Part 8

“I don’t think there is a public for O’D. collectively. I don’t think people will take more than a monthly dose of ‘my bitters,’ and I incline to suspect mawkish twaddle and old Joe Millers would hit the mark better. Shall I try? _At all events, make room if you can for the postscript I send you. Now I wrote it at your own suggestion when I read your note_, and it seems to me to embody the dispute. I have tried to put in a bit of Swift s tart dryness in the style.

“The telegram just announces Palmerston’s death. Take care that his name does not occur in my last O’D. I don’t remember using it, but look to it for me.

“What will happen now? I hear the Whigs won’t have Russell, and that he won’t serve under Clarendon.

“How I wish I were in England to hear all the talk. It is d------d hard to be chained up here and left only to bark, when I want to bite too.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 23,1865.

“Does it not strike you that a good view of Palmerston’s character might be taken from considering how essentially the man was English, and that in no other assembly than a British House of Commons would his qualities have had the same sway and influence? All that intense vitality and rich geniality would have been totally powerless in Austria, France, Italy, or even America. None would have accepted the glorious nature of the man, or the element of statesmanship, as the House accepted it. None would have seen that the spirit of all he did was the rebound of that public opinion which only a genial man ever feels or knows the value of. If I be right in this, depend upon it Gladstone will make a lame successor to him. God grant it!

“I send you a ‘Sir B.’ for December, as I am about to leave for Carrara for a few days. I hope it is good. It may be that another short chapter may be necessary, and if so there will be time for it when I come back.

“How I would like now if I had the time (but it would take time and labour too) to write an article on the deception which the Whigs have practised in trading on their Italian policy as their true claim to office. It is the most rascally fraud ever practised.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 29, 1865.

“I send you two O’Ds.; that on Gladstone I think tolerably good. The short paper on ‘The Horse,’ being all done in the first person, I think had better be an ‘O’Dowd,’--indeed I signed it such; but do as you like about this.

“I think there seems a very good prospect of the Tories coming in during the session. Phil Rose was here the other day and gave me good hopes, and said also they would certainly give me _something_. Heaven grant it! for I am getting very footsore, and would like to fall back upon a do-nothing existence, and never hear more of the public.

“The foreign papers are all--especially the Bonapartist ones--attacking Lord Russell as an ‘Orleanist.’ I never had heard of his leanings in that direction; but it is exactly one of those tendencies we should _not_ hear of in England, but which foreigners would be certain to chance upon.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, _Friday, Nov. 3_, 1866.

“I am rather out of spirits,--indeed I feel that my public and myself are at cross-purposes.

“D------ their souls--(God forgive me)--but they go on repeating some stone-cold drollery of old Pam’s, and my fun--hot and piping--is left un-tasted; and as to wisdom, I’ll back O’Dowd against all the mock aphorisms of Lord Russell and his whole Cabinet. It would not do to touch Palmerston in O’D.: I could not go on the intensely laudatory tack, and any--the very slightest--qualification of praise would be ill taken. Do you know the real secret of P.’s success? It was, that he never displayed ambition till he was a rich man. Had Disraeli reserved himself in the same degree, there would have been nothing of all the rotten cant of ‘adventurer,’ &c., that we now hear against him. _Begin_ life rich in England, and all things will be added to you.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Nov._ 6,1865.

“I think the Bagmen deserve an ‘O’Dowd’; their impertinent wine discussion is too much to bear. I don’t suspect the general public will dislike seeing them lashed, and from the specimens I have met travelling, I owe some of the race more than I have given them.

“I think there is a good chance of a (short-lived) Conservative Government next year, and then Gladstone and _le Déluge_. Unless some great change resolves the two parties in the House into real open enemies (not camps where deserters cross and recross any day), we shall have neither political honesty nor good government.

“The present condition of things makes a lukewarm public and disreputable politicians.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Nov_. 11, 1866.

“I would have sent another chapter to ‘Sir Brook,’ but that I have been sick and ill,--a sort of feverish cold, with a headache little short of madness. I am over it now, but very low and spiritless and unfit for work....

