XV. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1865
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Jan. 6, 1866.
“I have just got your kind letter. I thank you for it heartily. The second instalment of ‘Tony’ and the ‘O’Dowd’ [paper] will be time enough in March.
“I am walking over the hills every day getting up my new tale; I truly think I have got on a good track.
“I’ll send you a couple of short O’Ds. for February. When Parliament meets we shall not want for matter.
“I send one now on ‘Tuft-hunting.’ You will see I had Whately in my head while I was doing it.
“My hope and wish is to be able to begin a new story in the April No. Will this suit your book?
“You can’t imagine how anxious I feel about ‘Tony.’ Let me hear from you how it is subscribed? Mudie is, I think, the novel barometer; what says he? If the book is not known as mine, all the better. At least, I have such faith in my bad luck that I would rather any one else fathered it.
“If it were not for the cheer of your hearty letters I don’t know what I should do, for I am low—low!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Jan. 9, 1865.
“I send you herewith three O’Ds. ‘Going into Parliament’—not bad; ‘Excursionist,’ perhaps tolerable,—but both true, so help me!
“This is the 9th, and if in time to let me have a proof—well. If not, I trust to you to see that my errors be set right and my sins forgiven me.
“One of the most curious trials—a case of disputed identity—is now going on in Madrid. I’d like to have given it, but I fear that the daily papers will have it, and of course we must never drink out of the same well. O’D. must be original or he is nothing, and the originality ought to be, if possible, in matter as much as manner. Don’t you agree with me?
“I think I have a good opening of a story,—Ireland,—to be changed, scene ii., to Cagliari in Sardinia. It is only in my head, and in company there with duns, usurers, attorneys, begging letters, and F. O. impertinences,—my poor skull being like a pawnbroker’s shop, where a great deal is ‘pledged’ and very little redeemable.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Jan. 19,1866.
“I got your note and your big cheque, and felt so lusty therewith that I actually contradicted my landlord, and conducted myself with a bumptiousness that half alarmed my family, unaware of the strong stimulant I was under.
“Hech, sirs! aren’t I nervous about ‘Tony’? You made a great mistake in not putting a name on the title. It will be ascribed to me, and blackguarded in consequence.
“I am glad you like the O’D. on ‘Tuft-hunting.’ Of course you saw I had Whately and his tail in my eye. They were the most shameless dogs I ever forgathered with.
“Do let me hear from you about T. B. soon. You may depend on’t that Corney O’Dowd’s sins will be visited on Tony, and the fellows who would not dare to come out into the open and have a ‘fall’ with Tony will shy their stone at him now.
“Why have you not reprinted in a vol. the ‘Maxims of Morgan O’Doherty’? They are unequalled in their way.
“By this you will have received the O’D. on ‘Wolff going into Parliament’ and a score more sui generis.
“I have composed three openings of the new story, and nearly driven my family distracted by my changes of plan; but I am not on the right road yet. However, I hope to be hard at it next week.
“Is the ‘P. M. Gazette’ to be the organ of the Party or is it a private spec? When I only think of the Tories of my acquaintance it is not any surprise to me that the Party is not a power; though I certainly feel if they were there and not kicked out again it would go far to prove a miracle. Are these your experiences?”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Jan. 24, 1865.
“You are such a good fellow that you can give even bad news a colour of comfort; but it is bad news, this of ‘Tony,’ and has caught me like a strong blow between the eyes. Surely in this gurgite vasto of [ ] and sensuality there ought to be some hearing for a man who would give his experiences of life uncharged with exaggerations, or unspiced by capital offences.
“I am sure a notice of ‘The Times,’ if it could be, would get the book a fair trial, and I neither ask nor have a right to more. Meanwhile I am what Mrs O’Dowd calls ‘several degrees below Nero.’
“I began my new story yesterday, but I’ll wait till I hear more cheery news before I take to my (ink) bottle again.
“You’ll have to look sharp for blunders in the last O’D.
“It almost puts me in spirits to talk of the theatricals. It is my veritable passion, and I plume myself upon my actorship. I have had plays in nearly every house I have lived in, in all parts of Europe. Mary Boyle—that was Dickens’s prima donna—was of my training; her infant steps (she was five-and-thirty at the time) were first led by me; and I remember holding a ladder for her while she sang a love-song out of a window, and (trying to study my own part at the same time) I set fire to her petticoats!
“There are short things from the French which would do well if your people had time to translate them. ‘Les Inconsolables,’ from two really good artists, first-rate. I have a little Italian piece by me would also adapt well, and it is an immense gain to have a piece perfectly new and fresh, and when there can be no odious comparisons with Buckstone or Keely, and the rest of them. In fact, half of our young English amateurs are only bad Robsons and Paul Bedfords. My girls are all good actresses, and we have—or we used to have—short scenes of our devising constantly got up amongst us.
“Remember to send me good news, true or not, or at least any civil ‘notice’ you may see of ‘Tony,’ for till I hear again ‘the divil a word ever I write.’
“When I read out your letter this morning, my wife said in a whisper, ‘Now he’ll be off to whist worse than ever!’ So it is; I take to the rubber as other men do to a dram.
“Have you sent copies of T. B. to the press folk? I don’t know if Savage has to do with ‘The Examiner,’ but he is an old pal of mine, and would willingly give us a lift.
“I wish I had Bright’s speech in time for a quiz this month. It was a rare occasion. A mock classic oration, for a tribune of the people, full of gross flattery of the Plebs, would have been good fun; but [? the opportunity] is everything, and the joke that comes late looks, at least, as if it took labour to arrive at.
“Oh dear, but I am down! down! Write to me, I entreat you.
“Give my heartiest good wishes to the Corps Dramatique,—say that I am with them in spirit. ‘My heart’s in the side scenes, my heart is not here.’”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Feb. 4, 1865.
“I am impatient to show you a brick of the new house: first, because if you don’t like it I’ll not go on; and secondly, if you should think well of it, your encouragement will be a great strengthener to me, and give me that confidence that none of my own connections ever inspire. My womenkind like Sir F., partly perhaps because I have said something about my ‘intentions.’ Not that I have any intentions, however, so fixed that the course of the story may not serve to unhinge them. At all events, you are well able to predicate from a molar tooth what sort of a beast it was that owned it, or might own it. Say your say then, and as boldly as our interests require.
“I’d like to write you the best story in my market—that is, if I have a market; but now and then I half feel as if I were only manufacturing out of old wearables, like the devil’s dust folk at Manchester.
“I have no heart to talk of ‘Tony,’ because I think the book is a deal better than what the scoundrels are daily praising, and I know there is better ‘talk’ in it than the rascals ever did talk or listen to in the dirty daily Covent Garden lines. There’s a burst of indignant vanity for you, and I’m ‘better for it’ already. If ‘The Times’ had noticed us at once, it would have given the key-note; but patienzia, as the Italians say.
“Now let me have a line at your earliest about B. F., for though we don’t start till All Fools’ Day, I’d like to get in advance. I hope you’ll like the O’Ds. I sent last. When vol. ii. is ready let me have one by post. Your cheque is come all safe—my thanks for it.
“We are in great commotion here; the K. has arrived. Turin being in a state that may be any moment ‘of siege,’ things look very ill here, and the men in power are quite unequal to the charge.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Florence, Feb. 11, 1865.
“You are wrong about the scandal—there is none abroad whatever! For the same reason that Lycurgus said there was no adultery in Sparta, because every one had a legal right to every one else. There can be no criticism where there is no default.
