Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 4

During the first fourteen or fifteen years of Lever's residence in Florence, Italy had been in the melting-pot. The Tuscan Revolution of 1848, the defeat of the Sardinians, and the abdication of Carlo Alberto in the following year, the earlier struggle of Garibaldi, the long series of troubles with Austria (ending in the defeat of the Austrians), feuds with the Papal States, insurrections in Sicily, the overthrow of the Pope's government, the Neapolitan war, and, to crown all, triumphant brigandage, had made things lively for dwellers in Italy.

The recognition by the Powers of Victor Emanuel as king of United Italy promised, early in 1862, a period of rest; but the expectations of peace-lovers were shattered, for the moment, by Garibaldi's threatened march upon Rome. His defeat, his imprisonment in the fortress of Varignano, and his release, inspired hopes, well-founded, of the conclusion of the struggles (largely internecine) which had convulsed New Italy. Upon Garibaldi's release Lever naturally sought out his distinguished Spezzian neighbour, and one morning he had the pleasure of entertaining him at breakfast. It was said that the British Minister at Florence was eager that the Italian patriot should be disabused of the favourable impressions he was supposed to entertain of the Irish revolutionary movement. The Vice-Consul at Spezzia found it necessary to explain to his guest that any overt expressions or acts of sympathy with Fenianism would be certain to alienate English sympathies. Garibaldi seemed to be somewhat surprised at this. He looked on England as a nation eager to applaud any patriotic or revolutionary movement. Lever is said--the authority is Major Dwyer--to have been unable to comprehend how a man so ignorant and childish as Garibaldi could have attained such vast influence over a people, and could have won such general renown.

In his statements about his friend's literary work or literary opinions, Major Dwyer is not a thoroughly safe guide. He had a weakness for patronising Lever, for declaring that he said or thought this or that-- usually something which coincided with the Major's own opinion, and which showed the novelist at a disadvantage. Dwyer's conviction was that Lever the talker* was better than Lever the writer, and that Lever the man was infinitely superior to both. Possibly the vice-consul was amused at the simplicity of Garibaldi when Anglo-Irish affairs were under discussion. Anyhow, it is much more likely that Cornelius O'Dowd's true impressions are recorded in an article which he contributed to 'Blackwood's Magazine.' "It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified than the man," writes Lever--"his n.o.ble head; his clever honest brown eyes; his finely-traced mouth, beautiful as a woman's, and only strung up to sternness when anything ign.o.ble has outraged him; and, last of all, his voice contains a fascination perfectly irresistible, allied as you knew and felt these graces were with a thoroughly pure and untarnished nature." While the Italian patriot lay wounded at Spezzia, Lever managed to get a photograph taken of him. The photograph (a copy of which he sent to Edinburgh) represents Garibaldi in bed, his red s.h.i.+rt enveloping him. Mrs Blackwood Porter, in the third volume of 'The House of Blackwood,' relates a most amusing anecdote of a situation arising out of the embarra.s.sing attentions of sympathisers who would persist in visiting the invalid. Lever's sketch in 'Maga' evoked from John Blackwood a very interesting letter.

* The Major, amongst the many reminiscences of his friend confided to Dr Fitzpatrick, tells a tale of this period which shows that Lever, with all his tact, could occasionally allow temper to master discretion. A personage holding a high diplomatic post (which he had obtained notoriously through influence) said to Lever at some social gathering: "Your appointment is a sinecure, is it not?"

"Not altogether," answered the consul. "But you are consul at Spezzia, and you live altogether at Florence," persisted the personage. "You got the post, I suppose, on account of your novels." "Yes, sir," replied Lever tartly, "I got the post in compliment to my brains: you got yours in compliment to your relatives."--E. D.

_From Mr John Blackwood._

"_April_ 27, 1864.

