H L . IRISH WITS AND WORTHIES; INCLUDING DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES, WITH GLIMPSES OF STIRRING SCENES SINCE 1770. BY W. J. FITZ-PATEICK, LL.D., J.P., Biographer of Bishop Doyle, Lord Cloncurry, Lady Morgan ; and Author of "The Sham Squire," " Ireland Before the Union," etc. DUBLIN : JAMES DUFFY, SONS, & CO., 15 WELLINGTON-QUAY, AND 32 PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON. 1S73. 4*' ■ " ' TO THOMAS CARLYLE, HISTORIAN OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND BIOGRAPHER OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. Dear Sir, In that walk we had last summer, when you were kind enough to be my companion, I was so struck by your gentle liberality of mind and knowledge of Irish topics, based on a personal acquaintance with its soil and sons, that I venture to hope this little book, not- withstanding its shortcomings, may not prove wholly distasteful to you. More I shall not say here ; for, knowing how sensitively you recoil from praise, I re- frain from dilating on the impression which your writings have produced on the world. Allow me, however, to express my appreciation of your kindness in permitting me to inscribe your name on this page ; and believe me to be yours faithfully and obliged, W. J. FITZ-PATKICK. Christmas, 1872. PREFACE. A book of gossipping history, of which the scenes are laid as much in Italy as in Ireland, ought, perhaps, to find general readers. The principal figure introduced is the Eev. Dr. Lanigan, the learned ecclesiastical historian. In some earlier chapters he is but indis- tinctly seen pushing his way through the throng of his times. We see more of him as he comes nearer to us, and when his progress, from advancing years, is more slow. " The life of a man of letters," says Goldsmith, " is rarely marked by adventure." Dr. Lanigan's career comes somewhat within this rule. "With the exception of half-a-dozen incidents, it was uneventful ; and, en- couraged by Gibbon's counsel, I have very frequently "taken refuge in circumjacent history." This swelled so largely beneath my hand that in revising the sheets I cancelled without stint. Some parts may appear rather capriciously put together, but previous works of mine show that a more artistic arrangement could, if desired, be readily followed. Dr. Lanigan having, from his collegiate and studious pursuits, occupied a much smaller space in the public eye than the patriotic prelate, Dr. Doyle, I had more room on the canvas of the present picture for the drapery of family tradition than I found myself at vi PREFACE. liberty to introduce round " J. K. L." In sketching the present portrait I have dwelt longer than I should otherwise have done on a number of small traits, chiefly in illustration of that protracted period of suffering which made so much of his later life a heavy cross. Nor is this, after all, perhaps, much to be regretted. The success of Guido's "Ecce Homo" is not due to the free dashes which largely constitute the strength of an artistic study, but to a multitude of minute touches, each unimportant in itself, yet when viewed collectively impart fidelity, vitality, and value to the picture. If in the following pages John Lanigan is generally found surrounded by wits and worthies, rather than the isolated figure more in accordance with stereotyped biography, it is right to say that I had before me the encouraging example of a book warmly praised by Brougham, " Curran and his Contemporaries," in which Curran is often lost sight of for half-a-dozen pages at a time. Without some arrangement of this sort their memory would soon become wholly lost ; for, although all noted men, many were not of suffi- cient mark to claim separate biographies. If any reader should object to my frequent poetical citations, he would do well to remember that this ex- ample has been set by great classical historians, from the entertaining Plutarch to the grave Polybius. The innovating idea of heading historic chapters with apt quotations is, however, entirely my own. PREFACE. vii In the earlier part many foot-notes appear, detract- ing, probably, from the artistic effect of the page. But it is some consolation that they are far less full than in Mitchelet's life of Luther, which has been pro- nounced a model of biographic composition. Be this as it may, I gradually relinquished them altogether, or welded their strength into the text. If Dr. Lanigan had errors — and that he had any has yet to be shown — I disclaim any attempt to justify them. I have no sympathy with his mistakes, if any ; but I