For the reader's convenience we must note the salient points;
but grudge to do it. Salient points, now mostly wrapt in Orcus,
and terrestrially interesting only to the spiders,--except on an
occasion of this kind, when part of them happens to stick to the
history of a memorable man, To us they are mere bubblings-up of
the general putrid fermentation of the then Political World;
and are too unlovely to be dwelt on longer than indispensable.
Triple Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Congress
of Soissons; Conference of Pardo, Treaty of Hanover, Treaty of
Wusterhausen, what are they? Echo answers, What? Ripperda and the
Queen of Spain, Kaiser Karl and his Pragmatic Sanction, are fallen
dim to every mind. The Troubles of Thorn (sad enough
Papist-Protestant tragedy in their time),--who now cares to know
of them? It is much if we find a hearing for the poor Salzburg
Emigrants when they get into Preussen itself. Afflicted human
nature ought to be, at last, delivered from the palpably
superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be remembered,
millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly buried and
forgotten! But to our affair,--that of marking the chief
bubblings-up in the above-said Universal Putrid Fermentation, so
far as they concern us.

CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI.

We already saw Byng sea fighting in the Straits of Messina;
that was part of Crisis Second,--sequel, in powder-and-ball, of
Crisis First, which had been in paper till then. The Powers had
interfered, by Triple, by Quadruple Alliance, to quench the
Spanish-Austrian Duel (about Apanage for Baby Carlos, and a
quantity of other Shadows): "Triple Alliance" [4th January, 1717.]