CHARLES LEVER: HIS BOOKS, ADVENTURES AND MISFORTUNES



Surely it is a pleasant thing that there are books, like other
enjoyments, for all ages. You would not have a boy prefer whist to
fives, nor tobacco to toffee, nor Tolstoi to Charles Lever. The
ancients reckoned Tyrtaecus a fine poet, not that he was
particularly melodious or reflective, but that he gave men heart to
fight for their country. Charles Lever has done as much. In his
biography, by Mr. Fitzpatrick, it is told that a widow lady had but
one son, and for him she obtained an appointment at Woolwich. The
boy was timid and nervous, and she fancied that she must find for
him some other profession--perhaps that of literature. But he one
day chanced on Lever's novels, and they put so much heart into him
that his character quite altered, and he became the bravest of the
brave.

Lever may not do as much for every one, but he does teach contempt
of danger, or rather, delight in it: a gay, spontaneous, boyish
kind of courage--Irish courage at its best. We may get more good
from that than harm from all his tales of much punch and many
drinking bouts. These are no longer in fashion and are not very gay
reading, perhaps, but his stories and songs, his duels and battles
and hunting scenes are as merry and as good as ever. Wild as they
seem in the reading, they are not far from the truth, as may be
gathered out of "Barrington's Memoirs," and their tales of the
reckless Irish life some eighty years ago.