have every sympathy with his sufferings, his patriotism, his genius, his achievements, his aspi- rations. I believe there is internal evidence in one page only to show that these sheets were printed off several months ago, though, for reasons uninteresting to ex- plain, their publication was deferred. I allude to a passage in which poor Charles Lever is spken of as still alive. The delay in question was at least useful in confirming the accuracy of some anecdotes intro- duced. For instance, I did not at first know who the two professors were who visited Dr. Crowley after he had left the Catholic Church and become a parson (p. 93) ; but inquiries since instituted at Maynooth show that Dr. Crolly, afterwards Primate, was one, and Dr. Denvir, afterwards Bishop of Down, the other. 75 Pembroke-road, Dublin. 15th December, 1872. W. J. F, LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. St. Paul's, London ... ... ... 22 Old Ligthouse in Coek Harbour W. Willes 68 Blarney Castle ... A. Nicholl, A.B.H.A. 75 Cahir Castle Rock of Cashel Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin The City of the Kings in Decay Seven Churches, Glendalough Clonmacnoise Old Cross at Finglas Castle in Ruins Marble Slab in Finglas Chapel Monument to Dr. Lanigan G. Du Noyer 76 J. S. Prout 79 F. G. Sargent 83 J. S. Prout 151 G. Bartlett 227 ... A Nicholl 244 H. O'Neill 256 ... 280 G. D. Hanlon 301 G* D. Hanlon 346 IRISH WITS AND WORTHIES; INCLUDING DR. LAMGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. CHAPTEE I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD IN CASHEL. " See the space within yon dwelling, 'Tis the cold blank space of death ; 'Twas the banshee's voice came swelling Slowly o'er the midnight heath. Keeners, let your song not falter — He was as the hawthorn fair. Lowly at the Virgin's altar Will his kinsfolk kneel in prayer. " Crofton Croker. John Lanisan, the eminent ecclesiastical historian of Ireland, was born in the city of Cashel, two houses from the entrance gate of the Protestant archiepiscopal palace, and within the broad shadow of the Eock of Cashel, a.d. 1758. Mr. Henebry Green, in an inte- resting pamphlet of fifteen pages, devoted to a sketch of Dr. Lanigan, published at Cincinnati, U.S., ten years ago, incorrectly assigns a house in " antique Chapel-lane' ' as the natal site ; but we have been at some pains to trace and identify the spot. The day or even month of his birth, however, is not known, as the baptismal registries of Cashel do not date back further than the close of the last century, owing to the more than ordinary severity of the penal code in Munster, of the extent of which, at one period, an idea may be formed from the fact that Dr. O'Hurly, Archbishop of Cashel, because he refused to acknowledge the royal supremacv and repudiate the Pope's, was tortured on 1 2 WITS AND WORTHIES I a gridiron, and finally hanged.* Numerous other instances of greater or less severity could be cited. The lash had ceased to smart and the bludgeon had ceased to smite, but the marks of both still lay upon the Irish Catholic priest, when John Lanigan first drew breath in the middle of the eighteenth century. The sept from which he sprang w T as an ancient one. According to high authority, the Lanigans of the county Tipperary are the O'Longachains of Hy- Coonagh, near Crotta-cliach — the Galtee Moun- tains — and of the same race as the O'Dwyers.f * The late Dr. O'Renehan, President of Mnynooth College, a native of the diocese of Cashel, and an indefatigable collector of rare historic documents, has given a startling account of Dr. O'Hurly's sufferings : " The holy prelate was then bound to the trunk of a large tree, with his hands and feet chained, and his legs forced into long leather boots reaching up to the knees, as they used to be worn then. The boots were filled with salt, butter, oil, hemp, and pitch ; and the martyr's body was stretched on an iron grate over a fire and cruelly tortured for more than an hour. The pitch, oil, and other materials boiled over, the skin was torn off the feet, and even large pieces of flesh, so as to leave the bones quite bare." But the de- scription is too painful to pursue to its climax. Those desirous of learning the most accurate account of the execution will find it supplied by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, M.R.i.A., who unshrouded the harrowing detail from original documents deposited in the State Paper Office. t Letter from the late John O'Donovan, LL.D., to the author, 13th July, 1860. As every waif and stray of this great Irishman is