CHARLES LEVER

His Life in His Letters

By Edmund Downey

With Portraits

In Two Volumes, Vol. II.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMVI

Contents

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XIV. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1864

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 2,1863 [? 1864].

“I am not sure—so much has your criticism on ‘Tony’ weighed with me, and so far have I welded his fortunes by your counsel—that you’ll not have to own it one of these days as your own, and write ‘T. B. by J. B.’ in the title. In sober English, I am greatly obliged for all the interest you take in the story,—an interest which I insist on believing includes me fully as much as the Magazine. For this reason it is that I now send you another instalment, so that if change or suppression be needed, there will be ample time for either.

“Whenever Lytton says anything of the story let me have it. Though his counsels are often above me, they are always valuable. You will have received O’D. before this, and if you like it, I suppose the proof will be on the way to me. As to the present envoy of ‘Tony,’ if you think that an additional chapter would be of advantage to the part for March, take chapters xxv. and xxvi. too if you wish, for I now feel getting up to my work again, though the ague still keeps its hold on me and makes my alternate days very shaky ones.

“I am sorry to say that, grim as I look in marble, I am more stern and more worn in the flesh. I thought a few days ago that it was nearly up, and I wrote my epitaph—

“For fifty odd years I lived in the thick of it,
And now I lie here heartily sick of it.

“Poor Thackeray! I cannot say how I was shocked at his death. He wrote his ‘Irish Sketch-Book,’ which he dedicated to me, in my old house at Templeogue, and it is with a heavy heart I think of all our long evenings together,—mingling our plans for the future with many a jest and many a story.

“He was fortunate, however, to go down in the full blaze of his genius—as so few do. The fate of most is to go on pouring water on the lees, that people at last come to suspect they never got honest liquor from the tap at all.

“I got a strange proposal t’other day from America, from The New York Institute, to go out and give lectures or readings there. As regards money it was flattering enough, but putting aside all questions as to my ability to do what I have never tried, there is in America an Irish element that would certainly assail me, and so I said ‘No.’ The possibility of doing the thing somewhere has now occurred to me. Would they listen to me in Edinburgh, think you? I own to you frankly I don’t like the thought,—it is not in any way congenial to ma Ma che voleté? I’d do it, as I wear a shabby coat and drink a small claret, though I’d like broadcloth and Bordeaux as well as my neighbours. Give me your opinion on this. I have not spoken of it to any others.

“My very best wishes for you and all yours in the year to come.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 11, 1864.

“I thank you sincerely for your kind note, and all the hopeful things you say of T. B. I am not in the least ashamed to say how easily elated I feel by encouragement of this sort, any more than I am to own how greatly benefited I have been by your uncle’s criticisms.

“I also send O’D. The next thing I mean to do after I return from Spezzia, where I go to-day, will be a short O’D. for March, and by that time I think it not improbable we shall be in the midst of great events here to record.

“Tell your uncle to cut out my Scotch ad lib. All my recollections of the dialect date from nigh thirty years ago in the N. of Ireland.

“Believe me with what pleasure I make your acquaintance, and with every good wish of the good season,” &c.

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 22.

“I was right glad to get your letter, and gladder to find the ‘Tony’ No. 7 pleased you. You know so much of that strange beast the public, which for so many a year I have only known by report, that when you tell me the thing will do I gain fresh courage; and what between real calamities and the small rubs of life administered to me of late years in a severer shape than I ever felt before, I do need courage.

“Most men who had written so long and so much as I have done would have become thick-hided, but if I am so, it is only to attack—aggressive attack. To anything like reproof, remonstrance, or appeal, I am more open than I ever was in my earlier days, not merely because with greater knowledge of my own shortcomings I feel how much I need it, but that the amount of interest it implies, the sympathy for which it vouches, warms my heart, and gives me renewed vigour and the wish and the hope to do better.

“Now I only inflict all this egotism upon you the better to thank you for your kind counsels; in fact, I am disclosing the depth of my wound to show my gratitude to my doctor who is curing it.

“Proof has not yet reached me, and I therefore cannot justify, by any plausibility in the context, how the night was so fine for Alice and the morning so severe for Tony.*

* Mr Blackwood had written: “Observe that in the garden
scene you make it a fine night, and from the morning showing
before they separated, apparently the night was short;
whereas when Tony started in the cold and snow for Burnside
it was clearly winter.”

“You are right. I feel it more strongly since you said it that Tony has a long way to go. Hope he is worthy of Alice; but is he in this respect any worse than his neighbours? I don’t believe any man was worth the woman that inspired a real passion, and he only became approximately so by dint of loving her. And so if T. B. does ever turn out a good fellow it is Alice has done it, and not yours very faithfully.

“My thanks for your cheque, which came all safe. I thought O’D. had better be anecdotic and gossipy at first, but when I send you the batch (which I will in a day or two), tell me if something more didactic ought to come into preachment.”

To Mr John Blackwood

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 22, 1864.

“I send you herewith a piece of O’Dowderie, and if it be too light—I don’t suspect that’s its fault—I’ll weight it; and if it be too doughy, I’ll put more barm in it; and, last of all, if you don’t like it, I’ll burn it.

“What in the name of all good manners does Lord Russell mean by writing impertinences to all Europe? He is like an old Irish beggar well known in Dublin who sat in a bowl and kicked all round him. As to fighting for the Danes, it is sheer nonsense. They haven’t a fragment of a case, and we should not enjoy Mr Pickwick’s poor.... consolation of shouting with the largest mob.

“The Italians are less warlike than a month ago. The ‘Men of Action’—as the party call themselves who write in the newspapers but never take the field—declare that they are only waiting for the signal of ‘Kossuth’ from Hungary; but the fate of the Poles—who do fight and are brave soldiers—is a terrible a fortiori lesson to these people here, and I suspect they are imbibing it.

“I got a long letter yesterday from Lord Malmesbury and the criticism of Kinglake’s history. Why they don’t like it I cannot imagine. I believe he has hit the exact measure of the Emperor’s capacity, courage, and character altogether, and I go with him in everything.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Florence, Feb. 11, 1864.

“It seems to be leaking out that both Pam and Russell have been what the sporting men call ‘squared’ by the Queen, who would not hear of a war with Germany. The Court plays very often a more prominent part in foreign politics than the nation wots of, and certainly the Prince during the Crimean war maintained close correspondence with persons in the confidence of the R. Emperor,—not treasonably, of course, but in such a way as to require great watchfulness on the part of our Ministers. This I know. There is, in fact, the game of kings as well as of nations, and the issue not always identical.

“Our glorious weather has come back, though we hear it has been severe along the coast, and snow has actually fallen in some places.

“To-day I am to have a consultation about my wife with an Edinburgh professor of note who is passing through to Rome. The opportunity was not to be lost, though the bare proposal has made her very nervous.

“My proofs—my proofs—are lost! gone Heaven knows where!—and here I sit lamenting, and certainly doing nothing else. I cannot take up the end of an unknown thread, and if I did go on, it would be to make Luttrell in love with Dolly Stuart.

“Only fancy my sitting for nigh an hour last night where a man [? retailed] the story of ‘T. Butler,’ which he had been reading in ‘Blackwood’!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Feb. 13,1864.

