Depretis, anxious only to avoid a policy of adventure, let slip whatever opportunity may have presented itself, and neglected even to deal energetically with the impotent but mischievous Italian agitation for a rectification of the Italo-Austrian frontier.
For a long time the Austrian government, by failing to keep the Danube in a proper state for navigation, let slip the opportunity of making the city the great Danubian metropolis which its geographical position entitles it to be.
Historical scholars ridiculed his mistakes, and Freeman, the most violent of his critics, never let slip a chance of hitting at him in the Saturday Review.
The negotiations for the Leicester marriage were prolonged till March 1565, when Elizabeth had let slip on Mary Henry Darnley (the young son of Lennox, who himself had been allowed to return to Scotland), and at the same time made it clear that she had never been honest in offering Leicester.
Had Ibrahim marched at once against Kufa he might have crushed Mansur, but he let slip the opportunity.
