right through the heart, under
circumstances of peculiar cruelty, I shall have to give up _you_. If I
bake Penini in a pie and eat him, you'll have to give up me.

The Emperor Napoleon is faithful and will be faithful to the Italian
cause, and to the cause of the nationalities, as long as and wherever it
is prudent, for the general interest; possible without dangerous
complications. He has risked enough for it, to be trusted a little I
think--his life and dynasty certainly. At this moment I hear from Rome
of a great dinner given by Lamoriciere to his staff, or by his staff to
him (I don't know which), only that the health of _Henri Cinq_ was
suggested and drunk at it. Gorgon telegraphed the news to Paris. What
then? English newspapers (even such papers as the 'Daily News') have
stated that Lamoriciere was doing Napoleonic business at Rome. Perhaps
this is of it.

Chapman junior is in Florence (doing business upon Lever I believe), and
he maintains that I have done myself no mortal harm by the Congress
poems, which incline to a second edition after all. Had it been
otherwise I yet never should have repented speaking the word out of me
which burnt in me. Printing that book did me real good. For the rest
'Aurora Leigh' is in the press for a _fifth_ edition. Read the 'Word for
Truth by a Seaman,' written by a naval officer of high reputation.

We left Rome on the 4th of June, and travelled by vettura through
Orvieto and Chiusi. Beautiful scenery, interesting pictures and tombs,
but a fatiguing journey. At least, Pen's pony and I were both of us
unusually fatigued, and scarcely, at the end of a week, am I myself yet.
I am not as strong since my illness last summer. We stay here till the
early part of July and then remove to Siena, to the villa we had last
year; and there Pen keeps tryst with his Abbe and the Latin. He has made
great progress this winter in Latin and much besides, and he isn't going
to be a 'wretched little Papist,' as some of our friends precipitately
conclude from the fact of his having a priest for a tutor. Indeed Pen
has to be restrained into politeness and tolerance towards
ecclesiastical dignities. Think of his addressing his instructor (who
complained of the weather at Rome one morning) thus--in choice Tuscan:
'Of course it's the excommunication. The prophet says that a curse
begins with the curser's own house; and so it is with the Holy Father's
curse.' Wasn't that clever of Pen? and impertinent, b