“I am very uneasy about my insurances: my means of late—although working an opposition coach to myself—are very considerably diminished (political causes having damaged book-writing to a fearful extent), so that I wish to know have you anything of mine to meet the Globe policy, and whether at next period of payment the Guardian will be able to meet its own demand on the accumulated profits?
“I ask this now, but I regret to say that it will puzzle me sorely what to do if I am called upon, but I ought to learn it in time, so as to make what provision I can.
“All post communications with England ceased for eleven days during the Genoa insurrection....
“The mail-boats were twice burned going from this, and I (with my accustomed luck) lost a whole number of ‘Roland Cashel’—twelve days’ work, of which I have, of course, not a note or memorandum. The proof of ‘Con’ is also lost, so that if it appears next month it will be with all the printer’s imperfections as well as my own.
“I have met with the accompanying advertisement [from a tutor]. Could you find out who he is, what he is like, and if he would feel inclined to reside on the Continent?... I am sorely in want of some means of educating the children, who are far more intelligent than instructed.
“The political reaction here is complete: the Grand Duke very soon will be expected back again, and Italy be ‘as you were.’
“I wonder if Mr M’Glashan wrote to me, and that his letter has been lost? I asked for proofs of my two papers on Italy, ‘Italy and the Italian Tourists,’ which I greatly desire to have.”
At the Baths of Lucca, in the summer of 1849, Lever was introduced to the Brownings. Mrs Browning’s first impression of him is confided to Miss Mitford, in a letter dated August 31, 1849:* “A most cordial, vivacious manner, a glowing countenance, with the animal spirits predominant over the intellect, yet the intellect by no means in default; you can’t help being surprised into being pleased with him, whatever your previous inclination may be. Natural, too, and a gentleman past mistake.
* ‘The Letters of Mrs Browning,’ edited by Frederic G.
Kenyon (Smith, Elder, & Co.)—E. D.
His eldest daughter is nearly grown up, and his youngest six months old. He has children of every sort of intermediate age almost, but he himself is young enough still. He seems to have spent nearly his whole life on the Continent, and by no means to be tired of it. Not the slightest Irish accent.” *