“‘The Times’ on ‘Tony’ was miserable: the book is—‘though I that oughtn’t,’ &c,—good. That is, there is a devilish deal more good in it than half of the things that are puffed up into celebrity, and had it been written by any man but my unlucky self, would have had great success. I have not seen the M. P. notice. I have just seen the ‘P. Mall Gazette.’ It is deplorably bad: the attempts at fun and smartness positively painful. I am impatient to hear what you say of the new story.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Feb. 21,1865.
“I hasten to answer your note, which has just come and relieved me of some gloomy apprehensions. I had begun to fancy that your delay in pronouncing on B. F. is out of dislike to say that you are not pleased with it. This fear of mine was increased by being low and depressed. Your judgment has relieved me, however, and done me much good already, and to-morrow I’ll go to work ‘with a will’ and, I hope, a ‘way.’
“‘The Judge and his Wife’ * are life sketches, the rest are fictional.
* Baron Lendrick (in ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke’) was one of
Lever’s favourite characters. The old judge was a sketch for
which he had to depend upon a memory of a journey made more
than twenty years before ‘Sir Brook’ was written. Lever had
travelled to London in the ‘Forties with a distinguished
party—Isaac Butt, Frederick Shaw (the member for Dublin
University), Henry West (afterwards a judge), and Sergeant
Lefroy (afterwards—Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland). Baron
Lendrick was a study of Lefroy. It was said that Lever was
the only man who had ever succeeded in making Lefroy laugh.
Lever declared that his Baron Lendrick was a portrait upon
which he had expended “a good deal of time and paint”—E. D.
“I send you a batch of O’Ds. for April No. Some of them I think good. By the way, Smith—of Smith & Elder—has been begging me to send him something, as O’Ds. I refused, and said that Cornelius was your property, and if I sent him an occasional squib it should be on no account under that title.
“From what I have seen I agree with you about the style and pretensions of the ‘P. M. Gazette.’ They are heavy when trying to be light and volatile, the dreariest sort of failure imaginable. It is strange fact that what the world regards as the inferior organisation—the temperament for drollery—is infinitely the most difficult to imitate. Your clown might possibly play Hamlet. I’ll be shot if Hamlet could play Clown! Now original matter on daily events, to be read at all, ought to have the stamp of originality on its style. These fellows have not caught this. They are as tiresome as real members of Parliament.
“There is a great dearth of ‘passing topics’ for O’Dowderie; Parliament is dull, and society duller. I am sure that a little stupidity—a sort of prosy platitude just now in O’D.—would conciliate my critics of the press. My pickles have given them a heartburn, d——— them; but they shall have them hotter than ever.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Feb. 29, 1866.
“I have just got your note and its ‘farce’: thanks for both. ‘Tony Butler’ is a deal too good for the stupid public, who cram themselves with [ ] and [ ], which any one with a Newgate Calendar at hand and an unblushing temperament might accomplish after a few easy lessons.
“It is very little short of an indignity for a man to write for a public who can gloat over [ ] or the stupid drolleries of [ ], so flauntingly proclaimed by ‘The Times,’ as most utter trash. I am decidedly sick of my readers and my critics, and not in any extravagance of self-conceit, because though I know I have a speciality for the thing I do, I neither want any one to believe it a high order of performance or myself a very great artist. I only say it is mine, and that another has not done it in the same way.
“I shall be sorry if you omit the O’Ds. this month. Two of them, at least, are apropos, and would suffer. The careful meditation, too, is worth something, as I claim to be ready with my pen, even when I only wound my bird.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa MorElli, Florence, March 7, 1865.
“I answer your note at once to acknowledge your cheque. It’s not necessary to tell you how I value your feeling for me, or how deeply I prize your treatment of me. Sorely as I feel the public neglect of ‘Tony,’ I declare I am more grieved on your account than on my own. It is in no puppyism I profess to think the book good: faults I know there are, scores of them, but there is more knowledge of men and women and better ‘talk’ in it, I honestly believe, than in those things which are run after and third-editioned. As to doing better—I frankly own I cannot. It is not in me. I will not say I may not hit off my public better, though I’m not too confident of even that, but as to writing better, throwing off more original sketches of character,—better contrasts in colour or sharper talkers,—don’t believe it! I cannot.
“A more ignorant notice than the ‘Saturday Review’ I never read. M’Caskey is no more an anachronism than myself! though perhaps the writer of the paper would say that is not taking a very strong ground.
“Why don’t you like the ‘Rope Trick’? It is better than most of the O’Ds. By the way, Smith only asked if I would send him O’Dowderies, and I misrepresented him if I conveyed anything stronger. I was not sorry, however, at the opportunity it gave me to say—how much and how strongly—I felt that they were yours so long as you cared for them. You had been the godfather when they were christened.
“I am half disappointed we don’t start B. F. next month; but you are always right,—perhaps even that makes the thing harder to bear.
“‘Piccadilly’ is very good, very amusing; one thing is pre-eminently clear, the writer is distinctively a ‘gentleman.’ None but a man hourly conversant with good society could give the tone he has given to Salon Life. It has the perfume of the drawing-room throughout it all, and if any one thinks that an easy thing to do, let him try it—that’s all
“What you say of ‘Our Mutual Friend’ I agree with thoroughly. It is very disagreeable reading, and the characters are more or less repugnant and repelling; but there are bits, one especially, in the last No., of restoring a drowned fellow to life which no man living but Dickens could have written. I only quote ‘Armadale’ for the sake of the Dream Theory: it is an odious story to my thinking, and I never can separate the two cousins in my head, and make an infernal confusion in consequence. How good ‘Miss Marjoribanks’ is—how excellent! What intense humour, what real knowledge of human nature! To my thinking she has no equal, and so think all my womanhood, who prefer her to all the story-writers, male and female.
“What you hint about a real love-story is good, but don’t forget that Thackeray said, ‘No old man must prate about love.’ I remember the D. of Wellington once saying to me, referring to Warren’s ‘Ten Thousand a-Year’: ‘It is not that he never had ten thousand a-year, but he never knew a man who had.’ As to writing about love from memory, it’s like counting over the bank-notes of a bank long broken. They remind you of money, it’s true, but they’re only waste-paper after all.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, March 11,1865.
“I send off by book-post the O’D. proof, though I suppose, and indeed hope, you will not use them for the April No., but keep them for May. This, not alone because it will give me more time to think of ‘Sir B.’ but also, because there is just now rather a dearth of matter for what the ‘Morning Post’ describes as my ‘Olympian platitudes.’
“‘Oh dear, what a trial it is—to be kicked by a cripple.’
“I have added a few lines to complete the ‘Church’ O’Dowd; pray see that it is correct. I am curious to see the new vol., and to hear from you about its success.
“Do write to me—and as often as you have spare time. If we ever meet, I’ll pay it all back in talk.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, March (St Pat.‘s Day).
“Gout, a rickety table, and four stupid Piedmontese authorities talking bad Italian and smoking ‘Cavours’ at my side, are not aids to polite letter-writing, and so forgive me if unusually incoherent and inexplicable.
“I came hurriedly down here to be consular, and to see poor old Mrs Somerville, who was very seriously ill. She has rallied, but it is the rally of eighty odd years. Nothing short of a Scotchwoman could have lived through her attack.
“On looking over the ‘Whist’ proof, there are a few changes I would suggest. I would, for instance, insert the 7 pp. copy in place of the piece marked (—). It will need your careful supervision and reading. The other bit of a page and half copy I would insert at p. 4, after the word ‘frankness.‘The concluding sentence is in its due place. These bits are meant to take off the air of didactic assumption the article is tinged with, and also to dispose the reader to think I am not perfectly serious in esteeming Whist to be higher than Astronomy or the Physical Sciences.
