Part 5

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.

A letter written in May to M’Glashan has been preserved:--

“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.