ground occupied by the enemy, and blew them, more or less, into the air.
Many an eyebrow was singed off on that fatal day, when, for the only
time, this romancer of the wars "smelled powder." He afterwards pleaded
for his party before the worthy police magistrate, and showed great
promise as a barrister. At Trinity College, Dublin, he was full of his
fun, made ballads, sang them through the streets in disguise (like
Fergusson, the Scottish poet), and one night collected thirty shillings
in coppers.

The original of Frank Webber, in "Charles O'Malley," was a chum of his,
and he took part in the wonderful practical jokes which he has made
immortal in that novel.

From Trinity College, Dublin, Lever went to Gottingen, where he found fun
and fighting enough among the German students. From that hour he became
a citizen of the world, or, at least, of Europe, and perhaps, like the
prophets, was most honoured when out of his own country. He returned to
Dublin and took his degree in medicine, after playing a famous practical
joke. A certain medical professor was wont to lecture in bed. One night
he left town unexpectedly. Lever, by chance, came early to lecture,
found the Professor absent, slipped into his bed, put on his nightcap,
and took the class himself. On another day he was standing outside the
Foundling Hospital with a friend, a small man. Now, a kind of stone
cradle for foundlings was built outside the door, and, when a baby was
placed therein, a bell rang. Lever lifted up his friend, popped him into
the cradle, and had the joy of seeing the promising infant picked out by
the porter.

It seems a queer education for a man of letters; but, like Sir Walter
Scott when revelling in Liddesdale, he "was making himself all the time."
He was collecting myriads of odd experiences and treasures of anecdotes;
he was learning to know men of all sorts; and later, as a country doctor,
he had experiences of mess tables, of hunting, and of all the ways of his
remarkable countrymen. When cholera visited his district he stuck to his
work like a man of heart and courage. But the usual tasks of a country
doctor wearied him; he neglected them, he became unpopular with the
authorities, he married his first love and returned to Brussels, where he
practised as a physician. He had already begun his first notable book,
"Harry Lorrequer," in the _University Magazine_. It is merely a string
of Irish and other stories, good, bad, and