“No proof. I must have made a fiasco of it in writing to C. & H. to release the proof detained in London, and which they will now discover to be ‘Tony’! Into what scrapes flunkeys, messengers, et hoc genus, do betray us. I have offended more people in life by the awkwardness of my servants than I have done by all my proper shortcomings, which have not been few. I send you two chapters for the May number, which I intend, however, to be longer by another chapter if you desire it.

“I have been casting my eyes over the ‘Athelings’ in the 3-vol. form. Is that the length you wish for ‘Tony Butler’? I never like being long-winded, but I am, after all my experiences, a precious bad judge of the time one ought to begin to ‘pucker up the end of the stocking.’ Advise me, therefore, on this, as on all else, about ‘Tony.’

“The cold weather has all but done for me, and set my ‘shaking’ fearfully at work. The post is now two days en retard here, and I have great misgivings about all Italian management of everything save roguery.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Feb. 19.

“The proofs arrived to-day under the envelope that I forward. On learning from the post office in London that a proof of mine was detained there, I immediately surmised it must be one of my serial story ‘Luttrell,’ and enclosed the reference to C. & H. to release it. Now I find that it is ‘Tony’ and O’D. Consequently I am in terror lest our secret be out and all our hitherto care defeated by this maladetto messenger who ‘crimped the tuppence.’ I want you therefore to assure me, if you can assure me, that C. & Hall’s people, when sent to St Martin’s le Grand to release the proof, had no power to open and examine it, nor any privilege to carry it away with them out of the office. If this be the case, of course there is no mischief done, and I am quitte pour la peur; but pray do tell me the regulation on the subject, and for Heaven’s sake and Tony’s sake, water that man’s grog who posted the packet originally, or tell me his name, and I’ll call my next villain by it, if I have to write another story.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Feb. 25, 1864.

“It is quite true, as you surmised; claims and demands of all sorts have been presented to me, and in my deeper and heavier cares there have mixed vexations and worries all the more bitter that to remedy them was no longer to build up a hope.

“My only anxiety about the missing proof was that it might lead to the discovery of our secret as to the authorship of ‘Tony.’ You have by your present letter allayed this fear, and I am easy.

“I await the proof, and what you say of it, to see if the last portion of ‘Tony’ will do. I own I thought better of it in writing than it perhaps deserves on reading.

“You must tell me, however, what number of sheets you think 3 vols, ought to be, for I want to make the craft as ship-shape as I am able.

“Be assured of one thing: I never for many a year felt more anxious for success, and the anxiety is only half selfish, if so much.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Feb. 25, 1864.

“In the O’D. I now send, the order should be: (1) Law, (2) Organ, (3) Chevalier d’Industrie. The last is a sketch of a notorious (Continentally) Robert Napoleon Flynn, made Chief-Justice of Tobago by Lord Normanby in ‘36 or ‘37, the appointment being rescinded before he could go out. It was Grant who met him at Padua last week.

“I am terribly shaky and shaken. I hope I’ll be able to finish ‘Tony’ before I go, but sometimes I think it will have to figure as a fragment. My headaches seldom leave me, and for the first time in my life I have become a bad sleeper.

“Let me have a proof of T. B. as soon as you can conveniently, for I want to get off to Spezzia and see what change of air and no pen-and-ink will do for me.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Feb.

“I have just got back from Spezzia, and found your pleasant note but no proof. It will probably arrive to-morrow. Of course it was right to tell Aytoun. I am the gladder of it, as perhaps I may get the benefit of his advice occasionally. Tell him what a hearty admirer he has in me, and with what pleasure I’d make his acquaintance. His glorious Lays are immense favourites of mine, and it is time I should thank you for the magnificent copy of them they sent me.

“Grant—Speke’s Grant—drank tea with me a few nights back. I like him much; he is about the most modest traveller I ever met with. If an Irishman had done the half of his exploits he would not be endurable for ten years afterwards.

“I see Le Fanu has completed in the D. U. M. his clever story ‘Wylder’s Hand,’ making his 3-vol. novel out of fifteen magazine sheets. As I suppose your pages are about the same as the Dub., tell me what you think our length ought to be.

“Why don’t you throw your eyes over—not read, I don’t ask that—‘Luttrell,’ and tell me what you think of it? I am so fearfully nervous of having got to the lees of the cask, that I have a nervous impatience to know what people think of the liquor.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Florence, March 2, 1864.

“I got yesterday an F. O. declaring that Lord R. did not opine that we came within the provisions of chap. &c, and Act so-and-so Elizabeth, and therefore declined to accord us the assistance we had asked for. Thereupon I wrote an urgent and pressing letter to Napier, stating that I found myself so pledged by his assurances to my Church colleagues, that I begged he would immediately report to me what progress our application had made, in order that I might communicate it to our C. committee. I hope for a speedy reply.

“I have half a hope that the Whigs are falling. Pam’s State declarations about Denmark ought to overthrow any Administration. Even Gladstone, so able in subterfuge, was not equal to the task assigned him of showing Black to be very frequently, but not naturally, White.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 3,1864

“I only write one line to acknowledge and thank you for your cheque, which has just reached me. I have not looked at pen-and-ink for the past week, but I am on the road to get stronger. I always feel, in taking port wine (a hard thing to get here) for my ague, as if I were using crown pieces to repair the coppering of a shattered old craft. Better-keep the money and let the worthless boat go to ——— I won’t say the devil, lest there come a confusion in my figure of speech.

“Of course ‘Tony’ is the main thing. In O’D. I am only like the retired Cat Princess, who merely caught mice for her amusement. I’ll read the L. N. article with attention. Is Laurence Oliphant, par hazard, the author? He is a charming fellow, and I like him greatly, but I’d not think him a safe guide politically.

“I like Grant much, and have been at him to write some camp-life sketches on Africa. The Yankees here want him to go over to America and lecture, but he is far too modest to stand scrutiny from opera-glasses.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 4,1864.

“I had hoped to have got a line from you either last night or the night before about your flunkey; so I am unable to wait longer, and must take one of the creatures that offers here. Indeed, making the one who remains do all the work has installed him into a position of such insolent tyranny, it will take a month at least to reduce him to his proper proportions.

“Some disaster has befallen my No. of ‘Luttrell’ for April, No. 5, and I can hear nothing of it. The proof and added part were sent from this, by me, four weeks ago, and after that....

“I have not written for the last eight or ten days, but I am getting all right, and take long walks every day, looking at villas, of which there are scores, but scarcely a habitable one, at least as a permanent abode, to be found.

“There is not one word of news beyond the arming of the French fleet. I find that many Mazzinists here believe that Mazzini was really engaged in the late plot; but I can neither believe the plot nor that he was in it. I look upon it as a very clumsy police trick throughout.

“My wife makes no advance towards health,—a day back and a day forward is the history of her life; but everything shows me that to undertake a journey to Spezzia without feeling that I had a comfortable place for her when there, and that she could remain without another change back in winter, would be a fatal mistake.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, March 8,1864.

“The whole story of R N. F. (Robert Napoleon Flynn, his real name) is an unexaggerated fact, and I have only culled a very few of the traits known to me, and not given, as perhaps I ought, a rather droll scene I had with him myself at Spezzia. The man was originally a barrister, and actually appointed Chief-Justice of Tobago by Lord Normanby, and as such presented to the Queen at the Levée. The appointment was rescinded, however, and the fellow sent adrift.

