said I.

"'Don't you see that?' said he, pointing to something black which floated
from a pole at the opposite side of the river.

"'Yes; what is it?'

"'It's his coat they've put upon an oar, to show the people he's
killed--that's all. Every man here's his tenant; and look there! they're
not giving us much doubt as to their intentions.'

"Here a tremendous yell burst forth from the mass of people along the
shore, which, rising to a terrific cry, sank gradually down to a 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 ring, and set up as a dandy. Even then he
was in love with the young lady whom he married in the end. At a fight
with boys of another school, he and a friend placed a mine under the