in you is that which I have heard many a servile coward who could never go and do likewise” [no indication is to be found either in this letter or elsewhere to whom she alludes], “select for the same purpose, namely, your straightforward, unflinching, courageous integrity....  Balzac is furious at having his new play suppressed by Thiers, in which Arnauld acted Louis Philippe, wig and all, to the life; but, as I said to M. Dupin, ’Cest tout naturel que M. Thiers ne permetterait a personne de jouer Louis Philippe que lui-meme.’ ...  There is a wonderful pointer here that has been advertised for sale for twelve hundred francs.  A friend of mine went to see him, and after mounting up to a little garret about the size of a chessboard, au vingt-septieme, he interrogated the owner as to the dog’s education and acquirements, to which the man replied, ’Pour ca, monsieur, c’est un chien parfait.  Je lui ai tout appris moi-meme dans ma chambre’[1] After this my friend did not sing ‘Together let us range the fields!’ ...  Last week I met Colonel Potter M’Queen, who was warm in his praises of you, and the great good your Michael Armstrong” (the factory story) “had done....  Last Thursday despatches arrived and Lord Granville had to start for London at a moment’s notice.  I was in hopes this beastly ministry were out!  But no such luck!  For they are a compound of glue, sticking-plaister, wax, and vice—­the most adhesive of all known mixtures.”

[Footnote 1:  “As for that, sir, the dog is perfect.  I have myself taught him everything in my own room!”]

Before concluding my recollections of Rosina, Lady Lytton Bulwer, I think it right to say that I consider myself to have perfectly sufficient grounds for feeling certain that the whispers which were circulated in a cowardly and malignant fashion against the correctness of her conduct as a woman were wholly unfounded.  Her failings and tendency to failings lay in a quite different direction.  I knew perfectly well the person whose name was mentioned scandalously in connection with hers, and knew the whole history of the relationship that existed between them.  The gentleman in question was for years Lady Bulwer’s constant and steadfast friend.  It is quite true that he would fain have been something more, but true also that his friendship survived the absolute rejection of all warmer sentiments by the object of it.  It was almost a matter of course that such a woman as Lady Bulwer, living unprotected in the midst of such a society as that of Florence in those days, should be so slandered.  And were it not that there were very few if any persons at the time, and I think certainly not one still left, able to speak upon the subject with such connaissance de cause as I can, I should not have alluded to it.

She was an admirably charming companion before the footlights of the world’s stage—­not so uniformly charming behind its scenes, for her unreasonableness always and her occasional violence were very difficult to deal with.  But she was, as Dickens’s poor Jo says in Bleak House, “werry good to me!”