“Spezzia, Sept. 27, 1855.
“A letter written by M’Glashan and merely addressed ‘Charles Lever’ was posted in Dublin on the 15th of August last, and by some accident was included in the American mail, and arrived duly in New York on September 1st, when by an equally strange accident it was re-directed there, and addressed ‘Spezzia,’ and to-day it came to my house here.
“How M’Glashan forgot to append my address is easy enough to see. How any one in New York knew it, and re-directed the letter, is more difficult to explain.
“If my demand [for ‘Glencore’] be thought too high, I have no alternative save leaving ‘Glencore’ as a ‘payment’ to the Magazine, reserving to myself its completion elsewhere. Wardlaw must be distinctly given to understand that I never contributed this story even to M’Glashan on my previous terms, still less would I do so to those with whom I have no ties of personal intimacy or friendship. You can, I know, learn much from Mr Wardlaw, whom I have ever found a straightforward honest man,—cold as a Scotchman, but to be depended on.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Florence, Oct. 16,1865.
[Lever instructs his correspondent to request that his MS.
for the November portion be at once returned, and Mr W. be
informed that Mr L. will now consider himself free to make
arrangements for the continuance of the story of ‘Glencore’
in any magazine or in any quarter that may suit him.]
“I almost fancy I can read the whole web of this small intrigue, and detect the hand of J. F. Waller throughout it.
“The trustees might, by a reference to the Magazine account, have seen that while I myself edited the Magazine I paid for a story extending through 18 Nos., and to a nameless author who had never written fiction before, £20 a sheet.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.