“I have shown ‘Foss’ to a very critical fellow here, and he says it is better in manner than ‘Tony.’ I don’t believe him, though I should like to do so.
“You shall have the proof at once. My daughter writes me that O’D. 2 has arrived and looks very nice. Tell me how subscribed! Tell me what said of it!
“Is it true you are all in a devil of a funk at a war with America? So say the diplomats here, but they are very generally mistaken about everything except ‘Quarter day.’ I had Hudson to dinner on Monday, and we laughed ourselves into the gout, and had to finish the evening with hot flannels and colchicum. There is not his equal in Europe. If I could only give you his talk, you’d have such a Noctes as I have never read of for many a year, I assure you. I wished for you when the fun was going fast. Good Heavens! how provoking it is that such a fellow should not be commemorated. Listening to him after reading a biography is such rank bathos; and as to settling down to write after him, it is like setting to work to brew small beer with one’s head swimming with champagne. I hope to be back at Villa Morelli by Sunday, and to find a proof and a letter from you when I arrive.
“I shall be very glad to see Mr M. Skene when he turns up at Florence. I need not tell you that a friend of yours comes into the category of the favoured nations. My life is now, however, a very dull affair to ask any one to look at, and it is only by a real feeling of good-nature any one would endure me.
“Only think of this climate! I have had to close the jalousies to keep out the sun, and it is now positively too hot where I am writing. I could almost forgive the ‘Excursionists’ coming out to bask in such sunshine.
“I hear the ‘M. Post’ has had a long and favourable notice of ‘Tony.’ Have you seen it?
“Now be sure you write to me and often. Addio.
“The American consul has just called and told me that his Government are sending a smashing squadron over here under an admiral—a sort of ‘Io Triumphe’ after the raising of the blockade. All the big frigates are to be included in it.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, March 30,1865.
“This is only to say how much your criticism on ‘Sir B.’ has pleased me, but don’t believe the book is better than ‘Tony’—it is not. The man who wrote the other hasn’t as good in his wallet.
“I am sure the Major is right, and the story of being chasséd from Austria reads wrong; but it is not, as one might imagine, unfounded. The case was Yelverton’s, and present V. Admiral in the Mediterranean, and the lady an Infanta of Portugal, and it went so far that she was actually going off with him. Now, if you still think it should be cancelled, be it so. I have only recommended it to mercy, not pardoned it.
“Besides my gout I am in the midst of worries. The New Capital is playing the devil with us in increased cost of everything, and my landlord—the one honest man I used to think him in the Peninsula—has just written to apprise me that my rent is doubled. Of course I must go, but where to? that’s the question. I’d cut my lucky and make towards England, but that our friends at the Carlton say, ‘Hold on to Spezzia and we’ll give you something when we come in.’ Do you remember the German Duke who told his ragged followers they should all have shirts, for he was about to sow flax? I threw my sorrows into a doggerel epigram as I was in my bath this morning.—
“To such a pass have things now come,
So high have prices risen,
If Italy don’t go to Rome,
Then—I must go to prison.
“I find that Skene and I are old friends who have fought many a whist battle together. I wanted him to dine with me yesterday to meet Knatchbull and Labouchere, but he was lumbagoed and obliged to keep his bed: he is all right to-day, however.
“I hope to have a few days (a week) in England this spring—that is, if I keep out of jail,—but I’ll let you know my plans when they are planned.
“I have not written since—better I should not—for I go about saying to myself ‘D——— Morelli,’ so that my family begin to tremble for my sanity.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Spezzia, April 6, 1865.
“Your letter has just caught me here. I came down hurriedly to see if I couldn’t find a ‘location,’ for my Florentine landlord—actuated by those pure patriotic motives which see in the change of capital the greatness of Italy and the gain of Tuscany—has put 280 odd l. on my rent! As I have been stupid enough to spend some little money in improving my garden, &c. he is wise enough to calculate that I feel reluctant to leave where I have taken root.
“These are small worries, but they are worries in their way, and sometimes more than mere worries to a man like myself who takes a considerable time to settle down, and hates being disturbed afterwards. It never was a matter of surprise to me that story of the prisoner who, after twenty year’s confinement, refused to accept his liberty! And for this reason: if I had been a Papist I’d never have spent a farthing to get me out of Purgatory, for I know I’d have taken to the place after a while, and made myself a sort of life that would have been very endurable.
“You will see from this that ‘Sir B.’ is not advancing. How can he, when I am badgered about from post to pillar? But once settled, you’ll see how I’ll work. It’s time I should say I had your cheque all right; and as to ‘Sir B.,’ it shall be all as you say.
“I am sorely put out by ‘Tony’ not doing better. I can understand scores of people not caring for O’Dowd, just as I have heard in Society such talk as O’D. voted a bore. Englishmen resent a smartness as a liberty: the man who tries a jest in their company has been guilty of a freedom not pardonable. But surely ‘Tony’ is as good trash as the other trash vendors are selling; his nonsense is as readable nonsense as theirs. I am not hopeful of hitting it off better this time, though I have a glimmering suspicion that ‘Sir Brooke’ will be bad enough to succeed.
“Skene and Preston came out to me one evening. I wish I had seen more of them. We laughed a good deal, though I was depressed and out of sorts.
“Of course if Hudson goes ‘yourwards’ I’ll make him known to you. What a misfortune for all who love the best order of fun that he was not poor enough to be obliged to write for his bread! His letters are better drollery than any of us can do, and full of caricature illustrations far and away beyond the best things in ‘Punch.’ Who knows but one of these days we may meet at the same mahogany; and if we should———
“I forget if I told you I have a prospect of a few days in town towards the beginning of May—my positively last appearance in England, before I enter upon that long engagement in the great afterpiece where there are no Tony Butlers nor any O’Dowds.
“I do hope I shall see you: no fault of mine will it be if I fail.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, April 10, 1866.
“Send for No. 1 of ‘The Excursionist,’ edited by a Mr Cook, and if you don’t laugh, ‘you’re no’ the man I thought ye.’ He pitches in to me most furiously for my O’Dowd on the ‘Convict Tourists’; and seeing the tone of his paper, I only wonder he did not make the case actionable.
“He evidently believes that I saw him and his ‘drove Bulls,’ and takes the whole in the most serious light. Good Heavens! what a public he represents.
“The extracts he gives from the T. B.‘s article are far more really severe than anything I wrote, because the snob who wrote them was a bona fide witness of the atrocious snobs around him; and as for the tourist who asks, ‘Is this suit of clothes good enough for Florence, Mr Cook?’ I could make a book on him.
“The fellow is frantic, that is clear.
“Heaven grant that I may fall in with his tourists! I’ll certainly go and dine at any table d’hôte I find them at in Florence.
“I have been so put out (because my landlord will insist on putting me out) by change of house that I have not been able to write a line.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, April 14,1865.
“After the affecting picture Skene drew of you over one of my inscrutable MSS., I set the governess to work to copy out a chapter of ‘Sir B.,’ which I now send; the remainder of the No. for July I shall despatch to-morrow or next day at farthest. That done, I shall rest and do no more for a little while, as my story needs digestion.
“I have asked for a short leave. I am not sure the answer may not be, ‘You are never at your post, and your request is mere surplusage, and nobody knows or cares where you are,’ &c. If, however, ‘My Lord’ should not have read ‘The Rope Trick,’ and if he should be courteously disposed to accord me my few weeks of absence, and if I should go,—it will be at once, as I am anxious to be in town when the world of Parliament is there, when there are men to talk to and to listen to. I want greatly to see you: I’m not sure that it is not one of my primest objects in my journey.
