Through the month of May of the year 1851, I was engaged to preach evening lectures in one of the London chapels, and I had my days to devote in a great measure to the pursuit, so inconceivably interesting to me, of conversations with leading people on my great topic. I was at {409} that time greatly debilitated, and could walk but very little, and to relieve me, therefore, as well as to enable me to make the most of my time, a generous friend, who was interested in my proceedings, furnished me with means to go from house to house in a cab. One of these bright forenoons, I turned into Carlton Gardens, and asked to see Lord Palmerston. I was not an entire stranger to him, any more than to the other two noble persons of whom I have already written. It will not be foreign to my purpose to relate how my acquaintance with his lordship had been formed. May I venture to call it a friendship? It was at the close of a long run with Lord Derby's stag-hounds; I mean the grandfather of the present earl, I think in 1821; we finished, I think, twenty-four miles from London, and I was making up my mind for a long, tedious ride home on my tired horse (for I was not up to having second horses and grooms in my suite on those occasions), when Lord Palmerston, who was likewise in at, not the death, but the taking (I forget the proper sporting term) of the stag, understanding my case, and knowing me by sight, though I think till then we had never spoken, gave my horse in charge to his groom, and took me home with himself in a post-chaise. For the short remaining time of my being known as a young man about town, as we met at one party or another, Lord Palmerston continued to accost me with a kind word, to which I had good reason, it will be allowed, to respond in the best manner I knew how. At the close of the London season of 1822 I made my bow, and withdrew from that stage to prepare for taking orders, and, except an interview of a few minutes in 1834, we had never met till I appeared before the now far-famed and, by many, dreaded Foreign Secretary, with my Passionist habit and sandalled feet for a private audience. Like what Lord Clarendon said in the Park Lodge, Dublin, I might have said here, "Great changes, my lord, since we first spoke together!" On this occasion, however, no time was spent in mere conversation. I had called, as I have said, in the forenoon. His lordship had sent me a message as being busy, requesting me to call again at two o'clock. On entering his private room, I found {410} him engaged in looking over what seemed official papers, which he had upon his knee, while we spoke, though without the least sign of impatience or wish to get rid of me; but I saw that what became me was to enter on business at once without waste of time or words. I do not remember all the words which I used in this interview so well