its acid properties; how you relish the chicken drove

you

over with your car in the morning, and how you enjoy the inimitable Jerry. Arrivals come at every moment, wet and dripping men, who stand, when they descend, as if to be rained on a little longer; and then fumble their humid fingers into spongy pockets to catch a damp sixpence for the driver."

That night he lugubriously penned a series of stanzas, beginning

"I think the Lakes

Are no great shakes s;

They're overdone with Blarney;
Their bugles, boats,

Their guides and goats,

Have quite destroyed Killarney."

These were the lucubrations of a pleasant caterer for the light feeders of literature who love a dash from the cruet-stand, to whet their zest. In point of fact, it was this tour to the South which raised that flood of thought in which "The O'Donoghue" was planned and penned. Lever's last preface to this novel-dated 1872-states that he began it "at a little inn at Killarney, and I believe I stole the name of Kerry O'Leary from one of the boatmen on the lake--the only theft in the book. I believe that the very crude notions of an English tourist for the betterment of Ireland, and some exceedingly absurd comments he made on the habits of people which an acquaintanceship of three weeks enabled him to pronounce on, provoked me to draw the character of Sir Marmaduke, but I can declare that the traveller

KILLARNEY AND GLENGARIFF.

37

aforesaid only acted as tinder to a mine long prepared, and afforded me a long sought-for opportunity-not for exposing, for I did not go that far-but for touching on the consummate effrontery with which a mere passing stranger can settle the difficulties and determine the remedies for a country, wherein the resident sits down overwhelmed by the amount, and utterly despairing of a solution."

Lever never forgot the wretched weather that hailed his visit to Killarney; but the magazine account, like its clouds, is overcharged. Long after, in his apology for a preface to "The Martins," he spoke of having once ascended a hill at Killarney to see the sun rise, and watch the effects the breaking day should throw on the landscape. Masses of cloud and mist obscured every object; and it was only at intervals that a ray of light, piercing the darkness, afforded a glance of a scene full of interest. The guide, however, pointed to where Mangerton was supposed to stand, Torc, the Waterfall, and Muckross Abbey, and eloquently described the features of the landscape. Lever modestly confessed that in introducing "The Martins" to his readers, he found himself in a position resembling that of the guide. The various objects which he had hoped and promised himself to present, had been displayed faintly, feebly, or not at all.

He found better weather elsewhere. With Glengariff he was greatly pleased; Glenflesk charmed him. Beneath the blue vault which spans that wildly picturesque region

and the warm rays of a genial sun, the fine creations of "O'Donoghue "-long in embryo, as he said-emerged from his brain in prolific vitality. The scenes he saw are sketched with beauty and power; that of Glenflesk being specially fine.

Googane-Barra, good-bye! Fine as the scenes were, he was not sorry to get back again to his own fireside, and to the close companionship of Mortimer O'Sullivan, whose talk constituted, he said, the acme of social enjoyment.*

In urging the Rev. Samuel Hayman to come on a visit to him at his "Château de Templeogue," he described it as built by the Templars, the walls six feet in thickness, and the whole sustained by an arched cavern of one hundred feet in extent, and so early a date as to be turned on a wicker centre. His château had also a Flemish cascade; not one of the boisterous, rollicking, harum-scarum things called waterfalls, but a solid, steady, and discreet fall, coming heavily down, step by step, some hundred yards in the midst of a large meadow.

"He told me," writes Mr. Hayman, "to come by the Kilkenny day-coach, which passed his gate at Templeogue, and not to go on to Dublin, five miles further. This, he said, would be merely adding insult to injury, as

* A voice long hushed-we believe O'Sullivan's-whispers :-"One little room rises to recollection, with its quaint sideboard of carved oak, its dark brown cabinets-curiously sculptured,-its heavy old brocade curtains, and all its queer devices of knick-knackery, where such meetings were once held; and where, throwing off the cares of life, shut out from them, as it were, by the massive folds of the heavy drapery across the door, we talked in all the fearless freedom of old friendship."

"A DAY'S RIDE" WITH HIM.

39

O'Grady remarked when the gentleman said his name was O'Shaughnessy O'Shaughnessy! Lever awaited me at his gate, and hailed the coachman with, 'Anyone for me?' 'Yes! Mr. Lever,' was the reply, and I descended to receive a heart-warm welcome. You sat by the coachman,' said Lever; and do you know who he is?' 'No; Fletcher, Lord Byron's valet, who ministered to him so faithfully on his death-bed at Missolonghi.' I thought it very nice and delicate of Lever to say, as we walked together to the house, 'We have no one to dine to-day in the way of visitors. We want to know you, and we want you to know us, and this evening shall be all our own. To-morrow I have invited a few lions to meet you. Some day further, we shall have the menagerie, monkeys, mocking birds, parrots and all.'

"I passed some time very happily with him. He kept quite a stud of horses. How often Lever and I have ridden in together to Curry's in Dublin to meet literary friends, and gossip with them; and then in the evening to have charming reunions at his house. At the last dinner I partook of there, we had Archer Butler, Butt, Whiteside, Wilde, Petrie, Anster, Longfield, and McGlashan, and I know not how many more. Almost all have passed away since. Sic vita!

"Riding with Lever one day through the city, I was pleased to observe the popularity he evidently enjoyed. Many would stop and gaze at him, and Harry Lorrequer' would be faintly borne to us amid the street noise and

at us.

bustle. Passing the entrance of a riding-school, the owner, a naturalised Frenchman, grinned and grimaced 'Ah! Monsieur Lever, it was not quite fair to laugh at me en votre playsante storie.' 'Do you remark that fine non-commissioned officer?' asked Lever, as we rode through Dame Street. Yes! but who is he?' 'Graham! Sergeant Graham of the Coldstreams; he who, with his officers, Macdonnell, Wyndham, Gooch, and Harvey, closed by sheer strength the gate of Hougoumont; and, when they had no other barriers, made themselves the living props to fasten the doorway against the French cavalry. An English clergyman wrote to the Duke of Wellington, saying he would give £10 a year to the man the Duke considered the bravest at Waterloo. The reply was that these five men were equally entitled to the honour. The officers waived their right in Graham's favour."

In descriptive

As a raconteur he was marvellous. vivacity every feature took a part, even to his nose, which seemed to enjoy a life of its own; and it was said of him that his rich anecdotes fell like ripe fruit from an overladen tree. It was not by his 'musical laugh' alone that Lever contributed to genial harmony. As a singer he far surpassed Moore in choral power, though wanting in his wonderful graces of expression. He eschewed toasts generally, but in one he sometimes indulged. He deemed it meet that they should pledge one toast to the mutual mistress of their vows,-The Magazine! and "with it one whose unflinching zeal had stood the