“I have met a large number of these fellows of every nation, but never one with the same versatility as this, nor with the same hearty enjoyment of his own rascality. Dickens never read over a successful proof with one-half the zest Flynn has felt when sending off—as I have known him to do—a quizzing letter to a Police Prefect from whose clutches he had just escaped by crossing a frontier. He is, in fact, the grand artiste, and he feels it.

“I am glad you like ‘O’Dowd’: first of all, they are the sort of things I can do best. I have seen a great deal of life, and have a tolerably good memory for strange and out-of-the-way people, and I am sure such sketches are far more my ‘speciality’ than story-writing.

“I assure you your cheery notes do me more service than my sulph.-quinine, and I have so much of my old schoolboy blood in me that I do my tasks better with praise than after a caning.

“Your sketch of the French Legitimist amused me much. The insolence of these rascals is the fine thing about them, as t’other day I heard one of our own amongst them (the uncle of a peer, and a great name too) reply, when I found him playing billiards at the club and asked him how he was getting on: ‘Badly, Lever, badly, or you wouldn’t find me playing half-crown pool with three snobs that I’d not have condescended to know ten years ago.’ And this the three snobs had to listen to!

“I am far from sure Grant was not ‘done’ by Flynn. But t’other night Labouchere (Lord Taunton’s nephew and heir, who is the L. of the story) met Grant here, and we all pressed G. to confess he had been ‘walked into,’ but he only grew red and confused, and as we had laughed so much at F.‘s victims, he would not own to having been of the number.

“The Napoleon paper is very good, and perhaps not exaggerated. It is the best sketch of the campaign I ever read, and only wants a further allusion to the intentions of the 4th corps under Prince Napoleon to be a perfect history of the event.

“‘Schleswig-Holstein’ admirable. I am proud of my company and au raison.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Casa Capponi, Wednesday, March 1864.

“I thank you sincerely for the trouble you have had about my proof: honestly, I only wanted a criticism, but I forgot you had not seen the last previous part. As to what is to come, you know, I am sorry to say it, just as much as I do.

“‘Luttrell’ No. 5, that is for next month, has been in part lost, and I am in a fearful hobble about it,—that is, I must re-write, without any recollection of where, what, or how.

“My poor wife has been seriously, very seriously, attacked. Last night Julia was obliged to stay up with her, and to-day, though easier, she is not materially better. I write in great haste, as I have only got up, and it is nigh one o’clock, and the post closes early.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 18, 1864.

“B. L.‘s criticism on T. B. amused me greatly. Did you never hear of the elder who waited on Chief-Justice Holt to say, ‘The Lord hath sent me to thee to say that thou must stop that prosecution that is now going on against me,’ and Holt replied, ‘Thou art wrong, my friend; the Lord never sent thee on such an errand, for He well knoweth it is not I, but the Attorney-General, that can enter a nolle prosequi.’ But B[ulwer] L[ytton]’s fine pedantry beats the Chief-Justice hollow, with this advantage that he is wrong besides. Nothing is more common than for Ministers to ‘swap’ patronage. It was done in my own case, and to my sorrow, for I refused a good thing from one and took a d———d bad one from another. Au reste, he is all right both as to O’D. and Maitland. O’D. ought to be broader and wider. I have an idea that with a few illustrations it would make a very readable sort of gossiping book. I am not quite clear how far reminiscences and bygones come in well in such a mélange. After all, it is only a hash at best, and one must reckon on it that the meat has been cooked already. What do you say? I have some Irish recollections of noticeable men like Bushe, Lord Guillamore, Plunkett, &c., too good to be lost, but perhaps only available as apropos to something passing.

“I have thought of some of these as subjects: Good Talkers—Le Sport Abroad—Diplomacy—Demi-monde Influences—Whist—Irish Justice—Home as the Bon Marché of Europe—Travelled Americans—Plan of a new Cookery Book (with a quiz on Charters, your book), showing what to eat every month of the year. These I scratch down at random, for I can’t write just yet: I have got gout vice ague retired, and my knuckle is as big as a walnut.

“I hope you have received T. B. before this. I am very sorry the conspirator chapter of T. B. does not appear this month, when the question of Stanfield is before the public, but I think O’Dowd might well touch on the question of the politicians of the knife. Give me your counsel about all these. B. L.‘s remark that Maitland belonged to twenty or thirty years ago is perfectly just, and very acute too; but, unfortunately, so do I too. Do you remember old Lord Sefton’s reply when the Bishop of Lincoln tried to repress him one day at dinner from entering upon old college recollections by saying, ‘Oh, my lord, the devil was strong in us in those days’? ‘I wish he was strong in me now, my Lord Bishop!’ I am afraid I am something of his mind.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 20, 1864.

“As it is likely I shall start to-morrow for Spezzia to give them a touch of my ‘consular quality,’ I send you a line to thank you for your kind note, and with it a portion (all I have yet done) of the next ‘O’Dowd.’ I shall, however, meditate as I go, and perhaps the Providence who supplies oddities to penny-a-liners may help me to one in the train.

“I thank you heartily for the offer of a mount, but I have grown marvellously heavy, in more ways than one, this last year or two; and the phrase of my daughter when ordering my horse to be saddled may illustrate the fact, as she said, ‘Put the howdah on papa’s elephant.’

“Don’t fancy the Italians are not athletes. All the great performers of feats of strength come from Italy. Belzoni the traveller was one. They have a game here called Paettone, played with a ball as large as a child’s head and flung to an incredible distance, which combines strength, skill, and agility. Then as to swimming, I can only say that I and my two eldest daughters can cross Spezzia—the width is three miles,—and yet we are beaten hollow every season by Italians. They swim in a peculiar way, turning from side to side and using the arms alternately; and when there is anything of a sea they never top the waves, but shoot through them, which gives immense speed, but it is a process I never could master. We had a swim last year with old General Menegaldo, who swam the Lido with Byron: he is now eighty-four years old, and he swam a good mile along with us. I intend, if I can throw off my gout, to have a day or two in the blue water next week, though I suspect in your regions the idea would suggest a shiver. The weather is fine here now—in fact, too hot for many people.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 30, 1864.

“I was sorry to find last night that my proofs had not reached you, and as I want your opinion greatly, I send you mine, which I have not looked over yet.

“If it had not been for this detestable weather (and I can fancy how Spezzia looks in it, for even Florence is dismal) I’d have gone down to-day, for my wife has been a shade better since Sunday, and I want to have a good conscience and be assured that I cannot possibly find a house at Spezzia before I close for a little nook of a villa here—a small crib enough, but, like everything else, very dear.

“I have my misgivings, my more than misgivings, about the Derbys coming in. It is evident Lord D. does not wish power, and he is rather impatient at the hungry eagerness of poorer men, and so I suspect my own chances, if not to be tried now, will not be likely to survive for another occasion. I therefore resign myself, as people call what they cannot do more than grumble over, and ‘make my book’ to scribble on for a subsistence to the end.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, April 6, 1864.

“Here I am visiting the authorities and being visited by them, playing off—and quite seriously too—the farce that we are all dignitaries, and of essential consequence to the States we severally serve. ‘How we apples swim!’ My only consolation is that there is no public to laugh at us—all the company are on the stage.

“I mean to get back to Florence by the end of the week. You shall have an instalment of T. B. immediately.