interesting, a more extended extract from this letter may be given: " My Dear Friend — With respect to the origin of the family of Lanigan, I had once been of opinion that they are the 0' Flanagans of Kinel-Arga in Ely O'Carroll — that is, I thought that O'Lanigain was put for O'Flanagain by the aspiration of the f, as in O'Lyn for O'Flyn. But I have latterly changed my idea on this subject, for my opinion now is that the Lanig;,ns of the county of Tipperary are the O'Longachains of Hy-Coonagh, near Crotta-cHach — the Galtee Mountains — of the same race as the O'Dwyers. We, of the south of the ancient Ossory, always call the Lanigans by the strange name of O' Luinyeachain, which certainly is not O'Flanagan ; but I can only Speculate on its probable origin. The Rev. Mr. Fitzgerald, P.P. of Ballingarry, is a good Irish scholar, and very fond of Irish historical re- searches, and will, I feel confident, communicate to you all he knows about the Lanigans of Tipperary." Our late friend, Dr. Fitzgerald, to whom Dr. O'Donovan referred us, had no information to impart, although diocesan traditions were DR. LANIGAX, HIS LIFE AXD TIMES. 3 The name is also occasionally found among our Cambrian neighbours with an extra 1, as in Llewellyn ; and, without going so far as to assert that some trace of the former influence of the sept presents itself in the town of Llanigan, Brecnockshire, South "Wales, the fact may be mentioned at least as a coincidence.* But Tipperary has always been the nursery of their race, and traces of their former possessions in that fine county may be found in " the Cross of Bally - lanigan," near Mullinahone, and the valuable estate adjacent, now owned by Mrs. Pennyfeather, Bally- lanigan House. John Lanigan's father and mother had sixteen children, of whom John was the eldest, and Mrs. Anne Kennedy, who died at Clonmel 30th October, 1860, was the youngest.! Mary Anne Dorkan, of Beaks- town, Holycross, the mother of Dr. Lanigan, is tradi- tionally described as a very superior woman, whose mind was as original as her appearance was beautiful. Her brother, a person of good family, possessed such eminently engaging social qualities that he acquired, through the length and breadth of Tipperary, the sobriquet, " Silver-tongue of the Golden Yale." The father of our historian was a native of Dundrum, i. e. the fort on the hill, or as it is sometimes styled, Ballin- in genera! very full with him. We give his reply, that the suhsequent success of oar r searches may prove the more welcome. Dr. Fitzgerald writes : " 1 cannot say that I have any information that could be of use in Dr. Lanigan's biography. I have often inquired about him, and with little success. Even in Cashel the clergy there know very little of his history. A Mr. Lanigan, the present proprietor of Castle Fogarty, and John Lanigan, M.P. for the borough of Cashel, are the most respectable of the name in this county. Both the P.P. of Kil- cummin and his curate are of the name, but they know no facts what- ever appertaining t > the ecclesiastical historian'slife." * Historians record that when the Romans had, after four centuries, relinquished Britain, it became exposed to the inroads of the Picts and the Scots on the north ; while the west — Wales — was invaded by the Irish. t Dr. Lanigan had four sisters— Mary, Catherine, Hobanna, and Anne. Catherine was considered the belle of Cashel. 4 WITS AND WORTHIES I temple — a hamlet situated in the heart of the Golden Vale. Sir Thomas Maude, lord of the manor, and uncle of the present Viscount Hawarden, offered to edu- cate John and Hugh, the sons of Thomas Lanigan ; but the latter, fearing that their conversion to Protest- antism was the baronet's ulterior object, declined the proposal. The result, it is said, of this independent assertion of principle was the dispossession, by Sir Thomas Maude, of Thomas Lanigan's mother from her holding. Her once comfortable hearth was quenched ; the old woman, bowed by infirmity, was turned adrift on the world, and Lanigan and his family migrated to Cashel. It may be added, that the property held by the Maudes originally belonged to O'Longa- chain's race. To this worthy man might be applied the lines of Davis : " You're free to share his scanty meal, His plighted word he'll never vary ; In vain they tried with gold and steel To shake the faith of Tipperary." Thomas Lanigan, the father of our hero, had been intended for the suffering church of Ireland, and with that view had received a tolerably good classical education, preparatory to studying theology at Sala- manca. But circumstances of a family character need- less to enumerate here, led him at first to defer, and finally to relinquish the vocation. Taking prompt ad- vantage of a relaxation of the penal laws, he opened a school in Cashel, where he instructed his son John in the rudiments of general knowledge. " Although Mr. Thomas Lanigan was a very clever man,'' observes a member of the family, " he perceived he could not guide to thorough cultivation the high talents that were developing themselves in his son."