During the year 1830 Lever busied himself in Dublin with the cult of
medicine. Possibly his rough experiences in America had chastened him
and had induced him to settle down to work. He attended diligently
the Medico-Chirurgical--a school now extinct--and Sir Patrick Dunn’s
Hospital. He was also the life and soul of a medical debating society
which met in a house in Grafton Street. One of his fellow-students
describes him as being in the habit of speaking with such extraordinary
volubility and energy, that it was suspected he was indulging in
exhilarating drugs. Walking home one night with a friend from a
supper-party, at which he had displayed astonishing merriment, Lever
fell into a taciturn condition. On being rallied by his friend he
apologised for his stupidity, or moroseness, by stating that, in order
to tune himself up to concert pitch, he had that evening taken sixty
grains of opium, and now that the excitement was over he was drowned in
depression.
This curious fluctuation of spirits was a marked characteristic: even
when he had abandoned the use of opium, he was to be found in the same
hour overflowing with gaiety and sunk in the deepest dejection.
Though he worked hard and steadily at his studies in 1830, he did not
fail to find sources of amusement. He railed against the sameness
and the dulness of social life in Dublin. He complained of stupid
dinner-parties where men of law and men of physic talked an
unintelligible and irritating jargon. Dublin, he declared, was too
professedly sociable to patronise the theatre; too sociable to form
clubs,--too sociable, in fact, to go into society. He sighed for
Gottingen and Heidelberg and for the more spacious life of German
cities. Then a happy thought occurred to him. Why should he not
establish in the Irish capital a Burschenschaft? He consulted Samuel
Lover,--painter, song-writer, musician, novelist,--and joining forces
with him, a club on the most approved German model was formed. Lever was
elected “Grand Llama,” and was entitled to be addressed as “Most Noble
Grand.” This club bore a strong resemblance to Curran’s “Monks of the
Screw,” * but it was a less aristocratic, and probably a less bibacious,
society. The members wore scarlet vests with gilt buttons, and a red
skull-cap adorned with white tassels. They met in a room in Commercial
Buildings, afterwards used as the Stock Exchange. Suppers, songs, and
conversational jousts formed the staple of the entertainment. Lever, as
president, occupied a chair placed upon a dais covered with baize, with
a representation, in brass-headed nails, of a sword and tobacco-pipe
crossed. Writing thirty-five years later about the club and its
functions, he described it as “very fine fooling,” and he goes on to say
that no wittier, no pleasanter, and no more _spirituel_ set of fellows
ever sat around a punch-bowl.
* “The Order of St Patrick,” to give this club its proper
title, was founded by Barry Yelverton, afterwards Lord
Avonmore. Curran was its leading spirit: he wrote its
charter song, the famous “Monks of the Screw,” quoted by
Lever in ‘Jack Hinton.’ The Convent of “The Order of St
Patrick” was in Kevin’s Street, Dublin, and the club had
another meeting-place in the country, at Curran’a residence,
“The Priory,” in Rathfarnam. Amongst the distinguished
brothers of the order were the Marquis of Townshend (the
Viceroy), Lord Mornington, Grattan, Flood, Lord Kilwarden,
and the Earl of Arran. The club ceased to exist in 1795, but
Lever, scorning anachronisms, introduced ‘Jack Hinton’ to
the “Monks” at a later date.--E. D.
Lever’s fellow-student, Francis Dwyer (who afterwards rose to rank in
the service of Austria), provides a pleasant description of the
Dublin Burschenschaft. He avers that it gave its members a relish for
intellectual enjoyment. “The most noble grand” conducted the proceedings
with tact and delicacy, never permitting any lapse into indecorousness.
“That he himself was a gainer,” Dwyer insists. “He learned how to lead,
and he also acquired a juster estimate of his own powers, and greater
confidence in himself. No one, indeed, suspected what was really in the
man, and some even shook their heads as to what good could ever come out
of his unprofessional pre-eminence.” He was learning in joyousness what
he expounded in story.
Lever made his first appearance in print in ‘Bolster’s Cork Quarterly
Magazine.’ to which he contributed a paper entitled “Recollections of
Dreamland.” This essay concerned itself mainly with the writer’s real or
imaginary experiences of opium-eating and opium visions. In ‘Bolster’s’
also appeared his first crude attempt at a story, “A Tale of Old
Trinity.” These were anonymous contributions, and their author never
acknowledged them, and did not care to have any reference made to them.
