“I have just received your cheques, and thank you much for your promptitude. You certainly ‘know my necessities before I ask.’ “I cannot tell you the pleasure, the complete relief, it is to me to deal with a gentleman; and the cordial tone of our relations has done more for me than I thought anything _now_ could, to rally and cheer me. “I have been so long swimming with a stone round my neck, that I almost begin to wish I could go down and have it all over. You have rallied me out of this, and I frankly tell you it’s your hearty God-speed has enabled me to make this last effort. “Aytoun’s ‘Banting’ is admirable. Mine is poor stuff after it: indeed, I’d not have done it if I’d thought he had it in hand. In one or two points we hit the same blot, but _his_ blow is stronger and better than mine. Don’t print me, therefore, if you don’t like. “Before this you will have received L. B., and I hope to hear from you about it. The address of this will show that my poor wife is no better, and that I cannot leave her. “Gregory, the M.P. for Galway, is here, and it was meeting him suggested my hit at the lukewarm Conservatives. We fight every evening about politics. I wish to Heaven I could have the floor of the House to do it on, and no heavier adversary to engage.... “Henry Wolff is here full of great financial schemes,--director of Heaven knows what railroads, and secretary to an infinity of companies. He dined with me yesterday, and I’m sure I’d O’Dowd him. He means to pass the winter here. He pressed me hard about ‘Tony,’ and I lied like an envoy extracting a denial.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 9, 1864 “All the railroads are smashed, and Spezzia is now, I understand, on an island, where I certainly shall not go to look for it. Here I am, therefore, till the floods subside. “I knew you would like the O’Ds. I believe they are the best of the batch, but don’t be afraid for ‘Tony.’ I have a fit of the gout on me that exactly keeps me up to the O’D. level; and I have one in my head for Father Ignatius that, if I only can write as I see it, will certainly hit. If Skeff is not brave it is no fault of mine. Why the devil did Wolff come and sit for his picture when I was just finishing the portrait from memory? “The reason L. N. hated Dickson was: he (D------) was an awful skinflint, and disgusted all us ‘youth.’ who were rather jolly, and went the pace pretty briskly. “D. is not the [? ] of the Faculty man, but a fellow who was once Professor of Botany (in Edinburgh, I think). He once made me a visit at my father’s, but I never liked him. “I must not O’D. L. N., because one day or other, if I live, I shall jot down some personal recollections of my own,--and, besides, I would not give in a way that might be deemed fictitious what I will declare as _fact_.