Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/144

 LEVER, CHARLES JAMES (1806–1872), novelist, second son of James Lever, was born in Dublin, 31 Aug. 1806. Strangely enough in the case of a writer so characteristically Irish, his ancestry was entirely English on the paternal side, his father, a builder with some pretensions to rank as an architect, and a nephew of Sir Ashton Lever [q. v.], having come to Ireland from Manchester. From him Lever appears to have inherited his gift of vivid story-telling. His mother, Julia (originally Judith) Candler, was also of English descent. Lever, who in boyhood, as in manhood, was lively, ready, and full of fun, received a rather scrambling kind of education at various private schools, and in October 1822 entered Trinity College, Dublin, where, though always well conducted, he by no means distinguished himself as a student. He did not graduate until 1827, a delay which may be accounted for by the fact, if fact it be, that he went out to Quebec in charge of an emigrant ship in 1824; but such an interruption of his college career seems improbable, nor could he have had the requisite qualification. It is more likely that the voyage took place in 1829, when he is known on his own authority to have visited Canada. He had already, in 1828, travelled in Holland and Germany, spending some considerable time at Göttingen, where he studied medicine and imbibed a taste for German student-life, some of whose customs he afterwards endeavoured to acclimatise in Ireland. On his return to Dublin in 1830 he continued the study of medicine at Stevens's Hospital and the Medico-Chirurgical School, but failed to pass his examination. He nevertheless obtained the degree of bachelor of medicine from Trinity College at midsummer, 1831, and successively held appointments under the board of health at Kilkee, Clare, and Portstewart, Giant's Causeway. The cholera was then in the land, and the board was probably not very particular. In 1833 he lost both parents, and either contracted or avowed marriage with Miss Catherine Baker, an early friend of his youth. To this union his father had been strongly opposed. The lady had little or no means, and although Lever had inherited half of his father's not inconsiderable property, and seems to have enjoyed a fair practice at Portstewart, want of economy and heavy losses at cards soon brought his affairs into a very embarrassed condition. He began to turn his attention to literature as a resource. He had already contributed to the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ then recently established, and in February 1837 he achieved his first, and perhaps his greatest, literary success, with the first instalment in that magazine of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’ Subsequent numbers only deepened the impression, but just as Lever's position seemed assured he forsook Ireland for Brussels in 1840, on an invitation from Sir John Crampton, secretary to the British embassy in Belgium. He seems to have thought that this patronage justified his description of himself as physician to the embassy, which he never was. He nevertheless obtained good practice and an entry to the best society, while his pen was exceedingly active, ‘Harry Lorrequer’ being immediately followed by ‘Charles O'Malley,’ which also first appeared in the ‘Dublin Magazine’ for 1840, and proved the most popular of all his works, and this by ‘Jack Hinton the Guardsman’ in 1843. These works are artless and almost formless; the influence of Maxwell is plainly discernible in them, and they are said to have owed something of their inspiration to McGlashan, the shrewd manager of the ‘Dublin University Magazine.’ But Lever's early novels display his best qualities at their best—his animal spirits and rollicking glee, his copious and effective anecdote, his power of vigorous, though by no means subtle, delineation of character within the range of his own experience.

Despite their imperfections, Lever's early writings made the fortune of the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ and in April 1842 he returned to Dublin on accepting an invitation to become its editor, thus definitively abandoning medicine for literature. He greatly improved the staff of contributors to the magazine, and wrote for it one of his most characteristic novels, ‘Tom Burke of Ours,’ 1844. ‘Arthur O'Leary,’ 1844, followed. But Lever never felt very comfortable in his editorial chair. Politics could not be excluded, but they could not be introduced without serious offence to many, and from this and other causes Lever found himself exposed to a series of irritating squabbles, which tried his temper more severely than they need have done. He thought it necessary on one occasion to proceed to London to challenge Samuel Carter Hall [q. v.], and another time he was himself challenged by Dr. Kenealy, whose contributions he had been obliged to purge of much libellous matter. His card-playing also kept him poor, although it is asserted that he could and did discharge every debt. The most powerful cause, however, to drive him from Dublin was the danger he ran of absolute literary dearth. When confined to his editorial duties, he could no longer go about observing men and storing his memory with anecdote. His next considerable work, ‘The O'Donoghue,’ 1845, a