Charles Lever, Volume I. by Edmund Downey

“We have, malgré two stormy nights at sea, [? progressed] admirably. The children are in great health and spirits, and enjoying their old haunts here in perfect ecstasies.

“The weather here is cold beyond anything. Snow and ice everywhere. Stoves and fur coats are able for it, however, and the elasticity of the air is actual champagne after the muddy small beer of a Dublin day.”

“I am regularly installed here in capital quarters at the Hôtel Britannique, with every comfort in the midst of much attentions and civilities on all sides. The Rhine is frozen and the highroads ten or twelve feet deep in snow, so that further travelling is for the present out of the question, nor do I much regret it. We are well housed, fed, and entertained—away from the worry of Curry & Co., and at least enjoying tranquillity—if not deriving other benefits....

“There has been great delay about my book, ‘St Patrick’s Eve,’ but I hope by the time this reaches you, you will have received a copy. I am anxious you should like it, because, apart from any literary [? vanity], I have taken the opportunity of saying my mot sur l’Irelande which, whether unfounded or true, is at least sincere.”

Pleasantly situated and infected with the gaiety of life in a Continental capital, Lever quickly forgot his editorial worries. The calumnies, the neglect, and the hard knocks which he had suffered at the hands of political and journalistic opponents in Ireland were forgotten or forgiven, and doubtless it was while he was enjoying this charitable and happy frame of mind that he penned his “Word at Parting,” which was printed in the August number of ‘The Dublin University.’ (A publishers note accompanied the “Word,” explaining that it should have appeared in the issue for July.) He proclaims: “I abdicate at goodwill with all my fellow-labourers, and for reasons so purely personal that I feel it would be an act of egotism to obtrude them on public notice.” Then he goes on to say that he would have left the stage in silence,—there was not infrequently a hint of the theatre about his sayings and doings,—if he did not consider that his silence might be regarded as an act of ingratitude to a public who had contributed so much to his happiness, and who were so dear to his memory.

“Etienne [or Steeni] has just arrived safely with all his menagerie in good condition,—not even a scratch on the horses,—and his newly-bought phaeton [? is] a perfect bijou, and when harnessed with my two new ponies, a perfect park equipage, and already the envy of Belgium and the Belgians.

“Will you think me a very shabby fellow if I ask you to give me back a gift? I would not make the request for myself or mine, but I am differently circumstanced at this moment. Sir Hamilton Seymour, whose kindness to me is hourly and increasing, has asked me to initiate him into the art or mystery of equestrianising his nursery, and even gone so far as to beg me to get him a pony. Will you give me Prince for him? I would not, as I have said, ask him for myself, but there are obligations which really weary by repetition, and I, who have not found too many such friends in the world, begin to feel a kind of depression at being the recipient of bounties. Pray, then, forgive me, and don’t think me the meanest fellow in the world.

“If I am not asking more than I dare, will you send the beastie to Dublin and have him shipped—Saturday morning—by long sea for London, where Mr Pearce will meet him on landing, and take care of him. I am ashamed (I cannot say more or less) of all this, but I own to you I feel I am on safe ground that you will not judge me unfairly or harshly. ‘I’m in a dead fix, and that’s a fact,’ as the Yankees say. It is rather of consequence that he should be sent off by the Saturday’s Dublin Packet, because the Antwerp boat leaves London on Thursday morning, and if the pony were not despatched by that day he should stay a week in London. Smith, the gardener at Temple-ogue, would assist in getting him comfortably installed by giving one of the sailors 10s. to mind him during the voyage. He could be cared for—hay and bran being of course provided....

“I shall write a line to Saunders by this post to assist so far as regards payment of various expenses, land and sea. The beastie should be well muffled up against cold.

“I have only one word to add. If all this be impracticable, difficult, or impossible, get Dycer to buy me the smallest, roughest, most shelty, ‘Princely’ pony that can be had. I don’t care if he costs a little more than a horse-fancier would say was his value. £10 or £15 I’ll give if necessary.”

After a pleasant experience of entertaining and of being entertained in Brussels, after a round of visits to salons and to picture-galleries, excursions to Waterloo and elsewhere, Lever decided to set out upon a tour through Belgium and up the Rhine. He was accompanied by the full strength of his household, and about the middle of June he bade good-bye once more to Brussels.

“I have certainly the gift of what the French call the mémoire de l’escalier, or the faculty of remembering on the stairs what should have been said in the drawing-room....

“I am gaining in health and spirits and losing in flesh and depression, wellnigh down to 12 stone (vice 14 1/2), and I can exercise from morning till night without feeling the slightest fatigue, and eat of everything most sour, greasy, and German, and never know the penalty of indigestion. For the three years I passed in Ireland I had not as many days of health as I have already enjoyed here. This, though very favourable to comfort, seems little conducive to hard labour, for I cannot write a line, and really do nothing save amuse myself from morning till night. The temptations are strong: we have the Rhine and the mountains beside us, and, as we are all mounted, we pass the days on horseback or on the water. We dine at one! and so have a very long evening.... Let me hear how you like No. 7 [The] O’D[onoghue] when you read it.”

“...My mind is at ease by thinking that I owe nothing to or in Ireland save my affection for John* and yourself....

