To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Jan. 4,1870.

“When I saw ‘Maga’ without me I began to feel as if I had died (hitherto at Trieste I only believed I had been buried), and when your cheque reached me this morning I pictured myself as my own executor! You are most kind to bethink you of the necessities of this pleasant season,—indeed I scarcely know anything of Christmas but its bills I Still, I should be well content to have nothing heavier on my heart than money cares, and I believe that is about as dreary a confession as a man can well make.

“I am sorry to hear you have not been well, but I trust it is a thing of the past already: I don’t think either of us would be what is called a good patient. I like the Homer Odyssey (?) greatly. I suspect I guess the writer—that is, from a mere accident. ‘Suez’ is excellent, and Stanley’s opinion is that of the best German engineers also. Aren’t you flattering to my Lord of Knebworth? It was not, however, a ‘good fairy’ gave him a wife.

“Sydney sends her love. She is going over to England in spring (at least she says so, and I suppose I am bound to believe it) to pay that Devonshire visit I interrupted last year.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Feb. 3,1870.

“In Stanley’s clever article on ‘Suez’ for January there is a sketch of an Italian travelling companion so like a portrait that we all here fancy we recognise the man. It is the same who addresses the Empress EugÉnie so brusquely. If we be right, he is an old acquaintance of ours called ‘Campereo.’ Pray, if occasion serve, ask if this be the man. It is wonderfully like him at all events, and I could almost bet on it.

“I have been hoping to hear from you, and delaying to tell you—what for me is a rare event—a piece of pleasant news. Sydney is about to be married. The sposo, an Englishman, young, well educated, well-mannered, and well off; he is the great millowner, paper manufacturer, and shipbuilder of Austria, and has about £7000 a-year.

“I need not say it is a great match for a poor ‘tocherless lass,’ but I can say that the man’s character and reputation would make him acceptable if he had only £500 a-year.

“To myself, overborne and distressed by the thought of how little I had done for my children, and how wastefully and foolishly I had lived,—spending my means pretty much as I did my brains, in bursts of spendthrift extravagance, and leaving myself in both cases with nothing to fall back on,—it is a relief unspeakable that one of my poor girls at least is beyond the straits of penury.

“I know that you and Mrs Blackwood have a warm and kindly feeling towards us, and you will be glad to hear of such good fortune. I do not know that the excitement has been very favourable to my poor wife, who can only look as yet to the one feature—that is, that she loses a child’s companionship; but I trust that in time she will see with me that the event is one to be truly thankful for.

“The marriage is to take place on the 21st, and after a trip to Rome, &c, they visit Paris, and on to London some time in April. Sydney ardently hopes that you and Mrs Blackwood may be in town this season: she longs to see you both again.

“I need not say I have done nothing but answer and write notes for the last few weeks, and sit in commission over trousseau details, for which how I am ever to pay I hope somebody knows—but I do not. I remember Fergus O’Connor saying that he could ‘get in’ for Mallow ‘if he could stand a dinner to his committee,’ and I can fully appreciate that nice situation at present.

“Mr Cook has been at me again in a pamphlet. It was only a few days back he went through here with a gang, and I had determined to dine at table d’hÔte with them, but was laid up with a heavy cold and sorely disappointed accordingly.

“I hear from London that Dizzy is hopeful and in good heart, but of what or why I cannot guess. Certainly the country is not Conservatively-minded now, nor could the Tories succeed to power except by repeating the Reform Bill dodge of outbidding the Whigs and then strengthening the Radical party. That Dizzy is ready for this, and that he would push a Land Bill for Ireland to actual commission, I can easily believe; but are we not all sick of being ‘shuttlecocked’ between two ambitious and jealous rivals? And is there not something else to be thought of than who is to be First Lord of the Treasury?

“I see a book advertised called ‘Varieties of Viceregal Life.’ If I had it I suspect I could make an amusing paper on it—that is, if the book bore out its title.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Feb. 9, 1870.

“I have been hoping and hoping to have a line from you, and would still go on waiting for it only that the ‘O’Dowd’ I now send is too ‘apropos’ for delay. It is the only one I have written, but think you have still one or two by you—‘The Pope,’ and ‘Landlords and Limits.’ I am terribly knocked up,—such an attack on the chest,—and not able to leave my room, and at a time when I am full of care and occupation.

“Lord Clarendon has written me a private and confidential about ‘Cook and the Excursionists,’ who have petitioned him against me. Lord Clarendon evidently foresees a ‘question’ to be asked in the House, and wants an answer. Mine was that Cornelius O’Dowd was not in the Consular service, nor, so far as I was aware, had he any relations with F. O.; that he was a person who amused himself and, when he could, other people, by ridiculing whatever was absurd, or in bad taste or manners, or hypocritical in morals; and that being one who had followed the avocation of a writing man for thirty years, he must be understood to have acquired some notions, not only of the privileges but the responsibilities of the pen; and that, finally, as Consul Lever, I had no explanation to make Mr Cook, who first blackguarded me in print and then appealed to my official superior.

“Sydney’s marriage comes off Monday 21st. I am forced to say, like King Frederic of Prussia, ‘Another such victory would ruin me.’ To be sent to one’s grave by milliners does seem a very ignoble destiny!—but a bad bronchitis, aided by Brussels lace, has brought me to a state of feverish irritability that, if it does not terrify me, certainly alarms my family, and con ragione.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, March 3,1870.

