“I send off my bulletin to ‘The Mail’ from time to time, and I wrote a long paper on Italy in the last ‘University Magazine.’
“I am heartily glad you like ‘Roland,’ which I hope is better than its predecessors.
“‘Con Cregan’ is a secret, and I hope will remain so. It is atrociously careless and ill-written, but its success depending on what I know to be its badness, my whole aim has been to write down to my public.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Bagni di Lucca, April 17, 1849.
“I confess myself at a dead loss what to counsel. My only opinion (and I have come to it after much thought) is this:—
“In the event of Chapman consenting to advance the sum and not succeeding—or in the case of his unwillingness to make such proposal,—I would at once [? dispose of] the copyrights in the usual formal manner, but would take no steps by newspaper advertisement, inasmuch as this would give the impression of illegality on our part.
“It would be also well to ascertain if we could not restrain any future sale of stock at depreciated prices. If this required a Chancery order, I would be slow to resort to such means for fear of [? legal] expense.
“Chapman, from whom I had a letter two days ago, thinks that it is the stock and not the copyrights that Curry is now negotiating, but he owns himself baffled by the roguery of this conduct.
“Do you think that anything would be obtained by my going over to Ireland?... I am really exhausted in resources, and can add nothing to this.