I received the thanks of the Italian ministry and the formal request to inform it of any other similar operations which should fall under my attention, and when a few weeks later I saw the scaffold raised around the beautiful pulpit of Donatello at Prato, a note to the ministry had the effect of telegraphically stopping operations.

The indignation of the good people of Florence at the cessation of the house-cleaning brought me a request from a high quarter to undertake the defense of the city against the insolent Englishman of the "Cornhill!" The subsequent years of my residence in Florence were on the whole the most tranquil and the happiest of my mature life.

We all enjoyed it without serious drawback, the routine becoming a visit in early summer to Venice, then visits to the Venetian Tyrol, Cadore, Cortina, and Landro, and the return to Florence in the autumn.

I found in Florence an intellectual life and serenity of which there was no evidence elsewhere, with surroundings of the noblest art of the Renaissance, and an intellectual atmosphere hardly, I think, to be found in any other Italian city.

Amongst our dearest friends were the Villaris, with whom we still remain in cordial sympathy.