Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume I Part 14

Samuel Lover described this visit as being a round of boisterous merriment. Their host introduced the two artists to Commissary-General Mayne, who was the prototype of Major Monsoon in 'Charles O'Malley.'

Mayne dined with them daily, and they "laughed themselves sick" over his stories. They held a ceremony of installation of "The Knights of Alacantra,"--Lever, Lover, and Phiz being made Grand Crosses of the order. There was music and a procession and a grand ballet. Writing to M'Glashan shortly after the Lover-Phiz visitation, the author of 'Charles O'Malley' said: "If I have a gla.s.s of champagne left--we finished nine dozen in the sixteen days Lover and Phiz spent here--I'll drink it to your health."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

"_Nov_. 2, 1841.

"I have been daily, for some weeks past, hoping to have some news to tell you respecting your MS., and at last am forced to write without.

I sent it over to Bentley with a pressing letter, for in my avarice his 12, 12s. per sheet tempted me, instead of the miserable pay of the D.

U. M., which gives but 7 for nearly double the quant.i.ty. He kept me waiting his reply for six weeks, and then I hear that the press of literary matter is such that no article can be read for some time to come. I have, of course, written to get it back, and yesterday wrote to Chambers to secure it a berth in the 'Journal,' where, if I succeed, the pay is still better than 'Dublin,' and the road for future contributions more open and available.

"Though I know you will attribute this delay not to any lukewarmness of mine, yet am I not the less provoked. All these things require patience in the beginning, however, and had I been discouraged, as I confess I very nearly was, I should never have written a second chapter of 'Lorrequer,' much less what followed it.

"Indeed, to give you an idea of editorial discernment: the story most quoted and selected by reviewers for praise was, three years and a half before I began the 'Confessions,' sent up to the D. U. M., and rejected by b.u.t.t as an unworthy contribution. And this [story] was afterwards p.r.o.nounced by 'Fraser's Magazine' the best bit of modern humour. So much for one critic or author.

"There are many things daily coming out in the French press I wish you would attack. Are you aware that Mrs Gore's novels, bought for 500 each set (3 vols.), are only translations with a newly invented t.i.tle? Such is the fact. My time latterly has been tolerably occupied by finis.h.i.+ng 'O'Malley,' which required a double No. for December, and making the _debut_ of my new hero Jack Hinton--besides which doctoring, and occasionally scribbling short articles for the 'University.' I wish much you had seen the first volume of 'Our Mess.' I am more than usually nervous about its success. Every new book is a new effort, and the world is often discontented with the forthcoming work of a man whom their own flattery induced to commit himself at first.

"My idea of Jack Hinton is of an _exceedingly English_ young Guardsman coming over to Ireland at the period of the Duke of Richmond's vice-royalty, when every species of rackety [? doings] was in vogue. The contrasts of the two countries as exhibited in him, and those about him, form the tableaux of the book. The story is a mere personal narrative.

"Browne (Phiz) has been with us for the last few weeks making arrangements about the ill.u.s.trations, and I think this part, at least, will be better than heretofore. M'Glashan is very fair about the whole concern, and promises liberally in the event of success."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Quartier Leopold, Brussels, _Nov_. 14,1841.

"Dublin, if I am to trust the papers, is a changed city, and indeed I am disposed to believe them, and to have a great hope that a moderate Government with Tory leanings would be the fairest chance for peace in so disturbed a country.

"I have been scribbling about Lord Eliot in the last Mag.*

* "Ireland and her Rulers": D. U. M., Nov. 1841.

"I am working--what for me is very hard indeed,--writing five or six hours daily; not going into society, dining early, and taking a half bottle of hock at my dinner. With all my early hours and abstinence my feet are swelled up, and I can scarcely walk when I get up in the morning.

"I have written to M'Glashan to give you a proof of 'Jack Hinton'--No.

1--which I wish you'd read over, and then send on to John. I'd like to have your opinion (both of you) about it: don't forget this.

"I have also hinted to John a scheme of which I have been thinking for some time--which is to retire from my profession ere it retires from me,--in plain words, to seek some cheap (and perhaps nasty) place where I could grub on for a few hundreds per annum and lay by a little. Here I am pulling the devil by the tail the whole year through, and only get sore fingers for my pains; and as my contract with Curry secures me 1200 per annum for three years at least, perhaps I ought not to hesitate about adopting some means of letting a little of it, at least, escape the wreck. Give this your consideration, and say also if you know of a nice cottage in Wicklow, about twenty-five to thirty miles from town, where I could transfer myself bag and baggage--furniture and all--at a moment's warning. My only chance of economy is to be where money cannot be spent, and if I lived for 700 per annum (a liberal allowance too) in Ireland, the remaining five would be well worth laying by.

