transgressed the rules of respect due to his colleagues, or violated the
dicta of parliamentary etiquette.

His colleague, Mason, is an irritable, petulant, arrogant man, not
without a certain ability in debate, but censorious, and unconfined by
the restraints of decency in his tirades against the North. He was 'one
of the finest-looking men,' if we speak phrenologically, in the last
Senate; and would always be noticed for his dignified manner and fine
head, by a stranger visiting the Chamber for the first time. We have
briefly noticed him, rather on account of the notoriety recently
attached to his name by the 'Trent' affair, than from his prominence
among Southern orators and statesmen--his talent, being, in fact, of a
decidedly mediocre description.

While speaking of Mason, it will be _apropos_ to allude to his late
companion in trouble, John Slidell, who was certainly the shrewdest
politician and party tactician among his friends on the north side of
the chamber; he is indeed the Nestor of intriguers. From the time when,
early in life, he aspired to, and in a degree succeeded in controlling
the politics of the Empire City, up to this hour, when he is with
snake-like subtleness attempting to poison French honor, his career has
been a series of successful intrigues. Utterly devoid of moral
principle, he resembles his late colleague, Benjamin, in the immorality
of his life, and the baseness of his ends, attained by as base means. He
is rather a good-looking man, short, with snowy-white hair and red face,
his countenance indicative of the secretiveness and cunning of his
character. He was rather the caucus adviser and manager than one of the
orators of his party; seldom speaking, and never except briefly and to
the point. Imagination in him has been warped and made torpid by a life
of dissipation, as well as by his practical tendencies. He is, like many