Lord Lyons’ difficulties and trials were never destined to cease so long as he remained at Washington. For the details of these I must refer the reader to Lord Newton’s masterly narrative. In a mere appreciation such as this it is impossible to do more than hint, even where the subject tempts the writer to expatiate. To add to his troubles, the long years of grinding work and harassing anxieties had begun to tell upon the health of the Minister. A trip to Canada to escape for a while from the great heat of Washington could not restore a man who was evidently suffering from nervous prostration. Lord Lyons felt at the end of 1864 that he could hold out no longer. It was not surprising. During the year 1864 no less than 8,326 despatches and letters were sent out by him—mostly drafted by himself, but in any case, revised and corrected by him. His attachés and secretaries were at work from nine in the morning until seven, without an interval for luncheon—and often they had to return after dinner and write into the small hours. That is the sort of life that is led in times of stress by those members of the diplomatic service whom the public is apt to look upon as mere dancing dogs! As I shall show later on, the Legation at Washington during the war was not the only theatre of such work. Lord Lyons went home and took up his abode with his sister, the Duchess of Norfolk, and on 16th March, 1865, he wrote to Mr. Stuart, the _chargé d’affaires_ at Washington: “You will have seen that I have gone out of the service altogether and have become a gentleman at large, without pay or pension. My health did not admit of my fixing a time for going back, and the Cabinet became nervous about leaving Washington without a Minister in these critical times.” Lack of space forbids me to reproduce the very handsome expressions of regret at Lord Lyons’ departure which he received both from Mr. Seward and from Lord Russell. He had, indeed, served both countries well, and as Lord Newton says in regard to the letter of the former: “It is satisfactory to realize that these two men, between whom so many encounters had taken place, parted on terms of friendship and mutual esteem.” They appreciated one another’s good qualities, and that Lord Lyons retained in his heart a soft corner for the rugged New York lawyer is shown by the fact that “in subsequent communications with his own Government Lord Lyons frequently expressed the hope that Mr. Seward would continue to be responsible for the foreign policy of the American Government.” * * * * *