Surely it is a pleasant thing that there are books, like other
enjoyments, for all ages. You would not have a boy prefer whist to
fives, nor tobacco to toffee, nor Tolstoi to Charles Lever. The ancients
reckoned Tyrtaecus a fine poet, not that he was particularly melodious or
reflective, but that he gave men heart to fight for their country.
Charles Lever has done as much. In his biography, by Mr. Fitzpatrick, it
is told that a widow lady had but one son, and for him she obtained an
appointment at Woolwich. The boy was timid and nervous, and she fancied
that she must find for him some other profession--perhaps that of
literature. But he one day chanced on Lever's novels, and they put so
much heart into him that his character quite altered, and he became the
bravest of the brave.
Lever may not do as much for every one, but he does teach contempt of
danger, or rather, delight in it: a gay, spontaneous, boyish kind of
courage--Irish courage at its best. We may get more good from that than
harm from all his tales of much punch and many drinking bouts. These are
no longer in fashion and are not very gay reading, perhaps, but his
stories and songs, his duels and battles and hunting scenes are as merry
and as good as ever. Wild as they seem in the reading, they are not far
from the truth, as may be gathered out of "Barrington's Memoirs," and
their tales of the reckless Irish life some eighty years ago.
There were two men in Charles Lever--a glad man and a sad man. The
gaiety was for his youth, when he poured out his "Lorrequers" and
"O'Malleys," all the mirth and memories of his boyhood, all the tales of
fighting and feasting he gleaned from battered, seasoned old warriors,
like Major Monsoon. Even then, Mr. Thackeray, who knew him, and liked
and laughed at him, recognised through his merriment "the fund of sadness
beneath." "The author's character is _not_ humour, but sentiment . . .
extreme delicacy, sweetness and kindliness of heart. The spirits are
mostly artificial, the _fond_ is sadness, as appears to me to be that of
most Irish writing and people." Even in "Charles O'Malley," what a
true, dark picture that is of the duel beside the broad, angry river on
the level waste under the wide grey sky! Charles has shot his opponent,
Bodkin, and with Considine, his second, is making his escape. "Considine
cried out suddenly, 'Too infamous, by Jove: we are murdered men!'"
"'What do you mean?' said I.
"'Don't you see that?' said he, pointing to something black which floated
from a pole at the opposite side of the river.
"'Yes; what is it?'
"'It's his coat they've put upon an oar, to show the people he's
killed--that's all. Every man here's his tenant; and look there! they're
not giving us much doubt as to their intentions.'
"Here a tremendous yell burst forth from the mass of people along the
shore, which, rising to a terrific cry, sank gradually down to a low
wailing, then rose and fell several times, as the Irish death-cry filled
the air, and rose to heaven, as if imploring vengeance on a murderer."
Passages like this, and that which follows--the dangerous voyage through
the storm on the flooded Shannon, and through the reefs--are what Mr.
Thackeray may have had in his mind when he spoke of Lever's underlying
melancholy. Like other men with very high spirits, he had hours of
gloom, and the sadness and the thoughtfulness that were in him came forth
then and informed his later books. These are far more carefully written,
far more cunningly constructed, than the old chapters written from month
to month as the fit took him, with no more plan or premeditation than
"Pickwick." But it is the early stories that we remember, and that he
lives by--the pages thrown off at a heat, when he was a lively doctor
with few patients, and was not over-attentive to them. These were the
days of Harry Lorrequer and Tom Burke; characters that ran away with him,
and took their own path through a merry world of diversion. Like the
knights in Sir Thomas Malory, these heroes "ride at adventure," ride
amazing horses that dread no leap, be it an Irish stone wall on a
mountain crest, or be it the bayonets of a French square.
Mr. Lever's biographer has not been wholly successful in pleasing the
critics, and he does not seem to affect very critical airs himself, but
he tells a straightforward tale. The life of Charles Lever is the
natural commentary on his novels. He was born at Dublin in 1806, the son
of a builder or architect. At school he was very much flogged, and the
odds are that he deserved these attentions, for he had high spirits
beyond the patience of dominies. Handsome, merry and clever, he read
novels in school hours, wore a ring, and set up as a dandy. Even then he
was in love with the young lady whom he married in the end. At a fight
with boys of another school, he and a friend placed a mine under the
ground occupied by the enemy, and blew them, more or less, into the air.
Many an eyebrow was singed off on that fatal day, when, for the only
time, this romancer of the wars "smelled powder." He afterwards pleaded
for his party before the worthy police magistrate, and showed great
promise as a barrister. At Trinity College, Dublin, he was full of his
fun, made ballads, sang them through the streets in disguise (like
Fergusson, the Scottish poet), and one night collected thirty shillings
in coppers.
The original of Frank Webber, in "Charles O'Malley," was a chum of his,
and he took part in the wonderful practical jokes which he has made
immortal in that novel.
