THE KISHOGE PAPERS. 61 clusion, that his last letter was a better tonic than all the antacid mixtures and stomachic potions he had swallowed for weeks. Lever found many thorns in the editorial chair; but amongst the pleasures of editorship, perhaps the greatest was when he recognised peculiar merit in some new writer and aided in its development. One of these was Mr. M. J. Barry, the able author of the Kishoge Papers," and afterwards a police magistrate in Dublin. Lever enjoyed these pieces thoroughly; "but," modestly writes Mr. Barry, in a letter to be quoted more fully later on, "I fancy they were greatly over-rated. After the first zest of composition (which was generally at a white heat, for I wrote 380 lines of one between breakfast and dinner) I never thought anything of them myself." Lever invited him to Templeogue to meet Thackeray and other distinguished men; but Mr. Barry, in accounting to us for not being able to furnish more detail of intercourse, says that he was "then a very young, and, save with chums of my own standing, a very bashful man; and when present at a Magazine dinner, rather wondering how the d-- I got there, and shrank from rather than courted swells, literary or otherwise." Mr. Barry bears graceful testimony to Lever's charming qualities as a host, "bringing out every man, who could be brought out, at his best; and filling all gaps by his own boundless tide of anecdote and humour.” * Other * “He was a really clever and brilliant Irishman," Mr. Barry adds, "and one, too, who I think always wished to put forward the best traits of the flowers, which seemed born to blush unseen, developed beneath the sunshine that Lever shed. To be in good strength for the entertainment of his guests he prepared himself generally by exercise in the open air. His medical education, if it produced no better fruit, proved of use by teaching him how to gain increased mental and bodily strength. To counteract the ill-effects of sedentary pursuits, he constantly rushed into the open air; sometimes riding with his schoolfellow Dr. Stoker, who having called one day at Templeogue House, found him, Sysiphus-like, hurling a large stone for an interminable number of times. Wine he took in moderation. "I once heard him say of a friend, who was unusually brilliant," writes Mr. Innes, "that he had been sherried up to the right paint, adding 'An additional liqueur-glass would have spoiled him."" If Mr. Hall and others objected that some of Lever's sketches bordered upon caricature, Samuel Lover's critics complained, on the other hand, that his pictures of Irish life were too flattering; and to get rid of the objection, he wrote "Handy Andy," which has always been more popular than his fine dramatic novel "Rory O'More." It was only natural that Lover, being a portrait-painter by profession, should place his subjects in the best light. As a genuine poet, he had a loftier Irish character, certainly not to trade on the degradation or misrepresentation of Irishmen. Many of his stories were cast in periods in which certain national failings were necessarily manifested pretty conspicuously, but there was always the wish to relieve them by the display of Irish generosity, Irish wit, Irish courage, and Irish genius." ON THE GALLOP! 63 ideal to realise than his more light-hearted fellow-Bursch Lever, who, when in the first exuberance of manhood, possessed so keen a perception of the ludicrous, that he could not resist seizing on all comical points; but his style toned down as he got older, and as shall be seen. If Lever got good pay for the work he did during these few memorable years in Dublin, he more than lived up to it. We have seen him daily "on hospitable thoughts intent," but in domestic devotion he perhaps shone brightest. Charles Lever was fond of his children; braced and beaming and radiant with good humour, he daily rode out with two of them on ponies, a stout cob, sometimes a mettlesome charger, falling to his share. Attended by this tiny escort, and followed by a belted groom, he might be often seen traversing the streets of Dublin, where all four, attracting every eye, were familiar figures. The flowing auburn hair of his daughters, so ample and luxuriant that it well nigh seemed to cover each pony, was in itself a striking object. The latter aspect was presented on damp days, when the work of the curl-papers became Love's labour lost. All the family used papillotes—or as Lever called them, “the Evening Papers." Lever generally rode fast, and with the ease of one who knew how to manage his horse. But sometimes he would gratify the curiosity of his admirers by giving them an opportunity of scrutinising him more closely. "Careless he seems, yet vigilantly sly, Wooes the stray glance of ladies passing by, Provokes the caper which he seems to chide." The equestrian achievements of O'Malley would lead one to suppose that Lever was a master of the art. He was addicted to habits, however, which Rarey or "Nimrod" would hardly approve.* "In horseflesh he was fastidious," says Major L--~h. "He would have nothing to say to any horse on which there was a hair turned. I have seen him pay down £200 for a nag. When riding, he always wore an expression of the most thorough enjoyment. We used to say that there never was a man could show so large a front of shirt, white as snow and stiff as buckram. It seemed to me that one button, the lowest in his vest, was always enough for him. When I knew him at Templeogue, he lived at the rate of £3,000 a year." The menagerie dinners were gradually relinquished by Lever. He found, as he said, that too many monkeys had crept into them. When Mr. Pearce arrived in 1844, to remain at Templeogue as Lever's amanuensis, he found him living extremely quietly, and mostly enjoying rides through sequestered portions of the Dublin mountains. He often laughed at the idea which pervaded the public mind as to the extent of his " orgies at Templeogue;" and he certainly had no objection that the delusion should continue. Whist parties with a "For example he galloped his horse on the hardest roads," Dr. Stoker says, and Major D-- declares that "though one of the boldest riders he had ever known even to leaping over a cart, he had a loose rolling seat." His style of riding was, in fact, like his style of writing, as described by "The Thunderer." "Your blood is on fire and your pulse on the gallop from the first page to the last." "A GROGGY SET OF SCREWS." 65 chosen few were no doubt occasionally held, and one night that a member of his household was about to retire to rest, Lever whispered, "Don't go-I'm winning; the luck may turn if you withdraw." That night Lever retrieved some previous losses, winning not less than £200. The period during which he edited the Magazine of his choice was coincident with the earlier years of Sir Robert Peel's second administration; and it cannot be doubted that to it he rendered good service in Ireland, notwithstanding that, as he himself declared, the machine (or Magazine) was drawn by "as groggy as set of screws as ever man held in harness." But even triumphal cars are often borne along by effectively draped animals of this character, nor has it ever been deemed indispensable that they should possess high stepping action. thinkers, no doubt, there were, who occasionally threw into the Magazine striking papers-men of the Butt, Griffin, Petrie, and Hayman mould. Lever's general description applied to the men-of-all-work attached to the serial throughout successive régimes, and who afterwards proved an incubus rather than a stimulus to its circulation. Able 1843-characterised by O'Connell as the Repeal year -was one pregnant with events and throes. At Mallow O'Connell hurled his defiance at the Government. In a letter written ere the prosecution of "the Liberator" was bruited, Lever tells one of his staff to "cut boldly and fear not." Party-spirit ran high, and as editor of a VOL. II. F |
