This saying of his—uttered at the very beginning of his first experience of an independent post—is worth quoting, for it gives us the keynote of his whole diplomatic career, and reveals the secret of the success which he achieved when he was afterwards placed in positions as difficult and as delicate as any that a diplomatist was ever called upon to face. Four years later Lord Lyons was called upon to settle “one of those trivial questions which so deeply exercised the diplomacy of a former generation”—a question, indeed, which it is nowadays difficult to imagine occurring outside of the Court of the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein. Lord Normanby, K.G., Ex-Viceroy of Ireland, was British Minister at Florence, and had gone on leave, furious, in circumstances which were grave indeed. The Pope having visited Florence, a banquet in his honour had been given by the Grand Duke, and the diplomatic body were invited; but to their great indignation they were not seated at the _Tavola di Stato_, the sovereign table. Lord Normanby demanded an apology, and the _chers collègues_ having agreed to support him, backed out at the last moment; so Lord Normanby went off fuming and fussing, and “uttering dark threats that he would not return unless the apology was forthcoming.” Mr. Lyons was summoned from Rome to act as _chargé d’affaires_, and upon him fell the task of making the Tuscan Government apologize. For three weary months a correspondence at which so essentially practical a man as Lyons, with his subtle sense of humour, must have laughed in his sleeve, used up reams of paper, until at last, after “a severe rebuke” from Lord Clarendon, the Tuscan Government ate some infinitesimal particle of dirt, “the injured Lord Normanby returned to his post, and Lyons resumed his duties at Rome.” For the full enjoyment of Lord Newton’s account of the episode it is almost necessary to have known the two men as I did—the Turveydrop-like pomposity of the one, and the simple sober dignity of the other, gifted with the most delicate feeling for proportion. It was in March, 1858, that Lord Lyons had his first great opportunity. Diplomatic relations with Naples having been broken off for some years, Mr. Lyons received orders from Lord Malmesbury to proceed to Naples to inquire into the case of the _Cagliari_. It was a difficult matter and created a great excitement at the time.