“Perhaps you’ll say ‘dull as ditch water’ was the inspiration as well as the title of this ‘O’Dowd/ and mayhap I won’t deny it. It is, however, a heartfelt cry over the dreariness of the time the ‘whole world over,’ and I am sure many will acknowledge the truth of it.

“I know nobody jolly but Sydney. She writes me full accounts of Venetian Carnival doings,—masques and gondoliers, &c, &c., and music on the Grand Canal till daybreak.

“Here I am hipped and out of heart,—waiting, too, but for the undertaker, I believe, for it is the only ‘carriage exercise’ I should now care for.

“We had two smart shocks of earthquake yesterday. I thought that Cumming was going to be right after all, but it passed off with nothing worse than some tinkling of the teacups and a formidable swinging of the lustre over our heads.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, March 6, 1870.

“The Whigs would like to blend up Fenianism and agrarian crime. Now they are not to be so confounded. The National party is anti-English, rebel, violent, cruel, anything you like, but the men who shoot the landlords are not the Fenians! It is a brief I should like well to plead on, and you will see ere long that there will be many to acknowledge its truth.

“Gladstone will carry his Bill, I’m sure, but if the Tories are adroit they will make a complete schism in the Irish party and throw the Catholic set so completely on the side of the Ministry as to disgust the Protestant feeling of England. How I wish I had half an hour with Dizzy, and that he would condescend to listen to me!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“March 15, 1870.

“I was glad to hear from you, and gladder to hear you liked the O’Ds.

“Sydney is away to Rome honeymooning it very pleasantly, and meeting all manner of attentions, &c. The trousseau has spoilt my trip to town. I have ‘taken out’ in white lace what I meant for ‘whitebait,’ and I must try and screw on in life for one year more if I mean to see London again. It was the celebrated Betty O’Dwyer that said to her legs, ‘I’ll take another season out of you before I’ll give you to Tom O’Callaghan.’”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“March 16,1870.

“I have no patience with you for being ill. What I a fellow of something and twenty, with a sound chest, six feet in his stockings, and a hunter in top condition; what an ungrateful dog to Fortune you are! Leave sickness to old cripples like myself,—hipped, dunned, and blue-devilled,—with a bad balance at the bank, and a ruined digestion. You have no business with malady! Come over and see me here: the very contrast will make you happy and contented.

“I hope, however, you are all right by this time. I’m sure you stick too close to the desk. Be warned by me! It was all over-application and excessive industry ruined my constitution; and instead of being threatened to be cut off, as I am now, in the flower of my youth, I might have lived on to a ripe old age, and all that rottenness that they tell us makes ‘medlars’ exquisite.

“I send you a tailpiece to the O’D. Heaven grant that the Saxon intelligence, for which I daily feel less veneration, should not suspect me of being a Fenian in disguise, though if it should get me dismissed from my consulate and turned out into the streets, I’d almost cry hurrah! for, after all, picking oakum could scarcely be worse than cudgelling my brains for what, after all the manipulation, can’t be got out of them.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 1,1870.

“I suppose ‘Sanding the Sugar’ reached you too late, or was it that you don’t like it? I thought it was good, but needed careful going over again and perhaps enlarging.

“I send you three now, and hope you will like them. I have been days over them, and without getting on, for my poor wife’s time of being operated on again draws nigh, and her fear and nervousness have made her seriously ill. For the last three nights I have been sitting up beside her, and as I have been very ‘creaky’ some time back, this pressure has pushed me very hard indeed.

“Many thanks for ‘Piccadilly’; it is beautifully got up, and the style and look of it perfectly faultless. I have re-read it, and like it greatly,—indeed, I think more than the first time. In the little touches of that brusqueness which the well-bred world affects, Oliphant is admirable, and so removed from that low-world dialogue that vulgar novelists imagine people in Society converse in. I am, however, not surprised at the strange step he has taken in life; such extreme fastidiousness could find no rest anywhere but in savagery, just as we see incredulity take refuge in the Church of Rome: les extrÊmes se touchent oftener in life than we suspect.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 5, 1870.

“I send you an ‘O’Dowd’ I hope will please you. I think it has more ‘fun’ in it than all my late ones,—though, God knows, I never myself felt less disposed to drollery, for I am literally worn out with watching beside my poor sick wife. I cannot bear to read, and it is a blessing to me to run to the pen for distraction.

“The O’D. on Canning has been going the round of the Italian papers, and I see one, the ‘Eco de l’Arno,’ has given a sort of series of extracts from the O’Ds. called Leverania.

“I see Whiteside is in London. How I wish I could go over! I’d like to have a dinner with you both. You’d be greatly pleased with him.

“I am told that the deadlock about the Education Bill is caused by the opposition of the Irish Catholic bishops, who insist on denominational schools—that is, having the whole grant for themselves. No bad idea after all. I wish every consul, with a bald back to his head, should have double salary.

“My best regards to Mrs Blackwood. Tell her she’ll have her meals in peace this time in London, but it isn’t my fault after all.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 12, 1870.

