Part 10

“I begin this at midnight, the first cool moment of the twenty-four hours, to finish to-morrow some time before post hour. I see that you have learned our disaster here already--a sore blow, too, to a young army: but _que voulez-vous?_ La Marmora is an ass, with a small head and a large face like Packington. You might make a first lord of him, but never a general. The attack of the first division had never been intended to do more than draw out the Austrians and encourage the belief that the _grand_ attack was to follow: meanwhile Cialdini was to have crossed the Po and moved on Rovigo. The blundering generals made a real movement of it, and got a real thrashing for their pains. The division was all but cut to pieces. They fought well--there’s no doubt of it; they even bore beating, which is more than one would have said of them. The king was twice surrounded and all but made prisoner, and the princes behaved splendidly.

“It is a great misfortune that they should have met a repulse at first. I say this because they _must_ have Venice, and I think the great thing is that they should have it without French intervention. I hope if the Conservatives come in that they will see this, and see that Italy cannot go back without being a French province. If we have a policy at all,--sometimes I doubt it,--it is to prevent or _delay_ French aggrandisement. That stupid bosh of volunteer soldiering has so bemuddled English brains that they fancy we have an army. Why, a costermonger with his donkey might as well talk of his ‘steed.’ I wouldn’t say this to a foreigner, nor let them say it to _me_, but it’s true. If we could patch up the Italian quarrel and get Venice for them, and arrange an alliance between Italy and Austria, we should do more than by following the lead of Louis Napoleon and playing ‘cad’ to him through Europe.

“Are the Derbys really coming in? Who will be F. Secretary? I was going to say, ‘Who wants me?’

“I was thinking of keeping a running comment on the war in ‘O’Dowd,’ the events jotted as they occurred, with such remarks as suggested themselves--a hotch-potch of war, morals, politics, &c. What think you? Of course, with a certain seriousness; it is no joking matter, in any view one takes of it.

“What a wonderful book ‘Felix Holt’ is! I read much of it twice over, some of it three times, and throughout there is a restrained power--a latent heat--far greater than anything developed. She at least suggests to _me_ that her _dernier mot_ is not there on _anything_. It is not a pleasant book as to the effect on the mind when finished; but you cannot forget it, and you cannot take up another after it. It is years since anything I read has taken the same hold upon me.

“Here has just come news that General Chiera has been shot by court-martial for treason, having betrayed the Italian plans to the Austrians. What next? The Neapolitans have earned a dark fame for themselves in all their late history. I don’t know yet if the story is authentic.

“I have little confidence in the Tories’ hold of office, and I have less still that they will do anything for me, though there is scarcely a man of the Party who has not given me pledges or assurances of remembrance.

“Malmesbury will, I hear, go to Ireland, and he will _do_ there. There is not a people in the world who can vie with the Irish in their indifference to _real_ benefits, and their intense delight in _mock_ ones! When will you Saxons learn how to govern Ireland? When you want a treaty with King Hoolamaldla in Africa, you approach him not with a tariff and a code of reduced duties, but with strings of beads, bell-wire, and brass buttons, and why won’t you see that Ireland can be had by something cheaper than Acts of Parliament!

“And my old friend Whiteside is to [be] Chief-Justice if Baron Lendrick (I mean Lefroy) will consent to retire! It is a grand comment on our judicial system, that when a man is too old for public life he is always young enough for the Bench.

“They once thought of putting me forward for Trinity Col. If I were ten years younger and ten pounds richer, I’d like to try my chance. I think I could do the light-comedy line in the House better than Bernai Osborne, and I’d like to _say_, before I die, some of the things that I now can only write.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 2,1866.

“This Italian defeat was even worse than we thought it: the loss of men was tremendous, and a great number of officers were killed. Of course there are all sorts of stories of treason, treachery, &c,--nothing Italian ever happens without these; but I believe the whole mishap was bad generalship, a rash over-confidence, and a proportionate contempt for the Austrians, whom they believed to be all inferior troops, the best being sent to the north under Benedek.

