Speranza[1] committed a task to me which led me in the end into an awkward position. The editor of Bonn's Library was publishing a volume of translations from Schiller, and she wished me to offer a translation of "Love and Cabal," which she had written, to Mr. Bohn for the purpose. I gave the MS. to him accordingly, and he promised to consider it and communicate with her. After a time she informed me that she could get no answer of any sort from him, that the volume was published, and finally that she found her poem in it under his own name, with some altogether trifling alterations. I called on Mr. Bohn for an explanation, and only met a great deal of vehement wrath, and an absolute denial that he had used any of her poem. I then asked him to return the MS., but I did not succeed in getting it back. I can say no more of this transaction from my own knowledge, but I have never doubted that Speranza's statements were strictly accurate. These last days in the House of Commons were depressed by the constant recollection of the great experiment which had been baffled and defeated; but I was determined not to be utterly subdued by fortune. I was still under forty, in reasonably good health, and
"My quiver still held many purposes."
- ↑ Lady Wilde.
