Lord Lyons was blessed with a gift of inexhaustible patience and perfect temper, which throughout the negotiations on the famous “Trent” affair won for him the gratitude of all Englishmen and the respect of his formidable adversary. Personally I had the greatest admiration for Lord Lyons, and welcomed the story of his life so admirably told by Lord Newton. In private life Lord Lyons was charming. His quiet and subtle humour gave a zest to his conversation: “When shall you be taking a holiday and coming over to England?” I asked him once at Paris. “I’m sure I don’t know,” he answered, in his dry way, with a little familiar twinkle in his eye, “but I’ve told Salisbury that I really can’t wait for the settlement of the Oriental question.” At the age of ninety-eight he would have been still waiting to-day! His old-fashioned courtesy had a charm which was quite characteristic; Lord Chesterfield himself could not have been more of a grand seigneur. When Lord Newton’s life came out, I, full of respect for one of our great chiefs in the diplomatic service, wrote a notice of the book for the _Candid Review_. My excuse for reproducing it here is that it recounts some of the most memorable events which took place during my diplomatic days—it also incidentally alludes to some of the chiefs whom I knew well. Could I do better in honour of Lord Lyons, I would. * * * * * The old diplomacy is as dead as Queen Anne, but unlike Queen Anne, without any hope of resurrection. Like many other old institutions, it has been killed by the nineteenth century and its inventions. The position of an Ambassador is still one of great dignity, and he can help largely to keep up the prestige and authority of the nation which he represents. He is consulted, and, if the Government are wise, listened to, but in the determination of policy his initiative has been strangled. He is so far as that is concerned little more than a clerk at one end of a telegraph-wire, whose duty it is to carry out the instructions of Downing Street with as much exercise of power of conciliation as may be. It is hardly possible to conceive a situation so sudden, so unforeseen, that it would not be the duty of the Ambassador to abstain from any move without having first consulted the Secretary of State and the Home Government. Whether this is altogether an advantage is open to grave doubt. In the warp and woof of complicated and delicate negotiations, there are often intricacies and slight shades of which it is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the full importance in writing, still more by telegraphy, but which the “man on the spot,” if he be worth his salt, can turn to account. In the interchange of views between negotiators, “c’est le ton qui fait la musique,” and it is precisely the fine subtleties of the gamut the reality of which it is so difficult to convey by correspondence.