“All this, however, must depend on F. O., which, to say truth, owes me very little favour or civility. I have been idle latterly—not from choice indeed; but my wife has been very poorly, and there is nothing so entirely and hopelessly disables me as a sick house: the very silence appals me.”
To Mr John Blackwood,
“Villa Morelli, April 23,1865.
“I send you a short story. I have made it O’Dowdish, but you shall yourself decide if it would be better unconnected with O’D. It would not make a bad farce; and Buckstone as ‘Joel,’ and Paul Bedford as ‘Victor Emanuel,’ would make what the Cockneys call a ‘screamer.’
“I have not yet heard anything of my leave, but if I get it at once, and am forced to utilise it immediately, my plan would be to go over to Ireland (where I am obliged to go on business), finish all I have to do there, and be back by the 20th to meet you in London. I cannot say how delighted I should be to go down to you in Scotland. I’d like to see you with your natural background,—a man is always best with his own accessories,—but it mauna be. I can’t manage the time. Going, as I do, from home with my poor wife such a sufferer is very anxious work, and though I have deferred it for the last five years, I go now—if I do go—with great fear and uneasiness. It requires no small self-restraint to say ‘No’ to so pleasant a project, and for God’s sake don’t try and tempt me any more!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, May 6,1865.
“I suppose (from your silence) that you imagine me in, or about to be in, England. But no; thanks to ‘The Rope Trick,’ perhaps, my Lord has not vouchsafed any reply to my asking for leave, and here I am still. It is the more provoking because, in the expectation of a start, I idled the last ten days, and now find it hard to take up my bed and walk, uncured by the vagabondage I looked for.
“Besides this, I had received a very warm and pressing invitation to I know not what celebrations in Ireland, and meant to have been there by the opening of the Exhibition. However, the F. O. won’t have it, and here I am.
“I am deucedly disposed to throw up my tuppenny consulate on every ground, but have not the pluck, from really a want of confidence in myself, and what I may be this day twelve months, if I be at all.
“Write to me at all events, and with proof, since if ‘the leave’ does not arrive to-morrow or next day, I’ll not avail myself of it.
“If I could hear O’D. was doing flourishing I’d pitch F. O. to the devil by return of post.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, May 10,1866.
“When this comes to hand I hope to be nearer you than I am now. My address will be care of Alexander Spencer, Esq., 32 North Frederick Street, Dublin. Any proofs—and I hope for some—will find me there.
“F. O. meant to bully, and did bully me; but, after all, one must say that there is an impression that I wrote ‘Tony Butler,’ and as I am indolent to contradict it, que voulez-vous? I only got my blessed leave to-day, and go to-morrow. Never feeling sure that I should be able to go, I have left everything to the last, and now I am overwhelmed with things to do.
“My stay in Ireland will be probably a week, and I hope to be in London by the end of the month. Let me know your plans and your places.
“I am a (something) at the Irish Exhibition (remind me to tell you a story of the D. of Richmond at Rotterdam, which won’t do to write); and perhaps it would not be seemly to O’Dowd the Dubliners.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Morrison’s, Dublin, May 21,1865.
“My movements are to go up to London by Wednesday next. I have a fortnight at least to give to London, but don’t mulct any engagements on my account, but let me see you on your ‘off days.’
“I sent off the ‘Hero-worship,’ corrected, by yesterday’s mail, but added in the envelope a prayer to whomever it might concern not to trust to my hasty revisal, but to look to the orthographies closely, and especially to make Mr Jack ‘Mr Joel,’ as he ought to be.
“Heaven reward you for sending me money! I wonder how you knew I lost £40 last Wednesday night at whist at a mess. I shall, I hope, have wherewithal to pass me on to my parish, but no more.
“The Exhibition here is really good, and very tasteful and pretty. The weather is, however, atrocious, and I am half choked with a cold.
“A Scotch friend, J. F. Drummond (some relative of George Thompson’s), has been endeavouring to have me domiciled at the house he stops at, 11 St James’s Place; but I suspect that the coming Derby has made a difficulty, and I shall probably not get in: hitherto I have always gone to the Burlington, but a notion of ‘Thrift’ (vide O’Dowd) impels me to do something that I already suspect will end in a reckless extravagance.” Lever found Dublin bright, lively, and hospitable, and he was soon ready to cry out against the killing effects of too much dining, too much whist, and too much flattery. Some of his Irish friends noticed that he suffered from occasional attacks of utter despondency. The novelist himself explains the cause of his low-spiritedness: many of his blithesome companions of the ‘Thirties and ‘Forties were dead, and most of those who remained in the land of the living had become very old and painfully prim. When he paid a visit to the Four Courts, he saw on the bench solemn care-worn personages whom he had known as struggling and light-hearted lawyers. His sympathies almost to the last were with young and lively folk: old age was his bogey. “I like the ambitions of young men,” he said, “their high and their bold self-confidence, which no man retains when he gets ‘groggy.’” Amongst his entertainers in Dublin during this visit were Sheridan Le Fanu, W. H. Lecky, and Sir William Wilde. The first two of these noted Lever’s dulness: Wilde found him more brilliant than ever. The novelist’s moods were peculiarly variable just then. Amongst the visits he paid to old haunts was one to the place where his Burschen Club had held revel thirty-five years previously. He discovered some of the club’s paraphernalia, and obtained possession of these relics of golden hours. When he visited Trinity College he was a prey to conflicting emotions, but on the whole the remembrances of the old days, when he lived at No. 2 Botany Bay, were pleasant and inspiriting. He declares that as he walked through the courts and corridors of the University he felt as if thirty years of hard conflict with the world were no more than a memory, and that he was as ready as ever to fling himself headlong into all the fun and frolic of a freshman’s life. This highly-strung mood was succeeded by a fit of deepest melancholy. As he said good-bye to Trinity he felt that he was gazing upon it for the last time. He had submitted to the ordeal of being photographed. The result did not tend to chase his gloom away. The photograph showed him features which the hand of Time had coarsened. In London he met, for the first time, John Blackwood. It was a merry meeting. Blackwood, writing from The Burlington on June 4th, says: “This place is in a greater whirl than ever, and it is with the greatest difficulty I can get anything done. In addition to the usual distractions, I have had Cornelius O’Dowd staying in the same house. He is a sort of fellow that comes into your room and keeps you roaring with laughter for a couple of hours every hour of the day.... His fun is something wonderful.” Every likely attraction was provided for O’Dowd by his publisher. Hannay, Kinglake, Delane did their best to entertain him. Blackwood describes the contrast between Kinglake and Lever,—the former making neat little remarks, and Lever rattling on with story after story. Harry Lorrequer appeared in the Park, riding on a nag of Lord Bolingbroke’s. Blackwood humorously declares that, seeing a donkey-cart in Piccadilly, he was uneasy lest the author of ‘Charles O’Malley’ should be tempted to clear the cart in a flying leap. The novelist’s own impressions of this visit to London were sufficiently lively. He was entertained by Lord Houghton, Lord Lytton, and other literary big-wigs. The city seemed as new to him—“just as noisy, as confounding, as addling, as exciting, as tantalising, as never satisfying”—as when he had first seen it. London loungers, he said, had no idea of the overwhelming excitement produced on an idle Anglo-Italian by the mere sounds and sights of the streets, nor could they measure the confusion and enjoyment experienced by a man “who hears more in half an hour than he has imagined in half a year.” He returned to Florence in June, visiting Paris on the homeward journey. He was not sorry to find that official duties called him to Spezzia. He was anxious for a period of rumination—for an easy opportunity of sliding back into the routine ways of pen-craft, which were, he declares, the labour and the happiness of his life. For some weeks consular work kept him busy, and it was difficult to make much headway with ‘Sir Brook.’ Moreover, he was beginning to suffer from attacks of somnolency, akin to the attacks which had prostrated him at Templeogue. When he was not sleeping he was frequently enwrapped in a half dream. “I reflect much,” he said, “and always with my eyes closed and a pillow under my head, and with such a semblance of perfect repose that calumnious people have said I was asleep. These hours of reflection occupy a large share of the forenoon and of the time between early dinner and sunset. They are periods of great enjoyment: they once were even more so, when an opinion prevailed that it would be a sacrilege to disturb me, these being the creative hours of my active intelligence. This faith has long since changed for a less reverent version of my labours, and people are less scrupulous about interruption.” One cannot help suspecting that opium played some part in this languorousness,—though there is no evidence that he resumed the habit. It would have been impossible that Lever should allow even his slumber-fits to escape from association with some form of frolic. Attired in a negligently-worn linen suit, he fell asleep on a chair one day at the public baths. An English footman came into the place, and, mistaking the vice-consul for an attendant, he rudely shook him and declared that he wanted a bath instantly. “There you are!” said Lever, springing to his feet, seizing the flashily-dressed lackey, and pitching him into the reservoir.
