low wailing, then rose and fell several times, as the Irish death-
cry filled the air, and rose to heaven, as if imploring vengeance on
a murderer."

Passages like this, and that which follows--the dangerous voyage
through the storm on the flooded Shannon, and through the reefs--are
what Mr. Thackeray may have had in his mind when he spoke of Lever's
underlying melancholy. Like other men with very high spirits, he
had hours of gloom, and the sadness and the thoughtfulness that were
in him came forth then and informed his later books. These are far
more carefully written, far more cunningly constructed, than the old
chapters written from month to month as the fit took him, with no
more plan or premeditation than "Pickwick." But it is the early
stories that we remember, and that he lives by--the pages thrown off
at a heat, when he was a lively doctor with few patients, and was
not over-attentive to them. These were the days of Harry Lorrequer
and Tom Burke; characters that ran away with him, and took their own
path through a merry world of diversion. Like the knights in Sir
Thomas Malory, these heroes "ride at adventure," ride amazing horses
that dread no leap, be it an Irish stone wall on a mountain crest,
or be it the bayonets of a French square.

Mr. Lever's biographer has not been wholly successful in pleasing
the critics, and he does not seem to affect very critical airs
himself, but he tells a straightforward tale. The life of Charles
Lever is the natural commentary on his novels. He was born at
Dublin in 1806, the son of a builder or architect. At school he was
very much flogged, and the odds are that he deserved these
attentions, for he had high spirits beyond the patience of dominies.
Handsome, merry and clever, he read novels in school hours, wore a