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Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. I

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Title: Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. I

Author: Charles Lever

Editor: Edmund Downey


        
Release date: April 13, 2011 [eBook #35864]
                Most recently updated: September 4, 2016

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLES LEVER, HIS LIFE IN HIS LETTERS, VOL. I ***




Produced by David Widger





CHARLES LEVER

His Life in His Letters

By Edmund Downey

With Portraits

In Two Volumes, Vol. I.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MCMVI


To The Memory of JOHN BLACKWOOD,

a Member of a House whose transactions with Charles Lever are an
object-lesson in the relations which may exist between Author and
Publisher.




PREFACE.

When Charles Lever died (in 1872), his daughters were anxious that
his biography should be written by Major Frank Dwyer, but Dwyer was
unwilling to undertake the task, and Dr W. J. Fitzpatrick volunteered
his services.

In 1896 I asked Mrs Nevill, the novelist’s eldest daughter, if she would
be willing to furnish a new biography of her father. In replying to
me, Mrs Nevill said that although she felt “most intensely the utter
inefficiency of Mr Fitzpatrick’s ‘Life,’” she feared her health would
not permit her to undertake a task so serious as the one I proposed,
but she would willingly give me any help in her power either for a new
biography or for a revised edition of the existing ‘Life.’

Mrs Nevill died, somewhat suddenly, in 1897, and, so far as I could
ascertain, she left no material for a new or for a revised biography of
her father. Shortly after her death I obtained from Mr Crafton Smith--a
son-in-law of Charles Lever--a collection of letters written by
the novelist. Amongst this collection was a series (addressed to Mr
Alexander Spencer, a lifelong friend of the author of ‘Harry Lorrequer,’
residing in Dublin) covering, practically, the whole period of the
novelist’s literary career. Other letters written by Lever to his
friends also came into my hands; and last year Mr William Blackwood
was good enough to place at my disposal Lever’s correspondence with the
House of Blackwood during the years 1863-1872.

After due consideration, it seemed to me that a Life of Lever wrought
out of his letters and other autobiographical material would present the
man and the story-writer in a more intimate and pleasing light than the
picture which is furnished by Dr Fitzpatrick. In the present work I
have endeavoured to let Charles Lever speak for himself whenever it is
possible to find authentic utterances. Incidentally many errors into
which Dr Fitzpatrick had fallen are corrected, but I am not making
any attempt to supersede his painstaking, voluminous, and interesting
biography. Dr Fitzpatrick declares that his book “largely embraces the
earlier period of Lever’s life”; the present work deals mainly with his
literary life, and contains, especially in the second volume, fresh
and illuminating material which was not disclosed to Lever’s previous
biographer, and which affords an intimate view of the novelist as he saw
himself and his work.

I am indebted to Mr Crafton Smith for the series of letters addressed
to Alexander Spencer, and for other letters and documents; to Mr T.
W. Spencer for his permission to use certain letters in his possession
addressed to Dr Burbidge; to Mr James Holt for letters written by
Charles Lever’s father; and to Mrs Blackwood Porter and Mr William
Blackwood for the letters written to Mr John Blackwood. Also I have to
thank Messrs T. and A. Constable for their permission to avail myself of
the autobiographical prefaces which Lever wrote during the last year of
his life.

EDMUND DOWNEY.

London, 1906.





CHARLES LEVER: HIS LIFE IN HIS LETTERS.




I. EARLY DAYS 1806-1828

With that heroic heedlessness which distinguished him throughout his
career, Charles Lever allowed ‘Men of the Time’ to state that he was
born in 1809. The late W. J. Fitzpatrick, when he was engaged (thirty
years ago) upon his biography of Lever, found it difficult to obtain
accurate information concerning the birth-date of the Irish novelist.
The records of his parish church--St Thomas’s, Dublin--were searched
unavailingly. Finally Dr Fitzpatrick decided to pin his faith to a
mortgage-deed (preserved in the Registry Office, Dublin), in which it is
set forth that certain “premises”--a dwelling-house, outhouses, yard,
and garden--situated at North Strand* are leased of 1802 to James Lever
for the term of his life and the lives of his sons, John, aged thirteen
years, and Charles James, aged three years.

     * Dr Fitzpatrick, in his ‘Life of Lever,’ declares that the
     name “North Strand” was changed to “Amiens Street” after the
     treaty.

     A correspondent points out to me that, according to maps of
     Dublin published in 1800, the street was then called Amiens
     Street, and that it derived its name from Viscount Amiens,
     minor title of the Earl of Aldborough, who built Aldborough
     House in the neighbourhood.--E. D.

This is dated 1809. Apart from this deed, however, there are in
existence letters written by James Lever which fix the year 1806 as
being the birth-date of his younger son. The day and the month are of
comparatively little importance, but it is interesting to note that here
also is there cloudiness. Dr Fitzpatrick was satisfied that the 31st of
August was the day. For this he had the authority of Charles Lever
himself: in one of his moments of depression he expressed a wish that
August had only thirty days; he would then have been saved from the wear
and tear of an anxious life. But James Lever speaks of September as
being the month in which his famous son was born; and in 1864 the
novelist, writing on the 2nd of September, says that his
birthday--presumably the previous day--“passed over without any fresh
disaster.” Possibly there may have been a dispute in the family circle
as to the exact hour,--the birth may have occurred “upon the midnight.”

The year of Charles Lever’s birth is unquestionably 1806; the place, No.
35 Amiens Street (formerly North Strand), Dublin.* The house in which he
was born was subsequently converted into a shop. At the suggestion of Dr
Fitzpatrick, a tablet was inserted in the front wall of this building,
bearing the name and the dates of the birth and death of Charles James
Lever.* Recently, in making railway extensions in the neighbourhood, the
house was demolished. A railway bridge spans Amiens Street at the place
where No. 35 was situated.

     * ‘The Irish Builder’ published in 1891 a long letter from a
     correspondent who professed to have been a companion of
     Charles Lever. It is mentioned here only to point to the
     peculiar mistiness which obscures many important facts in
     the early life of a man whose father was a popular and
     prosperous citizen of Dublin, and who was himself one of the
     best known of the men who nourished in the Irish capital
     about half a century ago.--E. D.

In this letter it is asserted that the author of ‘Harry Lorrequer’ was
born in Mulberry Lodge, Philipsburgh Lane, but the communication, while
chronicling some undoubted facts, is so full of obvious and absurd
blunders that it cannot be considered seriously.

     * It has been suggested that Lever was named after Charles
     James Fox, who died in September 1806, but it is more likely
     that his Christian names were those of his uncle and his
     father.--E. D.

In addition to the perplexity about the birth-date of the author of
‘Harry Lorrequer,’ and to the absence of any official record, it is not
easy to arrive at satisfactory conclusions concerning his ancestry. A
pedigree furnished by a relative of Charles Lever traces the family to
one Livingus de Leaver, who flourished in the twelfth century, but some
difficulties seem to arise when the eighteenth century is reached. In
the Leaver (or Lever) line there are many men of distinction. In 1535
Adam de Leaver’s only daughter married Ralph Ashton (or Assheton),
second son of Sir Ralph Ashton of Middleton, Kent, endowing her husband
with an agnomen as well as with an estate, the Ashtons thenceforward
styling themselves Ashton-Levers. Another member of the Lever
family--the name was altered to Lever in the reign of Henry VI.--was
Robert, who was an Adventurer in Ireland during the Cromwellian era.
Perhaps the most interesting personage in the line was Sir Assheton (or
Ashton) Lever, who flourished in the eighteenth century. This worthy
knight was born in 1729. He was the eldest son of Sir James Darcy Lever,
and when he succeeded to his estate he achieved notoriety as a collector
of “curios.” He founded the Leverian Museum, an institution devoted
chiefly to exhibits o£ shells, fossils, and birds, to which at a later
period was added a collection of savage costumes and weapons. In 1774
Sir Ashton brought his famous collection to London, and housed it in
a mansion in Leicester Square. He styled it the Holophusikon, and
advertised that his museum was open to the public daily, the fee for
admission being five shillings and threepence. In a short time Sir
Ashton discovered that his exhibition was not a financial success, and
that he himself had outrun the constable. He offered the contents of
Holophusikon to the British Museum in 1783, valuing his collection at
£53,000. The British Museum authorities declined the offer, and some
five years later the Holophusikon was advertised for sale by lottery.
Out of 36,000 tickets, price one guinea each, offered to the public,
only 8000 were sold. Eventually the museum--or what remained of it--was
bought by a Mr James Parkinson, who placed the curiosities in a building
called the Rotunda, situated at the south side of Blackfriars Bridge,
and in 1806--the year of Charles Lever’s birth--the collection was sold
by public auction, the sale lasting for sixty-five days, and the lots
numbering 7879.

Charles Lever claimed Sir Ashton* as a grand-uncle, and described him
as an “old hermit who squandered a fortune in stuffed birds, founded a
museum, and beggared his family.”

     * Sir Ashton died in Manchester, eighteen years before the
     final disposal of his old cariosity shop.--E. D.

The Levers seem to have fallen into narrow ways in the latter half of
the eighteenth century. The novelist’s father, James Lever, came to
Ireland in 1787. He was then about twenty-seven years of age. In his
youth he had been apprenticed to the joinery business, and he had
drifted from his native Lancashire to London. Judging him by some
letters of his which are now in the possession of Mr James Lever of
Swinton,* he was a shrewd steady young man, possessed of an affectionate
disposition and of a sub-acid humour. In Dublin he entered the
business of a Mr Lowe, a Staffordshire man, who was engaged in building
operations, and in the course of seven or eight years he was in business
on his own account, styling himself “architect and builder.” In 1795 he
married Miss Julia Candler, a member of an Irish Protestant family
who dwelt in the Co. Kilkenny, where they held land granted to their
ancestors for services rendered during the Cromwellian wars. John, the
eldest son of this marriage, was born in 1796.

     * These letters were written to his brother Charles, who
     resided at Clifton, near Manchester.--E. D.

In the same year James Lever was occupied in a very considerable
undertaking--the building of the Roman Catholic College at Maynooth.
His Dublin address was now Marlborough Green. The “green” was a piece
of waste ground: the existing railway terminus at Amiens Street is built
upon its site. Lever’s house faced the Green, and hard by was the famous
“riding-school” of John Claudius Beresford. Here it was that Beresford
used to exercise his yeomanry, and also, as Sir John Barrington tells
us, where he used to whip persons suspected of disloyalty in order “to
make them discover what in all probability they never knew.”

James Lever was soon in a fair way to success. He made money and saved
some of it; and, better still, prosperity did not spoil him. A few years
before the birth of his son Charles he speaks of “building two churches,
besides a vast quantity of barrack-work.” In addition to the building of
churches, colleges, and barracks, he was engaged in making alterations
in the Custom-House and in the old Parliament House when it was handed
over to the Bank of Ireland. These operations brought him into close
relationship with a variety of interesting people. He had a clear head,
a ready tongue, and a pleasant manner. The first of these gifts enriched
him; the last conduced to popularity. It is told of him that his
reputation as a clever and upright man of business and as a genial
companion caused him to be selected as an arbitrator in commercial
disputes. He held his court usually in a tavern in Capel Street, and
here after supper he heard the evidence and delivered the verdict. He
demanded no fee for his services, and his method of apportioning costs
was truly Leverian. The victor was mulcted for the price of the supper.
The man who lost his cause could eat and drink himself into contentment
at the cost of his successful adversary.

James Lever sent his second son to school when the youth was only four
years of age. Charles’s first preceptor was one Ford, who had a habit
of flogging his pupils with almost as much ferocity as John Claudius
Beresford flogged the children of the larger growth at his Marlborough
Green Academy. Ford’s school was broken up suddenly. The father of a
child who had been subjected to a severe handling paid a surprise visit
to the school, and, seizing the offending birch-rod, he flogged the
pedagogue with such violence that Mr Ford “rushed into the street,
yelling.” After this _débâcle_young Lever was introduced to Florence
McCarthy, whose school was situated at 56 William Street. McCarthy is
said to have been “an accomplished man with a fine presence.” He had
been a student at Trinity College, but as he belonged to the proscribed
faith he was debarred from taking a scholarship. It speaks volumes for
James Lever’s liberal-minded-ness that he should have sent his son to
a school presided over by a Roman Catholic. The future author of ‘Harry
Lorrequer’ is described at this period as being a handsome fair-haired
boy, noted for his tendency to indulge in practical joking.

Writing to his brother in Lancashire during the year 1812, James Lever
says: “Charles is at school, and is full of mischief as ever you were,
and resembles you much in his tricks.” A couple of years later Mr Lever
reports Charles as “a very fine boy now--eight years old last September.
I think to make him an architect.” Possibly with a view to this, the
father took his son from Florence McCarthy’s school and sent him to the
academy of “a noted mathematician.” William O’Callaghan, of 113 Abbey
Street. Here Charles Lever met John Ottiwell, who was later to be one
of his models for Frank Webber. Ottiwell, who was some years older
than Lever, was the boyish beau-ideal of a hero: he rode, swam, fenced,
composed songs and sang them, was a clever ventriloquist, and played the
wildest of pranks.

When Lever was eleven years of age he paid a visit to his cousins the
Inneses, who lived at Inistiogue in the Co. Kilkenny. He attended
the classes of the tutor who was instructing his cousins, a Mr James
Cotterall, “schoolmaster and land-surveyor.” Cotterall was the son of
a well-to-do farmer, and had received an excellent training in Catholic
colleges in Ireland and on the Continent.

On his return to Dublin he was sent to “The Proprietary School,” Great
Denmark Street. The head of this establishment was the Rev. George
Newenham Wright, a gentleman who was almost as free with the birch as Mr
Ford had been. His suffering pupils eventually discovered a weak point
in his armour--namely, that he had broken down sadly in his examination
in the Greek Testament when seeking for holy orders. When Wright was
made aware that his pupils had heard of his deficiency in classical
knowledge he grew tamer. But though he was a bad Greek scholar and a
tyrant, the Rev. Mr Wright was by no means a bad teacher. He appears
to have had a great liking for Lever, and the youth seems to have
entertained a liking and a respect for his master. At Great Denmark
Street the pupils were coached in other matters beside classics and
mathematics. After the ordinary curriculum of the school had been
gone through, young Lever took lessons in fencing and dancing, and
won distinction in those arts. His father, writing at this period to
Lancashire, says: “Charles is still at school. I don’t know what to make
of him;... he is a very smart fellow.”

As his business grew, James Lever found himself advancing in social
paths. He was fond of good company, and of this there was a plenitude
in Dublin. The commercial depression which followed the union of the
parliaments, though it had undermined many of the city’s sources of
wealth, tarnished its brilliancy, and destroyed its life as a political
capital, had not succeeded in crushing the high spirits of the citizens.
Many of the guests who enjoyed the hospitality of James Lever had
suffered sadly from the political and other changes which had occurred
in the early years of the nineteenth century, but they could still enjoy
a good dinner and a good story, and could appreciate a good host. Much
of the conversation which took place at Lever’s supper or dinner-parties
was of the brilliant era immediately preceding the Union. Tales of
the Parliament House, of its orators, its wits, its eccentrics;
reminiscences of the clubs, anecdotes of duelling and drinking and hard
riding, went the round of the table; and as a mere child the future
author of ‘Charles O’Malley’ listened now and again to hilarious gossip
which he moulded later into hilarious fiction.

Mrs Lever was an excellent housewife,--very tidy, very orderly, and
deeply devoted to her husband and to her two children. She is described
as a pleasant coquettish little woman, whose sole desire was to make
every one in her circle happy. Charles Lever’s early days were spent in
a bright and cheerful home--an inestimable blessing to any youth, but
especially to an imaginative boy. He did not stand much in awe of his
good-humoured parents: he was by no means shy of playing upon them mild
practical jokes. One of these--it was frequently repeated, yet it never
seemed to miss fire--was to read aloud the details of some wonderful
event supposed to be recorded in a newspaper, leaving his father and
mother to discover at their leisure that the wonderful event was a
coinage of Charlie’s brain.

During his schooldays he had a theatre of his own at the back of the
house: he produced stock pieces--“Bombastes Furioso” was one of his
favourites--and improvised dramas. He painted the necessary scenery,
designed the costumes, was the leading actor, and occasionally his
own orchestra. As much of his pocket-money as he could spare, after
satisfying the demands upon it for theatrical pursuits, was expended on
books--chiefly novels. In addition to this love of literature and the
drama, young Lever evinced at a very early age a fondness for military
heroes and military affairs. Occasionally military men were to be
encountered under his father’s roof, and at times the youth was to be
found haunting some convenient barrack. James Lever had expressed a
desire that his second son should become an architect, but he was not
infrequently fearful that the lad might one fine morning take it into
his wild head to seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth.
Charles, however, decided, in his sixteenth year, that he would not
become an architect or a soldier. He was desirous of qualifying for the
medical or the legal profession; and his father, although he was anxious
that his son should take up his own business, made no protest against
the selection of a more learned avocation. On October 14, 1822, Charles
Lever entered Trinity College, Dublin,* as a pensioner, taking up his
quarters at No. 2 Botany Bay Square. His college chum was Robert Torrens
Boyle.

     * Lever’s writing-table and study-chair are kept in the
     librarian’s room at Trinity College. They were presented to
     the University in 1874 by Lever’s eldest daughter, Mrs
     Nevill--E. D.

They played almost as many pranks in Trinity as Charles O’Malley and
Webber* played there; but though he was the leading spirit in all
the mischief that was afoot, young Lever was never guilty of any
discreditable conduct or of any personal excesses. One might be led to
think, in reading his early novels, that their author had been a wild
liver; but it is stated on trustworthy authority that at no period was
he otherwise than moderate in the use of stimulants. He is described
as being, during his college era, tall, athletic, and mercurial,
with wonderfully expressive eyes, sometimes flashing fire, sometimes
twinkling with mirth. Notwithstanding his love of fun and frolic he
found time for reading--light reading as well as heavy reading. In
later years he speaks of the days when he was a freshman: “We talked of
‘Ivan-hoe’ or ‘Kenilworth,’ and I can remember too, when the glorious
spirit of these novels had so possessed us, that we were elevated and
warmed to an unconscious imitation of the noble thoughts and deeds of
which we had been reading.” This boyish enthusiasm, he goes on to
say, was better than the spirit of mockery engendered by the insensate
craving for stimulus which was produced by the reading of sensation
stories. “The glorious heroism of Scott’s novels was a fine stream to
turn into the turbid waters of our worldliness. It was of incalculable
benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble devotion, of
high-hearted courage, and unsullied purity.” His admiration of Sir
Walter Scott’s romances, and his contempt for “sensational novels,”
 remained with him to the end.

     * Frank Webber was an amalgam of Boyle and of John Ottiwell
     (who had been the Trinity chum of Charles Lever’s brother,
     John).--E. D.

Notwithstanding his tendency to play “O’Malley” pranks, young Lever was
held in as high favour by the dons as by his fellow-students. Though he
was not a hard worker yet he was by no means an idler: when he was not
absorbed in his studies he was astonishingly busy with his amusements.
His leisure hours were amply occupied--“training horses for a race in
the Phoenix, arranging a rowing match, getting up a mock duel between
two white-feathered friends, or organising the Association for
Discountenancing Watchmen.”

Even at the early period of his career--though so far he evinced no
powers of story-weaving and was not burdened with a desire “to commence
author”--he had a great love for ballads and ballad-writing. On one
occasion he attired himself as a mendicant ballad-monger, singing in
the streets snatches of political verses composed by himself.. He was
accompanied by some college friends, who luckily were at hand when
certain unpopular sentiments in his doggerels provoked a street row. It
is stated that he returned from this expedition with thirty shillings in
coppers, collected from admirers of his minstrelsy.

Charles’s brother, John, had been ordained about the time that Charles
entered Trinity, and had been sent into Connaught as a curate. Charles
paid his first visit to the West of Ireland in 1823.

He was then entering into his eighteenth year, and, according to his
brother, he was ready of speech and possessed the laughing though
deferential manner which he carried with him throughout his life. John
resided at Portumna, and he could offer his brother facilities for
fishing and shooting; moreover, he was able to give him a glimpse of the
life of the Connaught squire. Amongst the houses to which John had the
_entrée_ was Portumna Castle, then the residence of the widowed Countess
of Clanricarde, a daughter of Sir Thomas Burke, Bart., of Marble Hall.
The Countess was famed for her hospitality--famed even amongst a people
noted for their easy-going habits, for their sprightliness, and for
their unfailing courtesy to strangers. The brothers Lever were favoured
guests at Portumna Castle, and here Charles encountered people who
told him good stories of hunting, of steeple-chasing, of duelling, of
love-making, of dare-devilry, which at the time impressed him vividly:
subsequently some of this homespun was woven into his novels of the
West.

