Volume Ii Part 9 (1/2)
”My wife continues still so ill that, though I am wanted at Spezzia, I cannot go down. I hope, however, that to-morrow or next day she may be well enough to let me leave without anxiety.
”Perry, a consul-general at Venice, has just promised me a photo of Flynn, taken by the Austrian authorities during his imprisonment at Verona. I'll send it to you when it comes.
”Did you ever see the notice of O'D. in 'The Daily News'? It was most handsome, and the D. U. M. was also good. All the London papers have now reviewed it but 'The Times,' and the stranger [this], as Lucas, is very well affected towards me.
”Once again, and from my heart, I thank you for responding so generously to my request.”
_To Dr Burbidge._
”_Tuesday, [? Oct.]_ 23, 1864.
”I had believed I was to be at Spezzia before this, but my wife still continues in a very precarious way, and I was afraid to leave her.
”I am, besides, hard at work closing 'Tony,' and getting another vol. of 'O'Dowd' ready for 1st of January. I have worked very steadily and, for me, most industriously the entire month, but my evenings are always lost, as people are now pa.s.sing through to Rome.
”Hudson has taken a house near Florence, and Labouchere come back, so that _some_ talkers there are at least.
”I mean to run down so soon as I finish cor-rectings, &c., at eight or ten days at furthest.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 27,1864.
”How strange a hit you made when you said, 'I knew L. N. as well as if we had drunk together.' I was a fellow-student with him at Gottingen in 1830,* and lived in great intimacy with him. There was a Scotchman there at the same time named d.i.c.kson, a great botanist, who has, I believe, since settled in London as a practising physician in Bryanstone Square.
L. Nap. went by the name of Ct. Fattorini. He never would know d.i.c.kson, and used to leave me whenever D. came in. It was not for two years after that I learned he was 'the Bonaparte.' Our set consisted of L. N., Adolph V. Decken (who afterwards married the sister of the d.u.c.h.ess of C------, who now lives in Hanover), Beuliady the Home Minister, and Ct. Bray the Bavarian Envoy at Vienna; I, the penny-a-liner, being the complement of the party. I have had very strange companions.h.i.+ps and strange turns in life, and when I have worked out my O'Dowd vein I'll give you an autobiography.
* The date is incorrect. Lever's Gottingen period was 1828.
”I now send you a political O'D. on L. N., not over civil; but I detest the man, and I suspect I _know_ him and read him aright. Banting I did without waiting for his book; but if it comes I will perhaps squeeze something out of it.
”I am crippled with gout, and can scarcely hold a pen. The bit on doctors is simply padding, and don't put it in if you don't like; but the No. for December will, I think, be a strong one.
”Sir Jas. Hudson is with me, but I am too low even for his glorious companions.h.i.+p--and he has no equal. Wolff is here, and all to stay for the winter.
”What do you think of my advertising O'D. at the end of the Banting paper? Does it not remind you of the epitaph to the French hosier, where, after the enumeration of his virtues as husband and father, the widow announces that she 'continues the business at the old estab., Rue Neuve des Pet.i.ts Champs,' &c. &c.?”
_To Dr Burbidge._
”Florence, Nov. 3, 1864.
”Bulwer the Great has stayed here, and will not leave till to-morrow, and if you see Rice, will you please to tell him so. I am so primed that I think I could write a great paper on the present state and future prospects of Turkey.
”He has been very agreeable, and with all his affectations--legion that they are--very amusing.