* To perfect, therefore, what had been begun, he placed the boy under the preceptorial care of the Kev. * Letter of Mrs. Reany, Clonmel, Dr. Lanigan's grand-niece, 1865. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 5 Patrick Hare, a Protestant clergyman who for many years kept a seminary of considerable repute in Cashel, and who afterwards filled the office of Vicar- General in that diocese. As Hare was said to have had in early life abandoned the Eoman Catholic Church, to which his ancestry had clung with fidelity throughout a per- secuting period, Thomas Lanigan entertained scant re- spect for his principles, which were extremely illiberal ; but Hare's talents and acquirements, like those of the Eev. "William Phelan, another Tipperary convert to Protestantism, it was impossible not to recognize. There were no Catholic classical schools from which to choose, and the time in question was not one for fas- tidiousness. Hare liked Lanigan, and Lanigan was so broadly liberal in his views that, notwithstanding the parson's admitted weaknesses, the future priest made no dis- guise of a prepossession in his favour, even apart from the hereditary claims of the O'Hehirs to the respect of historic students. Mr. D' Alton, in his 6 ' King James' Irish Army List," notices, on the authority of the Four Masters and other sources, the once potential sept of O'Hehir in Clare, of whom the Lord of Magh-Adhair seems to have been chief. The parson who, in 1770, is found representing his race after having undergone some vicissitudes, was, beyond all question, a man of high attainments : he had distinguished himself in Trinity College, and his flourishing academy formed an oasis in the broad unlettered baronies of Eliocarty and Middlethird. His intellectual intercourse with Lani- gan — marred as we confess it was by eccentricity — nevertheless fed that thirst for university education and distinction which our scholar afterwards abun- dantly obtained in other lands.* * The Very Rev. Dean Kenny, P.P., V.G., Ennis, addressing us on the 13th July, 1871, writes : " Hare of Cashel, at whose school Ned Lysaght and Dr. Lanigan were educated, was, like Dr. Lucas, a Clare man. The patrimony of the Hare or O'Hehir family was rather 6 WITS AND WORTHIES : Sir Thomas Maude — whose cruel treatment of Thomas Lanigan is still remembered with a chill by the family of the latter — was what was designated in those sad days an active meritorious magistrate, and earned notoriety in hunting down the unfortunate Father Sheehy, afterwards hung, of whom we are reminded by Dr. Madden, that u his last place of refuge was in the house of a small farmer, a Protestant ramed Griffiths, adjoining the churchyard of Shandrahan, where his re- mains now lie. The windows of this house opened into the churchyard, and there Father Sheehy was con- cealed for three days, hid during the day in a vault in the latter place, and during the night in the house, when it was necessary to keep up a large fire, so be- numbed with cold he used to be when brought at night- fall from the place that was indeed his living tomb. The last service rendered to him at Clogheen was also by a Protestant."* Sir Thomas Maude was specially thanked for his exertions, but a more practical reward was conferred on him by his creation as Baron Montalt 18th July, 1766. These honours he did not long live to enjoy ; his robes of ermine having, in 1777, given large in the neighbourhood of Corofin. It passed into the grasping hands of the O'Briens during the penal laws. It was sold some years since at the sale of the property of the Marquis of Thomond. When I was P P. of Kilrush, I knew one of Hare's sisters, a parishioner of mine, for whom I was in the habit of receiving several remittances from her nephew, John Hare, an. attorney. She died in Kilrush, in 1828, at a very great age From the position of her chil- dren and of her husband, the O'Hehir family must be wealthy at the time of her marriage. My recollection of her account of her brother is, that he went to Trinity College, which he entered as a sizar. Being a