ones. I have been led to it by a practical object. I used to hate Latin
versification, and indeed the extreme poverty and ambiguity of the
language is laid bare shockingly by the process. Perhaps not really worse
than in prose translation, but every metre (or almost every) deprives you
at once of a sensible fraction of the already scanty vocabulary. One
learns also how essentially clumsy and prosaic the language is in its
vocabulary, though so compact in its structure.

"The Atlantic Telegraph, no doubt, already excites wild and impatient
hopes in our Australians, of which you will hear an echo. It is indeed a
critical event, as determining an immense extension of the telegraphic
system....

"Ever yours heartily,

"F. W. Newman."


It will be remembered that the Crimean War broke up the Coalition Ministry
which Lord Aberdeen had formed. This was due to the fact that the motion
for enquiry into the state of our soldiers before Sebastopol was carried
by a great majority against the Government. Lord Aberdeen resigned when
this happened, and Lord Palmerston came into office, with Mr. Gladstone as
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then, when Palmerston acceded to the demand
that a committee of enquiry should be appointed, Gladstone, who had
opposed it before, thought he ought not to remain in the Cabinet which had
now agreed to have the enquiry made. So he gave up office, but still
helped the Government generally until after Orsini's attempt in 1858, upon
Napoleon III's life. Perhaps it is necessary to recall here that Gladstone
had taken up the cause of the prisoners--especially political prisoners--