“I have half a hope that the Whigs are falling. Pam’s State declarations about Denmark _ought_ to overthrow any Administration. Even Gladstone, so able in subterfuge, was not equal to the task assigned him of showing Black to be very frequently, but not naturally, White.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Casa Capponi, Florence, _March_ 3,1864 “I only write one line to acknowledge and thank you for your cheque, which has just reached me. I have not looked at pen-and-ink for the past week, but I am on the road to get stronger. I always feel, in taking port wine (a hard thing to get here) for my ague, as if I were using crown pieces to repair the coppering of a shattered old craft. Better-keep the money and let the worthless boat go to ------ I won’t say the devil, lest there come a confusion in my figure of speech. “Of course ‘Tony’ is the main thing. In O’D. I am only like the retired Cat Princess, who merely caught mice for her amusement. I’ll read the L. N. article with attention. Is Laurence Oliphant, _par hazard_, the author? He is a charming fellow, and I like him greatly, but I’d not think him a safe guide politically. “I like Grant much, and have been at him to write some camp-life sketches on Africa. The Yankees here want him to go over to America and lecture, but he is far too modest to stand scrutiny from opera-glasses.” _To Dr Burbidge_. “Casa Capponi, Florence, _March_ 4,1864. “I had hoped to have got a line from you either last night or the night before about your flunkey; so I am unable to wait longer, and must take one of the creatures that offers here. Indeed, making the one who remains do all the work has installed him into a position of such insolent tyranny, it will take a month at least to reduce him to his proper proportions. “Some disaster has befallen my No. of ‘Luttrell’ for April, No. 5, and I can hear nothing of it. The proof and added part were sent from this, by me, four weeks ago, and after that.... “I have not written for the last eight or ten days, but I am getting all right, and take long walks every day, looking at villas, of which there are scores, but scarcely a habitable one, at least as a permanent abode, to be found. “There is not one word of news beyond the arming of the French fleet. I find that many Mazzinists here believe that Mazzini was really engaged in the late plot; but I can neither believe the plot nor that he was in it. I look upon it as a very clumsy police trick throughout. “My wife makes no advance towards health,--a day back and a day forward is the history of her life; but everything shows me that to undertake a journey to Spezzia without feeling that I had a comfortable place for her when there, and that she could remain without another change back in winter, would be a fatal mistake.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Casa Capponi, _March_ 8,1864.