limited territory to take in a double number of "The Times" lest, while perusing the broad-sheet, his elbows should extend themselves into his neighbour Duke's territory.'" But hospitality covers a multitude of sins, and later on, Carlsruhe was described to O'Sullivan as "very pretty; with a good opera, plenty of society, and a most hospitable court, the 'Gross Herzog,'—or, as an English lady here called him, 'the Grocer's Hog '— particularly civil to English strangers." His fine stud sustained a loss in the death by glanders of a beautiful Arabian which he had bought but a few weeks previously from the king of Wurtemburg for £150. As the disease threatened to spread to the other horses, Lever was full of anxiety. "A pot boiler," as he said, was now needful. He wrote to his publishers to say that a new story, to be called "Corrig O'Neil," was simmering in his head. "The title was that of a mountain on the banks of the Nore, co. Kilkenny, a new district to him." "New," no doubt it would have been to most readers, but not to himself. The recollections. of his cousin, Harry Innes, Esq., appended to this volume, show how thoroughly familiar he was with the district in the hunting days of youth. The earlier chapters were sent to Ireland for the opinion of Dr. O'Sullivan; but the plan fell into abeyance, and "Corrig O'Neil" never appeared. "In 1845," writes the major, "I found James, the novelist, with Lever at Carlsruhe and Baden. Carlsruhe was, I think, the last place at which James and Lever CUTS THE "D. U. M.” 117 met. James went shortly afterwards as consul to Boston,* from whence he was subsequently transferred to Venice; whilst Lever travelled through the Black Forest, by the Höllenthal, which he has described in one of his novels, to Bregenz on the lake of Constance, where he lived about a year, and thence over the Arlberg and the Finstermünz passes into Italy to the baths of Lucca, and then to Florence." In July 1845, Lever severed the last link of his connection with the magazine on finding a paper in it of a most illiberal character. In earnest protest he writes to McGlashan. He did not think the Scot would insert what was likely to tell or sell, irrespective of other interests; and expressed regret that even a passing blot should stain the fair face of "Dea.”† Love of change once more egged him onward. His * A good deal of indignation is expressed by the newspapers in October, 1853, at the attempted expulsion, from Norfolk, Virginia, by some Yankee patriots, of G. P. R. James, the novelist and British consul at Boston; and all in consequence of a song of which he was the reputed writer. "God forgive me," said Lever, "it was my doing." These verses appeared ten years previously in the "D. U. M.," and are headed "A cloud is on the western sky." They gave intense offence to the slave-drivers of the Southern States. Lever declared that he had no more notion of James's poetry exciting a national animosity than that Holloway's ointment would absorb a Swiss glacier. The lines may be found in the "D. U. M.,” Vol. XXVII., pp. 341-2. Lever and James both wrote for the magazine at that time. "Ireland, her evils and remedies," was the title of the paper. A sample of its tone and style is afforded by the following passage: "The Popish religion is at present in that state in this country in which the stimulus of a religious agitation is necessary for its existence. Without some such exciting and combining cause, it would very rapidly sink to the dead level of the very lowest of the people, and could not successfully maintain its ground against the inroads of knowledge and the progress of improvement." predilection if not his pocket, he said, pointed to Italy. March, 1846, still found them at Carlsruhe waiting for the sun to get stronger and the days longer to be off to Switzerland, Italy, or Sicily-Heaven only knew! He had so many spots to visit that it might be said of him— "I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, Summer was spent in the deliberation; and not until December do we find him in the Rieder Schloss. " "Lever, after leaving Carlsruhe," writes Dr. Parkinson, "resided in a palace which he had the use of; grandly furnished, for a marvellously low rent." In the year 1845, we find him in the Tyrol † occupying the château alluded to by his friend. How he came to live there, he himself tells us in one of his last jottings from Trieste. "I had travelled about the continent for a considerable time in company with my family, with my own horses. Our carriage was a large and comfortable calèche, and our team, four horses; the leaders of which, well-bred and thriving-looking, served as saddle horses when needed. There was something very gipsey-like in this roving uncertain existence, that had no positive bent or limit, and left every choice of place an open question, that gave one intense enjoyment. It opened to me views of Continental * Letter, December 16, 1875. † Major D― writes:-" Properly speaking, the Schloss is in the Vocarlberg, and not in Tyrol"; but he adds, "these niceties Lever never cared much about. The Rieder Schloss, in which some of the best of Lever's creations grew, is now occupied by Sacré Coeur Nuns as a school for young ladies." IN THE TYROL 119 life, scenery, people and habits, I should certainly never have attained to by other modes of travel. "Not only were our journeys necessarily short each day, but we frequently sojourned in little villages, and outof-the-world spots; where, if pleased by the place itself, and the accommodation afforded, we would linger on for days, having at our disposal the total liberty of our time, and all our nearest belongings around us." It may be observed parenthetically, that the same "delightful unsettledness of destination" when starting on a journey, always marked his books as well as his moves. His last preface to "The O'Donoghue," after noticing his original plan of story from which he finally wandered, says: "This is another instance of a waywardness, which has beset me through life, and left me never sure, when I started for Norway, that I might not find myself in Naples." In the course of his rambles, Lever arrived, one day, at Bregenz, on the lake of Constance; "where," he writes, "the innkeeper, to whom I was known, accosted me with all the easy freedom of his calling, and half-jestingly alluded to my mode of travelling as a most unsatisfactory and wasteful way of life, which could never turn out profitably to myself or mine. From the window where we were standing as we talked, I could descry the tall summit of an ancient castle, or Schloss, about two miles away; and, rather to divert my antagonist from his argument than with any more serious purpose, I laughingly told my host, if he could secure me such a fine old château as that I then looked at, I should to On the following late conversation, stable my nags and rest where I was. day, thinking of nothing less than my the host entered my room to assure me that he had been over to the castle, had seen the baron, and learned that he would have no objection to lease me his château, provided I took it for a fixed term, and with all its accessories, not only of furniture but cows and farm requisites. One of my horses, accidentally pricked in shoeing, had obliged me at the moment to delay a day or two at the inn, and for want of better to do, I yielded so far my host's solicitation-to walk over and see the castle. "If the building itself was far from faultless it was spacious and convenient, and its position on a low hill in the middle of a lawn finer than anything I can convey; the four sides of the Schloss commanding four distinct and perfectly dissimilar views. By the north it looked over a wooded plain, on which stood the Convent of Mehreran; and beyond this, the broad expanse of the lake of Constance. The south opened a view towards the upper Rhine, and the valley that led to the Via Mala. On the east you saw the Gebhardsberg and its chapel, and the lovely orchards that bordered Bregenz; while to the west rose the magnificent Lenten and the range of the Swiss Alps-their summits lost in the clouds. "I was so enchanted by the glorious panorama around me, and so carried away by the thought of a life of quiet labour and rest in such a spot, that after hearing a very specious account of the varied economies I should secure |