“You gratify me much by what you say of these O’Ds. Failing health, broken spirits, a very sad home, and many uncertainties are hard to bear, but I believe I could face them all better than the thought of ‘Brain bankruptcy.’ To draw on my intellect and get for answer ‘no assets’ would, I feel, overwhelm me utterly. Your hearty words have, therefore, done me good service, and in my extra glass of claret—and I will take one to-day—I’ll drink your health.

“I am distressed at not getting the April No. of ‘Maga’ yet; by some accident it has been forgotten or miscarried, and it is a great comfort to me to ‘cuddle over.’

“My poor wife is still suffering intensely, and too weak to undergo the operation, which is eminently necessary. She has at last, too, lost all courage, and, I might almost say, wish to live. Much of this depression is from actual pain, and all our efforts are now directed to allay that. I never leave the house, or, if I do, go beyond the garden. Of course, I admit no visitors, and scarcely remember the days of the week.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 15,1870.

“I think the title had better be ‘Personal and Peculiar.’ I have added and changed the conclusion, whether for the better or not you shall decide. There was some danger in saying more, and I might have found, if I went on, that, as Curran says, I had argued myself out of my brief.

“I have a half suspicion the Bill may break down after all,—not that it signifies much, since the Tories could not take office with any chance of holding it, but the mere failure would offend Gladstone, and even that would be a comfort.

“I have no better news to send for this, and am low, low!

“Don’t forget to send me ‘Maga’ for this month—April.

“Have you read Dickens’ new serial, and what do you say to it? I am curious to hear.

“We have a report here from Greece that the English Sec. of Legation and a whole picnic party have been captured by the brigands, and an immense ransom demanded.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 23, 1870.

“The blow has fallen at last, and I am desolate. My poor darling was taken from me at two this morning, without suffering. It seems to me as if years had gone over since she smiled her last good-bye to me. All the happiness of my life has gone, and all the support. God’s greatest mercy would be to take me from a life of daily looking back, which is all that remains to me now.

“You are, I feel, a true friend who will feel for my great sorrow, and I write this as to one who will pity me.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, May 28, 1870.

“Though I cannot read your note by any other light than an affectionate desire to be of service to me, veiled under the notion that I could be of any use to you; and though I say I see all this, and see besides how little capable I now am of even a weak effort, I accept your offer and write at once for leave of absence, which, between ourselves, I do not think would be accorded me if it was guessed that I intended to visit Greece. Indeed I know that Mr Gladstone’s Hellenism is calculated on at Athens to sustain the Greek government through anything that the public opinion of Europe would be likely to submit to.*

“Erskine is an old friend of mine, but he is a very self-contained and reserved fellow, who will reveal nothing, and I would be glad of some Greek introductions to any persons not officially bound to sustain the Queen’s Cabinet. My wish would be to take the Constantinople boat that leaves on Saturday next, the 4th, and reaches Athens on Thursday following, 9th; but if my leave is not accorded me by telegraph I cannot do this, and there is only one boat in the week. I have to-day seen a private telegram from M. W———, the Greek Minister to the Austrian government here, saying that he is on the track of this most infamous outrage, and that if his suspicion prove true, some men of political eminence will have to fly from Greece for ever.

“I cannot thank you enough for your kind and affectionate remembrance of me: it is very dear to me such friendship in this dark hour of my life. There is something gone wrong with the action of my heart, and I have short moments when it seems disposed to give in,—and indeed I don’t wonder at it.

“As there would be no time to send me letters here in reply to this, write to me addressed British Legation, Athens—that is, taking for granted that I shall start on Saturday next.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, June 4, 1870.

“I have looked out anxiously for a note from you these last couple of days. I hope you got my telegram safely. Yesterday I received a telegraphic despatch from F. O. saying my ‘leave was granted,’ and I sail now in two hours. If I find that my heart disturbance—which has been very severe the last couple of days—increases on me, I shall stop at Corfu and get back again at my leisure. I do not know if there is much to be learned at Athens that Erskine has not either gleaned or muddled, but I will try and ascertain where the infamy began.

“I used once to think that the most sorrowful part of leaving home was the sad heart I left behind me. I know now that there is something worse than that—it is to carry away the sadness of a desolate heart with me.

“I believe the post leaves Athens for the Continent on Saturdays: if so, and that I arrive safely on Thursday 9th, I shall write to you by that mail.

“My affectionate remembrances to Mrs Blackwood.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Athens, HÔtel d’Angleterre, June 9,1870.

“Here I am, in poor Vyner’s quarters: but short as the time is since my arrival, it has taught me that there is nothing, or next to nothing, to be learned. The amount of lying here beats Banagher—indeed all Ireland. However, I will try and make a rÉsumÉ of the question that will be readable and, if I can, interesting.

“I am a good deal fagged, but not worse for my journey, and, on the whole, stronger than when I started.

“I thought I should have had some letter from you here, but possibly there has not been time.

“If Lord Carnarvon knew of my direct source of information it would be of great use; for the Legation and Finlay, whom I have seen, are simply men defending a thesis, and so far not to be relied on.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Athens, June 17,1870.