To Dr Burbidge.
“Villa Morelli, July 1,1865.
“I am much obliged by your interest for me at Valetta. I really want the house, first, because I would be glad to get away from Florentine dear-ness; and secondly, I ought to give up Spezzia or go to it. If, then, anything can be done anent this matter, it will serve me much.
“Of course I am sorry to hear that you should leave Spezzia, but I cannot but feel the bishop’s offer a good one—good as the means of securing an excellent position and field for further effort. To me Malta would be very palatable. I like the 49th, and their stupid talk. I like pipeclay, and facings, and camp gossip. I like the Mess, and the half-crown whist, and the no ‘canon’ company.
“You are above all this, and tant pis for you. It is a grand lesson in life to have habits and ways that will suit the lowest rate of intelligence; and as for me, I have not a pursuit that could not be practised by the company of a private madhouse.
“I have seen a review of ‘Tony,’ excellent in its way, and giving some encouragement to the ‘evidently young author,’ and warning him that his Italian politics are too heavy for fiction.
“I have begun a new story, ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ What it will turn out, God knows. ‘Luttrell is complete and out, and another vol. of ‘O’Dowd’ appears next week.
“There is a new evening paper (Tory) called ‘The Pall Mall Gazette’ started. They have asked me to join them, but I don’t like newspaper work, and have said ‘No.’
“Till ‘the party’ are able to strike out some line essentially different from Palmerston’s, not merely crotchety, but really distinctive, all advocating of them in the press is impossible. Now, it’s hard work to read platitudes; it’s the devil to write them. Hannay is to be the editor.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 11,1865.
“I have just got your note and the proof of O’D. in the midst of my consular cares, with my Jack flying out of my consular windows, and my consular brains broiling under a temperature that would roast a woodcock.
“I sent you off Sir B. in proof by this post. ‘O’Dowd’ shall follow (if possible) to-morrow, at all events in time. For the love of God, let some man learned in orthographies look to my proofs, for I can’t spell after the thermometer passes 90° in the shade, and if I were to be d———d I don’t know how many d’s there are in granddaughter.
“As to writing here I need only say that it costs me a small apoplexy to perform the present note. The railroad screams under my window, and two Miss Somervilles are sol-faing overhead (and I vow to Heaven I like the locomotive best), and I have a telegram to say that the admiral may be here any day after the 17th, and stay as long as he finds it pleasant,—a condition which (if I know myself) will not entail any undue delay.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 13, 1865.
“Your note came on here to-day, the enclosure stayed at Florence. What cruel inspiration suggested your thoughtful kindness? I left home declaring that I was ruined, had overdrawn you, and had not a sou for anything; that we must live on roots and drink water till next spring: and now my beautiful budget, that I have just carried at the risk of the Government, is all gone and smashed.
“You (fortunately for you) don’t know that all these things are very great things to people who are always swimming for their lives,—but enough of it.
“I have been exceedingly busy since I came here. An order of the Queen’s Bench named me a Commissioner to take evidence in a case coming on for trial next November, and I have been sitting up—like a Brummagem Chief-Justice—and rebuking witnesses, and scowling at the public like a real judge.
“I send a few lines to complete O’D. for the month. How I wrote them I don’t know, for this infernal place is so noisy, and the interruptions so frequent, I’d fain be back in Brook Street for quiet.
“I fear I shall be detained here all this month, for the admiral is on his way here, and the whole Maltese fleet are thirsting for bitter beer and champagne. I wonder if I were to put down their powers of suction in my extraordinaries would F. O. stand it?”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 15, 1865.
“I send off O’D. proof to-night. I last night sent by private hand some pages to conclude it. Do look very carefully to both; my orthography (like Acre’s courage) oozes out of my finger-ends in this hot weather.
“I have had a two hours’ swim, and am so sleepy and ‘water-logged’ that I can’t write, though I’m dying to O’Dowd the judge for his remarks on Dr Paterson in the Pritchard case. They are so ignorant, and so vulgar to boot.
“If every doctor who suspected foul play in the treatment of malady was to cry out Murder! the whole world would be one wild shout of assassination. What between medical timidity, terror, gobemoucherie, and sometimes private malice, the police-courts would have enough on their hands. They say railroads must have no signals because pusillanimous travellers would be eternally summoning the guard, and here is exactly a similar evil with worse consequences.
“I don’t think I ever conversed with a country practitioner who hadn’t a story or two of ‘foul play,’ and so palpably untrue as to be laughable. In all probability Paterson’s impressions were only strong when he found the woman had died, and it is a very medical error to imagine a skill in prediction which only comes after the event. The world is all subserviency to the doctor when there is an epidemic abroad, and ‘takes it out’ in insult when the weather is fine and the season salubrious.
“‘The Spanish fleet’ is not in sight.
“Remember I rely upon you to look closely to these last ‘Sir Bs.’ and ‘O’Dowds,’ for I am as near softening of the brain as it is permitted to a consul to be.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 28, 1865.
“It seems like a century to me since we heard of each other. Here I am still awaiting the fleet. They were to come on the 27th, and they are to be here positively on the 6th, most positively on the 8th, and as sure as the Lord liveth (I mean the First Lord), on the 12th August.
“I have my youngest daughter with me, who keeps me in a perpetual round of croquet, picnics, boat-races, and moonlight rowing-parties.
“If you knew, then, the difficulty I have had to write the two chaps. I now send you (my first instalment of Sept. ‘Fossbrooke ‘), you would prize them more certainly than their merit could call for.”
To Mr William Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, Aug. 6, 1865.
“I got your telegram just as I was starting for a picnic, to eat my lobster afterwards with what appetite I might. I suspect (it is mere suspicion) that chap, i., enclosed in an envelope I had borrowed from an American colleague, has gone (through the words ‘U.S. Consulate’ on the corner) to America, and that Sir B. F. is now making the tour of ‘the Union.’
“Rewriting is all very fine; but I have forgotten all I wrote, as I always do, or I should go mad. If Providence had only inflicted me with a memory in proportion to my imagination, I’d have been in Bedlam twenty years ago. I have therefore set to work and written something else. If the other turns up, you may prefer it (‘You pays your money and takes your choice,’ as the apple-women say).
