* Alexander Spencer managed all Lever’s business affairs in
Dublin. The loan Mrs Lever refers to here is a loan upon
“Moatfield,” which property her husband was loath to sell
outright: it enshrined pleasant memories. In the days of
Lever’s wooing, the garden of Moatfield had furnished many a
bouquet for Miss Baker.—E. D.
A letter from Lever, dated April 5, reached Spencer shortly after the receipt of Mrs Lever’s note.
“Will you send by this post a few lines to my wife,” the writer asks, “and say you have just heard from me, and that I hope to leave this [Brussels] on Saturday at farthest, and probably will come home by Belfast if I miss the Derry steamer on Tuesday, which would pass my door on Wednesday,—this is as near as I can say? You must send me any money you can when I reach Portstewart, to pay my small debts, as I shall possibly leave a week after my arrival. Let Kate know this, and say I would write to her, but wrote last Sunday by Mr Kane. I am greatly fagged and fretted by the delays and anxieties of my position.”
The same day that he wrote to Spencer he forwarded a letter to M’Glashan:—
“My dear Sir,—The permit to practise is a matter so difficult to obtain, that in fact every English physician has been deterred from trying Brussels for that one and sole cause, and I have come here only to discover that there is a great opening for a fairly qualified and well introduced man,—the others who have been here for several years (before any permit was necessary) being underbred and uneducated men, and unfit for anything but second-class apothecary practice. But still the right to practise, even among the English, is denied to all, except on passing an examination before a jury d’examen des médecins, all interested in the rejection, and only anxious to make Brussels a close borough for themselves and their friends. So stand the affairs: and although I am appointed physician to the Embassy, and am this instant in personal attendance on the Ambassador, I have no right, properly speaking, to practise, nor is it likely that I shall obtain it. However, unpleasant as this undoubtedly is, I find that by the protection of my Ambassador, and the favour of the Government,—who are through his kind and most unwearied endeavour to serve me, my friends,—I may continue to exercise les droits d’un médecin, if not sans peur, at least sans reproche; and if they were to proceed legally against me, the king will interfere and remit my fine; at least so they tell me, and at last, if the persecution should continue, I have only to study for a month and obtain a Louvain degree, which settles all difficulties by one stroke. As it is, I am here in good practice with bad pay. They say £600 a-year can be made. I do not believe it; but I think £400 might, and as everything is moderate, except rent and taxes, a man could do very comfortably on that I intend leaving this on Friday next to bring over my wife and weans, and settle at once.
“My patients here are all the first people,—Lord Stafford, Lady Faulkner, &c., among the number,—and all express a desire to keep me and serve my interests. In a word, I never met more kind offers, nor have I ever witnessed a fairer prospect, to the extent it offers, of success.
“I must raise a little money to furnish a house and bring over my family; and if you would put me on the way to obtain £200 or £250, I would not sell Moatfield. Otherwise I shall do so, as I have no time to lose. My step does not admit of delay, and when I reach home I must leave for Brussels almost immediately,—the opening is such that some one must fill it at once.”
Lever set out from Portstewart in the first week of May 1837.