Volume I Part 1 (1/2)

Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters.

Vol. I.

by Edmund Downey and Charles James Lever.

PREFACE.

When Charles Lever died (in 1872), his daughters were anxious that his biography should be written by Major Frank Dwyer, but Dwyer was unwilling to undertake the task, and Dr W. J. Fitzpatrick volunteered his services.

In 1896 I asked Mrs Nevill, the novelist's eldest daughter, if she would be willing to furnish a new biography of her father. In replying to me, Mrs Nevill said that although she felt ”most intensely the utter inefficiency of Mr Fitzpatrick's 'Life,'” she feared her health would not permit her to undertake a task so serious as the one I proposed, but she would willingly give me any help in her power either for a new biography or for a revised edition of the existing 'Life.'

Mrs Nevill died, somewhat suddenly, in 1897, and, so far as I could ascertain, she left no material for a new or for a revised biography of her father. Shortly after her death I obtained from Mr Crafton Smith--a son-in-law of Charles Lever--a collection of letters written by the novelist. Amongst this collection was a series (addressed to Mr Alexander Spencer, a lifelong friend of the author of 'Harry Lorrequer,'

residing in Dublin) covering, practically, the whole period of the novelist's literary career. Other letters written by Lever to his friends also came into my hands; and last year Mr William Blackwood was good enough to place at my disposal Lever's correspondence with the House of Blackwood during the years 1863-1872.

After due consideration, it seemed to me that a Life of Lever wrought out of his letters and other autobiographical material would present the man and the story-writer in a more intimate and pleasing light than the picture which is furnished by Dr Fitzpatrick. In the present work I have endeavoured to let Charles Lever speak for himself whenever it is possible to find authentic utterances. Incidentally many errors into which Dr Fitzpatrick had fallen are corrected, but I am not making any attempt to supersede his painstaking, voluminous, and interesting biography. Dr Fitzpatrick declares that his book ”largely embraces the earlier period of Lever's life”; the present work deals mainly with his literary life, and contains, especially in the second volume, fresh and illuminating material which was not disclosed to Lever's previous biographer, and which affords an intimate view of the novelist as he saw himself and his work.

I am indebted to Mr Crafton Smith for the series of letters addressed to Alexander Spencer, and for other letters and doc.u.ments; to Mr T.

W. Spencer for his permission to use certain letters in his possession addressed to Dr Burbidge; to Mr James Holt for letters written by Charles Lever's father; and to Mrs Blackwood Porter and Mr William Blackwood for the letters written to Mr John Blackwood. Also I have to thank Messrs T. and A. Constable for their permission to avail myself of the autobiographical prefaces which Lever wrote during the last year of his life.

EDMUND DOWNEY.

London, 1906.

CHARLES LEVER: HIS LIFE IN HIS LETTERS.

I. EARLY DAYS 1806-1828

With that heroic heedlessness which distinguished him throughout his career, Charles Lever allowed 'Men of the Time' to state that he was born in 1809. The late W. J. Fitzpatrick, when he was engaged (thirty years ago) upon his biography of Lever, found it difficult to obtain accurate information concerning the birth-date of the Irish novelist.

The records of his parish church--St Thomas's, Dublin--were searched unavailingly. Finally Dr Fitzpatrick decided to pin his faith to a mortgage-deed (preserved in the Registry Office, Dublin), in which it is set forth that certain ”premises”--a dwelling-house, outhouses, yard, and garden--situated at North Strand* are leased of 1802 to James Lever for the term of his life and the lives of his sons, John, aged thirteen years, and Charles James, aged three years.

* Dr Fitzpatrick, in his 'Life of Lever,' declares that the name ”North Strand” was changed to ”Amiens Street” after the treaty.

A correspondent points out to me that, according to maps of Dublin published in 1800, the street was then called Amiens Street, and that it derived its name from Viscount Amiens, minor t.i.tle of the Earl of Aldborough, who built Aldborough House in the neighbourhood.--E. D.

This is dated 1809. Apart from this deed, however, there are in existence letters written by James Lever which fix the year 1806 as being the birth-date of his younger son. The day and the month are of comparatively little importance, but it is interesting to note that here also is there cloudiness. Dr Fitzpatrick was satisfied that the 31st of August was the day. For this he had the authority of Charles Lever himself: in one of his moments of depression he expressed a wish that August had only thirty days; he would then have been saved from the wear and tear of an anxious life. But James Lever speaks of September as being the month in which his famous son was born; and in 1864 the novelist, writing on the 2nd of September, says that his birthday--presumably the previous day--”pa.s.sed over without any fresh disaster.” Possibly there may have been a dispute in the family circle as to the exact hour,--the birth may have occurred ”upon the midnight.”

The year of Charles Lever's birth is unquestionably 1806; the place, No.

35 Amiens Street (formerly North Strand), Dublin.* The house in which he was born was subsequently converted into a shop. At the suggestion of Dr Fitzpatrick, a tablet was inserted in the front wall of this building, bearing the name and the dates of the birth and death of Charles James Lever.* Recently, in making railway extensions in the neighbourhood, the house was demolished. A railway bridge spans Amiens Street at the place where No. 35 was situated.

*'The Irish Builder' published in 1891 a long letter from a correspondent who professed to have been a companion of Charles Lever. It is mentioned here only to point to the peculiar mistiness which obscures many important facts in the early life of a man whose father was a popular and prosperous citizen of Dublin, and who was himself one of the best known of the men who nourished in the Irish capital about half a century ago.--E. D.

In this letter it is a.s.serted that the author of 'Harry Lorrequer' was born in Mulberry Lodge, Philipsburgh Lane, but the communication, while chronicling some undoubted facts, is so full of obvious and absurd blunders that it cannot be considered seriously.

* It has been suggested that Lever was named after Charles James Fox, who died in September 1806, but it is more likely that his Christian names were those of his uncle and his father.--E. D.

In addition to the perplexity about the birth-date of the author of 'Harry Lorrequer,' and to the absence of any official record, it is not easy to arrive at satisfactory conclusions concerning his ancestry. A pedigree furnished by a relative of Charles Lever traces the family to one Livingus de Leaver, who flourished in the twelfth century, but some difficulties seem to arise when the eighteenth century is reached. In the Leaver (or Lever) line there are many men of distinction. In 1535 Adam de Leaver's only daughter married Ralph Ashton (or a.s.sheton), second son of Sir Ralph Ashton of Middleton, Kent, endowing her husband with an agnomen as well as with an estate, the Ashtons thenceforward styling themselves Ashton-Levers. Another member of the Lever family--the name was altered to Lever in the reign of Henry VI.--was Robert, who was an Adventurer in Ireland during the Cromwellian era.

Perhaps the most interesting personage in the line was Sir a.s.sheton (or Ashton) Lever, who flourished in the eighteenth century. This worthy knight was born in 1729. He was the eldest son of Sir James Darcy Lever, and when he succeeded to his estate he achieved notoriety as a collector of ”curios.” He founded the Leverian Museum, an inst.i.tution devoted chiefly to exhibits o sh.e.l.ls, fossils, and birds, to which at a later period was added a collection of savage costumes and weapons. In 1774 Sir Ashton brought his famous collection to London, and housed it in a mansion in Leicester Square. He styled it the Holophusikon, and advertised that his museum was open to the public daily, the fee for admission being five s.h.i.+llings and threepence. In a short time Sir Ashton discovered that his exhibition was not a financial success, and that he himself had outrun the constable. He offered the contents of Holophusikon to the British Museum in 1783, valuing his collection at 53,000. The British Museum authorities declined the offer, and some five years later the Holophusikon was advertised for sale by lottery.