"I am particularly obliged to you for the prompt.i.tude with which you did the bit about Garibaldi. It is, I think, the best thing that has been written about the General, and I hope he is worthy of it. You will see that the Garibaldi fever has been cut short, so that I shall have no opportunity of using the note of introduction you so kindly sent, but I am equally obliged. Fergusson (Sir William), the surgeon, is a very intimate friend and old ally of mine, and I have no doubt he has given genuine and sound advice. Garibaldi would doubtless have had innumerable invitations to No. 9 Piccadilly, and I hope the hero has not damaged himself. I have half a mind to write this joke to Fergusson, and call for an explicit statement of the hero's health. Seriously, he is well away at the present crisis, and we are making sufficient fools of ourselves without this wild outbreak of hero-wors.h.i.+p....

"Laurence Oliphant stayed with us for three days, and we had a 'fine time.' I never saw such a fellow for knowing people, pulling the wires, and being in the thick of it always. He is hand-and-glove with half the potentates and conspirators in Europe. Skeffy in his wildest flights is a joke to him. There is, however, no humbug about Oliphant; he is a good fellow and a good friend. He talked much of the pleasant days he had pa.s.sed with you, and begged particularly to be remembered to you all.

Knowing I could trust him, I told him the secret, the importance of keeping which he fully appreciated, and will a.s.sist in throwing people off the scent, which 'O'Dowd' will, I think, put a good many upon.

There have been surmises in the papers, but surmises are nothing. How is 'Tony' getting on, and the new 'O'Dowd'? I wish, indeed, we had come across each other in earlier life; but it is no use your talking of being seedy,--you are evidently as fresh as paint, and never wrote better, if so well."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Casa Capponi, Florence, _May_ 5, 1864.

"I have just got home and found your note and its enclosed cheque. Why this should be so large I have no idea nor any means of guessing, for the Mag. has not yet arrived. You are right about the 'Devil,' but he alone knows when and how I shall be in the vein to go on with his experiences. I had to come back here hurriedly, which requires my returning to Spezzia in a day or so, a sad interruption to work, and coming awkwardly too, as I am driven to change my house,--the old jaillike palace I have lived in for fifteen years has just been bought by Government, and I am driven to a villa at some distance from Florence--a small little crib nicely placed in a bit of Apennine scenery, and quiet enough for much writing.

"I entirely agree with all you say of Oliphant: he is an able fellow, and a good fellow; and there is no _blague_ whatever in his talking familiarly of 'swells,' for he has lived, and does live, much in their intimacy. He is not popular with the 'Diplos.' nor F. O., but the chief, if not only, reason is, that he is a far cleverer fellow than most of them, and has had the great misfortune of having shown this to the world.

"I want much to be at 'Tony' again, but it will be some three or four days before I can settle down to work. When I have dashed off enough to send I will, even though not enough for a number.

"I see by 'The Telegraph' that the fleet is to go to the Baltic, but not for more than a demonstration. Does not this remind you of the Bishop of Exeter's compromise about the candles on the altar, 'That they might be there, but _not_ lighted.' I believe, as a nation, we are the greatest humbugs in Europe; and, without intending it, the most illogical and inconsequent people the world ever saw.

"I hope your little people are all well again and over the measles and in the country with you, and that you are all as happy as I wish you.

"Supply the date of the Reform Bill for me in the 'New Hansard.'"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Casa Capponi, Florence, _May_ 10, 1864.

"Herewith go three chapters of 'Tony.' With the best will in the world there are days when our dinners go off ill, our sherry is acrid, our _entrees_ cold, and our jests vapid. Heaven grant (but I have my misgivings) that some such fatality may not be over these 'Tonys.' My home committee likes them better than I do; I pray heartily that _you_ be of _this_ mind.

"I shall be fretful and anxious till I hear from you about T. B., but I go off to-morrow to Spezzia, and not to be back till Wednesday the 18th,--all Consular, all Bottomry, all Official for eight mortal days, but

"Of course I must show to the office 'I'm here,'

And draw with good conscience two hundred a-year.

