ly by the translations of Major Martin Hume.

Personally Froude had no cranks; his disposition was most urbane, whilst
he was very neat in his appearance and also in his handwriting. It would
certainly be of interest to give a few of his racy letters, too often
undated, which I have preserved. Unfortunately, his executors firmly
refuse the necessary legal consent, so that I am compelled to make my
book irreparably the poorer by omitting what should have been one of its
most attractive contents. In justice to Froude's memory, I ought to add
that there was nothing in his correspondence with me that would have
diminished his high repute. I mention this because otherwise busybodies
might have misinterpreted the arbitrary action of his executors to the
detriment of his fame.

A later friendship than that with Froude also must have a sincere
allusion in these pages, for I have derived much pleasure from my
association with Sir Henry Howorth, a ripe old lawyer of Portuguese
extraction, who has rendered valuable political service by his polemical
letters to the _Times_, on which I can pass a most favourable opinion.
His histories of the Mongols, the Mammoth, and the Flood are possibly
more permanent, but they are not of such contemporary note. At any rate,
I respect them from a distance, whilst I admire the political effusions
as the capital work of a comrade under arms, and one who is not afraid
to verbally bludgeon any formidable contemporary Hooligans.

Sir Henry Howorth occasionally breaks out into a story, though he is
more frequently a listener to mine. This is one of his that I happen to
recall:--

The Mayor of Richmond gave a dinner, at which a distinguished Frenchman
sat next the Mayor's son, and on replying for the guests in imperfect
English, observed:--

'I am vary happy to be here, and to meet my young friend, who is a sheep
of the old bloke,' meaning, of course, a chip of the old block.

I plead guilty to have materially increased the interest felt by Sir
Henry in Irish affairs, which is not diminished by the fact that a niece
of Lord Ashbourne is married to his son.

I think it was to him that I recommended another panacea for the evils
of Ireland, namely, that it would be a good plan to exchange Ireland for
Holland, for the Dutch would reclaim Ireland, and the Irish would
neglect the banks of Holland, with the eventual result that the living
Irish question would be washed away.

Just now I alluded to a