"I could have the editors.h.i.+p of 'Bentley's Miscellany' at a salary of 800 per annum, but this would involve living in London. I could bring over a governess for my brats from this, and without much trouble import as many of my here habits as I care for."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Brussels, _Dec_. 17, 1841.

"Thanks for your most kind and affectionate letter. I think you are mistaken as to Brussels, and suppose that gaiety, society, &c., are stimulants that I can't live without. Now the fact is, I do so at the moment, and have done for a long while past,--society being the very thing that unhinges me for writing, my slippers and my fireside being as essential to me as my pen and ink-bottle. Secondly, the _incognito_ that you deem of service (as John does) is not what you suppose. It is only a _nom de guerre_, when my own name is seen throughout; and in England, where I am more read and prize the repute higher, Charles Lever is as much a pseudonym as Harry Lorrequer, for indeed H. L. is believed to exist, and no one cares whether C. L. does or not.

"What I thought of was not society, not a [? fas.h.i.+onable] neighbourhood: scenery, quiet, cheapness above all. I sent you a, I thought, very good [? story]: pray agree with me and translate it. I hope to hear something from Chambers every post, and when I do you shall know.

"I open a series of papers next month in the 'U. Magazine,' called, I believe, 'Nuts and Nut-Crackers., This is a secret, however, and done to prevent M'Glashan reprinting 'Our Mess' in his confoundedly stupid journal."

The pleasure he derived from Lover's company made Lever more anxious than ever to pay a visit to Ireland, and gradually he came to the conclusion that he would be happier and more free from worries in his native land than he would be in any other portion of the globe. He proposed to M'Glashan that he should settle down in the neighbourhood of Dublin and take up the editors.h.i.+p of the 'University Magazine.' He was now willing to relinquish for ever the profession of medicine. M'Glashan was agreeable, and offered to pay Lever 1200 a-year, "with half profits, on all he wrote." These negotiations were not completed until the close of the year 1841.

And then the restless novelist could think of nothing but of his speedy return to the land of his birth. He nourished a plan for a touring expedition through Ireland, disguised as a Frenchman. He had a sheaf of designs for Irish humorous publications,--'The Weekly Quiz.' to be ill.u.s.trated by Phiz; 'Blarney,' which was to be launched on the 1st of April. There was also to be a series for the magazine ent.i.tled "Noctes Lorrequeriana"--an Irish 'Noctes Ambrosianae.' Another contemplated work was 'The Wild Songs of the West'--a mock collection of pseudo-original Irish ballads, to be composed by Lever himself. A short time previously he had formulated a larger scheme--'The Irish, by Themselves,' a comprehensive volume to be written by various hands, and to be bound in "a bright emerald cover, with an Irishman on a spit and another one roasting him, according to Swift."

But all these Hiberniose projects came to nought.

In January 1842 we see the last of Charles Lever as a medical man. He advertised his practice for sale and left Brussels, fervently hoping that he would find contentment in his own country.

He did not put aside the lancet lightly. Shortly before his death, referring to this crisis in his career, he made this avowal: "Having given up the profession, for which I believe I had some apt.i.tude, to follow the precarious life of a writer, I suppose I am admitting only what many others, under like circ.u.mstances, might declare--that I have had my moments, and more than mere moments, of doubt and misgiving that I had made the wiser choice; and, bating the intense pleasure an occasional success has afforded, I have been led to think that the career I abandoned would have been more rewarding, more safe from reverses, and less exposed to those variations of public taste which are the terrors of all who live by the world's favour."

It is doubtful whether Lever would have succeeded in reaching the higher walks of medicine; and it is pretty certain that he would not have found contentment in jogging along the beaten tracks. His temperament was too unstable to admit of the incessant and inalienable toil which helps to make the great physician. Having once started upon the literary path, if he had turned aside from it he would never have been free from misgivings that he had abandoned the road to fortune and to fame. If he had endeavoured to confine his intellectual powers to the study and practice of the healing art, and if success had crowned his efforts, it is most likely that his life would have been more even and more happy; but he would have missed the moments of exaltation which were worth living for, even if they were followed occasionally by periods of abysmal melancholy. Lever the physician could have benefited only those with whom he came into direct contact: Lever the novelist could, and did, provide a rich fund of healthy enjoyment for a vast circle of his contemporaries, and for posterity. One can hardly doubt that in abandoning medicine for fiction he chose the better part.

VI. TEMPLEOGUE. 1842-1845

Nothing if not thorough--for the moment--Lever heralded his a.s.sumption of the editorial chair of 'The Dublin University' with a trumpet-blast.

In the April number of the Magazine there is published an "Editor's Address," in which "Harry Lorrequer" informs his kind friends the public that Ireland's National Magazine has been entrusted to his guidance.

