"I had shown my drawing to several people and amongst the ambassadors and distinguished persons here--all of whom, _de rigueur_, more or less pretend to understand the arts--and it gained universal approbation. It was talked about by all, and written about by Demetrius Schinas and other obscure poets and prose writers. I was flattered, invited, and made much of. Our ambassador boasts that the solution has been proved by an Englishman; others bow and beg to be allowed to send copies of my etching to their Governments, to Metternich, &c. It was formally presented to the Grand Duke, and I have received from the Academy here a handsome letter and diploma of Academician of Florence. It is to be published in the official work on the Gallery. I have presented it myself to Madame de Staël, and my friends have sent it to all parts of the Continent." He was now regularly launched in the fashionable society of Florence. The reigning beauty at this time, the centre of all jollity and brightness, was Lady Dillon. All the young men were at her feet, and Cockerell was as deeply smitten as anybody. As already mentioned, during the time that he was in Syracuse he had learnt the art of cameo-cutting. He now made use of it--or at least of the preliminary stage, which is to make a model in wax--to execute a highly finished portrait of her, which still exists in the possession of her descendants. It shows a head of great beauty, and is executed with admirable skill and minuteness. The whole English nation was now jubilant over the success of its army at Waterloo, and was considering the rewards to be offered to its idol, the Duke of Wellington. He was to have a magnificent palace, surpassing the glories of Blenheim, and architects were called upon to give reins to their imagination in preparing designs in competition. The celebrity which my father had by now made for himself obtained him, through the medium of Lord and Lady Burghersh, his fast friends, a formal invitation to send in designs for the Wellington Palace. The opportunity was of course magnificent, but nothing he had been doing for years had in the least adapted him to take advantage of it.