, a
floor burnt through each time. Then I was laid down with a most severe
influenza: very sore throat, a thing quite new to me. The Roman climate is
as bad for me as can be." I have been told by one who saw much of the
party during the Roman visit, that Mr. Gladstone seemed to care little or
not at all about wonders of archaeology alike in Christian and pagan Rome,
but never wearied of hearing Italian sermons from priests and preaching
friars. This was consonant with the whole temper of his life. He was a
collector of ivories, of china, of Wedgwood, but in architecture in all
its high historic bearings I never found him very deeply interested. I
doubt if he followed the controversies about French, Gothic and Italian,
about Byzantine and Romanesque, with any more concern than he had in the
controversies of geology. He had two audiences of Pope Pius IX., as we
have seen, as had others of his colleagues then in Rome; and Mr. Gladstone
used to tell with much glee in what diverse fashion they impressed the
pontiff. "I like but I do not understand Mr. Gladstone," the pope said;
"Mr. Cardwell I understand, but I do not like; I both like and understand
Lord Clarendon; the Duke of Argyll I neither understand nor like." He saw
ten of the cardinals, and at Florence he had an audience of the king "who
spoke very freely"; he had two long interviews with Ricasoli; and some
forty or fifty members of the Italian parliament gave him the honour of a
dinner at which Poerio made a most eloquent speech. To the Duchess of
Sutherland he wrote:--

_Florence, Jan. 13, 1867._--Yesterday Argyll, Cardwell, and I went
to the king. He spoke with an astounding freedom; freely
concerning the pope and the emperor, hopeful about Italy in
general, rather feebly impressed with the financial difficulty,
and having his head stuffed full of military notions which it
would be very desirable to displace. We have rumours from England
of reform and of no reform; but we do not trouble ourselves
overmuch about these matters. To-morrow I am to be entertained by
a number of the deputies in memory especially of the Naples
letters. I shrank from this, as I have long ago been much
overpraised and overpaid for the affair, but I could not find a
proper ground for refusing. The dinner is to be a private one, but
I suppose some notice of it will find its way into the journals.
It is a curious proof of the way in wh