Amongst others who felt the disappointment of the failure almost as keenly as Panizzi himself was Mr. Gladstone, who lost no time in writing a letter of condolence on the ill-success of the expedition:— “Hawarden, Chester, November 6th, 1855. “My dear Panizzi, I cannot help writing you a line, however barren of condolence. I had hoped it might please God that your benevolent plan should succeed. It seems usually so hopeless to do good in this world, on a large scale, that one desires to become intensely concentrated on what lies within a small compass. For myself, too, I feel that with respect to the Italians I have had a great deal more credit than I have fairly earned; and I wished to have a hand in _doing_ something by way of a step towards rectifying the account. I am so little informed of the reasons and particulars of your mode of proceeding, that I will at present go no further; but whenever the opportunity offers, I shall be most desirous to converse with you. I hope to hear more in the interval if you have more that can be usefully said. I have resumed, during this recess, some old studies on Homer, and have also gone back for collateral illustration to that field of which I am very fond—the Italian romance. So for the first time I have been reading you on Ariosto and Bojardo, and on the romance in general; let me add, with great interest and pleasure, and with profit too, unless it be my own fault. But I am curious to know whether you still hold all the opinions that you had when you gave these books to the world. Are you still willing to have it thought to be probably your opinion that Berni is better than Bojardo? I am inclined to like Domenichi better than Berni, because he is so much nearer Bojardo. Mr. Hallam speaks of him with contempt. I doubt if he had paid much attention to either. I have also been reading the ‘Orlandino’ and the ‘Ricciardetto.’ All these poems have an interest attaching to them as parts of a great chapter of literature. The last of them, at least the first half of it, though far from unexceptionable, seems to me better and not worse than Ariosto, in the one point for which he is justly censured. Yours, &c., &c., W. E. GLADSTONE. A few graceful words to the same effect were also received by Panizzi from Sir W. Temple:—“Should the aid of friends be necessary, I hope you will reckon me among the number.” The following letter, with which the present chapter concludes, distinctly proves of what stuff Settembrini was composed, and the same commendation may, without presumption, be extended to his companions:— “Santo Stefano, December 3rd, 1855.