To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Feb. 3, 1866.
“If what I hear be true, our friends have made a precious ‘fiasco’ of it in their game of politics. They have so palpably shown Lord Russell all the weak points of his Bill—every damaging ingredient in it—that he has deliberately changed the whole structure, enlarged its provisions, and made it (appear at least) such a measure as may settle the question of Reform for some years to come. It is so like the Conservatives! They certainly are more deficient in the skill required to manage a party than any section in the House. Why, in Heaven’s name, show their hand? and above all, why show it before the trump-card was turned? If their cause were twice as good as it is, and if the men who sustain it were fourfold as able, the press of the Party would reduce it to insignificance and contempt. Never was such advocacy in the world as ‘The Herald’ and ‘Standard.’
“A few days ago, and even his own papers declared Lord R. was rushing to his ruin; but the Conservatives cried out ‘Take care!’ and he has listened to the warning. A mere franchise reform must have inevitably wrecked him. The very carrying it would have been a success that must have been worse than any defeat. I don’t think that men so inept as the Tories deserve power, and I’m sure they could not retain it if they got it.
“I hear Mill was a failure, and I own I’m not sorry. I hate the men he belongs to, either in letters or politics. Bright was certainly good. It was Bow-wow! but still a very good Bow-wow!—better than the polished platitudes of Gladstone, which the world accepts as philosophy.
“But confound their politics. I send you ‘B. F.,’ and I send it early, because I want the proof back as soon as you can. I am going to idle, but whether at Rome or across to Sardinia, or only over to Elba, I have not decided. I am hipped and want some change,—the real malady being I’m growing old, and don’t like it, and revenge my own stupidity by thinking the people I meet insupportably dull and tiresome.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Feb. 6, 1866.
“I begin a short note to you now that I have just got back, full sure that I shall have to acknowledge one from you before I finish.
“I am glad to see ‘The Times’ extract largely from the ‘Two Rebellions.’ The Jamaica affair, I hear, will be the acrimonious fight of the session. What I am told is that the country will stand at present no Ministry of which Gladstone is not a part, and that if Lord R. goes (as he may), it must be some patchwork of Stanley, Gladstone, and some mild members of the Conservative party. One thing I am assured is certain,—Gladstone is far less liberal than he was.