Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

nearly all to the Anglo-Irish races. To the native Irish was left the subordinate sphere of jesters, jarveys, and ballad-singers. I suggested to him more than once the propriety of making a trial with the old families of Irish or Norman Irish race. I peopled a castle in Kerry for him with a descendant of real Irish chiefs, surrounded by French abbés, Spanish and Austrian soldiers of fortune, political agents of various kinds, and I asked him to bring into contact with these a genuine English gentleman on the one hand, and a representative of the AngloIrish settlers on the other. This suggestion was made years ago, and some confused image of it seems to have floated uppermost by chance, and from his having been brought into contact with Austrian officers at Florence and Trieste, in 'Lord Kilgobbin,' the earlier chapters of which may be found in the Cornhill.'”*

The original of one of these portraits was the Duke de Nedentorz, a very gallant soldier, second in command at Trieste. Möring, a field marshal and an old friend of Major D-'s, an able and distinguished man, was, luckily for Lever, stationed at Trieste also. In February, 1870, Lever expressed fears that Austria was about to make a Cabinet Minister of Möring, and deprive Trieste of the one gentleman it possessed. Lever was, as Major D says, essentially a politician. In the marvellously full correspondence between him and Mr. Chapman-still preserved - the letters, though ostensibly on business connected with his books, all

*Letter of Major D― to the author, August the 19th, 1875.

HIS POLITICAL ACUMEN.

283

digress into fluent commentary on the politics of the hour. He had often throughout his career aspired to become a political journalist, and no doubt he would have distinguished himself in this role. Thirty years previously that shrewd man, the Rev. John Lever, recognized his brother's forte, and praised a political paper in the "Dublin University Magazine," for November 1841, as terse, sharp, and to the purpose. He hoped that Charles would keep up to this new line without slacking his hand on the other. "It promises fairly for future usefulness, and a name higher than 'Harry Lorrequer."" John, however, never urged him to embark in journalism, preferring, as he uniformly did, that Charles Lever, M.D., should stick to his profession. In phraseology, at least, he continued medical to the last. Heavy losses and increasing expenses led Lever to try his hand once more at thrift; but it was all to no use, and he at last apandoned the effort as vain.

Something

"There are temperaments," he writes, "which thrift disagrees with, just as there are constitutions which cannot take opium or digitalis, or a score of other medicaments that others profit by. Mine, I say it in all humility, is one of them. The agent that acts so favourably with others, goes wrong with me. or other has been omitted in my temperament, or something has been mixed up with it that ought not to have been there; I cannot tell which. Whatever it be, it renders me incapable of practising that sage and wellregulated economy by which other men secure themselves

'

against difficulties, and show a surplus' in their annual balance-sheet."

One hundred a year in addition to his consular salary was allowed to defray the rent of an office, in which, unlike that at Spezzia, a good share of business was done. He described his only Vice-Consul-that at Turin-as aged eighty and very shaky. Free from

the too frequent weakness of men "dressed in a little brief authority," we learn from the Era (No. 1759) that

in his official capacity Mr. Lever won the affection and esteem of all who came in contact with him." One day, about this time, a strange change came over Lever; a feeling of delicious langour, often degenerating into somnolency, usurped the place of legitimate enjoyment and healthy energy. In 1869, the following paragraph went the rounds of the press. "Charles Lever has lapsed into a state of lethargy, which causes him to sleep eighteen hours out of the twenty-four." This was, no doubt, an expiring effort of nature, and those who have watched his previous life will have observed different efforts of the same "soft nurse" to assert her sway. To Hayman, so far back as 1844, he speaks of a feeling of somnolence, following bad headaches which then tormented him. Physiologists have re

peatedly proclaimed that those who do the most brainwork require the most sleep. It is a recuperative agent of vast power, and the greatest men are known to have been the greatest sleepers, while those who died of necrencephalus, or softening of the brain, had generally

GUEST OF THE VICEROY.

285

stinted themselves in sleep-Archbishop Magee, a noted example, having, as his biographer tells, abridged his night's rest to four hours, at the very time when his cerebral toil was hardest. There can be no doubt that the sudden smash of Dickens was due to want of sleep.* Refreshed by this great effort of nature, we find Lever soon after arranging to revisit Ireland, to renew acquaintance with old friends and partly to restock a note-book once plethoric enough, but showing signs of attenuation at last. Throughout his long exile from Ireland, daily viewing manners utterly unlike those presented by his favourite theatre, it seems wonderful how, without the exhilarative aliment of daily intercourse, his mind seemed always saturated in the sparkling dews of Ireland, and his books, to the last, so racy of its soil. How he managed to do this we learn from Professor Mahaffy.

"Lever told me that, though compelled by his duties to live abroad, he felt it an absolute necessity to revisit Ireland periodically, and have the tone of his mind refreshed by nights in Trinity College, or at the table of some old friends, who told him all the newest good things, and revived him with the music of the Irish brogue. He would recover strength Antæus-like, whenever he regained his mother earth."

Arrived in Ireland he was fêted and feasted, and it seemed that he had never flashed more brightly. Kind and gracious attention came not from old friends only. The Lord Lieutenant made him his guest for days at a

* Life of C. Dickens vol. iii. p. 281, et passim.

time, and by kindest attention put Lever completely at

ease.

"When I was in Ireland" (writes his Lordship), "Lady Spencer and I had the pleasure of receiving Mr. Lever at the Viceregal Lodge, and were much charmed and entertained by him. If I recollect rightly, we did not previously know him. Miss Mary Boyle, a cousin of mine, knew Mr. Lever well; and Lady Spencer met him at her house after she saw him in Ireland."*

Many amusing traits were told to show the acumen of the race Lord Spencer ruled, and of that tendency to depreciate everything English older than the time of Swift, who said, "Burn everything which comes from England unless her coals."

6

[ocr errors]

"A friend of mine, when exploring Castle Howard, was accompanied by an Irish servant of the Micky Free stamp. This,' said he to the man, is Lord Carlisle's ' -two Peers of that name had been Lords Lieutenant of Ireland. 'See what splendid trees-so tall--so stately.' Why wouldn't they be fine?' retorted the groom— 'Shure, hadn't he the pick av the Phaynix Park?'

"I was dining with Judge --on Sunday, who, as you know, is a very diminutive, shrivelled up man, and he told me an amusing story. When attorney-general, he purchased an estate in Tipperary, and in order to inspect his acquisition, was proceeding with his agent through a boreen, when he overheard an old crone say, "That's the

*Letter from Earl Spencer dated Hurleston, Northampton, 1 June, 1877.

« ElőzőTovább »