“I send you a hurried line to catch F. O. messenger, who is just leaving. I want merely to say that I have got together a considerable number of facts about brigandage altogether, and the late misfortune in particular, and only wait till I get back to put them into shape. Keep me a corner, then, not for next No. but August, and I hope I shall send something readable.

“I have met much courtesy and civility here, but I am dying to get home. My palpitations still trouble me, and if I don’t actually faint, I suppose it is that I don’t know how.

“I have been anxiously looking out for letters from you, and now I am off to Corinth, and shall work my way back through the islands.

“Do you know that if any of the blunders had failed, these poor fellows would now have been alive! and even with the concurring mistakes of [? ], Erskine, and [? ], they would not have succeeded if the rains had not swollen the streams and made them unfordable. It is the saddest story of cross-purposes and stupidities I ever listened to in my life.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Trieste, June 30,1870.

“I have just reached home, and send you at once what I have done, and what may still require a page or two to complete. Not knowing where your uncle is, and not liking to incur the delay of sending on a wrong errand if he should have left London, I hope he may like what I have written, which, whether good or bad, I can honestly declare has occupied all my sleeping and waking thoughts these last four weeks, insomuch that I have never looked at the [? proofs] of a story* that must begin next August À contrat, and for which I can feel neither interest nor anxiety. Indeed, I am in every way ‘at the end of my tether,’ my journey, and certainly my heart symptoms are greatly diminished, and the sooner I shut up altogether the better will it be for that very little scrap of reputation which I once acquired.

“I am very ‘shaky’ in health, but very happy to be again at home with my dear girls, who never weary of kindnesses to me, and who would give me comfort if I could be comforted.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, July 1,1870.

“Your letter just reached me by a late post as I was sending off this packet. I write a line to thank you, and say how happy it made me to see your handwriting again.

“My daughters find me looking much better for

“It is quite true ‘this Greek story is a very strange one’; whether we ever shall get to the bottom of it is very doubtful. I believe the present Cabinet in Greece are dealing fairly with Erskine now,—partly from a hope that it is the best policy—partly from believing that England will resent heavily any attempt at evasion. Of Noel I have great distrust; he has been brought up amongst Greeks—and even Greek brigands—of whom he speaks in terms of eulogy and warmth that are (with our late experiences) positively revolting.

“I hope you will like what I have written. I have given it my whole thought and attention, and for the last four weeks neither talked, reflected, or speculated on anything but the Marathon disaster. I saw Finlay, who is very old and feeble, and I thought mentally so too.

“I wonder will the new Secretary at F. O. act energetically about Greece? I have grave doubts that Gladstone will make conciliation the condition of his appointment. We are in a position to do whatever we like: the difficulty is to know what that should be. To cause the misfortune [? ], the blunders of [? ] & Co. would not have succeeded without the heavy rain that made the rivers impassable and retarded the movements. In fact, such a combination of evil accidents never was heard of, and had anybody failed in anything they did, the poor fellows would now be living.

“I am glad to think Oliphant will come back to the world again,—these genial fellows are getting too rare to spare one of the best of them to barbarism. I should like to meet him again.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, July 9, 1870.

“I have just received your cordial note, and write at once to say how sorry I am not to be able to do a sketch of Lord C[larendon]. First of all, I have not anything that could serve to remind me of his career. I know he was a Commissioner of Customs in Ireland, an Ambassador in Spain, and a Viceroy in Dublin, but there ends my public knowledge of him. Personally I only remember him as a very high-bred and courteous gentleman, who made a most finished manner do service for wit (which he had not), and a keen insight into life, especially foreign life, of which he really only knew the conventional part. If I had the materials for his biography I would not hesitate about the sketch, but it is as well (for you) that I have not, for I should not do it well, and we should both of us be sorry at the failure.

“I’ll tell you, however, who could and would do it well, Rob. Lytton, who married his niece, and is now at Knebworth. He knew Lord C. intimately, and had exactly that sort of appreciation of him that the public would like and be pleased to see in print.

“I don’t think Dickens’ memory is at all served by this ill-judged adulation. He was a man of genius and a loyal, warm-hearted, good fellow; but he was not Shakespeare, nor was Sam Weller Falstaff.

“I hope you will like my Greek paper. I cannot turn my mind to anything else, and must add some pages when I see the proof. I hear there will be no Greek debate, as all parties are agreed not to discuss Lord C.‘s absurd concession about the ship of war to take off the brigands,—a course which would have given Russia such a handle for future meddling, and left us totally unable to question it.

“My journey has certainly done me good. My flurried action of the heart has greatly left me, and except a sense of deep dreariness and dislike to do anything—even speak—I am as I used to be.

“I’d say time would do the rest if I did not hope for something more merciful than time and that shall anticipate time: I mean rest—long rest.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Aug. 4, 1870.

“I was conning over the enclosed O’D. when your letter came this morning,—and of late the post misses three days in five,—and I believe I should have detained my MS. for further revision, but I cannot delay my deepest thanks for your munificent remittance. I have not now to be told so to feel how much more you were thinking of me than of Greece when you advised this journey. Be assured that in the interest you felt for me in my great sorrow I grew to have a care for life and a desire to taste its friendships that I didn’t think my heart was capable of. I know well, too well, that I could not have written anything that could justify such a mission—least of all with a breaking heart and an aching head,—but I was sure that in showing you how willing I was to accept a benefit at your hands I should best prove what a value I attached to your friendship, and how ready I was to owe you what brought me round to life and labour again. I do fervently hope the Greek article may be a success; but nothing that it could do, nor anything that I might yet write, could in any way repay what I am well content should be my great debt to your sterling affection for me,—never to be acquitted—never forgotten.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Aug. 7, 1870.