“God forgive me, but I grow less wise as I grow older. The old smack of devil-may-care, that sat so easily on me as a boy, keeps dodging me now in grey hairs and making a fool of me; but you’ve read the German story of the fellow whose wooden leg was ‘possessed’ and ran away with him. I haven’t a wooden leg, but I have a wooden stick that plays a like prank with me.
“O’Dowd indeed! And I flirting with little Yankee girls, and teaching them to swim! Don’t talk to me of O’Dowd!
“Tell your uncle to send me whatever there remains of balance of the last O’Ds., for I am losing my money here like fun, and ashamed to send to my bankers for more.
“Continue to address me here: I see no prospect of my getting back to Florence. The English fleet is still at Rosas, and the three balls we intended to give them have already come off here, and we are all ruined in champagne and crinoline before the honoured guests have arrived. What an O’D. one might make on ‘The Fleet of the Future’!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Aug. 14,1866.
“When I read of Aytoun’s death in the papers I knew how it would affect you. I am well aware what old ties linked you; and these old ties bind not only heart to heart, but attach a man to his former self, and make up the sweetest part of our identity. They are often, too, the only light that shines on the past, which would be dark and untraceable if love did not mark it.
“It is strange, but I feel (and I wrote it to my wife) that I thought I had lost a friend in losing him,—though we never met, and only knew each other in a few kindly greetings transmitted by yourself from one to the other. How right you are about the solemn fools! I go even farther, and say that the solemn wise, the Gladstones of this world, are only half great in wanting that humouristic vein that gives a man his wide sympathy with other men, and makes him, through his very humanity, a something more than human. I am sure it is in no unfair spirit I say it, but the Aytoun type grows rarer every day. It is a commodity not marketable, and Nature somehow ceases to produce what has not its value in the pièce courant.
“I can’t write a line here. My youngest daughter keeps me ever concocting new gaieties for her, and she has such an insatiable spirit for enjoyment the game never ends.
“Our fleet is becalmed outside Spezzia, but may be here at any moment.
“I shall send off the proof by book-post, and (if no other reach me) beseech you to remember that, being away from my wife and eldest daughter, I am neither to be relied upon for my orthographies nor my ‘unities,’ nor indeed any other ‘ties. Look, therefore, sharply to my proof, and see that I am not ever obscure where I don’t intend it.
“I see no chance of getting away before the end of the month, and till I reach V. Morelli my ink-bottle is screwed up.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzià, Sept. 2,1865.
“I am in misery. Here I am, dining and being dined, eating, drinking, singing, sailing, swimming, pic-nicing, bedevilling,—everything, in short, but writing. I have made incredible attempts to work. I have taken a room on the house-top; I have insulted the ward-room and d———d the cockpit; I have even sneered at the admiral. The evil, however, is—I have done but a few pages, and I send them to get printed, leaving you to determine whether we shall skip a month, or whether, completing the unfinished chapter, an instalment of about 12 pp. will be better than nothing. I am more disposed to this than leaving a gap, and I am still very wretched that my work should be ill done. Direct and counsel me.
“This miserable place has cost me a year’s pay to keep, and now I hear that Elliott is sure to report me if I am found living in Florence,—another illustration of thrift, if I add a P.S. to the ‘O’Dowd.’
“I am very sick of the row and racket I live in. I want my home and my quiet, and even my ink-bottle.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 17, 1866.
“I got back here two days ago, after more real fatigue and exhaustion than I would again face for double my miserable place at Spezzia. These bluejackets have not only drunk me out of champagne and Allsopp, but so tapped myself that I am perfectly dry. The constant intercourse with creatures of mere action—with creatures of muscles, nerves, and mucous membranes, and no brains—becomes one of the most wearing and weakening things you can imagine. Nor is it only the nine weeks lost, but God knows how many more it will take before I can get the machinery of my mind to work again: all is rusted and out of gear, and I now feel, what I only suspected, that it is in this quiet humdrum life I am able to work, and that I keep fresh by keeping to myself. An occasional burst (to London for instance) would be of immense value to me, but that even then should only be brief, and not too frequent.
“Is it necessary to say I could not write at Spezzia? I tried over and over again, and for both our sakes it is as well I did not persevere. I send, therefore, these two chapters, and a short bit to round off the last one. If you opine (as I do) that even a short link is better than a break, insert them next No., taking especial care to correct the new portion, and, indeed, to look well to all.
“To-morrow I set to work,—I hope vigorously, at least so far as intention goes,—and you shall have, if I’m able, a strong Sir B.’ and an ‘O’Dowd’ for next month. I never for thirty years of monthly labour broke down before, and I am heartily ashamed of my shortcoming; but I repeat it is better to give short measure than poison the company.
“I like the tribute to poor Aytoun very much, and I condole heartily with you on the loss of one who walked so much of life at your side. I am sure the habit of writing turns out more of a man’s nature to his friends than happens to those who never commit themselves to print, and I am certain that his friends have their own reading of an author that is totally denied to his outer public. You knew Aytoun well enough to know if my theory does not apply to him.
“Don’t be as chary of your letters as you have been. I’ll so pepper you now with correspondence that you must reply.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Sept. 24,1865.
“You have herewith three chapters of ‘Sir B.’ for Nov. No., and if so be that you need a fourth, there will be time to write it when I see these in proof; but I thought it as well to keep the reader in suspense about the interview, all the more because I know no more of what is coming than he does! My impression is that these chapters will do: my womankind like them, and only complain that there are no female scenes in the No. But there shall be crinolines to the fore hereafter.
“I shall now set to work to write an ‘O’Dowd’ on my late Spezzia life and experiences.
“What a fuss they are making about the Fenians, as if rebellion was anything new in Ireland! It is only an acute attack of the old chronic com-plaint, and wants nothing but bleeding to cure it.
“Some vile sailor, I suspect, has walked off with my May No. Magazine, and I have not the beginning of the ‘Sir B.’ Will you send it to me?
“My wife is very poorly again, but this month coming round renews so much sorrow to her that I suspect the cause may be there.
“I have just this moment heard that the new squadron is coming back to Spezzia. If so, it will be the ruin of me—that is, if I go there; and indeed I am seriously thinking of pitching my consular dignity to the devil, and becoming a gentleman again, if only, as my coachman says, ‘for an alternative.’”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Oct. 1,1865.
“The squib I enclose will, I think, be well-timed. It is a letter supposed to be found on a Fenian prisoner, a Col. Denis Donovan, Assistant Adjutant-General, Fenian army, from Major-General M’Caskey, who has been asked to take command of the National Forces. It can be introduced to the reader thus.
“My wife says I have written nothing to equal this.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Oct. 8,1866.
“You will have received before this the Fenian squib. I have little courage to ask how you like it. Of course it would be easy enough to make a long and strong paper out of the condensed materials of M’Caskey, but I don’t water my milk, though my experiences with the public might have taught me that it would suit us both best.
“I have mislaid—perhaps some one has carried off—my ‘Rebel Songs,’ for I heard a threat of the kind in connection with some autograph balderdash. They are, however, no loss either to the cause or the public. The best was one called ‘The Devil may care.’ I add a verse (as it strikes me) for the public—
“You don’t read ‘O’Dowd’ and don’t like its style;
But then to my conscience I swear
You buy things that are worse,
And some not worth a curse,
And for my part—the Devil may care!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Oct. 12,1865.
“Take care that M’Caskey’s letter is not amongst the ‘O’Dowds.’ Cornelius never heard of him, nor has he any knowledge of ‘Tony Butler.’ Mind this.