“If Lord D. gets his congress for Denmark it will be hard to dislodge the Government—the more with a two-million-and-a-half surplus. In fact, a good harvest is the Providence of the Whigs, and they are invariably pulled out of their scrapes by sheer luck. At the same time, if Lord Derby comes in, where could he find a Foreign Minister?”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, April 6, 1864

“The post has just brought me O’D. on ‘Whist,’ but no proof of ‘The Woman in Diplomacy.’ Perhaps I blundered and never sent it, or perhaps you got but did not like it. At all events, I return the ‘Whist’ by this post corrected. If there had been time I’d have dashed off an O’D. on French Justice in Criminal Cases, apropos to that late infamy of M. Pellier, but I fancied you had got enough of O’D. for this coming month, and probably you are of the same mind.

“I have done my consulars here—that is, I have called on the authorities and had them all to dinner, the bishop included; and we have fraternised very cordially and drank all manner of violent deaths to Mazzini, and to-morrow I go back into the obscurity of private life, and forget if I can that I have been a great man. Wasn’t it a Glasgow dignitary who resented being called a man on a trial, and exclaimed, ‘I’m not a man, I’m a bailie’?

“I see by ‘The Telegraph’ that Lord Clarendon has joined the Government and Stansfield left. There is a twofold game in that, for I don’t despair of seeing them beaten if the Queen does not put pressure on Lord Derby, for there is a sentiment in his class that, with regard to the Crown, rises above all party considerations, and represents that old feudal feeling by which nobles stood round the monarchy at any personal loss or peril.

“That letter to ‘The Times’ about the Italian Government seizing Garibaldi’s balance at his banker’s is all rot. The Government simply sequestrated a revolutionary fund subscribed by revolutionists for public disturbance, and openly, flagrantly so done. Why will patriots never be truthful?”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Casa Capponi, Thursday, 10, 1864.

“These questionable publishers who say, ‘Buy my share and I’ll give you a book,’ represent the contract by which Sanders obtained Marola. That is, he bought the shares—viz., the house, and they gave him the book, meaning the ‘Arsenal.’ All fair and right so far! But nobody ever supposed that the share was connected with the book, had a market value, or was worth more to a purchaser than its price as a share. Now the opposite is precisely the mistake Sanders has fallen into. The rent of Marola represents in pounds the eagerness of M. Bolla to sign a certain agreement, but I have no such eagerness; for me no docks are digged, no mud excavated, no roads cut up and trees cut down; I have no interest in all the filth, dirt, drunkenness, or small assassinations introduced into a once lonely spot; I neither derive ten per cent profits or sixty per cent frauds. I have no part in the honest gains of Sanders or in the wholesale robberies of Bolla,—I merely want a house at the price of a house. Hence to pay £60 to £70 for a two-floor villa, furnished!—three chairs and the bath,—is certes too dear, not to add the Mackie difficulty. I have nothing definitely about my villa here, nor need I for some days.

“Is the wretched little toy-house under the Cappucines still unlet? and if so, what rent does M. Torri expect for it?—for, though he has no straw, he has more than the equivalent in the pestilent rascality of a true Spezzino.

“I hear from ‘The Morning Post’ people that Pam has at length got the Emperor’s consent to be warlike. A la remarque de la France is a tune we know better nowadays than ‘Rule Britannia.’ The story goes: he, L. N., is to have the freyen deutschen Rhein, and we are to be permitted to fill up again M. Lessep’s canal at Suez—suum caique.

“Who is to say l’Alliance brings no gain? One clears a river, t’other fills a drain.

“It is absurd to revile—as ‘The Times’ does—the Derbys for not announcing a policy. It is only a wise precaution in a bather who has once been robbed to hide his clothes when he next goes for a swim. This is all Dizzy is doing.

“I am now in a rare mess about ‘Luttrell,’ and cannot write a word.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, April 7, 1864.

“I now send you the June ‘Tony,’ anxious to hear that you are satisfied. If I bore you by my insistence in this way, my excuse is that just as a sharp-flavoured wine turns quickest to vinegar, all the once lightness of heart I had has now grown to a species of irritable anxiety. Of course it is the dread a man feels of growing old lest he become more feeble than he even suspects, and I confess to you that I can put up with my shaky knees and swelled ankles better than I can with my shortcomings in brain matters. At all events, I am doing as well as I can, and quite ready to be taught to do better.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, April 11, 1864.

“Only think of finding in ‘The Galignani’ yesterday this paragraph about Flynn. I send it to you, leaving it entirely to your choice to insert in next O’D. It has this merit, that it will serve to show O’D. is not all imaginary, but that it deals with real rogues as well as with men in buckram suits.

“I have got an ‘O’Dowd’ in my head that I think will amuse you if I can write it as it struck me,—a thing that does not always happen, I am sorry to say.

“The Italians were at first very savage about all your Garibaldian enthusiasm. Now, however, with true Italian subtlety they affect to take it as a national compliment. This is clever.”

From Mr John Blackwood.

“Edinburgh, April 5, 1864.

“In walking home together yesterday afternoon, Aytoun and I had fits of laughter over O’Dowd. The thing that has tickled him is the victim of Cavour’s eternal schemes for Italian progress, especially the plans turning up in the dead man’s bureau. He agrees with me in thinking that you have completely taken second wind. I improved the occasion by commenting upon his own utter incapacity,—the lazy villain has not written a line for two years. A sheriffship and a professorship are fatal to literary industry. It would be well worth while for any Government to give any man who is active in writing against them a good fat place, but it is fatal for them so to patronise their friends. God knows, however, that patronising their literary friends is a crime of which Governments are not often guilty, but I hope with all my heart that if we do come in, your turn, something good, will come at last.”

To Mr John Blackwood,

“Casa Capponi, Florence, April 17, 1864.

“How glad I am to be the first to say there is to be no ‘mystery’ between us. I have wished for this many a day, and have only been withheld from feeling that I was not quite certain whether my gratitude for the cheer and encouragement you have given me might not have run away with my judgment and made me forget the force of the Italian adage, ‘It takes two to make a bargain.’

“How lightly you talk of ten years! Why, I was thirty years younger ten years ago than I am to-day. I’d have ridden at a five-foot wall with more pluck than I can summon now at a steep staircase. But I own to you frankly, if I had known you then as I do now, it might have wiped off some of this score of years. Even my daughters guess at breakfast when I have had a pleasant note from you.

“I have thought over what you say about Garibaldi’s visit to Mazzini, and added a bit to tag to the article. I have thought it better to say nothing of Stansfield—I know him so little; and though I think him an ass, yet he might feel like the tenor who, when told, ‘Monsieur, vous chantez faux,’ replied, ‘Je le sais, monsieur, mais je ne veux pas qu’on me le dise.’

“Don’t cut out the Haymarket ladies if you can help it. The whole thing is very naughty, but it can’t be otherwise. I’ll try and carry it on a little farther. I have very grand intentions—more paving-stones for the place my hero comes from.

“But ask Aytoun what he thinks of it, and if it be worth carrying out. The ‘Devil’s Tour’ would be better than ‘Congé.’

“The rhymes are often rough, but I meant them to be rugged lest it should be suspected I thought myself capable of verse—and I know better.

“Do what you like about the Flynn P.S. Perhaps it will be best not to make more mention of the rascal. I must tell you some day of my own scene with him at Spezzia, which ‘The Telegraph’ fellow has evidently heard of.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Monday, April 18,1864.