In January 1830 “a weekly chronicle of criticism, belles lettres, and
fine arts” was started in Dublin under the title of ‘The Dublin Literary
Gazette.’ In the third number of the ‘Gazette’ Lever commenced “The
Log-Book of a Rambler.” There are some other contributions of his, not
of much value, to be found in the ‘Gazette.’ The periodical lived for
only six months, and from its ashes arose ‘The National Magazine,’
a monthly publication which started in July 1831 and died during the
following year. To ‘The National’ Lever contributed some papers--of no
higher value than his miscellaneous contributions to the ‘Gazette.’
In 1831 he would seem to have abandoned, temporarily, literary work,
and to have toiled at his medical studies. In the summer of this year he
obtained, at Trinity College, the degree of Bachelor of Medicine.* His
father’s town address was now 74 Talbot Street, and here Lever set up
a practice; but business did not flow into Talbot Street, and the young
physician soon began to display symptoms of restiveness.
* Dr Fitzpatrick states that he received at the same period
a diploma as M.D. of Louvain _in absentia_, but Lever did
not obtain the Louvain degree until he was established as a
physician at Brussels.--E. D.
Ireland was smitten by a terrible scourge in the year 1832--a sudden
visitation of Asiatic cholera. A Board of Health engaged a number of
medical men and despatched them to cholera-stricken districts. Lever
applied to the Board for an appointment, and in the month of May he was
established at Kilrush, County Clare.
Notwithstanding the gloom which pervaded the district, the young doctor
contrived somehow to infect it with a little of his own high spirits.
Physicians who worked with him through the awful time declared that
wherever Lever went he won all hearts by his kindness, and kept up the
spirits of the inhabitants by his cheerfulness. Some of his associates
were driven to account for his wondrous exuberance, even after he had
been sitting up night after night, by supposing that he was “excited in
some unknown and unnatural manner.” Most likely opium was accountable
for the phenomenon.
In Kilrush Dr Lever quickly made the acquaintance of a group of
companionable men--hard readers and good talkers,--and almost every
evening they met at the house of one or the other, or at the cholera
hospital. These men were to Clare as the guests at Portumna Castle were
to Galway. They knew the country and the people intimately, and they
were able to impart their impressions in vivid and interesting guise. To
the visitor from Dublin was disclosed another treasury of anecdote and
a mine of material for character sketches: and he did not fail to avail
himself of the golden opportunity.
Lever remained in Kilrush for about four months and then he returned to
Dublin, leaving behind him in Clare many good friends, and bearing
with him many pleasant and many ghastly memories.* He could not settle
himself down to wait patiently for a city practice, and seeing an
advertisement in a newspaper for a doctor to take charge of a dispensary
at Portstewart, near Coleraine, he applied for the post and obtained
it. In addition to the dispensary he was appointed to the charge of the
hospital in Coleraine, and the Derry Board of Health invited him to look
after their cholera hospital. He had a wide district to supervise, and,
in addition to his cholera practice,* he obtained a good deal of private
practice. He was able to report in January 1833, to his friend Spencer,
that money was coming in so fast that he was in no need of help from his
father.
* To give some idea of the awful havoc which the cholera
created in Clare, it may be stated that one of Lever’s
associates, Dr Hogan, claimed to have treated 6000 cases.--
E. D.
It seems opportune to refer here to a circumstance which had a most
marked influence on the greater part of Lever’s life--his attachment
to Miss Kate Baker. He had fallen in love with her while he was a
schoolboy, and his devotion to his wife--the most beautiful of all his
characteristics--was unsullied to the day of his death. Miss Baker was
the daughter of Mr W. M. Baker, who was Master of the Royal Hibernian
Marine School,* situated on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. The Bakers moved
from Dublin to the County Meath about 1830, Mr Baker being appointed to
the charge of the Endowed School at Navan. Young Dr Lever was often to
be found boating on the river Boyne with his sweetheart after his return
from Canada. The doctor’s father was anxious that his brilliant son
should make a good match--that is to say that, like Mickey Free, he
should “marry a wife with a fortune”; but much as Charles desired to
please his father, he resolved that nothing should induce him to abandon
the girl of his heart. His father’s objection to Miss Baker was solely
because of her dowerless condition. Charles endeavoured fruitlessly
to enlist his mother’s sympathies: Mrs Lever’s faith in her husband’s
wisdom was not to be shaken. Finding that he could make no impression
upon his parents, the young man married Miss Baker privately.
