432 SUNDRY JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES -IV 



spatclies. The correspondence also showed that Fre&amp;lt;Jer- 

 ick the Great was much vexed at the whole matter; that 

 the British ministry at home thought their envoy too 

 enterprising; that he came near resigning; but that the 

 whole matter finally blew over. This was brought back 

 to me somewhat later at a dinner of the Royal Histori 

 cal Society, where the president, Lord Aberdare, recalled 

 a story bearing on this matter. It was that Frederick 

 the Great and the British minister at his court greatly 

 disliked each other, and that on their meeting one day the 

 old King asked, &quot;Who is this Hyder Ali who is making 

 you British so much trouble in India ?&quot; to which the bold 

 Briton answered: &quot;Sire, he is only an old tyrant who, 

 after robbing his neighbors, is now falling into his do 

 tage&quot; (&quot;Sire, ce n est qu un vieux tyran qui, apres avoir 

 pille ses voisins, commence a radoter&quot;). 



Having made with my nephew a rapid excursion on 

 the Continent, up the Rhine, and as far as Munich, I re 

 turned to see him off on his return journey to America, 

 and then settled down for several weeks in London. It 

 was in the early autumn, Parliament had adjourned, most 

 people of note had left town, and I was left to myself as 

 completely as if I had been in the depths of a forest. 

 Looking out over Trafalgar Square from my pleasant 

 rooms at Morley s Hotel, with all the hurry and bustle 

 of a great city going on beneath my window, I was sim 

 ply a hermit, and now found myself able to resume the 

 work which for so many years had occupied my leisure. 

 At the British Museum I enjoyed the wonderful oppor 

 tunities there given for investigation; and there, too, I 

 found an admirable helper in certain lines of work my 

 friend Professor Hudson, since of Stanford University, 

 California. 



The only place where I was at all in touch with the 

 outside world was at the Athenaeum Club; but the main 

 attraction there was the library. 



Now came a sudden change in all my plans. My 

 health having weakened somewhat under the influence 



