Windsor by invitation of the Queen, and was received in one of
the galleries of the castle; called by request upon the Prince of Wales;
and was entertained at dinner by Mr. Bierstadt, the landscape painter,
who had several hundred people to meet him. Mr. Longfellow had
stipulated that there should be no speeches, but after dinner there were
loud calls for Mr. Gladstone, who said in reply, according to the
reporters, that "they must be permitted to break through the
restrictions which the authority of their respected host had imposed
upon them, and to give expression to the feelings which one and all
entertained on this occasion. After all, it was simply impossible to sit
at the social board with a man of Mr. Longfellow's world-wide fame,
without offering him some tribute of their admiration. There was perhaps
no class of persons less fitted to do justice to an occasion of this
character than those who were destined to tread the toilsome and dusty
road of politics. Nevertheless, he was glad to render his tribute of
hearty admiration to one whom they were glad to welcome not only as a
poet but as a citizen of America."{89}

Mr. Longfellow replied that "they had taken him by surprise, a traveller
just landed and with Bradshaw still undigested upon his brain, and they
would not expect him to make a speech. There were times, indeed, when it
was easier to speak than to act; but it was not so with him, now. He
would, however, be strangely constituted if he did not in his heart
respond to their kind and generous welcome. In the longest speech he
could make, he could but say in many phrases what he now said in a few
sincere words,--that he was deeply grateful for the kindness which had
been shown him."{90}

After visiting the House of Lords with Mr. R. C. Winthrop, on one
occasion, he was accosted by a laboring man in the street, who asked
permission to speak with him, and recited a verse of "Excelsior," before
which the poet promptly retreated. Passing to the continent, the party
visited Switzerland, crossed by the St. Gothard Pass to Italy, and
reached Cadenabbia, on the Lake of Como. They returned to Paris in the
autumn; then went to Italy again, staying at Florence and Rome, where
they saw the Abbe Liszt and obtained that charming sketch of him by
Healy, in which the great musician is seen opening the inner door and
bearing a candle in his hand. In the spring they visited Naples, Venice,
and Innsbruck, returning then to Eng