good classical scholar, he in due course, ohta'ned college honours and distinction, and finally became a parson, being probably the first Protestant of his family. He had two valuable livings in the a chdiocese of Cashel, and wns, as you know, principal of the Abbey school in Tipperary. He had a son a Fellow of Trinity." * " United Irishmen," vol. i., p. 35, first edition. See also Curry's " Civil Wars." The humble Protestants of these days had, strange to say, greatly the advantage in point of worth over their more educated co-religionists. Moore's account of the poor Protestant barber, who honourably held in trust the estates of half the Catholic gentry of his county, will not be forgotten. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 7 place to the winding-sheet and black pall. Vicissitude in great family descent, as so strikingly exhibited by Sir Bernard Burke, is not more remarkable than the revolution in religious opinion which has marked some of the greatest houses. Thus, an illustration may perhaps be found in the case of the Rev. James Arthur Maude, a zealous Roman Catholic priest now officiating at the Oratory, Brompton. The persecuted soon followed the persecutor. Thomas Lanigan had not been very long in Cashel when serious illness struck him down ; medical aid was tried in vain— he gradually grew weaker. The banshee (said to follow his family) niqaned, as is stated, beneath his window ; sixteen children knelt beside his bed, swelling the sepulchral chorus of the litany for a soul departing. His spirit, fortified by the rites of the Church, passed into eternity ; and his black coffin, supported on white-scarfed shoulders, was borne to the tomb, followed by troops of kith and kin, whose weird-like keen, or funeral cry, with the deeply-intoned De Profundis of the assembled clergy, enhanced the picturesque effect of the cortege, which — winding its serpentine course up Cashel's Rock, and consigning its burden to the clay — then irregularly dis- solved. An unusually large family were made orphans by this event — which perhaps we have somewhat antici- pated ; but John bore up against the bereavement with the vigorous Christian philosophy of his nature. The anecdotes or traditions appertaining to this period of John Lanigan's life are few and unimportant. Some time after his removal to the school at Cashel, Mrs. Hare presented her husband with a little stranger, which the reverend sire, in the fulness of his delight, after having gratified the pupils of his eyes in ad- miring, bore into the school v oom for the edification of his pupils of another sort. " Young gentlemen," said he, as he dangled the squalling babe in his bony arms, " I 8 WITS AND WORTHIES : have to introduce you to a new scholar, hut I am sorry to say he has not as yet got a name." " Call the young Hare Leveret" exclaimed Lanigan, with a flash of that impulsive humour which in after-life occasion- ally characterized him. The schoolmaster was held in great awe, and Lanigan's daring joke amused the boys so much that for some time after he enjoyed the alliterative sobriquet of Leveret Lanigan.* * Mr. Hare subsequently undertook the cure of souls in a lucrative living, and received the ecclesiastical dignity of Vicar-General of the diocese. There are few now living qualified to describe his character- istics ; but in the following unpublished letter, addressed by Richard, first Earl of Donoghmore, to the late John Magee, we find Mr. Hare's idiosyncracies and political views forcibly depicted. The letter is dated 24th December, 1815, and was written in reply to a request from Mr. Magee that Lord Donoghmore, the uncompromising advocate of the Catholic Claims, would exert some influence with a view of inducing the Rev. Patrick Hare to abandon a criminal prosecution against Mr. Magee for having inserted in the Dublin Evening Post an article which had rather adversely criticised the reverend gentleman. " Our walks in politics have been so very different, " writes Lord Donogh- more — " indeed so diametrically in opposition to each other ; he is known to have in his composition so little of the milk of human nature, that I would almost doubt his capability to be moved to do a humane act of any sort. His children — the female part at least — he has turned out of doors ; and he still lives on, in despite of his advanced years, to plague his own family and his unfortunate parishioners a little longer, and to join, I am sorry to say, in the persecution against you." [Mr. Magee was at this time undergoing imprisonment in Newgate for having published an