“On second thoughts I remembered how far easier it was always to me to make a new rod than to splice an old one, so I send you the Devil as he is. If ever the vein comes to me, I can take him up hereafter. Let Aytoun judge whether it be safe or wise to publish. I myself think that a bit of wickedness has always a certain gusto in good company, while amongst inferior folks it would savour of coarseness. This is too bleak an attempt at explaining what I mean, but you will understand me.

“Last verse—

“For of course it lay heavily on his mind,
And greatly distressed him besides, to find
How these English had left him miles behind
In this marvellous civilisation.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, April 30, 1864

“For the first time these eight days I have looked at my bottle—the ink-bottle—again. I am subject to periodical and very acute attacks of ‘doing-nothingness.’—it would be euphuism to call it idleness, which implies a certain amount of indulgence, but mine are dreary paroxysms of incapacity to do anything other than sleep and eat and grumble.

“I wanted for the best of all possible reasons to be up and at work, and I could not. I tried to—but it wouldn’t do! At least I have found out it would be far better to do nothing at all than to do what would be so lamentably bad and unreadable.

“When I first got these attacks—they are of old standing now—I really fancied it was the ‘beginning of the end,’ and that it was all up with me. Now I take them as I do a passing fit of gout, and hope a few days will see me through it.

“This is my excuse for not sending off the proof of ‘Tony’ before. I despatch it now, hoping it is all right, but beseeching you to see it is. I suppose you are right about Staffa, and that, like the sentinel who couldn’t see the Spanish fleet, I failed for the same reason.” During the first fourteen or fifteen years of Lever’s residence in Florence, Italy had been in the melting-pot. The Tuscan Revolution of 1848, the defeat of the Sardinians, and the abdication of Carlo Alberto in the following year, the earlier struggle of Garibaldi, the long series of troubles with Austria (ending in the defeat of the Austrians), feuds with the Papal States, insurrections in Sicily, the overthrow of the Pope’s government, the Neapolitan war, and, to crown all, triumphant brigandage, had made things lively for dwellers in Italy. The recognition by the Powers of Victor Emanuel as king of United Italy promised, early in 1862, a period of rest; but the expectations of peace-lovers were shattered, for the moment, by Garibaldi’s threatened march upon Rome. His defeat, his imprisonment in the fortress of Varignano, and his release, inspired hopes, well-founded, of the conclusion of the struggles (largely internecine) which had convulsed New Italy. Upon Garibaldi’s release Lever naturally sought out his distinguished Spezzian neighbour, and one morning he had the pleasure of entertaining him at breakfast. It was said that the British Minister at Florence was eager that the Italian patriot should be disabused of the favourable impressions he was supposed to entertain of the Irish revolutionary movement. The Vice-Consul at Spezzia found it necessary to explain to his guest that any overt expressions or acts of sympathy with Fenianism would be certain to alienate English sympathies. Garibaldi seemed to be somewhat surprised at this. He looked on England as a nation eager to applaud any patriotic or revolutionary movement. Lever is said—the authority is Major Dwyer—to have been unable to comprehend how a man so ignorant and childish as Garibaldi could have attained such vast influence over a people, and could have won such general renown. In his statements about his friend’s literary work or literary opinions, Major Dwyer is not a thoroughly safe guide. He had a weakness for patronising Lever, for declaring that he said or thought this or that— usually something which coincided with the Major’s own opinion, and which showed the novelist at a disadvantage. Dwyer’s conviction was that Lever the talker* was better than Lever the writer, and that Lever the man was infinitely superior to both. Possibly the vice-consul was amused at the simplicity of Garibaldi when Anglo-Irish affairs were under discussion. Anyhow, it is much more likely that Cornelius O’Dowd’s true impressions are recorded in an article which he contributed to ‘Blackwood’s Magazine.’ “It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified than the man,” writes Lever—“his noble head; his clever honest brown eyes; his finely-traced mouth, beautiful as a woman’s, and only strung up to sternness when anything ignoble has outraged him; and, last of all, his voice contains a fascination perfectly irresistible, allied as you knew and felt these graces were with a thoroughly pure and untarnished nature.” While the Italian patriot lay wounded at Spezzia, Lever managed to get a photograph taken of him. The photograph (a copy of which he sent to Edinburgh) represents Garibaldi in bed, his red shirt enveloping him. Mrs Blackwood Porter, in the third volume of ‘The House of Blackwood,’ relates a most amusing anecdote of a situation arising out of the embarrassing attentions of sympathisers who would persist in visiting the invalid. Lever’s sketch in ‘Maga’ evoked from John Blackwood a very interesting letter.

* The Major, amongst the many reminiscences of his friend
confided to Dr Fitzpatrick, tells a tale of this period
which shows that Lever, with all his tact, could
occasionally allow temper to master discretion. A personage
holding a high diplomatic post (which he had obtained
notoriously through influence) said to Lever at some social
gathering: “Your appointment is a sinecure, is it not?”
“Not altogether,” answered the consul. “But you are consul
at Spezzia, and you live altogether at Florence,” persisted
the personage. “You got the post, I suppose, on account of
your novels.” “Yes, sir,” replied Lever tartly, “I got the
post in compliment to my brains: you got yours in
compliment to your relatives.”—E. D.

From Mr John Blackwood.

“April 27, 1864.

“I am particularly obliged to you for the promptitude with which you did the bit about Garibaldi. It is, I think, the best thing that has been written about the General, and I hope he is worthy of it. You will see that the Garibaldi fever has been cut short, so that I shall have no opportunity of using the note of introduction you so kindly sent, but I am equally obliged. Fergusson (Sir William), the surgeon, is a very intimate friend and old ally of mine, and I have no doubt he has given genuine and sound advice. Garibaldi would doubtless have had innumerable invitations to No. 9 Piccadilly, and I hope the hero has not damaged himself. I have half a mind to write this joke to Fergusson, and call for an explicit statement of the hero’s health. Seriously, he is well away at the present crisis, and we are making sufficient fools of ourselves without this wild outbreak of hero-worship....

“Laurence Oliphant stayed with us for three days, and we had a ‘fine time.’ I never saw such a fellow for knowing people, pulling the wires, and being in the thick of it always. He is hand-and-glove with half the potentates and conspirators in Europe. Skeffy in his wildest flights is a joke to him. There is, however, no humbug about Oliphant; he is a good fellow and a good friend. He talked much of the pleasant days he had passed with you, and begged particularly to be remembered to you all. Knowing I could trust him, I told him the secret, the importance of keeping which he fully appreciated, and will assist in throwing people off the scent, which ‘O’Dowd’ will, I think, put a good many upon. There have been surmises in the papers, but surmises are nothing. How is ‘Tony’ getting on, and the new ‘O’Dowd’? I wish, indeed, we had come across each other in earlier life; but it is no use your talking of being seedy,—you are evidently as fresh as paint, and never wrote better, if so well.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, May 5, 1864.

“I have just got home and found your note and its enclosed cheque. Why this should be so large I have no idea nor any means of guessing, for the Mag. has not yet arrived. You are right about the ‘Devil,’ but he alone knows when and how I shall be in the vein to go on with his experiences. I had to come back here hurriedly, which requires my returning to Spezzia in a day or so, a sad interruption to work, and coming awkwardly too, as I am driven to change my house,—the old jaillike palace I have lived in for fifteen years has just been bought by Government, and I am driven to a villa at some distance from Florence—a small little crib nicely placed in a bit of Apennine scenery, and quiet enough for much writing.

