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THE

LIFE OF CHARLES LEVER.

CHAPTER I.

The Whist Parties-Lord Muskerry-" Tom Burke "-Major D-'s Recollections continued-Trip to Paris-Apoplectic Threatenings-Blunders -G. P. R. James-A Zig-zag Tour-Adventures and AnecdotesSerenaded by Amateur Bands- A Droll Duel-Killarney-Canon Hayman's Recollections "The O'Donoghue." — A Runaway and Smash!

THROUGHOUT Lever's last year at Templeogue he lived a hermit's life: but by no means so at first. Genial friends thronged rooms and grounds, writing and talking, and did their best to make it a little Ferney. His gardenat first given perhaps to wild flowers-gradually, under gentle culture, began sweetly to smile. His reception. rooms were furnished with articles of virtù, choice paintings, pleasant books, and well-stocked albums. An old College friend of his, Sir Kingston James, having been asked by Mrs. Lever to write something about her husband, threw off the following impromptu :--

To move the world, exclaimed the sage,

A fulcrum's all I want. Deceiver!

How could'st thou have redeemed that gage,
Without, like us, thou hadst a Lever.

A magazine paper of his, in July, 1842, gives a peep

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of what he styles his snuggery: "Time, eleven o'clock P.M. The moon is faintly struggling through the halfclosed window curtains, to mix her pale light with the red glare of a carcel-lamp that stands on a round table. Books, bronzes, statuettes, with some carving, decorate the walls. Manuscripts and rolls of paper, proof sheets and open letters litter the floor." His German "factotum," Kiffer, enters with coffee and curaçoa, and later on, summons him to a grilled "bone."

More exciting pleasures sometimes lit up that quaint old house. Lever liked cards; and many a night, until the small hours, the play ran high. Amongst those who jingled gold in showers were a peer, a judge, and a F.T.C.D. So fond of whist was Lever, that he once played all night at a hotel in Kingstown, intending to leave Ireland by the morning boat, but the chances of the game chained him to his seat, and he is said to have let the ship depart, and continued to play all that day, until the rapidly tolled bell of the evening boat led him at last to desist and run. In love of whist he equalled Fox, whom he later resembled in girth of frame; and it is told of the statesman that he once played for twentyfour hours, a waiter standing by to tell the sleepy and bewildered partners whose deal it was. Lever, however, was wide awake on such occasions, and the man should get up early, as he said, to steal a march on him.

"I well remember a Sylvester evening at Templeogue,” writes one of the Coterie, "where Dr. Walsh, who wrote about Servia, was present, and where the desperate

THE WHIST-PLAYERS.

3

whist players, Lord Muskerry included, found on going to the cars early in the morning, that these had become so locked into one another, that they could not be got asunder, and had to remain till a smith was called at 5 A.M., and how Henry Maunsell and Digby Starkey and some others took Lord Muskerry home to his father-inlaw's (Harry Grady's) house in Merrion Square, and how Lady Muskerry came down in her night-dress to open the door, and pitched into his lordship then and there for being out so late."

The sixth of Anne (cap. 17) makes it unlawful to keep a house in which gaming is carried on, except "the Castle," and prohibits any game being played there, unless during the residence of the Viceroy. Lever could not well regard as a vice, an indulgence the practice of which was limited to the highest office of the state: though in his works he often deprecates such habits.

Later in life he held a theory that a man to attain eminence as a statesman or a politician must be a good whist-player-and he cited a long list of examples, from Fox, Talleyrand, Metternich, Melbourne, Cavour, and Reetsbeg, to Antonelli, whilst he shewed that physicians have always been behind their age in whist. For a leader in the House, he said, it was an absolute necessity. "Glance at what goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. Look in at an ordinary sitting, and see how damaging to his party that man is, who will to-day ask a question, which this day week would be unanswerable. What is that but 'playing his

card out of time?' See that other who rises to know if something be true; the unlucky'something' being the key-note to his party's politics, which he has thus disclosed. What is this but showing his hand?' Hear that dreary blunderer who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has just asserted-trumping,' as it were, 'his partner's trick.' Or that still more fatal wretch, who rising at a wrong moment, has taken 'the lead out of the hand' that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would there be one-even one-of these solecisms committed in an age when whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and practice of the odd trick?"

When he wanted real enjoyment he played Loo. In "Jack Hinton" he reverts with pleasure to his game of Loo, whose pecuniary limits were fourpence, but whose boundaries as to joke and broad humour were wide as the great Atlantic. "He enjoyed cards," observes Major Lh, "purely for social enjoyment, and with all the hearty abandon of boyhood. I have played push-pin with him for an hour at a time; and sometimes leap-frog round his own room, when, on the last occasion that we engaged in it, I got so bad a fall that I was in no hurry to seek a renewal of the pastime."

Recent inquiries at Templeogue have failed to elicit from the oldest inhabitant any recollection of Lever more noteworthy than that he had a dashing wife, who used to fly up and down the roads with a carriage full of children. By "Dubliners" it was remarked, as Judge L- reminds

THE EDITOR'S LETTER-BOX.

5

us, that she went but little into society, and was never seen with her husband on those occasions when, accompanied by his children, he rode or drove into the city. This mistake, it will be seen, was subsequently corrected at Florence.

Lever gave at this time an amusing account of the plethora of labour which editorial duty entailed upon him. Sheafs of MS. pursued him; he must needs separate the ripe and ruddy fruit of genius from the rotten and tasteless apple of dulness. But this was nothing to the letters which called for answers. "E. F." complained that it was four months since he forwarded his "Ode on the Industrious Fleas," and the late editor had assured him it should obtain early insertion. One day a fine salmon accompanied a "fishy" looking paper, but failed to bribe its insertion. "I live very far from all literary society," writes Miss Jane Saunderson, "and rarely see a book except your delightful writings, and the Missionary Magazine, both of which papa takes." A long letter of queries asked if Archbishop Whately wrote the "Nuts" and if that sweet poetess Lytton Bulwer were married?

* Major D― writes :-" Mrs. Lever was at first somewhat shy and apparently impassive before strangers; subsequently she became more communicative and agreeable. She was a very good little woman, very fond of her husband, and very careful to protect him from being intruded on when at work; she was generous and kind too. She had a quick temper, but proved an excellent wife to him, and he really loved her to the last. To her children she was very good, and to Charlie most indulgent. If I were asked to point out her weakness, I would say that it consisted in a too great fondness for display in dress." One of the household states that when she differed with Lever on some domestic point, he at once put her in good humour, by presenting some handsome addition to her wardrobe."

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