SINCE the remains of poor Lever were laid in that lonely grave at Trieste, seven years ago, every publishing season gave hope that a life worthy of the man, his fame, and his country, would be offered to the public. At one time it was stated that his daughter, Mrs. Neville, had a work in preparation. At another, that his lifelong friend, Major Dwyer, had undertaken the duty; and later on, that a literary man of mark was engaged on the task.

These rumours or projects-if projects they were may be assumed to have all fallen through, for at the close of the seven years there was no outward or visible sign of their existence. Perhaps it was fortunate that it was even so, for we believe that the undertaking could not have fallen into better hands than those of Dr. Fitz Patrick. Major Dwyer, Canon Hayman, and other old friends of Lever who had gathered together valuable material for his biography, all added their treasures to the cornucopia before us, and cordially bade Dr. FitzPatrick "God speed." His own industry and research have been most conscientious and painstaking. If he does not prove himself at all times a cunning artist, he is at least an honest historian, and he enters into the

details of a life of most stirring incident with an affectionate interest that cannot fail to carry his readers along with him. Charles Lever was no saint, but an exceedingly agreeable sinner. The writer of these lines knew him from the cradle to the grave. He had his faults, his follies, his little vanities, and love of display; but they were all on the surface. Underlying these was a most affectionate and kindly nature, generous to men in need; loving to his friends, of whom, in a long life, he never lost one, and with a broad tolerance for the actions and principles of those who differed from him. As an honest biographer, it was Dr. FitzPatrick's duty to paint the man as he was, and not as he ought to have been; not to ignore the existence of frailties, but to touch them, as he has done, with a tender and considerate hand. The lives of saints may be but dull reading, though there is sometimes a grim feeling of satisfaction that those good people have already gone to a better world, and that all danger of meeting them here below is removed. Some biographers have been so careful to paint out, or leave out, oddities of manner temper in their subjects, that an amiable abstraction is the result, but "our old familiar friend,"

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whom we loved and trusted, disappears altogether from the canvas. It has been laid to the charge of Dr. FitzPatrick, that he has not allowed Lever to tell more of his own story by means of his letters, which are doubtless numerous enough, extending to several hundreds. But the truth is, some of Lever's letters do not tell his story at all. Letter writing is, in fact, a lost art; it died out with franks and double postages. Lever belonged to the more recent generation of postage stamps and telegrams, that have brought with it that curt mode of correspondence fashioned on the models of the rule of three, or the multiplication table. True it is that, "when an epistle cost a shilling, people used to make it worth a guinea, now that it costs a penny, it is seldom worth a cent." Our biographer has expended considerable labour in bringing before his readers much information connected with Lever's school and college days. We think he has acted wisely and well, for in few cases could it be so safely said that the boy is father to the man as in that of Lever. He took by a sort of general consent the first place amongst his fellows at school and college, where the object to be obtained was fun, frolic, adventure, amusement, or what is called in Ireland devilment, but we grieve to say to the neglect of more important matters. Lever's father, an architect and builder of ample means, placed him at an early age in an excellent school in Dublin, transferring him from time to time to others of a higher grade, and finally to the University where he took his A.B. degree in 1827. He passed without discredit through school and college, but, as he expressed himself in reference to the latter institutions, he brought little into Trinity and he took nothing out. In truth, human beings

were his books. He never took the book by the cover; but dipped pleasantly in, and invariably found value where a more superficial inspector would have turned away with contempt. His fellow men he read by the light of a keen observation seldom surpassed, and with a power of assimilation sometimes startling. "Don't," said a schoolfellow of Lever's, still living, "don't let slip a word of this to Lever. He will suck your brains, without leaving you a word, and make them more like his brains

