Ten weeks later he reverted to the subject, and expressed to Hayman the comfort it was that one could say freely to him what, with a mere acquaintance, must be paragraphed into style or not said at all. "Weary and worn out by complicated annoyances from every quarter, sick of falsehood, pretension, bad faith, covert insolence, and senile flattery, I have preferred, even at the sacrifice of what to a poor man is something-money-to go abroad, and live away from such questionable pleasures, and at least enjoy quiet and tranquillity out of the reach of ruffian roar and sentimental scoundrelism." He was not too proud to tell Hayman, that he had come back to Ireland, three years previous, with very confident expectations that his return would meet a welcomethat men, for want of better, were willing to accept even such small talent as his in the cause of country; and that having happily made friends when among strangers, he should not be less fortunate when at home. "Mauvais calcul! Envy from some, jealousy from others, insult from many, misrepresentation and calumny from all, were the incense that met me; the press on both sides agreed on one point, to attack and vilify me. I lived it down, lived down the clamour and the slander, walked over the insolence, rejected the flattery, declined the society, and now, having done more than enough even for wounded self-love-je m'en vais-I leave them poorer, it is true, than I came, but still wiser." As he unbosomed himself to Hayman, after ten weeks' absence, on a calm summer's day, with a gentle breeze

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swinging the window-blind and no other interruption. save the happy laugh of his children as they played on the floor, he could not be suspected, he said, of any very excited feelings on this subject. The good parson, he trusted, would acquit him of any undue craving of popularity or notoriety. He had had his share of the one, more than enough of the other; so that in these, his confessions, he was not unburthening himself of mere injured vanity, but deliberately stating what he had experienced, and what he had consequently done.

O'Sullivan was informed that for some time longer he would retain his shadow of connection with the magazine, and therefore asked him not to speak loud among friends of his changed course. He wished to avoid any canvassing of his acts and motives, simply because falsehood would play a more conspicuous part therein than truth. For the rest, let them bite on! In his seclusion he would hear nought of the calumnies, and he thought he might be trusted as regards personal intercourse with all west of the Welsh mountains. "Warburton, Hayman, and O'Sullivan," was the only shamrock whose triple verdure he acknowledged. Lever was out of temper with the Irish people; but he does not seem to have been in love with the English either. On December 20, 1846, he speaks of his Austrian neighbours, and felt disposed to thank God, that they had none English.

Lever was a man of strong impulse. Words are found in his correspondence expressive of bounding prejudices which fuller thought led him to modify. Twenty

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years before his death he yearns again for Ireland as a residence. Alluding to two tempting proposals of office from America, he said (November 28, 1853,) that he was too old to take root in a new soil, and would rather go back to some snug nook in his own land. Strong personal feeling is found animating many of his political allusions at this time. Among the myriads who thronged forward under the banner of Repeal, were men who went much further than O'Connell would wish; and after Lever's withdrawal from Ireland, a complete schism split the national ranks. The young Ireland press had persistently attacked Lever and with much point, while he remained in Ireland. These attacks hurt his sensitive nature deeply, and sometimes left him, as he says, biting his pen for hours. Lever's mistake was in confounding O'Connell and the Catholics with those seditiously disposed. "High mass and high treason," he once bitterly exclaimed, "are the order of the day." The real advocates for physical force, however, were not the priests, or the Catholics, but some influential Protestants who included, with others, Thomas Davis, Smith O'Brien, John Mitchell, and John Martin. The Freeman and the Pilot, the organs of O'Connell, were edited by Gray and Barrett, also Protestants, both "Repeal Martyrs of 1843." In the latter categories may also be classed Tom Steele, O'Connell's A. D. C. and "Head Pacificator."

The Repeal agitation was at its height when Lever made his tour of Ireland. He complained of it being a source of worry to even his calm and even-minded

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nature and however he might turn his eyes and ears from the scene of strife, the very necessity of that restraint was a cause of marked discomfort. The concluding words of the "Knight of Gwynne" let us into the secret of what he would have wished to see his country. "Let us hope that from the depth of our present sufferings better days are about to dawn, and a period approaching when old Ireland shall be 'great' in the happiness of her people, 'glorious' in the development of her inexhaustible resources, and 'free' by that best of freedom, free from the trammels of an unmeaning party warfare."

The elder Lever, when passing some time with his brother at Templeogue, had sought to dissuade him from leaving Ireland, fearing that his love of change and adventure should lead to Scylla when trying to avoid Charybdis. Charles, 'tis true, had disbursed freely in Ireland, and, on the whole, lost at play; but the continent presented a still wider field for expenditure in all that offered fascination to the buoyant novelist.

All sorts of stinging stories ran through Dublin, attributing to false causes Lever's flight. Twenty years after, he said in "O'Dowd": "Big cities, towns of any kind, are very unfavourable to swanlike geese. The people who live in these places are singularly wilful and cruel, and pluck the quill-feathers out of one's poor bird out of pure malevolence and a love of mischief."

Among those rumours was the statement, still implicitly believed by many, that "Lever was over head 347930

and ears in debt, and found it wise to fly." Lever's "smash" was in everybody's mouth. No man knew him more intimately at this time than Judge Longfield, who informs us that "so far as he could ascertain, Lever, when leaving Ireland, did not owe a pound." Major Dhis life-long associate, confirms this account:"Lever never left debts unpaid that I ever heard of," he writes, "either in Dublin or elsewhere. He often lived beyond his means; but he always paid his way: at first by selling his patrimony in houses in Dublin, subsequently by working double tides."*

In relinquishing the editorial pen, he said to McGlashan that he preferred perfect abdication to a subjective monarchy. But whenever he felt disposed to write, he agreed to accept £50 per sheet for original articles, and £10 for reviews.

Lever had taken public leave of Dublin and the Magazine in words utterly unlike his private utterances,

* Numerous little proofs might be cited to show his vigilance as regards small debts. Thus in 1853, he asked McGlashan to pay 68. to a trader, and to say that Charles Lever didn't forget though his son did. The dark colours in which he always paints attorneys led us to inquire whether he, at any time, received ill usage at their hands. "I never heard of his having anything to do with attorneys," replies the Major, "except in a case where he had some trouble about the house at Templeogue which he rented from some one who did not pay his rent, and the head landlord came down on Lever. I am pretty sure he was never served with a writ or any document of that sort. But it is quite possible to have a well-founded dislike to attorneys without personal experience of that kind. Lever is not singular amongst authors in this dislike. Lord Byron speaks of Lambro the Pirate as a 'sea-attorney,' and Mr. Carlyle has many a hard hit at them." Templeogue House, after Lever's tenancy, passed into the hands of Knighting, the notorious railway official.