“As to the rate or grade at which I was to be paid for the over-sale after 11,000 of ‘Hinton,’ M’Glashan wrote to me one letter in which he said: ‘The work will probably reach 20,000, in which case your profits will be doubled.’ This letter, and all my papers and private letters, MSS., &c., have been lost on the way from Como here—or, more probably, destroyed by the police authorities,—so that ill-luck is of late no stranger to me.
“My dear friend, I have written a very disjointed, ill-connected scrawl, but I am a little ‘abroad,’ being in no wise prepared for the tidings that have just reached me. On one point only am I calm and collected,—the heartfelt gratitude I owe you for all you have done for me.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Casa Capposi, Florence, May 23, 1848
“If the copyrights were to revert to me, I would at once turn my steps
Towards England,—at least, so far as Switzerland or Belgium,—while in the other alternative I’d make up my mind to remain here, which for moneyed reasons is almost compulsory.
“I have been drawing on my new book, ‘Roland Cashel,’ so far in advance, that I am unable to say how I shall get on as it draws near the end. We are living in quietness here, with war and revolution on every side. A new revolt at Naples has just éclated, in which the troops smashed the mob. Meanwhile, five frigates of the Neapolitans are gone to assist revolt in Venice. The Pope has been discovered playing double, and his great popularity is gone. I fear Lombardy is lost to Austria. Internal dissension at Vienna, revolt in Hungary and Bohemia, and desertion among the troops in Italy, have scarce left a chance of recovering this best and richest province. Florence, too, is ready to intervene, and then comes a grand European war, in which England must choose her side and join. I trust it may not be an alliance with France.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Casa Ximenes, Florence, July 18, 1848.
“I would rather relinquish than contest a disputed right. I read ‘opinions,’ therefore, only as so many différent shades of probability which can but little influence the judicial results, and I come ever to the one same humiliating conclusion,—that it is better to treat quasi-amicably with the rogues who have cheated us than to leave the question to other as great rogues for decision.
“I would, therefore, as you suggest, advise with Chapman what steps to take for the repurchase; and without submitting the tangled web of disputed claims to renewed litigation, I would endeavour to [? obtain] a demand for the whole copyrights (subject, of course, to the diminution my rights would inflict), and if possible purchase them.