article which severely reviewed the viceregal administration of the Duke of Richmond.] " I am quite sure our feelings have been always so discordant upon all manner of subjects," concludes Lord Donoghmore, " that his vindictive feelings against you would be much more likely to be increased than softened by anything like an interposition on my part." The threatened law proceedings were, however, stayed — not through the intervention of friends, but through the interposition of a higher power. The follow- ing epitaph has been copied from his tomb : " Underneath, in the tomb of his ancestors, is deposited the body of the Rev. Patrick O'Hare, A. M., Rector of the Union of Athassal and Prebendary of Kilbragh, in the Diocese of Cashel, and for many years Vicar-General of said Diocese. He died in the City of Cashel, the 27th day of June, 1816, in the 85th year of his age." " Mellaghlan oge O'Hehir and More Hagan his wife" is an inscription on an older portion of the monument which is fixed in the wall, and seems to have been erected long anterior to the DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 9 In "pleasant Ned Lysaght," who was a contemporary with him at Mr. Hare's school,* John Lanigan found a kindred spirit so far as inherent talent was concerned, though in moral attributes they differed widely ; and, no doubt, many were the showers of sparks which fell from the clash of their hard hits and brilliant repartees. But Lanigan possessed a solidity of intellect and a steadiness in the pursuit of excellence w T hich the more convivial Lysaght, with all his talent, never could attain. It is therefore hardly surprising that Mr. Hare should, after duly testing the rare ability and application of his little pupil, have promoted him to the office of usher. " Indeed at the age of sixteen," observes Mrs. Eeany, " Thomas Lanigan was assured by Mr. Hare that his son's studies were finished." u All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and with due appreciation of the aphorism, John Lanigan, while yet a stripling, saw no harm in mingling in the guileless sports of the better class of peasantry ; and he has even been said to have treaded with dignified grace the mazes of the Irish reel ; but whether his sisters or other fair friends formed his partners on these occa- sions, tradition fails to state. A national poet, de- scribing the ideal Tipperary youth, sings : " Yet meet him in his cottage rude, Or dancing with the dark-haired Mary, You'd swear they knew no other mood But mirth and love in Tipperary." But this abandon, however applicable to Lysaght, was not altogether so to Lanigan. A higher and a holier aim now began to animate his heart ; he felt a voca- tion for the sacred ministry budding within him, and with genial care he fostered its growth, and avoided monument to the Rev. Patrick O'Hare. The remains of the late Purcell O'Gorman repose close by, and he is stated to have been descended from the O'Hare family. * Lysaght was educated at the school of the Rev. Patrick Hare, of Cashel. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1779. See Crofton Croker's " Popular Songs of Ireland," pp. 113, 114. 10 WITS AND WORTHIES : the rock on which his father's vocation had withered and died. " He the more readily embraced the eccle- siastical state," writes his grand-niece, " inasmuch as the penal laws of the period debarred Eoman Catholics from the learned professions, any one of which he could not fail to have adorned." From the letter of Lord Donoghmore which we have quoted, it may perhaps be inferred that Mr. and Mrs. Hare lived not very happily together ; but Lanigan was acquainted with other couples whose absence of con- nubial felicity was notoriously owing to the wayward temper of the wife ; and the result was, that with all due reverence for the holy state of matrimony, he failed to derive the most exalted idea of its invariable happiness. From these and other considerations, he seems to have selected a life of clerical celibacy without much struggle; and if, perchance, any witching form strove to beckon him backward during the hard pilgrimage of his sacer- dotal studies, he instantly subjugated it not so much by gloomy austerities, or the muscular repulses of a Kevin, as with the pleasant philosophy of Maucroix : " I would advise a man to pause Before he take a wife; Indeed, I own, I see no cause lie should not pause for life!" As he continued to act as usher in Mr. Hare's school for some time longer, his studious pursuits became daily more complicated and severe. With the hearty good humour, of