Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume I Part 4

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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 s.p.a.cious 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 ent.i.tled to be addressed as "Most n.o.ble 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 b.u.t.tons, and a red skull-cap adorned with white ta.s.sels. 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 bra.s.s-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 t.i.tle, 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 n.o.ble 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 ent.i.tled "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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sociates 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sociates, Dr Hogan, claimed to have treated 6000 cases.-- E. D.

It seems opportune to refer here to a circ.u.mstance 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 doc.u.ment recording the date of the marriage ceremony could be found when Lever's biographer, Dr Fitzpatrick, inst.i.tuted 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 hea.r.s.e, 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 a.s.sailed 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 dest.i.tute 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 demiG.o.d. 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 a.s.suredly 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 n.o.ble and valorous deeds: his appreciation of wit and humour was keen and sound, his love of fun and frolic ebullient.*

* Edgar Allan Poe p.r.o.nounced 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script 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 surrept.i.tiously 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' a.s.sociation. 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'