“Your letter followed me here from Bonn, from which delightful little sojourn a royal visit and a musical festival had driven me,—Queen Victoria and Beethoven, with the due accompaniment of bonfires, blue lights, and bassoons, being too much for my common nerves. Here we are for the present, located, as the Yankees say, in the stillest, quietest, most fast-asleep of all German cities, regularly, even beautifully, built,—with a Grand Duke and a Ministry and a corps diplomatique, but all seemingly mesmerised into a dreamy lethargy, in which all speech or motion is excluded. We had some thoughts of passing a winter here, but though it would suit my pocket well, my impatience and restlessness could scarcely stand the sluggish tranquillity.... I am unable to say where we shall pass the winter. There was some thought of Lausanne, but all Switzerland is dear, and our party is a large one—ten souls and five quadrupeds.”

In sleepy Carlsruhe he received two letters which disturbed him considerably,—one causing him the gravest annoyance and anxiety, the other affording him intense and justifiable joy.

The unpleasant communication was from Curry & Co. It took the form of a statement of account between publisher and author, and showed that the latter was heavily indebted to the former. Lever wrote to his fidus Achates in Dublin, expressing his goodwill for Curry & Co., who had hitherto treated him fairly. He declared that he had no desire to quarrel with them. “I detest,” he wrote, “the hackneyed fightings of bookseller and author,”—but he denied emphatically that he owed the money claimed by Curry.

The pleasant letter was from Miss Edgeworth. He had written to her twice from Templeogue, inquiring if he might dedicate to her ‘Tom Burke of Ours.’ Miss Edgeworth replied tardily. In the course of her welcome letter, the author of ‘Castle Rackrent’ spoke of having read aloud to her nephews and nieces ‘The O’Donoghue,’ which was appearing in monthly parts,—an announcement which afforded the author of ‘The O’Donoghue’ a thrill of delight, animated him with high hopes, and filled him with fresh ambitions. To Spencer he wrote: “I hope John told you—I’d rather he had than I—of a letter Miss Edgeworth wrote to me about ‘O’Donoghue.’ I never felt so proud in my life as in reading it. There is, independent of all flattering, so much of true criticism, so much of instructive guidance, that for the first time I begin to feel myself able to take advice with advantage, and to hope that I have stuff in me for something like real success. What a prerogative true genius possesses when it can compensate by one word of praise for neglect and calumny! So do I feel that Miss Edgeworth has repaid me for all the bitterness and injustice of my Irish critics. I never made such an effort as in this book. I hope sincerely that you may think I have not failed, for with all my reliance on your friendship, I feel your criticism will be as free from prejudice as so warm and affectionate a friend’s can be.”

“Your kind and satisfactory letter reached me here, where we have been sojourning in one of the sweetest valleys in the world,—a perfect wilderness of vineyards and olives, traversed by innumerable streams, and inhabited by a happy people. This day twelvemonth we were at Achill in the midst of dire poverty, when the very waves that thundered along the seashore were less stormy than the passions of man beside them. And yet in one case the law of the land is Despotism, and in the other there are the blessings (!) of the English constitution. So much have political privileges to do with human happiness. In my own narrow experience, I should say that the most contented communities are those that know not how they are governed.

“As to my reserve fund, my intention is this—calculating loosely. That between Daily (?), Clarence Street, and the Templeogue furniture, something like £250 may result, which with the £350 already in bank will make £600 (John’s £100 added). I will myself lay by £300 more to make up £1000, the interest of which will meet one of the small nuisances, and thus make a beginning—whether to end in anything more or not [? who can say], for I am most unhappily gifted in the organ of secretiveness. M’Glashan is far more eager to purchase my contingent copyright than he lets it be known. I am well aware that such has been a long time since a favourite object with him, but he’s a thorough fox, and likes to be pushed on to his own inclinations.

“I have been fearfully walked into by that firm, but for many reasons would rather bear it all now than make what the Duke calls ‘a little war.’

“If the fine weather continues—it is glorious now—we shall spend the month of October here, as by far the pleasantest spot I’ve set upon, and then return to Carlsruhe for the winter. I’ll endeavour to pick up an Irishman as a witness to the deeds and send them back at once.”

In Baden he spent a couple of pleasant months, though it is hinted that he lost heavily at the gaming-tables there. An anecdote of these Baden days is told by him. At a public dance an English lady of rank had declined many offers of partners, not deeming any of the gentlemen good enough for her. At length she was attracted by a handsome well-dressed German who spoke English fluently. He made himself so agreeable to the fine lady that she accepted his invitation to dance. She inquired who he was, and was informed that he was the Oberkellner at the Gasthaus von Rose. Under the impression that this meant that the favoured gentleman occupied a high official position, the lady danced boldly with him throughout the remainder of the night. When she consulted her dictionary next morning she was horrified to discover that “Oberkellner” was “head-waiter “!

Lever was now fit for work again, and he sketched out the plan of a new novel which he proposed to call ‘Corrig O’Neill.’ He sent this sketch to his literary counsellor, Mortimer O’Sullivan, instructing him to show it to M’Glashan. This novel was never written, but some of the material was used by the author later for ‘The Daltons.’ It was possibly his ill-luck at roulette, and a desire for quietness and retrenchment, which drove him back in October to drowsy Carlsruhe. He set earnestly to work at a new story, ‘The Knight of Gwynne.’ He forwarded the early chapters to his brother John.

“Has John sent you—if not, get it—the opening chapter of my new tale, ‘The Knight of Gwynne’? I hope you may like it. I have a great object in view—no less than to show that the bribed men of the Irish Parliament are the very men who now are joining the Liberal ranks, and want to assist O’Connell in bringing back the Parliament they once sold, and would sell again if occasion offered. Of course, a story with love and murder is the vehicle for such a dose of ‘bitters.’

