DICKENS, CHARLES. AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED, TO JAMES STANSFELD

1 1/2 pages (8 3/4 x 7 1/16 in.; 222 x 180 mm) on light blue paper, single sheet folded, written recto and verso in blue ink. Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, 26 August 1849, signed ("Charles Dickens"), with envelope addressed in Dickens's hand. 

The Letters of Charles Dickens, Storey and Fielding (editors), V: 599-600

The present letter was written to James Stansfeld, who began his career as a solicitor, and then became a member of Parliament, devoting most of his energy to promoting the cause of Italian unity.  "My Dear Sir," Dickens writes, "I can have no objection to the alterations you propose to make in the address.  There are two more, equally slight, which I should like to make. For the phrase "almost as new in Rome as Rome is old," I would like to substitute "New in Rome"[.]"  The most notable change that was made in the address was the substitution of "the French Government" for "France" in the statement that the French arm had encircled Rome by means of "an act of such surreptitious baseness that it will remain that is will remain an ineffaceable stain upon the honour and the name of France, through all the coming ages of the world."