After his first few visits to the County Galway, Lever began to develop
a taste for improvising romances,--not committing them to paper, but
relating them to his college chums. “He would tell stories by the hour,”
 declares one of his fellow-students, “and would so identify himself
with the events as to impart to them all the vitality and interest of
personal adventure.”

The elder Levers had now moved from the city of Dublin. On the road to
Malahide, about four miles from the city, James Lever built himself a
handsome dwelling-house which he called Moat-field. He expected that his
second son would graduate in 1826, but Charles did not obtain his B.A.
degree until the autumn of 1827. After he had “walked the hospitals” for
some time, Charles made up his mind to visit Germany and to continue
there his university career. He set out from Dublin in 1828, and under
the title of ‘The Log-Book of a Rambler’ he recorded his first
impressions of Continental life.




II. THE LOG-BOOK* OF A RAMBLER 1828

In the early part of last year I was awaiting in Rotterdam the arrival
of a friend from England;** and as some untoward circumstances had
occurred to detain him beyond the appointed time, I had abundant
opportunity to domesticate in the family of mine host of the Boar’s
Head. Do not suppose from the fact of my being thus _enfoncé_ that
I shall gratify either your gossiping disposition or your love of
personalities by any little detail of family failings from which the
houses of the great are not always free. No: though the literary world
does not want for instances of this practice, I shall abstain, and
confine myself merely to such a delineation of the outward man as may
serve to make you acquainted with him.

     * This account of his wanderings in Germany was written by
     Lever in 1829-30. The original MS. of ‘The Log-Book’ was
     recently presented to the Royal Irish Academy by Mr C.
     Litton Falkner. The principal portion of the Log was printed
     at intervals in ‘The Dublin Literary Gazette’ during the
     year 1830.--E. D.

     ** John Maxwell, a companion of Lever, to whom many
     references are made in the course of his correspondence with
     Alexander Spencer.--E. D.

Mine host was the most famous gastronome of the Low Countries, and at
the two _table d’hôtes_ at which he daily presided, never was known to
neglect the order and procession of the various courses of soup, fish,
game, and sauerkraut--of all and each of which he largely partook.

Would that George Cruikshank could have seen him with that breastplate
of a napkin--which, _more majorum_, was suspended from his
neck--whilst his hand grasped a knife whose proportions would cast into
insignificance the inoffensive weapon of our Horse Guards! His head,
too, was a perfect study. _Giove!_ what depressions where there should
have been bumps. And then his eye, alternately opening and closing,
seemed as if it were to relieve guard upon the drowsiness of his
features.

He spoke but seldom, and, despite my various efforts to draw him into
culinary discussion (having had some intention of publishing these
“Conversations”), he was ever on his guard, and only once, when----
But I grow personal, and shall return to myself. So effectually did the
society of this sage, the air of the place, and above all the statue of
Erasmus which looked so peacefully on me from the market-place opposite
the inn, conspire to tranquillise my mind, that in the course of a few
weeks I had become as thoroughly a Dutchman as if I had never meditated
an excursion beyond The Hague in a _trek-schuit_.

Dinner over, I was to be seen lolling under the trees on the Boomjes,*
with my tobacco-bag at my buttonhole and my meerschaum in my hand,
calmly contemplating the boats as they passed and repassed along the
canal.

     * The Regent Street of Rotterdam.

In this country such a scene would have been all bustle, confusion, and
excitement: there it was quite the reverse,--scarcely a ripple on the
surface of the water indicated the track of the vessel as she slowly
held her course. How often have I watched them nearing a bridge, which,
as the boat approached, slowly rose and permitted her to pass, whilst
from the window of the low toll-house a long pole is projected with a
leathern purse at its extremity, into which the ancient mariner at the
helm bestows his tribute money and holds on his way, still smoking! But
now comes the tug-of-war; it is, indeed, the only moment of bustle I
have ever witnessed in Holland. How is the bridge to get down? Dutch
mechanics have provided for its elevation, but not for its descent; and
it is in this emergency that the national character shines forth,--and
the same spirit of mutual assistance and co-operation which enabled them
to steal a kingdom from the ocean becomes non-triumphant. Man by man
they are seen toiling up the steep ascent, and, creaking under many a
fat burgomaster, the bridge slowly descends and rests again upon its
foundation. Doubtless, like the ancients, they chose to perpetuate
customs which teach that laudable dependence of man upon, his
fellows--the strongest link which binds us in society--rather than mar
this mutual good feeling by mechanical invention.

Day after day passed in this manner, and probably you will say how
stupid, how tiresome, all this must have been: so it would, doubtless,
to one less gifted with the organ of assimilation or who has not, like
me, endured the tedium of a soiree at Lady ------‘s.

At length my friend arrived, and after a few days spent in excursions
to The Hague and the Palace in the wood, we set off in order to reach
Cologne in time for the musical festival.

We left Rotterdam at night on the steamboat, and the following morning
found us slowly stemming the current of the rapid Rhine, whose broad
surface and unwooded banks gave an air of bleakness and desolation which
more than once drove me from the deck to the warm stove of the cabin,
crowded as the cabin was with smoking and singing Hollanders on the way
to the Festival. Once I ascended the rigging to get a more extended view
of the surrounding country: I might as well have remained below. A vast
flat track of land, intersected by canals and studded with an occasional
solitary windmill, was all the eye could compass, and then it was that
I felt the full force of Goldsmith’s _mot_ that “Holland looks like a
country swimming for its life.” Nothing breaks the dull monotony of a
voyage on the lower Rhine except the sight of some vast raft of timber,
peopled by its myriads of inhabitants, dropping down the current.

We passed several towns: but variety of Dutch city, Dutch lady, and
Dutch ship, is only a slight deviation from an established scale of
proportions.

Of my fellow-travellers I can tell you nothing. I had no means of
cultivating their acquaintance; they spoke French (and doubtless
they had a right to do so) after a manner of their own, but were as
unintelligible to me as Kant’s metaphysics or Mr Montague’s directions
for dancing the new galopades.

As an illustration of the peculiarity of pronunciation, they tell of
a Fleming commencing, I believe, one of Beaumarchais’ plays with the
line--

     “Hélas! je ne sais pas quel cours je dois prendre”;

Upon which a witty Frenchman replied--

     “Monsieur, prenez la poste et retournez en Flandre.”

Never was Parisian at Potsdam more thoroughly _ennuyé_ than I was
during this voyage of two days. It was near night when I was roused from
slumber by the boat’s arrival in Cologne. I had been dreaming of
all sorts of things and people,--visions of mulled wine and Mozart,
beefsteaks and Beethoven, flitted through my mind in all the mazes of
mad confusion; and with the valorous resolution of realising at least
one part of my musings in the shape of a hot supper and a flask of
Nierensteiner, I went up on deck, when my friend came to meet me with
the disastrous intelligence that there was not an unoccupied room or
bed in the town. The good supper, the Nierensteiner, and the soft bed on
which I had rolled by anticipation, faded like the baseless fabric of a
vision.

However, we set out upon a voyage of discovery, accompanied by a little
army of baggage porters and lackeys, one word of whose language we did
not understand, but who did not on that account cease to hurl at our
devoted heads every barbarous guttural of their macadamising tongue.

In this manner we made the tour of the entire town, and I was concluding
a most affecting appeal to the sympathies of the vinegar-faced
landlady of the Hôtel d’Hollande, which I already perceived would prove
unsuccessful, when a German merchant with whom we had travelled from
Rotterdam made his appearance, and by his kind interference we were
admitted. Having realised our intentions with respect to supper,
fatigued and worn out by our indefatigable exertions, we wrapped our
travelling cloaks around us and slept soundly till morning.

As we had arrived one day before the Festival, we had full time to see
the town. It was a mass of dark, narrow, ill-paved streets, with high
gloomy-looking houses, each story projecting beyond the one beneath, and
thus scarcely admitting the light of the blue heavens.

The Cathedral, however, is one of the most beautiful specimens of the
florid Gothic remaining in Europe, and would, had it been completed,
have eclipsed the more celebrated Cathedral of Strasbourg: the great
entrance presents the richest instance of the laboured tracery of
this school of architecture I have ever witnessed. The structure was
originally designed to be built in the shape of a cross, but two limbs
were all that were finished. The exterior is divided into a number of
small chapelries, each of which boasts its patron saint, whose bones are
exhibited in a glass-case to the admiration of the devotee.

Amongst the many relics preserved here, I well recollect with what pride
the venerable sexton pointed out to me the skulls of Die Heilige drei
Könige--by this meant the Magi, whom they call the Three Holy Kings, one
of whom being an African, his skull had been most appropriately painted
black.

In the middle of the great aisle stands a large misshapen block of
marble, about two feet in height, and from three to four feet in length:
this could never have formed any portion of the building, and stands,
like our Irish Round Towers, a stumbling-block to the antiquarian.

The legend--I wish we could account for our Round Towers so
reasonably--says that the devil had long endeavoured to terrify the
workmen from the building, and had practised all the devices approved of
on such occasions to prevent its completion; but being foiled in all, in
a fit of spleen he hurled this rock through the roof of the Cathedral,
and neither man nor the art of man can avail to remove it from its
deep-rooted foundation. Be this as it may, there stands the rock, and
OEhlenschlager, the Danish poet, has alluded to it in his spirited
tale of “Peter Bolt” (translated into ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’ without
acknowledgment).

We rose early on the following morning, and profiting by the advice
of that wisest of travellers, Captain Dalgetty, victualled for an
indefinite period. And here let me do justice to the character of that
worthy woman whom I in my profligacy called vinegar-faced: as an artiste
she was altogether unexceptionable.

Eaten bread is soon forgotten, saith the proverb. And if the passage is
to be taken literally, so should it, say I. At the same time, I defy
any man who has a heart to feel and a palate to taste ever to lose the
recollection of a well-dressed maintenon cutlet or a chicken salad. No;
it will recur to him _post totidem annos_, and bring once more “the soft
tremulous dew” upon his lips.

At last we set out for the Festival, and although anticipating a crowd,
yet we never expected to have found, as we did, every avenue blocked
up by the people. Notwithstanding the immense number and the natural
anxiety of all to press on and secure good places, nothing could exceed
the good order and decorum: it was a perfect contradiction to Dean
Swift’s adage that a crowd is a mob even if it is composed of bishops.

Into this dense mass we get gradually wedged, little regretting the
delay which afforded so good an opportunity of looking about where there
was so much to interest and amuse us.

The Cologne belles, with their tight-laced bodices of velvet, their
black eyes, and still blacker hair, rarely covered by anything but a
silk handkerchief drawn tightly over it, formed a strong contrast to
the fair-complexioned, blue-eyed daughters of Holland, whose demure and
almost _minauderie_ demeanour was curiously contrasted with the air of
coquetry which the others have borrowed from their French neighbours;
while the fat happy-looking burgher from Antwerp stood in formidable
relief to the tall gaunt Prussian, who was vainly endeavouring to mould
his cast-iron features into an expression of softness to salute some
fair acquaintance.

My attention to the various coteries around was drawn off by a slight
motion in the crowd, indicating that those nearest the door had gained
admittance, and the swell of music borne upon the wind, mingled with
the din of the multitude, forcibly reminded me of the far-off roar of
Niagara when first I heard it booming in the distance.

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream, and, deeply engrossed by
the various associations thus unexpectedly conjured up, I found myself,
without being aware of it, at the entrance of the Cathedral.

Never shall I forget the effect of that moment. The vast building lay
before me crowded with human beings to the roof, while the loud bray
of the organ mingling its artillery of sound with the deafening peal of
several hundred instruments was tremendous.

When I had sufficiently recovered from my first sensations of ecstasy, I
looked towards the choir, hoping to see Ries or Spohr, both of whom were
present, but I could not recognise them in the distance.

I had a very fine description of the Festival and the music--which
consisted of selections from Handel and Beethoven--ready written, but
I really feel that any attempt to convey the idea of this splendid
spectacle, or my feelings on witnessing it, is altogether vain. In fact,
the sensation of excitement with which I looked and listened was too
great to permit of any permanent impression, capable of description,
remaining in my mind. And I felt on coming out as if years had rolled
over my head since the morning; for we measure time past not so much by
the pleasurable or painful feelings which we have experienced during
its lapse, as by the mere number and variety of sensations that have
imprinted themselves on the sensorium....

There was little inducement to remain in Cologne when the Festival was
over, so that having secured places in the steamboat for Bonn, we took
our last look at the Cathedral by moonlight and returned to our beds.
Next morning I was awoke by the most diabolical war-whoop that can be
conceived, and on looking out from my window I descried the cause of my
alarm to be a cow’s horn, blown by a person who might, from the length
and breadth of his blast, have been one of the performers at Jericho. I
found afterwards that the horn-blower was an emissary from the steamboat
come to inform us that she was ready to depart, and would be under weigh
in a few moments. After dressing rapidly, we soon found ourselves seated
upon the deck: the air was calm--not a breeze ruffled the broad surface
of the Rhine: it lay like a mirror before us, reflecting the tapered
minarets and richly ornamented dome of the Cathedral, which glistened
under the morning dew, like a vast globe of gold.

From the moment we left Cologne the scenery began to improve, and near
Bonn it became really beautiful. The Rhine, from the bold and frequent
winding course it takes, presents the appearance of a succession of
small lakes. It is bounded by lofty vine-clad mountains bristling with
tower and keep, while below are seen opening glens through which the
small streams rush on, bearing their tribute to the father of rivers.
The villages have generally a most picturesque effect as they rise
street above street upon the steep mountain-sides, their white walls
scarcely visible amid the trellised vines. And now as we passed along
we could plainly hear the songs of the peasants breaking on the soft
stillness of the summer morning.

After a four hours’ delightful sail we made Bonn in time for breakfast.
The town itself has nothing remarkable except its situation in the
valley of the Rhine and its being the seat of the second in rank amongst
the Prussian universities.*

     * It was established on the model of that of Berlin so
     lately as 1818, and, except the University of Munich, is the
     most modern of Germany. As early as 1777 we find an Academy
     existed here, and in 1786 this became a chartered
     University, of which, however, at the conclusion of the
     French Revolutionary War no trace was left The number of
     students, about one thousand, and the names of the two
     Schlegels, Niebuhr, and Walther (one of the first anatomists
     of Europe), attest sufficiently its present popularity.
     The Cabinet of Natural History at Popplesdorf is justly
     celebrated, and the collection of petrifactions is well
     known to the scientific world by the valuable work of
     Professor von Goldfuss [‘Petrefacta Musei Univ. Bonnencrio,’
     &c) The library contains about 60,000 volumes, and includes
     a most remarkable cabinet of diplomatic seals and records.
     The Botanical Garden, which occupies upwards of nineteen
     acres, is considered one of the finest in Germany.

We spent the entire of the first three days visiting collections,
museums, libraries, &c.; and although Professor Goldfuss, our cicerone,
is a very worthy and well-informed gentleman, yet I have no mind to make
you more intimately acquainted with him, so that I shall at once invite
you to sip your coffee with us in the garden of the University. Here all
is gaiety, life, and animation, the military are seen mixing with the
townsfolk, and no longer is there any distance kept up between professor
and student. The garden was in olden times the pleasure-ground of
a palace, once the residence of the Churfurst of Cologne, and still
preserves much of its ancient beauty. The trees are for the most part
of foreign origin, and formed into long shady avenues or dark sunless
bowers, in each of which might be seen some happy family party enjoying
their coffee, the ladies assiduously occupied in knitting and the men no
less assiduously occupied in smoking. Occasionally the loud chorus of a
Freischtitz air told that the Burschen were holding their revels not
far off, while the professors themselves, the learned expounders of dark
metaphysics and eke the diggers of Greek roots, did not scruple to join
in the gaiety of the scene, and might now be observed whisking along in
the rapid revolutions of a German waltz. By the bye, let me warn any of
my male readers to beware how he approaches a German dancing party if
he be not perfectly _au fait_ at waltzing. It is quite sufficient to
be seen looking on to cause some dancer to offer you his partner for a
_turn_: this is a piece of politeness constantly extended to foreigners,
and is called _hospitiren_; but indeed every spectator seems to expect
a similar attention, and at each moment some tall moustached figure is
seen unbuckling his _schlager_, throwing his cap upon the ground, and in
a moment he is lost among the dancers.

It was already far advanced in the night and the moon was shining
brightly upon the happy scene ere we turned our steps homewards, deeply
regretting our incapacity either to speak German or to waltz.

The following day the Drachenfels was the scene of a rural _fête_, and
thither we proceeded, and as the distance is only three English miles
we went on foot. The road lay through a succession of vineyards sloping
gently towards the Rhine, which is here extremely rapid. A sudden
winding of the river brought us in sight of the mountain from base to
summit. The Rhine here runs between the Godesberg on the one side and
the Drachenfels on the other. The latter rises to the height of fifteen
hundred feet above the stream, perpendicular as a wall, its summit
crowned by a ruined tower. The sides are wooded with large white
oak-trees through which the road winds to the top in a serpentine
manner,--and thus as you ascend some new and altogether different
prospect constantly meets the eye: at one moment you look out upon the
dark forests and deep glens of the Sieben-gebirge, at another you see
the river winding for miles beneath you through plenteous vineyards and
valleys teeming with fertility; and far in the distance the tall spire
of Cologne, rising amid its little forests of pinnacles, is still
perceptible.

As we approached the picturesque effect was further heightened when
through the intervals between the trees on the mountain-side some party
might be observed slowly toiling their way upwards, the ladies mounted
upon mules whose gay scarlet trappings gave all the appearance of some
gorgeous pageant: and ever and anon the deep tones of the students
joining in Schiller’s Bobber song, or the still more beautiful
Rhein-am-Rhein, completed the illusion, and made this one of the most
delightful scenes I ever observed.

We spent the entire day upon the mountains; and as we descended we
observed a small figure standing motionless upon a rock at some distance
beneath us. On coming nearer we discovered this to be a little girl
of eight or ten years old, who, seeing us coming, had waited there
patiently to present us with a garland of vine-leaves and Rhine lilies
ere we crossed the river, as a charm against every possible mishap.

On our return we made the acquaintance of a professor whose name I
no longer recollect--but he was a most agreeable and entertaining
companion, and he gave us a clear insight into the policy of the
University. When speaking of the custom of duelling, he surprised us
by the admission that such practices were winked at by the heads of
colleges, hoping, as he said, that the students being thus employed and
having their minds occupied about their own domestic broils, would
have less both of leisure and inclination to join in the quarrels and
disagreements of their princes and rulers: in the same manner and with
the same intention as “the Powers that were” are said to have encouraged
the disturbances and riots at fairs in Ireland, hoping that the more
broken heads the fewer burnings of farms or insurrectionary plots. And
now that I am on the subject of Irish illustration, let me give you a
better one.

A friend of mine once on his way from Dublin to Dunleary* had the
misfortune to find himself on a car drawn by an animal so wretched as to
excite his deepest compassion, for in addition to a large surface of the
back being perfectly denuded of skin and flesh, one end of a stick had
been twisted on the creature’s ear, the other end firmly fastened to
the harness so as to keep the animal’s head in the position of certain
would-be dandies who deem it indispensable to walk _tête-à-l’air_. Not
comprehending the aim of such apparently wanton cruelty, my friend asked
the driver for an explanation of the ear torture. The fellow turned
towards him with a look of half compassion for his ignorance struggling
with the low waggery of his caste. “Troth an’ yer honour,” said he,
“that’s to divart his attinshion from the _raw_ on his back.”

     * Dunleary changed its name to Kingstown in 1821 in honour
     of George the Fourth’s visit.--E. D.

And I really doubt not but that by “divarting their attinshion” the
rulers of German universities have the best chance of success in
managing the rude and indomitable spirits.

After a week spent in rambling through the glens and mountains of their
delightful country, we set out for Andernach on our way to Coblentz.
Here we arrived late in the evening, and went supperless to bed, as the
Duke of Clarence, who had just arrived, had ordered everything eatable
in the town for himself and his suite. On learning this, we had the good
fortune to meet with an English family whom we had previously seen in
Holland, and we journeyed together now like old acquaintances. I shall
not attempt to delay you by any description of the scenery as we voyaged
up the Rhine. The prospect continues to be beautiful until you approach
Mayence; then the country becomes open, the mountains degenerate into
sloping hills, and the course of the river is less winding.

At last we arrived in Frankfort, but there was little inducement to
remain here, as we had no introduction to the Baron von Rothschild, the
greatest entertainer and _bon vivant_ in Europe. We merely waited to
hear the opera (in which we were much disappointed), and set off for
Cassel. I pass over all account of Daneker’s statue of Ariadne and the
still greater lion, Professor Soemmering, for every one who has made the
_petit_ tour has described both; and I’ll wager my dukedom there is not
a young lady’s album in Great Britain which does not contain some lines
“On seeing” the beautiful figure I allude to. Ere I depart, however, let
me mention a short but striking inscription which I read on the sun-dial
in the town--“Sol me--vos--umbra regit.” You may conceive that the
German “schnell wagen” is admirably translated by the English words
“snail waggon,” when I tell you that we were three days travelling from
Frankfort to Cassel, a distance of about 150 English miles.