From Trinity College, Dublin, Lever went to Gottingen, where he found fun
and fighting enough among the German students. From that hour he became
a citizen of the world, or, at least, of Europe, and perhaps, like the
prophets, was most honoured when out of his own country. He returned to
Dublin and took his degree in medicine, after playing a famous practical
joke. A certain medical professor was wont to lecture in bed. One night
he left town unexpectedly. Lever, by chance, came early to lecture,
found the Professor absent, slipped into his bed, put on his nightcap,
and took the class himself. On another day he was standing outside the
Foundling Hospital with a friend, a small man. Now, a kind of stone
cradle for foundlings was built outside the door, and, when a baby was
placed therein, a bell rang. Lever lifted up his friend, popped him into
the cradle, and had the joy of seeing the promising infant picked out by
the porter.
It seems a queer education for a man of letters; but, like Sir Walter
Scott when revelling in Liddesdale, he "was making himself all the time."
He was collecting myriads of odd experiences and treasures of anecdotes;
he was learning to know men of all sorts; and later, as a country doctor,
he had experiences of mess tables, of hunting, and of all the ways of his
remarkable countrymen. When cholera visited his district he stuck to his
work like a man of heart and courage. But the usual tasks of a country
doctor wearied him; he neglected them, he became unpopular with the
authorities, he married his first love and returned to Brussels, where he
practised as a physician. He had already begun his first notable book,
"Harry Lorrequer," in the _University Magazine_. It is merely a string
of Irish and other stories, good, bad, and indifferent--a picture gallery
full of portraits of priests, soldiers, peasants and odd characters. The
plot is of no importance; we are not interested in Harry's love affairs,
but in his scrapes, adventures, duels at home and abroad. He fights
people by mistake whom he does not know by sight, he appears on parade
with his face blackened, he wins large piles at _trente et quarante_, he
disposes of coopers of claret and bowls of punch, and the sheep on a
thousand hills provide him with devilled kidneys. The critics and the
authors thought little of the merry medley, but the public enjoyed it,
and defied the reviewers. One paper preferred the book to a wilderness
of "Pickwicks"; and as this opinion was advertised everywhere by
M'Glashan, the publisher, Mr. Dickens was very much annoyed indeed.
Authors are easily annoyed. But Lever writes _ut placeat pueris_, and
there was a tremendous fight at Rugby between two boys, the "Slogger
Williams" and "Tom Brown" of the period, for the possession of "Harry
Lorrequer." When an author has the boys of England on his side, he can
laugh at the critics. Not that Lever laughed: he, too, was easily vexed,
and much depressed, when the reviews assailed him. Next he began
"Charles O'Malley"; and if any man reads this essay who has not read the
"Irish Dragoon," let him begin at once. "O'Malley" is what you can
recommend to a friend. Here is every species of diversion: duels and
steeplechases, practical jokes at college (good practical jokes, not
booby traps and apple-pie beds); here is fighting in the Peninsula. If
any student is in doubt, let him try chapter xiv.--the battle on the
Douro. This is, indeed, excellent military writing, and need not fear
comparison as art with Napier's famous history. Lever has warmed to his
work; his heart is in it; he had the best information from an
eye-witness; and the brief beginning, on the peace of nature before the
strife of men, is admirably poetical.
To reach the French, under Soult, Wellesley had to cross the deep and
rapid Douro, in face of their fire, and without regular transport. "He
dared the deed. What must have been his confidence in the men he
commanded! what must have been his reliance on his own genius!"
You hold your breath as you read, while English and Germans charge, till
at last the field is won, and the dust of the French columns retreating
in the distance blows down the road to Spain.
The Great Duke read this passage, and marvelled how Lever knew certain
things that he tells. He learned this, and much more, the humours of
war, from the original of Major Monsoon. Falstaff is alone in the
literature of the world, but if ever there came a later Falstaff, Monsoon
was the man. And where have you such an Irish Sancho Panza as Micky
Free, that independent minstrel, or such an Irish Di Vernon as Baby
Blake? The critics may praise Lever's thoughtful and careful later
novels as they will, but "Charles O'Malley" will always be the pattern of
a military romance. The anecdote of "a virtuous weakness" in
O'Shaughnessy's father's character would alone make the fortune of many a
story. The truth is, it is not easy to lay down "Charles O'Malley," to
leave off reading it, and get on with the account of Lever.