“You are not likely to have any very accurate information in England, as La Marmora positively refuses to permit newspaper writers to accompany the army; and Hardman, though known to him, fares no better than the rest.

“I have learned, from what I know to be a good source of information, that the French mean to come in at once if the next battle be unfavourable to the Italians. This is the worst thing that can happen. It seals the vassalage of this people to France, and places the question of Rome and the Pope for ever out of Italian hands and in those of their ‘magnanimous ally,’ whom may God confound! Ricasoli sees this plainly enough; but what can he do, or where turn him for aid?

“And so Lord Stanley’s in F. O.! I suspect he knows very little of the Continent,--but it matters little. The limits of ‘English policy’ are fixed by the homilies of the Church, and we are to hope and pray, &c., and to get any one who likes it to believe it signifies what we do. We hear here of a great Prussian victory over Benedek: I hope it’s not true. These Prussians, in their boastful audacity, coarse pretension, and vulgar self-sufficiency, are the Yankees of Europe, and, if they have a success, will be unendurable.

“I am sorry for the fate of the ‘Reform’ O’Dowd. I have begun one about the war here, and agree with you it is a theme to be _grave_ upon. Indeed, I think any unseasonable levity would utterly spoil the spirit of these papers, and being separated, as they are, under various headings, it is always easy to give the proper tint and colour to each.

“Lowe ought to have the Colonies, not Lytton. _He_ knows the subject well, and has infinitely more House of Commons stuff in him than the bewigged old dandy of Knebworth. If Lord Derby gives all the ‘plums’ to the Tories, the Administration will fall; and Naas, as Irish Secretary, is another blunder. Where are the ‘_under_’ Sees, to be found? I fear that the Cabinet, like the army, will be a failure for want of non-commissioned officers. Serjeant Fitzgerald is not in the House, and a great loss he is. Gregory would not ill replace him, and the opportunity to filch votes from the other side by office should not be lost sight of. It can be done _now_. It will be impossible later on.

“Of all the things the Party want, there is nothing they need like a press. I think that the advocacy of ‘The Standard’ would actually put Heaven in jeopardy, and ‘The Herald’ seems a cross between Cassandra and Moore’s Prophetic Almanac.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 12, 1866.

“I am rather eagerly--half-impatiently--looking out for O’D. in proof, and some tidings from yourself in criticism. I have gone over ‘Sir B.,’ and send it off corrected by this post. I more than suspect that I think it better than you do, or rather, that I think it is better than some parts you approved more of; but it’s no new error of mine to find good in things of my writing that nobody but myself has ever discovered. With respect to the present part, I think probably it is too long for one paper, and might advantageously stop at chap, xx., leaving the ‘Starlight’ to begin Sept. No.

“If you agree with me, it will save me writing so much in this great heat (the thermometer is now 94° in my room), and I shall be free to watch the war notes.

“I want money, but don’t cross your bill to Magnay for two reasons. I _might_ get better exchange elsewhere; and second, I have overdrawn him damnably, and he might be indelicate enough to expect payment.

“I hope the Party mean to do somewhat for me. It’s an infernal shame to see Earle in the list and me--nowhere. For thirty years I have done them good service in novels and other ways, and they have given me what an under butler might hesitate over accepting.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 16, 1866.

“I send you by this post the corrected proof of O’D. and a portion to add to the war notes. It’s ticklish work prophesying nowadays; but so far as I can see, the imbroglio with France promises to become serious. We hear here that a strong fleet is at Toulon ready to sail for the Adriatic, and coupling this with the flat refusal of the Prince Napoleon to interfere (he being intensely Italian in his leanings), one may see that the French policy will not be over regardful of the feelings of this people. Genoa is being armed in haste, the sea-forts all munitioned and mounted with heavy guns; and as these cannot be intended against Austria, it is pretty clear that at last the Italians mean to strike a _real_ blow for freedom. Spezzia, too, is arming, and the inaction heretofore observable in the Italian fleet may not improbably be ascribed to the fact that tougher work is before them than a petty fight with the Austrian flotilla. The Italians have fourteen ironclads, some of them really splendid ships, and one, the _Affondatore_, lately built in England, the equal of almost any afloat. They are well armed and well manned; and though I don’t think they could _beat_ the French, they could make a strong fight against the _French Mediterranean squadron_, and would, I am sure, not bring discredit on their service. I am sure the ‘country’--I mean the people of England--would go with the Government that would succour a young nation struggling to assert its liberty. I do not mean that we should rashly proclaim war, but simply show that the national sympathy of England was opposed to all coercion of Italy and averse to seeing the Peninsula a French province. I feel certain Louis Napoleon would listen to such remonstrances coming from a _Conservative_ Cabinet, where ‘meddling and muddling’ were not traditions.