“I have got a long letter from Whiteside this morning: he thinks that the conduct of the Palmerston Whigs will decide the question as to who should govern the country. It is, however, decided that Gladstone is to smash the Irish Education scheme and to overturn the Church.

“I had written to him to press upon his friend the importance of restoring Hudson to his Embassy in the event of the Derby party coming to power, and he sent my letter as it was to Lord Malmes-bury, though it contained some rather sharp remarks on Lord M.’s conduct while at F. O. He (W.) says Lord M. asked to keep the letter, and wrote a very civil reply.

“Look carefully to ‘Sir B.’ for me, for my head is a stage below correction. I composed some hundred O’Ds. in doggerel the night before last, and (I hear) laughed immoderately in my sleep.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Nov_. 30, 1866.

“If I be right, Lord R. will dodge both parties, say ‘No’ to neither, and, while cajoling the old Palmerston Whigs not to desert him, he’ll by certain Radical appointments conciliate that party and bribe them to _wait_. In this sense I have written the O’Dowd, ‘The Man at the Wheel.’ I think it reasonably good. _That is, if my prediction be true_: otherwise it won’t do at all; but we’ll have time to see before we commit ourselves.

“I hope you’ll like it, as also the sterner one on ‘Hospitalities _ex-officio_.’

“The post here is now very irregular,--indeed since we’re a capital the place has gone to the devil. I don’t know whether the dulness or the dearness be greatest.

“The Radicals, waiting for reform and taking the destruction of the Irish Church meanwhile, remind one of Nelson’s coxwain’s saying when asked if he would have a glass of rum or a tumbler of punch, that ‘he’d be drinking the rum while her ladyship was mixing the punch.’ Ireland is to be complimented for her projected rebellion by fresh concessions. Never was there such a splendid policy.

“The Italians say, ‘The toad got no tail at the creation of the world because he never asked for one.’ Certes, my countrymen won’t be deficient in their caudal appendages on such grounds.

“I am hipped by bad weather, undeveloped gout, and other ills too numerous to mention, but still------”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Spezzia, _Dec_. 4, 1866.

“In reply to your note, and its enclosure referring to a passage in one of my late ‘O’Dowds’ that an admiral is a sort of human rhinoceros, &c., I have simply to say that the joke is a very sorry one, and one of the worst I have ever uttered, if it give offence; but I most distinctly declare that I never entertained the most distant idea of a personality. Indeed my whole allusion was to the externals of admirals,--a certain gruffness, &c., which in itself is much too superficial a trait to include a personality.

“That I could say anything offensive to or of a service from which I have received nothing but politeness and courtesy, and some of whose members I regard as my closest and best friends, seems so impossible a charge against me that I know not how to answer it. Indeed nothing is left for me but a simple denial of intention. It then remains, perhaps, to apologise for an expression which may be misapprehended. I do so just as frankly. I think the men who so read me, read me _wrongfully_. No matter; my fault it is that I should be open to such misconstruction, and I ask to be forgiven for it.

“So much of reparation is in my power (if time permit), and I would ask you to assist me to it--to omit the entire passage when you republish the papers in a volume.

“Will you, in any form that you think best, convey the explanation and the amends to the writer of the note you have enclosed?”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Dec._ 4, 1866.

“I have just read the note you enclosed me calling my attention to my having said that an admiral was a sort of ‘human rhinoceros.’ I beg to recant the opinion, and when opportunity serves I will do so publicly, and declare that I believe them to be the most thin-skinned of mortals, otherwise there was nothing in the paragraph referred to which could give the slightest offence.

“To impute a personality to it would be for the reader to attach the passage to some one to whom he thought it applicable, if there be such.

“When they mentioned vice or bribe, It’s so pat to all the tribe, Each cried that was levelled at me.

“Now I had not the vaguest idea of a personality; I was simply chronicling a sort of professional gruffness and mysteriousness,--both admirable in the way of discipline, doubtless, but not so agreeable socially as the gifts of younger and less responsible men.

