“Fred Chapman is now here, having come out to induce me to give him an assignment of all my copyrights as security for a debt they claim against me of £2500, but which I utterly deny and dispute. “Drop me one line to say if the £60 has reached you. “How are you all, and how does time treat you? I am growing terribly old--older than I ever thought or feared I should feel myself. Does my last book please you? Some of my critics call it my best; but I have lost faith in them as in myself, and I write as I live--from hand to mouth. “My poor old friend James has just died at Venice, an utter break-up of mind having preceded the end.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _June_ 24, 1866. “I see by the telegram that the Whigs have resigned, and it is [Lord Dunkellin’s] jaw-bone has slain the giant. Oh dear, do you know him? He dined here with us some short time ago, with Gregory and some others, and we thought him the poorest thing of the lot. “I have great doubts that our people can form an Administration. They have the cane too, it is true, to help them; but they may have to give all the plums to their supporters, and their old friends won’t like eating the ‘dough’ for _their_ share of the pudding. “Worse than this is the miserable press of the Party. Can’t men see that the whole tone of public opinion in England has taken the Italian side of the Venetian question? There is no longer a right and wrong in these things when sympathies--and something stronger than sympathies--come in; and the stupid ‘Standard’ goes on raving about treaties scarcely a rag of which remain, and which every congress we have held since ‘13 has only demolished some part of. If Austria be wise and fortunate she will take Silesia and make peace with Italy, ceding Venice. What every one wants is securities against France; but we have converted the brigand into a sheriffs officer, and thrown an air of legality over all his robberies. “That Europe endures the insolence of his late letter is the surest evidence of the miserable cowardice of the age. “The scene of the king’s departure here was very touching. He left at 3 o’clock on Monday, just as day was breaking, but the whole city was up and in the streets to take leave of him. All the ladies in their carriages, and the great squares crammed as I never saw them on Monday. The king was so moved that he could not speak, and the enthusiasm was really overwhelming. If this army gets a first success it will dash on gallantly and do well; if it be repulsed---- “Should the Conservatives come in, will they have the wit to offer the mission here to Hudson? It would do more for them as a party than forty votes in the House. It would stop at once the lurking suspicion as to their retrograde tendencies in Italy, on which Palmerston taunted them, and by which he kept them out of office for years.