A German diligence reminds one wonderfully of some huge old family
mansion to which various unseemly and incongruous additions have been
made, according to the fancy or necessity of its successive proprietors
for ages. Conceive a large, black, heavy-looking coach to the front of
which is placed a chariot, a covered car to the back, and on the roof
a cabriolet; and imagine this, in addition to twelve phlegmatic Germans
(who deem it indispensable to drink “schnaps” or “gutes bier” whenever
there is a house to sell either), loaded with as much luggage as an
ordinary canal boat in the country could carry--the whole leviathan
drawn by nine wretched-looking ponies scarcely able to drag along their
preposterously long tails,--and you will readily believe that we did not
fly.

When we reached Cassel it was night, and the streets were in perfect
darkness--not a lamp shone out,--and we saw absolutely nothing till we
drew up at the door of Der Kônig von Preussen. On asking the following
day the reason of the remarkable want of illumination, we were informed
that when the almanac announced moonlight, it was not customary to light
the lamps of the town,*--and the moon not being properly aware of
this dependence upon her, was not a whit more punctual in Cassel than
elsewhere.

     * It is strange that Lever considered this a remarkable
     phenomenon. The economical custom he refers to was not
     uncommon in many provincial towns--in Ireland at any rate--
     up to a very recent date.--E. D.

Cassel is the most beautifully built and most beautifully situated town
that I know of. Besides having a very excellent Opera, it boasts of one
of the best museums in Germany, and of a very respectable Gallery of
Painting and Sculpture. These form two sides of a great open _platz_ or
square; the Palace fills up the third side, and the fourth has merely
a large iron railing, and affords a most magnificent view of a
richly-wooded landscape, the background formed by the lofty mountains
of Thuringia. In the middle of this railing a large gateway opens upon
a broad flight of stone steps which lead down to a handsomely planted
park. Following the windings of a silvery river which flows between
banks adorned with blossoming shrubs and flowers, the scene brought to
my mind the beautiful lines of Shelley:--

     “And on that stream whose inconstant bosom
     Was plank’t under boughs of embowering blossom,
     With golden and green light slanting through
     Their heaven of many a tangled hue,
     Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
     And starry river-buds glimmered by,
     And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
     With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.”

At last we came in sight of Wilhelmshöhe, the country palace of the
Electors of Hesse; but here, alas! the old Dutch taste in gardening
prevails,--

     “Grove nods to grove,
     Each alley has its brother.”

Wherever you turn your eyes, some deity in lead or marble meets you,
who, from its agile attitude, seems in the act of taking flight at your
approach. But the great wonder of the place is the famous _jet d’eau_,
which is said to be 200 feet in height. To see this all Cassel assembles
every Sunday on foot or in carriages; but though the effect of the
water rushing over the rocks and forming hundreds of small cataracts is
undoubtedly fine, yet the illusion is destroyed by arriving before the
commencement of the exhibition, and seeing Hessian Cockneys watching
some dry canal with patient anxiety and filling the empty vase of some
basking Amphion. However, the scene was a gay one; and the splendid
carriage of the Elector, who sat, in all the glory of a rich uniform and
with moustaches _à la Prusse_, smoking most cavalierly, beside a lady
(_not_ his Duchess), was at once characteristic of the country and the
individual.

After stopping in Cassel for three days, which passed most agreeably, we
took flight, and at the end of a forty miles’ excursion--

     “In our stage-coach waggon trotting in,
     We made our entrance to the U-
     Nivewity of Gottingen.”

It was a fine night in the month of June, and the moon was shining
brightly upon the towers and steeples of Gottingen, as the heavy
diligence, thundering over the pavement of the main street, drew up
within the _port-cocher_ of Der Hof von England. We alighted, and
entered a long low room in which about forty young men, evidently
students, were seated at supper. At the head of the table sat the host
himself, doling out soup from a vessel the proportions of which had
well-nigh led me to suspect that I had mistaken the University town, and
was actually in company with the Heidelberg Tun.

We soon retired to our beds, but arose early in the morning and found,
to our surprise, that even then--it was but six o’clock--the
streets were crowded with students hastening to and from the various
lecture-rooms, their long braided frock-coats and moustaches giving them
a military air strangely at variance with their spectacled noses and
lounging gait.

In three days I was enrolled a student of Gottingen, which, besides
conferring on me the undoubted advantages of one of the finest libraries
in Europe, with admission to various lectures, collections, botanical
gardens, &c., also bestowed upon me the more equivocal honour of being
eligible to fight a duel, and drink _bruderschaft_ in the beer-cellar
of the University. I now thought it time to avail myself of some of the
numerous introductory letters with which I had paved my trunk on leaving
home; and accordingly, having accoutred myself in a suit of sables, and
one hand armed with a large canister of Lundy-Foot (which I had brought
with me as a propitiatory offering to the greatest nose in Europe) and
my credentials in the other, I took my way through the town.

After wandering for some time my guide brought me at length to the door
of a long, low, white house, with nothing remarkable about it save the
silence and apparent desolation which reigned around, for it stood in
the most unfrequented part of the city. On arriving I inquired for the
professor, and was told by the servant that he was above-stairs in his
cabinet; and having given me this piece of information she immediately
returned into a little den off the hall from which she had emerged.
I ascended the stairs, and found little difficulty in discovering the
apartment, as all the doors were labelled with appropriate titles.

_Herein!_ shouted in a voice of thunder, was the answer from within
to my still small knock at the door. I entered, and beheld a small and
venerable-looking old man, with a quantity of white hair floating in
careless profusion upon his neck and shoulders. His head, which was
almost preternaturally large, was surmounted by a green velvet cap
placed a little on one side: he was grotesquely enveloped in a species
of fur cloak with large sleeves, and altogether presented the most
extraordinary figure I had ever seen.

I was again roused by the sound of his voice interrogating me in no less
than six languages (ere I found my tongue) as to my name, country, &c,
for he at once perceived that I was a foreigner. I presented my letter
and present, with which he seemed highly pleased, and informed me that
his _guter freund_, Lord Talbot, always brought him Irish snuff; and
then welcoming me to Gottingen, he seized my hand, pressed me down on a
seat, and began talking concerning my travels, plans, probable stay at
the University, &c. I now felt myself relieved from the awe with which
I had at first contemplated the interview, and looked around with a
mingled feeling of admiration and surprise at the odd _mélange_ of
curiosities in natural history, skulls, drawings, medals, and even toys,
which filled the cabinet. But indeed the worthy professor was by far the
greatest lion of the collection.

I observed that many of our newest English publications lay upon his
table; and on my remarking it, he looked for a few minutes among them,
and then drew out a small pamphlet, which he placed in my hand, saying
at the same time that he had derived much pleasure from the perusal of
it. I must confess it was with no small gratification I found it to be a
description of the Fossil Elk (now in the Dublin Society House) written
by Mr Hart of Dublin. He made many inquiries concerning the author,
and expressed his thanks for the delicate attention shown him in the
presentation of the work. He then spoke of the London University, the
plan of which lay before him; and on standing up to take my leave, I
asked him whether the Gall and Spurzheim theories were to comprise part
of my university creed and course of study. To which he answered, “No;
but if you will wait till October we are to have a new system broached,”
 and then, chuckling at this hit at the fondness of his countrymen for
speculating, he pressed me to revisit him soon and see his collection.*

     * Blumenbach is sketched more fully in ‘Arthur O’Leary.’
       --E. D.

On my way homeward I was met by a student with whom I had become
acquainted the day before at the _table d’hôte_. He invited me to drink
coffee with him in one of the gardens outside the town, and on our way
thither he told me that I should see a specimen of the Burschen life,
as a duel was to be fought at the place to which we were then fast
approaching. I could not conceive from the tone of my companion whether
this was merely a piece of badinage on his part or not, for he informed
me with the greatest indifference that the cause of the meeting was
the refusal of one of the parties to pledge the other in beer, the
invitation being given at a time when the offender was busy drinking
his coffee. Such a reason for mortal conflict never entered even into my
Irish ideas of insult. We had by this time arrived at the garden, which,
crowded with swaggering savage-looking students, most of them with their
shirt-collars open and their long hair hanging upon their shoulders,
was indeed deserving of a better fate than the code of the _Comment_ had
allowed to it. It was a tract of something more than an acre in extent,
tastefully planted with flowering-shrubs and evergreens, and crossed by
“many a path of lawn and moss”; and in a sequestered corner, shaded
by one large chestnut-tree, stood the monument of Burger, the sweetest
lyric poet in any language, not even excepting our own Anacreon, Moore.
I was aroused from my silent admiration of the weeping figure which
bends so mournfully over the simple urn of the peaceful dead by a voice
near me; and on turning around I beheld a tall athletic figure, denuded
of coat and waistcoat, busily engaged polishing his broadsword. At
this moment my friend arrived to inform me that there was no time to
be lost,--we should scarcely get places, the duel having excited a more
than usual degree of interest from the fact that the combatants had a
great reputation as swordsmen.

We ascended a steep narrow stair which led into a large well-lighted
room, but so full of figures, flourishing swords, and meerschaums, that
some minutes elapsed before I could comprehend the scene before me.
A space had been left in the middle of this chaotic assemblage. At a
signal given the spectators all fell back to the walls, and at this
moment two young men, wearing large leathern guards upon their breasts
and arms, entered and took their places opposite each other. They
crossed their swords, and I could scarcely breathe, anticipating
the conflict; but I soon discovered that they were only the seconds
measuring the distance. This done, their places were taken by the
principals, who, stretching out their arms until their swords crossed,
were placed in the proper positions by their respective seconds.
The umpire, or, to use the Burschen phrase, the Impartial, then came
forward, and having examined the weapons, and finding all fair, gave the
word “Streich ein,” which was the signal for the insulted to make the
first blow. With the rapidity of lightning his arm descended, and
when approaching the shoulder of his antagonist he made a feint, and,
carrying his point round, cut with the full force of a flowing stroke
deep into the armpit of the other, whose hand, already uplifted to
avenge the blow he could not avert, was arrested by the opposite second,
it being _contre les règles_ to strike while blood is flowing. He was
borne home, and some weeks afterwards I heard that he had left the
University, carrying with him disease for life.

This occurrence took not more time than I have spent in relating it. In
a few minutes the room was cleared, the bystanders were drinking their
coffee and enjoying their meerschaums, scattered through the gardens;
and I returned to my lodgings fully impressed with the necessity of
leaving a relic of my features behind me in Gôttingen.

You will perhaps say that this is an extravagant picture of student
life. It is not: such occurrences are of everyday, and the system which
inculcates these practices is not confined to one university, but with
some slight modifications is found in all The students of Halle and
Heidelberg had their _Comment_ (or Code of Honour) as well as their
brethren of Jena and Gottingen, and it little matters whether the laws
be called Burschenschaft or Landsmanschaft, the principle is the same.

The great fundamental maxim instilled into the mind of every young
man entering upon his university career is the vast superiority that
students enjoy over all classes in the creation, of what rank soever.
The honest citizen of every university town is rudely denominated
Philistine in contradistinction to the chosen few; and to such an extent
is this carried, that no ties of relationship can mitigate the severity
of a law which forbids the student to hold conversation with a burgher.
This necessarily leads to counteraction, and woe be to the unhappy
townsman who refuses aught to his lordly patron. I well recollect an
adventure, the relation of which will set this system in a clearer light
than if I were prosing for hours in the abstract.

I was lolling one evening on my sofa enjoying a volume of Kotzebue
over my coffee, when my door opened and a tall young man entered. His
light-blue frock and long sabre bespoke him a Prussian, no less than the
white stripe upon his cloth cap, which, placed on one side of his
head with true Burschen familiarity, he made no motion to remove. He
immediately addressed me--

“You are an Englishman studying here?”

“Yes.”

“You deal for coffee, et cetera, with Vaust in the Weender Strasse?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, do so no longer.”

This was said not with any menacing air but with the most business-like
composure. He seemed to think he had said enough, but judging from my
look of surprise that I had not clearly comprehended the full force
of the _sorites_ which had led to this conclusion, he added, by way of
explanation,--

“I have lived two years in his house, and on my asking this morning he
refused to lend me fourteen louis d’or.”

Immediately perceiving the drift of this visit, I recovered presence
of mind enough to ask what the consequence would be if I neglected this
injunction.

“You will then fight us all. We are forty-eight in number, and
Prussians. Adieu.”

Having said this with the most provoking nonchalance, he withdrew, and
the door closed after him, leaving me with an unfinished abjuration of
groceries upon my lips.

Ere the following day closed my Prussian friend again visited me to say
that Vaust, having complied with the demand made upon him, was no longer
under ban.

And now that I have shown you the dark side of the picture, let me
assure you that there is a better one. For firm adherence to each other,
for true brotherhood, the German student is above any other I ever met
with; and although the principle of honour is overstrained, yet in many
respects the consequences are good, and the chivalrous feeling thus
inculcated renders him incapable of a mean or unworthy action. There
is in everything they do at this period a mixture of highly wrought
romantic feeling which strangely contrasts with the drudging, plodding
habits which distinguish them in after days.

As I have all along preferred to give instances and facts rather than to
indulge in mere speculation, I shall relate an occurrence which made too
strong an impression on me ever to be forgotten.

I had been about a month in Göttingen, when I was sitting alone one
evening in that species of indolent humour in which we hail a friend’s
approach without possessing energy sufficient to seek for society
abroad, when my friend Eisendaller entered. He resisted all my
entreaties to remain, and briefly informed me that he came to request me
to accompany him the following morning to Meissner, a distance of about
five leagues, where he was to fight a duel. He told me that to avoid
suspicion in town the horses should wait at my door, which was outside
the ramparts, as early as five o’clock. Having thus acquainted me with
the object of his visit, and having cautioned me not to forget that he
would breakfast with me before starting, he wished me good-night and
departed.

I remained awake the greater part of the night conjecturing what might
be the reason for this extraordinary caution, for I well knew that
several duels took place every day within the precincts of the
University without mention being made of them, or any inquiry being
instituted by the prorector or consul.

Towards morning I fell into a kind of disturbed sleep, from which I was
awakened by my friend entering and halloing “Auf, auf! die Sonne sheint
hell” (Up, up! the sun shines bright)--the first line of a well-known
student “catch.”

I rose and dressed myself, and, having breakfasted, we mounted our nags
and set off at a sharp pace to the place of meeting. For the first few
miles not a word was spoken on either side: my companion was apparently
wrapped up in his own thoughts, and I did not wish to intrude upon his
feelings at such a moment. At last he broke silence, and informed me
that the duel was to be fought with pistols, as he and his adversary
had vainly endeavoured to decide this quarrel in several meetings with
swords. The cause of this deadly animosity--for such it must have been
to require a course rarely if ever pursued by a student of resorting to
pistols--he did not clearly explain, but merely gave me to understand
that it originated concerning a relative of his opponent,--a very lovely
girl, whom he had met at the Court of Hanover.

Having given this brief explanation he again relapsed into silence, and
we rode on for miles without a word.

The morning was delightful, the country through which we passed
highly picturesque, and there was an appearance of happy content and
cheerfulness on the faces of the peasants--who all saluted us as they
went forth to their morning labour--that stood in awful contrast to our
feelings, hurrying forward, as we were, on the mission of death.

At length we arrived at Meissner, where several of my friend’s party
were expecting him, and, having stabled our horses, we left the town and
took a narrow path across the fields, which led to a mill about half a
mile off. This was the place of rendezvous. On our way we overtook the
other party, who had all passed the preceding night at Meissner,--and
guess my surprise and horror to find that my friend’s antagonist was one
of my own intimate acquaintances, and the very student who had been the
first to show me any attention on my arriving at Gottingen! He was a
young Prussian named Hanstell, whose mild manners and gentlemanlike
deportment had acquired for him the sobriquet of “der Zahm” (the
Gentle). After saluting each other the parties proceeded to the ground
together. There was little time spent in arranging the preliminaries.
It was agreed, as both were well-known marksmen, to throw dice for
the first fire. The seconds then came forward, and Hanstel’s friends
announced that Eisendaller had won. There was an instantaneous falling
back of all but the two principals, who now took their positions about
fifteen yards from each other. I watched them both closely, and never
did I see men more apparently unmoved than they were at that moment. Not
a muscle of their features betrayed the least emotion or any concern of
the awful situation in which they were placed.

The pistol was handed to Eisendaller with directions to fire before
the lapse of a minute. He immediately levelled it, and remained in the
attitude of covering his antagonist for some seconds; but at length,
finding his hand becoming unsteady, he deliberately lowered his arm
to his side, stiffening and stretching it to its utmost length, and
remaining thus for an instant, he appeared to be summoning resolution
for his deadly purpose. It was a moment of awful suspense. I felt my
heart sicken at the bloodthirsty coolness of the whole proceeding, and
had to turn away my head in disgust. When I again looked round he had
raised his pistol, and was taking a long and steady aim. At length he
fired. The ball whizzed through Hanstel’s hair, and, as it grazed his
cheek, he wheeled half round by an involuntary motion and raised his
hand to feel if there was blood. I was looking anxiously at Eisendaller,
but he still stood firm and motionless as a statue. I thought at one
moment I saw his lip curl, and a half scowl, as if of disappointment and
impatience, cross his features, but in an instant it passed away, and he
was as calm and passionless as before.

It was now Hanstel’s turn. He lost no time in presenting his weapon.
There was a small red spot burning on his cheek that had been grazed
which seemed to bespeak the fiery rage that had taken possession of his
soul, for he felt that his antagonist had done his best to take away his
life. I shuddered to think that I was looking on my friend for the last
time, for from the position in which I stood I could distinctly see that
his heart was covered, and the moment Hanstell pulled the trigger would
be his last.

Maddened with an agonising thrill of horror, I felt an almost
irresistible impulse to rush forward and arrest the arm that was about
to deprive Eisendaller of his life; but while a sense of what was due
to the established customs of society on such occasions restrained me,
I stood breathless with expectation of the fatal flash, Hanstell, to
my amazement, suddenly raising his pistol to a vertical position, fired
straight over his head, flung his weapon into the air, and rushing
forward, threw his arms round Eisendaller, and bursting into tears,
exclaimed, “Mein Brader!”

We were wholly unprepared for such a scene, and although not easily
unmanned, the overwrought feelings of all sought vent in a passion of
tears. We soon left the ground, and, mounting our horses, returned to
Gôttingen.

On our way homeward there was little said. It happened that once, and
only once, I found myself at the side of Hanstell. He conversed with me
for a short time in an undertone, and on my asking him how he had felt
at the moment of his adversary’s missing him, he answered me that it was
then his determined purpose to shoot him, and up to the last moment
this determination remained unaltered, but at the instant of placing his
fingers on the trigger he thought he saw an expression about his face
that reminded him of careless and happier days when they had studied and
played together and had but one heart. “And I felt,” said he, “as if I
were about to become the murderer of my brother. I could have then more
easily turned the pistol against my own breast.” *

I was not long a resident in Gottingen ere I became considerably
enamoured of many of the Burschen institutions. I had already begun
to think that students were a very superior order of people,** that
duelling was an agreeable after-dinner amusement, and that nothing could
be more becoming or appropriate than a black frock-coat braided with a
fur collar even in the month of July.

     *  Lever introduces the story of this duel into “The
     Loiterings of Arthur Cleary.”--E. D.

     **  One of Lever’s intimates at Gottingen was a young German
     count Later the Irish student discovered that his college
     chum--he calls him “Fattorini” in one of his letters, and he
     referred to him in conversation (according to Dr
     Fitzpatrick) as “Morony”--was no other than Louis Napoleon,
     the future Emperor of the French.--E. D.

Having made this avowal, you will perhaps readily believe that I was
soon a favourite among my fellow-students; and a circumstance which at
that time added not a little to their goodwill and applause was the
fact of my translating the English song, “The King, God bless him!” into
German verse for a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of Waterloo.

My life now, although somewhat monotonous, was by no means an
uninteresting or tiresome one. The mornings were usually occupied at
lectures, and then I dined, as do all students, at one, after which we
generally adjourned in parties to one another’s lodgings, where we drank
coffee and smoked till about three o’clock. After this we again heard
lectures till we met together at Blumenbach’s in the Botanical Gardens
in the evening, when we listened to the venerable professor explaining
the mysteries of calyx and corolla, some half-dozen young ladies by far
the most attentive of his pupils. The evening was usually concluded by
a drive to Geismar or some other little village five or six miles from
Gottingen, when, having supped on sour milk thickened with brown
bread and brown sugar (a beverage which, notwithstanding my Burschen
prejudices, I must confess neither cheers nor inebriates), we
returned home about eleven. And although I wished much that university
restrictions had not forbade our having a theatre in the town, and
also that professors were relieved from their dread of the students
misbehaving, and would permit us to associate with their daughters (for
I was as completely secluded from the society of ladies as ever St Kevin
was), yet I was happy and content withal.

