THE OLDEST DIPLOMATIST.
Tan Chevalier DE GAUSSENS, the oldest French diplomatist, died the other day at Paris, at the age of ninety-six ; having overlived by full half a century the sera when the philosophical statesmen of France declared that the old-fashioned diplomacy had ceased to exist, and survived to see the defunct, like John Barleycorn, "get up again and sore surprise them all," flourishing in a leafy forest of protocols. The word of the "oldest man alive" is always listened to with respect when the talk is of any thing unprecedented : what then must have been the deference paid to the remarks of " the oldest diplomatist alive" ? The Chevalier had been Minister at the Court of FREDERICK the GREAT and was dancing at the ball when ANKERSTROZAI shot GUSTAVUS. Ile was a diplomatist when FRANK- LIN wrote the "strong red line" letter, and a diplomatist when Mr. SPARKS discovered it in the King's Library. And the Chevalier, who had witnessed so many great events, when asked what he looked upon as the greatest diplomatic achievement of his time, was wont modestly to reply—That he was now an old man, and his memory not so good as it had been, and names slipped through it strangely ; but that, undeniably, the most masterly negotiation since he had been a diplomatist was the "settling of the Oyster- question," by the great English Minister—PALsmasTort, or DANDO, they called him, he was not sure which. It is only the weak me- mory of age that can account for the confusion of two historical characters whose achievements are so very different. Lord PAL- MERSTON has only settled the question ; but Mr. DANDO, although it was with him literally an open question, has, in spite of repeated and not always unsuccessful attempts to stop the supplies, settled the oysters themselves.
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