* Mr Baker is described previously as “Deputy-Treasurer to
the Navy and Greenwich Hospital.”
Oddly enough--and as a corollary to the absence of any official
birth-record,--no accurate document recording the date of the marriage
ceremony could be found when Lever’s biographer, Dr Fitzpatrick,
instituted a search. After long and wearisome investigations he
discovered in Navan the Registry Book which chronicles the marriage of
“Dr Lever.” The entry is undated, and there is no mention of the bride’s
name. The Rector of Navan was of opinion that the ceremony had been
performed by a Mr Morton (who was a cousin of the Marchioness of
Headfort), but he could throw no further light upon the nebulous entry:
he offered a conjecture that the marriage was celebrated between the
month of August 1832 and the month of August 1833. There is something
delightfully Leverian about this. Despite the imperfectness of the
record, Lever’s choice was a singularly happy one. Amongst the many
things which stand to Mrs Lever’s credit are, that at an early stage of
her married life she induced her husband to abandon the use of snuff,
and she also cured him of another of the bad habits of his student
days--indulgence in opium.
The probable date of Lever’s marriage is September 1832. During this
month he obtained leave of absence in order “to complete some important
private engagements,” and in all probability the most important of
these engagements was his wedding. It is certain that the Portstewart
dispensary doctor was a married man in January 1833. Early in that month
he speaks (in a letter to Spencer) of his “household” attending a ball
in Derry; and in the following May he writes: “I have two of Kate’s
sisters here, which makes it more agreeable than usual _chez nous_.”
Early in this year Dr Lever sustained a sad blow: his mother expired
suddenly in Dublin. Her death prostrated James Lever, now in his
seventieth year. He could not bear to remain in the house where his
wife had died, and he retired to the residence of his eldest son at
Tullamore.
He never rallied from the shock, and at the end of March 1833 he died
in Tullamore. This event finally broke up the Lever establishment in
Dublin.
James Lever left all his possessions to his two sons: at the time it was
computed that his estate would realise a sufficient sum to bring to each
of them about £250 a-year, but it is doubtful if it produced this; and
it is certain that Charles realised his share at an early stage of his
literary career.
The severity of the cholera was now waning, and the terrible epidemic
disappeared as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had come. Coleraine
and Derry no longer required the services of Dr Lever, and he was
thrown back upon his Portstewart dispensary. The most important man in
Portstewart was a Mr Cromie. This magnate was lord of the manor, and he
took a keen interest in local affairs. He was chairman of the Dispensary
Board, and being of a strait-laced and somewhat evangelical disposition,
he could not tolerate the exuberance of spirits displayed by the
dispensary doctor. Lever tried to put the chairman into good humour by
means which hitherto he had never found to fail; but Mr Cromie was not
to be cajoled, and was even unwilling to admit the doctor’s contention
that he never neglected his duties, and that the poor people in the
district could vouch for this.
Portstewart was then a rising watering-place, sufficiently gay during
the summer months, but deadly dull when “the season” was over. Its very
dulness was a spur to Charles Lever. He could not set up a Burschen
club, but he managed to make things lively in the neighbourhood. He was
known as “the wild young doctor.” Stories of his exploits were rife.
Once, when galloping to visit a patient, a turf-cart faced him on the
roadway. Not being able to pull up his horse, he leaped him over the
cart--just as Charles O’Malley “topped the mule-cart” in Lisbon. Another
reminiscence of him was that, in order not to disappoint his young wife,
he attended a ball given at Coleraine by the officers of a regiment
stationed there, and he spent the entire night riding backwards and
forwards between the ballroom and the house of a sick child. On another
occasion he organised a motley-clad expedition to attend a fancy-dress
ball given by Lady Garvagh. Vehicles being scarce, the expedition had
to press into its service a furniture van, a hearse, and a mourning
coach. Returning in the small hours, the van (in which Lever, in fancy
dress, was travelling) broke down near Coleraine, and the wild doctor
endeavoured to obtain shelter under the roof of a gentleman who resided
at Castle Coe; but the dwellers at the castle fancied that the visitors
were travelling showmen or gipsies, and Lever and his party were obliged
to spend the night in the van. Next morning horses were procured, and
the furniture-waggon made a triumphal entry into Coleraine.