“I entirely agree with all you say of Oliphant: he is an able fellow, and a good fellow; and there is no blague whatever in his talking familiarly of ‘swells,’ for he has lived, and does live, much in their intimacy. He is not popular with the ‘Diplos.’ nor F. O., but the chief, if not only, reason is, that he is a far cleverer fellow than most of them, and has had the great misfortune of having shown this to the world.

“I want much to be at ‘Tony’ again, but it will be some three or four days before I can settle down to work. When I have dashed off enough to send I will, even though not enough for a number.

“I see by ‘The Telegraph’ that the fleet is to go to the Baltic, but not for more than a demonstration. Does not this remind you of the Bishop of Exeter’s compromise about the candles on the altar, ‘That they might be there, but not lighted.’ I believe, as a nation, we are the greatest humbugs in Europe; and, without intending it, the most illogical and inconsequent people the world ever saw.

“I hope your little people are all well again and over the measles and in the country with you, and that you are all as happy as I wish you.

“Supply the date of the Reform Bill for me in the ‘New Hansard.’”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, May 10, 1864.

“Herewith go three chapters of ‘Tony.’ With the best will in the world there are days when our dinners go off ill, our sherry is acrid, our entrées cold, and our jests vapid. Heaven grant (but I have my misgivings) that some such fatality may not be over these ‘Tonys.’ My home committee likes them better than I do; I pray heartily that you be of this mind.

“I shall be fretful and anxious till I hear from you about T. B., but I go off to-morrow to Spezzia, and not to be back till Wednesday the 18th,—all Consular, all Bottomry, all Official for eight mortal days, but

“Of course I must show to the office ‘I’m here,’
And draw with good conscience two hundred a-year.
I’d save fifty more, but of that I am rid well
By the agency charges of Allston and Bidwell.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, May 15,1864.

“More power to you! as we say in Ireland, for your pleasant letter. I have got it, and I send you an O’D. I think you will like on ‘Our Masterly Inactivity,’ and another on ‘Our Pensions for Colonial Governors.’

“As to next month’s O’D., I don’t know what will turn up; but [I am] like poor old Drury—the clergyman at Brussels—whose profound reliance on Providence once so touched an English lady that it moved her to tears. ‘He uttered,’ said she—telling the story to Sir H. Seymour, who told it to me—‘he uttered one of the most beautiful sentiments I ever heard from the lips of a Christian: “When I have dined heartily and well, and drunk my little bottle of light Bordeaux, Mrs S.,” said he, “where Mrs Drury or the children are to get their supper to-night or their breakfast to-morrow, I vow to God I don’t know, and I don’t care.”’ Now if that be not as sweet a little bit of hopeful trust in manna from heaven as one could ask for, I’m a Dutchman, and I lay it to my heart that somehow, somewhere, O’Dowderies will turn up for July as they have done for June, for I shall certainly need them. You will have had T. B. before this. I see you are stopping at my old ‘Gite,’ the Burlington, my hotel ever since I knew London. There was an old waiter there, Foster,—I remember him nigh thirty years,—who exercised towards me a sort of parental charge, and rebuked my occasional late hours and the light companions who laughed overmuch at breakfast with me in the coffee-room. If he is in vivente, remember me to him.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, May 16,1864.

“I have just had your note, and am relieved to find that I have not lost the ‘Colonial Governors,’ which I feared I had. I have added a page to it. I have re-read it carefully, but I don’t think it radical. Heaven knows, I have nothing of the Radical about me but the poverty. At all events, a certain width of opinion and semi-recklessness as to who or what he kicks does not ill become O’D.., whose motto, if we make a book of him, I mean to be ‘Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur,’—

“I care not a fig For Tory or Whig,
But sit in a bowl and kick round me.

“Though the paper I sent yesterday on ‘Our Masterly Inactivity’ would be very apropos at this juncture, there will scarcely be time to see a proof of it, seeing that it could not be here before this day week. If you cannot revise it yourself, it will be better perhaps to hold it back, though I feel the moment of its ‘opportunity’ may pass. Do what you think best. My corrections of the proof I send off now will have to be closely looked to, and the MS. is to come in between the last paragraph and the part above it.”

To Mr John Blackwood,

“Villa Morelli, June 7, 1864.

“We got into our little villa yesterday (it would not be little out of Italy, for we have seven salons), and are very pleased with it. We are only a mile from Florence, and have glorious views of the city and the Val d’Arno on every side.

“The moving has, however, addled my head awfully; indeed, after all had quitted the old Casa Capponi, a grey cat and myself were found wandering about the deserted rooms, not realising the change of domicile. What it can be that I cling to in my old room of the Capponi I don’t know (except a hole in the carpet perhaps), but certainly I do not feel myself in writing vein in my new home....

“I hear strange stories of disagreements amongst the Conservatives, and threats of splits and divi-sions. Are they well founded, think you? The social severance of the party, composed as it is of men who never associated freely together, as the Whigs did and do, is a great evil. Indeed I think the ties of our party are weaker than in the days when men dined more together.

“When C. leaders, some years back, offered to put me at the head of a Conservative Press, I said this. Lord Eglinton and Lord Naas were of my mind, but the others shrugged their shoulders as though to say the world was not as it used to be. Now I don’t believe that.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Florence, Thursday, [? June] 1864.

“I have taken a villa—a cottage in reality, but dear enough,—the only advantage being that it looks modest; and just as some folk carry a silver snuff-box made to look like tin, I may hope to be deemed a millionaire affecting simplicity.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, June 14, 1864.

“I looked forward eagerly to your promised letter about O’Dowd. No one could do an imaginary portrait of a foreignised Irishman—all drollery about the eyes, and bearded like a pard—better than Hablot Browne (Phiz), and I think he could also do all that we need for illustration, which would be little occasional bits on the page and tailpieces. If he would take the trouble to read the book (which he is not much given to), and if he would really interest himself in it (not so unlikely now, as he is threatened with a rival in Marcus Stone), he could fully answer all our requirements. I would not advise any regular ‘plates,’ mere woodcuts in the page, and an occasional rambling one crawling over the page. What do you think?”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, June 16,1864.

“I am delighted with all your plans about ‘O’Dowd,’ and though I do not believe there will be much to alter, I will go carefully over the sheets when I get them. My notion always was that it would take some time to make a public for a kind of writing more really French in its character than English, but that if we could only once get ‘our hook in,’ we’d have good fishing for many a day.

“If my reader will only stand it, I’ll promise to go on as long as he likes, since it is simply putting on paper what goes on in my head all day long, even (and unluckily for me) when I am at work on other things.

“Don’t give me any share in the book, or you’ll never get rid of ten copies of it, my luck being like that of my countryman who said, ‘If I have to turn hatter, I’d find to-morrow that God Almighty would make people without heads.’ Seriously, if by any turn of fortune I should have a hundred pounds in the ‘threes,’ the nation would be in imminent risk of a national bankruptcy. Give me whatever you like, and be guided by the fact that I am not a bit too sanguine about these things en masse. It is all the difference in the world to read a paper or a vol.; it is whether you are asked to taste a devilled kidney or to make your dinner of ten of them. At all events, the venture will be some test of public taste.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Villa Morelli, June 24, 1864.

“The devil take my high office! I am obliged to go down to Spezzia on Monday, and shall probably lose a week, when I am sore pressed for time too.