Such was the even tenor of my way when the news reached us that
a rebellion had broken out among the students of Heidelberg, in
consequence, it was said, of some act of oppression on the part of the
professors. Nothing could exceed the interest excited in Gottingen when
the information arrived. There was but one subject of conversation:
lecture-rooms were deserted, the streets were crowded with groups
of students conversing in conclave on the one subject of paramount
interest; and at last it was unanimously resolved to show the
Heidelbergers our high sense of their praiseworthy firmness by inviting
them to Göttingen, when news arrived that they had already put the
University of Heidelberg in _verschiess_--that is, “in Coventry,”--and
were actually at the moment on their way to us.




III. WANDERINGS, 1829-1830

The Log-Book of a Rambler concludes with an account of a quarrel between
the students and the professors at Heidelberg. To this university Lever
transferred himself in the autumn of 1828, and after a short sojourn
he proceeded to Vienna. In November his father, apologising for being
unable to assist a relative in distress, declares that his rents were
“being badly paid,” and that his son Charles was “no small charge” upon
him. In the same letter James Lever says that Charles intended to pass
the winter at Vienna, and then to proceed to Paris, and that he was
expected to arrive at home in April or May. “He writes in good spirits,”
 says his father, “enjoys good health, and if I can supply him with money
he does not wish to return soon.”

From Vienna the young student proceeded, early in 1829, to Weimar, and
at the Academy he made the acquaintance of Goethe. He describes
Goethe’s talk as being marked by touches of picturesque and inimitable
description; he had the gift of holding his audience spell-bound by some
magic which it was impossible to describe.

From Weimar Lever travelled through Bavaria. To a friend he once stated
that not only had he “walked the hospitals” of Germany, but that he
had “walked Germany itself, exploring everything.” Possibly this was an
exaggerated account of his peregrinations through the Fatherland,
but there can be no question that he saw at this time a great deal of
Germany and of German life, and that his experiences impressed him and
remained with him, vivid and pleasant memories.

In the beginning of March the wanderer found himself in Paris. From this
city he wrote to his lifelong friend in Dublin, Alexander Spencer:--

“Paris, _Friday, March_ 13,1829.

“I am perfectly ashamed of the rapid succession in which my letters of
late have inundated the family, yet in my present state of doubt, &c.,
I think it better to write at once to prevent any further mischief. I
yesterday received a letter from Connor (Joe), informing me that he had
forwarded to me in Paris from Vienna a Dublin letter of the 28th of last
month. Now none such has arrived, and I have received already letters
from Vienna bearing date 2nd March. This delay has rendered me very
unhappy about the ultimate fate of my letter, and as Connor has already
left Vienna, I have no means of ascertaining anything about it there. I
have written to him at [MS. undecipherable], where he is at present, but
cannot receive his answer before five days, so that I think it better
in the interval to stop payment of the bill, at all events until I can
learn something about it. I have myself seen all the letters lately
arrived in Paris from Vienna, so that its delay is in no wise
attributable to the irregularity of the post in Paris.

“If this letter had arrived before, I should be now on my road homeward,
but I am here in durance vile for want of it. But away with blue devils!

“Paris would be a delightful place had a man only ‘gilt’ enough: there
are so many gay little varieties and vaudevilles, that you have never
time to spare. The Palais Royal is a world in itself of all that is
splendid and seducing, but with all these things a poor man has but a
sorry time of it. Of the Italian Opera and of Verge I dare only read
the _carte_, and content myself with a chop at Richard’s and the Opéra
Comique. Is it not (I ask you in all calmness) a thought that might lead
to insanity to see these lucky ones of fortune sent out on their travels
with fat purses, enjoying all the advantage of seeing and hearing what
they neither relish nor comprehend, while many a poor fellow might reap
advantage and improvement, but is debarred from the narrowness of his
circumstances?

“I am now very anxious to see my family and find myself at home,
although I believe I am now spending the last few days of a period I
shall always call the happiest of my life. I look back on my time in
Germany with one feeling of unmixed pleasure; if there be the least
tinge of regret, it is only because the time can never return, and that
my happiest days are already spent.

“As Don Juan says, I make a resolution every spring of reformation ere
the year runs out, but I certainly have more confidence in myself now
than I ever before had. I will go home, free myself from all fetters of
every species of acquaintanceship that can only consume time and give
nothing in return, put my shoulder to the wheel, and in one year I shall
find if I am ever to turn out well or not.

“Like every man who has lost time and let good opportunities escape him
without an effort to profit by them, I employ my leisure hours in wishes
that I had to begin the world again.”

He speaks in a postscript of an English family who were stopping at his
hotel:--

“I am going to convey one of the daughters, who is certainly pretty, to
the Louvre to-day. She is to have £10,000, and that might not be a bad
spec, but I should rather make my fortune by any other means....

“The old padrone had the impudence to half propose my going to Italy
as tutor to his young cub, but I answered him very brusquely. He was
certainly very spirited in his offer of compensation, but my prospects
have not come to that as yet. Remember me most affectionately to father,
mother, John, and Anne....

“I wrote to you a few lines on the selvage of my note to my father.
As the tenor of them may not have been very intelligible, allow me to
repeat. If any letter from Vienna should arrive in Talbot Street, secure
it for me. My mother might open it, and although she does not comprehend
German, yet there might be more of it understood than I should like.
I know your reflections very well at this moment, but you are in the
wrong. As the song says,

     ‘It’s a bit of a thing to keep.’

But wait a week and you shall hear it all orally.”

Spencer evidently came promptly to the aid of the traveller, for the
same month of March found him once more in his native land.

It is stated by Dr Fitzpatrick in the later editions of his ‘Life of
Charles Lever’ that the novelist obtained in 1824 an appointment as
medical officer in charge of an emigrant ship bound from New Boss to
Quebec. In 1824 Lever would have been only in his eighteenth year, and
he would not have been in possession of any medical degree, nor would
his brief experience as a student of the healing art have entitled him
to undertake the medical charge of a passenger ship. Moreover, in a
letter quoted by Dr Fitzpatrick, Lever speaks of spending the summer of
1829 in Canada, and there is no suggestion that he made two voyages to
America. It may be safely asserted that the date of the American voyage
was not 1824; and in all probability 1829 was the year of the Hegira.*

     * I discussed these points with Dr Fitzpatrick during his
     last visit to London, shortly before his death, and he stuck
     to his theory that 1824 was the date. He declared (as he
     declares in his book) that in the early years of the last
     century there was no Board of Emigration or other authority
     to interfere with the engagement of an unqualified or
     inexperienced man as ship’s doctor, and that 1824 fitted in
     with his own opinions about Lever’s various movements more
     easily than 1829; and that Lever speaks in his Log-Book of
     having heard the sound of Niagara. But the Log-Book was not
     completed until 1830. Subsequently I found in one of James
     Lever’s letters, dated 1824, a statement that his son
     Charles was then studying medicine and surgery, and was
     “still in college.” In 1901 the novelist’s only surviving
     daughther, Mrs Bowes-Watson, writes: “Yes; my father went
     to the United States and Canada when he was a very young
     man.    It must have been in 1829 or 1830.”--E. D.

Lever appears to have embarked from New Ross in a vessel belonging to
Messrs Pope of Waterford. A cousin of Lever, Mr Harry Innes, declares
that it was through his good offices the young medical student succeeded
in obtaining “the appointment, such as it was.” Lever abandoned the ship
upon her arrival in the St Lawrence. He does not speak of this voyage
in any of his autobiographical writings, except that he tells us in a
preface to ‘Con Cregan’--a novel in which certain quarters of Quebec are
intimately and graphically described--that once upon a time he “endured
a small shipwreck” on the island of Anticosti. To his friend Canon
Hayman he wrote (in June 1843) that the Canadian incidents in ‘Arthur
O’Leary’ were largely personal experiences. He narrated to the canon an
account of his landing in the New World, and of his rapid passage from
civilised districts to the haunts of the red man. He was eager to taste
the wild freedom of life with an Indian tribe. Lever, according to
himself, found no difficulty in being admitted to Red-Indian fellowship,
and for a time the unrestrained life of the prairie was a delightful and
exhilarating experience. The nights in the open air, the days spent
in the pine-forests or on the banks of some majestic river, were
transcendently happy. He was endowed by the sachem with “tribal
privileges,” and he identified himself as far as possible with
his newly-made friends. Ere long, however, he grew weary of the
latitudinarianism and of the ingloriousness of barbaric life, and he
began to sigh for the flesh-pots of the city. He contrived to hide his
feelings from the noble red man, but a noble red woman shrewdly guessed
that the pale-face was weary, discontented, home-sick. This woman warned
the young “medicine man” that if he made any overt attempt to seek his
own people he would be followed, and one of his tribal privileges would
be to suffer death by the tomahawk. Lever dissembled, and (somewhat
after the manner of the as yet uncreated Mrs Micawber) he asseverated
that he would never desert the clan.

But his moodiness grew apace and his health gave way. The perspicacious
squaw, knowing the origin of his malady, feared that the pale-face would
die from natural causes. Moved by compassion, she planned, at the risk
of her own life and reputation, the escape of the interesting young
stranger. An Indian named Tahata--a kind of half-savage commercial
traveller--visited the tribe at long intervals, bearing with him
supplies of such necessaries as rum and tobacco. Swayed by the promise
of a good round sum, Tahata agreed to do his best to smuggle Charles
Lever back to the paths of civilisation. The pair, after many
vicissitudes, reached Quebec one bright frosty morning in December. “I
walked through the streets,” said Harry Lorrequer to Canon Hayman, “in
moccasins and with head-feathers.” In Quebec he found a timber merchant
with whom his father had business transactions, and this hospitable man
recompensed the trusty Tahata, and made Lever his guest; and when the
ex-Indian was newly “rigged out” the merchant paid his passage back to
the old country.

Lever averred that his description in ‘Arthur O’Leary’ of the escape
of Con O’Kelly was a faithful account of his own adventures “deep in
Canadian woods.”




IV. DUBLIN--CLAKE--PORT STEWART. 1830-1837

During the year 1830 Lever busied himself in Dublin with the cult of
medicine. Possibly his rough experiences in America had chastened him
and had induced him to settle down to work. He attended diligently
the Medico-Chirurgical--a school now extinct--and Sir Patrick Dunn’s
Hospital. He was also the life and soul of a medical debating society
which met in a house in Grafton Street. One of his fellow-students
describes him as being in the habit of speaking with such extraordinary
volubility and energy, that it was suspected he was indulging in
exhilarating drugs. Walking home one night with a friend from a
supper-party, at which he had displayed astonishing merriment, Lever
fell into a taciturn condition. On being rallied by his friend he
apologised for his stupidity, or moroseness, by stating that, in order
to tune himself up to concert pitch, he had that evening taken sixty
grains of opium, and now that the excitement was over he was drowned in
depression.

This curious fluctuation of spirits was a marked characteristic: even
when he had abandoned the use of opium, he was to be found in the same
hour overflowing with gaiety and sunk in the deepest dejection.

Though he worked hard and steadily at his studies in 1830, he did not
fail to find sources of amusement. He railed against the sameness
and the dulness of social life in Dublin. He complained of stupid
dinner-parties where men of law and men of physic talked an
unintelligible and irritating jargon. Dublin, he declared, was too
professedly sociable to patronise the theatre; too sociable to form
clubs,--too sociable, in fact, to go into society. He sighed for
Gottingen and Heidelberg and for the more spacious life of German
cities. Then a happy thought occurred to him. Why should he not
establish in the Irish capital a Burschenschaft? He consulted Samuel
Lover,--painter, song-writer, musician, novelist,--and joining forces
with him, a club on the most approved German model was formed. Lever was
elected “Grand Llama,” and was entitled to be addressed as “Most Noble
Grand.” This club bore a strong resemblance to Curran’s “Monks of the
Screw,” * but it was a less aristocratic, and probably a less bibacious,
society. The members wore scarlet vests with gilt buttons, and a red
skull-cap adorned with white tassels. They met in a room in Commercial
Buildings, afterwards used as the Stock Exchange. Suppers, songs, and
conversational jousts formed the staple of the entertainment. Lever, as
president, occupied a chair placed upon a dais covered with baize, with
a representation, in brass-headed nails, of a sword and tobacco-pipe
crossed. Writing thirty-five years later about the club and its
functions, he described it as “very fine fooling,” and he goes on to say
that no wittier, no pleasanter, and no more _spirituel_ set of fellows
ever sat around a punch-bowl.

     * “The Order of St Patrick,” to give this club its proper
     title, was founded by Barry Yelverton, afterwards Lord
     Avonmore. Curran was its leading spirit: he wrote its
     charter song, the famous “Monks of the Screw,” quoted by
     Lever in ‘Jack Hinton.’ The Convent of “The Order of St
     Patrick” was in Kevin’s Street, Dublin, and the club had
     another meeting-place in the country, at Curran’a residence,
     “The Priory,” in Rathfarnam. Amongst the distinguished
     brothers of the order were the Marquis of Townshend (the
     Viceroy), Lord Mornington, Grattan, Flood, Lord Kilwarden,
     and the Earl of Arran. The club ceased to exist in 1795, but
     Lever, scorning anachronisms, introduced ‘Jack Hinton’ to
     the “Monks” at a later date.--E. D.

Lever’s fellow-student, Francis Dwyer (who afterwards rose to rank in
the service of Austria), provides a pleasant description of the
Dublin Burschenschaft. He avers that it gave its members a relish for
intellectual enjoyment. “The most noble grand” conducted the proceedings
with tact and delicacy, never permitting any lapse into indecorousness.

“That he himself was a gainer,” Dwyer insists. “He learned how to lead,
and he also acquired a juster estimate of his own powers, and greater
confidence in himself. No one, indeed, suspected what was really in the
man, and some even shook their heads as to what good could ever come out
of his unprofessional pre-eminence.” He was learning in joyousness what
he expounded in story.

Lever made his first appearance in print in ‘Bolster’s Cork Quarterly
Magazine.’ to which he contributed a paper entitled “Recollections of
Dreamland.” This essay concerned itself mainly with the writer’s real or
imaginary experiences of opium-eating and opium visions. In ‘Bolster’s’
also appeared his first crude attempt at a story, “A Tale of Old
Trinity.” These were anonymous contributions, and their author never
acknowledged them, and did not care to have any reference made to them.
In January 1830 “a weekly chronicle of criticism, belles lettres, and
fine arts” was started in Dublin under the title of ‘The Dublin Literary
Gazette.’ In the third number of the ‘Gazette’ Lever commenced “The
Log-Book of a Rambler.” There are some other contributions of his, not
of much value, to be found in the ‘Gazette.’ The periodical lived for
only six months, and from its ashes arose ‘The National Magazine,’
a monthly publication which started in July 1831 and died during the
following year. To ‘The National’ Lever contributed some papers--of no
higher value than his miscellaneous contributions to the ‘Gazette.’

In 1831 he would seem to have abandoned, temporarily, literary work,
and to have toiled at his medical studies. In the summer of this year he
obtained, at Trinity College, the degree of Bachelor of Medicine.* His
father’s town address was now 74 Talbot Street, and here Lever set up
a practice; but business did not flow into Talbot Street, and the young
physician soon began to display symptoms of restiveness.

     * Dr Fitzpatrick states that he received at the same period
     a diploma as M.D. of Louvain _in absentia_, but Lever did
     not obtain the Louvain degree until he was established as a
     physician at Brussels.--E. D.

Ireland was smitten by a terrible scourge in the year 1832--a sudden
visitation of Asiatic cholera. A Board of Health engaged a number of
medical men and despatched them to cholera-stricken districts. Lever
applied to the Board for an appointment, and in the month of May he was
established at Kilrush, County Clare.

Notwithstanding the gloom which pervaded the district, the young doctor
contrived somehow to infect it with a little of his own high spirits.
Physicians who worked with him through the awful time declared that
wherever Lever went he won all hearts by his kindness, and kept up the
spirits of the inhabitants by his cheerfulness. Some of his associates
were driven to account for his wondrous exuberance, even after he had
been sitting up night after night, by supposing that he was “excited in
some unknown and unnatural manner.” Most likely opium was accountable
for the phenomenon.

In Kilrush Dr Lever quickly made the acquaintance of a group of
companionable men--hard readers and good talkers,--and almost every
evening they met at the house of one or the other, or at the cholera
hospital. These men were to Clare as the guests at Portumna Castle were
to Galway. They knew the country and the people intimately, and they
were able to impart their impressions in vivid and interesting guise. To
the visitor from Dublin was disclosed another treasury of anecdote and
a mine of material for character sketches: and he did not fail to avail
himself of the golden opportunity.

Lever remained in Kilrush for about four months and then he returned to
Dublin, leaving behind him in Clare many good friends, and bearing
with him many pleasant and many ghastly memories.* He could not settle
himself down to wait patiently for a city practice, and seeing an
advertisement in a newspaper for a doctor to take charge of a dispensary
at Portstewart, near Coleraine, he applied for the post and obtained
it. In addition to the dispensary he was appointed to the charge of the
hospital in Coleraine, and the Derry Board of Health invited him to look
after their cholera hospital. He had a wide district to supervise, and,
in addition to his cholera practice,* he obtained a good deal of private
practice. He was able to report in January 1833, to his friend Spencer,
that money was coming in so fast that he was in no need of help from his
father.

     * To give some idea of the awful havoc which the cholera
     created in Clare, it may be stated that one of Lever’s
     associates, Dr Hogan, claimed to have treated 6000 cases.--
     E. D.

It seems opportune to refer here to a circumstance which had a most
marked influence on the greater part of Lever’s life--his attachment
to Miss Kate Baker. He had fallen in love with her while he was a
schoolboy, and his devotion to his wife--the most beautiful of all his
characteristics--was unsullied to the day of his death. Miss Baker was
the daughter of Mr W. M. Baker, who was Master of the Royal Hibernian
Marine School,* situated on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. The Bakers moved
from Dublin to the County Meath about 1830, Mr Baker being appointed to
the charge of the Endowed School at Navan. Young Dr Lever was often to
be found boating on the river Boyne with his sweetheart after his return
from Canada. The doctor’s father was anxious that his brilliant son
should make a good match--that is to say that, like Mickey Free, he
should “marry a wife with a fortune”; but much as Charles desired to
please his father, he resolved that nothing should induce him to abandon
the girl of his heart. His father’s objection to Miss Baker was solely
because of her dowerless condition. Charles endeavoured fruitlessly
to enlist his mother’s sympathies: Mrs Lever’s faith in her husband’s
wisdom was not to be shaken. Finding that he could make no impression
upon his parents, the young man married Miss Baker privately.

     * Mr Baker is described previously as “Deputy-Treasurer to
     the Navy and Greenwich Hospital.”

Oddly enough--and as a corollary to the absence of any official
birth-record,--no accurate document recording the date of the marriage
ceremony could be found when Lever’s biographer, Dr Fitzpatrick,
instituted a search. After long and wearisome investigations he
discovered in Navan the Registry Book which chronicles the marriage of
“Dr Lever.” The entry is undated, and there is no mention of the bride’s
name. The Rector of Navan was of opinion that the ceremony had been
performed by a Mr Morton (who was a cousin of the Marchioness of
Headfort), but he could throw no further light upon the nebulous entry:
he offered a conjecture that the marriage was celebrated between the
month of August 1832 and the month of August 1833. There is something
delightfully Leverian about this. Despite the imperfectness of the
record, Lever’s choice was a singularly happy one. Amongst the many
things which stand to Mrs Lever’s credit are, that at an early stage of
her married life she induced her husband to abandon the use of snuff,
and she also cured him of another of the bad habits of his student
days--indulgence in opium.

The probable date of Lever’s marriage is September 1832. During this
month he obtained leave of absence in order “to complete some important
private engagements,” and in all probability the most important of
these engagements was his wedding. It is certain that the Portstewart
dispensary doctor was a married man in January 1833. Early in that month
he speaks (in a letter to Spencer) of his “household” attending a ball
in Derry; and in the following May he writes: “I have two of Kate’s
sisters here, which makes it more agreeable than usual _chez nous_.”

Early in this year Dr Lever sustained a sad blow: his mother expired
suddenly in Dublin. Her death prostrated James Lever, now in his
seventieth year. He could not bear to remain in the house where his
wife had died, and he retired to the residence of his eldest son at
Tullamore.

He never rallied from the shock, and at the end of March 1833 he died
in Tullamore. This event finally broke up the Lever establishment in
Dublin.