“Omit the whole passage, however, when you republish the papers; and accept my assurance that if ever I mention an admiral again, I will insert the word ‘bishop’ in my MS., and only correct it with the proof.

“It is not easy to be serious in replying to such a charge of ‘doing something prejudicial to the service.’ There is no accounting, however, for phraseology, as Mr Carter called the loss of his right eye ‘a domestic calamity.’

“Once more, I never meant offence. I never went within a thousand miles of a personality; and if ever I mention the sea-service again, I hope I may be in it.

“P.S.--Make the fullest disclaimer on my part, if you can, to the quarter whence came the letter, as to either offence or personality,--but more particularly the latter. I am only sorry that the letter, not being addressed to myself, does not enable me to reply to the writer with this assurance.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Florence, Dec. 7.

“Out of deference to my wife’s opinion I wrote a mild disclaimer that might satisfy Admiral Kellett as to my intentions, &c. I have, since I wrote, heard confidentially that the Maltese authorities are trying to bring the matter before F. O. Now I am resolved not to make a very smallest submission, or even to go to the barest extent of an explanation.

“The only ‘personality in the article was the reference to an admiral that I respected and admired. I am perfectly ready to maintain that this was not Admiral Kellett.

“If you like to forward my first note, do so, but on no account let the civil one reach him. Indeed very little reconsideration showed me that such an appeal as K.’s bespoke a consummate ass, and ought not to be treated seriously. This will explain why I despatched a telegram to you this morning to use the first, not the amended, letter. My first thoughts are, I know, always my best.

“I shall be delighted if they make an F. O. affair of it: to have an opportunity of telling the cadets there what I think of the ‘Authority.’ and how much respect I attach to their ‘opinion,’ would cure me of the attack that is now making my foot fizz with pain.

“I am annoyed with myself for being so much annoyed as all this; but if you knew to what lengths I went to make these bluejackets enjoy themselves,--what time, money, patience, pleasantry, and bitter beer I spent in their service,--you would see that this sort of requital is more than a mere worry.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Florence, _Dec_. 1865.

“My wife is miserable at the sharp note I sent in reply to the admiral. She says it was all wrong, “_because_, as I never did mean a personality, I ought to have no hesitation in saying as much, &c, &c.

“In fact, she makes me send the enclosed, and ask you to forward it to Kellett--that is, if _you_ agree with her. For myself, I own I am the aggrieved party; I was d------d civil to the whole menagerie, rhinoceros included. I half ruined myself in entertaining them, and now I am rebuked for a little very mild pleasantry and very weak joking.

“What! is it because ye are bluejackets there shall be no more ‘O’Dowds’? Ay, marry, and very hot ones too--and sharp in the mouth.

“All right as to the new tariff. It is a great [? nuisance] to me that the public does not like its devilled kidneys in wholesale, but perhaps we may make the palate yet: I’ll try a little longer, at all events. But if the Tories come in and make me a tide-waiter, I’ll forswear pen-and-ink and only write for ‘The Hue and Cry.’”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“_Dec_. 11,1865.

“Your first objection to Cave’s ‘spoonyness’ * I answer thus. Cave was heartily ashamed of himself for having played at stakes far above his means, and, like a man so overwhelmed, was ready to do, say, or approve of anything in his confusion. I was drawing from life in this sketch.

* In ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ of doctrine by the opposite poles--Exeter and Cashel, Colenso and Carlisle; but you will see that I never instanced these men, or any other individuals, as likely to offer their pulpits.

“2nd, Sewell’s addressing the men in his town so carelessly. He never saw them before; they came, hundreds, to see a race, and his acquaintances and the public were so mingled. He addressed them with an insolence not infrequent in Englishmen towards ‘mere Irish,’ and only corrected himself when pulled up.

“I am deep in thinking over the story; and though I have not written a line, I am _at it_ night and day.” To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, _Dec_. 12,1865.

“I have just got your note. I need not say it has not given me pleasure, for I really thought--so little are men judges of their own work--that there were some of these O’Ds. equal to any I ever wrote. The paper that requires either explanation or defence can’t be good, and so I accept the adverse verdict. I make no defence, but I must make explanation.

