locally famous for his thick head, becomes at last a Queen's Messenger, and talks in the style of a young man who, after a course of Eton or Harrow, has borne away the honours of Oxford.

To suggestions from critics and publishers he usually lent a ready ear. One of the latter guild is told, “If you wish the book longer, I am ready to add the stuff. For any elucidation, explanation, or any other 'ation save d―n, I am quite ready!" He greatly disliked a reticent publisher. He said that, having no other indication of Dublin or London feeling than his bookseller, it was the devil to have a publisher who won't say his mind-a clock that had neither dial nor strike-weight!

But he hated accounts. Once, when his publishers furnished them, he said, with Tony Lumpkin, that "they were all buz to him." Anything like business proved eminently irksome to him, and often he declared that it was only on un-realities he could ever exercise his brains. Booksellers generally treated him well; but some serials and newspapers did not always do so, which led him to say that such things were successes only by starving the people who contribute to them. No such symptom, however, was suggested by his own appearance at this time. He had now developed into marked obesity. He sat for his portrait, and was "flabberghasted" by the result. In presenting his photograph to Major D in 1865, he remarked that Time had dealt hardly with him; but it was not face alone, but the whole nature that had been crushed and wrenched.

WRITES HIS WILL.

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This speech-uttered during one of those periods of reaction which from boyhood periodically seized Lever-throws light on the reasons which led him, on July 1, 1865, to write his will. By the outer world he was now regarded as at his prime. In society rays of sunshine lit his face, and clouds seemed never to darken his thought. Steadily his star appeared in the ascendant. Men regarded him as at the zenith of his social powers. Graver duty discharged, he proceeded to satisfy his mind on points to which he seemed to pleasantly attach importance :-"What progress socialities were making. How about dinners-was the cooking better? Was conversation more brilliant ? Were the talkers wittier? Were the entrées hotter? Was opinion more moderate-expression neaterbanter more refined?" But other and greater changes were in operation-riveting his watchful eye as they revolved-matters for a Blue Book rather than for our page. Dyspepsia and its penalties, the besetting ill of most authors, scowled not on him. When Eupepsia held its silver sway, all was bland and beatific.

He was a fish-eater, and is constantly telling us so in his books. Fish is a food largely charged with phosphorus; and this diet no doubt supplied the phosphorus which physiologists tell us men engaged in laborious brain-work give out by the effort. Dickens, when utterly exhausted, found, as he tells us, oysters a powerful restorative.

Moore noted the involuntary peculiarities which have

marked our great men-some of them scratching their heel while talking. It was remarked that Lever, after one of his best stories, would often rapidly move his mouth, as if engaged in the deglutition of some delicious morsel; others interpreted this involuntary movement as impatience to resume his stories, while in courtesy he was constrained to listen to others.

Sir Hamilton Seymour is of opinion-himself one of the best raconteurs-that Lever, as a story-teller, appeared to far greater advantage at table than he even did in his books. The same has been said by Lockhart of Theodore Hook. We believe it was Sir Hamilton who said to Lever, after he had been writing for near thirty years, "It is your best wares you have never brought to market. Try if you couldn't write that anecdote just as you have told it to me." "Ah!" soliloquised Lever, "that is the real difficulty. No, there's no doing the thing in that fashion; all the ingenious contrivances that ever were invented never imparted to the corked-up flask of Vichy or Carlsbad the invigorating freshness of the waters as they bubbled and sparkled from the fountain."

The result of the hint, and of the thought it aroused, was those happy personal jottings by Cornelius O'Dowd, which possess a value and interest never heretofore adequately recognised. In this book we have Lever in as thorough truthful confidence with his reader, as though it were a tête-à-tête by his own fireside. He began those sketches, he said, pretty much as some drawing-room

"CORNELIUS O'DOWD."

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musician is persuaded by his friends to go on the stage, assured that the soft cadences that charmed the polite circle of his acquaintance would find favour with the public.

In "Cornelius O'Dowd," as in previous books, he sought to level abuses; but badinage was made to do the work of bludgeoning; and delicate irony sapped foundations to which a coarser hand would have applied the crowbar. The title at least seems to have been borrowed from a forgotten performance. Father Prout excited great interest by an attempt to prove that Moore's best pieces were taken without acknowledgment from antique sources. An honest effort to show that another Cornelius O'Dowd, in 1776, narrated his confessions and gave his opinion upon things in general, ought to prove of more legitimate interest.*

* In the ephemeral pages of a scarce Dublin print called the Hibernian Journal, or Chronicle of Liberty, published in December, 1776, will be found the "Tour of Cornelius O'Dowd," with an "Introductory Chapter" -marked by humour not unlike Lever's own. "Tour writing is the fashion; and why should I be out of it? To be out of the fashion is as bad as being out of the world; and a man under that circumstance looks as awkward as a sow with one ear, or a jug with a broken handle. But that I may be read with some satisfaction, it may be necessary to give an account of myself by way of preface, for some author, whose name I have forgot, has said in one of his works, but which of them I cannot remember, that Prefaces are become so common, that I wonder there is not one to a hornbook; and indeed, like women's faces, they are often the most inviting portion of the whole workmanship." Stirring adventures and portraits graphically illustrative of the time follow, including that of a swain "with a tambour waistcoat; a green coat with oval buttons; a couteau de chasse by his side; a fore-top to his hair as high as the feathers on a hearse horse's head; and a queue behind as thick as the stem of a six-year oak plant."

A paper contributed to Blackwood after his return to Italy resumes the story of his life and thoughts:-" When I had got back over the Alps, my first care was to seek out some quiet spot, wherein I might meditate over all I had so lately seen and heard, and, what was fully as important to me, bring my mind back to those routine ways of thought which constitute, at the same time, the labour and the happiness of my life."

He returned to Italy braced with resolution to strain every muscle and sinew of his mind.

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Yes,' said I, 'I will heat both boilers, and get full steam up, and the world shall see at last the speed that is in me;' and down I went to my little bay. I know not how it may be with other people, but to myself there is a wonderful charm in beginning anything. There is a smack of youthfulness about the idea of a fair start that is wonderfully captivating. I enjoy my soup at dinner with not merely the relish due to its own flavour, but with a foretaste of joys to come. I glory in the first burst and the first fence in a hunting-field. The first squall that sends my boat gunwale under, gives me a thrill of mingled ecstasy and fear, more exquisitely exciting than a whole day's experiences of escape and peril. The mere fact of beginning, therefore, sent its sense of enjoyment through me, though not fully certain upon what topic I was about to amuse or instruct."

The result was "Sir Brook Fossbrooke," published by Mr. Blackwood. It showed creative power, a dramatic faculty, and an insight into human nature. The story