James Lever left all his possessions to his two sons: at the time it was
computed that his estate would realise a sufficient sum to bring to each
of them about £250 a-year, but it is doubtful if it produced this; and
it is certain that Charles realised his share at an early stage of his
literary career.

The severity of the cholera was now waning, and the terrible epidemic
disappeared as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had come. Coleraine
and Derry no longer required the services of Dr Lever, and he was
thrown back upon his Portstewart dispensary. The most important man in
Portstewart was a Mr Cromie. This magnate was lord of the manor, and he
took a keen interest in local affairs. He was chairman of the Dispensary
Board, and being of a strait-laced and somewhat evangelical disposition,
he could not tolerate the exuberance of spirits displayed by the
dispensary doctor. Lever tried to put the chairman into good humour by
means which hitherto he had never found to fail; but Mr Cromie was not
to be cajoled, and was even unwilling to admit the doctor’s contention
that he never neglected his duties, and that the poor people in the
district could vouch for this.

Portstewart was then a rising watering-place, sufficiently gay during
the summer months, but deadly dull when “the season” was over. Its very
dulness was a spur to Charles Lever. He could not set up a Burschen
club, but he managed to make things lively in the neighbourhood. He was
known as “the wild young doctor.” Stories of his exploits were rife.
Once, when galloping to visit a patient, a turf-cart faced him on the
roadway. Not being able to pull up his horse, he leaped him over the
cart--just as Charles O’Malley “topped the mule-cart” in Lisbon. Another
reminiscence of him was that, in order not to disappoint his young wife,
he attended a ball given at Coleraine by the officers of a regiment
stationed there, and he spent the entire night riding backwards and
forwards between the ballroom and the house of a sick child. On another
occasion he organised a motley-clad expedition to attend a fancy-dress
ball given by Lady Garvagh. Vehicles being scarce, the expedition had
to press into its service a furniture van, a hearse, and a mourning
coach. Returning in the small hours, the van (in which Lever, in fancy
dress, was travelling) broke down near Coleraine, and the wild doctor
endeavoured to obtain shelter under the roof of a gentleman who resided
at Castle Coe; but the dwellers at the castle fancied that the visitors
were travelling showmen or gipsies, and Lever and his party were obliged
to spend the night in the van. Next morning horses were procured, and
the furniture-waggon made a triumphal entry into Coleraine.

These and other pranks gave offence to the austere Mr Cromie. In June
Lever wrote to Spencer the following letter:--

“As to matters here, the dispensary is likely to go by the board,--the
private quarrels and personal animosities of rival individuals warring
against each other will most probably terminate in its downfall, and Mr
Cromie since his marriage has become very careless of all Portstewart
politics. The loss would not be very great, but at this time even
£50 per annum is to be regretted. However, matters may ultimately be
reconciled, though I doubt it much. In fact, the subscribers know by
this time that the county practice, and not the dispensary salary,
would form the inducement for any medical man to remain here, and they
calculate on my staying without the dispensary as certainly as with it,
and that my services can be had when wanted, without the necessity of a
retaining fee. This is a northern species of argument, but unfortunately
a correct one.... As for myself, I am just as well pleased [at the lack
of gaiety and festivities] as if we had balls and parties, for I find a
man’s fireside and home his very happiest and pleasantest place....
Dr Bead is endeavouring by all possible means to usurp the Portstewart
practice, and has even got his mother-in-law, the archdeacon’s widow,
to purchase a house and reside here. But the game is not succeeding,
and whatever little there is to be made is still, and likely to be, with
me.”

Finally Lever triumphed in a measure over Mr Cromie, and was temporarily
lifted out of his gloomy mood. Domestic affairs were running a pleasant
course. In September a daughter* was born to him, and in sending the
good news to Dublin, he adds that “the neighbours,” in honour of the
event, had sent him presents “sufficient to stock a garrison for a
siege.”

     * The first-born was christened Julia. She married Colonel
     Nevill, afterwards Commander of the Forces of the Nizam of
     Hyderabad. She died at “Nevill’s Folly,” Hyderabad Deccan,
     early in the year 1897.--E. D.

The following year found him again in a troubled condition. Portstewart
was displaying symptoms of decline as a watering-place. He writes in
August 1834 to Spencer:--

“If prospects do not brighten here--of which I see little chance--I must
pitch my tent somewhere else, as when once a fashionable bathing-place
begins to decline, its downfall is all but inevitable. I am much
disposed to book to Canada, for though the scale of remuneration is very
small, there is plenty of occupation for my craft--and living is cheap.
An English watering-place would undoubtedly be more to my liking, but
would require more of _l’argent_ than I am likely to have.”

During the following year, in addition to dispensary worries, Lever was
seriously disturbed about the state of his health. Rheumatism assailed
him, and his left arm (according to himself) was “like a dead man’s
limb.” He consulted his former professor, Surgeon Cusack, who told him
that probably he would have to abandon Portstewart, and seek a more
genial winter climate. To Spencer he wrote in June:--

“Our prospects here are black enough. Mr Cromie and his party have, by
an overwrought severity in manners and opinion, completely terrified
all people from frequenting this as a watering-place, and we are now
destitute of all society,--save a few widows and old maids come to live
on small means and talk scandal. The complete desertion of the place by
all people of means has rendered my occupation gone, and my once high
and mighty functions might also--and must be--transmitted to some
country apothecary. Partly from illness, and partly from the causes I
have mentioned, I have scarcely done anything these five last months.”

During the summer, however, the sick man rallied. His spirits rose as he
observed the little watering-place filling up once more. In August his
report to Dublin was that Portstewart was fast becoming a paradise for
the lodging-house keepers,--cottages fetching £15 to £20 a-month. He
goes on to say that “about four thousand strangers are here--glad to get
any accommodation--living in hovels and sleeping on the ground. There is
a great deal of company-seeing--but all heavy dinners. No music, nor
any pleasant people to chat to. I have been gradually getting more
illegible,” he continues, “till I find the last of this letter
resembling a Chaldean MS. I am ready to shout from the pain of my right
elbow,--my horse fell and rolled over me, and in the endeavour to rise
fell back upon me. Those who saw the occurrence thought I was killed on
the spot.”

Presently he formed one of the most important acquaintanceships of his
life. Amongst the many visitors to Portstewart was William Hamilton
Maxwell, Rector of Balla, near Castlebar. Maxwell had published his
‘Stories of Waterloo, in 1829, and his ‘Wild Sports of the West’ in
1830. To Lever at this period Maxwell was a literary demigod. The two
men exchanged views about Irish life and character, and Maxwell fired
the dispensary doctor with a desire to beget a novel of adventure.

If ever a writer was handsomely equipped for the creating of tales of
romantic adventure or boisterous Irish humour, that writer was assuredly
Charles Lever. He had spent his early days in an atmosphere charged
with recollections of a brilliant era and a mettlesome, laughter-loving
people. As a mere youth he had displayed a love for good books, a
faculty of improvisation, and a facility in the art of composition.
Endowed with an excellent education in his own country, he had enlarged
his knowledge of life and literature by travel, observation, and study
in foreign countries. He was a member of a profession whose duties
bring one into close touch with all sorts and conditions of men. His
imagination was lively and fertile, his vision kaleidoscopic, his power
of observation quick and true. He had a high sense of honour and an
unaffected admiration for noble and valorous deeds: his appreciation
of wit and humour was keen and sound, his love of fun and frolic
ebullient.*

     * Edgar Allan Poe pronounced Lever’s humour to be the humour
     of memory and not of the imagination,--a criticism which is
     only a half truth.

He had been indulging, in a desultory fashion, in literary vagaries
during the dull months of his Portstewart life,* but he had not put much
heart into his literary work since the death of ‘The National Magazine.’

     * A cousin of Lever, Mr Harry Innes, told Dr Fitzpatrick
     that Lever, during his Portstewart days, had written a
     considerable portion of a work on Medical Jurisprudence.--E.
     D.

Maxwell, however, had reanimated him; and when the author of ‘Stories of
Waterloo’ returned to the West of Ireland (in the autumn of 1835), Lever
got into communication with editors of various publications. He was
especially anxious to get a hearing at the office of ‘The Dublin
University Magazine’ (launched in January 1833). The earliest story of
his which appeared in this interesting periodical was “The Black Mask.”
 There is a somewhat curious history concerning this tale. In 1833 Lever
had entrusted the manuscript of the story to a Dublin acquaintance,
instructing him to deliver it to a certain publisher in London. No
acknowledgment came from this publisher--who, possibly, was not in the
habit of corresponding with unsolicited contributors--and at length,
failing to obtain any reply to his letters of inquiry, Lever rashly
concluded that the manuscript had been lost. He re-wrote the story and
sent it, in 1836, to Dublin. When “The Black Mask” appeared in the
May number of ‘The Dublin University Magazine,’ William Carleton, the
novelist, informed the editor that not only was the tale a translation,
but that it was a flagrantly pirated version of a translation which had
appeared in an English publication called ‘The Story-Teller,’ Lever was
furious at being charged with a literary fraud, but he hardly knew how
to answer the charge. Fortunately young Mrs Lever had seen her husband
writing the first version of the story, but even this did not explain
everything satisfactorily. Eventually it was discovered that the envoy
to whom Lever had entrusted the MS. of “The Black Mask” in 1833 had
surreptitiously disposed of it to ‘The Story-Teller.’

Throughout the year 1836 Dr Lever continued to supply ‘The Dublin
University Magazine, with contributions--short stories and reviews. He
had quickly established pleasant relations with James M’Glashan, the
publisher of the magazine.*

     * James M’Glashan’s early history is not very clear. He
     migrated to Dublin, probably in the Twenties. About 1830 he
     was secretary of the Dublin Booksellers’ Association. He was
     with Messrs Curry from 1840 to 1846 at 9 Upper Sackville
     Street In 1846 he went to D’Olier Street, and was in
     business there with Mr M. H. Gill until 1856, when Mr Gill
     bought him out of the firm of M’Glashan and Gill. The
     foregoing facts have been communicated to me by Mr Michael
     Gill, B.A., Director of Messrs M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd., and a
     grandson of the M. H. Gill who was M’Glashan’s partner
     --E. D.

A letter written in May to M’Glashan has been preserved:--

“My dear Sir,--I have just seen the advt. of contents of ‘University’
for June, among which the ‘Post Mortem’ holds honourable station, and
hope it may merit it. I write these few lines hurriedly to ask if you
will spare space for a ‘story’ * in your July number, as I have one
ready, and will send it if you desire. As I am going with Maxwell on an
expedition on Thursday, will you let me know your reply before then?

     * “The Emigrants Tale.”

“Maxwell and Bentley have been sparring, so you are not to expect the
review of ‘Picton,’ as the wild sportsman is in great dudgeon with the
mighty publisher.

“Whenever anything can be got from him worth your while, I shall press
for it. At present he is toiling for the ‘Bivouac,’ which is to appear
immediately.”

The four following letters written to Spencer afford interesting
glimpses of the young doctor’s life at this period:--



“PORTSTEWART, _June_ 13, 1836.

“I have reaped no small self-praise from the circumstance that I have
not been a bore to you for nearly three months, for it only wants a few
days of that time since we parted in Dublin. How I have existed in
that space I can scarcely say, but one fact is undoubted--not from the
proceeds of my profession.

“There has been nothing to do here for the whole _cordon sanitaire_
of medicals that invests this and the surrounding country; and
idleness--unbroken idleness--has been our portion, and you well know, my
dear Saunders,* the _far niente_ is not _dolce_ when it is compulsory,
and thus, if I have been working little I have grieved much.

     * “Saunders” was a nickname given by Lever to Spencer.

“It was, as far as occupation is concerned, fortunate that I became a
scribbler, but in respect to money the Currys are slowest of the slow,
and so I am again on my beam-ends for cash, with some petty debts boring
me to boot. I have applied to the Currys, but not so pressingly as my
circumstances demand, for a man does not willingly expose his poverty to
strangers; and it is rank bad policy--if avoidable--for a poor author to
confess his poverty to his publisher.

“As my summer commences in July I may yet do something, but I have
made up my mind to leave this,--its reputation as a fashionable
watering-place is fast going, if not gone, and I am left musing like
Marius amongst the ruins of past greatness, or ‘the last rose of’
anything else you can conceive of loneliness and misery.

“Whenever you do write, give me a hook and a head as to my prospects,
for I can hope on with the assistance of the smallest gleam of light
that ever glimmered from a taper.

“I sent you a paper a few days since with extracts from an article of
mine. Did you get it?

“Since the appearance of the said article, and in consequence thereof,
I have been written to by Blackwoods to become a contributor. This is at
least flattering, and may be profitable.”



“PORTSTEWART, _June_ 23, 1836.

“I saw some time since an advertisement in a literary journal for
an editor for an English paper published in Paris, salary £200 per
annum--he being expected to place in the stock purse of the concern
£200, for which he is to receive six per cent. This I replied to, and
have just got all the particulars, and I may have the appointment if I
please. The capital, it being joint stock, is £8000. They have sent me
a list of subscribers and account of profits--very flattering,--and
the proprietor is the well-known [Reynolds] of the Library, Rue St
Augustine--a most respectable and wealthy individual.

“My only reason for entertaining the proposition is my anxiety to
emancipate myself from the trammels of this failing place, where I see
my prospects daily retrograding, and every chance of my being left the
only resident in a healthy population.

“My intention is, if I accept, to establish myself as a doctor in
Paris,--there are 40,000 English residents,--and then by my literary
labours pave the way to future advancement in my profession.”



“PORTSTEWART, _June 29_,1836.

“I have thought over the proposition mentioned in my last letter until
my head is half crazy. There are many things in it which I could wish
were otherwise than they are, but what is there to be found which gives
unqualified satisfaction? My object is to go where there is a field for
exertion--whether I may be able to cultivate it or not remains to be
tried; with £200 and my own means we could at least get on tolerably
well if practice did not follow: but I hope it would, and certainly I
would endeavour to make it my chief object. I did not mention in my last
that a dividend of the profits would be allowed for £200 as well as 6
per cent.... Since I wrote I received a line from Maxwell, who is in
Paris, and to whom I wrote requesting that he would call on Mr Reynolds
and mention my application, &c. He (Maxwell) speaks very favourably of
Mr R, but by all means advises my going over to Paris immediately, and
this, though attended with considerable expense, I have almost resolved
on doing. If successful, the trip will be well worth the £30 it
will cost; if otherwise, it is worth so much to escape a bad
speculation--that is, taking it for granted that my foresight will
detect its prospects of success or failure. I must only do the best I
can, and see as far into the milestone as I am able.... I am resolved,
if I go to Paris, to use my senses without bias or prejudice.... If I
continue in my present mind I shall leave this on Saturday and be in
Paris the following Friday.”



“PORTSTEWART, _July_ 19, 1836.

“I returned from Paris on Thursday last, having contrived within the
space of fifteen days to travel there and back, spending one day and
a half in London and five whole days in Paris. As to the result of my
inquiry on the subject of my trip: I have thought it better, after
a deliberate calculation of every bearing of the matter, to decline
accepting the Journal.

“Independently of the great sacrifice of time to a pursuit foreign to
my profession,--and this I only learned was indispensable on my going to
Paris,--I find the expense of living--rent in particular--far beyond my
expectations or means, lodgings in any respectable quarter ranging
from 3000 to 4000 francs per annum (£120 to £160). The great influx
of English, either resident or visitants, has rendered Paris a close
competitor with London for extravagance. The changes which the few years
since last I saw Paris have brought about, have rendered it the most
magnificent city imagination can conceive. New esplanades, ornamented
with the most stately and beautiful public buildings, are everywhere
to be met with, and all the _agréments_ of out-of-door life abound in
Paris. I was present at the trial of [ ], and, in the few days of my
stay, contrived to see a good deal both of places and persons. I cannot
but regret that the speculation has not fully answered my expectations;
but, when considering the time required, the matter of remuneration, the
uncertainty of its continuance, and the great danger of again [risking]
a fall into the world of a new and foreign city, I am afraid to venture
though shockingly tempted. I have returned home to remain, at least
until something decidedly better offers.”

“The trip to France, however pleasant and healthful,” he writes to
M’Glashan in July, “has not added to my purse’s weight.... If you desire
a continuance of my contributions, you can mention when you write....
Maxwell dined with me yesterday. I don’t think you can calculate on much
from him at present, as, besides fighting with Bentley the whole battle
of Waterloo over again, he is writing a new book for Macrone.... I hear
Butt* is about to be my neighbour, and rejoice that he is not leaving
the Magazine while he is extending the field of his labours.”

     * Isaac Butt, the editor of ‘The Dublin University
     Magazine,’ afterwards a famous advocate, and the “father of
     the Home Rule movement”--E. D.

Maxwell’s arrival in Portstewart in the summer of 1836 helped to chase
away Dr Lever’s gloomy forebodings. In the autumn, when the season was
over, he set to work vigorously and made his first bold plunge into the
sea,--he regarded his pre-1836 writings merely as dabblings in shallow
water. On the 29th of October the first chapter of ‘Harry Lorrequer’ was
despatched to Dublin, accompanied by the following note to M’Glashan:--

“I send you Article No. 1 of a series which will include scenes and
stories at home and abroad,--some tragic, others (as in the present
case) ludicrous. I have had an invitation from Colburn to furnish a two
or three volume affair, but I am not in the vein for anything longer or
more continuous than magazine work at present.”

The following month he wrote again to M’Glashan:---



“PORTSTEWART, _Saturday night_.

“In a gale of wind, slates flying, and the chimneys (such of them as are
not blown down) smoking.

“I send you by private hand the proof of chaps, iii., iv., and v. of
‘Lorrequer,’ and am sincerely happy to find they are to your likings,
and I hope in the ensuing chapter, which I expect to transmit next
week, to do something better. Meanwhile, no comparison with my friend
Carleton, I beseech you--so far, very far, indeed, beyond the standard
by which I could wish anything of mine measured.

“I hope you may like the enclosed, as you will, better than the
preceding chapters. I purpose in the succeeding ones to give you ‘Dr
de Courcey Finucane’s Adventures in Bath,’ ‘First Love,’ &c. I have, in
plain truth, written all the night, besides employing another hand* to
transcribe, for which the printer will remember me in his prayers. Now,
‘Fair play is a jewel,’ as Dr Finucane would say; so send me a proof, if
possible, before Wednesday.”

     * His wife’s.

M’Glashan’s instinct told him that ‘Lorrequer’ was a windfall. Fearful
lest Colburn should secure the young Irish humorist, he despatched to
Portstewart an ambassador* whose instructions were to secure Lever at
any cost. If money would not buy him, flattery might win him.

     * Mr George Herbert--afterwards a well-known Dublin
     publisher.--E. D.

Lever, always a victim to impressions of the moment, and always hungry
for praise, fell an easy victim to M’Glashan’s ambassador. Ere long the
knowledge that his writings were in brisk demand caused him to dream
of a wider life than Ulster could promise; his mercurial mind travelled
back to the bright days when he had been a sojourner on the Continent.
On January 30 he wrote to Spencer:--

“After doctoring many for the last few days I am at last stricken
with influenza, and hardly able to answer your letter, which I am most
unwilling to defer lest I grow worse, not better. I am most gratified to
find that Lady Charleville has interested herself for me, and hope
the best results from it. It is singular enough--and perhaps fortunate
too--that it is through Sir George’s mother, the Duchess of Richmond,
whom Alderman Copeland has procured as a patroness, [?she] has applied,
so that if the opportunity to serve me is in her power she may perhaps
feel disposed for it.

“As to Moatfield, I thought I should have got £500, but if you think
that it is out of the question, offer it to John for £400, and let him,
if he accepts, have any convenience as to half of it he proposes. Of
course this is contingent on my going to Brussels, for if I do not
I shall not want it--at least at present. If Mr Crowther--for whose
misfortune I am really sorry--goes to Brussels I shall be glad to hear,
for there are many points I am most desirous to be informed upon.

“Cusack was right in respect to the prohibition to practise,--there is
a _permis_ to be procured from the Belgian government before any
foreign physician can prescribe; but this, if I am connected with the
Ambassador, will be, I suppose, a mere matter of form.

“PS.--The influenza, which has been killing others, has been keeping
me alive, though I find my outlay always a very respectable distance in
advance of my income. The rival doctor here has been dangerously ill,
and I have been greatly engaged.

“I have just got a letter from Brussels from another and more competent
source than the former. It speaks encouragingly of my prospects, there
being ‘but one good English physician in Brussels, and he constantly
in jail for debt. It is right’ (I quote the words) ‘to mention that
the physician’s fee is but five francs, and that living is much more
expensive than formerly, and the English residents fewer in number.’
This, on the whole, is somewhat gloomy, but I know many well-informed
persons who think the small fee more profitable, as it is always offered
and taken for each visit, and tendered for illnesses which rarely would
elicit the guinea. On the whole, I am more discomfited at the dearness
of the place than the amount of the remuneration.”