“The Emperor counts so completely on English inaction that the mere show of a determined policy would arrest his steps. The complexity of the game increases every hour, and any great battle fought in Germany may decide the fate of Italy.

“You will see how my first part of O’D. predicted the cession of Venice. I am rather proud of my foresight.

“There is great dissatisfaction here felt about the inaction of the Italian fleet. Some allege they want coals, some say courage. I don’t believe either: I think they were sent off so undisciplined and so hastily ‘conscripted,’ they are mobs and not crews.

“P. S.--I only wanted to say, not to be afraid of my anti-Napism. I am sure I have the right measure of the man, and I am sure that when Lord Palmerston called him ‘a d------d scoundrel,’ he said what Lord Derby thinks, and what almost every man of the same station in England feels about him. When the day comes that he will turn upon us, there will be no surprise felt whatever by the great number of _statesmen_ in England.

“What of my Yankee paper? It was so _well-timed_, I’m sorry it should be lost.

“What a fiasco the Garibaldians have made of it! They are drunk all day, and it is next to impossible to get them under fire. Poor old Garibaldi is half heartbroken at the inglorious ending of his great career, and no fault of his. For the nation at large it is perhaps the best thing that could happen. Democracy cannot now go on asserting its monopoly of courage.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 18, 1866.

“Our post is so very irregular now that your letter--13th--which should have been with me yesterday, only reached to-day.

“I don’t think I am wrong as to Louis Nap. The immense preponderance in Europe that will accrue to Prussia after this war will be heavily felt by him,--for, after all, he has no other hold on Frenchmen than the supremacy he has obtained for France on the Continent.

“I am ashamed to find Lord Stanley falling into the Whig cant about our ‘faithful ally,’ &c. Why, the whole world knows that he first traded on the English alliance, and, once assured of her own safety, has spared no means to depreciate English power and disparage her influence in Europe.

“Lord Derby spoke more truthfully and more boldly when he disclaimed all over-close alliance with any nation of Europe, but friendship and good relations with all. The _point_ of the speech was aimed at France.

“What the French Emperor wanted to do was to employ Plonplon to mediate between himself and Italy, so that, while seeming to France to be the Great Disposer of Continental destinies, he should not so far insult Italy as to stimulate another Orsini. Plonplon refused: he too aspires to Italian popularity, and is a d------d coward besides. He declined the Italian commission, and would not leave Paris. The Emperor has scores of agents here. Pepoli (step-father of the Hohenzollern hospodar) is always on the watch for him, and keeps him warned, and he has now shown him the necessity of great caution, so that his next move will be well considered before taken.

“The Emperor has never outgrown the Carbonari. Talking of outgrowing, what rot was that of Dizzy’s to say England had outgrown the Continent, and hence her grand pacific policy, &c, &c.? If so, why at the instigation of the Continent order 100,000 breechloaders? This was talk for a few old ladies at a social science tea,--not language to be listened to by the world at large.

“How much less adroit was Dizzy, too, than Lord Derby at ‘reform.’ The plain assertion that it was a measure only to be approached after due and weighty consideration was enough; but Dizzy must go on to say why, if they should touch it, they were the best of all possible reformers. The palpable want of tact reveals in this man how the absence of the true ‘gentleman element’ can spoil a great intellect.

