The ÁrminiusVambéthird man upon whom I called was the late Viscount Strangford, the wonderful Oriental linguist and the brilliant writer. I say on purpose wonderful, for I rarely met a man in my life whose almost supernatural ability to speak and to write many European and Asiatic languages caused me so much astonishment. Our conversation began in the Turkish of Constantinople, in that refined idiom, whereof six or eight words out of every ten are certainly either Arab or Persian, only the others belonging to the genuine Turkish stock. To use this language in an elegant way, it is requisite to adapt one's mode of thinking entirely to that of thoroughbred Orientals, to have besides a proficiency in the standard works of Mohammedan literature, and, above all, to have moved a good deal in the so-called Effendi society. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that Lord Strangford, fully adequate to these exigencies, would have been taken by everybody for a downright Effendi, had it not been for the peculiarly Celtic shape of his head, and for the way in which he used to turn it to the right and to the left of his shoulders. Finding that I had come fresh from the East, where for many years I used Turkish as a colloquial and literary language, he was delighted to renew with me all his reminiscences of a long stay on the Bosphorus, and particularly to have somebody who was able to give him oral information about the language and literature of Central Asia, in which he was so much interested. Having flattered myself with the hope that I should become the only authority in Europe on Eastern-Turkish, the reader may fancy my astonishment when I heard from the mouth of an English nobleman the recital of such poems as those of Nevai, which had hitherto escaped my attention, and when he gave me the explanation of words which I had vainly looked for in the Eastern dictionaries. Lord Strangford was quite a riddle to me; for apart from his knowledge in Eastern tongues, he spoke almost all European languages; he was a Sclavonic scholar, he knew Hungarian, nay, even the language of the Gipsies; and what struck me most was his vast information concerning the various literatures and histories of these peoples. No wonder, therefore, that I felt from the beginning a particular attraction to the learned Viscount, and that he also, as I afterwards had ample opportunity to learn, took a fancy to me and became my most zealous and disinterested supporter in England. Envy and jealousy had no place in the noble heart of Lord Strangford; he gave himself all possible pains to introduce me everywhere, and to level the ground before me, and the standing I gained in London society was entirely due to his exertions.