At the end of February he made up his mind finally to voyage to
Brussels, and he announced to Spencer his intention of travelling by way
of Belfast, Liverpool, London, and Antwerp.



“PORTSTEWART, _Feb_. 24, 1837.

“I have just received intelligence that the party who interests himself
to obtain for me an introduction to Sir G. S. has failed, and I am again
stranded. What course to take I really know not, but think my best plan,
so far, at least, as I can see, is to set out for Brussels and present
such letters as I already have, making myself acquainted with the
bearings of the whole matter--to such an extent, at least, as personal
observation can point. Longer hesitation would be not only miserable but
injurious, for, having been obliged to make known my intention to many
persons here, the thing has got abroad, and I am considered _en route_
already. Must, therefore, either resolve to go--or stay--without further
delay. The expense of the _voyage d’expérimenté_ will, I know, be very
heavy, do what I can,--and I can but ill spare the money,--but what else
to do I know not. I wish you would write to John and say that if his
friends have not heard from their correspondents, perhaps they would
give me a letter to wait on Lady Seymour, which would decide the affair
at once. Copeland will give his letter to Bulwer, and I have already one
to Crampton. Should I fail in becoming known to and acknowledged by the
Ambassador, I have great doubt that it would be prudent to embark in so
bold an enterprise under any other sanction or patronage whatever.... I
am writing away for Currys’ Magazine, and I have got into a series which
will occupy some months, but the pay is small (seven guineas a sheet),
and I cannot get a settlement until several sheets are due....

“I shall merely stay,” he continues, “in London one day to procure an
introduction to Mr Bulwer, and wait on those persons who interested
themselves for me.... I go with no very sanguine hopes of success, and
yet I think it better to make the trial than afterwards to regret that I
haven’t made it. One thing I have determined on--that I am ready to
make any sacrifice of comfort or personal indulgence should my chance of
succeeding give me any fair reason for remaining there [at Brussels].”

On the 27th March Mrs Lever wrote from Portstewart to Alexander
Spencer:--

“I had a letter from Charles on Thursday, in which he expressed a strong
wish that you should know what he is about. He left this for Brussels
on the 1st of March, and will be detained there until after the 28th or
30th. I am not sure if you are aware that a permis is necessary before
any physician can practise there, and it is obtained by the person
applying for it undergoing an examination. Strange to say, the
interested persons, the M.D.’s of Belgium, are the examiners. Charles,
however, has been making interest to obtain it without--and hopes to
succeed. I shall give you an extract from his letter. ‘I cannot give any
idea of the excitement my arrival has caused. Six families have written
to Dublin to investigate my claims, character, &c.... Sir
George Seymour’--he had two very handsome introductions to the
Ambassador--‘told Crampton that if I am not the man destined to carry
away _all_ the practice he is greatly mistaken. If I get the _permis_
(and I dont(sp) know whether I shall or not) the game is certainly dead in
my favour.’ Another extract. ‘Sir Hamilton Seymour continues to be most
kind, and is doing all possible to forward my views. In fact, if great
anxiety on all sides here can ensure success, I have every prospect.’
Speaking of living in Brussels, he says: ‘It is fully as cheap as most
parts of Germany, and half--actually half--as cheap as Paris. I can get
a house unfurnished for £60 per annum, and furnish it complete from
top to bottom for £150.’ An extract from the letter before the last.
‘Different persons of quite different opinions on all things, agree in
saying that from £800 to £1000 per annum can be made here by the first
man. Ten families of the first rank here have been mentioned to me as
being ready to support me if I stay.’”

On April 6th Mrs Lever wrote again to Spencer:--

“The commission have been tormenting him by repeated delays, putting
off the examination of his papers, with the intention, he thinks, of
disgusting him with the whole business, and they had nearly succeeded,
but on sending for his passport to leave at once, Sir G. Seymour went to
him and requested him to remain until Monday (last), and that if there
was any delay then he would demand an immediate answer being given.
I will give you an extract from his letter. ‘If my permission be not
granted on Wednesday next, or a perfect certainty of obtaining it in a
day or two, I shall start from this and bring you over, for I’m resolved
on practising here with the prospect held out to me. Already I am making
about a pound a-day, and Sir H. Seymour said only five minutes since, I
cannot recommend you getting into any scrape, but if you do so, I shall
certainly do my best to get you out again.... All the high English here
are ready to memorial the king to have me retained here.’ He expects to
be home on Sunday next, as he intended starting for Ireland the moment
he obtained an answer, favourable or otherwise....

“I hope you will excuse my being so troublesome, but I am sure Charles
will remain a very short time here, and I also know he must have money
to move us and begin housekeeping, so should be most grateful if you
could manage the loan* in any way, and I hope it will not be necessary
for him to go by [way of] Dublin, as it would be additional expense. My
health is very bad, and I should rather avoid any travelling that was
not absolutely necessary. He has been spared knowing how ill I have been
by the uncertainty of his stay in Brussels having prevented my writing
to him since Sunday fortnight.”

     * Alexander Spencer managed all Lever’s business affairs in
     Dublin. The loan Mrs Lever refers to here is a loan upon
     “Moatfield,” which property her husband was loath to sell
     outright: it enshrined pleasant memories. In the days of
     Lever’s wooing, the garden of Moatfield had furnished many a
     bouquet for Miss Baker.--E. D.

A letter from Lever, dated April 5, reached Spencer shortly after the
receipt of Mrs Lever’s note.

“Will you send by this post a few lines to my wife,” the writer asks,
“and say you have just heard from me, and that I hope to leave this
[Brussels] on Saturday at farthest, and probably will come home by
Belfast if I miss the Derry steamer on Tuesday, which would pass my door
on Wednesday,--this is as near as I can say? You must send me any money
you can when I reach Portstewart, to pay my small debts, as I shall
possibly leave a week after my arrival. Let Kate know this, and say
I would write to her, but wrote last Sunday by Mr Kane. I am greatly
fagged and fretted by the delays and anxieties of my position.”

The same day that he wrote to Spencer he forwarded a letter to
M’Glashan:--

“My dear Sir,--The permit to practise is a matter so difficult to
obtain, that in fact every English physician has been deterred from
trying Brussels for that one and sole cause, and I have come here only
to discover that there is a great opening for a fairly qualified and
well introduced man,--the others who have been here for several years
(before any permit was necessary) being underbred and uneducated men,
and unfit for anything but second-class apothecary practice. But still
the right to practise, even among the English, is denied to all, except
on passing an examination before a jury _d’examen des médecins_, all
interested in the rejection, and only anxious to make Brussels a close
borough for themselves and their friends. So stand the affairs: and
although I am appointed physician to the Embassy, and am this instant
in personal attendance on the Ambassador, I have no right, properly
speaking, to practise, nor is it likely that I shall obtain it. However,
unpleasant as this undoubtedly is, I find that by the protection of my
Ambassador, and the favour of the Government,--who are through his kind
and most unwearied endeavour to serve me, my friends,--I may continue to
exercise _les droits d’un médecin_, if not _sans peur_, at least _sans
reproche_; and if they were to proceed legally against me, the king will
interfere and remit my fine; at least so they tell me, and at last, if
the persecution should continue, I have only to study for a month and
obtain a Louvain degree, which settles all difficulties by one stroke.
As it is, I am here in good practice with bad pay. They say £600
a-year can be made. I do not believe it; but I think £400 might, and
as everything is moderate, except rent and taxes, a man could do very
comfortably on that I intend leaving this on Friday next to bring over
my wife and weans, and settle at once.

“My patients here are all the first people,--Lord Stafford, Lady
Faulkner, &c., among the number,--and all express a desire to keep me
and serve my interests. In a word, I never met more kind offers, nor
have I ever witnessed a fairer prospect, to the extent it offers, of
success.

“I must raise a little money to furnish a house and bring over my
family; and if you would put me on the way to obtain £200 or £250, I
would not sell Moatfield. Otherwise I shall do so, as I have no time
to lose. My step does not admit of delay, and when I reach home I must
leave for Brussels almost immediately,--the opening is such that some
one must fill it at once.”

Lever set out from Portstewart in the first week of May 1837.




V. LETTERS FROM BRUSSELS 1837-1842

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“16 Rue Ducale, Brussels, _May_ 12, 1837.

“We reached this on Monday afternoon, having had a most agreeable
journey through England, which we all bore admirably, and after a
passage of twenty-two hours reached Antwerp so little fatigued that we
at once set out for Brussels, where we had the pleasure to find that our
house was ready for us and perfectly prepared for our occupation. We at
once drove thither, and have avoided all hotel expenses, and have the
additional comfort of being at once at home after so much journeying. I
have, of course, but little to communicate of Brussels since my arrival,
save that I find myself as safe as ever in the estimation of the English
here, and am already hard at work. Lady Faulkner and several of my old
attaches have again sent for me, and although the _permis_ cannot be
obtained sooner than August, if then, I have every hope that I escape
(some time) any molestation. My only loss on the road was a carpet-bag
containing all my groom’s clothes, and amongst them a new suit of
dark-grey livery, for which I had just paid £4, 10s. and was never worn.
These were left behind in the George Hotel, Dale Street, Liverpool, and
although I have written about it I have not received any answer, and
fear it is irretrievably gone. If there could be found any means of
getting at the matter through Dublin, I would be extremely glad,--for
if the bag were forwarded to the Burlington Hotel, Burlington Street,
London, addressed to me, Brussels, by the Victoria steamer for Antwerp,
it would still reach me and save me some money, and my man much
raggedness.

“Mrs Innes is quite correct in her estimate of the Tighes in one
respect, for previous to my going to Ireland they employed me several
times but never fee’d [me], and they have no possible influence here,
and are not in any society. I know all the best English already, and
shall always be able to get my introductions through Sir Hamilton
Seymour. I am quite certain, if permitted to practise, that I shall have
the leading place; but however pleasant and agreeable, it never can be
anything but a very small matter as regards income.

“This day has brought me my tenth patient, so you see I am not idling.
Lord Stafford has just sent for me, and I have been told that the Prince
of Hesse (Philipstad) will consult me to-morrow. He is the brother of
the Queen of England, and has great influence.

“Would you tell M’Glashan that I have got ‘Rory O’More’ from the author,
and he shall have the review* for July No.”

     * A review of ‘Rory O’More’ appeared in ‘The Dublin
     University Magazine’ for January 1838, but, judging it by
     its illiberality, I should say the review was not written by
     Lever.--E. D.



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussels, _August_ 22, 1837.

“One of our Irish residents here going over for the ‘rents,’ gives me
the opportunity to send a few and very hurried lines to you. I have been
jogging on _à l’ordinaire_, nothing new or wonderful occurring except my
being fined for prescribing _sans le permis_, and my having received in
reply to a memorial a most civil response from his majesty, that from
the representations made to him from such high and influential quarters
on my professional capabilities, every facility shall be afforded me in
submitting myself to the Jury d’Exam., when my little acquaintance
with the French language shall be no barrier to my undergoing the tests
prescribed. So far well, and I now await for the conference which is to
pronounce upon my fitness to practise.

“I have been most fortunate in all my cases, and my name is at the top
of the wheel, so that if I pass this Exam., whatever success Brussels
can yield I have every prospect of enjoying. Nothing but the small
scale of remuneration is against the place being a good locality for a
physician, and even already I have succeeded in getting ten francs
per visit, which, if eventually adopted, would give me a very fair
professional income. I am completely among the _corps diplomatique_ of
all nations, and through the unceasing attentions of Sir H. Seymour my
position is a most gratifying one. To his house I have the _entrée_ at
all hours, and to his box at the opera I am at all times _admis_. We
ride out with him, and pass a couple of hours every day in his society.
Kate and the babes are doing well, and I am most grateful at my
emancipation from [drudgery].”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussels, Rue Ducale, _Aug_. 29, 1837.

“Your ever warm interest for your friend is my safeguard that you will
not be bored by so soon getting another letter from me; but, besides, I
cannot forbear telling you that I have at last obtained the _permis_
to practise, having this day passed an examination before the Medical
profession who represent to the Minister the capacity of the candidate.
So far, therefore, all is settled; and I hope and trust no further
difficulties be in my way towards a tolerable success in Brussels.
My practice lately has been less from the great emptiness of the
city,--every one worth anything having fled up the Rhine, into Germany,
or to Wiesbaden, Carlsbad, &c. But I am told that in the winter I shall
have as much as I can attend to. All the high are exclusively with
me, and I am extending my lines among the foreign missions--Austrian,
Brazilian, &c. The king has spoken most favourably about me, and I am
daily expecting a call to Court. I believe I mentioned that I was fined.
The penalty was remitted by his majesty; yet law expenses, fees to the
Procureur du Roi, &c., make the affair amount to 500 francs (£20).
This was a bore. Still, I made more than that considerably by the
delinquency, so that after all I am no loser. I am dreadfully at a loss
for a good groom that can ride [? postilion] occasionally (the latter
is not a _sine quâ non_), who is light weight, young, not tall, and
perfectly sober. I brought a good one over here,--excellent in every
respect,--but the cheapness of drink has made him an inveterate
drunkard, and he neglects everything. If you could send anything like
this (only sober by all means), I would most willingly pay his way
out here. His only [? duty] is to mind two horses and ride and drive
occasionally, and that very seldom. He has no housework to do. Wages 10
guineas a-year, all livery, and about £3 more for the manure. My wife
and weans are quite well, and the former delighted with Brussels. Mr
Waller is a great friend of ours. We dined with him and his wife to-day,
and in fact we are as intimate with all the Embassy folk as possible. I
should indeed be a very discontented fellow if I was not quite satisfied
with my fortune here; and now that all minor obstacles are surmounted,
have really everything our own way.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussels, _Nov_. 7, 1837.

“My practice goes on favourably, my daily receipts ranging from two to
three pounds usually....

“The D. U. M. people write so pressingly to me that I am once more
in harness.... I have only my late evenings unoccupied. I find it
sufficiently wearisome and fatiguing, but I am resolved to leave no
shaft unworked that promises ore....

“Our gay season has not yet begun. Still, we have Saturday soirees at
the Embassy, to which we always go, and occasional _petits diners_ with
the chiefs of the _corps diplomatique_,--very pleasant and lively.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“16 Rue Ducale, Brussels, _Nov_. 1837.

“.... I am quite sure of Mr Butt’s being a safe and punctual person,
and God forgive me if I wrong Mr Crowther, but I have not the same good
opinion of him. _Coûte que coûte._

“It will not ruin me, and it’s only, as Dr Bailey said, going up so many
more flights of stairs to feel pulses, though here in Brussels that is
rather a laborious task.

“I have been thinking very much latterly of future provision for my
family, and am divided between the idea of insurance and funding, and
although the former has undoubted advantages to one like myself, _ne
possède pas un grand talent de l’économie_, yet depending mainly, as I
must do, on the fluctuating resources of a profession, I hesitate about
commencing what I feel myself eventually unable to continue; and I
think, under such circumstances, that laying by the accruing rents of
the houses--and, if I can afford it now and then, an occasional £20 or
£30 to make up a sum to lodge--affords, perhaps, the best means in my
power to accomplish my object. In this way I might be able to put by
close upon £100 per annum--at least, such is my present calculation....

“The writing for the Mag. is, as you hint, a very laborious finale to a
day’s work; but although I find myself somewhat fagged, I feel I must do
my best when the time offers, for although money comes in fast upon me,
it equally rapidly takes wings to itself afterwards.

“Brussels is now beginning its gaiety, and is nearly as full as it can
be. No kind of house in a good quarter, and tolerably well _garni_,
can be had under £250 to £300 per annum, and many are as high as £500.
Otherwise--clothes excepted--everything is cheap. We have a large Irish
colony who are, I regret to say, not the _élite_ of the land....

“We continue to have Saturday soirees at the Embassy; and most of the
best people receive company _uninvited_ during each evening of the week.
As to climate, the heat and cold are both greater than with you; but,
thanks to foreign _liberté_, one may wear any species of clothing he
deems most conducive to comfort: furs are in daily use. The ladies dress
most splendidly here,--embroidered velvets with gold and embossed satins
are the only thing worn in evening costume. The opera is very good. ‘The
Huguenots,’ lately produced, is splendid, and brings great houses.

“I have three horses--my two Irish, and a small doctor’s cob I got for
a debt from Lord Wm. Paget.... My house is most comfortably--even
handsomely--furnished, as Haire will tell you, and I have only to wish
for, in haberdasher phrase, ‘a continuance of public favours.’

“The children are both most healthy. My boy is a very stout fellow, and
I think prettier than his sister. I sent a silhouette of them to the
Bakers a few days since. I hope you may see Haire--he is a really kind
fellow, and I know you will like him. He saw a good deal of what was
going on here in his short stay, and can tell you _ma position actuelle_
better than anything I can write.

“Among _bien distingués_ here we have the son of Tippo Saib. He speaks
English fluently, and in his oriental costume forms a grand lion for our
soirees.

“You can form some idea of the extent of the English colony here, on
hearing that we have two churches at which service is performed twice
on Sundays to large congregations, and that two English newspapers
are edited and published here,--they contain copious extracts of every
political change going on in England.

“You have heard, I suppose, of the great gossip of the day--Lady
Lincoln’s affair with her doctors. The real case appears to be a most
infamous one,--nothing less than this: these two Polish M.D.’s here
have threatened, unless they receive 400,000 francs, to disclose certain
secrets her ladyship unfortunately let slip in the ravings of her
insanity during her illness. Lord Lincoln resents the iniquitous demand,
and the affair is to come before Le Tribunal. Anything so thoroughly
blackguard I never heard of before. But [it is] a salutary lesson to the
English for their mad preference of foreign [? quacks] and humbugs to
the highly-educated medical men of Ireland and England....

“I don’t know if I told you that I have been appointed Medical Examiner
to the United Kingdom London Assurance Co., and have daily proofs of its
value....

“I received a very wicked and flattering letter from Spencer Knox,
the son of the late Bishop of Derry, who had heard of me from Lord
Westminster’s missing patient....

“If, instead of starving upon dispensaries in Ireland, a few of the best
young medicals would only learn French, there are some capital openings
here. At Bruges, at the moment,--one of the cheapest places on the
Continent,--from £400 to £500 per annum could be made by a properly
qualified man,--and no one offers. I have been sent for thirty miles
(to Ghent), and there is in that city a large English residency _sans
médecin_.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Rue Ducale, Brussels, _Dec_. 29, 1837.

“My practice here still continues to increase, though now I must not
look to much extension to come. I can live, if this last, by my trade.

“I did not send any MS. to [D. U. M.] for January, for I was greatly
overworked, but will despatch an article on Tuesday the 9th in time to
appear next month (Feb.) Pray say so (to Butt). I shall endeavour to
make it a sheet....

“The gaiety of this place has begun, and balls and soirees are given
every night. I am hoping to be presented at Court next week, but a
difficulty lies in the way--my never having been at St James’s. This may
be, I trust, got over, for being presented would be of service to me....

“The standing army here, with a population of only 4,000,000, is nearly
100,000 men, fully equipped in every respect. What would Mr Hume say to
this?

“The people themselves are universally well disposed--obeying the law,
and most industrious in their habits. Crime is but little known, and
capital offences almost never occur. Through the streets of the large
capital at night any one may walk, not only safe from personal risk, but
even from the least insult. An improper expression I never heard yet,
though [abroad] at all hours, and yet there is neither a watchman nor
night _gens d’arme_ in the whole city. And, strange as it may seem,
though a bottle of Geneva costs but about 7d., drunkenness is rare
except amongst the English servants, who are the greatest wretches
unhanged. The theatres are three--the Opera, the [? Vaudeville], and a
species of circus like Astley’s. All are good of their kind, and always
crowded. The weather here is beautiful--more like spring than winter,
but I believe it is unusually mild for the climate. An American Minister
and Swedish have both arrived since I have been here. All, so far as
I can see, promises the stability of the present state of things. The
country possesses enormous resources, and notwithstanding the late
revolution--always an expensive luxury--the debt is but trifling.
Railroads are being constructed with great rapidity between the large
towns which, from the flat surface of the country and its immense
productiveness, must be in every instance profitable speculations. As to
Society: it ranks higher than any other capital on the Continent except
Paris, being crowded with persons of independent fortune, who are most
hospitably disposed. The king himself does everything possible to make
his Court agreeable.... A great many thanks for ‘The Evening Mail.’ The
puffs always make me go on when the stimulus of money fails.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, _Feb_. 1838.

“Although Brussels fulfils all my expectations, I might be ultimately
tempted to try my luck in London or Paris [as a medical man]....
Attending to an outbreak of measles has prevented me from sending my
usual contribution to the Mag.... I have definitely raised my fees from
5 francs to 10 francs--double that of any other English physician, and
five times the fee of the Belgian practitioner.... The sister of the
Ambassador has recovered under my hands from what was universally
believed to be a fatal case of spasmodic croup.... There is nothing but
gaiety and going out here every night, and I am half wishing for summer
to have a little rest and quietness.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, Rue Ducale, _March_ 28, 1838.

