Amongst the notable men whose friendship I gained at this period of my service was Von Keudall, the German ambassador, one of the most human diplomatists whose acquaintance I have ever made. Like Dufferin, he measured exactly the distance to which a correspondent could be treated confidentially, without encouraging him to presume on cordiality. Introduced to him by Sir John Saville Lumley, I was treated as one of the diplomatic body, with the confidence which is so important to a journalist, and as long as he remained in Rome our relations were of the most cordial and unceremonious. Wishing to make me a confidential communication one day and the coast not being clear, he asked me, in the presence of others, if I had ever seen the view from the tower of the embassy, and, as of course I had not, he invited me to come and see it, and we had our conversation on the platform of the lookout with all Rome and the Campagna spread out before us, beyond the reach of others' hearing. Von Keudall was a power in Rome, and no ambassador of any government in my time had the influence at court that he had. During the period of Von Keudall's residence Lord Rosebery came to Rome, in an interval of being in opposition, and, as the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and probably a future occupant of the same post, it was important that in a brief stay he should see all the important people in the capital. Lady Rosebery, who was the most assiduous and intelligent manager possible of her husband's interests, had sent for me to ascertain who were the people whom he should know in order to learn the true condition of affairs in Italy. Chief amongst them I put Von Keudall, but, as Lord Rosebery did not know him, and the custom of Rome is that the newcomer makes the first call, Lady Rosebery was in a quandary, her ideas of the position of her husband not consenting that he should make the first call on an ambassador. At the last moment, for he was to leave Rome the midnight following, she begged me to tell her how the acquaintance could be made, without derogation of Lord Rosebery's position between two portfolios. "Give me his card," I replied, "and I will manage it." I had intended to ask Von Keudall for some information, and I made my visit, finding him engaged with a dispatch, and as I wrote a message on the business on which I had come, I added that Lord Rosebery was at the Hôtel de Rome and was leaving that night, and left his lordship's card with mine. When I got back to the hotel I found Von Keudall's carriage at the door and him closeted with Lord Rosebery. And certainly no man could then have told the English statesman the state of things in Italy so well as the large-hearted German ambassador, who enjoyed the confidence of every element in Italian politics as a sincere friend of the country. He was recalled later on account of a pique of Herbert Bismarck, whose untimely meddling with public affairs