to be yachtsmen, but who cannot conquer sea-sickness, I have a most ardent desire to be thrifty impressed upon me, I own, by that stern condition which is said to be beyond all law. I plot thrift, I dream thrift, but it invariably ends in failure. It's always the story of the pony and the window-shutter over again; and so assured have I become, by long and bitter experience, of my incapacity, that whenever I do anything particularly stingy, I have that sensation of mingled vanity and nervousness that so often is felt as the prelude to an outburst of reckless extravagance, and I almost revel in the sense of a thoughtless munificence."

Lever liked international exhibitions, but hated scientific congresses. Whether he recognised in their proceedings any paper which had already passed through his own hands editorially, we know not; but certain it is he pronounced them to be little else than grand gatherings for the disposal of rejected articles. "Whenever it is original, take your oath on it it is worthless. The coins flung out of the carriage-window never were guineas; and indeed, for the mere pleasure of seeing the beggars fight for them, halfpennies sufficed just as well.”

The year 1865 found him in Ireland, attracted thither by a national exhibition at Dublin. A paper tells us that "he issued forth from the solitude of his rocks and wild olives to see a little of that great and busy world of whose doings for years he had only cognizance at second hand."

On a bright May morning he found himself in

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Dublin; and he declared his conviction that the same carman that used to take him down to Ringsend as a boy drove him to his hotel. It was most gratifying to him to see everything so little changed, even to the battered beauties who sold oranges near the Provost's House.*

"A cead mille Failthe," that hearty phrase implying "One Hundred Thousand Welcomes" greeted him as usual; cheerful dinners steamed on every side. Actual beauty, excellent fish, and very tolerable claret graced the tables at which he sat. He was delighted with that hearty cordiality that greets you at the threshold, follows you to the drawing-room, goes with you to the dinnertable, and never leaves you till the last shake-hand at parting. "Of this I know of no equal anywhere: England assuredly has nothing like it, nor has France, nor Germany, nor Russia, nor Italy. Perhaps long absence, perhaps peculiarity of temperament, dispose to make these cordial graces especially dear to me, giving them that character which, in native air, is supposed to retain all its virtue of curability. Perhaps I fancy that in such companionship I feel more myself, more sure of my own resources, more sensible of my own identity."

William Hartpole Lecky, in the letter of reminiscence elsewhere quoted, mentions that he was invited to meet Lever on one of his last visits home. It may

* Had Lever's visit been deferred a few years later, he would have found the "battered beauties" banished-as well as the old bookstalls over which he had loved, in youth, to linger.

be remarked that if at dinner a man happened to be Lever's vis-à-vis who had been recognised as possessing a somewhat higher order of intellect, the Prince of Talkers quite succumbed, possibly by some animal magnetic influence. Mr. Lecky does not tell where he met Lever, or what passed; but the host on the occasion, a staunch friend-one charged with special powers under his will-well remembers how completely Lever "shut up" for the evening! The host and guests were Irish -and Lever's subjugation opens a curious point for study.

Put him among men who looked up to him, and he dazzled and electrified them. When visiting at Sir William Wilde's, the latter introduced to him Mr. Close, who would prove, he said, a good guide to the Exhibition. In a moment both seemed friends. Story after story was thrown off; every gallery, every bust and picture suggested countless pleasant memories. When all had been viewed, they adjourned to the Pavilion-a marquee for refreshment and rest-where Mr. Close presented two young friends, who highly appreciated the privilege of meeting Harry Lorrequer. Again a torrent of tales gushed forth. Hours sped like minutes, until, when at last all stood up to leave, Mr. Close-Hercules in strength as he was-felt absolutely weak from the endless paroxysms of laughter which Lever raised. "All my sympathies go with younger men," he said; "I like their ambition, their high hopes, and that bold self-confidence, which no man retains when he gets 'groggy.'

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The excitation attendant on these visits to Dublin was a natural reaction after his impassive life at Spezzia, which possessed no society, and where eternal boating, bathing, and basking were his sole enjoyments. Its tropical heat, he said, "tended to promote that delicious languor wherein thought goes to sleep, and the mind enjoyed the most utter repose short of death itself."

Long dormant recollections of early days in Dublin were awakened. Mingled emotions filled him as some old members of his Burschen Club, with barely recognisable visages, stalked or tottered past-some of them vicars-general, others law-advisers.

He visited the courts, where men he remembered as jesters figured as judges, not looking so happy at the change as gratitude should have made them.* It was during this visit to Dublin that Lever successfully inquired after and recovered the illuminated book, meerschaum, muster-roll, and other insignia of the Burschenschaft, which he brought away with him, and

* “Lever, during this visit," writes Mr. Innes, "was much annoyed on hearing the constant remark that the national character of Irishmen had utterly changed. The famine years, it was said, had sobered and saddened them. It may appear so to a stranger,' Lever said, 'but it is their notion of politeness to be dull with the dullards, and prosy with the prosers.' An incident in a trial for breach of promise furnished him with an illustration. The lady received large damages from a Galway admirer, and Lever was within hearing when she descended from the witness-table into the arms of a female relative. My dear, you must have been terribly put out by that savage's impertinent questions.' 'The devil a bit,' was the reply. Lever's delight at the answer was excessive. 'It was the genuine product of the soil,' he said: 'wild sports of the west before us as well as in the past."". Letter of H. Innes, April 20, 1879.

afterwards dropped some tears over in his exile on the dreary Dalmatian coast. "I never experience the same lightness of heart, the same capacity for enjoyment, the same readiness to employ whatever faculties I possess, as in Ireland; and as I walked through the old courts of Trinity, I felt a thrill through me as though thirty hard years of struggle and conflict were no more than a troubled ocean, and that there I stood, as ready for heaven knows what of fun or frolic, of freshman's folly and hot youth's wild gaiety, as when I lived yonder, over there, at No. 2 Chambers, with Frank for my chum, and the junior Dean over my head."

James Sheridan Lefanu he met frequently during this visit. Years previously he had known him as the author of "Torlogh O'Brien;" but the power evinced by some more recent stories from his pen made Lefanu a truly formidable competitor, and Lever, more than once, was urged to look to his laurels. Lefanu, some time after, was at first a little puzzled on hearing from Lever to the following effect :

"I cannot wait for the end of the month, and the end of your story, to tell you of a very serious blunder you have made in ita mistake perhaps more palpable to myself, than to many of your readers; but which, recognised or not, is still grave. Your blunder was in not holding back your novel some twelve or fifteen years, will never beat it-equal it you may, for you but not pass it. It is first-rate, and I feel assured it will have a high success.