der; and he perceived from Mr. Gladstone's demeanour that the
decorous plausibilities of diplomacy would no more hold him back from
resolute exposure, than they would put out the fires of Vesuvius or
Etna.

On May 2 Lord Aberdeen wrote to Schwarzenberg at Vienna, saying that for
forty years he had been connected with the Austrian government, and
taken a warm interest in the fortunes of the empire; that Mr. Gladstone,
one of the most distinguished members of the cabinet of Peel, had been
so shocked by what he saw at Naples, that he was resolved to make some
public appeal; that to avoid the pain and scandal of a conservative
statesman taking such a course, would not his highness use his powerful
influence to get done at Naples all that could reasonably be desired?
The Austrian minister replied several weeks after (June 30). If he had
been invited, he said, officially to interfere he would have declined;
as it was, he would bring Mr. Gladstone's statements to the notice of
his Sicilian majesty. Meanwhile, at great length, he reminded Lord
Aberdeen that a political offender may be the worst of all offenders,
and argued that the rigour exercised by England herself in the Ionian
Islands, in Ceylon, in respect of Irishmen, and in the recent case of
Ernest Jones, showed how careful she should be in taking up abroad the
cause of bad men posing as martyrs in the holy cause of liberty.

During all these weeks, while Aberdeen was maturely considering, and
while Prince Schwarzenberg was making his secretaries hunt up
recriminatory cases against England, Mr. Gladstone was growing
impatient. Lord Aberdeen begged him to give the Austrian minister a
little more time. It was nearly four months since Mr. Gladstone landed
at Dover, and every day he thought of Poerio, Settembrini, and the rest,
wearing their double chains, subsisting on their foul soup, degraded by
forced companionship with criminals, cut off from the light of heaven,
and festering in their dungeons. The facts that escaped from him in
private conversation seemed to him--so he tells Lacaita--to spread like
wildfire from man to man, exciting the liveliest interest, and extending
to the highest persons in the land. He waited a fortnight more, then at
the beginning of July he launched his thunderbolt, publishing his Letter
to Lord Aberdeen, followed by a second explanation and enlargement a
fortnight later.[243] He did not obtain formal leave from Lord Aberdeen
for the publica