“I am full sure that nothing but war will now be talked, and so I send another bellicose ‘O’Dowd’ to make up the paper. I hope there may be time for a proof; but if not, my hand is so well known to you now, and you are so well aware of what I intended where I blotch or break down, it is of less consequence.

“This Wissembourg battle was really a great success; and I don’t care a rush that the Prussians were in overwhelming numbers. May they always be so, and may those rascally French get so palpably, unmistakably licked that all their lying press will be unable to gloss over the disgrace.

“If L. Nap. gets one victory he’ll go in for peace and he’ll have England to back him; and I pray, therefore, that Prussia may have the first innings, and I think Paris will do the rest by sending the Bonapartes to the devil.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Aug. 14.

“An idea has just occurred to me, and on telling it to my daughters they wish me to consult with you on it. It is of a series of papers, the rationale of which is this:—

“All newspaper correspondence from the war being interdicted, or so much restricted as to be of little value, I have thought that a mock narrative following events closely, but with all the licence that an unblushing liar might give himself, either as to the facts or the persons with whom he is affecting intimacy, and this being done by Major M’Caskey, would be rather good fun. I would set out by explaining how he is at present at large and unemployed, making the whole as a personal narrative, and showing that in the dearth of real news he offers himself as a military correspondent, whose qualifications include not only special knowledge of war, but a universal acquaintance with all modern languages, and the personal intimacy of every one from the King of Prussia to Mr Cook the excursionist. This is enough for a mere glimpse of the intention, which, possibly, is worth consideration. Turn it over in your mind and say has it enough in it to recommend it? I know all will depend on how it is done, and I have no sanguine trust in myself now, either for nerve or ‘go,’ and still less for rattling adventures, but yet the actual events would be a great stimulant, and perhaps they might supply some of the missing spirit I am deploring.

“I don’t know that I should have written about this now, but the girls have given me no peace since I first talked of it, and are eternally asking have I begun Major M’Caskey’s adventures. Your opinion shall decide if it be worth trial.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Aug. 29,1870.

“A post that takes seven days (and travels, I believe, over Berlin and part of Pomerania) before it reaches Vienna, warns me to be early, and so I despatch these two O’Ds. to see if you like them as part of next month’s envoy.

“Of course, people will admit of no other topic than the war or the causes of it. As the month goes on new interests may arise, and we shall be on the watch for them.

“Be assured ‘The Standard’ is making a grave blunder by its anti-Germanism, and English opinion has just now a value in Germany which, if the nation be once disgusted with us, will be lost for ever.

“Even Mr Whitehurst of ‘The Daily Telegraph’ gives the Emperor up, and how he defers his abdication after such a withdrawal of confidence is not easy to say.

“I don’t suspect that the supremacy of Prussia will be unmitigated gain to us—far from it; but we shall not be immediate sufferers, and we shall at least have the classic comfort of being the ‘last devoured.’

“I hope you gave Lord Lytton and myself the credit (that is due to us) of prophesying this war.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Sept. 1, 1870.

“I have so full a conviction of your judgment and such a thorough distrust of my own, that I send you a brief bit of M’Caskey for your opinion. If you like it, if you think it is what it ought to be and the sort of thing to take, just send me one line by telegraph to say ‘Go on.’ I shall continue the narrative in time to reach you by the 18th at farthest, and enough for a paper. Remember this—the real war narrative is already given and will continue to be given by the newspapers, and it is only by a mock personal narrative, with the pretentious opinions of this impudent blackguard upon all he sees, hears, or meets with, that I could hope for any originality.

“My eldest daughter is very eager that I should take your opinion at once, and I am sure you will not think anything of the trouble I am giving you for both our sakes.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sep. 2, 1870.

“What a kind thought it was to send me the slip with Corkhardt’s paper! It is excellent fun, and I send it to-day to the Levant to a poor banished friend on a Greek island.

“I regard the nation that thrashes France with the same sort of gratitude I feel for the man who shoots a jaguar. It is so much done in the interests of all humanity, even though it be only a blackguard or a Bismarck who does it.

“I send you an O’D. to make enough for a short paper with the other sent on Monday last.

“I sent your uncle a specimen page of M’Caskey, but by bad luck I despatched it on my birthday, the 31st August,* and, of course, it will come to no good. It was Dean Swift’s custom to read a certain chapter of Job on his birthday, wherein the day is cursed that a man-child was born. I don’t go that far, but I have a very clear memory of a number of mishaps (to give them a mild name) which have taken this occasion to date from. It would be very grateful news to me to learn I was not to see ‘another return of the happy event,’ but impatience will serve me little, and I must wait till I’m asked for.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept 11,1870.

“Since I got your ‘go on’ I have never ceased writing about M’Caskey. Upon you I throw all the responsibility, the more as it has very nearly turned my own brain with its intrinsic insanity.

