that was never to come c I see a good deal of privation in this, and I cannot see the profit." Soon after his son and heir diel, which further smiled if it willy failed to justify his philosophy.

Who was the personage to whom he mysteriously refers as his adviser? An early friend of Lever's, and who was much with Lim at Florence at this time, says that Thackeray had previously impressed upon him the necessity of thrift, and that during his intercourse with Lever there he is believed to have renewed the friendly counsel; but Thackeray, in these inculcations, had merely echoed advice given over and over by the Rev. John Lever. "Thackeray had a sincere regard for Charles," adds the Major, "and would say anything to him;" and he goes on to supply reminiscences of both, which for chronological sequence must needs be reserved.

Despite his disregard of thrift he was, for an author of his fame, singularly moderate in demands on the bounty of publishers. Dickens received for "Silverman's Explanation" and "Holiday Romance "-the work of a few days and containing about fifteen pages, one thousand pounds! Lever's mistake was that he at all times asked too little.

Thackeray envied Lever's life in Florence, which he pronounced the essence of luxury. One day the cholera came, dealt death around, let panic loose, and draped the streets in mourning. This terrible visitation marked the year 1854. But it is an ill wind that blows no good-the sanitary state of Florence has evidently been on the

grow on you. Start with something you can do very well without, and you will be astonished to find how many things you now regard as necessaries will drop into that category.'

It was not so easy to find that which he could so well dispense with; he liked so many things, and found them all so pleasant. At last he hit upon one. He tells us that a pastime with him had been pistol-practice in a gallery, and that he began his retrenchment by cutting off the daily franc he gave a poor man who used to hold his pony at the door. And henceforth he fastened the bridle to the hook of the window-shutters, or outside "jalousies." The poor man's look of dismay went to his heart; but Lever's great friend had told him to prepare for sacrifices. Like one proud of a victory over himself, he stepped boldly on. Was it the consciousness of having done something great in self-denial that steadied his eye and nerved his hand. His first shot struck the very centre, and itself proclaimed the victory by ringing a bell attached to the back of the target, but so uproariously, that his pony, startled by the din, broke away, carrying with him the window frame; "and all together," wrote Lever, "the repairs amounting to eighty-seven francs, and more ridicule than I am able to set down. This was my first and last attempt at economy."

แ

The moral which he drew from this and more was that

life passed in incessant savings and self-denials seems to me as logical a mistake as though a man should persist throughout his whole existence in training for a match

THACKERAY'S COUNSEL.

189.

that was never to come off. I see a good deal of privation in this, and I cannot see the profit." Soon after his son and heir died, which further smoothed if it wholly failed to justify his philosophy.

Who was the personage to whom he mysteriously refers as his adviser? An early friend of Lever's, and who was much with him at Florence at this time, says that Thackeray had previously impressed upon him the necessity of thrift, and that during his intercourse with Lever there he is believed to have renewed the friendly counsel; but Thackeray, in these inculcations, had merely echoed advice given over and over by the Rev. John Lever. "Thackeray had a sincere regard for Charles," adds the Major, "and would say anything to him;" and he goes on to supply reminiscences of both, which for chronological sequence must needs be reserved.

Despite his disregard of thrift he was, for an author of his fame, singularly moderate in demands on the bounty of publishers. Dickens received for "Silverman's Explanation" and "Holiday Romance"-the work of a few days and containing about fifteen pages, one thousand pounds! Lever's mistake was that he at all times asked too little.

Thackeray envied Lever's life in Florence, which he pronounced the essence of luxury. One day the cholera came, dealt death around, let panic loose, and draped the streets in mourning. This terrible visitation marked the year 1854. But it is an ill wind that blows no good— the sanitary state of Florence has evidently been on the

mend-very much owing to the prohibition of intramural burials its population having for centuries found their last resting place in the crypts and cloisters of the crowded city. Among those who sleep in Florence is the authoress of "Aurora Leigh."

Lever was now in the zenith of his fame and at no period more prolific. Unless to guard against the reproach of "writing himself out"-one freely preferred at this time by the critics of Dickens—it is difficult to know why he brought out "Maurice Tierney' and some other tales anonymously. The final result of his experience was against anonymous publication,-notwithstanding that the success of the Waverley Novels is said to have been largely due to the circumstance of a great unknown inditing them, and that Junius would never have attained his imperishable rank had his vizor been unlocked.

"I have never been able to understand," he said, "how people have courage to go in mask to a ball and endure all the impertinences to which the disguise exposes them. Surely there is no throwing off one's identity by the mere assumption of a domino; and what terrible stabs to one's self-esteem may be given under the cope of a monk or the cowl of a Capuchin! The next thing to this is to publish anonymously-to give to the world a poem or a novel, and lie perdu while your friends read, ridicule, or revile it--to sit calmly, smilingly by, when some one reads you aloud to a laughing audience, overwhelmed with your absurdity, to be warned

THE "DODD FAMILY.”

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against your own book, to be confidentially told, 'It's the very worst thing of the season;' to hear little fragments of yourself banded about as domestic drolleries, and to listen to curious speculations as to how or why the publisher had ever adventured on such a production, and grave questions put if there be really a public for such trash."

In 1853 Lever is found living in a quiet cottage called Marola, on the Gulf of Spezzia. Here he wrote the "Dodd Family," which he often said had the fortune to be better liked by his friends and less valued by the public than any other of his books. This book, in which the adventures of a family filled with preposterously false ideas regarding the manners and customs of the countries they visit are humorously described, was published by Mr. Chapman in 1854. Lever, offering to McGlashan, a short time previously, "Sir Jasper Carew," says that the idea of a series of letters which he projected would hamper so seriously the development of the story, that, on consideration, he was obliged to relinquish it. The difficulty from which he shrank in 1852 he now mastered. The story of the Dodds, like that of "Guy Mannering," is conducted by the letters of the chief actors themselves; who, with great skill, "are thus made the unconscious exponents of their own characters, follies, and foibles, as well as the historians of their own fates. Perhaps the most conspicuous merit in the story is, that each character is so contrived as to evoke, in the most humorous form, the peculiarities of all the others, without any violation of the individuality assigned to itself."