"For many long years," continues Lorrequer, "this position has been the object of my ambition.... In announcing the appearance of a new journal, the editor enjoys the time-honoured privilege of informing the public what literary miracles it is his intention to perform; how he shall fill up all the deficiencies observable in other periodicals; how smart will be his witty contributors, how deep his learned ones; what soundness will characterise his political views; by what ac.u.men and impartiality his criticisms will be distinguished. In fact, to believe him, you would say that until that moment journalism had been a poor, barren, and empty performance, and that all the able and gifted writers of the day had, by some strange fatality, suffered their wits to lie fallow. This is the more singular, as such announcements usually appear once or twice a-year, and the world seems never the wiser six months later. Happily for our Magazine, happily for myself, I have no such power in my hands.... Far be it from me to inst.i.tute comparisons between myself and that first of editors who moulds the destinies of 'Blackwood's'; but this I will say, that if the coachman on the box be an inferior whip--and this I honestly confess--his team is unsurpa.s.sed."

This flamboyant piece of writing is dated Dublin, March 21,1842, but in all probability it was written in Brussels when the fever of the editors.h.i.+p first attacked him. He must have referred to the Address and smiled at it a few months later, for in June he declared to a friend that the unsurpa.s.sed team was "as groggy a set of screws as ever marched in harness. G.o.d forgive me," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "for my editorial puff of them!"

'Jack Hinton, the Guardsman,' had reached its seventh chapter when Lever took charge of the Magazine. Following the example of 'Charles O'Malley'

and 'Harry Lorrequer,' 'The Guardsman' was issued in monthly parts, with ill.u.s.trations by Phiz. 'Nuts and Nut-Crackers' commenced in the March number of the Magazine.

Lever's Irish friends found it very difficult to procure the ideal "cottage" for him. Stillorgan and Glenegary (near Kingstown) had power to charm him only for a while. At length he found rest in Templeogue (or Templeogue) House, an old mansion situated about four miles south-west of Dublin city, in the midst of glorious scenery--hill and dale, woodland and stream. The grounds of Templeogue House were picturesque.

Inside the high walls were s.p.a.cious courtyards; there were extensive gardens, terraced walks, "the remains of ambitious avenues," and an old Dutch waterfall. The dwelling-house itself was said to have been a Knights Templars' residence, and to have been occupied at a later period by Lord Santry. It had a ghost-room* and subterraneous pa.s.sages. In the near neighbourhood stood Montpelier, a castellated building, at one time the princ.i.p.al resort of the h.e.l.l-Fire Club.**

* It was supposed that the ghost was the shade of O'Loughlin Murphy, who in the course of an eighteenth-century orgie had been filled with whisky by Lord Santry. When the whisky overflowed the n.o.ble lord put a light to Murphy's mouth and made a holocaust of him. Lord Santry was tried for the murder, but it happened that a cousin of his owned the water-supply of Dublin, and threatened to cut off the supply if his relative was hanged. Incredible as it may seem, the Viceroy yielded under the threat, and the life of Lord Santry was spared.--E. D.

** Upon one occasion the members of this club set fire to their club-room and (in order to show their contempt for certain torments preached from the pulpit) endured the flames until they were nearly roasted to death.--E. D.

In June 1842 Templeogue welcomed a distinguished visitor--the author of 'The Sn.o.b Papers.' Thackeray's object in voyaging in Ireland was to collect material for his 'Sketch-Book,' and he expected to find a congenial spirit in the author of 'Charles O'Malley.'

The first dinner-party--a small one--given by Lever in honour of his ill.u.s.trious guest is graphically described by Major Dwyer:* "After the ladies had retired the two protagonists began to skirmish. Neither knew much of the other, except what could be gleaned from their published works.... The conversation had been led by Lever to the subject of the battle of Waterloo: he wished to afford Captain Siborne "**--one of the guests--" an opportunity of saying a word; perhaps, too, he wanted to show that he himself knew something of the matter.... Thackeray soon joined in: he did not pretend to know anything about the great battle, but he evidently wished to spur on Lever to identify himself with Charles O'Malley.... Quickly perceiving his antagonist's game, Lever met his (Thackeray's) feints with very quiet but perfectly efficacious parries. It was highly interesting, and not a little amusing, to observe how these two men played each a part seemingly belonging to the other: Thackeray a.s.suming what he judged to be a style of conversation suitable for Lever, whilst the latter responded in the sarcastic and sceptical tone proper to an English tourist in Ireland."

* "Reminiscences of Lever and Thackeray," by Major D------.

From "The Portfolio" (Appendix to 'Life of Lever' by Dr Fitzpatrick). Frank Dwyer was one of Lever's chums at Trinity. Between the two men existed a bond of friends.h.i.+p broken only by death.--E. D.

** Author of 'A History of the War in France and Belgium in 1816.'--E. D.