“I suppose I have sent you folly enough for the present month; and if you will write me one line to say you wish it, I will set to work at once at the next part and to the extent you dictate.

“Pray look fully to the corrections, and believe me [to be] not very sane or collected.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 13, 1870.

“The post, which failed completely yesterday, brought me your three proofs to-day. I now send a short, but not sweet, O’Dowd on ‘Irish Sympathy’ (whose correction you must look to for me), but which is certainly the best of the batch.

“I had hoped to have heard you mention the receipt of M’Caskey, whose revelations on the war will only be of value if given at once. I also sent off some additional matter for M’C. on Sunday last, and hope they have arrived safely.

“I wish you would send me ‘John’ as a whole. If you should do so, send it to F. O., to the care of F. Alston, Esq., to be forwarded to me. I do not know of any novel-writer I like so well as Mrs. O., and if I could get her to write her name in any of her books for me I’d treasure it highly. She is the most womanly writer of the age, and has all the delicacy and decency one desires in a woman.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 14, 1870.

“My sincere thanks for your note and its enclosure. It seems to me that I do nothing but get money from you. I suspect, however, that you will soon be freed from your pensioner. I am breaking fast, and as really the wish to live on has left me, my friends will not grudge me going to my rest.

“I am indeed glad that you like the O’Ds. I tear at least three for one I send you, being more than ever fearful of that ‘brain-breakdown’ than I am of a gorged lung or a dropsical heart.

“From your telegram about M’Caskey, I was disposed to think you wished the contribution for the October No., and set to work at once to send another batch. I do not now understand whether this is your intention. Of course (if possible) it were all the better it were begun immediately, because in the next part I could bring him up to recent events, and make his impatient comments on actual occurrences more outrageously pretentious and extravagant. You will tell me what you intend when you write.

“Some Hungarians—great swells in their own land—have been here, and are pressing the girls and myself to go to them a bit. It would be a great boon to my poor daughters, and for them I would try it if I could, but I have no heart for it. There was a time a month on the Danube would have been a great temptation to me.

“I will tell Syd to write to you, and you’re lucky if she does not do so with an MS.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 16,1870.

“The war interruption delayed your proof, which only reached me this morning, and as the second part must be in your hands before this, I am hopeful that it will all appear in October No., so that by the No. in November I may bring things down to the actual date of passing events. I wish this because I know that the apropos will be the chief merit of the whole.

“When I can get him into diplomatic correspondence about the Peace, &c, I think there should be some good fun; but I shall not go on till I hear from you or see that this is out, as I always do best on the spur of publication.

“This dictating to the King of Prussia how he ought to make peace, when none of us saw or presumed to say how he should have made war, is to me insufferable; and the simple question, ‘How much moderation would France have had had she reached Berlin?’ settles the whole dispute. The insolent defiance of the Parisians within about a week of eating each other is a proof that these people may be thrashed and scourged, but the outrageous self-sufficiency cannot be squeezed out of them. I have not a shadow of pity for them, and it is without any remorse that I see them going headlong to—Bismarck!

“Victor Hugo’s address to the Germans beats not only Banagher, but beats Garibaldi in high-flown absurdity. Dear me! to think what old age can do for a man! What a warning to us small folk when we see a really great head come to such Martin Tupperism as this. Perhaps, however, it is a law of nature, and that poets, like plums, should be taken before they drop.

“Let me have even one line from you if I’m to go on with M’C.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 21,1870.

“In the hope that M’Caskey has reached in time and makes his bow next month, and seeing that as events go fast he must stir himself to keep up with them, I have never quitted him since I wrote. I therefore send off two chapters, whose headings I defer till I see the print, and will, if you approve, bring him up to Sedan in the ensuing parts for the November No.

“The absurd idea has got such hold of me that I cannot free myself of it even for a moment, and if the reader only catches my intention the thing will have a chance of success. In fact, I want to try a mild and not offensive quiz on all ‘sensational’ reporting. M’Caskey, fortunately, is a fine lay figure for such humbug, and being already in part known through ‘Tony Butler,’ needs no introduction.

“I do not, honestly speaking, know whether the notion is a good one, or whether I am doing the thing well or ill; my only guide (and it once was a safe one) is the pleasure I feel in the writing, and this though I am in no small bodily pain, and cannot get one night’s rest in four—a great drawback to a poor devil whose stronghold was sleep through everything!

“Do write to me. I cannot tell you the amount of direction and comfort your letters give me.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 30, 1870.

“I am disappointed on hearing that M’Caskey does not appear this month, and perhaps more so because I concur in the reasons for the postponement. I suppose, however, that once the great tension we now feel about these events is relieved, even by a short interval, we shall not be reprehended for the small levities which we extend to certain people and situations, by no means among the most serious interests of the hour.

“Of course I am sorry not to be in England at this time. There is scarcely a telegram of the day without its suggestion; but I have less regrets as I think how feeble and broken I am, and how low and depressed I feel, even at the tidings that might rally and cheer me.

“I am greatly gratified by your message from Mrs Oliphant, and I shall treasure a book from her hand as a very precious possession. She is a charming writer, and carries me along with her in all her sympathies; and I shall never forget the pleasure her books gave to the sick-bed wherein all my hopes rested.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Oct. 22, 1870.