“Send me the Horse-book of your Cavalry Officer, and I’ll try and make a short notice of it. I want the book of Villa Architecture too. I was thinking of a paper (I have good bones for it) on the Italian fleet, wood and iron, but I foresee that I should say so many impertinent things, and hurt so many people I know, that I suspect on the whole it is better not to go on with it. What I am to do with my surplus venom when I close ‘O’Dowd’ I don’t see, except I go into the Church and preach on the Athanasian Creed.
“Wolff is in Paris still, scheming in ‘Turks.’
“It will astonish Lyons when he discovers what a heritage Bulwer has left him at Constantinople.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Oct. 20, 1866.
“Your note and its ‘padding’ came to my hand a couple of hours ago. I thank you much for both, but more for the encouragement than the cash, though I wanted the last badly.
“I don’t think there is a public for O’D. collectively. I don’t think people will take more than a monthly dose of ‘my bitters,’ and I incline to suspect mawkish twaddle and old Joe Millers would hit the mark better. Shall I try? At all events, make room if you can for the postscript I send you. Now I wrote it at your own suggestion when I read your note, and it seems to me to embody the dispute. I have tried to put in a bit of Swift s tart dryness in the style.
“The telegram just announces Palmerston’s death. Take care that his name does not occur in my last O’D. I don’t remember using it, but look to it for me.
“What will happen now? I hear the Whigs won’t have Russell, and that he won’t serve under Clarendon.
“How I wish I were in England to hear all the talk. It is d———d hard to be chained up here and left only to bark, when I want to bite too.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Oct. 23,1865.
“Does it not strike you that a good view of Palmerston’s character might be taken from considering how essentially the man was English, and that in no other assembly than a British House of Commons would his qualities have had the same sway and influence? All that intense vitality and rich geniality would have been totally powerless in Austria, France, Italy, or even America. None would have accepted the glorious nature of the man, or the element of statesmanship, as the House accepted it. None would have seen that the spirit of all he did was the rebound of that public opinion which only a genial man ever feels or knows the value of. If I be right in this, depend upon it Gladstone will make a lame successor to him. God grant it!
“I send you a ‘Sir B.’ for December, as I am about to leave for Carrara for a few days. I hope it is good. It may be that another short chapter may be necessary, and if so there will be time for it when I come back.
“How I would like now if I had the time (but it would take time and labour too) to write an article on the deception which the Whigs have practised in trading on their Italian policy as their true claim to office. It is the most rascally fraud ever practised.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Oct. 29, 1865.
“I send you two O’Ds.; that on Gladstone I think tolerably good. The short paper on ‘The Horse,’ being all done in the first person, I think had better be an ‘O’Dowd,’—indeed I signed it such; but do as you like about this.
“I think there seems a very good prospect of the Tories coming in during the session. Phil Rose was here the other day and gave me good hopes, and said also they would certainly give me something. Heaven grant it! for I am getting very footsore, and would like to fall back upon a do-nothing existence, and never hear more of the public.
“The foreign papers are all—especially the Bonapartist ones—attacking Lord Russell as an ‘Orleanist.’ I never had heard of his leanings in that direction; but it is exactly one of those tendencies we should not hear of in England, but which foreigners would be certain to chance upon.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Friday, Nov. 3, 1866.
“I am rather out of spirits,—indeed I feel that my public and myself are at cross-purposes.
“D——— their souls—(God forgive me)—but they go on repeating some stone-cold drollery of old Pam’s, and my fun—hot and piping—is left un-tasted; and as to wisdom, I’ll back O’Dowd against all the mock aphorisms of Lord Russell and his whole Cabinet. It would not do to touch Palmerston in O’D.: I could not go on the intensely laudatory tack, and any—the very slightest—qualification of praise would be ill taken. Do you know the real secret of P.‘s success? It was, that he never displayed ambition till he was a rich man. Had Disraeli reserved himself in the same degree, there would have been nothing of all the rotten cant of ‘adventurer,’ &c., that we now hear against him. Begin life rich in England, and all things will be added to you.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Nov. 6,1865.
“I think the Bagmen deserve an ‘O’Dowd’; their impertinent wine discussion is too much to bear. I don’t suspect the general public will dislike seeing them lashed, and from the specimens I have met travelling, I owe some of the race more than I have given them.
“I think there is a good chance of a (short-lived) Conservative Government next year, and then Gladstone and le Déluge. Unless some great change resolves the two parties in the House into real open enemies (not camps where deserters cross and recross any day), we shall have neither political honesty nor good government.
“The present condition of things makes a lukewarm public and disreputable politicians.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Nov. 11, 1866.
“I would have sent another chapter to ‘Sir Brook,’ but that I have been sick and ill,—a sort of feverish cold, with a headache little short of madness. I am over it now, but very low and spiritless and unfit for work....
“I have got a long letter from Whiteside this morning: he thinks that the conduct of the Palmerston Whigs will decide the question as to who should govern the country. It is, however, decided that Gladstone is to smash the Irish Education scheme and to overturn the Church.
“I had written to him to press upon his friend the importance of restoring Hudson to his Embassy in the event of the Derby party coming to power, and he sent my letter as it was to Lord Malmes-bury, though it contained some rather sharp remarks on Lord M.‘s conduct while at F. O. He (W.) says Lord M. asked to keep the letter, and wrote a very civil reply.
“Look carefully to ‘Sir B.’ for me, for my head is a stage below correction. I composed some hundred O’Ds. in doggerel the night before last, and (I hear) laughed immoderately in my sleep.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Nov. 30, 1866.
“If I be right, Lord R. will dodge both parties, say ‘No’ to neither, and, while cajoling the old Palmerston Whigs not to desert him, he’ll by certain Radical appointments conciliate that party and bribe them to wait. In this sense I have written the O’Dowd, ‘The Man at the Wheel.’ I think it reasonably good. That is, if my prediction be true: otherwise it won’t do at all; but we’ll have time to see before we commit ourselves.
“I hope you’ll like it, as also the sterner one on ‘Hospitalities ex-officio.’
“The post here is now very irregular,—indeed since we’re a capital the place has gone to the devil. I don’t know whether the dulness or the dearness be greatest.
“The Radicals, waiting for reform and taking the destruction of the Irish Church meanwhile, remind one of Nelson’s coxwain’s saying when asked if he would have a glass of rum or a tumbler of punch, that ‘he’d be drinking the rum while her ladyship was mixing the punch.’ Ireland is to be complimented for her projected rebellion by fresh concessions. Never was there such a splendid policy.
“The Italians say, ‘The toad got no tail at the creation of the world because he never asked for one.’ Certes, my countrymen won’t be deficient in their caudal appendages on such grounds.
“I am hipped by bad weather, undeveloped gout, and other ills too numerous to mention, but still———”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Spezzia, Dec. 4, 1866.
“In reply to your note, and its enclosure referring to a passage in one of my late ‘O’Dowds’ that an admiral is a sort of human rhinoceros, &c., I have simply to say that the joke is a very sorry one, and one of the worst I have ever uttered, if it give offence; but I most distinctly declare that I never entertained the most distant idea of a personality. Indeed my whole allusion was to the externals of admirals,—a certain gruffness, &c., which in itself is much too superficial a trait to include a personality.
“That I could say anything offensive to or of a service from which I have received nothing but politeness and courtesy, and some of whose members I regard as my closest and best friends, seems so impossible a charge against me that I know not how to answer it. Indeed nothing is left for me but a simple denial of intention. It then remains, perhaps, to apologise for an expression which may be misapprehended. I do so just as frankly. I think the men who so read me, read me wrongfully. No matter; my fault it is that I should be open to such misconstruction, and I ask to be forgiven for it.
