Volume I Part 14 (1/2)
Samuel Lover described this visit as being a round of boisterous merriment. Their host introduced the two artists to Commissary-General Mayne, who was the prototype of Major Monsoon in 'Charles O'Malley.'
Mayne dined with them daily, and they ”laughed themselves sick” over his stories. They held a ceremony of installation of ”The Knights of Alacantra,”--Lever, Lover, and Phiz being made Grand Crosses of the order. There was music and a procession and a grand ballet. Writing to M'Glashan shortly after the Lover-Phiz visitation, the author of 'Charles O'Malley' said: ”If I have a gla.s.s of champagne left--we finished nine dozen in the sixteen days Lover and Phiz spent here--I'll drink it to your health.”
_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.
”_Nov_. 2, 1841.
”I have been daily, for some weeks past, hoping to have some news to tell you respecting your MS., and at last am forced to write without.
I sent it over to Bentley with a pressing letter, for in my avarice his 12, 12s. per sheet tempted me, instead of the miserable pay of the D.
U. M., which gives but 7 for nearly double the quant.i.ty. He kept me waiting his reply for six weeks, and then I hear that the press of literary matter is such that no article can be read for some time to come. I have, of course, written to get it back, and yesterday wrote to Chambers to secure it a berth in the 'Journal,' where, if I succeed, the pay is still better than 'Dublin,' and the road for future contributions more open and available.
”Though I know you will attribute this delay not to any lukewarmness of mine, yet am I not the less provoked. All these things require patience in the beginning, however, and had I been discouraged, as I confess I very nearly was, I should never have written a second chapter of 'Lorrequer,' much less what followed it.
”Indeed, to give you an idea of editorial discernment: the story most quoted and selected by reviewers for praise was, three years and a half before I began the 'Confessions,' sent up to the D. U. M., and rejected by b.u.t.t as an unworthy contribution. And this [story] was afterwards p.r.o.nounced by 'Fraser's Magazine' the best bit of modern humour. So much for one critic or author.
”There are many things daily coming out in the French press I wish you would attack. Are you aware that Mrs Gore's novels, bought for 500 each set (3 vols.), are only translations with a newly invented t.i.tle? Such is the fact. My time latterly has been tolerably occupied by finis.h.i.+ng 'O'Malley,' which required a double No. for December, and making the _debut_ of my new hero Jack Hinton--besides which doctoring, and occasionally scribbling short articles for the 'University.' I wish much you had seen the first volume of 'Our Mess.' I am more than usually nervous about its success. Every new book is a new effort, and the world is often discontented with the forthcoming work of a man whom their own flattery induced to commit himself at first.
”My idea of Jack Hinton is of an _exceedingly English_ young Guardsman coming over to Ireland at the period of the Duke of Richmond's vice-royalty, when every species of rackety [? doings] was in vogue. The contrasts of the two countries as exhibited in him, and those about him, form the tableaux of the book. The story is a mere personal narrative.
”Browne (Phiz) has been with us for the last few weeks making arrangements about the ill.u.s.trations, and I think this part, at least, will be better than heretofore. M'Glashan is very fair about the whole concern, and promises liberally in the event of success.”
_To Mr Alexander Spencer._
”Quartier Leopold, Brussels, _Nov_. 14,1841.
”Dublin, if I am to trust the papers, is a changed city, and indeed I am disposed to believe them, and to have a great hope that a moderate Government with Tory leanings would be the fairest chance for peace in so disturbed a country.
”I have been scribbling about Lord Eliot in the last Mag.*
* ”Ireland and her Rulers”: D. U. M., Nov. 1841.
”I am working--what for me is very hard indeed,--writing five or six hours daily; not going into society, dining early, and taking a half bottle of hock at my dinner. With all my early hours and abstinence my feet are swelled up, and I can scarcely walk when I get up in the morning.
”I have written to M'Glashan to give you a proof of 'Jack Hinton'--No.
1--which I wish you'd read over, and then send on to John. I'd like to have your opinion (both of you) about it: don't forget this.
”I have also hinted to John a scheme of which I have been thinking for some time--which is to retire from my profession ere it retires from me,--in plain words, to seek some cheap (and perhaps nasty) place where I could grub on for a few hundreds per annum and lay by a little. Here I am pulling the devil by the tail the whole year through, and only get sore fingers for my pains; and as my contract with Curry secures me 1200 per annum for three years at least, perhaps I ought not to hesitate about adopting some means of letting a little of it, at least, escape the wreck. Give this your consideration, and say also if you know of a nice cottage in Wicklow, about twenty-five to thirty miles from town, where I could transfer myself bag and baggage--furniture and all--at a moment's warning. My only chance of economy is to be where money cannot be spent, and if I lived for 700 per annum (a liberal allowance too) in Ireland, the remaining five would be well worth laying by.
”I could have the editors.h.i.+p of 'Bentley's Miscellany' at a salary of 800 per annum, but this would involve living in London. I could bring over a governess for my brats from this, and without much trouble import as many of my here habits as I care for.”
_To Mr Alexander Spencer._
”Brussels, _Dec_. 17, 1841.
”Thanks for your most kind and affectionate letter. I think you are mistaken as to Brussels, and suppose that gaiety, society, &c., are stimulants that I can't live without. Now the fact is, I do so at the moment, and have done for a long while past,--society being the very thing that unhinges me for writing, my slippers and my fireside being as essential to me as my pen and ink-bottle. Secondly, the _incognito_ that you deem of service (as John does) is not what you suppose. It is only a _nom de guerre_, when my own name is seen throughout; and in England, where I am more read and prize the repute higher, Charles Lever is as much a pseudonym as Harry Lorrequer, for indeed H. L. is believed to exist, and no one cares whether C. L. does or not.