“I was greatly tempted to go to Venice, so many of my friends went; but I was too low in many ways, and so resisted all offers. “Send me some money. The Florence tradesmen, in their religious fervour, anticipate Xmas by sending in their bills before December, and in this way they keep me blaspheming all Advent. “I hope to hear some good news of ‘Sir Brook,’--if, that is to say, good news has not cut with me, which I half begin to suspect. “What do you say to the Pope’s allocution? It appears to me _son dernier mot_. By the way, why did your political article last month pronounce so positively against any Reform Bill, when it is quite certain the Government will try one? Would not the best tactic of party be now to declare that the only possible reform measure could come from the Tories? that, representing, as they do, the nation more broadly as well as more unchangeably, their bill would be more likely to settle the question for a longer term of years than any measure conceived in the spirit of mere party,--and I would like to show that it is the spirit of party, of even factious party, that is animating the Whigs. “Universal suffrage in Australia has proved an eminently Conservative measure. What we have to bear most in England is not _great_ change so much as _sudden_ change. We can conform to anything, but we need time to suit ourselves to the task. “I suspect that the moderate Whigs have no intention of joining the Conservatives. There is, first of all, the same disgrace attaching to a change of seat in the House as in a change of religion. Nobody hesitates to think that a convert must be either a knave or a fool; and, secondly, the Whigs do not apprehend danger as _we_ do: they do not think Democracy either so near or so perilous. Which of us is right, God knows! For my own part, perhaps my stomach has something to say to it. I believe we have turned the summit of the hill, and are on our way downward as fast as may be. “America is wonderfully interesting just now. It is a great problem at issue, and never was popular government submitted to so severe a test. If Johnson goes on and determines to beard the Radicals, he will be driven to get up a row with England to obtain an army. They will vote troops readily enough for _that,--reste à savoir_ against whom he will employ them. “I am glad to see Lord Stanley appointing a Commission to consider the Yankee claims. There is nothing so really good in parliamentary government as the simple fact that a new Cabinet may undo the very policy they once approved of, and thus the changeful fortunes of the world may be used to profit, instead of accepted as hopeless calamities.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 16,1866 “I would have delayed these proofs another day in the hope of hearing from you, as I am so anxious to do, but that the Queen’s Messenger leaves this evening for England, and I desire to catch him as my postman.