“Will you also ask John to write half a dozen lines to M. O’Sullivan, requesting him to forward to your care a MS. of mine which John sent him, and which I would beg you to keep (and read if you like) for me? It was my originally intended story before I began my ‘Knight of Gwynne.’”

“Being at that time of the year when one’s creditors change their outward form and become duns, I am obliged to see where I can find anything available to meet them. I perceive in a letter of yours the remark that no a/c of sales of ‘Hinton’ has been rendered by the Currys for the past year—i.e., since October 1844, and in a letter from M’Glashan that my share of Indian profits amounts to £52, 10s., I think. Would you see after these small sums for me, as I am really worried and vexed by the rascality of Orr and M’Glashan, who have cheated me in the most outrageous fashion on two small works—‘Nuts’ and ‘Trains’—I gave them for publication? M. O’Sullivan writes me that under John’s advice and sanction he gave my MS. of ‘Corrig O’Neill’ to M’Glashan to ‘look at,’ he, M’G., having applied to him for this. I desired no further dealings or doings with that d———d Scotchman, and well he knows it, for while asking to see my MS. he was in possession of a letter from me telling him I should have no further dealings with him.

“I find that my expenses are overwhelmingly great here. Wasteful habits dog me wherever I go, and I am obliged to think twice how I shall get through the year. I suppose Gogarty takes Templeogue at once. Is there any use of reminding him of his pledge to repurchase the furniture at the price I paid,—he gave his word of honour (!!!) to do so?

“If the settlement about ‘Hinton’ and the Indian copyright should not be easily effected now, let the matter lie over to meet the Insurances, only take measures to have the money forthcoming then, for I know well I’ll not have sixpence to spare the whole year through. I hear (confidentially) that Remy* is about to review me again in ‘The Mail,’ He be d———d! I’ve outlived such beggarly support. Is there an opinion of the ‘K. of Gwynne’ stirring in Dublin? My London accts. all so far satisfactory.”

* Mr Remy Sheehan.—E. D.

“I have been expecting somewhat anxiously to have heard from you or M’G. relative to my late proposition, but suppose that the crafty Highlander has preferred to lie by in the hope that I would reply to a late communication of his which, in terms of great affected cordiality, asks for a renewal of our dealings together. To this I have not made, nor shall I make, any answer, nor will I write to him until he definitely says something in answer to my application for the sale of my copyrights.

“Yesterday my plate and linen arrived here quite safe. The books, I have just learned, are at Dusseldorf, where, the Rhine being now frozen, they must remain.

“You have before this read ‘The Knight.’ I hope your good opinion continues unabated. Are there any critiques in the Irish papers? ‘The Mail,’ I hear, will notice me now. Perhaps the Repealers think they have found a backer. Let them hug the belief till the 4th No., and I shall clear away the delusions.

“I have hints of a deep intrigue on the M’Glashan side to injure any dealings I may have with the London publishers. I am greatly provoked at M’Glashan being suffered to see my MS. of ‘Corrig O’Neill.’ It was a false move, and will [? inconvenience] me very considerably. He affected a half permission on my part which never was asked nor ever alluded to.”

“I think you over-estimate the value of the copyrights, and would gladly take £200 per vol.,—that is, £800 for ‘Hinton,’ ‘Burke,’ and ‘The O’Donoghue’; but if the Currys are likely to make a proposal, it is best to wait patiently. For although your calculation is perfectly correct as to proportion, ‘Hinton’ was a more than usually successful book, and too favourable to form a standard to measure others by. ‘O’D.’ will, however, I am given to believe, eventually rival it.

“I yesterday received a long and confidential letter from Lord Douro. The split in the Cabinet was not all on corn. The Duke wanted to give up the commandership-in-chief, and the Queen, folle de son mari, actually insisted on Prince Albert succeeding him,—an appointment which, if made, would outrage the service and insult the whole nation. To avoid such a coup the Duke was induced to hold on and save us—for the present, at least—from such a humiliation. As to the announcements in ‘The Times,’ and the disclosure of Cabinet secrets, the story is rather amusing. Lord Douro says, ‘If my father’s beard only heard him mutter in his sleep, he’d shave at bedtime.’ But Sidney Herbert is more in love and less discreet, for he actually told Mrs Norton what had occurred at the Council, and she sold the information to ‘The Times’ for a very large sum!* Even in Virgil he might have read a nice lesson on this head,—but I suppose his classical readings were more of Ovid latterly. Corn is doomed, and the Irish Church to be doomed—not now, but later. The League have secured four counties and several boroughs. As to war: the Duke says he could smash the Yankees, and ought to do so while France is in her present humour,—and Mexico opens the road to invasion in the South—not to speak of the terrible threat which Napier uttered, that with two regiments of infantry and a field battery he’d raise the Slave population in the Southern States.

* This story is now discredited, and was formally denied by
Lord Dufferin.

“The remark you heard at Curry’s about my Repealism is no new thing. M’G. tried to fasten the imputation upon me when I sold ‘St Patrick’s Eve’ to the London publishers, and the attempt to revive it displays his game. A very brief hint would make the Repeal editors adopt it for present gain and future attack when they discovered their error. However, the deception will not be long-lived, and I think on the appearance of No. 4 few will repeat the charge.

