icturesque garb--and
they will tell you a great deal more; but they cannot describe the
_thrill_ of thousands and thousands of Italian hearts at the
moment when their King, "il sospirato nostro Re," appeared, the
winged Lion of St. Mark at one end of his magnificent gondola, a
statue of Italy crowned by Venice at the other. So spirit-stirring
a celebration of so great an event we shall never see again, and I
rejoice that our children were there.

_Lord Russell to Lady Minto_

VENICE, _November_ 11, 1866

... We have been delighted with this place, but especially with
being here to see the crowning of the edifice of Italian
Independence. The people have rather their hearts full than their
voices loud. When the Italian flag was first raised none of the
crowd could cheer for weeping and sobbing. It is a mighty
change.... We have seen many pictures. I am exceedingly struck with
the number of fine pictures, the magnificent colouring, and the
large conceptions of the Venetian painters--faulty in drawing very
often, as Michelangelo said long ago, but wonderfully satisfying to
the imagination.

They returned to England early in 1867.

It was a critical time in the history of the franchise. Neither Lord Derby
nor his followers liked Reform, but the workmen of England were at last set
upon it, and Disraeli realized that only a party prepared to enlarge the
franchise had any chance of power. Unlike his colleagues, he had no fear or
dislike of the people. His imagination enabled him to foresee what hardly
another statesman, Conservative or Radical, supposed possible, that the
power of the Democracy might be increased without kindling in the people
any desire to use it. He divined that the glamour which wealth and riches
have for the majority of voters would make it easy to put a hook in the
nose of Leviathan, and that the monster might be ultimately taken in tow by
the Conservative party. His first move in the process of "educating his
party" was to offer the House a series of Resolutions upon the principles
of representation. These were intended to foreshadow the nature of the
Government's proposals and also to prepare their way. By this device he
hoped to raise the Bill above party conflict, and to lead the more
Conservative of his followers up a gently graduated slope of generalities
till they found themselves committed to accepting a somewhat dem