“And, since I sent off my O’D. on ‘The American Alliance,’ I have read Lord Derby’s speech, full of complimentary things to the Yankees and plainly indicating the wish to draw closer to them. I think my paper will be well-timed--that is, if it has reached you, for I despatched it ten days ago by F. O., and have heard nothing of it since.

“I cannot write to Bulwer, nor indeed to any one, about myself. Three or four of the present Cabinet know me well enough, and what I’m good for; and if they do not improve the acquaintance, it is because they don’t want me.

“I own to you I think it hard--d------d hard; but I have grown so used to see myself passed by donkeys, that I begin to think it is the natural thing. If I were not old and pen-weary, with paroxysms of stupidity recurring oftener than is pleasant, and a growing sense besides that these disconnected links of muddle-headedness will one day join and become a chain of downright feebleness,--if not for all this, I say, ‘I’d pitch my blind gods to the devil’ (meaning Ministers and Sees. of State), and take my stand by the broadsheet, and trust to my head and my hands to take care of me.

“I like Lord Derby’s allusion to Ireland. Let him only discard the regular traders on party,--disconnect himself with the clique who, so to say, farmed out Ireland for the benefit of a party,--and he has a better chance of _governing the country_--I mean real government--than any of his predecessors.

“Spenser [‘Fairy Queen’ Spenser) once said, ‘No people love Justice more than your Irish.’ Probably because it was always a rarity. If Lord D. will ignore religious differences,--not ask more than each man’s fitness for office, and appoint him,--he will do much towards breaking down that terrible barrier that now separates the two creeds in the island.

“It is lucky for you that I’m at the end of my paper, or you were ‘in’ for a ‘sixteenthly.’ But, oh where, and oh where, is my Yankee paper gone? I want the sheets of ‘Sir B.’ collectively from the part where the last missive ended. I am re-reading and pondering.

“I half suspect my old friend Whiteside must be in some tiff with the Cabinet. He has not resigned, and yet men are canvassing for his seat for the University. It all looks very odd. It may be that he is bargaining for the Chancellorship, which he is certainly _not_ fit for. I might as well ask to be Mistress of the Robes,--and old Lefroy will not resign unless his son be promoted to the Bench! And this is the man they accuse of senility and weak intellect!

“How like flunkies, after all, are these great gentlemen when it becomes a question of place. There is a dash of ‘Jeames’ through Cabinet appointments positively frightful.

“Wasn’t it cunning to send Garibaldi where he could do nothing? It was the way they muzzle a troublesome man in the House by putting him on a committee. He (G.) grumbles sorely, says he ought to be in Istria, &c.; but there is always the _dessous des cartes_ in this war, and France has had to be consulted or conciliated everywhere.”

_To Dr Burbidge._

“Villa Morelli, _July_ 21, 1866.

“I take shame to myself for not having sooner replied to your kindest of notes and thanked you for all your trouble at Malta; but first of all I was obliged to go to Spezzia, and then came the wondrous turn-out of the Whigs, which has kept me in close correspondence with scores of people,--no other good result, however, having come of the advent of my friends to power.

“Malta, at all events, is out of the question; for though they have got no further than civil messages to me, common report (a common liar, says Figaro) says that I _ought_ to get something.

“The war absorbs fortunately thoughts that might under other circumstances have taken a more personal turn, and the war resolves itself pretty much into what that arch scoundrel, L. N., may do next. For the moment he is all but stalemated--that is, he can scarcely move without a check. If he aid Prussia, it will be to strengthen the great Germany that he dreads, and aggrandise the Power that threatens to be more than his rival. If he assist Austria, it is to throw off Italy and undo the past. If he remain neutral, it is to let France subside into the position of seeing Europe able to do without her.

“The armed intervention which he desired with us and Russia we will have none of. He is, as Bright said of somebody the other day, ‘a bad fellow to hunt a tiger with.’