His excellent and delightful novel scarcely received one favourable
notice from the press. This may have been because it was so popular; but
Lever became so nervous that he did not like to look at the papers. When
he went back to Dublin and edited a magazine there, he was more fiercely
assailed than ever. It is difficult for an Irishman to write about the
Irish, or for a Scot to write about the Scottish, without hurting the
feelings of his countrymen. While their literary brethren are alive they
are not very dear to the newspaper scribes of these gallant nations; and
thus Jeffrey was more severe to Scott than he need have been, while the
Irish press, it appears, made an onslaught on Lever. Mr. Thackeray met
Lever in Dublin, and he mentions this unkind behaviour. "Lorrequer's
military propensities have been objected to strongly by his squeamish
Hibernian brethren . . . But is Lorrequer the only man in Ireland who is
fond of military spectacles? Why does the _Nation_ publish these
edifying and Christian war songs? . . . And who is it that prates about
the Irish at Waterloo, and the Irish at Fontenoy, and the Irish at
Seringapatam, and the Irish at Timbuctoo? If Mr. O'Connell, like a wise
rhetorician, chooses, and very properly, to flatter the national military
passion, why not Harry Lorrequer?"
Why not, indeed? But Mr. Lever was a successful Irishman of letters, and
a good many other Irish gentlemen of letters, honest Doolan and his
friends, were not successful. That is the humour of it.
Though you, my youthful reader, if I have one, do not detest Jones
because he is in the Eleven, nor Brown because he has "got his cap," nor
Smith because he does Greek Iambics like Sophocles; though you rather
admire and applaud these champions, you may feel very differently when
you come to thirty years or more, and see other men doing what you cannot
do, and gaining prizes beyond your grasp. And then, if you are a
reviewer, you "will find fault with a book for what it does not give," as
thus, to take Mr. Thackeray's example:--
"Lady Smigsmag's novel is amusing, but lamentably deficient in geological
information." "Mr. Lever's novels are trashy and worthless, for his
facts are not borne out by any authority, and he gives us no information
about the political state of Ireland. 'Oh! our country, our green and
beloved, our beautiful and oppressed?'" and so forth.
It was not altogether a happy time that Lever passed at home. Not only
did his native critics belabour him most ungrudgingly for "Tom Burke,"
that vivid and chivalrous romance, but he made enemies of authors. He
edited a magazine! Is not that enough? He wearied of wading through
waggon-loads of that pure unmitigated rubbish which people are permitted
to "shoot" at editorial doors. How much dust there is in it to how few
pearls! He did not return MSS. punctually and politely. The office cat
could edit the volunteered contributions of many a magazine, but Lever
was even more casual and careless than an experienced office cat. He
grew crabbed, and tried to quarrel with Mr. Thackeray for that delightful
parody "Phil Fogarty," nearly as good as a genuine story by Lever.
Beset by critics, burlesqued by his friend, he changed his style (Mr.
Fitzpatrick tells us) and became more sober--and not so entertaining. He
actually published a criticism of Beyle, of Stendhal, that psychological
prig, the darling of culture and of M. Paul Bourget. Harry Lorrequer on
Stendhal!--it beggars belief. He nearly fought a duel with the gentleman
who is said to have suggested Mr. Pecksniff to Dickens! Yet they call
his early novels improbable. Nothing could be less plausible than a
combat between Harry Lorrequer and a gentleman who, even remotely,
resembled the father of Cherry and Merry.
Lever went abroad again, and in Florence or the Baths of Lucca, in
Trieste or Spezia, he passed the rest of his life. He saw the Italian
revolution of 1848, and it added to his melancholy. This is plain from
one of his novels with a curious history--"Con Cregan." He wrote it at
the same time as "The Daltons," and he did not sign it. The reviewers
praised "Con Cregan" at the expense of the signed work, rejoicing that
Lever, as "The Daltons" proved, was exhausted, and that a new Irish
author, the author of "Con Cregan," was coming to eclipse him. In short,
he eclipsed himself, and he did not like it. His right hand was jealous
of what his left hand did. It seems odd that any human being, however
dull and envious, failed to detect Lever in the rapid and vivacious
adventures of his Irish "Gil Blas," hero of one of the very best among
his books, a piece not unworthy of Dumas. "Con" was written after
midnight, "The Daltons" in the morning; and there can be no doubt which
set of hours was more favourable to Lever's genius. Of course he liked
"The Daltons" best; of all people, authors appear to be their own worst
critics.
It is not possible even to catalogue Lever's later books here. Again he
drove a pair of novels abreast--"The Dodds" and "Sir Jasper Carew"--which
contain some of his most powerful situations. When almost an old man,
sad, outworn in body, straitened in circumstances, he still produced
excellent tales in this later manner--"Lord Kilgobbin," "That Boy of
Norcott's," "A Day's Ride," and many more. These are the thoughts of a
tired man of the world, who has done and seen everything that such men
see and do. He says that he grew fat, and bald, and grave; he wrote for
the grave and the bald, not for the happier world which is young, and
curly, and merry. He died at last, it is said, in his sleep; and it is
added that he did what Harry Lorrequer would not have done--he left his
affairs in perfect order.
Lever lived in an age so full of great novelists that, perhaps, he is not
prized as he should be. Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, Trollope, George
Eliot, were his contemporaries. But when we turn back and read him once
more, we see that Lever, too, was a worthy member of that famous
company--a romancer for boys and men.