Note to the Portrait.—The sketch in the preceding page is copied from an early likeness, but can hardly be considered an accurate one now. In a book of this nature, which owes much of whatever attractiveness it may possess to his permission to avail of the pictorial and literary memoranda of his prolonged sojourn in South America, and especially in a chapter on the River Plate, in whose affairs he played so important a part in the chief crisis of its history, full biographical details of Sir W. Gore Ouseley’s career may reasonably be anticipated. For such purpose, however, the writer has access only to the ordinary data to be found in works of public reference; nor, if others of a private nature were open, would it, perhaps, be in the best taste to insert them here, as they would necessarily be supposed to be used with an unduly partial bias. Without entering at length into details more fitted for a genealogical work than for our pages, it will suffice to say that, previous to the sixteenth century, the Ouseley family was allied to several of the most ancient and honourable patrician names of this country, and thus their ancestry can be traced to a remote period. The Irving family, into which the late Sir W. Ouseley (father of Sir W. Gore Ouseley) married, is allied to the Douglases, the Rollos, and many other noble Scotch families. Referring to ‘Burke’s Baronetage,’ and ‘Landed Gentry,’ ‘Dod’s Knightage’ for 1854, and other cognate authorities, we find that Sir W. G. Ouseley is descended from an ancient Shropshire family who settled in Northamptonshire in 1571, the then head of the family, Richard Ouseley Ouseley, having received from Queen Elizabeth, under whom he was a judge, a grant of the estate of Courteen Hall, in that county, with many of the most eminent families in which the Ouseleys were connected, such as the Actons of Alderham, as also the Barons Giffard of Brinsfield, and Barons Lestrange of Blackmere.[76] Nicholas Ouseley, a relative of Richard Ouseley Ouseley, was envoy to the courts of Spain and Portugal, and some of his correspondence with Sir Francis Walsingham is preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. John, son of Richard Ouseley, was knighted by James I. in 1603, for his gallant conduct during the war in Ireland with the turbulent Earl of Tyrone. The diplomatic services of Sir John are mentioned in a subsequent note, and by Purchas in his ‘Pilgrims.’ Sir Richard Ouseley, his son, held the commission of major in the royalist army during the civil war between Charles I. and the Parliament, and in consequence of debts incurred in support of the royal cause he was obliged to sell Courteen Hall in 1650. The family then settled in Ireland, where they held Ballinasloe Castle, and afterwards Dunmore Castle, in the county of Galway, which latter remained in the family until the death of Major Ralph Ouseley, grandfather of Sir William Gore Ouseley. The major was a great antiquarian, and had a very fine collection of Irish antiquities, MSS., &c. His eldest son, Sir William Ouseley, served in the 8th Dragoons during the unfortunate campaign in Holland, where the British forces were commanded by the Duke of York; but after attaining the rank of major, he abandoned war for the more congenial pursuit of literature, and became a member of most of the learned and scientific societies of Europe. He published ‘Travels in Persia,’ (to which country he accompanied his brother, Sir Gore Ouseley, in 1810,) and many other works on Eastern antiquities and literature, in which he has left a mine of Oriental and classical learning that will always remain a monument of his great industry and talent. Sir G. Ouseley was the first ambassador accredited from the court of St. James’s to that of Persia, though Sir Harford Jones, Sir John Malcolm, and others, had previously been sent by the East India Company to that country. He was chairman of the Oriental Translation Society, to whose papers, and those of the Asiatic Society, he was a contributor. Sir William, who married the daughter of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Irving, (son of General Sir Paulus E. Irving, governor-general of Canada,) left a numerous family, the eldest of whom, Sir William Gore Ouseley, entered the diplomatic service at a very early age. He was attached to the mission at Stockholm in 1817, and in 1825 was appointed paid attachÉ at Washington. While in that capital, he married the daughter of Mr. Van Ness, formerly governor of the state of Vermont, and subsequently the United States envoy at Madrid. He was next appointed acting secretary of legation at Brussels during Sir R. Adair’s special embassy, and subsequently at Rio Janeiro, at which court he represented our government for several years as chargÉ d’affaires. In 1844 Sir William was named minister plenipotentiary at Buenos Ayres, and in 1845 special minister to the states of La Plata. In tardy acknowledgment of his important diplomatic services in South America, he received the Order of the Bath in 1852. He is the author of ‘Remarks on the Slave Trade,’ ‘South American Sketches,’ and several political pamphlets. We cannot forbear quoting a few lines from a critique on his ‘Remarks on the Statistics and Political Institutions of the United States,’ in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for December, 1832, which, although opposed to the views taken in that periodical of the United States and their institutions, had the fairness to say,—‘We have no desire to be severely critical on the coup d’essai of a young author—one, we believe, of a family in which diplomatic ability may be called an hereditary possession.’ Some facts in connection with Sir William’s memorable mission to the River Plate will be found a few pages further on, as also in the notice of Rosas, whose enmity our minister had the honour of provoking in an eminent degree, by firmly protecting the persons and interests of his countrymen, and acting up to the spirit of his instructions. How deservedly he did so will be seen when we come to speak of one, at least, of those transactions of which the guilt has been incontestibly fixed upon the ex-Dictator within the last few months, but for accusing him of which at the time, our unsuspecting innocents at home deemed the British representative very culpable indeed, or, at least, very troublesome. Doubtless, so he was, as compared with certain of his predecessors and successors in the same post, who quietly winked at the atrocities of the despot without appealing to England against their continuance.