"_Daily News_ correspondent" [as I then for a short time was], "Novel, and Hospitality! Enough to do indeed! Perhaps the day _might_ be advantageously made longer for such work--or say life." [Ah! if the small matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have put up with the allowance of four-and-twenty hours.] "And yet I don't know. Like enough we should all do less if we had time to do more in. "Layard was with us for a couple of days a little while ago, and brought the last report of you, and of your daughter, who seems to have made a great impression on him. I wish he had had the keepership of the National Gallery, for I don't think his Government will hold together through many weeks. "I wonder whether you thought as highly of Gibson's art as the lady did who wrote the verses. I must say that I did _not_, and that I thought it of a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination in it. It seemed to me as if he 'didn't find me' in that, as the servants say, but only provided me with carved marble, and expected me to furnish myself with as much idea as I could afford. "Very faithfully yours, "CHARLES DICKENS." * * * * * I do not remember the verses, though I feel confident that the lady who sent them through me must have been a very charming person. As to Gibson, no criticism could be sounder. I had a considerable liking for Gibson as a man, and admiration for his character, but as regards his ideal productions I think Dickens hits the right nail on the head. In another letter of the same year, 25th July, after a page of remarks on editorial matters, he writes:-- * * * * * "If Italy could but achieve some brilliant success in arms! That she does not, causes, I think, some disappointment here, and makes her sluggish friends more sluggish, and her open enemies more powerful. I fear too that the Italian ministry have lost an excellent opportunity of repairing the national credit in London city, and have borrowed money in France for the poor consideration of lower interest, which" _[sic_, but I suspect _which_ must be a slip of the pen for _than_] "they could have got in England, greatly to the re-establishment of a reputation for public good faith. As to Louis Napoleon, his position in the whole matter is to me like his position in Europe at all times, simply disheartening and astounding. Between Prussia and Austria there is, in my mind (but for Italy), not a pin to choose. If each could smash the other I should be, as to those two Powers, perfectly satisfied. But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born. So here you have in brief my confession of faith.