“As I am fairly knocked up at last—my malady making fierce way with me within the last week or so—I send you what I have done of M’Caskey. You will see that I have adhered to the actual incidents of the campaign, though I fear I have not been remarkable for a truthful construction of them. When I see this in print, and hear what you say of it, I shall be better able, and perhaps stronger, to deal with it.

“From four o’clock I cannot sleep with pain, and to a sea-calf like myself, who requires about a double measure of sleep, you may imagine the injury.

“The ladies’ wardrobe seized at Worth is a pure fact, and mentioned by ‘The Times,’ &c.

“If I could have counted on a little health and strength, I’d have asked you to let me translate the plays of Terence for your Ancient Classics. I have some trick of dialogue, and used to enjoy the ‘Adrian’ as much as one of MoliÈre’s. I cannot now dream of this: my own comedy has come to the fifth act, and I actually am impatient for the fall of the curtain.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Nov. 8,1870.

“From a line in a newspaper I learned the great disaster that had befallen you, and felt for you with all my heart. It is a true consolation, the thought that those we love are in every way more mercifully dealt with by removal, and I have that feeling as the stronghold of my own poor support—after years of struggle with what could not be cured; but still the grief is there, and only time makes us able to reason with it. I am shamed when I read your letters to perceive how much I must have talked of my own health. I try at home to skulk the subject, but I see I am not so successful when I sit down to my desk. I am failing very fast, strength and spirits are going together, and I really see no reason to wish it otherwise. I only pray that with such faculties as I have I may live on to the end, and that the end may not be far off. My dear girls are doing all that they can think of to make my life easy and comfortable, and when I am free from pain I try to occupy myself and take interest in what I am doing.

“I had intended to wait your proof before sending a short additional part of M’Caskey, but if I have it ready, I believe I shall send it at once. Of course the proof will depend on you. I strongly suspect that Bismarck was endeavouring to get up a querelle d’Allemand with us about neutrality, which certainly carried the nation with him, and might be found useful when, at the close of the war, he either determined to take Luxembourg or assume towards England a defiance—which, without some pretext, would have been impolitic, if not impossible. He has certainly so far worked on the German mind as to make them regard the splendid munificence of England with distrust and almost dislike. With all this, it was a gross stupidity of the Tories to be French in their sympathies, but certainly the readiness with which they made a wrong choice where there is an alternative looks like something more than German.

“It does seem scant justice to make a whole people responsible for the inflated rubbish of Victor Hugo, but still, any one that knows France, knows that this senseless bravado is exactly what supplies the peculiar spirit of the nation, and that nearly all that dash and Élan which is accepted as irresistible was only unconquerable by our own consent, and by a sort of conventional agreement.

“I think I remember Mr Wynne, a nice fellow, but an atrocious whist player. I have some dim recollection of having abused his play, and I hope he has lived to forgive me and can bear to think of me without malice.

“I wish I had had his campaigning opportunities,—not that I have the most fragmentary faculty of observation, but there is a colour and a keeping over all that one calls up in memory, which nothing replaces, and certainly Major M’Caskey would have been not only ‘circumstantial’ but occasionally ‘correct’ if he had known how. I thought I was imagining a very boastful and pretentious rascal, who had few scruples in assuring himself to be a man of genius and a hero, but I have just read the new preface to ‘Lothair,’ and I actually feel Major M’Caskey to be a diffident and retiring character, very slow to put forward a claim to any superiority, and on the whole reluctant to take any credit for his own abilities.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Nov. 11, 1870.

“While waiting for the proof of M’C. I finish the part for December. I now suspect that the war will go on to an attack on Paris, and mean to bring the next No. up to the actual events of the day. It is only by exhibiting him as an audacious liar that his impertinences on the correspondent class could be tolerated, but they will surely not be touchy at being called to account by such a critic.

“The Imperial correspondence now published shows it is scarcely possible to invent anything too bold or too outrageous for belief, and the absolute vulgarity of the State contrivances and expedients is not the least remarkable part of the whole. If I ever get to the diplomacies of the war I shall have some fun.

“Of course the present part must look to yourself for correction.

“‘The Observer’ has a short notice of M’C. this week, and ‘The Sun’ another and more civil.

“Have you seen that the Emperor in his pamphlet endorses the very strategy recommended by M’Caskey—the attack on Central Germany?”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Nov. 14.

“It is not fair to pelt you with my ‘letters’ as well as my ‘literature,’ and you may reasonably claim some immunity on the former score.

“I remember a very important Englishwoman—she wrote a book called ‘The Unprotected Female in Norway’—once stopping me in the street on the ground that ‘no introduction was necessary, as I was a public man.’

“I send you back M’C, which reads in places so like reality; but on the whole I think it will do, and hope you think so too.

“Sir H. Seymour writes me word that he believes he is going to succeed to Lord Hertford’s Irish estates, a bagatelle of £70,000 per an.! I know of none more deserving of good fortune.

“‘John’ reached me after my note was closed, with a charming note from Mrs O.