I'd save fifty more, but of _that_ I am rid well By the agency charges of Allston and Bidwell."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _May_ 15,1864.

"More power to you! as we say in Ireland, for your pleasant letter.

I have got it, and I send you an O'D. I think you will like on 'Our Masterly Inactivity,' and another on 'Our Pensions for Colonial Governors.'

"As to next month's O'D., I don't know what will turn up; but [I am]

like poor old Drury--the clergyman at Brussels--whose profound reliance on Providence once so touched an English lady that it moved her to tears. 'He uttered,' said she--telling the story to Sir H. Seymour, who told it to me--'he uttered one of the most beautiful sentiments I ever heard from the lips of a Christian: "When I have dined heartily and well, and drunk my little bottle of light Bordeaux, Mrs S.," said he, "where Mrs Drury or the children are to get _their_ supper to-night or their breakfast to-morrow, I vow to G.o.d I don't know, _and I don't care_."' Now if that be not as sweet a little bit of hopeful trust in manna from heaven as one could ask for, I'm a Dutchman, and I lay it to my heart that somehow, somewhere, O'Dowderies will turn up for July as they have done for June, for I shall certainly need them. You will have had T. B. before this. I see you are stopping at my old 'Gite,' the Burlington, my hotel ever since I knew London. There was an old waiter there, Foster,--I remember him nigh thirty years,--who exercised towards me a sort of parental charge, and rebuked my occasional late hours and the light companions who laughed overmuch at breakfast with me in the coffee-room. If he is _in vivente_, remember me to him."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _May_ 16,1864.

"I have just had your note, and am relieved to find that I have not lost the 'Colonial Governors,' which I feared I had. I have added a page to it. I have re-read it carefully, but I don't think it radical. Heaven knows, I have nothing of the Radical about me but the poverty. At all events, a certain width of opinion and semi-recklessness as to who or what he kicks does not ill become O'D.., whose motto, if we make a book of him, I mean to be 'Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur,'--

"I care not a fig For Tory or Whig, But sit in a bowl and kick round me.

"Though the paper I sent yesterday on 'Our Masterly Inactivity' would be very apropos at this juncture, there will scarcely be time to see a proof of it, seeing that it could not be here before this day week.

If you cannot revise it yourself, it will be better perhaps to hold it back, though I feel the moment of its 'opportunity' may pa.s.s. Do what you think best. My corrections of the proof I send off now will have to be closely looked to, and the MS. is to come in between the last paragraph and the part above it."

_To Mr John Blackwood,_

"Villa Morelli, _June_ 7, 1864.

"We got into our little villa yesterday (it would not be little out of Italy, for we have seven salons), and are very pleased with it. We are only a mile from Florence, and have glorious views of the city and the Val d'Arno on every side.

"The moving has, however, addled my head awfully; indeed, after all had quitted the old Casa Capponi, a grey cat and myself were found wandering about the deserted rooms, not realising the change of domicile. What it can be that I cling to in my old room of the Capponi I don't know (except a hole in the carpet perhaps), but certainly I do not feel myself in writing vein in my new home....

"I hear strange stories of disagreements amongst the Conservatives, and threats of splits and divi-sions. Are they well founded, think you?

The social severance of the party, composed as it is of men who never a.s.sociated freely together, as the Whigs did and do, is a great evil.

Indeed I think the ties of our party are weaker than in the days when men dined more together.

"When C. leaders, some years back, offered to put me at the head of a Conservative Press, I said this. Lord Eglinton and Lord Naas were of my mind, but the others shrugged their shoulders as though to say the world was not as it used to be. Now I don't believe _that_."

_To Dr Burbidge._

"Florence, _Thursday_, [? June] 1864.

"I have taken a villa--a cottage in reality, but dear enough,--the only advantage being that it _looks_ modest; and just as some folk carry a silver snuff-box made to look like tin, I may hope to be deemed a millionaire affecting simplicity."