In surveying the twenty years during which Lord Lyons was Ambassador in Paris, the reader is fairly bewildered by the mass and the magnitude of the questions with which he had to deal. The Presidency of Thiers—his fall; the election of Maréchal Macmahon; Franco-German relations, always a threatening subject; the purchase of the Suez Canal shares; the Treaty of San Stefano; the proposal that Lord Lyons should go as English plenipotentiary to the Congress of Berlin, which to his great relief was settled by Lord Beaconsfield going himself with Lord Salisbury; the election of President Grévy; the Eastern Question; the concert of Europe, always playing out of tune; Tunis and Tripoli; the rebellion of Arabi; England abandoned by France in Egypt; the pranks of the mountebank General Boulanger—the Napoléon de Café Concert, an Agamemnon with Paulus, the comic singer, as _vates sacer_, and “_en r’venant de la revue_” as his anthem; changes of Government without end—these are but stray items in the work with which that silent, self-contained, prudent man, gifted with the true wisdom of statesmanship, had to wrestle. That he did so without ever making a mistake accounts for the esteem in which he was held by so many successive secretaries of state. Their confidence was shown by the numberless cases in which he was left to act upon his own discretion. He never gave greater proof of wisdom than when he declined Lord Salisbury’s offer to him in July, 1886, that he should take over the seals of the Foreign Office. He was then sixty-nine years of age. He was in failing health, worn out by the long exercise of almost superhuman industry; indeed, he was nearer to his end than he himself imagined. In a singularly graceful letter Lord Rosebery praised his decision. He continued his work at Paris for another year, but on the 1st of November he resigned and was created an Earl. On the 28th of the same month he had a stroke of paralysis, and in a week he was dead. It would be difficult to improve upon the portrait which Lord Newton draws of his former chief. The impression left upon the mind of the reader must be recognized as true by all those who had the good fortune to know him. As a public man he was absolutely devoid of all petty ambition; he never thought of advertising himself, on the contrary he pushed modesty almost to a fault; himself a most indefatigable worker, he expected something of the same quality in his subordinates, who loved him for his just, honest and generous nature. In his private life he was simple and unostentatious, yet always dignified. For the amusements in which men of his caste are wont to find relief from the cares of business, he had no liking. In no form did sport attract him. He was content to go dowagering for an afternoon drive with Sheffield, the “Hare,” so called from his large, almost flapping ears, and Dog Toby. The party were a familiar sight to Parisians, who would watch the strange trio with some amazement.