For a time Charles Lever edited the _Dublin University Magazine_, then a coruscation of all that was brilliant in literature. He resided at the village of Templeogue, situated in the lap of the Dublin mountains, with Sugar Loaf at one extremity, and Mount Pelier, with its ruined castle renowned for the orgies of the infamously-celebrated “Hell-fire Club,” at the other. Templeogue Lodge was the Mecca towards which all “choice spirits” devoutly turned, and the wit, repartee, song, jest, and story circulated within its walls made the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ but dull affairs in comparison. “One little room rises to recollection, with its quaint old sideboard of carved oak, its dark-brown cabinets, curiously sculptured, its heavy old brocade curtains, and all its queer devices of knick-knackery, where such meetings were once held, and where, throwing off the cares of life—shut out from them, as it were, by the massive folds of the heavy drapery across the door—we talked in all the fearless freedom of old friendship.” There are a few still surviving who will recognize that room, and recall with a throb of painful pleasure the nights at the little lodge at Templeogue. Lever was fond of portraying banished heroes, misanthropes—men who had dug their own graves, or, overtaken by some whirlwind of misfortune, “gave signs that all was lost.” The character of Lord Glencore is admirably drawn, and his life of torture in his mad cry for vengeance fearfully vivid. _Luttrell of Arran_ is the story of a disappointed life, from out of which springs a bright flower of maidenhood—Kate, one of Lever’s most charming creations. Again, we have the _Knight of Gwynne_, over whose gentle head wave after wave of hard fortune pitilessly breaks, and, driven from the lordly home of his ancestors to a sheeling by the sad sea-wave, he is as cheerful in adversity as he was noble in prosperity. The portrait of the fire-eating Bagenal Daly is not overdrawn, and the introduction of Freeny the robber, although highly melodramatic, is not only possible but probable. Freeny’s “character” stood remarkably high. He would rob a rich miser to save a poor family from starvation, and his word was as good as his bond; ‘98 turned many a man upon the king’s highway who, but for being “out,” would have lived respecting and respected. The _Martins of Cro’ Martin_ is another ghastly narrative of the wreck and ruin of a proud old Irish race. It is “an owre true” story. A few miles outside of the town of Galway, on the road to Oughterard, stand two gaunt pillars surmounted by granite globes. The gates have disappeared, as also the armorial bearings; but this was formerly the entrance to Ballinahinch, the seat of the “ould, anshint” Martins, and from that gate to Ballinahinch Castle was a drive of forty Irish miles. The castle, situated in one of the loneliest and loveliest valleys in Connemara, was maintained in a style of regal magnificence, the stables, marble-stalled, affording accommodation for