“You will see I am right in condemning the conduct of the Catholic party about Fenianism, and also as to the intentions of the Government of rewarding their loyalty! It will be a great parliamentary fight, and my paper will be well timed. “Is Mrs Blackwood coming to town this spring? I’d like to think we could see the Burlington repeat itself, and be as jolly as it was last year. It did me a world of good as to spirits and courage that trip, though it made a hole in my time--and my pocket. “I am afraid I must go down to Spezzia again, and for a week too. The cares of office are heavy, and I am afraid I serve a country ungrateful enough not to appreciate me.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, Florence, _Jan_. 20, 1866. “I have been obliged to put off Spezzia till the 20th, but shall have to pass a week or ten days there _then_. Meanwhile I am at work thinking over (not writing) ‘Sir Brook.’ I want to do the thing well, but I have not yet got the stick by the handle. “From what I can pick up from those who read O’D., no paper ought to have more than one joke. One plum to a pudding is the English taste. All the rest must be what the doctors call ‘vehicle,’ and drollery be administered in drop doses. Of course I get public opinion in a very diluted form here,--but such is the strength in which it reaches me. “Robt. Lytton is better,--one eye safe, and hopes of the other. Have you heard that Oliphant has been dangerously ill, at N. York?--a menace of softening of the brain having declared itself, and of course such a malady is never a mere threat. I am sincerely sorry for him, and so will you be. “My trip to town will depend on the events in the House. If our friends come in I will certainly go over. Tell Mrs Blackwood to read O’Dowd on ‘Thrift ‘: she will see that there are certain people it will never do with.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, Florence, _Feb_. 3, 1866. “If what I hear be true, our friends have made a precious ‘fiasco’ of it in their game of politics. They have so palpably shown Lord Russell all the weak points of his Bill--every damaging ingredient in it--that he has deliberately changed the whole structure, enlarged its provisions, and made it (appear at least) such a measure as may settle the question of Reform for some years to come. It is so like the Conservatives! They certainly are more deficient in the skill required to manage a party than any section in the House. Why, in Heaven’s name, show their hand? and above all, why show it before the trump-card was turned? If their cause were twice as good as it is, and if the men who sustain it were fourfold as able, the press of the Party would reduce it to insignificance and contempt. Never was such advocacy in the world as ‘The Herald’ and ‘Standard.’