When the Crown Prince with his son and the Prince of Wales honoured my College (All Souls’) with their presence at luncheon, I remember presenting to them three tumblers of the old ale that is brewed in the College, and is supposed to be the best in the University, very drinkable (süffig), but very strong. One year when several men from Cambridge were passing their long vacation at Oxford (one of them was Lightfoot, afterwards Bishop of Durham, another Augustus Vansittart), they were made free of all the common-rooms at Oxford, and constituted examiners of the beers brewed in the different Colleges. All Souls’ came out at the head of the tripos, but there was to be a new examination in the year following, and competitors were invited to send their essays to F. M. M., Professor of Comparative Palaeontology, at All Souls’. I took a tumbler of the old ale myself and drank to the health of “The three Emperors.” The Crown Prince did not see what I meant, and asked again and again, “But how so (Wie so)?” “The future German Emperor,” I said, “the future Emperor of India (the Prince of Wales), and, in the very distant future, the third Emperor of Germany.” The Crown Prince smiled, but an expression of seriousness or displeasure passed over his face, showing me that I touched a sensitive nerve. The Crown Prince was a curious mixture. In his intercourse with his friends he liked to forget that he was a Prince, he spoke most freely and unguardedly, and enjoyed a good laugh about a good joke. He allowed his friends to do the same, but suddenly, if any of his friends made a remark that did not quite please him, he drew back, and it took him some time to recover himself. He was a noble and loyal nature. He knew Bismarck, he knew his strong, and he knew his very weak, and more than weak, points; but such was his gratitude for what the old statesman had done for Prussia and Germany that he never said an unkind word against him. I believe he would never have parted with him, though he was quite aware of the danger of a _major domus_ in the kingdom of Frederick the Great. History will have much to say about those years, and will teach us once more the old lesson—how small the great ones of the earth can be. Once more I met the Prince at Venice, when he was enjoying himself with the Crown Princess and some of his daughters. He was then incognito, and he had the best cicerone in his learned and charming wife. They worked hard together from morning till evening. At last the people of Venice found out who he was, and crowded round him to that extent that he had to take refuge in the royal palace. What struck me at the time was a sadness and far greater reticence in the Prince. Still, at times, the old joyous smile broke out, as if he had forgotten how serious life had become to him.