“In the ‘Prof. Politeness’ paper there is no personality whatever. I simply expressed divergence.

“As to the practice, I have seen it over and over, and I can vouch for it in hospitals, home and foreign, as well.

“I have expunged ‘Times,’ and made the word ‘newspapers’; I have cancelled ‘C. Connellan’ altogether. And now I trust your fear of an action must be relieved,--though if Corney Connellan were to be offended, I might really despair of a joke being well taken by any one.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, _Christmas Day._

“I send you a full measure of ‘Sir B.’ for next month, and despatch it now, as I have only remained here to eat my Christmas dinner, and start to-morrow for Spezzia, where I have some eight or ten days’ work before me.

“I hope you will like the present ‘envoy.’ I have taken pains with the dialogue, and made it as sharp and touchy as I could.

“There is, I hear, a compact _in petto_ between the Whigs and the Irish by which all Irish Education is to be made over to the Church of Rome. If so, a paper on the way in which countries, essentially Romish, reject the priest’s domination and provide against all subjugation to the Church, might be well timed. It has only struck me this morning, but it is worth you turning your mind to, especially if the papers were to be ready and in print for the eventuality of the debate in Parliament, and _debate there will be on the question_.

“I am not sure I could do such a paper, but I could be of use to any one who could, and give him some valuable material, too, from Italian enactments.

“I do not know if my Belgium bit reached you in time, and our post is now so irregular here I may not know for some days.

“I hear that the Government mean to hand over Eyre to the Radicals; and though there is much in his case hard to defend, that the man did his best in a great difficulty according to ‘his lights’ I am convinced.

“I have such a good story for you about Drummond Wolff _versus_ Bulwer,--but I can’t write it. You shall hear it, however, when I come over in spring, even if I go down to Edinburgh to tell it.

“A great many happy Christmases to you and all yours.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, Dec. 30, 1866.

“Your last pleasant note and its ‘stuffing’ has just reached me here, where I am consularising, bullying Custom-house folk, and playing the devil with all the authorities to show my activity in the public service. I can’t endure being away from home and my old routine life; but there was no help for it, and I am here now for another week to come.

“The name I want for the author of Tony is ‘Arthur Helsham,’ the name of my mother’s family; and the last man who bore the aforesaid was the stupidest blockhead of the house, and the luckiest too. _Faustum sit augurium_.

“As to G. Berkeley’s book, it is quite impossible to do anything at all commensurate with so rascally a book. It is hopeless work trying to make a sweep dirtier, and I agree with you--better not touch him.”

XVI. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1866

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Jan_. 3,1866.

“I came back from Spezzia this morning to find your pleasant letter and its enclosure. I thank you much for both. I wanted the money not a little, but half suspect I wanted the kind assurances of your satisfaction just as much. I was not content with your opinion of the last ‘O’Dowds,’ most probably from some lurking suspicion that you might be right, and that they were not as good as they ought to be, or as I meant them to be. Now I am easier on that score,--and since I have seen them in print I am better pleased also.

“My Xmas was cut in two: I was obliged to go down to Spezzia the day after Christmas Day and stay there ever since, idling, far from pleasantly, and living at a bad inn somewhat dearer than the Burlington. I could not write while there; but I have turned over a couple of ‘O’Dowds’ in my head, and if they be heavy don’t print them, and I’ll not fret about it. It’s not very easy, in a place like this, where the only conversation is play or intrigue, to find matters of popular interest.

“I often wish I could break new ground; but I’m too old, perhaps, to transplant. But I’ll not grumble now: it’s Christmas, and I wish you and all around you every happiness that Christmas should bring.

“I hope you like my last envoy of ‘Sir B.’ which I trust to see in proof in a few days.

“I was half tempted to make an ‘O’Dowd’ on the recent installation of a Knight of St Patrick, as described in an Irish paper: ‘The mantle is worn over one shoulder and falls gracefully on the ground, the legend _Quis Separabit_ being inscribed on the decoration of the collar.’ What with the trailing garment, I was sorely tempted to translate Quis Separabit ‘Who’ll tread on me?’