These and other pranks gave offence to the austere Mr Cromie. In June
Lever wrote to Spencer the following letter:--
“As to matters here, the dispensary is likely to go by the board,--the
private quarrels and personal animosities of rival individuals warring
against each other will most probably terminate in its downfall, and Mr
Cromie since his marriage has become very careless of all Portstewart
politics. The loss would not be very great, but at this time even
£50 per annum is to be regretted. However, matters may ultimately be
reconciled, though I doubt it much. In fact, the subscribers know by
this time that the county practice, and not the dispensary salary,
would form the inducement for any medical man to remain here, and they
calculate on my staying without the dispensary as certainly as with it,
and that my services can be had when wanted, without the necessity of a
retaining fee. This is a northern species of argument, but unfortunately
a correct one.... As for myself, I am just as well pleased [at the lack
of gaiety and festivities] as if we had balls and parties, for I find a
man’s fireside and home his very happiest and pleasantest place....
Dr Bead is endeavouring by all possible means to usurp the Portstewart
practice, and has even got his mother-in-law, the archdeacon’s widow,
to purchase a house and reside here. But the game is not succeeding,
and whatever little there is to be made is still, and likely to be, with
me.”
Finally Lever triumphed in a measure over Mr Cromie, and was temporarily
lifted out of his gloomy mood. Domestic affairs were running a pleasant
course. In September a daughter* was born to him, and in sending the
good news to Dublin, he adds that “the neighbours,” in honour of the
event, had sent him presents “sufficient to stock a garrison for a
siege.”
* The first-born was christened Julia. She married Colonel
Nevill, afterwards Commander of the Forces of the Nizam of
Hyderabad. She died at “Nevill’s Folly,” Hyderabad Deccan,
early in the year 1897.--E. D.
The following year found him again in a troubled condition. Portstewart
was displaying symptoms of decline as a watering-place. He writes in
August 1834 to Spencer:--
“If prospects do not brighten here--of which I see little chance--I must
pitch my tent somewhere else, as when once a fashionable bathing-place
begins to decline, its downfall is all but inevitable. I am much
disposed to book to Canada, for though the scale of remuneration is very
small, there is plenty of occupation for my craft--and living is cheap.
An English watering-place would undoubtedly be more to my liking, but
would require more of _l’argent_ than I am likely to have.”
During the following year, in addition to dispensary worries, Lever was
seriously disturbed about the state of his health. Rheumatism assailed
him, and his left arm (according to himself) was “like a dead man’s
limb.” He consulted his former professor, Surgeon Cusack, who told him
that probably he would have to abandon Portstewart, and seek a more
genial winter climate. To Spencer he wrote in June:--
“Our prospects here are black enough. Mr Cromie and his party have, by
an overwrought severity in manners and opinion, completely terrified
all people from frequenting this as a watering-place, and we are now
destitute of all society,--save a few widows and old maids come to live
on small means and talk scandal. The complete desertion of the place by
all people of means has rendered my occupation gone, and my once high
and mighty functions might also--and must be--transmitted to some
country apothecary. Partly from illness, and partly from the causes I
have mentioned, I have scarcely done anything these five last months.”
During the summer, however, the sick man rallied. His spirits rose as he
observed the little watering-place filling up once more. In August his
report to Dublin was that Portstewart was fast becoming a paradise for
the lodging-house keepers,--cottages fetching £15 to £20 a-month. He
goes on to say that “about four thousand strangers are here--glad to get
any accommodation--living in hovels and sleeping on the ground. There is
a great deal of company-seeing--but all heavy dinners. No music, nor
any pleasant people to chat to. I have been gradually getting more
illegible,” he continues, “till I find the last of this letter
resembling a Chaldean MS. I am ready to shout from the pain of my right
elbow,--my horse fell and rolled over me, and in the endeavour to rise
fell back upon me. Those who saw the occurrence thought I was killed on
the spot.”
