Mrs. Reeve gave 'Ianthe,' whom they met at a luncheon party at Bournemouth, a fuller notice. She wrote, 'A bad husband and narrow means kept her out of England for thirty-five years or so, and she is now a corpulent matron of seventy, with no trace of those charms sung by the poet.'
All this autumn an immense agitation was kept up, chiefly by Gladstone, on the 'Bulgarian Atrocities.' Meetings were held all over the kingdom. I published an article in the 'Review' in October, which Lord Derby said was the first thing that turned the tide. It soon turned altogether; and in a few months the people were as anxious to attack the Russians as they had been to coerce the Turks.
To Mr. Dempster
Foxholes, October 17th.—Can you, who know all the genealogies of Scotland better than the Red Lion himself, tell me what relation Countess Purgstall was to Dugald Stewart? [Footnote: She was his wife's sister.] I know she was a Cranstoun; but was she related to the great Professor? When my father was in Vienna in 1805, she received him very kindly, because he had known Dugald Stewart, and followed his lectures in Edinburgh.
I enjoy my life here above all things. Four months have slipped away in this Olympian calm, between the sea and the sky, and I fancy that the New Forest is the Highlands; but it is time to be up and doing, and next week I return to London, with a large stock of health and good spirits.
Matters look very black in the East. I am afraid it is a deep-laid Russian plot, which Gladstone has done not a little to promote and encourage. You will see that I have held to my own line in the Blue and Yellow.
To Mr. T. Longman
Rutland Gate, November 1st.—I have a great dislike to the proposal of reprinting an article of my own in a cheap form. It seems to me to be descending to the level of Mr. Gladstone's sixpenny agitation. Moreover, the political situation is now considerably altered. Many things which were said hypothetically on October 12th have assumed a different shape on November 1st. But if any arrangement can be made to supply the Mayor of Bristol with one hundred copies of the 'Review,' at a cheap rate, I shall be very glad of it. The cheap republication of the attractive article would be just as injurious to booksellers who have copies of the 'Review' on hand as the distribution of copies of the 'Review.' Both measures interfere with the regular course of sale, and are therefore mischievous.
The Journal notes:—
January 23rd, 1877.—The Folkestone (Ritualist) case [Footnote: Ridsdale v. Clifton and others. See Times, January 24th and following days. Judgement, Times, July 19th.] heard by the Judicial Committee, by eleven privy councillors, and five bishops. It lasted nearly a fortnight.