“I may be in London in the summer to be presented. Which I must do as a
preliminary to being introduced to the Court here....

“I am carrying ahead with a very strong hand, and have little dances
weekly. I had three earls and two ambassadors on Tuesday, and am keeping
that set exclusively in my interest.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussels, _July_ 13, 1838.

“The excessive heat (102 in the shade) has been such that I have been
obliged to send my children to the country about nine miles off--a
pretty village between Waterloo and [ ].  Kate and I are going to-morrow
on a little tour along the Meuse by Namur (shades of my Uncle Toby!),
and shall be away for about a fortnight.... I drive my own horses, and
merely bring Kate and a groom.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Boulevards de l’Observation, Brussels, _Sept_. 13, 1838.

“I have been obliged to change my residence, very much in some respects
to my disadvantage, inasmuch as my present one is _vis-à-vis_ to the
Embassy, and consequently inviting a daily, almost hourly, intercourse
there, besides giving me a kind of publicity. My new residence is No.
33 Boulevarde de l’Observation, a very good house--four rooms on each
floor, with garden, coach-house, and five-stalled stable. It has been
the residence of the Portuguese Ambassador up to this time, and is in
perfect repair.... Mr Dumont, the Irish Under Secretary, has been a
patient of mine for some time past. We are great friends. He has dined
here several times with me, and if anything medical official is in the
new Poor-Law Bill, I think I should have an offer of it at least.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“33 Boulevard de l’Observation, _Nov_. 12, 1838.

“The fatal facility of the Embassy bag for troubling one’s friends--as
you have cause to feel--induces me to bore you with a commission, the
performance of which I cannot spare you, for I have no other friend to
whom I can commit myself _et mes affaires_ at this juncture.

“I have just received a letter from Mortimer O’Sullivan, to whose
management I had entrusted an arrangement with M’Glashan concerning
the sale of a republished edition of ‘Harry Lorrequer,’ and who from
unavoidable absence is compelled to leave the negotiation on your
shoulders....

“M’Glashan proposes (O’S. writes to me) to publish H. L. in monthly
numbers, with illustrations like the ‘Pickwick,’ in preference to a
2-vol. form; in which I thoroughly coincide. He also desires to have
an answer from me as to my plan regarding the length of the work and my
expectations as to payment. To which I reply that I am willing to give
twelve monthly numbers of the size of ‘Pickwick’ (i.e., two sheets
each), those already in the D. U. M. going as far as the Mag. (for
£150), and thus concluding the work in these twelve numbers.

“I suppose, from a rough calculation, that one sheet and a half of
magazine-matter will equal two sheets of octavo like Pickwick; but at
all events I shall be prepared to fulfil my intended extent, no matter
how far short they may come.

“O’Sullivan proposed to M’Glashan the common bargain of ‘half-profits
and security against loss,’ to which M’G. replied that he would accede,
but proposed a purchase. _So do I._ Therefore it is a mere question of
money between us.

“It is right I should mention that the copyright is with me by express
agreement, so that no question of the Magazine interest exists.

“Now I should spare you all this but that if I propose at once to
M’Glashan, and he objects, the scheme ends, whereas I leave it to you
to make the best bargain you can, coming even as low as £100 if
necessary,--not lower, because I have reason to know that the thing is
wished for by him and expected to do well. Butt has confessed fully as
much already in his letters. If he is willing to give £100 I should be
very glad to leave the remaining £50 dependent upon the sale,--a very
frequent bargain--i.e., if the work succeed the £50 is paid, otherwise
not.

“I shall also _not_ give the concluding Nos. in the Magazine, thereby
reserving all interest in the conclusion for the new publication. This
only, however, if it appears proper so to do to the proprietors of the
Magazine, who, having paid me liberally, shall be dealt liberally with
by me.

“For all the details of the publication regarding correcting for press,
&c., I have peculiar facilities of transmission through the Irish office
which will save heavy postage to both parties. This is of consequence,
as I must correct the press myself. This I should insist upon. I can
be ready for the first No. for January, but as illustrations will
take time, February would be soon enough to begin--and it is a better
publishing month. This I leave to M’Glashan.

“I shall not send anything further to the Magazine until I receive a
reply, and have only to add that I hope you may succeed in making some
bargain for me, for I want money most considerably. If you can hasten
the arrangement, _tant mieux_, for I must remain idle till I hear from
you.

“Lord Douro, who has been breakfasting here the last two mornings, has
promised me a frank, but I am afraid to delay in sending you this in the
hope of seeing him.

“I have only to [? warn] you, as a last instruction, that M’G. is a
devil of a screw, and will fight to the last for low terms. Therefore be
prepared to threaten him with Bentley, Saunders, and Ottley, &c. For I
know he wishes the thing, and will not easily relinquish it.

“The local Irish papers have called out for a republication, and that
may also be urged with him. These are my last words--and God bless you
and yours!”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“33 Boulevard de l’Observation, _Dec_ 1838.

“I have just despatched my acceptance of M’Glashan’s offer--which I am
well content with--and shall lose no time in setting about _my_ part in
the affair. I hope to be ready for March next. I do not know if any more
formal document of agreement be requisite between us than his proposal
and my consent as expressed by letter. But as publishers are
rather slippery gentlemen, [I] think it would be safer to have a
regularly-drawn contract on each side for signature. This I know to be
the usual mode, for I have seen such issuing from Bentley and the other
great publishing people.

“I am very desirous that the illustrations should be by Cruikshank, not
Phiz. Pray try to accomplish this for me. Much if not all the success to
be hoped for depends on these [illustrations]....

“M’Glashan speaks of an introductory chapter. I think that anything of
this sort had better be deferred for the last No., as in the ‘Pickwick’;
but on this point I shall be guided by him.

“M’G. desires that each No. should be, as it were, complete in itself.
Now until I know the quantity of matter requisite for one I cannot
effect this. Therefore let him as soon as possible have a hundred struck
off for me, and this will be a guide for the others. Of course M’G.
considers as his exclusive province all the details of getting up the
work, but I hope he intends putting me in a good coat, as I promise
myself, if fortunate, another appearance on the boards.

“I wish above all that he could put me in relations with the illustrator
for the scenes to be selected as subjects: this is most material. John
[or Johnston] speaks most kindly upon the propriety of not touching the
proceeds of this affair. I shall do my endeavours thereunto, but for the
present I am rather lower in funds than usual. My furnishing has cost
more than double what I anticipated, and I must call upon you in January
some time to send me £40 or £50. Butt owes me something--I believe about
£20--for the Mag. The exact sum I know not, but he can tell you; and the
affair had better be wound up, as he has left the concern and gone to
the English Bar, where, by the bye, the highest expectations are formed
of him.

“We have been giving weekly soirees to the great guns here--all the
different _corps diplomatique_ and lords and marquises without end.
I have a very handsome house, and the [? entertaining] has been done
admirably well. Johnston was here one night. The thing is cheaply done
here,--a well-lit room, plenty of servants (to be had for the night),
ices, lemonade glacé, and stirrup-cup of spiced wine at 12 o’clock,--and
that completes the expenditure. And you can have fifty people--and we
never had less--for about five pounds sterling. They all so understand
the art of mere chatting that music and dancing would be thought a
regular bore; and except one whist-table for the dowager ladies of
honour, nothing else is needed. Without witnessing it one cannot think
how well these affairs always go off, and the din and clamour of
fifty people, talking in about half the tongues of Europe, is about as
exciting a scene in a brilliant salon as can be conceived. Lord Ely and
Lord James Hay and Lord Douro are here every Monday; and amongst our
notorieties we have Napoleon, Bassano of Russian memory, the Russian
Ambassador, the Man of the Treaty of Tilsit, and Jerome Buonaparte. Sir
H[amilton] Seymour and our Embassy never fail us, and we are really
at the top of the ladder. I confess I am proud of this for one reason:
hitherto the doctor has been regularly kept down amongst English society
in Brussels, and it took a good deal of management to break the old
chain of habit and fight out a place for him.

“If our Lorrequer scheme goes on favourably I hope to visit Ireland in
the summer for a day or two.

“As time presses for our publishing, pray write as soon as you can and
tell me all you can learn about M’Glashan’s views. Since I have begun
this, the news--alas! but too true--has reached me of the failure of
La Banque de Belgique. All my ready money happens to be in their notes;
about £40 is thus, if not entirely lost, at least so far jeopardised as
to be trembled for.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“33 Boulevard de l’Observation, _Jan_. 4, 1839.

“How many plates do you propose giving to each No.? If possible, say
three.

“Let me also hear what dress we are to appear in. There is a great deal
in the externals of a book as well as of a gentleman.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_Jan_. 11,1839.

“H. K. Brown has not yet written to me, and I regret it the more,
because if I knew the scenes he selected, I might have benefited by his
ideas and rendered them more graphic as an author corrects his play by
seeing a dress rehearsal.

“Has Phiz any notion of Irish physiognomy? for this is most important.
If not, and as ‘Lorrequer’ abounds in specimens, pray entreat him to
study the Tail* when they meet in February: he can have nothing better,
if not too coarse for his purpose. Don’t fear for the conclusion. I
think I can manage it safely; and if the company would like to sup where
they have dined, I shall keep a broil for their amusement. My intention
is, if all prospers, to bring ‘Harry’ to Canada in the next series, and
as I have been there, something can be made of it. This is, however, for
after consideration.

     * This was an epithet applied to the “Repealers,” who
     followed O’Connell’s leadership.--E. D.

“I have been so hard worked here that I have been obliged to sit up at
night to transcribe, and ‘Harry Lorrequer’ has kept me from dinners and
evening-parties innumerable.

“How will the press treat us? Conciliate by every means the editors.
Upon my conscience, I think I should have a _soirée_ of devils, if I
was among you, to stand well with the men of ink. Write to me soon.
Your suggestions are most useful, and keep up my pluck and stimulate my
activity.

“The illustrations in No. 1 are very good, but why is Lorrequer at
the supper at Father Malachy’s made so like Nicholas Nickleby? That is
unfortunate, and every one sees it at a glance. All plagiarisms in the
book, I beg to say, are my prerogatives.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, _Jan_. 1839.

“....In addition to the English leaving this and leaving me without
occupation, I should lose my little property of chattels that I have
gathered about me....

“The next few days may see me on the road: if so, I know not which water
I shall ask my passport for.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, _Feb_. 12, 1838.

“Matters look somewhat better here the last few days, but still the
massing of troops continues, and already about 100,000 men and a large
artillery force are assembled upon the Holland-Belgium frontier. The
treaty, though signed by the King of Holland, has not been acceded to
by the Belgians, and while the present excitement continues it is not
probable that anything decisive will be done by the Chambers. In fact,
so strong is the antipathy to the Dutch and so great the influence of
the priests, that a war would be universally popular among the mass
of the people; and the anti-war party in the Chamber are consequently
fearful of expressing their opinions, well knowing that, let matters go
how they will, they at least are very likely to be pillaged by the mob.

“The last move of the Government here is certainly, to say the least,
a suspicious one. General Skrzynecki, the Pole who commanded at
Ostrolenka, has been appointed a general in the Belgian service. The
circumstances are worth mention. This Pole, it appears, when the defeat
of his countrymen took place, fled with a very considerable force and
took refuge in a portion of Poland under the Austrian rule, into which
the Russians, who are no respecters of etiquette, would have followed
had not Austria and Prussia at once interfered and guaranteed to Russia
that _they_ would be responsible for him and his officers never entering
a foreign service, nor in any wise ‘troubling the peace of Europe.’
Skrzynecki consequently obtained his freedom and retired to Prague (in
the Austrian territory), where he has since lived on his parole. Now
comes the worst of the story. Leopold and his agents have induced him to
break faith, and come here at this moment to take command, for which
he has talents, and his reputed bigotry as a Catholic renders him very
suitable,--and the result is that the Ministers of Austria and Prussia
have both demanded their passports and left Brussels. This tells very
ill for Leopold, who at the best shows himself the mere tool of
the Catholic party who have taken this man up. The Chamber has been
prorogued till the 4th March, but I know from private sources that it is
the king’s intention to convoke them in the coming week, and, if
possible, carry the acceptance of the Twenty-four Articles. If he fail,
I then suppose we may have a renewed negotiation, but as there is no
prospect of them getting more favourable terms, they must either accede
at last or try the chances of a war, which cannot fail, once begun, to
become a European one....

“Tom Steele is now here offering his services and 10,000 wild Irish to
the Belgian Government in case of war. However, I think we may have no
need for either....

“A French army of 48,000 men are now on our frontier, and a very large
force of Prussians, with 10,000 troops from the German confederates,
occupy the others. These, with an English fleet ready to set sail for
the Scheldt, are the means in store for us--if the treaty be rejected.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“Brussels, _Feb_. 16,1838.

“As I have received no account of the former MSS., I have worked night
and day to complete this in the prospect that, if you like it, it can be
published by the 15th January [? February], I have, I believe, improved
upon the finale; I think that now the ending is as good as I could make
it. How the original MS.* went astray I cannot ascertain, and it is now
needless to inquire; but as I myself saw it put in the Embassy’s bag,
and know that it must have arrived at the P.O., I cannot conceive what
subsequently became of it. Holdswith is so infernally stupid that,
however blameless he may be, I curse him in my own mind for the
misfortune, particularly as once before it was through him a nearly
similar mischance occurred. The scenes for illustration are not so good,
of course, in the concluding No. The best, however, are the whist-party
with the king, and O’Leary in prison.

     * Some chapters of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’

“I have already explained about the portrait, which was a total failure.
Phiz must invent a vignette for the title. I have sat up nearly till
morning the last fortnight, and am quite worn out. The chaps, are,
however, with a few exceptions, written _de novo_, as my memory
completely failed me as to the former ones; but I have read both to the
same parties, who concur in preferring the latter. As I shall feel most
nervous about the safe arrival of this after my late misfortune, let me
hear when it reaches Dublin.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Boulevard de l’Observation, _March_ 1, 1839.

“The king has become very unpopular: his busts are pulled down or broken
in various places through the country, and many former adherents of
the Government speak openly that they would prefer a thousand times to
become a province of Spain rather than be a disunited country, as the
loss of Limburg and Luxemburg would make them.... Banks are breaking on
every side--two at Louvain, one at Antwerp, and one at Liege within
the last week,--and Cockerill, an English manufacturer, whose wages to
workmen alone amounted to a thousand a-week, is declared bankrupt....

“I saw a private letter from Lord Melbourne to-day, saying that they had
got ‘a famous Lord-Lieutenant for Ireland.’...

“I am very anxious about ‘Lorrequer,’ for, unfortunately, like most--I
might say all--my resources, they are always digested before
being swallowed, and the possibility of any trick [on the part of
M’Glashan]--a possibility of which I cannot entirely divest my mind--has
harassed me much of late.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, _March_ 29, 1839.

“... I have been, and am, but very so-so in health latterly. My old
enemy, my liver--who has most vulgar prejudices against ‘good cookery’
and French wines--has expressed his discontent most palpably. If I could
spare time for a trip over the water the sea would, I think, set all
right.

“This place has received a great blow from the late troubles, and,
_entre nous_, I should at once take wing for Paris if I had £500
_en poche_, but as I haven’t as many francs, _il faut que j’y reste
encore_.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Boulevard de l’Observation, _April_ 1839.

“I fear if my letters to you were to rise up in evidence against me,
that my cry, like that of the horse-leech, would be found to be one
‘Give! Give!’

“But true it most certainly is my poverty, not my will, consents. The
war, the weather, and the taste for Italy (confound these classical
publications!) have all conspired to take our English population [away
from] here latterly, and I find myself, like the Bank de Belgique,
_presque en état de faillite_. Therefore send me the £26 you have; and
if Butt has anything due--which I believe and hope he has,--send that
also. I shall try if some of the London magazines will not accept
contributions from me,--as my ‘Lorrequer’ repute is a little in my
favour, now is the time; but for some days past I have been poorly,--my
ancient enemy, the liver--who has certain vulgar antipathies to _dindes
aux truffes_ and iced champagne--has again been threatening me, and I am
obliged to do very little.

“The letter you enclosed me from [ ] was so singular, I am sorry you did
not read it. It appears that about four years ago some person gave Mr
S. the words and music of ‘The Pope’ as his own, which has since gone
through several editions and turned out a safe speculation. Mr S. at
length learns that I am the real Simon Pure, and with great honesty
and no less courtesy writes me a very handsome--indeed I should not be
astray if I said gentlemanlike--letter apologising for his usurpation
of my property, and requesting of me to point out any charity to which I
would desire a donation to be sent, and that he will do it at once. Kate
has just seen a paragraph in ‘The Mail’ which you sent, that offers a
good occasion for doing a service, and I think I may as well not let
slip the opportunity. With this intent I have written a letter to Mr S.,
which I leave open for you to read, and, if you approve, forward it
to him, pointing out the destination, and leaving the sum of his
contribution to himself. If you could conveniently see Mr S. it will be
gratifying to me to know how he behaves, for I confess the affair has
interested me a good deal; and finally, if the contribution be sent,
I should like it to go to [ ] of Sandford Chapel. I have begun a new
series in the Mag.,* and have a more lengthy and weightier speculation
on the stocks.**

     * “Continental Gossiping.”

     ** ‘Charles O’Malley.’

“I believe M’Glashan will write soon, but in any case let me hear by
the 26th (pay-day for my rent). Of course you don’t think of paying for
‘Lorrequer,’ and pray row Curry if your copy is not always an early
one. Tell me what you think of the illustrations. I am much pleased with
them.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Brussels, _May_ 3,1839.

“I have not been so well latterly, and am trying to get some one to
order me to travel a little. As old Lady B------e always found a doctor
who ‘knew her constitution,’ and told her to take ‘Curaçoa’ frequently,
I hope to find an intelligent physician too. I have so much material in
my head, which would work up advantageously in our Gossipings,--sketches
of places, society stories, with some hints upon the Continent that only
a residence suggests,--that I have some idea of giving them a much
wider range, taking in literature, politics, manners, habits, &c., &c.,
mingled with sufficient incident and story, all thrown into a somewhat
narrative form, and making a book of it. Mortimer O’Sullivan, to whom
I mentioned this, if near you, will explain my plan, which he
approved--perhaps I should say suggested--when here. I should give every
city, most of the travelled routes, and some untravelled ones, sketches
of the German universities, songs, &c.; and in fine, make up a slap-dash
ramble abroad that would astonish better-behaved and more sedate
travellers, keeping our original title; and with the aid of Phiz, who
should not want scenes for illustration, I think the thing would do. Of
course, it should appear in 1-or 2-vol. form, and if you like may come
forth in the Mag. each month. Answer me on this head soon, for if you
like it I think I will go to Germany, visit the Spas, and try if we
cannot beat that most insufferable humbug and bore, old Grenville. If
‘Harry Lorrequer’ succeed, a new work by the author, as the newspapers
have it, should take the tide of public favour at the flood.

“My trip to Ireland is so very contingent upon the people who won’t be
sick at present, but are keeping it all for July and August, that I
should like to hear from you more fully.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_May_ 1839”.

“I have had, since I wrote, an offer, unsolicited on my part, made to me
to complete Grenville’s books by a vol. upon the Spas of Belgium and the
North of Germany.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“BRUSSELS, _May_ 1839.

“I send you a short chapter of ‘Continental Gossipings.’

“For the great abruptness of its transitions I shall apologise to you,
though not to the public, by mentioning that here the choice of topics
is extended, and the opportunity for variety increased; as in a _table
d’hôte_ dinner where there are fifty dishes, it is hard if you could not
have something to your taste. And to follow up the illustration, if you
object to the order of their service, I reply that I have lived long
enough in Germany to be quite content at finding puddings precede soups
and fish come after cheese. Therefore, you see, I am above or (if you
prefer it) beneath criticism.

“‘The Morning Post’ has not said anything as yet. Remind Johnson on
this head for me. ‘The Morning Post’ is a tower of strength, and we must
contrive to have it with us. I have been so out of health that I can do
but little, and have some thoughts of going over to London for the
sake of the voyage, and to get presented, in which case I shall have
an opportunity of going across and seeing you all in the ‘sweetest city
upon the Say.’ Tell me, too, is the story of the Dutch Minister, who was
humbugged by false despatches last summer in Paris, known in Ireland?
If not, it is too good to lose, and will be _bon_ for our ‘Continental
Gossipings.’ This place abounds in munition for the press; but I am so
circumstanced I cannot take advantage of it. One week of ‘Confessions’
for Brussels would, however, be worth all Master Harry’s, if he went on
for a century.