“What you say of buying up the disputed bit of Denmark reminds me of an incident that occurred in my house in Ireland. There were two whist-parties playing one night in the same room. One was playing pound points and twenty on the rubber (of which I was one); the others were disputing about half-crowns, and made such a row once over the score that Lord Ely, who was at our table, cried out, ‘Only be quiet and we’ll pay the difference.’ D., the artillery colonel, was so offended that it was hard to prevent him calling Ely out. Now perhaps the Danes might be as touchy as the soldier.

“Send me the Mag. as early as you can this month. It will comfort me at Spezzia if I can take it down there, but address me still Florence as usual.

“What do you think of an O’D. on the Serial Story-writer? I shall be all the better pleased if Lawson O’D. stand over for August, for I shall be close run for time this month to come, and it is no joke writing with the thermometer at 93° in the shade. In Ireland the belief is that a man who is dragged out to fight a duel against his will is sure to be shot, and I own I am superstitious enough to augur very ill of our going to war in the same reluctant fashion.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, June 30, 1864.

“I send off to-day (sit faust dies) by book-post ‘O’Dowd’ corrected, and I enclose a few lines to open with a dedication to Anster. I am not quite sure of the ‘notice,’ nor shall I be till I hear if you like it. I have gout and blue devils on me, but you can always do more for me than colchicum if you say ‘all right.’

“I hope we shall have a nice-looking book and a smart outside, and, above all, that we shall appear before the end of July, when people begin to scatter. I am very anxious about it all.

“I am not able to go down to Spezzia for some days, and if I can I shall attack ‘Tony’—not but the chances are sorely against anything pleasant if I mix with the characters any share of my present idiosyncrasy....

“I count on hearing from you now oftener that you are away from Whitebait. I was getting very sulky with the dinner-parties of which I was not a sharer. I met Mr and Mrs Sturgis at Thackeray’s at dinner. They were there, I think, on the day when one of Thackeray’s guests left the table to send him a challenge—the most absurd incident I ever witnessed. The man was a Mr Synge, formally Attaché at Washington, and now H.M’s Consul at the Sandwich Islands.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morklli, My 4,1864.

“I merely write a line. Your note and cheque came all right to me this morning. My thanks for both. I have had four mortal days of stupidity, and the fifth is on me this morning; but after I have had a few days at Spezzia I hope to be all right and in the harness again.

“If Dizzy’s vote of censure is not very much amplified in his exposé, it ought not to be difficult to meet it. The persistent way he dogged Palmerston to say something, anything, is so like Sir Lucius O’Trigger seizing on the first chance of a contradiction and saying, ‘Well, sir, I differ from you there.’

“Pam’s declaration that ‘war’ was possible in certain emergencies—when, for instance, the king should have been crucified and the princesses vanished—was the only thing like devilling I heard from him yet. This is, however, as palpably imbecility as anything they could do, and one symptom, when a leading one, is as good as ten thousand.

“Old Begration once told the Duke of Wellington that the discovery of a French horse-shoe ‘not roughed’ for the frost in the month of October was the reason for the burning of Moscow. They said: ‘These French know nothing of our climate; one winter here would kill them,’ It was the present Duke told me this story.

“You will have had my O’D. on the Conference before this, and if the Debate offer anything opportune for comment I’ll tag it on. The fact is, one can always do with an ‘O’Dowd’ what the parson accomplished when asked to preach a charity sermon,—graft the incident on the original discourse. Indeed I feel at such moments that my proper sphere would have been the pulpit. Perhaps I am more convinced of this to-day, as I have gout on me. Don’t you know what Talleyrand said to the friend who paid him a compliment on his fresh and handsome appearance as he landed at Dover?—‘Ah! it’s the sea-sickness, perhaps, has done it.’”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, July 10, 1864.

“What a hearty thing it was with you to send me the Bishop’s letter. I hope I may keep it. Do you know that it was by the merest accident that I did not allude to himself in the paper—or, rather, it was out of deference to his apron; for one of the most brilliant evenings I ever remember in my life was having the Bishop and O’Sullivan to dine with me and only two others, and Harry Griffin was the king of the company. Moore used to say, when complimented on his singing the melodies, ‘Ah! if you were to hear Griffin.’ But why don’t he recognise me? When we are ready with our vol. i. I shall ask you to send one or two, or perhaps three or four, copies to some friends. Let me beg one for the Bishop, and I’ll send a note with it. I think your note will do me good. It has already, and I am down and hipped and bedevilled cruelly.

“Palmerston will, I take it, have a small majority, but will he dissolve?

“I only ask about the length of T. B. on your account; for my own part I rather like writing the story, and if the public would stand it, I’d make it as long as ‘Clarissa Harlowe.’”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, July 11, 1864.

“I send you a short O’D. on the Debate, and so I shall spare you a letter. If, as now, there is no time for a proof,—though I think there may,—look to it closely yourself. My hand at times begins to tremble (I never give it any cause), and I find I can scarcely decipher some words. How you do it is miraculous. My gout will not fix, but hangs over me with dreariness and ‘devil-may-careisms,’ so that though I have scores of great intentions I can do nothing.

“I count a good deal on a two hours’ swim, and I am off to take it by Wednesday. If the sharks lay hold on me, finish T. B. Marry him to Alice, and put the rest of the company to bed indiscriminately.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, July 12, 1864.

“I send you with this a few lines to finish the serial O’D., a few also to complete ‘Be always ready with the Pistol,’ and—God forgive me for the blunder!—two stray pages that ought to come in somewhere (not where it is numbered) in the last-sent O’D. on ‘Material Aid.’ Will your ingenuity be able to find the place—perhaps the end? If not, squash it, and the mischief will not be great.

“I start to-night for the sea-side, so that if you want to send me a proof for the next ten days, send it in duo, one to Spezzia and the other here, by which means you shall have either back by return of post.

“The thermometer has taken a sudden start upwards to-day, 26° Réamur, and work is downright impossible. The cicale too make a most infernal uproar, for every confounded thing, from a bug to a baritone, sings all day in Italy.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, July 23, 1864.

“I was getting a great stock of health, swimming and boating at Spezzia, when I was called back by the illness of my youngest daughter, a sort of feverish attack brought on by the excessive heat of the weather, 92° and 93° every day in the shade. She is, thank God, a little better now, and I hope the severest part is over. When shall I be at work again? There never was so much idleness assisted by an evil destiny.

“What a jolly letter you sent me. I read it over half a dozen times, even after I knew it all, just as an unalterable toper touches his lips to the glass after emptying it. I wish I could be as hopeful about O’D.,—not exactly that, but I wish I could know it would have some success, and for once in my life the wish is not entirely selfish.

“You will, I am sure, tell me how it fares, and if you see any notices, good or bad, tell me of them.

“What a strange line Newdigate has taken,—not but he has a certain amount of right in the middle of all the confusion of his ideas. Dizzy unquestionably coquetted with Rome. Little Earle, his secretary, was out here on a small mission of intrigue, and I did my utmost to show him that for every priest he ‘netted’ he would inevitably lose two Protestants—I mean in Ireland. As for the worldly wit of the men who think that they can drive a good bargain with the ‘Romish’ clergy, all I can say is that they have no value in my eyes. The vulgarest curé that ever wore a coal-scuttle hat is more than the match of all the craft in Downing Street.

“You are quite right, it would do me immense good to breathe your bracing air, but it ‘mauna be.’ I wish I could see a chance of your crossing the Alps—is it on the cards?

