How much dust
there is in it to how few pearls! He did not return MSS. punctually
and politely. The office cat could edit the volunteered
contributions of many a magazine, but Lever was even more casual and
careless than an experienced office cat. He grew crabbed, and tried
to quarrel with Mr. Thackeray for that delightful parody "Phil
Fogarty," nearly as good as a genuine story by Lever.
Beset by critics, burlesqued by his friend, he changed his style
(Mr. Fitzpatrick tells us) and became more sober--and not so
entertaining. He actually published a criticism of Beyle, of
Stendhal, that psychological prig, the darling of culture and of M.
Paul Bourget. Harry Lorrequer on Stendhal!--it beggars belief. He
nearly fought a duel with the gentleman who is said to have
suggested Mr. Pecksniff to Dickens! Yet they call his early novels
improbable. Nothing could be less plausible than a combat between
Harry Lorrequer and a gentleman who, even remotely, resembled the
father of Cherry and Merry.
Lever went abroad again, and in Florence or the Baths of Lucca, in
Trieste or Spezia, he passed the rest of his life. He saw the
Italian revolution of 1848, and it added to his melancholy. This is
plain from one of his novels with a curious history--"Con Cregan."
He wrote it at the same time as "The Daltons," and he did not sign
it. The reviewers praised "Con Cregan" at the expense of the signed
work, rejoicing that Lever, as "The Daltons" proved, was exhausted,
and that a new Irish author, the author of "Con Cregan," was coming
to eclipse him.
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