“Wilson (of Blackwood’s) has written me a long letter of such encouragement that, even bating its flattery, makes me stout-hearted against small critics and their barkings, and I am emboldened to hope that I am improving as a writer. One thing I can answer for,—no popularity I ever had, or shall have, will make me trifle with the public by fast writing and careless composition. Dickens’s last book* has set the gravestone on his fame, and the warning shall not be thrown away.”

* ‘Dombey and Son.’

“I hope you continue to like my ‘Knight,’ of which I receive favourable opinions from the press and the publishers. I am told it is better writing and better comedy than anything I have done yet. Pray let me have your judgment—not sparingly, but in all candour.

“I sent a little article to M’Glashan about Fairy Tales, and he writes to me as if the paper was a review. I have not written, expecting a second advice from him containing a proof, but meanwhile would you scratch him a line addressed to D’Olier Street, saying I have received his note, and will correct the proof with pleasure, but that the paper* is not a review of any one, and that the two first tales are Danish,—the last is my own. Would you also ascertain if he is disposed to entertain his own project of my continuing ‘Continental Gossipings’ for the Magazine, and subsequently publishing them in one or two vols., and if he would make any proposal as to terms? This latter I would rather not mention in a note, but as a subject of chatting whenever occasion offered.

* The contribution was entitled “Children and Children’s
Stories, by Hans Daumling.” It is interesting to note that
the first two tales were “The Little Tin Soldier” and “The
Ugly Buck.” Lever’s own fairy tale was entitled “The Fête of
the Flowers.”—E. D.

“The weather here has been like July, and the Rhine is like crystal. We have large bouquets of spring flowers on the dinner-table every day, and the buds are bursting forth everywhere. We shall in a few weeks more resume our wanderings. Meanwhile I must press forward with my ‘Knight,’ which for some weeks I have shelved entirely.”

“I am working away at my ‘Knight,’ and have in the 7th No. got him into as pleasant a mess of misfortunes as any gentleman (outside a novel) ever saw himself involved in. I hear excellent accounts of his progress in England, and have destined him to a long life—twenty numbers. This at the publisher’s request rather than of my own convictions,—though I need scarcely say, to my great convenience.... Let me hear your mot of No. 4, which I think is the best of the batch.”

Carlsruhe at first was a seductive place, “where life glided on peaceably, and the current had neither ripple nor eddy.” It had no riotous pleasures; it was equally free from the things that annoy—no malignant newspapers, no malevolent enemies, no treacherous or patronising friends. He had a good house, a first-rate chef, six horses, and plenty of society,—a corps diplomatique of pleasant folk and their wives; cheerful reunions every evening; sometimes a dinner at the Grand Duke’s Court. There were no professional beauties, no geniuses, no bores. G. P. R James and himself were the cynosure of all eyes, and there were whist-parties every night.

In this elysium it was no wonder that his spirits were elevated, and that he worked with a will. The only rifts within the lute were the difficulty of disposing satisfactorily of his interest in Templeogue House and his disputations with Curry and M’Glashan.

Suddenly the sleepy paradise changed into a sleepy and contemptible inferno. There was no revolution, no change in the Grand Ducal system, nobody in Carlsruhe became any better or worse, nobody was any wiser or more foolish,—but the Grand Ducal city is described as a “pettifogging little place, with a little court, a little army, a little aristocracy, a little bourgeoisie, a little diplomatic circle, little shops, and very little money.” In compensation for these littlenesses there was a flood of gossip and “any amount of etiquette.” The people of the Grand Duchy had no commerce, no manufactories, no arts, no science,—no interests, in fact, save in the small ceremonial life of the court, no amusements except soirees held in ill-lighted rooms, where an ill-dressed company talked scandal, military slang, and cookery—how to dress a corporal or a cutlet. From this “dreary atmosphere of local sewers, stale tobacco-smoke, and sour cabbage,” he was glad to escape.

Major Dwyer attempts to account for the changed aspect of Carlsruhe. He describes Lever as being too fond of display and too outspoken. It was his habit to gallop through the quiet streets with his wife and children, all attired in very showy habiliments. The ponderosity and solemnity of the little court occasionally tickled him, and he laughed openly. Court etiquette, too, was a source of amusement, and he violated its rules in a manner which horrified the stolid courtiers. Upon one occasion he invited to a whist-party at his house the Hof Marschall (or Lord Chamberlain), Kotzebue, Secretary to the Russian Embassy, and some other notabilities. The Hof Marschall—doubtless acting upon the same impulses which had actuated Archbishop Whately when he absented himself from the dinner-party at Temple-ogue—did not arrive, and, worse still, sent no apology. Lever was very angry, and he made some outrageous verbal jokes at the expense of Grand Dukes, Hof Marschalls, and Gross Herzogs. The upshot of the matter was that the Irish novelist found Carlsruhe “too hot to hold him”; so (still accompanied by his “menagerie”) he bade good-bye to G. P. R. James and to the Grand Duchy of Baden-Baden, and, travelling somewhat in gipsy fashion through the Black Forest, he reached the borders of Tyrol in the month of May 1846.

VIII. IN TYROL 1846-1847

When he quitted Carlsruhe it was Lever’s intention to make his way by easy stages to Italy. His modus operandi was to pack himself and his family into a large coach, and to drive wherever his wayward fancy led him. He tried to comfort himself with the assurance that this insouciant method of journeying was economical as well as being of advantage to him. He ascertained later that the average cost of these economical migrations was about £10 a-day.

