26o THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

one time poetical aspirations, and had been regarded as a young bard of promise amongst our minor poets.

During the Franco-German war, he acquired a certain amount of notoriety for the extravagance with which he espoused the cause of France, and later on he made himself conspicuous as an Englishman who was more Oriental than any Moslem bred and born. When our fellow-countrymen go in for what I may call the "cult" of a foreign race or creed, they always remind me of the amateur who, when he acted the Moor of Venice, thought it necessary to black himself all over, from the soles of his feet to the tip of his forehead. It may show want of imagination on my part, but I could never take Mr. Blunt's Orientalism seriously, after I found out that in order to sustain his character, as a denizen of the East, he used, on arrival at Cairo, to be met at the station by his camel and ride to Shepheard's Hotel, a distance of barely five minutes' walk, sooner than take a carriage like a commonplace tourist Sir William Gregory was a man of far higher ability, who had been very near achieving eminence in public life. He had sat for many years in the House of Commons, had earned distinction as a speaker, and was looked upon as in the running for Cabinet rank, but somehow had been distanced in the race for political distinction by men of more application, though less ability. He had been at one time well known on the turf; he had been an enthusiastic partisan of the Confederate cause, and had, I believe, thereby sustained heavy losses. He had J