“I was right glad to read of Fergusson’s honours. What a manly bold letter that was of his about the Negro atrocities. I vow to God I have not temper to write of them.

“I hear young Lytton is likely to lose his sight,--some terrible inflammation of the iris, I believe, and it is feared must end in total blindness.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Jan_. 5,1866.

“I am so ‘shook’ by a bad train and a [? wetting] that I can scarcely hold a pen, and my head is still addled with the crash and reverberation of big guns, for I have been ‘assisting’ at the trial of armour-plates, with steel shot, for the Italian Navy,--though what they have to do with the subject, seeing that they neither fire at the enemy or wait to be fired at, is more than I know.

“Persano was so overcome by terror that he was literally carried down the ladder to his gig, when he changed his flag to the _Affondatore_. The _on dit_ is he will be dismissed from the service. Quite enough, God knows, for any shortcoming; for bravery, after all, as Dogberry says of reading and writing, is ‘the gift of God.’

“We have had a sombre Xmas here: my wife very ill, and the rest of us poorly enough.

“There is not a word of news. A small squabble with the Turks, who fired at one of the ships, has made the Italians warlike once more, and they are crying out, ‘Hold me, for you know my temper!’ But it will blow over after some un-grammatical interchange of despatches, and be forgotten.

“Hardman was dining with me the other day, when an Italian admiral--the ablest man they have--launched out fiercely against ‘The Times’ and its Italian correspondent. The thing was too late for remedy, but Hardman’s good sense prevented further embarrassment.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, _Jan_. 7, 1866.

“I hope long ere this your face-ache has left you. I dread these neuralgic things, having had one or two seizures of them: and they are so infernally treacherous; they come back just when one is triumphing over being rid of them.

“I send you some O’Ds. One, I hope, will please you--the ‘Two Rebellions.’ I know you will go with me in the d------d cowardice of the newspaper fellows talking to a man in a pinch and saying how he should behave. I had one of these men out in my boat at Spezzia, and such a pluckless hound I never saw, and yet if you read his Garibaldian articles in the paper, you’d have thought him a paladin!

“I read this O’D. aloud here, and it was thought the best I had done for some time. The ‘Extradition’ is not bad, the rest are so-so.

“You will see I am right in condemning the conduct of the Catholic party about Fenianism, and also as to the intentions of the Government of rewarding their loyalty! It will be a great parliamentary fight, and my paper will be well timed.

“Is Mrs Blackwood coming to town this spring? I’d like to think we could see the Burlington repeat itself, and be as jolly as it was last year. It did me a world of good as to spirits and courage that trip, though it made a hole in my time--and my pocket.

“I am afraid I must go down to Spezzia again, and for a week too. The cares of office are heavy, and I am afraid I serve a country ungrateful enough not to appreciate me.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Jan_. 20, 1866.

“I have been obliged to put off Spezzia till the 20th, but shall have to pass a week or ten days there _then_. Meanwhile I am at work thinking over (not writing) ‘Sir Brook.’ I want to do the thing well, but I have not yet got the stick by the handle.

“From what I can pick up from those who read O’D., no paper ought to have more than one joke. One plum to a pudding is the English taste. All the rest must be what the doctors call ‘vehicle,’ and drollery be administered in drop doses. Of course I get public opinion in a very diluted form here,--but such is the strength in which it reaches me.

“Robt. Lytton is better,--one eye safe, and hopes of the other. Have you heard that Oliphant has been dangerously ill, at N. York?--a menace of softening of the brain having declared itself, and of course such a malady is never a mere threat. I am sincerely sorry for him, and so will you be.

“My trip to town will depend on the events in the House. If our friends come in I will certainly go over. Tell Mrs Blackwood to read O’Dowd on ‘Thrift ‘: she will see that there are certain people it will never do with.”

_To Mr John Blackwood._

“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Feb_. 3, 1866.