In May the party, which included Mr Stephen Pearce, arrived at Bregenz, on the Lake of Constance, and from the window of an inn Lever beheld the distant prospect of a castle which fascinated him. He ascertained that the schloss belonged to Baron Pöllnitz, and that the Baron was willing to let it. Mr Pearce conducted the negotiations. The lord of the Reider Schloss was Chamberlain to the reigning Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—Lever seems to have been destined to forgather with Grand Dukes,—and he was obliged to resume his duties at Court.

On the 26th May Mr Pearce despatched a letter from Riedenburg, Bregenz, to Alexander Spencer.

“My dear Sir,—On our way to Italy we stopped suddenly short at the foot of the Alps, and got ourselves housed in a handsome Gothic castle in the midst of beautiful scenery. In all the fracas of a new habitation—luggage arriving, strange servants, &c.—Lever has told me to acknowledge your letter, which has followed from Carlsruhe, containing Dr [afterwards Judge] Longfield’s opinion on the Curry affair. This opinion seems in every respect to bear out Lever’s own previous convictions, and to sustain the view he took of his contract. In one point only does he deem Dr L.‘s suggestion inapplicable—that is, as respecting the purchase of the unsold copies. This Lever neither could nor would undertake. The principal question is the determining of the right of half profits on an invariable standard, that standard being already established in the account furnished.... The arrangement Lever wishes being the acknowledgment by Curry of half profits on the scale already conceded, and the consent not to make future sales at an inferior rate without Lever’s agreement thereto....

“Our present habitation is most beautifully situated, the Lake of Constance being on one side of the house and the mountains on the other, Mt. Sentis rising to the height of nearly 8000 feet. This, of course, and the whole range, capped with snow, taking the most beautiful tints at the rising and the setting of the sun.”

Lever was soon busy entertaining. One of his earliest guests was his friend Major Dwyer. Towards the end of July he had a visit from his new publisher, Mr Edward Chapman (of Chapman & Hall). In August he resumed his correspondence with Dublin.

“With a houseful of company and every imaginable kind of confusion around me, I have barely time for a few lines in reply to your last.

“Curry wrote asking what price I placed on my right to the books, and I replied demanding a full a/c of all sales up to date. My London publisher, who fortunately happened to be with me, advised me as to the course to take.... I shall write fully and lengthily by Mr Chapman, who leaves on Saturday for London.”

“My chateau continues full of company, with the visits of daily new arrivals. Baron de Margueritte, wife and daughter, one party. The Baron’s sister was married to John Armit of Dublin. Dudley Perceval, son of the late Spencer Perceval; then Charles Dickens and wife, with two of the Bishop of Exeter’s family expected,—not to speak of my worthy publisher, Mr Chapman, and wife, from London, who are so pleased with their visit that, like kind folk, they have stayed three weeks with us. I like him greatly, and his wife is a remarkably good and favourable specimen of London.

“As for Curry, his letter was a mild, courteous, mock-friendly, expostulatory, but semi-defiant epistle, talking about our old and intimate business relations and the hope of their [being] one day revived, and asking me to set a price upon my interest; to which I responded by asking for the data of such a demand, a full and true statement of a/c. It seems that he offered to sell his share to C. & H., and asked them, for his moiety, £2500! while he had the insolence to offer me £200 for mine. This Chapman himself told me, and also added that his (Curry’s) great anxiety was now to purchase my share, in order to bring the whole commodity into the market in a more eligible shape, as few booksellers would buy a divided copyright.

“Chapman says, on reading these letters and hearing all the case, that he never heard of any man being more shamefully treated,—that I have been outrageously rogued and robbed throughout. When the accts. come,—if they ever do,—Chapman will have them examined by their own accountant, so the great point at present would be to ask him to forward these to me as early as possible.

“My answer (to Curry) was civil but dry. No notice did I take of his hopes of future dealings nor the half intimation that a legal case was a game à deux. I merely said: Let me see how I stand, and what would be a fair sum to ask [as a settlement] for the past.

“It is strange enough that M’Glashan never wrote to me since this controversy began, although I think he is in my debt a letter. I would be glad if you would take some opportunity of dropping in on him and feeling your way as to his ‘dispositions,’ as the French say,—whether he is friendly or the reverse. I have written this at the cost of my eyesight, which is abominably bad at night.”

“There never was a bad business man assisted by a cleverer and more good-natured friend. You have perfectly satisfied all my hazy doubts as to how I stand before the world. Heaven knows, the matter ought to seem easy enough to me now! for all through my life I have never looked beyond the coming month of January,—and how to open the New Year without cumbering it with the deficiencies of the old one....

“From Curry I received a half-apologetic epistle, hoping that if I would state what sum I would accept for my remaining interest, the matter might be arranged without the interference of the gentlemen of the long robe. I sent the letter on to Chapman for advice, and I have not yet received his reply. Could you conveniently see M’Glashan and sound him as to the best mode of terminating the controversy? I am also very anxious to ascertain his feelings towards myself....

“I hear that my ‘Knight’ (though not by any means so popular as many others) is the best I have done. I hope this is so, because it is the last. I know it is most carefully written: the dialogue has cost me great pains and labour, and the whole book has more of thought in it than its predecessors.... I am glad you like the ‘Knight’ for more reasons than flattered vanity suggests. I want you to accept of it in dedication. I hope you will receive the barren compliment, not at the poor price of such a production, but as another proof of my sincere regard and affection.”

* Charles Lever’s brother-in-law.

