tion, but from their conversation took it for granted.

NEAPOLITAN LETTERS PUBLISHED

The sensation was profound, and not in England only. The Letters were
translated into various tongues and had a large circulation. The Society
of the Friends of Italy in London, the disciples of Mazzini (and a
high-hearted band they were), besought him to become a member. Exiles
wrote him letters of gratitude and hope, with all the moving accent of
revolutionary illusion. Italian women composed fervid odes in fire and
tears to the '_generoso britanno_,' the '_magnanimo cor_,' the
'_difensore d'un popolo gemente_.' The press in this country took the
matter up with the warmth that might have been expected. The character
and the politics of the accuser added invincible force to his
accusations, and for the first time in his life Mr. Gladstone found
himself vehemently applauded in liberal prints. Even the contemporary
excitement of English public feeling against the Roman catholic church
fed the flame. It was pointed out that the King of Naples was the bosom
friend of the pope, and that the infernal system described by Mr.
Gladstone was that which the Roman clergy regarded as normal and
complete.[244] Mr. Gladstone had denounced as one of the most detestable
books he ever read a certain catechism used in the Neapolitan schools.
Why then, cried the _Times_, does he omit all comment on the church
which is the main and direct agent in this atrocious instruction? The
clergy had either basely accepted from the government doctrines that
they were bound to abhor, or else these doctrines were their own. And so
things glided easily round to Dr. Cullen and the Irish education
question. This line was none the less natural from the fact that the
editor of the _Univers_, the chief catholic organ in France, made
himself the foremost champion of the Neapolitan policy. The Letters
delighted the Paris Reds. They regarded their own epithets as insipid by
comparison with the ferocious adjectives of the English conservative. On
the other hand, an English gentleman was blackballed at one of the
fashionable clubs in Paris for no better reason than that he bore the
name of Gladstone. For European conservatives read the letters with
disgust and apprehension. People like Madame de Lieven pronounced Mr.
Gladstone the dupe of men less honest than himself, and declared that he
had injured the good cause and discredited his own fame, besides doing