than yours." But, though Lever learned little at school or college, he acquired a great deal elsewhere from professors of a looser philosophy. The first of these men whom we may facetiously style" tutors," was named Hewetson Nixon, of a good Kilkenny family, who, though born blind, was a successful horse-dealer and agriculturist. He was, as we well remember, a bold rider, hunted his own hounds, and wrote and sang songs so popular as to be printed in ballads, which were sold for a halfpenny, and chanted at fairs and markets. With this worthy Lever formed an alliance. They wrote doggrel in joint account, lampooned their neighbours, and turned into ridicule all who had not taste enough to admire the Brownsbarn harriers. The second of Lever's social "tutors " was John Ottiwell, whose family lived at Beresford-place, Dublin, within a short distance of Lever's father. Ottiwell was a sort of Admirable Crichton in his way, and somewhat older than Lever, who looked up to him as a marvel of genius. He wrote verses sentimental and humorous, ventriloquised, rode, jumped, swam, altered his features, contracted his stature, and (it was whispered) made a Rope of Sand, and even raised_the devil. He was, as the late Rev.

John Lever always declared, and many believed, the original of Frank Webber in "Charles O'Malley." To enact the part of "Judy Macan" in Lever's novel was no doubt beyond even Ottiwell's marvellous powers of transformation, for he was harsh featured; 'but to Lever this was no stumbling-block, for, if he could not suit the story to the man, he could suit the man to the story. The third "tutor" was the Rev. W. H. Maxwell, author of "Wild Sports of the West," with whom Lever became intimate in the north of Ireland during his dispensary days. "Prebendary of Balla, thou art a wag," exclaimed O'Connell in a public letter addressed to him. There is a remarkable resemblance between Maxwell and Lever, not only in character and manner of life, but in the actors they place upon the stage in several of their works, which in many instances are suggestive of imitation. Lever and Maxwell concocted together practical jokes which set the half of Ulster by the ears, and convulsed with laughter the other. At the feet of these pleasant Gamaliels Lever sat, no inattentive listener to the very varied experiences of his instructors in things high and low, made no doubt agreeable to the ear by the wit and humour wherewith their confessions were garnished. Of Lever's conversational ability, on which a good deal of his local fame rests, our biographer gives us many interesting specimens. Words of fun, of wit, and of wisdom flowed freely from his lips in those social gatherings which he loved so well, and they lose nothing in the animated narrative of Dr. FitzPatrick. But there was a side to Lever's character which the public never saw. His high spirits were always followed by a reaction; the more furious the fun was, and the longer it continued, the more certain

and the deeper was the depression, and the more difficult it was to rouse him out of it. This, it will probably be said, is the common lot of humanity, where good and evil contrive to balance each other. We have heard the objection made that Lever is sometimes represented as a spendthrift, but Dr. FitzPatrick was not writing-as he once did the life of the ascetic Bishop Doyle; nor was he called upon to take a leaf from Canon Farrar in his recent valuable work on the Apostle Paul. Nevertheless, it would appear, even from Dr. FitzPatrick's showing, that Lever always contrived to pay his way, and to make, with grace, a modest provision for his family. For Lever's wanderings and ponderings in many lands, his adventures as a collegian, a bursch, a ballad singer, a medical student, a litterateur, a practical joker, a physician, a magazine editor, a gamester, a cosmopolite, a consul, and a tabletalker, we must refer our readers to the views furnished by Dr. FitzPatrick. Through that big telescope will also be got glimpses of Lever as a masquerader, a dancer, a militia officer, an equestrian evolutionist, a charioteer, an amateur player, a poet, a journalist, an opium eater, a pugilist in gloves, and an expert fencer! Sometimes "the telescope " becomes quite a kaleidoscope of striking and conglomerated conglomerated particles more mechanical than artistic. The concluding chapters awaken conflicting emotions. Though interspersed with bright ana, they are for the most part the melancholy record of family and other misfortunes, which fell heavily on Lever, when with broken health and broken spirits he was badly able to bear them. His only son, of whose future career his hopes were high, died suddenly. His wife, who had given him near forty years of

domestic happiness, and to whom he was more like a lover than a husband, was wrenched from his side by a merciless disease marked by excruciating torture. Meantime the health of the strong man succumbed; his constitution became shattered under repeated attacks of illness; his powers began to fail him, and even his right hand, he

declared, had lost its cunning. He died, as Dickens and Thackeray died, in his sleep, parting with many in love and affection, with all in peace and charity. Dr. FitzPatrick's picture of a chequered life -coloured with the unfading tints of genius-cannot fail to arrest attention.