“I possess a contingent interest in certain books—‘Tom Burke,’ ‘Hinton,’ and ‘O’Donoghue,’ the former after 11,000, the latter after 10,000 copies. This interest—or, to speak more plainly, the amount of profit accruing to me—was estimated by M’G. in one of his letters to me, and I believe in a conversation with you, as such, that if the sales reached 20,000 my receipts would be doubled. The sale of ‘Hinton’ alone [? the a/cs] showed did exceed the limits where my profit began, and in an account furnished to me before leaving Ireland I was credited in a proportion analogous to M’G.‘s pledge.

“Since that period (mark this—for here the iniquity begins) the house of Curry and Co. effected sales for the purpose, I believe, of raising cash to conclude the winding-up of partnership, of 1000 copies of ‘Hinton’ at a mere minimum profit (6d, I think, per copy), and thus at one coup not only reduce my profit to a mere fraction, but seriously and gravely—as I am prepared to show—damage my character and that of my books in the London market.

“And these sales made without my consent—without even my knowledge—were in the face of a scale of profit already acknowledged by their own account furnished, and specially pledged by M’G.

“The matter ends not here, for, anxious to purchase my remaining rights,—the only obstacle to selling the sole copyrights in London,—Curry had the impudence to propose £200 for the four vols. in question, urging as a reason for my compliance his own depreciated sales, and using a threat of the damage he could effect in my reputation by continuing such a system of depreciation.

“This, if related by any less credible witness than Spencer, would scarcely be believed. But the case is so. Up to the moment Spencer had been—when able—moving in the matter; but Curry, from old experience of my capacity for being duped, declined conferring with him, and addressed to me certain letters—half flattery, half insolence—in which he alleges that M’G.‘s scale of my half profits was far too high, and that I have been overpaid! and lastly, that the depreciated sales were made by him in full right on his part.

“A case was submitted to Longfield for his opinion on this head (of which I enclose you the copy sent to me by Spencer). The last letter I received from Curry enclosed a statement of the expenses of getting up ‘Hinton,’ in which I am charged for my share of 20,000 copies—i.e., 4000 more than are sold. It also contains a request to know at what price I do value my contingent interests, as Mr Curry hopes the matter may be arranged without reference to the courts of law.

“As to the scale of half profits, C. & H. set them down as £10 per 1000 Nos.—which is just what M’Glashan [? estimated].” *

* Lever would appear to have received £1300 on account of
profits of ‘Jack Hinton.’—E. D.

“Soon after despatching my letter to you, I received the enclosed from Mr Chapman, for whose consideration and counsel I had stated the whole transaction with Curry. You will perceive that his opinion corroborates mine, and maintains my moiety of profits as fixed and unchangeable. As to his (Chapman’s) suggestion that I should ask Curry what price he lays upon his share of the copyrights, it is evidently to reduce him to the dilemma of avowing that he offered me far too little, and of impressing that he asks far too much. Will you see Curry and say that the severe illness of the children in succession has totally prevented my attending to business,—an excuse, I regret to say, not in the least fictitious?

“Curry did ask the trade £2500, which I fancy included stock and stereo-plates, but of this I’m not certain. I had a suspicion that if the copyrights were offered at a fair and reasonable price, Chapman & Hall might purchase,—an arrangement which would suit my views in every respect....

“The affair is of greater moment to me than its mere £ s. d. interests,—because it may serve to consolidate a publishing connection which I would be much pleased to fix on a permanent and lasting basis.”

“C. & H. might purchase (the copyrights), but I have only this impression from a conversation I once held with Chapman, when he mentioned that Curry, after offering the books in the market, appeared to withdraw them—and this possibly gave rise to the suspicion of a new issue being contemplated. What C. & H. would speculate in is, I fancy, a reissue in weekly parts,* cheap—a ‘People’s Edition,’ or some such blackguard epi., that, being the taste of the day. Chapman told me that we might calculate on 30,000, at least, of some of the vols....

* Edward Chapman (according to Lever) stated in one of his
letters to Bregenz that his firm’s mode of dealing with
Dickens was to give the author so much per 1000 copies, “not
charging anything in the a/c for authorship and plates, save
cost of working them off.” Doubtless this refers to
reprints.—E. D.

“As to M’Glashan. About ten days back I received a note from Spencer which gave me so favourable an impression of his (M’G.‘s) feelings towards me, that I at once wrote to him—which I have not done for the last ten months, and although I am very far from being in a writing vein or humour. If he cares for my aid, and if he can afford me such terms as will not be below my mark and infra dig. to work for, I’ll finish the ‘Continental Gossipings,’ and make a 1- or 2-vol affair of it, as may seem best.... I am perfectly ready to return to our old and long-continued good understanding.

“I am much amused by your account of Irish affairs. There is something inherent in the national taste for rascality. I am rather well pleased that Old Dan has conquered Young Ireland. I like him, if only that he is the Old Established Blackguard.

“It is rather good fun for us here to read the London morning papers—‘Times,’ &c.—commenting on the Austrian business. Such a mass of lies, mistakes, and absurdities as they circulate never was heard of. First, the Gallician revolt—which ‘The Times’ allege was collusive on their part—was reported to the Governor eleven days before it broke out, and though he had every evidence before his eyes, being a stupid old beast he would not credit [the news], sent the troops away, and had his rebellion for his pains. As uncle to the Emperor, Metternich could not degrade him: but he has been invited to Vienna, and not permitted to resume his government. There was neither collusion on the part of Austria, nor was the peasant massacre instigated by them,—so far from it, that the first movement by the Polish nobles (the greatest blackguards in Europe) was to assassinate or poison all who refused to join the conspiracy. We have beside us in the [neighbourhood] here a young Polish count who made his escape in disguise, and would certainly have been killed for refusing to join the revolt, while the Austrians would hang him if he did. As to Cracow: Austria refused twice, and it was only by Russia’s ultimatum—you or I—that she consented to the annexation. No one who knows anything of Austrian politics suspects her of desiring increase of territory. It is against her interest and her stability, but Russia is not the best next-door neighbour. There are many faults in Austrian rules, but there are excellences and advantages I never beheld in more democratic governments, and whatever may be said about spies and police visits, &c. (of which, by the way, I have seen nothing myself), I cannot speak ill of a country that lets no man starve—that takes care of its sick and aged, and possesses the safest roads to travel, and the smallest calendar of crime of any population in Europe.”

“You will see by the papers that Dickens, as well as Bulwer, has fallen under the lash of ‘The Times.’ It matters little however; the [? love] for low verbiage and coarse pictures of unreality is a widespread—and a spreading—taste. People will buy and read what requires no effort of mean capacities to follow, and what satisfies lowbred tastes by a standard of morality to which they can, with as little difficulty, attain. I have suffered—I am suffering—from the endeavour to supply a healthier, more manly, and more English sustenance, but it may be that before I succeed—if I do succeed at all—the hand will be cold and the heart still, and that I may be only a pioneer to clear the way for the breaching party.

“That such a taste must rot of its own corruption is clear enough, but, meanwhile, literature is an unattractive career for those who would use it for a higher purpose.

“I hope you like my ‘Knight’—because, while I perceive many and grave faults in its construction and development, I still would fain hope that the writing (as writing) is pure, and the tone throughout such as a gentleman might write and a lady read. If you agree with me, I shall feel that my book requires no better eulogy.

“Miss Edgeworth and O’Sullivan give me warm encouragement and high commendation; but I take it much of both proceeds from kindness of feeling, which, perhaps, guesses with intuitive good-nature that such are as much ‘bids for the future’ as flatteries for the past.”

“....I know Cumming has burked my ‘Knight,’—not intentionally, but from the blundering of a lethargic bad habit of business, and the result has been most disheartening and unpleasant to me.

“I am suffering severely from gout in the head and palpitations of the heart, and not able to write: even correcting is too much for me.”

“C. & H. wrote me that they do not contemplate the purchase, but that if I could get £600 to £800 I should be well off,—though if these sums (either of them) were to include the disputed moiety on the sale of ‘Hinton’ ‘the settlement is not so grand.’ I think otherwise, and would be exceedingly glad to have so much out of the fire; besides, I really want the cash, as my present engagement terminates soon, and I have nothing in preparation to succeed it for the remainder of the year....

“What would you say—if in the event of their (Curry) refusing me fair terms—to make this proposal: ‘What will you give Mr Lever if he revises the works (and they need it) for republication—adding notes, &c.? and also giving you the copyright of “O’Leary,” to appear like the others?’

“This might lead to something, and the occupation of re-editing, writing mems., and prefaces, &c., would give me immediate work.”

“I have often had the unpleasant office of inflicting you with my troublesome affairs, but perhaps never before has it been my lot to have such a necessity under the same sad circumstances I now do.

“I have just learned, as much to my amazement as my horror, that Hugh Baker has fled from his home and family owing to money embarrassments so great as to be overwhelming. What the amount may be I cannot even hazard a guess, but I suspect and believe it to be considerable.

“I neither am aware of how, when, or where he expended the large sums attributed to him, for I well knew that the family, who derived great advantage from the Institution, practised for several years past every suitable economy, so that they are in no wise to blame for this shocking calamity. Of course the upshot is that he will be dismissed the first meeting the Board may have, and it only remains to be seen if his mother, now old and infirm, can continue to hold her situation. Several years back Hugh obtained Mrs B.‘s unwilling permission to sell an annuity of £100 settled upon her,—the proceeds of which, and several hundred pounds besides in bank, he has made away with.

“No one knows anything now—whither he has fled, or what future course he purposes for himself. Meanwhile I believe the family are in circumstances so straitened—he having taken away every pound in the house—that even the most trifling assistance is called for. Will you, then, see Mrs B. or Miss Baker, and let them have £15 from me? I grieve to say I cannot do more at the moment, but my own position is one of grave anxiety. My present literary engagement ends in June. I have formed none other,—nor can I possibly, without the expense and inconvenience of a journey to London,—so that my income ceasing suddenly, and no exact or certain date of its renewal before me, I am—not unreasonably—anxious and uneasy.

“I looked to some arrangement of the disputed matter with Curry as the probable means to eke out the year, not intending to begin another serial till January 1848. This chance appears as remote as ever. C. & H. estimate at £600 to £800 the value of copyrights, for which Curry proposes £200,—this even irrespective of my claims on the score of ‘Hinton’ being sold without my consent, &c.

“Before leaving Ireland I paid £185 to save Hugh Baker from arrest, he averring that he had no other debts in the world. I gave him £57 more, in addition to various sums of £10 and £20 at different times during my residence in Templeogue. I also, as you are aware, paid from £38 to £40 per annum since my absence, and now the utter uselessness of these—to me, a working man—dreary sacrifices has completely overwhelmed me.

“It is only just to tell so old and true a friend as you that my wife, while deeply feeling for their miseries and willing to restrict her own expenditure to any extent to relieve them, has never given me the least encouragement to take their burthen on me, and has on every occasion done her utmost to stop unreasonable expectations, or what might assume the shape of claims.

“The announcement of this misfortune has come suddenly and without warning upon us. We believed—and with fair grounds—that we had removed the difficulties arising from past imprudence, and now we are to learn that all our sacrifices only deferred the stroke. If I seem too niggard, or if, when you visit Mrs B. (and your visit will be taken as that of my oldest, truest friend), you find that this trifle is inadequate to the relief of the pressure, pray make it £5 or £10 more,—and with God’s blessing I’ll sit up an hour or so later for some time and pull it up.

“I scarcely have heart to ask you how you like my ‘Knight’ since last I heard. [?These] hard rubs clash too rudely on the spirits to give any zest for the sorrows of tale-writing or reading; and the trade of fiction-weaving is never more distasteful than when its mock excitements are placed side by side with flesh and blood afflictions. I am well weary of it!

“If I could resume relations with M’G. for a serial in his Mag. on fair terms I would soon pull up the leeway, but I am at a loss to guess the Scotchman’s tactiques.”

“I am shocked by the want of common candour—common honesty—you experienced in your kind visit paid in my name. It was not true that H. B.‘s [? difficulty] was temporary—far from it. He is by this time at New Orleans, and so far from any amelioration in their affairs, I sincerely believe they cannot be worse. These are sad topics and sadder confessions, but I cannot afford to be misunderstood by you, and neither zeal nor false shame shall prevent me from telling the truth.

“As regards our part—and it is of that I must think principally,—I believe that the best thing is, without making any definite pledges of aid, which to an income so precarious and uncertain as mine are always onerous, to contribute when and what we can; and although I know and feel all the great objections to a system which cannot check and may encourage unwarrantable expectations from us, and (I own I think now of ourselves) this plan would not have the apparent pressure of a positive debt,—if the world goes fairly well with us we will not be less generous in this way than we should have been just in the other.

“For the present there is no need of further interference; and I never hugged the aphorism, ‘Sufficient for the day,’ &c., with more satisfaction.

“As to Curry. The a/cs furnished were no a/cs. On the contrary, C. & H. pronounced them, on the test of a London accountant, ‘mere swindles.’... My hope is not to sell but to obtain some channel of purchase of the copyrights back again—in London (not C. & H., who have now begun a cheap issue of Dickens that will last some years),—and by a new and cheap edition, with notes, &c., make a better thing of it.

“I cannot say how anxiously I look to hearing from you about M’G. The whole thing has a gloomy aspect—that is, my present state of relations in Dublin and London gives me very grave alarm.

“I am glad my ‘Knight’ holds his ground with you. I trust I have not vulgarised the book merely by introducing low people, but I felt that mere nominal poverty could never be the full load of affliction high-born and high-minded people would experience in a fallen condition, and I was led to lay stress on the fact that altered social relations—inferior associations—are heavier evils than brown bread and weak congou.

“I knew—I felt while I wrote it, with a heart very full—that the verse of my poor father’s song would touch you.

“It is strange enough that the habit of describing emotions and sentiments in fiction should have heightened to a most painful degree my own susceptibilities, so that I really am as weak as a girl, and far more unable to buffet against the rocks of life than when, as a doctor, I encountered them really and bodily. Half a dozen years may have had its share in this, but only its share. Besides, we have been living a very retired solitary life,—my only neighbours are an old Austrian general and his staff. I have therefore been doing with my thoughts what they say has deteriorated Spanish nobility—ruining them by frequent intermarriage.

“I am also fretted by a kind of vague consciousness that I have better stuff in me than I have yet shown; and though I was just as often disposed to regret as to indulge this belief, the confession will not entirely leave me, acting like a blunt spur on a lazy horse,—enough to irritate him but not to increase his speed.”

“Your most welcome letter came after me here, where, in the vague pursuit of a less expensive residence, I have come, intending by reason of late events to shorten sail, not knowing what weather may be in store for us.

“M’Glashan’s [? offer of] arbitration promises well, but you are quite right not to concede the acknowledgment of the a/c as a preliminary. My object would be far rather to buy than to sell, but Curry asks £2500 for his interest,—nearly as much as he gave me originally. If we could induce him to make a reasonable demand, I think I could induce a publisher to treat for the books, so that I would be more disposed now simply to press the ‘Hinton’ settlement, which, according to the a/c you have sent me, is a complete puzzle—2000 being rated as 1000 copies (as you have yourself observed).... I believe M’Glashan intends fairly by me, but, from a careless remark of Hugh Baker, he fancied he was to be immediately examined before a Master in Chancery, and with native prudence [he] abstained from opening any correspondence in the conjuncture.... Chapman’s letter will show you his opinion of the trickery the Currys are attempting. He—Chapman—said £800 would not be more than a fair sum for my interest,—all claims of ‘Hinton’ being previously settled to my satisfaction.... M’O.‘s estimate of Chapman (Hall is since dead) is perfectly correct. They are, as indeed is every bookseller of the London trade that I have conversed with, very inferior to M’G. himself in natural acuteness and knowledge of books, book-writers, and book-readers. He is without question the very ablest man in his walk, and—now that Blackwood* is gone—far above Murray, Colburn, Longman, and the rest of them; and in London, and with capital, would beat them hollow.”