that on which they are appointed to attend, a paper setting forth, as definitely as may be, the object which they seek and the facts which they have to state, with exact notes of reference to the