“So much of reparation is in my power (if time permit), and I would ask you to assist me to it—to omit the entire passage when you republish the papers in a volume.
“Will you, in any form that you think best, convey the explanation and the amends to the writer of the note you have enclosed?”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Dec. 4, 1866.
“I have just read the note you enclosed me calling my attention to my having said that an admiral was a sort of ‘human rhinoceros.’ I beg to recant the opinion, and when opportunity serves I will do so publicly, and declare that I believe them to be the most thin-skinned of mortals, otherwise there was nothing in the paragraph referred to which could give the slightest offence.
“To impute a personality to it would be for the reader to attach the passage to some one to whom he thought it applicable, if there be such.
“When they mentioned vice or bribe,
It’s so pat to all the tribe,
Each cried that was levelled at me.
“Now I had not the vaguest idea of a personality; I was simply chronicling a sort of professional gruffness and mysteriousness,—both admirable in the way of discipline, doubtless, but not so agreeable socially as the gifts of younger and less responsible men.
“Omit the whole passage, however, when you republish the papers; and accept my assurance that if ever I mention an admiral again, I will insert the word ‘bishop’ in my MS., and only correct it with the proof.
“It is not easy to be serious in replying to such a charge of ‘doing something prejudicial to the service.’ There is no accounting, however, for phraseology, as Mr Carter called the loss of his right eye ‘a domestic calamity.’
“Once more, I never meant offence. I never went within a thousand miles of a personality; and if ever I mention the sea-service again, I hope I may be in it.
“P.S.—Make the fullest disclaimer on my part, if you can, to the quarter whence came the letter, as to either offence or personality,—but more particularly the latter. I am only sorry that the letter, not being addressed to myself, does not enable me to reply to the writer with this assurance.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Florence, Dec. 7.
“Out of deference to my wife’s opinion I wrote a mild disclaimer that might satisfy Admiral Kellett as to my intentions, &c. I have, since I wrote, heard confidentially that the Maltese authorities are trying to bring the matter before F. O. Now I am resolved not to make a very smallest submission, or even to go to the barest extent of an explanation.
“The only ‘personality in the article was the reference to an admiral that I respected and admired. I am perfectly ready to maintain that this was not Admiral Kellett.
“If you like to forward my first note, do so, but on no account let the civil one reach him. Indeed very little reconsideration showed me that such an appeal as K.‘s bespoke a consummate ass, and ought not to be treated seriously. This will explain why I despatched a telegram to you this morning to use the first, not the amended, letter. My first thoughts are, I know, always my best.
“I shall be delighted if they make an F. O. affair of it: to have an opportunity of telling the cadets there what I think of the ‘Authority.’ and how much respect I attach to their ‘opinion,’ would cure me of the attack that is now making my foot fizz with pain.
“I am annoyed with myself for being so much annoyed as all this; but if you knew to what lengths I went to make these bluejackets enjoy themselves,—what time, money, patience, pleasantry, and bitter beer I spent in their service,—you would see that this sort of requital is more than a mere worry.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Florence, Dec. 1865.
“My wife is miserable at the sharp note I sent in reply to the admiral. She says it was all wrong, “because, as I never did mean a personality, I ought to have no hesitation in saying as much, &c, &c.
“In fact, she makes me send the enclosed, and ask you to forward it to Kellett—that is, if you agree with her. For myself, I own I am the aggrieved party; I was d———d civil to the whole menagerie, rhinoceros included. I half ruined myself in entertaining them, and now I am rebuked for a little very mild pleasantry and very weak joking.
“What! is it because ye are bluejackets there shall be no more ‘O’Dowds’? Ay, marry, and very hot ones too—and sharp in the mouth.
“All right as to the new tariff. It is a great [? nuisance] to me that the public does not like its devilled kidneys in wholesale, but perhaps we may make the palate yet: I’ll try a little longer, at all events. But if the Tories come in and make me a tide-waiter, I’ll forswear pen-and-ink and only write for ‘The Hue and Cry.’”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Dec. 11,1865.
“Your first objection to Cave’s ‘spoonyness’ * I answer thus. Cave was heartily ashamed of himself for having played at stakes far above his means, and, like a man so overwhelmed, was ready to do, say, or approve of anything in his confusion. I was drawing from life in this sketch.
* In ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ of doctrine by the opposite
poles—Exeter and Cashel, Colenso and Carlisle; but you
will see that I never instanced these men, or any other
individuals, as likely to offer their pulpits.
“2nd, Sewell’s addressing the men in his town so carelessly. He never saw them before; they came, hundreds, to see a race, and his acquaintances and the public were so mingled. He addressed them with an insolence not infrequent in Englishmen towards ‘mere Irish,’ and only corrected himself when pulled up.
“I am deep in thinking over the story; and though I have not written a line, I am at it night and day.” To Mr John Blackwood.
“Florence, Dec. 12,1865.
“I have just got your note. I need not say it has not given me pleasure, for I really thought—so little are men judges of their own work—that there were some of these O’Ds. equal to any I ever wrote. The paper that requires either explanation or defence can’t be good, and so I accept the adverse verdict. I make no defence, but I must make explanation.
“In the ‘Prof. Politeness’ paper there is no personality whatever. I simply expressed divergence.
“As to the practice, I have seen it over and over, and I can vouch for it in hospitals, home and foreign, as well.
“I have expunged ‘Times,’ and made the word ‘newspapers’; I have cancelled ‘C. Connellan’ altogether. And now I trust your fear of an action must be relieved,—though if Corney Connellan were to be offended, I might really despair of a joke being well taken by any one.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Christmas Day.
“I send you a full measure of ‘Sir B.’ for next month, and despatch it now, as I have only remained here to eat my Christmas dinner, and start to-morrow for Spezzia, where I have some eight or ten days’ work before me.
“I hope you will like the present ‘envoy.’ I have taken pains with the dialogue, and made it as sharp and touchy as I could.
“There is, I hear, a compact in petto between the Whigs and the Irish by which all Irish Education is to be made over to the Church of Rome. If so, a paper on the way in which countries, essentially Romish, reject the priest’s domination and provide against all subjugation to the Church, might be well timed. It has only struck me this morning, but it is worth you turning your mind to, especially if the papers were to be ready and in print for the eventuality of the debate in Parliament, and debate there will be on the question.
“I am not sure I could do such a paper, but I could be of use to any one who could, and give him some valuable material, too, from Italian enactments.
“I do not know if my Belgium bit reached you in time, and our post is now so irregular here I may not know for some days.
“I hear that the Government mean to hand over Eyre to the Radicals; and though there is much in his case hard to defend, that the man did his best in a great difficulty according to ‘his lights’ I am convinced.
“I have such a good story for you about Drummond Wolff versus Bulwer,—but I can’t write it. You shall hear it, however, when I come over in spring, even if I go down to Edinburgh to tell it.
“A great many happy Christmases to you and all yours.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, Dec. 30, 1866.
“Your last pleasant note and its ‘stuffing’ has just reached me here, where I am consularising, bullying Custom-house folk, and playing the devil with all the authorities to show my activity in the public service. I can’t endure being away from home and my old routine life; but there was no help for it, and I am here now for another week to come.
“The name I want for the author of Tony is ‘Arthur Helsham,’ the name of my mother’s family; and the last man who bore the aforesaid was the stupidest blockhead of the house, and the luckiest too. Faustum sit augurium.
“As to G. Berkeley’s book, it is quite impossible to do anything at all commensurate with so rascally a book. It is hopeless work trying to make a sweep dirtier, and I agree with you—better not touch him.”