“Have you heard—that is, have I told you—that the ‘Neue Presse of Vienna’ quotes M’Caskey as a veritable correspondent? But the General Brialmont did more. In his ‘Life of Napoleon’ he states, ‘Mon. Charles O’Malley raconte que,’ &c, &c.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Nov. 20, 1870.

“There is a new complication, and for us I suspect a worse one than all—a Russian war! I believe that every one abroad knew that if even France had not the worst of it, the mere fact of her having gone through a stiff campaign, and been crippled of men and money by the effort, would have suggested to the Russians that now was the time to deal with ‘the sick man.’ The inducement on seeing France totally disabled was too tempting, and they have denounced the treaty which they had determined not to assail before next spring.

“You know better than I do what people at home are disposed to do, and what’s more, what they can do. By the newspapers I gather that at last the English people are aware that they have no army; and as a fleet, even if it floats, cannot fight on dry land, we are comparatively powerless in ourselves. Of course we could subsidise, but whom? Not the Austrians, though I see all the correspondents say so, and even tell the number they could bring into the field and the places they would occupy, &c.: and our Ambassador at Vienna, I hear, writes home most cheery accounts of the Austrian resources. Now I know that if Austria were to move to-morrow, her Slavic population, quite entirely in the hands and some in the pay of Russia, would rise and dismember the empire. Imagine Fenianism not only in Meath and Kerry but in Norfolk, Yorkshire, and Kent, and then you can have some idea of the danger of provoking such a rebellious element as the Austrian Greek.

“A friend just arrived from Florence tells me that the King made an ostentatious display of his cordiality to the Turkish Minister a few nights ago, and that we can have 150,000 Italians to come down to such assistance. Perhaps to accept the help might be regarded as a compromise by the Peace party in England. It is like the very small child of the unchaste young lady.

“A Cabinet courier went through here to-day for Constantinople, the Danube route being judged no longer safe, which is very significant: but what are we to do?

“Have you reviewed Henry Bulwer’s ‘Life of Palmerston’? I hear it very well spoken of. Bulwer has all the astuteness to relish the raserie of Pam, and I understand what the world at last sees was his mock geniality. But what would we not give to have Lord Palmerston back again, and some small respect felt abroad for the sentiment and wishes of England!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Dec. 4,1870.

“I am so convinced of your better judgment, that when I differ from you I am ready to withdraw a favour and take your verdict. In the present case you will, however, see that ‘Pall Mall’ of the 29th has ventured on ‘quizzing’ war incidents and correspondents as freely, and I don’t think more successfully, than myself.

“At all events, you are the only competent judge of the matter, and I can’t move pleas in demurrer, and if it be not safe, don’t print him or use him.

“I only write a very hurried line to say so much, and now go back to a sofa again, for I am crippled with gout and worse—if there be a worse.

“I am not up to writing: the last thing I had done was an ‘interview’ of M’C. with the Emperor at Metz, and it is dangerously near the waste-paper basket at this writing.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Dec. 22, 1870.

“I am so low and dÉcouragÉ that I have little heart to send you the two O’Ds. that go with this.

“The Gortschakoff one is, I think, smart; the other is only original. If the world should offer, meanwhile, matter for a third, I’ll try and take it
Toute fois if it be that you like and approve of these.

“I am going more rapidly downward than before. I suppose I shall run on to spring, or near it. Though, like Thompson’s argument for lying in bed, ‘I see no motive for rising,’ I am quite satisfied to travel in the other direction.

“I don’t wonder that the British world is growing French in sympathy. The Prussians are doing their very utmost to disgust Europe, and with a success that cannot be disputed.

“I hope, if you in England mean war with Russia, that you do not count on Austria. She will not, because she cannot, help you; and a Russian war would mean here dismemberment of the empire and utter ruin. If Austria were beaten, the German provinces would become Prussian; if she were victorious, Hungary would dominate over the empire and take the supremacy at once. Which would be worse? I really cannot say.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Dec 29,1870.

“I give you all my thanks for your kind letter, which, owing to the deep snow in Styria, only reached me to-day. I am, of course, sorry the world will not see the fun of M’Caskey as do the Levers, but it is no small consideration to me to be represented in that minority so favourably.

“Poor Anster used to tell of an Irish fortune so ‘tied up’ by law that it could not be untied, and left the heirs to die in the poorhouse. Perhaps my drollery in the M’Caskey legend is just as ingeniously wrapped up, and that nothing can find it. At all events, I have no courage to send you any more of him.

“I am told (authoritatively) that Paris will give in on the 15th January, but I scarcely believe it. The Germans have perfectly succeeded in making themselves thoroughly unpopular through Europe, and this mock anger with England is simply contemptible. If this insolence compels us to have a fleet and an army, we shall have more reason to be grateful to than angry with them; but how hard either with Childers or Cardwell? and how to get rid of the Whigs?

“Gladstone’s letter to the Pope would be a good subject to ‘O’Dowd,’ but I cannot yet hit on the way. It is, however, a little absurd for a Minister to be so free of his outlying sympathies when he is bullied by America, bearded by Russia, and Bismarcked to all eternity.

“I am glad to hear of Oliphant. It gives great interest to the correspondence to remember a friend’s hand in it.

“I have been always forgetting to ask you about Kinglake. A bishop who came through here said he had died last autumn. Surely this is not true. I hope not most sincerely.”