“My dear Sir,--I have just seen the advt. of contents of ‘University’
for June, among which the ‘Post Mortem’ holds honourable station, and
hope it may merit it. I write these few lines hurriedly to ask if you
will spare space for a ‘story’ * in your July number, as I have one
ready, and will send it if you desire. As I am going with Maxwell on an
expedition on Thursday, will you let me know your reply before then?
* “The Emigrants Tale.”
“Maxwell and Bentley have been sparring, so you are not to expect the
review of ‘Picton,’ as the wild sportsman is in great dudgeon with the
mighty publisher.
“Whenever anything can be got from him worth your while, I shall press
for it. At present he is toiling for the ‘Bivouac,’ which is to appear
immediately.”
The four following letters written to Spencer afford interesting
glimpses of the young doctor’s life at this period:--
“PORTSTEWART, _June_ 13, 1836.
“I have reaped no small self-praise from the circumstance that I have
not been a bore to you for nearly three months, for it only wants a few
days of that time since we parted in Dublin. How I have existed in
that space I can scarcely say, but one fact is undoubted--not from the
proceeds of my profession.
“There has been nothing to do here for the whole _cordon sanitaire_
of medicals that invests this and the surrounding country; and
idleness--unbroken idleness--has been our portion, and you well know, my
dear Saunders,* the _far niente_ is not _dolce_ when it is compulsory,
and thus, if I have been working little I have grieved much.
* “Saunders” was a nickname given by Lever to Spencer.
“It was, as far as occupation is concerned, fortunate that I became a
scribbler, but in respect to money the Currys are slowest of the slow,
and so I am again on my beam-ends for cash, with some petty debts boring
me to boot. I have applied to the Currys, but not so pressingly as my
circumstances demand, for a man does not willingly expose his poverty to
strangers; and it is rank bad policy--if avoidable--for a poor author to
confess his poverty to his publisher.
“As my summer commences in July I may yet do something, but I have
made up my mind to leave this,--its reputation as a fashionable
watering-place is fast going, if not gone, and I am left musing like
Marius amongst the ruins of past greatness, or ‘the last rose of’
anything else you can conceive of loneliness and misery.
“Whenever you do write, give me a hook and a head as to my prospects,
for I can hope on with the assistance of the smallest gleam of light
that ever glimmered from a taper.
“I sent you a paper a few days since with extracts from an article of
mine. Did you get it?
“Since the appearance of the said article, and in consequence thereof,
I have been written to by Blackwoods to become a contributor. This is at
least flattering, and may be profitable.”
“PORTSTEWART, _June_ 23, 1836.
“I saw some time since an advertisement in a literary journal for
an editor for an English paper published in Paris, salary £200 per
annum--he being expected to place in the stock purse of the concern
£200, for which he is to receive six per cent. This I replied to, and
have just got all the particulars, and I may have the appointment if I
please. The capital, it being joint stock, is £8000. They have sent me
a list of subscribers and account of profits--very flattering,--and
the proprietor is the well-known [Reynolds] of the Library, Rue St
Augustine--a most respectable and wealthy individual.
“My only reason for entertaining the proposition is my anxiety to
emancipate myself from the trammels of this failing place, where I see
my prospects daily retrograding, and every chance of my being left the
only resident in a healthy population.
“My intention is, if I accept, to establish myself as a doctor in
Paris,--there are 40,000 English residents,--and then by my literary
labours pave the way to future advancement in my profession.”
“PORTSTEWART, _June 29_,1836.
“I have thought over the proposition mentioned in my last letter until
my head is half crazy. There are many things in it which I could wish
were otherwise than they are, but what is there to be found which gives
unqualified satisfaction? My object is to go where there is a field for
exertion--whether I may be able to cultivate it or not remains to be
tried; with £200 and my own means we could at least get on tolerably
well if practice did not follow: but I hope it would, and certainly I
would endeavour to make it my chief object. I did not mention in my last
that a dividend of the profits would be allowed for £200 as well as 6
per cent.... Since I wrote I received a line from Maxwell, who is in
Paris, and to whom I wrote requesting that he would call on Mr Reynolds
and mention my application, &c. He (Maxwell) speaks very favourably of
Mr R, but by all means advises my going over to Paris immediately, and
this, though attended with considerable expense, I have almost resolved
on doing. If successful, the trip will be well worth the £30 it
will cost; if otherwise, it is worth so much to escape a bad
speculation--that is, taking it for granted that my foresight will
detect its prospects of success or failure. I must only do the best I
can, and see as far into the milestone as I am able.... I am resolved,
if I go to Paris, to use my senses without bias or prejudice.... If I
continue in my present mind I shall leave this on Saturday and be in
Paris the following Friday.”
“PORTSTEWART, _July_ 19, 1836.
“I returned from Paris on Thursday last, having contrived within the
space of fifteen days to travel there and back, spending one day and
a half in London and five whole days in Paris. As to the result of my
inquiry on the subject of my trip: I have thought it better, after
a deliberate calculation of every bearing of the matter, to decline
accepting the Journal.
“Independently of the great sacrifice of time to a pursuit foreign to
my profession,--and this I only learned was indispensable on my going to
Paris,--I find the expense of living--rent in particular--far beyond my
expectations or means, lodgings in any respectable quarter ranging
from 3000 to 4000 francs per annum (£120 to £160). The great influx
of English, either resident or visitants, has rendered Paris a close
competitor with London for extravagance. The changes which the few years
since last I saw Paris have brought about, have rendered it the most
magnificent city imagination can conceive. New esplanades, ornamented
with the most stately and beautiful public buildings, are everywhere
to be met with, and all the _agréments_ of out-of-door life abound in
Paris. I was present at the trial of [ ], and, in the few days of my
stay, contrived to see a good deal both of places and persons. I cannot
but regret that the speculation has not fully answered my expectations;
but, when considering the time required, the matter of remuneration, the
uncertainty of its continuance, and the great danger of again [risking]
a fall into the world of a new and foreign city, I am afraid to venture
though shockingly tempted. I have returned home to remain, at least
until something decidedly better offers.”
“The trip to France, however pleasant and healthful,” he writes to
M’Glashan in July, “has not added to my purse’s weight.... If you desire
a continuance of my contributions, you can mention when you write....
Maxwell dined with me yesterday. I don’t think you can calculate on much
from him at present, as, besides fighting with Bentley the whole battle
of Waterloo over again, he is writing a new book for Macrone.... I hear
Butt* is about to be my neighbour, and rejoice that he is not leaving
the Magazine while he is extending the field of his labours.”
* Isaac Butt, the editor of ‘The Dublin University
Magazine,’ afterwards a famous advocate, and the “father of
the Home Rule movement”--E. D.
Maxwell’s arrival in Portstewart in the summer of 1836 helped to chase
away Dr Lever’s gloomy forebodings. In the autumn, when the season was
over, he set to work vigorously and made his first bold plunge into the
sea,--he regarded his pre-1836 writings merely as dabblings in shallow
water. On the 29th of October the first chapter of ‘Harry Lorrequer’ was
despatched to Dublin, accompanied by the following note to M’Glashan:--
“I send you Article No. 1 of a series which will include scenes and
stories at home and abroad,--some tragic, others (as in the present
case) ludicrous. I have had an invitation from Colburn to furnish a two
or three volume affair, but I am not in the vein for anything longer or
more continuous than magazine work at present.”