"On the opposite side of Lady Blessington stood Henry Bulwer, the brother of the novelist, very earnestly engaged in a discussion of some speech of O'Connell's. He is said by many to be as talented as his brother, and has lately published a book on the present state of France. He is a small man; very slight and gentlemanlike; a little pitted with the smallpox, and of very winning and persuasive manners. I liked him at the first glance.
"A German prince, with a star on his breast, trying with all his might—but, from his embarrassed look, quite unsuccessfully—to comprehend the drift of the argument; the Duke de Richelieu; a famous traveller just returned from Constantinople; and the splendid person of Count D'Orsay, in a careless attitude upon the ottoman, completed the cordon.
"I fell into conversation after a while with Smith, who, supposing I might not have heard the names of the others in the hurry of an introduction, kindly took the trouble to play the dictionary, and added a graphic character of each as he named him. Among other things, he talked a great deal of America, and asked me if I knew our distinguished countryman, Washington Irving. I had never been so fortunate as to meet him. 'You have lost a great deal,' he said, 'for never was so delightful a fellow. I was once taken down with him into the country by a merchant to dinner. Our friend stopped his carriage at the gate of his park, and asked us if we would walk through his grounds to the house. Irving refused, and held me down by the coat, so that we drove
