“Casa Capponi, Florence, June 30, 1862.
“My present difficulties, which are considerable, are owing in great part to a delay (by Chapman’s fault) in the publication of a new serial story. It was to have begun immediately after ‘The Daltons’ finished, but by a number of mischances has been deferred, and will now probably be still longer put off, as the dog-days are death to literature, and the Literophobia is the malady in season. Meanwhile, if the public are not devouring my writings I am, and at the present moment have already eaten the first three numbers.
“I feel, and have long felt, the force of the argument as to residence in or near England, and probably were it not for a letter that I received yesterday, would have increased my loan from the Guardian to convey us all to Ireland. Indeed, such was my full and firm resolve when I last wrote to you. Yesterday, however, there came a letter from Whiteside (in reply to one of mine asking to make use of his influence to obtain for me some diplomatic or consular appointment abroad), in which he says that he made the application, and it was well received,—my claims being recognised and my name put down in Lord Malmesbury’s list. Of course there is nothing now for it but Patience and Hope—or at least the former; and happily if experience in life is not favourable to Hope, it makes some compensation by installing Patience.
“I have no heart to talk about story-telling nor mix up troubles with my own. Mayhap, however, M’Glashan may supply me with an additional trait to make up my portrait of The Grinder.
“The account of the Clermont affair reads pleasantly, but now I wish not to tell the terms, but to wait to have a look at the probable tenant. These dodges do not require Italian experience to see through,—though I must say that the man who lets Paddy cheat him after five years’ residence at this side of the Alps, has eaten his macaroni to very little profit,—the finesse and tact of roguery here being to all ordinary rascality in the ratio of 1000 to 1.
“Can you give me any idea when the new Parliament will meet? If I go to London, I should like to be there then.”
The official notice taken of him by the leaders of the Conservative party encouraged Lever to hope that high things were in store for him. The alarming feature was that the Derby Administration was crumbling: he could expect nothing from the Whigs; so that if anything was to be done, he told himself that “‘twere well ‘twere done quickly.” At this time there was a project in the air which interested him immensely,—a project to establish diplomatic relations between England and Rome. Lever made a journey to Rome in November, and obtained from Sir Henry Bulwer (afterwards Lord Dalling) some information which he sent, in the form of a letter, to ‘The Dublin University.’ The conductor of the Magazine was aghast at the idea of establishing a British Embassy at the Court of Pius IX., and though he published Lever’s communication,* he prefaced it with an editorial statement that the Magazine was in no way responsible for the sentiments or opinions expressed in the letter signed “C. L.” “As a temporal power,” quoth the editor, “the Court of Rome, without army, navy, wealth, commerce, or numbers, is in all respects too helpless and beggarly to afford us the faintest shadow of a pretext for establishing a diplomatic intimacy with it.” Lever’s argument was that there was nothing in the project which should offend or alarm Protestanism. He goes on to say that it would not be necessary to establish a resident Papal minister at St James’s. The real object was that England should be represented at the Vatican, and that the principal business of the mission would be to enlighten the Papacy upon the condition of political and social affairs in Ireland. Very possibly Lever considered that he would be “The Man for Rome.”
*"Diplomatic Relations with Rome.” ‘The Dublin University
Magazine’ for December 1852.—E. D.
The break-up of the Derby Administration in December 1852 gave Lever pause, and threw him back upon his literary work and upon the pleasures of the card-table. Baron Erlanger testifies to the overpowering influence which the game of whist had upon the master of Casa Capponi. “Many a time,” says the Baron, “have I travelled to his charming little cottage near Florence. On opening the gate we already heard his gay voice, laughing or talking. Officially we came to play whist.... He loved his literary pursuits, of course, but no panegyric about his last book would have given him as much satisfaction as an acknowledgment of his superiority at whist. He loved the game beyond anything. To us, I confess, the cards were a mere pretext. It was not one of these dire sittings when the cards are gravely dealt and every point is scored in dead silence. A continuous roar of laughter accompanied the game.... His wit and humour never lacked for a moment a continuous cross-fire of bon mots, unprepared and spontaneous. His extraordinary memory always astonished us.” Sir Hamilton Seymour bears testimony to Lever’s wonderful brilliancy as a table-talker. Once he said to the novelist, “Try to write that anecdote just as you have told it.” “Ah,” replied Lever, “it can’t be done that way. All the ingenious contrivances ever invented could not impart to a bottle of Vichy or Carlsbad the freshness of the water as it sparkled from the fountain.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.