“I wish I was twenty years younger and I’d make an effort to get into Parliament. Like my friend Corney, my friends always prophesied a success to me in something and somewhere that I have never explored—but so it is.

“Oh! for the books that have never been written,
With all the wise things that nobody has read.
And oh! for the hearts that have never been smitten,
Nor heard the fond things that nobody has said.

“My treasures are, I suspect, safely locked in the same secure obscurity. N’importe! at this moment I’d rather be sure my little girl would have a good night than I’d be Member for Oxford.”

To Mr Alexander Spencer.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, July 23, 1864.

“It would be unfair amidst all your labours to expect you could read through the volume of ‘Corney O’Dowd’ that Blackwood will have already sent—or a few days more will bring—to you. Still, if you will open it, and here and there look through some of those jottings-down, I know they will recall me to your memory. It is so very natural to me to half-reason over things, that an old friend [? like] yourself will recognise me on every page, and for this reason it is that I would like to imagine you reading it. My great critics declare that I have done nothing so good since the ‘Dodds,’—and now, enough of the whole theme!

“Here we are in a pretty villa on a south slope of the Apennines, with Florence at our feet and a glorious foreground of all that is richest in Italian foliage between us and the city. It is of all places the most perfect to write in,—beauty of view, quiet, silence, and seclusion all perfect,—but somehow I suppose I have grown a little footsore on the road. I do not write with my old facility. I sit and think—or fancy I think—and find very little is done after [all].

“The dreary thought of time lost and talent misapplied—for I ought never to have taken to the class of writing that I did—will invade, and, instead of plodding steadily along the journey, I am like one who sits down to cry over the map of the country to be traversed.

“I go to Spezzia occasionally—the fast mail now makes it but five hours. The Foreign Office is really most indulgent: they ask nothing of me, and in return I give them exactly what they ask.

“My wife is a little better—that is, she can move about unassisted and has less suffering. Her malady, however, is not checked. The others are well. As for myself, I am in great bodily health,—lazy and indolent, as I always was, and more given to depressions, perhaps, but also more patient under them than I used to be.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Saturday, July 30.

“Yours has just come. O’D. is very handsome. Confound the public if they won’t like them! Nothing could be neater and prettier than the book. How I long to hear some good tidings of it!

“My daughter had a slight relapse, but is now doing all well and safely.

“I think that the Irish papers—‘The Dub. E. Mail’ and ‘Express’—would review us if copies were sent, and perhaps an advertisement.

“I know you’ll let me hear, so I don’t importune you for news.

“Your cheque came all safe; my thanks for it. The intense heat is such now that I can only write late at night, and very little then.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Aug. 3, 1864.

“Unshaven, dishevelled,
I sit all bedevilled;
Your news has upset me,—
It was meet it should fret me.
What! two hundred and fifty!
Is the public so thrifty?
Or are jokes so redundant,
And funds so abundant
That ‘O’Dowd’ cannot find more admirers than this!
I am sure in the City ‘Punch’ is reckoned more witty,
And Cockneys won’t laugh
Save at Lombard Street chaff;
But of gentlemen, surely there can be no stint,
Who would like dinner drolleries dished up in print,
And to read the same nonsense would gladly be able
That they’d laugh at—if heard—o’er the claret at table
The sort of light folly that sensible men
Are never ashamed of—at least now and then.
For even the gravest are not above chaff,
And I know of a bishop that loves a good laugh.
Then why will they deny me,
And why won’t they buy me?
I know that the world is full of cajolery,
And many a dull dog will trade on my drollery,
Though he’ll never be brought to confess it aloud
That the story you laughed at he stole from O’Dowd;
But the truth is, I feel if my book is unsold,
That my fun, like myself, it must be—has grown old.
And though the confession may come with a damn,
I must own it—non sum qualis eram.

“I got a droll characteristic note from the Duke of Wellington and a cordial hearty one from Sir H. Seymour. I’d like to show you both, but I am out of sorts by this sluggishness in our [circulation]. The worst of it is, I have nobody to blame but myself.

“Send a copy of O’D. to Kinglake with my respects and regards. He is the only man (except C. O’D.) in England who understands Louis Nap.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Aug. 9, 1864.

“I am just sent for to Spezzia to afford my Lords of the Admiralty a full and true account of all the dock accommodation possible there, which looks like something in ‘the wind’; the whole ‘most secret and confidential.’

“I am sorry to leave home, though my little girl is doing well I have many causes of anxiety, and for the first time in my whole life have begun to pass sleepless nights, being from my birth as sound a sleeper as Sancho Panza himself.

“Of course Wilson was better than anything he ever did—but why wouldn’t he? He was a noble bit of manhood every way; he was my beau idéal of a fine fellow from the days I was a schoolboy. The men who link genius with geniality are the true salt of the earth, but they are marvellously few in number. I don’t bore you, I hope, asking after O’D.; at least you are so forgiving to my importunity that I fancy I am merciful.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Aug. 11,1864.

“I forgot to tell you that the scene of the collision in the longer O’D. is all invented—there was nothing of it in ‘The Times’ or anywhere else. How right you are about the melodramatic tone in the scene between Maitland and his Mother! It is worse. It is bow-wow! It is Minerva Press and the rest of it, but all that comes of a d———d public. I mean it all comes of novel-writing for a d———d public that like novels,—and novels are—novels.

“I am very gouty to-day, and I have a cross-grained man coming to dinner, and my women (affecting to keep the mother company) won’t dine with me, and I am sore put out.

“Another despatch! I am wanted at Spezzia,—a frigate or a gunboat has just put in there and no consul Captain Short, of the Sneezer perhaps, after destroying Chiavari and the organ-men, put in for instructions. By the way, Yule was dining with Perry, the Consul-General at Venice, the other day, when there came an Austrian official to ask for the Magazine with Flynn’s Life as a pièce de conviction! This would be grand, but it is beaten hollow by another fact. In a French ‘Life of Wellington,’ by a staff officer of distinction, he corrects some misstatements thus, ‘Au contraire, M. Charles O’Malley, raconteur,’ &c. Shall I make a short ‘O’Dowd’ out of the double fiasco? Only think, a two-barrelled blunder that made O’Dowd a witness at law, and Charles O’Malley a military authority!

“When I was a doctor, I remember a Belgian buying ‘Harry Lorrequer’ as a medical book, and thinking that the style was singularly involved and figurative.

“Oh dear, how my knuckle is singing, but not like the brook in Tennyson; it is no ‘pleasant tune.’

“Have you seen in ‘The Dublin E. Mail’ a very civil and cordial review of ‘O’Dowd,’ lengthy and with extracts? What a jolly note I got from the Bishop of Limmerick. He remembers a dinner I gave to himself and O’Sullivan, Archer Butler, and Whiteside, and we sat till 4 o’ the morning! Noctes—Eheu fugaces!

“Please say that some one has ordered ‘O’Dowd’ and liked it, or my gout will go to the stomach.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Aug. 12, 1864.

“I recant: I don’t think the scene so bad as I did yesterday. I sent it off corrected this night’s post—and try and agree with me. Remember that Maitland’s mother (I don’t know who his father was) was an actress,—why wouldn’t she be a little melodramatic? Don’t you know what the old Irishwoman said to the sentry who threatened to run his bayonet into her? ‘Devil thank you! sure, that’s you’re thrade.’ So Mad. Brancaleoni was only giving a touch of her ‘thrade’ in her Cambyses vein.