which we have given a taste, Lanigan re- lieved the hard reading incidental to embracing the onerous and ascetic profession to which the was called. His pleasant and joyous disposition had made him a general favourite with both sexes of the circle in which he moved, but henceforth he was constrained to cut the acquaintance of the daughters of Tipperary, and betake himself to the staid companionship of the fathers ; and instead of studying the intricacies of the country dance, as in bygone days, he would perhaps have been found DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES* 11 devoting a share of his thoughts to David dancing with all his might before the ark, and to other abstruse pas- sages of the sacred volume. It is rather to be regretted that more is not known concerning the early school- days of Lanigan and Ly- saght— men who subsequently acquired, in different walks, so wide a celebrity. That ' ' pleasant Ned Ly- saght" was not studious, but preferred the composition of a poetical squib to a carefully-digested thesis or hypothesis, the character of the man justifies us in assuming ; and it is by no means improbable that while Lysaght was thinking of 66 Lovely Kate of Gar- navilla," carousing with the " Bates of Mallow," or marshalling through his brains, " Oh ! Love is the soul of a neat Irishman, He loves all that's lovely, loves all that he can, With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green,"* Lanigan, not less national but more solid, was musing on Bridget of Kildare and the Psalter of Cashel, |* or carolling the Hymn of St. Fechin : * Dehinc fait monachorura Dux (t P. iter trecentorum, Quos instruxit lege morum Murus contra vitia — amen. J, £ Mr. Bryan Kelly, now of Cashel, the nephew of John Lanigan, has some interesting traditions illus- trative of this period of the subsequent Doctor's life. He tells, as an instance of Lanigan's strength of sight when a boy, and of his singularly strong and romantic love for letters, that instead of feeling faagued from * All songs of Lysaght. f See Lanigan's " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. iii., chap, xxii., pp 348 to 361. X Ibid., chap, xvii., p. 46. During his schoolhoy days, John Lani- gan had frequently visited the nohle ruins in and around Cashel. He noted their architectural characteristics with care and acumen; so that he was enabled afterwards to trace resemblances in style between Cormac's Chapel and the Roman or Italian churches in Pavia, that were erected during the seventh, eighth, or ninth century. See Lanigan's "Eccl. Hist." chap, xxii., n. 62, p. 359. 12 WITS AND WORTHIES : the application of his attention and eyes to books throughout the day, he used to gather them under his arm at night, and seating himself upon the little chapel wall, in sight of the Kock of Cashel, would there re- sume their perusal by the pale light of the moon. This reminds us of the thirst for lore evinced by Erasmus, who, when studying for the Church, would read his books by the light of the oil-lamps in Amster- dam ; but happily Mr. Lanigan's act was not attributa- ble to the same cause. It is not improbable that the almost utter deprivation of sight which contributed to render the latter years of Dr. Lanigan's life a gloomy night, may be traced to the incautiously severe exercise of his eyes in early life. The anecdote of Lanigan fur- nished by his grand-nephew would not be a bad one for a national artist to delineate. The boy-student intent on his classical, mathematical, and historic books ; his face and person veiled and relieved in the chiar-osciiro of " pale moonlight, " with the ruinous towers, parapets, and grim tombs looming mistily before him. Or, perhaps, we should depict him placed on his elevated perch, with upturned gaze on the mild lumi- ous orb, or scanning the half-revealed beauties of scenes around in some fitful reverie, stolen from his severer studies, and perchance indulging in a soliloquy like this : Royal and saintly Cashel ! I would gaze Upon the wreck of thy departed powers Not in the dewy light of matin hours, Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze, But at the close of dim autumnal days. At such a time, methinks,. There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles A melancholy moral, such as sinks On the lone traveller's heart amid the piles Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand, Or Thebes half buried in the desert land."* Though his eyes may have eventually suffered, Mr. Lanigan's health was otherwise, no doubt, served by * The late Sir Aubrey de Vere. