“Now be sure you write to me and often. Addio.
“The American consul has just called and told me that his Government are sending a smashing squadron over here under an admiral—a sort of ‘Io Triumphe’ after the raising of the blockade. All the big frigates are to be included in it.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, March 30,1865.
“This is only to say how much your criticism on ‘Sir B.’ has pleased me, but don’t believe the book is better than ‘Tony’—it is not. The man who wrote the other hasn’t as good in his wallet.
“I am sure the Major is right, and the story of being chasséd from Austria reads wrong; but it is not, as one might imagine, unfounded. The case was Yelverton’s, and present V. Admiral in the Mediterranean, and the lady an Infanta of Portugal, and it went so far that she was actually going off with him. Now, if you still think it should be cancelled, be it so. I have only recommended it to mercy, not pardoned it.
“Besides my gout I am in the midst of worries. The New Capital is playing the devil with us in increased cost of everything, and my landlord—the one honest man I used to think him in the Peninsula—has just written to apprise me that my rent is doubled. Of course I must go, but where to? that’s the question. I’d cut my lucky and make towards England, but that our friends at the Carlton say, ‘Hold on to Spezzia and we’ll give you something when we come in.’ Do you remember the German Duke who told his ragged followers they should all have shirts, for he was about to sow flax? I threw my sorrows into a doggerel epigram as I was in my bath this morning.—
“To such a pass have things now come,
So high have prices risen,
If Italy don’t go to Rome,
Then—I must go to prison.
“I find that Skene and I are old friends who have fought many a whist battle together. I wanted him to dine with me yesterday to meet Knatchbull and Labouchere, but he was lumbagoed and obliged to keep his bed: he is all right to-day, however.
“I hope to have a few days (a week) in England this spring—that is, if I keep out of jail,—but I’ll let you know my plans when they are planned.