“My dear Pan,
I wrote to you from Palermo a letter, which you will receive almost at the same time as this.
It will show you how very far I was from entertaining any unkind feeling towards you.
On my arrival here yesterday I found a letter from you, written in a very hostile tone. I can only repeat that I feel great gratitude to you in all this business, that I am sure you never meant in any way to be unfriendly towards me, and that if I differed from you as to the propriety of your letter to the Times, I am willing to suppose that you on the spot might have better means of judging than I had.... Knowing how easily you take fire, I should have been more guarded in writing to you; but I know also that hot as you are, you easily cool, and that your indignation never really interferes with your kind feelings for old friends.
Yours sincerely,
Holland.”
So ended satisfactorily this notable controversy. Nor was this the only complication of the kind in which the importance thrust on Panizzi served to involve him. To none were his relations closer than to the family of the late Lord Langdale, formerly Master of the Rolls, who, it may be remembered, in 1850, refused the office of Lord Chancellor, offered to him on the retirement of Lord Cottenham.
Panizzi’s acquaintance with Lord and Lady Langdale speedily ripened into a warm intimacy, and of their daughter, the Countess Teleki, he was the especial favourite. On the death of his Lordship, which happened on the 18th of April, 1851, Panizzi wrote as follows to Lord Rutherfurd:—
“April 24.
“Nothing but your own handwriting could have afforded me any real pleasure in the deep grief I feel at the loss of both the friends respecting whom you write. Lord Langdale’s I feel most, as I was often with him, and as he has given me, at all times, and at some particularly of a comparatively recent date, such proof of affection and, what is more, of thorough esteem and regard, as I shall never forget....