"partly, I must admit, in the spirit of the Englishman who never missed a performance of van Amburg, the lion-tamer, hoping some day to see him devoured by his lions. On one occasion, at Chelsea Town Hall, I had the honour of leading Lady Dilke on to the platform, and was greeted, with such a round of applause as I am not likely to enjoy again in my life. But, to my horror, I heard the reporters inquiring as to my identity. Fortunately, Sir Charles perceived the peril I was in, and gave them some misleading information. Otherwise, my name might have appeared in the Press, and my diplomatic career have been abruptly ended for figuring in public among the supporters of so hostile an opponent of the form of government prevailing, in the country to which I was accredited." Sir Charles's personal triumph at the polls amid the general rout of his party inevitably enhanced his position in the House. And upon it there followed a wholly different success which established his prestige precisely on the point where it was the fashion to assail it. He had been decried as 'dreary'; yet London suddenly found itself applauding him as a wit. _The Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco_ was published anonymously in March, 1874. To-day the little book is perhaps almost forgotten, although one can still be amused by the story of the Cambridge undergraduate, trained in the fullest faith of free-thinking Radicalism, who finds himself suddenly promoted to the principality of Monaco, and who arrives in his microscopic kingdom only to realize that his monarchical state rests on the support of two pillars--a Jesuit who controls the Church and education, and M. Blanc, who manages the gaming tables. The consequence of Prince Florestan's attempt to put in practice democratic principles where nobody wanted them was wittily and ingeniously thought out, and the tone of subdued irony admirably kept up. The work was characteristically thorough. The 126 functionaries, the 60 soldiers and carbineers, the 150 unpaid diplomatic representatives of Monaco abroad, the Vicar-General, the Treasurer-General, the Honorary Almoner, and all the other "appliances and excrescences of civilized government," which went to make up that "perfection of bureaucracy and red tape in a territory one mile broad and five miles long," were all statistically accurate. Throughout the whole a reference to other monarchies and other swarms of functionaries was delicately implied. The quality of the book is rather that of talk than of writing. It has the dash, the quick turn, and the vivacity of a good improvisation at the dinner-table; and a quotation will illustrate not so much Sir Charles's literary gift as the manner of his talk: