Charles Lever, Volume I. by Edmund Downey

“M’Glashan is so far fair that he says he insisted that in my share of half profits the expense counted against me should be limited to the mere paper and press-work, and not the eleventh part of the whole original cost—authorship, engraving, stereotyping, &c. Now the question is, Is this the spirit and meaning of the a/c now furnished?*

* The letter enclosing Curry’s a/c had not yet reached
Lever. It had gone to Zurich (or via Zurich).—E. D.

“Am I then credited with all my due and debited with no more than my due? I ask this because, in my ignorance of figures, I shall be little the wiser when the a/c is before me.

“I am so far of opinion that it would be well not to couple any proportion for buying or selling with the settlement of a/cs, and for this reason: that no sum Curry could be induced to give me now would be a fair compensation for my share of the profits of a reissue,—without which speculation in view he would never have made his present steps to obtain the sole copyrights,—and I am not in a position to repurchase the books, though if Curry would put a fair price on them I believe I could effect, through another, some arrangement on the subject....

“Lastly, if Curry does not make me a suitable offer to buy or to sell, and if he intends a reissue, then comes another feature of the case worth consideration, and which would all depend on the spirit and temper he may show. What arrangement could be made for the new edition appearing with revival prefaces, &c., by me? This, of course, is a last of all results.

“As to M’G., his letter is possibly a very candid and honest exposé, but I have limited myself to the observation already quoted. With regard to the Magazine he has made a proposal—i.e., he has asked me to name my terms for a contribution of some length. I have done so, wishing to open sources of profit to myself by what I may term ‘irresponsible labour’; for I really am tired of seeing my name before the public, and more than tired of the anxiety for success each new acknowledged book brings along with it. I scarcely suppose he will accede to my terms, which are sharp ones; but less than I have asked I cannot accept, because such would at once influence my treatment by others. I’ll send him my first paper at once....

“We are about to move into Italy next month. I have taken a villa—a most beautifully situated thing—on the Lake of Como, where we have been last week, having crossed the Alps in twelve feet of snow,—a journey of more adventure and danger than you can well conceive.

“I intend to remain there till November—possibly the whole winter; but if not, we shall move down to Florence or Rome. Como, independent of its beauty, of which I really had formed no conception (it is Killarney with a tropical vegetation,—the aloe, the olive, the fig, pomegranate, with the cactus and magnolia growing wild), offers me the facility of visiting all the north of Italy by easy excursions,—Milan only four hours off, Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Venice itself—all available. We shall have ample time to exchange some letters before I leave, and I only mention my plans now as to the reasons of my prompt reply to M’G., wishing to make up my future contract before I place the High Alps between myself and the printing-press.”

“It does not signify that Curry has not kept any separate a/cs of the cost of all copies above 10,000. It is easy to make the deduction requisite to such an understanding.

“M’G. and Chapman both concur in stating that I am only to be charged with the cost price and not the eleventh part of the whole original cost—that is, I am only chargeable with paper and press-work, and not with any of the cost of author, engraver, &c. These are M’G.‘s words to me in a letter of last week. Chapman’s words are as follows:—

“‘By their own showing they owe you £280 to the end of Aug., but you have to dispute this, on the ground that only paper and print are to go to form the cost of the volumes, whereas they charge you authorship, engravings, in fact, everything from the beginning,—making the dry cost per vol. to be 4s. and a fraction.’

“I quote these words from his letter to me when last alluding to the transaction. So much, then, for the point on which I suppose, as M’G. has expressed his firm opinion, Curry can scarcely dissent.

“Secondly, in the account forwarded previously to me of cost of production, I was charged with my share of the expense of all the copies of ‘Hinton,’ ‘Burke,’ and ‘The O’Donoghue’ printed but still unsold—that is, I was made a party to the cost of producing so much stock,—of my interest in which we have not one syllable, and which, if I were to purchase to-morrow, I should be buying what I have paid the moiety of the charge of producing.

“This last feature of the affair it is, I opine, which makes Curry so eager for a final settlement,—at least, it was this coup which Chapman stigmatised as an atrocious piece of cheating.

“My opinion is, then, this: If Curry’s a/c of the surplus ‘Hinton’ is fair, if he only charges me with what M’G. stipulated for and says I am responsible, and if I am not to pay for stock in which I hold a vested right, settle the a/c and let the transaction be finished.

“M’G. is quite right as to the relative advantages and disadvantages that Curry and I labour under. But it is quite clear he will scarcely be able to sell his share in the three works so long as mine remain unpurchased,—first, because he cannot make out a title until I give him one; and secondly, that no bookseller would like to buy hampered with my lien. I do not in the least desire to buy or sell with Curry. ‘Hinton’ being once settled for, I’d rather lie patiently and wait for what may turn up.

“My proposition to Orr was this: and I would be very glad if you would communicate it to M’G., because if he felt disposed to become a party in the compact I should be better pleased. Perhaps you would then read for him the following:—

“To enter into an arrangement with me to repurchase from Curry all the copyrights, as well those he owns entire as those in part, and then to commence from the stereotype plates a cheap weekly issue, with Notes and Prefaces by the Author. I would myself contribute ‘O’Leary’—which is entirely mine—to the new edition, and do my utmost to give the whole a new feature of interest.

“If M’G. would enter into the speculation, he, more than any other, could contribute to its success, and I would myself pledge that whatever I wrote in the way of story hereafter should be reserved for similar publication.

“I believe I have now gone through the whole matter save the expression of my never-ceasing gratitude to the friend who can devote of his few and scanty leisure hours nearly all in the cause of affectionate interest.

“The weather is again becoming wintry. Avalanches have fallen on every side of us—fifty feet of snow is lying in the Innspruck road; the mail for Italy is four days due, and even Switzerland—usually regular—is two days behind time. I do not venture to anticipate when we may be able to cross the Alps,—certainly not under six or eight weeks if present appearances last.

“If M’G. has not replied to my last when you see him, urge him to do so, as it regards the contributing of some papers which I should like to despatch before I left this.”

“We are already busied with the stir and bustle of departure, though the time is still distant; but poor dear Germany is not a land of despatch, and to obtain a packing-box you must wait for a tree to be felled, barked, sawed, and planed, with all the vicissitudes attendant on these several processes, and the inevitable interruptions of saints’ days and festivals in honour of every grand duke and grand duchess that ever were chronicled in the ‘Almanac de Gotha.’

“Speed, therefore, is out of the question, and my impatience has already more than once jeopardised my character for prudence and good sense among this, the easiest-going nation that ever smoked away existence. Still, I am sorry to leave them, and feel that the exchange to Italy is, in every respect save climate, for the worse. The Germans are peaceful, good-natured, homely, honest souls, docile as dogs, and never treacherous. The Italians are falsehood incarnated,—their whole lives a long practical lie. Still, not to see the land would be a sad disgrace, the more as we have stood so long on the threshold—or rather at the bottom of the stairs—i.e., at the foot of the Alps.

“I have written to John a long prosy narrative of our Splugen journey—which really, albeit a novelist par métier, I have not exaggerated.”

“Except Orr and M’G., there are no others in the trade sufficiently cognisant of the profits of my books to undertake on a grand scale a reissue; and for this reason—because I was an Irish author, printed and published and mostly sold in Ireland, branded with the nationality of blunder in type as well as errors in thought,—and the same professional reputation hangs to me still. Now Orr and M’G. hang back. The invariable answer I meet from them is: ‘We are so much suspected by Curry, that from us he would not accept a fair sum, whereas from you he would be likely to be restricted in his demand, because he would thereby by implication be setting a value on what you might claim from him:

“Finally, the very qualified success of Dickens’s new and cheap issue for 1s. 1 1/2d. (and pub. 1s. 2d.)—the greatest trial of cheapness ever made in bookselling—has shown that the profits of a new edition cannot be reckoned on till after a considerable lapse of time. When an author’s popularity has lasted long enough to be more than a passing taste, and to stand the test of a new generation of readers, then—and only then—can successive editions be regarded as profitable [? experiments].

“I have received a letter from the Custom House, Portsmouth, stating that ‘a great number of your works in foreign editions (in English) pass through this Custom House, and as we received no notice of copyright subsisting thereon, we cannot prevent their entrance. We deem it only fair to let you know the fact for your information and guidance.’ Now Mr Curry ought at once, through the Custom House, London, to take the requisite steps against this nuisance, which I already foresaw would be the result of the much boasted International Copyright Treaty.

“I am in a fix about Italy. I have my house at Como for June 1, but three avalanches have fallen in the Splügen, and the road will not be practicable before the middle of July, so that I have been compelled to retain my present house for three months longer,—a piece of the most ill-timed bad luck, as I never was more anxious to economise a little.”

“Famine and money distress have cut off all the luxuries—of which books are the easiest to go without,—and so publishers won’t make any contracts till better days arrive, and we who have no capital but our brains must live how we can meanwhile. I am not impatient, but I will be very glad when any prospect offers of concluding something with Curry.” *

* With this letter he sent a cheque for the funeral expenses
of a sister-in-law.—E. D.

“....I have formed no literary engagement for next year. My present contract concludes in July. Chapman is now winding up the a/c of the partnership, as Hall is dead; and from this cause and the great monetary crisis in England, will not, I believe, engage in any new speculation hastily,—so that I am really, for the first time, at sea. If I could have any occupation such as re-editing, &c., on hand, it would be my best mode of employing a season which can scarcely fail to be a bad one for books. If not this, I must try to get money by selling my copyrights somehow or somewhere, and wait for better days.

“M’Glashan is, I hear, in London. He is not coming this way certainly. He has been at his old game of fast-and-loose with me; but as I never trusted him, I am not deceived.

“Curry should take prompt measures against the piracy, or we shall be inundated. All the United States out of the new treaty are at work robbing and stealing from every nation.

“P.S.—The thermometer stands at 118 Fahrenheit at the shady side of a room, as I write.”

“Though I am without any over-confidence in what is whimiscally termed ‘12 honest men’s award,’ I would rather cry heads or tails for my right—by a lawsuit—than be bullied out of it by Curry and his secret adviser Butt, who I know is at the bottom of the whole proceedings. I once laughed at Butt’s pretensions to represent the University in Parliament: some one told him so....

“In M’G.‘s letter to me a month ago he writes:—‘I totally dissented from Curry’s notion of these sales being made at your charge, and said that if he—Curry—did not consent to your receiving the usual sum you had hitherto received as moiety of profits, I would decline all interposition as his negotiatee.’”

“I hasten to say that the more I think of Curry and his conduct, the more I am impressed by the fear of some latent mischief. He is evidently acting under advice—Butt’s, I conjecture; and if he does resist on threat of law, we have not the means of sustaining a costly suit—which, if merely requiring my presence in England, would more than counterbalance a victory, and make defeat half ruin. Before, therefore, making this last move,—if not yet too late,—I would advise your seeing M’G., and, having explained to him the impracticability of any dealings with Curry, whose subterfuges and evasions are never-ending, ask him if he would endeavour to effect an amicable arrangement. This I must submit to at great sacrifices, if requisite, because I find (within the last few days) the increasing difficulty of any new arrangement with booksellers, who, dreading a money crisis, are awaiting better and safer days.

“I have concluded an arrangement with Tauchnitz of Leipsic* to publish all my books in Germany,—with which Curry has nothing to do,—they (Tauchnitz) being limited to the circulation of the Continent; but I should be glad to have our affair with him (Curry) so concluded that he might not be disposed to give us any worry or inconvenience. In fact, sooner than risk a jury, I would take £300 for my interest, my debt of £300 being paid—£600 for all. M’G. values my interest at £400—at least, so Baker told me. Do not speak of my German arrangement to M’G.

“Where has M’G. been on the Continent? and what [? wickedness has he been] at? He received a MS. from me above a month back, and I have not yet heard any tidings of its acceptance or rejection.... I had asked him here. Orr of London was to join him on his trip.”

* On May 8, 1847, Lever wrote as follows to Baron Tauchnitz
about ‘The Knight of Gwynne’:—

“....I am aware that the fact cannot in any way affect your
views in the matter, but it is as well I should mention—
what, after all, is the only test of an author’s actual
repute and standing in his own country—viz., the money
value of his writings,—and for this same story I receive a
sum little short of £3000. I then may safely leave to your
consideration the scale on which it should be estimated by
you.”

On July 21 he wrote: “You ask about the portrait annexed to
‘Jack Hinton.’ It is not—at least so say my friends—a
resemblance, and I can myself assure you that I do not
squint, which it does abominably.”—E. D.

“Your letter of the 8th has this day arrived, and I hasten to express my full concurrence in your—but not in Longfield’s—view of the transaction, save where you both concur in thinking that Curry’s failure may eventuate favourably for us. Is there any chance of my being able to purchase the stock and the copyrights of ‘O’Malley’ and ‘Lorrequer’? without which the set is incomplete. I cannot say that I anticipate such a probability. I could only hope for it through the intervention of a publisher, and in the existing state of monetary matters few would adventure in any speculation. M’G. will, I have no doubt, try and possess himself of the books; and if such be his intention, I would be glad to be a party to his purchase. It would be well to know his views and what course he may probably take, or what [course he would] advise us to pursue.

“In the event of any composition with creditors, what is your opinion of my claim? Should I expect to be rated in Curry’s assets? Or should I hope for my proportion of assets as we claim?

“M’Glashan has not acknowledged a MS. sent two months ago. I can neither fathom his plans by this system nor see how his silence chimes in with his fervent protestations for a renewal of our relations.

“My meagre dedication did not, and could not, say a thousandth part of what I feel,—but even so much was pleasurable to say before the world. I would indeed be proud to associate you in any part of it. As it is, I believe ‘The Knight’ is the best of the breed, and hence the reason for calling it yours.

“I expect to leave for Italy about Aug. 4, but address me always ‘Coutts et Cie,’ who still will continue to exercise the sinecure of my bankers.”

IX. LETTERS TO MISS EDGEWORTH. 1843-1847

At Riedenburg Lever closed a correspondence, commenced in 1843, with Miss Edgeworth. In 1843 the author of ‘Castle Rackrent,’ in her seventy-seventh year, was still working assiduously in her Edgeworthstown home.

“Madam,—I have a great favour to ask at your hands—and, like most people in similar circumstances, not any claim whatever to support the prayer of my petition. My desire is to obtain your permission to dedicate to you a book of mine called ‘Tom Burke,’ the first volume of which will appear early in December. To associate, even on such slender terms, my humble effort with a name confessedly the first in my country’s literature, is the motive which prompts me to this request, while I gladly embrace the occasion to assure you that you have no more ardent admirer of your goodness and your genius than your very humble and devoted servant.”

“Madam,—It may be, that while asking a favour I may be obliged to ask your pardon for importunity. About a week since I addressed a few lines to you requesting your permission to dedicate to you a book of mine called ‘Tom Burke of Ours,’ but not having heard from you in reply, I conclude my letter has not reached you. I cannot, however, relinquish—without another endeavour—a hope I have long cherished to write your name within a volume of mine, and be, even on such slender terms, associated with one whom I feel to be the first of Irish writers. If you will accord me this permission, I shall deem it a very great favour conferred on your very humble and obedient servant.”

In his ‘Life of Lever’ Dr Fitzpatrick states that Lever set out in 1844 on his driving tour through Ireland, with the intention of paying a formal visit to Miss Edgeworth. There is no evidence that this visit was paid. In a preface to ‘The Knight of Gwynne,’ the author declares his acquaintanceship with Miss Edgeworth arose out of a letter she wrote to him correcting a mistake he had made as to the authorship of an epigram on Sir William Gladowes (afterwards Lord Newcomen). Almost in the same breath he admits that he has no memory for dates, and he couples this admission with a regret that he never kept a note-book. Miss Edgeworth’s tardy reply did not reach Charles Lever till the summer of 1845, when he was lingering at Carlsruhe.

“Dear Madam,—Your letter addressed to me in Dublin followed me here into the heart of the Black Forest, where I have been sojourning for some time past. I have really no words to speak my gratitude for the kindness which dictated such a letter,—so full of flattering encouragement, so abounding in expressions of good cheer. It is not because I have met with so little approval from the Press of my own country that I set great store by your criticisms,—though even the contrast has its consolations,—but that I begin to feel confidence under an approval from you, which no praise from one less competent could inspire. Your kindness, too,—like every real kindness,—had the merit of an apropos. I was beginning to feel unusually depressed about the fortunes of my book. I had received so many hints, based on misconceptions, of the characters and the plot, that I found, or fancied I found, I had been misrepresenting my own intentions, praising what I deprecated, and apologising for what I felt condemnatory. Fancy, then, the delight I experienced on hearing that you had read me aright—nay, more, developed in full the shadowy and vague forms my weaker hand only dared to trace, but could not venture to colour! I am not able to tell you how full of hope, how full of ambition, you have left me,—how totally you have routed the growing despondency against which, unassisted, I struggled in vain. It is not, believe me, that your flattery has made me tête montée; but, even taking it as mere flattery, I can say to myself, ‘It is Miss Edgeworth, after all.’ If I am destined to do what may be worthy, I shall date the effort from the day I received your letter,—a day which made me prouder than I ever felt before, and happier than any praise hereafter can make me.”

After the lapse of a year we find Lever thirsting for further praise or encouragement. There is something almost pitiful in his timid appeal to Miss Edgeworth for her opinions concerning ‘The O’Donoghue’ and ‘The Knight of Gwynne,’—the latter novel was at the time appearing in monthly parts. Lever was always able to form a very shrewd estimate of the merits or demerits of his own writings, and in his later days press criticism, adverse or laudatory, seems to have affected him but little. It was different, however, in his earlier days, when abuse or neglect caused him grave disappointment and vexation, and when a laudatory review unduly elated him.

“Dear Madam,—It is exactly a year since you wrote to me the kindest and most flattering letter it has ever been my fortune to receive. I have read it over so often that I almost have it by heart, and yet I never recur to the precise phrases of your brilliant note without renewed pleasure, renewed encouragement. It may be that you have long since forgotten both the epistle and the object of it. It cannot be an isolated piece of kindness on your part, and may well have escaped your memory. Let me recall the circumstance by saying it was an allusion to a book of mine called ‘The O’Donoghue,’ of whose earlier numbers you augured well, but of whose later ones I will not dare to tax your opinion. My present object is to thank you for a piece of kindness, whose effect is as fresh this instant as when first conferred. I recur to the expression of your encouragement as a certain relief in hours of doubt and despondency; and as the prisoner in Schundau only permitted himself the relaxation of looking out on the Elbe in days of unusual depression, I have kept your letter for times when a failing heart and ebbing hope have made me need the voice of encouragement.

“May I ask if you have chanced upon the book called ‘The Knight of Gwynne’? I will not ask your opinion—nor do I wish one word of criticism. I feel too sensibly it should have been very different, for I had in my head a good subject and wandered from it, but I would like to know that it reached you.

“I am living in a wild valley of the Austrian Tyrol, away from every source of information of what passes in the world—away equally from critical reproof or the word of cheering hope. I will not tell you with what pleasure I take up the lines whenever you bid me go forward, nor how anxiously I would learn what may be your present judgment, while I would willingly spare you (and myself) the pain of an unfavourable verdict should conscience dictate one.”

“Dear Madam,—That a letter of mine should have gone astray is of little moment to any one, but that I should be under the imputation of ingratitude for your most kind letter of last August is of very great consequence to me, and to prevent this possible event I write now—uncertain whether a note I had unluckily intrusted to a private hand may have ever reached you. I was travelling in the Tyrol when your letter found me, and I replied to it at once, giving my letter to a person returning to England, with several others, one of which I know for certain did not come to hand. By the same occasion I directed my publisher to send you a little volume called ‘St Patrick’s Eve’—has this miscarried?

“I am uncertain whether I should not prefer the unjust reproach of neglect to the possible offence of boring you in duplicate. Still, it is better to incur this risque, for not two nor twenty letters would convey my thankfulness for all your kindness and encouragement. It is not because your two letters are my only literary triumphs that I set such store by them, though such is truly the case; but that I see reflected in my own little children the eager delight with which I myself as a child read your writings and learned to love them. Your praise is then doubly dear, as it partakes of the character of a reward to one of your élèves. Let me add that there is a domestic triumph in this too, and that my little people felt proud of Papa when he told them what Miss Edgeworth said of him. I am afraid to speak of my ‘Knight of Gwynne,’ lest my former letter should be already before you, and all the [? gossip] about my intentions and how I lapsed from them be a twice-told tale. One thing is certain, however the story would have inclined, the same faults would cling to it. I have no constructiveness in my head; the most I am capable of is the portraiture of certain characters with more or less of contrast or ‘relief’ between them. These once formed, I put them en scène, to die out in an early chapter when their vitality is weak,—if stronger, to survive to the end of the volume. That such halting incoherency would make very slovenly inartistic narratives, I have only to look back on what I have written to see. My own deficiencies, added to the fatal facility of No. publication, have combined to make this a grave and, I fear, irremediable fault with me, and even when I strive after better things, I invariably find that every step upwards is made at the cost of injury to my popularity, and when my friends encourage, my publisher is sure to upbraid me.

“The epigram I quoted in ‘The Knight’ was repeated to me at least twenty years back by a singularly agreeable and gifted conversationalist, the late Wm. Gouldersby, my brother’s predecessor in the Rectory of Tullamore. I was only a boy when I heard it, and need not say how strong was the impression made that has endured to the present.

“Your kindness—like all real kindnesses—emboldens, and I would, if I dared, ask your permission to say something of my next story,—I mean, of one that I intend to write at a future day. As I have already confessed to my inability to construct a plot and continue all the tortuous difficulties and surprises of a well-imagined tale, the most I could inflict upon you would be a meagre outline of my object, and the purpose for which my narrative is constructed: so much—if I had your permission—I should certainly like [to do].

“The post-mortem recollections you are good enough to notice in ‘O’Leary’ were little else than a transcript of my own feeling during recovery from the only severe illness I ever had. [They] have so much of truth about them that they were actually present to my mind day after day.

“I have little doubt that volition, powerfully exerted under the pressure of religious fervour and faith, is the secret agency of those miraculous cures whose occasional authenticity is beyond question.

“My present task is writing a little volume of Tyrol sketches—partly to illustrate some of the national proverbs of that simple people. We have been living amongst them now for above a year, and hourly growing more and more attracted to their unaffected kindliness and sincerity. The little tales I am endeavouring to shape out have the veracity of real scenes and real people in their favour, so far as I can convey them, but are quite devoid of all high interest. But if you will allow me, whenever they appear, to send you a copy, it will give me sincere gratification.

“I will not trespass on the goodness which has already given me such heartfelt pleasure by asking you to write to me. I will only say that I have never felt at the same time so proud and so happy as when reading those [letters] you have sent me, and that I thank you again and again for the happiness in which I write myself.”

“Dear Madam,—Your letter is now before me, and although I can fancy how tired you are of my gratitude, I am never weary of telling you how much I feel your kindness. As a manager returns thanks for the dramatis persona of his corps, I beg to repeat mine for Miss Darcy, Daly, Freney, and Co.,* who, I beseech you to believe, have derived any spirit of life they possess from the genial breath of your encouragements. Like the ‘Bourgeois Gentilhomme,’ who spoke prose without knowing, I find I really had a story to tell, and, however late came the knowledge, your criticism set me about seeing how best to do it.

* Characters in ‘The Knight of Gwynne.’—E. D.

“Pray accept my excuses for what must have been a very bungling expression in my last note, and which has caused you an apprehension that, although only momentary, I am sincerely sorry for,—sorry, I will own not only on your account, but on my own—my amour propre, having no more tender point than the dread of being a bore. I never intended to inflict my MS. on you, for after some ninety-nine good and sufficient reasons comes the hundredth,—I never wrote more at any time than was sufficient for the monthly call of my printers, and that only at the spur of the emergency. In taking what I felt to be the great liberty of asking your counsel, I had still a sense of moderation for an author, and would not worry you by what is called a sketch. Indeed, it is your opinion as to the intention of the tale I would sue for, and your judgment of how far the story seems suited to such a hand as mine,—whether in itself it contains enough of romantic and dramatic element to be a good theme to work out.

“And now à l’ouvrage! It occurred to me when attached to a British Embassy to learn that the whole scheme and game of Irish politics were not only known to the members of the Roman Catholic clergy, but that they took the very deepest interest in the cause and progress of events, and, strangest of all, were informed thoroughly on all the points of social distinctions at issue amongst us—knowing the very names of such localities and obscure people as were the scenes or actors in outrage or disturbance,—were conversant with the petty details of magisterial justice, and aware of all that terrible machinery of crime which for years back has been at work in Ireland. That such knowledge should have originated in mere curiosity would be absurd to conceive; that it sprung from a deep interest in the events is far easier to see, and in some cases I even believe from a controlling, regulating power that, if not exercised to promote actual crime, yet could watch its progress and effect, withholding the opposing influences the Church could supply if she would. This, of course, is surmise, and mere surmise,—the former part I know. I know also that details of Irish outrage have been transmitted to Rome, not by post, but by a secret system of transmission from priest to priest, from Belgium to the Vatican, by journées d’étapes. This, to say the least, is very curious, but I think it is more. I believe it to be highly dangerous. I do not know whether you will smile at my fancies that the days of Hildebrand might yet be in store for us, but I feel if I were known to you personally I should scarcely be supposed likely to be regarded as an alarmist, and least of all on such grounds. My friends generally accuse me of having, from long foreign residence, a very tolerant feeling towards Romanism.

“Now, without tormenting you with any details, my idea would be to take this theme as the groundwork of a story, whose scene should lie alternatively in Ireland and abroad, the characters being home and foreign as occasion required. My priest (Machiavellian, of course) would be the cheval de bataille—not attempted, I need scarcely say, in any rivalry with Eugene Sue, whose vast superiority in every way as a writer refutes such a presumption, but because the object would open up a very different class of character and interest. My people would be enlisted from various ranks and conditions of men, and afford contrasts of country as well as of individuality.

“This meagre outline it is I would ask your opinion of. Indeed, I scarce knew how shadowy and vague it was till I wrote it down here, and yet there is that within it which a really strong hand might turn to account. Will you kindly say if this be the kind of material that such [? a hand] as mine could work out with interest?

“I told you I would not inflict a MS. upon you, and here I have been doing something so very like it that I am ashamed to look back. However, if you knew how much more prosy and tedious I could have been, and on the very same subject, too, you would be gratified to be let off so easily.

“My best thanks for the hints about the two books. I have already written for them. Strange enough you should have suggested Spain as a likely locale for interest, at a time when I was actually meditating a visit to the Peninsula, my former chief being made Ambassador at the Court of Lisbon, and having pressed me to visit him.

“Your last letter put me into such good-humour with my ‘Knight,’ that I set about writing a new No., and with your criticism so fully in my head, I believe I did better than at any previous stage of his monthly existence.

“There is no part of your praise I set more value on than what you observe as to the good-breeding of certain characters, for while our fashionable (!) writers depict ladies and gentlemen by a hundred distinctive traits of manners and taste, all evidencing the most vulgar views of life, there is another class who love to represent every person of station as a species of moral monster, made of sensuality, deceit, and utter selfishness. If I have avoided these opposite errors, I wish I may have hit the middle course without at the same time making good manners insipid. Your praise lets me hope this, and I could not wish for a more competent authority. I need not now say with what eagerness I will read any remarks you are so kind as to make on my ‘Knight.’ The book only occupies any place in my esteem by reason of your opinion. If you see cause to continue it, I am but too happy to be reconciled to my unworthy offspring.

“My Tyrol stories* I have shelved for the present. They grew to be triste in spite of me, so I resolved to wait for better weather and better spirits, or in other words (such as my children tell me), ‘until Papa gets another pleasant letter from Miss Edge worth.’”

* Two of these tales of Tyrol, probably the only Tyrol
stories written by him, were subsequently included in
‘Horace Templeton.’—E. D.

For many years Lever had been engaged in rough passages-at-arms with the Catholic Church militant in Ireland, and though he was by no means a bigoted Anti-Romanist, he regarded “the priest in politics” as a highly dangerous factor. It is greatly to the credit of Miss Edgeworth’s sense of proportion, and to her level-headedness and her acumen, that she saw that if Charles Lever made “priestcraft” his pivot, he would be tempted to outstrip the limits of fair-play in fiction. And it is creditable to Lever that he was so easily dissuaded from undertaking the novel in which the Irish priesthood—then his sworn foe—was to figure as the conglomerate villain of the piece. No doubt the book which Lever had in his mind was one which he proposed to his Dublin publisher, James M’Glashan, giving it the provisional title of ‘Corrig O’Neill.’ Some of the material for this abandoned novel he used in ‘The Daltons,’ in which the Abbé D’Esmonde has a prominent part, though this ecclesiastic’s intriguing (which is almost purely political) has little concern with affairs Hibernian.

“My dear Miss Edgeworth,—I am not quite certain that in now thanking you—and thank you I do most cordially and gratefully—for your kind letter, I am not imitating the obtrusive and old-fashioned politeness of people who will not slip away without saying the ‘good nights.’ Not even the fear of being classed with these rococos, however, shall prevent me from saying how I feel the extreme good-nature that dictated your delightful letter, and I now see—I own I never did see so clearly till now—the difficulties of my new story, and in your warnings I already read the censure, anticipatory as it is, of the very faults I should inevitably have committed. I do not fear, indeed, that I should have fallen into any imitation of Eugene Sue—for whose genius I entertain nothing like the admiration I feel for Balzac’s, and for whose false morality and no principle I have a hearty contempt; but I do feel that my prejudices might have easily led me away to father on my priest evils, social and political, which in all likelihood he could never have been answerable for, and, in my anxiety to make out my case, prove too much.

“I am, then, if not deterred, at least checked as to the projected story, and will not adventure on it without more thought and reflection. Perhaps the tone towards Ireland at this moment is not very favourable to such portraiture: indeed, I am told that anything Irish is an ungracious theme to English ears just now, and I am reminded of the man who could never laugh at Liston, for remembering that the actor owed him ten pounds.

“If I fear to ask, I hope no less that my ‘Knight’ holds his place in your good opinion. I am aware that some of the late numbers introduce the reader to less agreeable companionship than is always pleasant, but I felt that the tableland was too even and unbroken, and that strong contrasts were needed to relieve some of the uniformity, even at the hazard of damaging my picture by false keeping. After all, there is nothing so bad as being tiresome, and I can see that this dread evil was spreading over my story. Heavens knows if, endeavouring to avert it, I have not made bad worse!

“I am not unreasonable enough to ask you to write to me again—but this much I will say, that I know of no favour for which I am more grateful, nor for any kindness on which I set such store, as a letter from Miss Edgeworth.”

This letter seems to have closed the correspondence. In May 1849 Miss Edgeworth died at the advanced age of eighty-three years.

X. COMO—FLORENCE—BAGNI DI LUCCA 1847-1849

Lever was now at the threshold of the most brilliant period of his career. Still in the prime of life, he was able to enjoy all the fun of the fair, and to record his impressions of men and affairs with unflagging vivacity, but with mellowed shrewdness. He neither hoped nor desired to reach again that giddy pinnacle upon which stood ‘Harry Lorrequer’ and ‘Charles O’Malley.’ He now possessed a firmer grip of character; he was more adroit in the arts of description and dialogue; and he had gained a truer insight into the workings of the human mind. His military fever was slowly burning itself out, though he was able to fan the embers into flame when, later, he was inditing the adventures of “Maurice Tiernay.” His sense of fantastic and boisterous humour was as strong as when he had created “Mickey Free” and “Corney Delany”: under firmer control it had lost much of its side-splitting qualities; yet, as one may judge from ‘Con Cregan,’ it was only because he held his art in high esteem that he did not, in his later period, produce another “Lorrequer.”

It has been the habit, in criticising Lever’s novels, to state that a startling change in his manner originated with ‘Glencore,’ published in 1855; but this statement is made mainly on the authority of Charles Lever. He really began to “sober down” with ‘The O’Donoghue’ in 1844 and ‘The Knight of Gwynne’ in 1845; and when, on the romance-inspiring shores of Lake Como, he planned the adventures of “roland Cashel,” his early nonchalant manner was fast disappearing.

“At last we are in Italy, and if the journey—bringing seven horses and three children over the Alps—was not without its share of anxieties, our present séjour well repays them all. Indeed, I could not attempt to give an idea of the mingled grandeur and beauty of this gorgeous lake—Alpine in sublimity, and yet a tropical picture of vegetation. Our little villa, one of the very smallest on the lake, stands next the Villa D’Esté, so renowned as Queen Caroline’s—about two and a half miles from Como, in a small embayment bounded by lofty mountains, and almost hid among the thick shade of olives, citrons, wild fig-trees, and cactus. On every side stands some picturesque abode, all, or nearly all, belonging to distinguished persons, and built in every variety of architectural taste. Castles and cottages, forts, villas, palaces, temples, all more beautiful than I have ever seen before, because that neither colour nor tracery suffers from the effects of weather; and nothing is more common than to see frescoes in all the freshness of tint on the outside of houses, while statues are of a whiteness that even our galleries rarely exhibit. Gondolas, in all the gay and frappant colours that aquatic coquetry can suggest, are eternally shooting past our windows; and now, while I write at midnight, the lake is alive with passing barcarolles and the glitter of torches,—making a picture of strange and most beautiful effect.

“I would ramble on for hours and yet convey, perhaps, nothing—at least nothing approaching the inexpressible charm of a scene where beauty of landscape blends with a picture of life made up of all that high civilisation and culture can create. It realises in one spot all I had dreamed of Italy—and whether in the balmy air, the sky lit up by stars of seemingly unnatural brilliancy, the lake blue as a turquoise, I fancy I see and feel the influence that renders every other land insipid after this.

“Your letters forwarded to me from Rheineck arrived here to-day. I have only to say how perfectly I concur with you in all that has been done—anxiously hoping, of course, that a good issue may follow, but quite satisfied to await with patience for the event. M’Glashan’s conduct is indeed a puzzle. He received from me (at his own urgent request too) a MS. on the 18th May. It was part of a small vol. which he purposed to treat with me for.* Since then he has not even written to acknowledge the receipt, much less to discuss the terms I proposed for the work. Prior to that he and Orr [? intended] to pay me a visit. I replied expressing my perfect readiness to receive them. But nothing followed. I should now be greatly gratified at recovering my MS., and if you could obtain it for me, Robert Maxwell of Gardiner Street would give it to our old friend, John Maxwell, who has promised to spend some days here on his way back to Florence, where he resides. I have not as yet made—nor do I see any immediate hope of making—a new literary engagement for the New Year, books and booksellers being at a discount. If, then, I could, by any means, obtain a hold on my former books, I would at once set about a new and cheap edition.