to support him."

How disastrously the expedition ended we all remember. It was denounced
as treasonable by the Italian Government in a royal proclamation, and
Garibaldi was wounded at Aspromonte in an encounter with troops sent to
stop his advance. Great and spontaneous was the outburst of sympathy in
England for the hero of Marsala. A small group of his friends arranged,
at a cost of L1000, to send out an English surgeon, Mr. Partridge, to
attend him. It was not by him, however, but by the eminent French
surgeon Nelaton that the bullet was found and extracted.

More than once Mazzini's impulsiveness, not to say naivete, struck me.
Thus one day he rushed breathlessly into my studio, with the words,
"Have you heard the news? We are going to have Rome and Venice." I
forget what particular news he alluded to, but remember pulling him up
with unwarrantable audacity. "At what o'clock?" I asked. "Ah," he
answered, "go on, go on. I am too well accustomed to jeers and epigrams
to mind." I humbly apologised for my disrespectful retort, uttered on
the spur of the moment; but to do so seemed scarcely necessary, for the
lion evidently did not mind my taking liberties with his tail; and
presently, when I said, "Well, if not at what o'clock, tell me in how
much time you will have Rome and Venice," he answered, "Within a
twelvemonth. You will see." I made a note of this date, but never
reminded him of the incident. In his enthusiasm he had been
over-sanguine. "Id fere credunt quod volunt," says Caesar in his "De
Bello Gallico" ("they readily believe what they wish"), and Mazzini was
the man of faith and aspirations. Four years were yet to elapse before
Venice was liberated, and eight before the Italians gained possession of
Rome.

One of the subjects on which he felt strongly was that of compulsory
insurance. I cannot remember that he favoured any particular scheme, but
he was wedded to the principle that no man has a right to become a
pauper, and that he should be compelled by law to save a fraction of his
earnings, to be entrusted to the State. In old age he should be able to
draw upon a fund thus constituted, and in doing so he would be under no
greater obligation to the State than any man is to the banker with whom
he has opened an account.

Some little notes which I received from him mostly refer to the sittings
for his portrait. On one occasion I must have written that I was again
conspiring against his peace, and wanted h