“Now, Prussia was so manifestly in the wrong at first, and had contrived to be so unpopular with us besides, and Bismarck’s views were so palpably false and tricky, he could have no sympathy with us at all,--and yet success (that dear idol of Englishmen) has done fully as much as the best principles and the purest ambition could, and we are rapidly becoming Prussian.

“I own that I am extremely Prussian. I see no hope of any barrier against France but a strong-big-ambitious-non-scrupulous Germany.

“Beer-drinking, stolidity, and the needle-gun will do for the peace of Europe more than Downing St. and the homilies of the whole Russell family.

“I have little trust in the F. O. policy of the Conservatives. The theory is, the Tories love a war; and to controvert this we shall be driven to bear more insult under a Tory Government than if we had Bright on the Treasury bench.

“What a fizzle our friends of the Italian fleet present! They said a few days back that they were in the Tyrol with Garibaldi. He too is not adding to his fame,--but who is in this war? Not La Marmora certainly.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, July 28, 1866.

“I am here in the midst of great excitement, the late sea-fight being to our naval population the most exciting of all topics. If the Admiral Persano were to venture to land at Genoa at this moment, they would tear him in pieces. The more generously minded only call him a coward, but the masses believe him to be a traitor and to have sold the fleet. This, of course, is the sort of falsehood that could only gain currency amongst Italians. It is alleged that in changing from the _Re d’Italia_ to the _Affondatore_ his flag was never struck on the former, and consequently the whole of the Austrian attack was directed to a vessel where the admiral was supposed to be. As to the _Affondatore_, she was kept out of the action, some say a mile off,--and the terrific losses of ships and men were actually incurred by officers being driven to desperation by the misconduct of their chief.

“The prefect here has just shown me a despatch saying Persano is to be tried by court-martial, and it will require all the skill of Government to get him off, and they may seriously endanger the very monarchy (as he is the personal friend of the king) in the attempt.

“The Austrian artillery went through the iron plating as if it were two-inch plank, and the Yankee-built ship, the _Re_, was sunk by shot-holes. The _Affondatore_, too (Blackwall built), was riddled, while the Italian guns did positively nothing.

“The Italians certainly fought manfully, and, though beaten, were not dishonoured. As for the Austrians, horrible stories are told of their shooting,--the men struggling in the water and hacking with their sabres the poor fellows who clung to the boats. If these stories were not guaranteed by men of station and character, they would be unworthy of any credit, but I am driven to believe they are not falsehoods.

“I am here sailing and swimming and laying up a store of health and strength to carry me on, _Deo volente_, through the hot late summer of Florence.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 30, 1866.

“I have got (this moment) yours of the 23rd, and the cheque, for which I thank you. ‘One way or other,’ as Lord Derby says, I am terribly crippled for gilt, and the money came most apropos.

“I am glad you like my views in O’D. I feel sure they are correct. Curiously enough, the O’D. will just fit in with the sentiments declared by Lord Derby, both regarding America and Europe. It is very hard to write patiently of the Italians just now, their exigence rising with every new success of Prussia, totally forgetful of the fact that to the Alliance they have brought nothing as yet but discomfiture and defeat. Every charge of a Prussian squadron raises their demands, and every Prussian bulletin enlarges their cries for more frontier! What a people! and yet one must not say _a word_ of this; one must back them up and wish God-speed and the rest of it, for there is a worse thing, after all, than a bumptious Italy,--an insolent and aggressive France.

“Garibaldi is at his wits’ end with the scoundrels they have given him to command. About eighty per cent of them should be at the galley. He is ready to throw up his command any day, and nothing but urgent entreaty induces him to remain.

“There will be great difficulty in getting the Italians to accept a reasonable amount of territory with Venice. They always regard whatever is given generously as something far below their just claim; and if you want to make an Italian cabman miserable, pay him double and be civil at parting, and he will go off with the affecting impression that he _might have_ had _five_ times as much out of you if he had only stood to it. I know them well: they are d------d bad Irish--Irish minus all generosity and all gratitude.

“I have come back in great mind after a week’s swimming. I believe if I could live at Spezzia I might rival Methuselah.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Aug_. 13, 1866.