“I intend to ask for a leave till May, since it would be dangerous to move my wife in bad or broken weather; so that if you should visit Paris (I mean, of course, you and Mrs B.), there is still time to come over to Florence before we leave it, and I hope that you may manage it.
“The promotion was made with great courtesy, and if I have not got a big slice of the pudding, I have been certainly ‘helped’ with all possible politeness.
“I suspect Dizzy has made a sad mull of his ‘resolutions.’ It is, however, hard to say what conditions his own friends may have imposed. At all events, if the Government be allowed to carry a bill, it will be to get rid of a troublesome measure and a party together. They will permit the horse to win, with the condition that the race shall break him down for ever.
“I scribble this hurriedly; but I knew you would like to hear I was safe out of the ship, even though it be only in a punt.
“Italy is going clean to the devil. It will be soon the choice between a Despotism or a Republic. Parliamentary government they never did understand, but so long as Cavour lived he made the nation think it was a Parliament ruled them,—and, stranger again, the Parliament itself believed so too!”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Feb. 21,1867.
“As I know of no one who will be more pleased to hear of any piece of good fortune having befallen me than yourself, I write this to tell you that the Government have given me the Trieste Consulship. It is one of the best in all respects—worth at present £700 a-year, and with fair prospect of being increased. The place itself, climate, people, and position are all that I could desire. The way the thing was done was most courteous, and as Spezzia is to be abolished, it is clear that both my last and my present post were specially created to serve me.*
* Dr Fitzpatrick (on the authority of Mr Whiteside—
afterwards Lord Chief-Justice) makes the statement that
Lord Derby exclaimed, “We must do something for Harry
Lorrequer.” Also, that in offering him the appointment,
Lord Derby said, “Here is £600 a-year for doing nothing;
and you, Lever, are the very man to do it” It does not seem
probable that Lever would have considered the somewhat
cynical observations attributed to the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs as being exceptionally polite or
exceptionally courteous.—E. D.
“Of course I am very glad to have some of the pressure of eternal authorship taken off my shoulders, for I can easily, by O’Dowd and such like discursive things, double my income without calling upon me for the effort of story-writing.