Lord Wodehouse, afterwards Earl of Kimberley, who was our Minister at St. Petersburg, was a man of great ability, singularly well read and thoroughly posted in diplomatic lore. He knew his trade, but he had not the secret of treating business with charm. His talents were better fitted to the fuliginous atmosphere of Downing Street than to the bright sparkling air of the Russian capital. It was single-stick, very doughty single-stick, against the light play of the foils. The contrast with that skilful fencer, Lord Granville, was great. But the victories gained by the latter could only be temporary. He had to go, and Lord Wodehouse remained, a brilliantly dull man—or would it be better to say a dully brilliant man?—quite out of his element in the glittering gaiety of a Russian _salon_. Those who knew his solid worth appreciated his wisdom and scrupulous honesty. But he was rather a great parliamentarian than a courtly diplomatist. When he opened the flood-gates of his talk, it was a Niagara that issued forth, carrying all before it, not to be stopped or stayed, and this deluge was made even more overwhelming by a doctoral or donnish manner, which absolutely staggered the delightfully smart and rather cynical Prince Gortchakoff. As for the Emperor, the voluble envoy frankly bored him. Lord Wodehouse could earn respect for England, but not affection. Nor was England much better served when his place was taken in 1858 by Sir John Crampton, a most delightful personality, but, in spite of his long experience, little fitted for such a post as St. Petersburg. The truth is that he was a Bohemian of the Bohemians, a man who loved his ease and to whom the donning of a fine coat and a star was little short of torture. I knew him well, for he was a contemporary of my father’s in the service, and there were few days—when he was on leave in London—on which he did not knock at our door. He had all the gifts of the Irish raconteur, and his stories were enhanced by the charm of a musical speaking voice—a great, handsome, leonine figure, with his silver hair and beard, whose advent we always hailed with joy. Probably he was at his best in his beautiful Irish home near Powerscourt, where, with a congenial friend or two—notably old Sharpe, the eccentric Dublin artist—he could sit and smoke after dinner in the same frieze coat that he had worn all day. With us and very few other friends he would sit by the fire, a great tame cat, purring the livelong winter afternoon. However great his personal attractiveness might be, he was certainly not successful as a diplomatist.