“I am glad you like the O’D. on ‘Tuft-hunting.’ Of course you saw I had Whately and his tail in my eye. They were the most shameless dogs I ever forgathered with. “Do let me hear from you about T. B. soon. You may depend on’t that Corney O’Dowd’s sins will be visited on Tony, and the fellows who would not dare to come out into the open and have a ‘fall’ with Tony will shy their stone at him now. “Why have you not reprinted in a vol. the ‘Maxims of Morgan O’Doherty’? They are unequalled in their way. “By this you will have received the O’D. on ‘Wolff going into Parliament’ and a score more _sui generis_. “I have composed three openings of the new story, and nearly driven my family distracted by my changes of plan; but I am not on the right road yet. However, I hope to be hard at it next week. “Is the ‘P. M. Gazette’ to be the organ of the Party or is it a private spec? When I only think of the Tories of my acquaintance it is not any surprise to me that the Party is not a power; though I certainly feel if they were there and not kicked out again it would go far to prove a miracle. Are these your experiences?” _To Mr John Blackwood_. “Villa Morelli, _Jan_. 24, 1865. “You are such a good fellow that you can give even bad news a colour of comfort; but it is bad news, this of ‘Tony,’ and has caught me like a strong blow between the eyes. Surely in this _gurgite vasto_ of [ ] and sensuality there ought to be some hearing for a man who would give his experiences of life uncharged with exaggerations, or unspiced by capital offences. “I am sure a notice of ‘The Times,’ if it could be, would get the book a fair trial, and I neither ask nor have a right to more. Meanwhile I am what Mrs O’Dowd calls ‘several degrees below Nero.’ “I began my new story yesterday, but I’ll wait till I hear more cheery news before I take to my (ink) bottle again. “You’ll have to look sharp for blunders in the last O’D. “It almost puts me in spirits to talk of the theatricals. It is my veritable passion, and I plume myself upon my actorship. I have had plays in nearly every house I have lived in, in all parts of Europe. Mary Boyle--that was Dickens’s _prima donna_--was of my training; her infant steps (she was five-and-thirty at the time) were first led by me; and I remember holding a ladder for her while she sang a love-song out of a window, and (trying to study my own part at the same time) I set fire to her petticoats!