One day, as I was talking to a friend in my garden of memory, he, looking round at the fine bronzes by which we were surrounded, remarked what a pity it was that Oriental art should be so poorly represented in the Wallace Collection; and how much it was to be regretted that no specimens of the work of the great Eastern metal-workers and famous potters were to be found at Hertford House. As a matter of fact, cheek by jowl with the glories of the English, French, Spanish and Dutch art, there are only some half-dozen very poor specimens of Chinese cloisonné enamel, practically no pottery, none of the grand old Chinese bronzes, and not a single example of the work of such masters as the Japanese Miyochin, Seimin, To-un, and others, men as famous in their way as Benvenuto Cellini. It is curious that three men so catholic in their tastes as the two Lords Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace should have paid no attention to the art of the Far East. From the collections we naturally passed to discussing the men, and my friend began asking me many questions about the great legacy, of which I am a trustee, eager to gather something of the truth out of the network of fable and falsehood by which it is surrounded. Here is what I told him. There is, of necessity, some guesswork, but guesswork not unsupported by a reasonable foundation of fact and probability. The strange jumble of truth and lies is but one more proof of the danger of throwing over all those conventionalities which are but so much ballast to keep straight the family ship. There are plenty of wreckers in the world, and they are never slack in their dirty work; but, above all, they love breaking up the big ships.