Ireland was still smoking with the embers of rebellion; and Lord Cornwallis, who had been sent expressly to extinguish it, and had won the reputation of having fulfilled this mission with energy and success, was then the lord lieutenant; and at that moment he was regarded with more interest than any other public man. Accordingly I was not sorry when, two mornings after our arrival, Lord Altamont said to us at breakfast, "Now, if you wish to see what I call a great man, go with me this morning, and you shall see Lord Cornwallis; for that man who has given peace both to the east and to the west--taming a tiger in the Mysore that hated England as much as Hannibal hated Rome, and in Ireland pulling up by the roots a French invasion, combined with an Irish insurrection--will always for me rank as a great man." We willingly accompanied the earl to the Phoenix Park, where the lord lieutenant was then residing, and were privately presented to him. I had seen an engraving (celebrated, I believe, in its day) of Lord Cornwallis receiving the young Mysore princes as hostages at Seringapatam; and I knew the outline of his public services. This gave me an additional interest in seeing him; but I was disappointed to find no traces in his manner of the energy and activity I presumed him to possess; he seemed, on the contrary, slow or even heavy, but benevolent and considerate in a degree which won the confidence at once. Him we saw often; for Lord Altamont took us with him wherever and whenever we wished; and me in particular (to whom the Irish leaders of society were as yet entirely unknown by sight) it gratified highly to see persons of historical names--names, I mean, historically connected with the great events of Elizabeth's or Cromwell's era--attending at the Phoenix Park. But the persons whom I remember most distinctly of all whom I was then in the habit of seeing, were Lord Clare, the chancellor, the late Lord Londonderry, (then Castlereagh,) at that time the Irish chancellor of the exchequer, and the speaker of the House of Commons, (Mr. Foster, since, I believe, created Lord Oriel.) With the speaker, indeed, Lord Altamont had more intimate grounds of connection than with any other public man; both being devoted to the encouragement and personal superintendence of great agricultural improvements. Both were bent on introducing through models diffused extensively on their own estates, English husbandry, English improved breeds of cattle, and, where _that_ was possible, English capital and skill, into the rural economy of Ireland.