“As to writing here I need only say that it costs me a small apoplexy to perform the present note. The railroad screams under my window, and two Miss Somervilles are sol-faing overhead (and I vow to Heaven I like the locomotive best), and I have a telegram to say that the admiral may be here any day after the 17th, and stay as long as he finds it pleasant,--a condition which (if I know myself) will not entail any undue delay.” _To Mr John Blackwood_. “Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 13, 1865. “Your note came on here to-day, the enclosure stayed at Florence. What cruel inspiration suggested your thoughtful kindness? I left home declaring that I was ruined, had overdrawn you, and had not a _sou_ for anything; that we must live on roots and drink water till next spring: and now my beautiful budget, that I have just carried at the risk of the Government, is all gone and smashed. “You (fortunately for you) don’t know that all these things are very great things to people who are always swimming for their lives,--but enough of it. “I have been exceedingly busy since I came here. An order of the Queen’s Bench named me a Commissioner to take evidence in a case coming on for trial next November, and I have been sitting up--like a Brummagem Chief-Justice--and rebuking witnesses, and scowling at the public like a real judge. “I send a few lines to complete O’D. for the month. How I wrote them I don’t know, for this infernal place is so noisy, and the interruptions so frequent, I’d fain be back in Brook Street for quiet. “I fear I shall be detained here all this month, for the admiral is on his way here, and the whole Maltese fleet are thirsting for bitter beer and champagne. I wonder if I were to put down their powers of suction in my extraordinaries would F. O. stand it?” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 15, 1865. “I send off O’D. proof to-night. I last night sent by private hand some pages to conclude it. Do look very carefully to both; my orthography (like Acre’s courage) oozes out of my finger-ends in this hot weather. “I have had a two hours’ swim, and am so sleepy and ‘water-logged’ that I can’t write, though I’m dying to O’Dowd the judge for his remarks on Dr Paterson in the Pritchard case. They are so ignorant, and so vulgar to boot. “If every doctor who _suspected_ foul play in the treatment of malady was to cry out Murder! the whole world would be one wild shout of assassination. What between medical timidity, terror, _gobemoucherie_, and sometimes private malice, the police-courts would have enough on their hands. They say railroads must have no signals because pusillanimous travellers would be eternally summoning the guard, and here is exactly a similar evil with worse consequences.