During these years of active public life, his interest in Greek history and philosophy had increased, and after a trip to Italy in 1842, he severed his connection with the bank and devoted himself to literature. In 1846 the first two volumes of the "History" appeared. The remaining ten appeared between 1847 and the spring of 1856. In 1845, with William Molesworth and Raikes Currie, he gave money to Auguste Comte, then in financial difficulties. The formation of the Sonderbund (20 July 1847) led him to visit Switzerland and study for himself a condition of things in some sense analogous to that of the ancient Greek states. This visit resulted in the publication in "The Spectator" of seven weekly letters, collected in book form at the end of 1847 (see a letter to de Tocqueville in Mrs Grote's reprint of the "Seven Letters", 1876). Grote was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1853.