“Is it true you are all in a devil of a funk at a war with America? So say the diplomats here, but they are very generally mistaken about everything except ‘Quarter day.’ I had Hudson to dinner on Monday, and we laughed ourselves into the gout, and had to finish the evening with hot flannels and colchicum. There is not his equal in Europe. If I could only give you his talk, you’d have such a _Noctes_ as I have never read of for many a year, I assure you. I wished for you when the fun was going fast. Good Heavens! how provoking it is that such a fellow should not be commemorated. Listening to him after reading a biography is such rank bathos; and as to settling down to _write_ after him, it is like setting to work to brew small beer with one’s head swimming with champagne. I hope to be back at Villa Morelli by Sunday, and to find a proof and a letter from you when I arrive. “I shall be very glad to see Mr M. Skene when he turns up at Florence. I need not tell you that a friend of yours comes into the category of the favoured nations. My life is now, however, a very dull affair to ask any one to look at, and it is only by a real feeling of good-nature any one would endure me. “Only think of this climate! I have had to close the jalousies to keep out the sun, and it is now positively too hot where I am writing. I could almost forgive the ‘Excursionists’ coming out to bask in such sunshine. “I hear the ‘M. Post’ has had a long and favourable notice of ‘Tony.’ Have you seen it? “Now be sure you write to me and often. Addio. “The American consul has just called and told me that his Government are sending a smashing squadron over here under an admiral--a sort of ‘Io Triumphe’ after the raising of the blockade. All the big frigates are to be included in it.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _March_ 30,1865. “This is only to say how much your criticism on ‘Sir B.’ has pleased me, but don’t believe the book is better than ‘Tony’--it is not. The man who wrote the other hasn’t as good in his wallet. “I am _sure_ the _Major_ is right, and the story of being _chasséd_ from Austria reads wrong; but it is not, as one might imagine, _unfounded_. The case was Yelverton’s, and present V. Admiral in the Mediterranean, and the lady an Infanta of Portugal, and it went so far that she was actually going off with him. Now, if you still think it should be cancelled, be it so. I have only recommended it to mercy, not pardoned it.