Presently he formed one of the most important acquaintanceships of his
life. Amongst the many visitors to Portstewart was William Hamilton
Maxwell, Rector of Balla, near Castlebar. Maxwell had published his
‘Stories of Waterloo, in 1829, and his ‘Wild Sports of the West’ in
1830. To Lever at this period Maxwell was a literary demigod. The two
men exchanged views about Irish life and character, and Maxwell fired
the dispensary doctor with a desire to beget a novel of adventure.
If ever a writer was handsomely equipped for the creating of tales of
romantic adventure or boisterous Irish humour, that writer was assuredly
Charles Lever. He had spent his early days in an atmosphere charged
with recollections of a brilliant era and a mettlesome, laughter-loving
people. As a mere youth he had displayed a love for good books, a
faculty of improvisation, and a facility in the art of composition.
Endowed with an excellent education in his own country, he had enlarged
his knowledge of life and literature by travel, observation, and study
in foreign countries. He was a member of a profession whose duties
bring one into close touch with all sorts and conditions of men. His
imagination was lively and fertile, his vision kaleidoscopic, his power
of observation quick and true. He had a high sense of honour and an
unaffected admiration for noble and valorous deeds: his appreciation
of wit and humour was keen and sound, his love of fun and frolic
ebullient.*
* Edgar Allan Poe pronounced Lever’s humour to be the humour
of memory and not of the imagination,--a criticism which is
only a half truth.
He had been indulging, in a desultory fashion, in literary vagaries
during the dull months of his Portstewart life,* but he had not put much
heart into his literary work since the death of ‘The National Magazine.’
* A cousin of Lever, Mr Harry Innes, told Dr Fitzpatrick
that Lever, during his Portstewart days, had written a
considerable portion of a work on Medical Jurisprudence.--E.
D.
Maxwell, however, had reanimated him; and when the author of ‘Stories of
Waterloo’ returned to the West of Ireland (in the autumn of 1835), Lever
got into communication with editors of various publications. He was
especially anxious to get a hearing at the office of ‘The Dublin
University Magazine’ (launched in January 1833). The earliest story of
his which appeared in this interesting periodical was “The Black Mask.”
There is a somewhat curious history concerning this tale. In 1833 Lever
had entrusted the manuscript of the story to a Dublin acquaintance,
instructing him to deliver it to a certain publisher in London. No
acknowledgment came from this publisher--who, possibly, was not in the
habit of corresponding with unsolicited contributors--and at length,
failing to obtain any reply to his letters of inquiry, Lever rashly
concluded that the manuscript had been lost. He re-wrote the story and
sent it, in 1836, to Dublin. When “The Black Mask” appeared in the
May number of ‘The Dublin University Magazine,’ William Carleton, the
novelist, informed the editor that not only was the tale a translation,
but that it was a flagrantly pirated version of a translation which had
appeared in an English publication called ‘The Story-Teller,’ Lever was
furious at being charged with a literary fraud, but he hardly knew how
to answer the charge. Fortunately young Mrs Lever had seen her husband
writing the first version of the story, but even this did not explain
everything satisfactorily. Eventually it was discovered that the envoy
to whom Lever had entrusted the MS. of “The Black Mask” in 1833 had
surreptitiously disposed of it to ‘The Story-Teller.’
Throughout the year 1836 Dr Lever continued to supply ‘The Dublin
University Magazine, with contributions--short stories and reviews. He
had quickly established pleasant relations with James M’Glashan, the
publisher of the magazine.*
* James M’Glashan’s early history is not very clear. He
migrated to Dublin, probably in the Twenties. About 1830 he
was secretary of the Dublin Booksellers’ Association. He was
with Messrs Curry from 1840 to 1846 at 9 Upper Sackville
Street In 1846 he went to D’Olier Street, and was in
business there with Mr M. H. Gill until 1856, when Mr Gill
bought him out of the firm of M’Glashan and Gill. The
foregoing facts have been communicated to me by Mr Michael
Gill, B.A., Director of Messrs M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd., and a
grandson of the M. H. Gill who was M’Glashan’s partner
--E. D.