“The treaty has been peaceably accepted here, and no political
excitement of any kind has followed: disturbances are, however, to be
feared if anything should occur in France; and it is said, upon good
authority, that in such an event Leopold would abdicate. I believe with
all my soul he is perfectly sick of the whole concern.

“The French is terribly mangled in ‘Lorrequer.’ Pray have this amended.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Brussels, May 28,1839.

“Had it not been for your urgent desire upon the subject, the German
tour had been long since abandoned by me. The difficulties which I
encountered in merely thinking over the plans were such as nearly
floored the undertaking, However, after burning four attempts, I send
you a few pages of my fifth and last essay, which, if you like, I shall
continue. What I claim for myself is simply this, to praise or abuse to
the top of my Irish bent everything which comes across me. I don’t care
for the _incognito_ further than serves to support the spirit of the
thing, but, of course, purporting to be the production of a German, it
had better be preserved. ‘Gossips from Abroad’ I think of calling the
great unborn. My plan is a tour beginning at Rotterdam, sketching life,
manners, &c, as we go on, telling stories, describing places, &c.; up
the Rhine to Baden, into Germany, the German cities, spas, universities,
the Danube, Saxony, Switzerland, Tyrol, France, Paris, Belgium, and
Loire,--in two goodly vols., like ‘Lady Chatterton’ as to size. I could
give the more touchy bits for the Mag. _de temps en temps_, and reserve
the whole for publication early in the coming year. I have already some
of my best material almost ready. So pray write me your views anent
this. But pray write soon. My impatience for answers to my letters bodes
but ill to your future welfare, if certain _blessings_ invoked by me are
to have any chance of accomplishment. My trip to Dublin is not out of
the question, but act as if it were, and let me hear from you. I cannot
work with spirit or industry till all the detail of arrangement is got
done with; and now that my busiest doctoring season is over, I should
like to set to work with energy. Your idea of the woodcuts in the
page is quite perfect, and I like it amazingly. A boar’s head, a Swiss
chalet, and Tyrol pass: a Danube skiff would take well and ornament the
book.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Brussels, _June_ 4, 1839.

“I have so many things to say to you that I treasure them all up for the
visit which I have promised myself to Ireland, but which I daily fear
can scarcely take place. This is a season in which so many notorieties
come through that I have dreaded being away. Polignac, Peel, Lords
Brougham and Lyndhurst, the Bishop of Exeter, and several others have
come under my hands since last summer, and I cannot with safety or
prudence lose the opportunity of making such acquaintances. However,
if it be manageable I must do it, for I wish very much to talk over and
discuss several plans and projects I have been thinking over. Since
I sent off my last MSS. to you a week ago, I have written nothing but
recipes of blue pill and senna draughts....

“I have had some very ludicrous mention made to me by a doctor of a
certain new publication called ‘Harry Lorreker,’ of which I was, of
course, profoundly ignorant, and even in one case borrowed the book. As
all the criticisms were not _couleur de rose_, the fun was the greater,
as no one saw my blushes, or at least suspected them.

“Once more let me have an early letter. You spoke of going somewhere
for health. A few weeks up the Rhine would do you infinite service. Come
over to me and I’ll patch you up and give you a route--perhaps go along
with you.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“Brussels, _July_ 1839.

“I now send you the review of Marryat. Let me see a proof if possible.
I have done my best to let the Yankees down easy, but I fear it is too
bitter. If there be anything amusing for review send it to me,--anything
to abuse, anything to tear. I have no temper or spirit just now for
encomiums.

“Write to me a long letter, and if there be anything encouraging in the
notices, tell me. You know the story of the handsome Frenchwoman to whom
Chateaubriand complained that, though ever so clever, flattery of
her was too difficult; to which she replied, ‘N’importe: louez-moi
toujours.’ So I, without any of the same reason for the practice, would
beg of you: Give me sugar-plums, if there be any, for I never felt more
in want of a little ‘buttering-up,’ as Mr Daly would call it. Of course,
I should recommend both as regards you and myself if the thing was done
well--‘Let not the badness of the cheese obliterate the remembrance of
the soup and fish.’ So say I. If the public laugh at first, let us not
send them home disposed to cry.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“_Aug_. 2, 1839.

“Acting on the opinion contained in your first letter that the matter
then published would make eight numbers, I promised four additional
ones. Since then I have written one and a half of the new monthly
numbers, and find that the whole only makes eight in all, which is a
terrible overthrow of all my plans regarding it. The material I have
still by me will not by any arrangement extend to more than two numbers.
I fear to prolong it beyond that would greatly injure the book as a
whole and weaken any interest it may have excited, by what would be
called a falling-off. I cannot say how much this has vexed and annoyed
me. But I am disposed to doing the best under the circumstances. First,
I shall conclude the affair in ten numbers, making you any compensation
for the omitted two you think fair, either in money or in any future
dealing; secondly, I will write the two additional numbers as well as
I can, which will, however, involve a change of plot, &c., &c, that I
cannot but deprecate as regards the fortune of the book as a whole.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_Aug_. 6,1839.

“The more I think of it, the more I feel persuaded that we had better
close [‘Lorrequer’] with ten numbers. The plot will be original, the
effect not weakened, the volume sufficiently large, and the public less
disposed to grumble, which, for all our sakes, is something. I have had
so much worry here with sick brats and patients of all kinds, that I am
fairly knocked up. Besides that, there is not an old fool sent by that
arch-charlatan Grenville to drink Spa waters in Germany, who does not
expect me to have an analysis of every dirty spring or fetid puddle from
Pyrmont to the Pyrenees; and my whole mornings are passed discussing
chalybeates and sulphurets with all the scarlet and pimpled faces
that Harrogate and Buxton have turned off incurable. There is only one
comfort in all this. However imaginary the ills they suffer on leaving
England, by the time they reach Brussels on their way back, few of them
boast constitutions strong enough not to be suffering from the fat,
grease, filth, and acidity of German cookery, and they all, more or
less, are in need of me before they get their passports from Antwerp.
The English who travel--God bless them!--are an amiable class, and they
seldom fail to bring along with them for the journey some family ailment
which French wines and high living combine to make troublesome. A
constant influx of these pleasant people keeps me here, but if I can
manage it I mean to bolt soon. Every _table d’hôte_ in this city swarms
with the most unlicked cubs of our country, speaking neither German nor
French--a few English. They disgust me for the false impression they
convey to foreigners of what English gentlemen really are. What they
come for, and where they go, I cannot say. It is impossible that they
can be escaping for debt, for no one could possibly trust them; and they
cannot be swindlers, for swindlers are men of captivating address and
prepossessing manners. I rejoice to think that they are poisoned by the
living, sent wrong in diligences, cheated by the money-changers, and
bullied by the police.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Brussels, _Aug_. 90,1839.

“Your letter of the 24th has arrived, together with the packet
containing the review of Marryat, dated 8th ult., since which date it
has been following his Excellency the Ambassador through the Highlands,
and enjoying the sports of the season at the Duke of Athol’s.

“I have just arranged about the portrait.* You shall have the sketch
next week, and had better get it engraved. He will be much more Harry
Lorrequer than Charles Lever. However, that will be all the better.

     * This was not the portrait prefixed to ‘Jack Hinton,’ but a
     vignette finally condemned.--E. D.

“I have not the most remote idea of the conclusion, and have lately been
adding more to my family than to ‘Harry,’--a little annual in the shape
of a daughter being presented to me yesterday. Would you kindly put
the announcement for me in the Irish papers?--‘Born on the 28th of
the month, at Brussels,’ &c. Of my new and most original work, more
hereafter. Meanwhile, see if Butt does not owe something for my
contributions to Mag., and if so, send it, and anything for my late
MSS., to Spencer, who asks for money in lieu of sending it,--a species
of transfusion of my pecuniary blood which my constitution cannot
bear. I have just been walked into here by a swindler to the amount of
£145--money borrowed on security. This is a confoundedly heavy loss,
and has ruffled my temper, and possibly affected my naturally legible
handwriting.

“I have some very brilliant ideas of my new book, which you shall soon
hear of.

“Send me something light to review.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussels, _Sept_. 13,1839.

“Since my return I have been working very hard--not medically, for town
is empty, but scribbling....

“I am in great hopes to have something like a half medical tome on the
stocks for spring. I was talking about it to Bradie and Chambers in
London, and they strongly advised it--for money’s sake less than the
popularity such things secure.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_Sept_. 20,1839.

“I sent you a week since two chaps.--xliii. and xliv.--of ‘Harry
Lorrequer.’ God grant they have reached you, for I never can rewrite,
and if lost, they break the chains, if there be any, in the narrative.
I am told of a handsome notice of ‘Harry’ in the ‘Naval and Military
Gazette.’ Look at it. How goes on the sale of No. 7? Tell me, and let
me have a proof of No. 9 soon, and as much of No. 10 as you can get
together. I see my way thus much more clearly. I wish you would suggest
scenes to Browne; his choice latterly is not over happy. But above all,
my wife and daughters are still poorly, and I am so unhinged and upset
by these causes and not being well myself, that I am below the mark as
regards writing. I trust, however, that this is not to continue, and
look forward to being once more _en route_.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_Oct. 7_ [?1839].

“Your letter came to hand exactly as I had despatched my own lament
for the lost ‘Lorrequer,’ and had actually set about writing another
conclusion for No. 9, which I have since, of course, burnt,--not but I
have some misgivings that it was the best of the two. We must soon pull
up, and marry our man. I’ll do for you a review of the son’s ‘Life
of Grattan,’ but it must be a profound secret. I think Lorrequer’s
portrait, if done at all, had better be appended as a vignette to the
book,--mounted on the cob, as I mentioned. How to manage it is, however,
difficult. A German translation of ‘Harry’ is announced in the Leipzig
catalogue. It must have been _rayther_ thorny work for the translator.
Meanwhile--proof! proof! and a long letter, I beseech of you. I am idle,
and likely to be so, if not stimulated by hearing from you. It is only
the occasional prod of the spur that even makes me move.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_Oct_. 18, 1839.

“In the hope of forcing you to reply, I have been pouring in a shower of
small shot these last three or four days, and I now send another missile
in the shape of a new chapter of ‘Harry.’ For Heaven’s sake write to
me, and let me see the proof of No 10, for in about ten days my season
commences here, and then blue pills and rhubarb will eject all that
appertains to our friend Hal.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“_Oct_. 22, 1889.

“Herewith goes a slating of ‘Physic and Physicians’ for our December
number, of which let me have a proof--that is, if ever you intend
writing to me again.

“Write soon--write soon.

“What would you think of a book called ‘The Irish, by Themselves’?
Something like ‘Les Français’--to be done by several hands,--Otway,
Carleton, &c.? Of all countries it presents most facility for this kind
of thing, and might ‘take’ prodigiously.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Brussels, _Nov_. 1, 1839.

“I have thought so much over the idea of ‘The Irish’ that I send you a
list of subjects conveying my idea of the thing which would, I am sure,
beat ‘Lorrequer’ to sticks. Could I talk the matter over with you I
could better explain my thoughts, but ‘The French’ will sufficiently
convey the shape, style, and intention of the publication. Write me
your full opinion on this matter, but do not mention it except to some
well-judging friend till we think more about it. The illustrations
should be of the most graphic kind, and the descriptive part as
narrative and touchy as possible. I am so full of it that I can think of
nothing else.

“List of subjects for ‘The Irish, Painted by Themselves’: The Irish
Artist (only think of Sharpe!), The Country Dancing Master, The Medical
Student, The Irish Fellow, T.C.D., The Irish Widow, The Irish Author,
The Common Council Man, The Auctioneer, The Irish Beggar, The Irish
Lawyer, The Priest, The Boarding-House Keeper, The Hedge Schoolmaster,
The Doctor, The Sporting Gentleman, Country Attorney, Popular Preacher,
The Hackney-car Man, The Dublin Dandy, The Favourite Actor, The Dublin
Belle.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“_Nov_. 12, 1839.

“I sincerely hope that long ere this your withers have been unwrung, and
that my friend, Dr Graves, has restored you to the rank of a biped. God
forgive you! what a dreadful thing it might have been to die with such a
sin on your soul, for sending me the two last proofs. When did you hear
that I was reading Job? They are, indeed, awful: the No. 9 has several
blunders, and I am resolved to make the public look to you and yours for
them in the preface. See to No. 10 with all the accuracy possible,
for in the Mag. it is perfectly unintelligible. (Colonel) Addison has
reviewed that splendid book ‘Africa,’ and you can insert it as a notice.
You ask for No. 11. But No. 11 is not begun!! Nor how it is to be do
I yet know. The whole is to be dedicated to His Excellency, Sir H.
Seymour, Minister Plenipotentiary, &c. I have been, for domestic causes,
unable to write or read, and scarcely had any time to eat these ten
days.  Now, however,------

“Don’t refer to me as the writer except among your friends.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Brussels, _Nov_. 1838.

“My intention as regards my new book is to continue ‘A Tour on the
Continent’ with articles originally written in the D. L. G., entitled
‘The Log-Book of a Rambler,’ taking the Rhine for a starting-point,
thence diverging to the fashionable watering-places into Germany, the
universities, galleries, &c., giving sketchy and anecdotic descriptions
of new places and things as I pass; thence to Dresden, Vienna, Prague,
Munich, Paris, Brussels, &c., illustrating each trait of foreign manner
by an essay or tale as it strikes me, all as much in the slap-dash style
of ‘Lorrequer’ as to bear his name, and be called, if you approve of it,
‘Harry Lorrequer’s Log; or, A Six Months’ Leave.’ This I intend to be
my _grand ouvrage_, and esteem it a dead bargain at £300, which you must
give me first. I purpose that you will not be a loser by me, and will
make it all that my poor talents can do. In this proposal I hesitate not
to say that I am certain that I am not overrating what I can fairly look
for. I am very much fatigued and overworked just now, and being pressed
besides, can only add that I am ever yours truly.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan_.

“_Nov_. 29, 1839.

“Since I last wrote I have had four applications from Bentley, Colburn,
Lardner, &c., to write something in the style of ‘Harry Lorrequer,’
but longer and more pathetic. They order a book, as they would their
breeches. This speaks well for the success of ‘Lorrequer.’ I wonder
that any of these great men knew the whereabouts of so humble a man as
Charles Lever.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, _Nov_. 29,1839.

“I write in great haste to ask of you to explain away a blunder I have
just been guilty of. I have received an offer from Bentley to write a
new work to be called ‘The Irish Dragoon,’ in the ‘Lorrequer’ _façon_.
The plan appeared to me, the more I reflected upon it, one promising
success, and I this morning wrote to M’Glashan explaining how I stood,
and told him that for auld langsyne, &c, I wished he might be the
publisher if the thing was likely to be profitable,--mentioning that
about £40 per No. of the ‘Lorrequer’ size would be ‘the chalk.’ Now I
made a miscalculation, for I find that Bentley’s terms would be equal to
£50 a No.; and although I should like to do the civil thing by M’G., yet
I am too poor a man to do it at this price. Tell him all this, and say
besides that I by no means put it upon him to deal at all--that I merely
would say this: You know how ‘Lorrequer’ has or has not told with the
publics--your present experience enables you to say whether you can,
with a reasonable chance of sufficient profit give this sum or not--and
your answer can be yea or nay at once. My wish is--consistently with
what I owe to me and mine--to serve him.”



_To Mr James M’Glashan._

“Dec. 11, 1839.

“Without wasting either your time or my own by expressing surprise at
the tone of your last letter, I shall as clearly as possible reply
to its contents. First--I sent from this, four days previous to the
despatch of the preface and dedication of ‘Lorrequer,’ the whole of
No. 11, minus such pages as I intended to add to the proof, and which
I hoped to do with more effect by that time. I therefore wound up the
story with such small abilities as I possess, neither huddling the
catastrophe, as you are pleased to imply, nor in any manner injuring
the success of a work in which, I would humbly think, my interest is
scarcely inferior to your own. As I am very far from wishing any hasty
expression to escape me, I shall not allude to the paragraph of your
letter concerning the moneyed advantages you speak of for a different
termination, but proceed to clause 2. I am not willing to extend the
work to 15 numbers. My reasons shall be quite at your service if you
care for them.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussles, _Dec_ 18, 1839.

“The post which brought your letter conveyed also one from M’Glashan
in a very angry tone, half implying that my new book was withdrawing my
interest in ‘Lorrequer,’ and evidently savage that I was getting at
the London market. I answered sharply to each section of the epistle,
expressed my sorrow for offering him what suited Bentley to take, and
assured him that my credit as author, _tant peu qu’il sait_, was quite
as dear to me as his pence as bookseller could ever be to him. Result a
most handsome and apologetic letter from him ascribing his petulance to
ill health, and accepting my new book at £50 per No.--the whole to run
to 12 to 20 Nos.--i.e., £600 to £1000. Not bad after all, and better
than more solid productions, which pay little and are read less.

“Will you then see M’G., to whom I have written accepting his money for
‘The Dragoon,’ and add, what I have not, that I was, on the arrival
of his letter, actually concluding one to Bentley in acceptance of his
offer for the MS., but that as _gage d’amitie_ between us, I have stood
by him and rejected the illustrious Dick. This from you will conclude
the pacific relations so eminently necessary between the fiery and tiger
natures of author and publisher, whose business is not ‘to die,’ but to
squabble everlastingly.

“The lost MS. of ‘Lorrequer’ is, it seems, come to hand, but not before
I rewrote or rather wrote another finale. This cost me four sleepless
nights and a fit of gout from chagrin and champagne, necessary to bring
me up to the scribbling paroxysm.

“What my new book is to run upon I have not as yet the least notion, but
trust to chance and after dinner--for invention; and last, not least, to
the moneyed stimulus--for material....

“I have been exceedingly gay--dining at the Embassy and elsewhere, and
thinking of everything save book-making. However, as I have not ten
pounds in the house, and owe about a hundred, I must haul my wind and
bear up in time.

“On second thoughts it will be right for M’Glashan not to advertise ‘The
Dragoon’ by title in the last number of ‘Lorrequer,’--only ‘a new work
by Harry Lorrequer.’ This, as regards my previous negotiations with
Bentley, is necessary.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Brussels, _Christmas Day_, 1839.

“I wish with all my heart that we (meaning John* among the number) could
eat our plum-pudding together. If that day ever arrives, God knows. It
is strange enough how few--very few--early friends can be found within
the ring-fence of a Xmas fire when the pursuits of after-life have laid
hold on them. We three are a striking instance of it....

     * His brother, the Rev. John Lever.--E. D.

“I meditate a trip to Ireland about April....

“Doctoring here is at zero, the whole world of English travellers having
flocked southwards. Though the printing-press stands to me, the physic
bottle does not. Since August last, when I returned home, I have not
received £50, and have spent £350. The ‘Dragoon’ must fight me through
this.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Brussels, _Jan_, 10, 1840.

“The new Postage Act will be a sorer blow to you than even to her
Majesty’s Exchequer--but from very opposite causes. As I learn it comes
into operation on the 12th, I start for the post with it.

“All kinds of misfortunes and delays have befallen my unlucky MSS. of
late, and whether the public is ever to see the end of ‘Harry Lorrequer’
is more than I can tell. But whatever the faults of the F. O. be,
M’Glashan’s agent in London has also his share in the calamity, being
the stupidest _gauche_ that ever existed.

“Although I wrote to P. S. about John’s baptismal certificate, I have
not yet received reply. At the moment I am too hard up to spare a
sou, and must ask you to send me the £15 or £20 you speak of with the
proceeds of my last two articles in the D. U. I mean the two reviews
in Nov. and Dec., and if Butt be in my debt,--as I believe,--perhaps
M’Glashan would see to it for me. I have above £150 to pay here at this
confounded season, and something like that number of pence to meet it
with.

“Will you also ask M’G. what times of payment will be arranged for ‘The
Dragoon,’ as although I leave the thing to his convenience, it will suit
mine much to have some definite knowledge on the subject.

“I have thrown physic to the dogs, for really there is nothing to do. I
think, _entre nous_, I must go farther--perhaps to Florence or Naples.

“I have dedicated ‘Lorrequer’ to Sir H. Seymour, by his special
request, which at the same time interferes with my original wish and
determination to inscribe it to Lord Douro, who [? half] expects it.

“Since I wrote last I have been laid up with gout in my wrist and
knuckles and both feet, and now can only walk with cloth shoes and a
stick.... The ‘Irish Dragoon’ has been shelved these twelve days.”



_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

_Jan_. 17, 1840.

“A most absurd blunder has induced a certain Charles O’Malley, Esq.,
barrister-at-law, and leader of the Western Circuit, to suppose that
my new book under that name is meant to be his Life, &c. And the
consequence is that a meeting of the Bar has taken place at Litton’s,
and resolutions entered to compel a change of title.

“Now as I never heard of this gentleman, nor with a very widespread
ac

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