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 13 open-air study. The late venerable Dr. Sadlier, Pro- vost of Trinity College, practised it largely in his early boyhood, and attributed much of his subsequent health to the classical studies which he prosecuted on an eminence near Killeagh, where, stretched at full length on the grass, while his eyes took in a varied range of landscape and his lungs inhaled " draughts of vital air," his mind pursued the intricacies of science and cultivated the field of polite literature. CHAPTER II. PLEASANT NED LYSAGHT APPEARS, WHILE LANIGAN IS LOST SIGHT OF DURING HIS JOURNEY TO ROME. " I knew him, Horatio — a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. " Where he your jibes now ? your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar ?" Hamlet, Act iv., Scene i. Lanigan and Lysaght separated to pursue their re- spective walks — the guiding goal of the one St. Peter's, the other, St. Paul's ; the former to study canon, the latter civil law. Lanigan resolved to imitate, at a lowly distance, his divine Master, who, while yet a youth, disputed with the doctors in the Temple; Lysaght decided upon following the example of Burgh, Scott, and Yelverton, by studies and disputa- tions in the Temple of a more profane significance. But Lysaght possessed the indolence often found com- bined with high genius, and we fear that " eating his dinners" was the work most cordially performed by him in London. His friend, Sir Jonah Barrington, tells us that he attempted to practise at the English bar, but after a short experience declared that he had not law enough for the King's Bench, and was not dull enough for the Court of Chancery, and that before he could succeed at the Old Bailey he must shoot Garrow, 14 WITS AND WORTHIES : which, would he extremely disagreeable to him. He adds that Lysaght began life with little but his brains and his pedigree, but we question if he knew much of the antecedent history of his race — unless, perhaps, Lanigan informed him of it— including the fact that an ancestor of his, O'Brien,* defended his post valorously for lae seact, or seven days, and received in recogni- tion the name Lysaght — or, as it is often written in Irish, MacGrillisagh. No two paths could have diverged more widely than those of the two young Munstermen whose minds had just been fed in Cashel. While Lysaght embarked on a life of indolence, unbridled pleasure, and luxurious companionship with the muses, Lanigan selected for his labours the ranks of an ascetic priesthood, the society of the fathers, and the role of a hard-reading professor. The bard became a fast man, the priest a patient in- vestigator ; one sought to make his book in the sporting sense — the other in the historical. But Lysaght was unsuccessful in his bets, and some of the closing years of his life were passed within the sanctuary of Trinity College to avoid arrest from duns. As he himself sings : " Spending faster than it comes, Beating waiters, bailiffs, duns, Bacchus's true-begotten sons, Live the rakes of Mallow" — where, by the way, his own father died in search of health and pleasure. At last, overfed by the tables which he was asked to set in a roar, and overplied with the wine which was the parent of his best impromptus, Ned himself | sank * The patrimony of the O'Hehirs would seem to have been wrested from them by an ancestor of Lysaght. — Dr. Kenny's letter, p. 6 ante. tin our Memoir of Lady Morgan, p. 13, we introduced a poem of Lysaght's beginning, " The Muses met me once not very sober," and ending, " Me Tfaith they plied with wine." The character of the man is spelt by this alpha and omega. DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 15 to rest, sated by convivial pleasure, twenty years before the overworked Lanigan, who was, moreover, his senior. But analyse the career of the deliberate votary of plea- sure and that of any ordinary professor or priest, and the truth irresistibly asserts itself — that even apart from the moral element of serenity, the more ascetical life is, on the whole, the happier one. Overfeed a lamp, and it dies out from the very excess of its own aliment ; without hard work to relieve it, pleasure palls. An old . fable tells us that pleasure is a painted butterfly which may amuse in the pursuit, but if embraced with too much ardour, will perish in the enjoyment. Lysaght's life, and the transitory pleasure which it strove to grasp, expired together ; and the following elegy, which we rescue from an ephemeral print of the year 1809, shows how great a shock his premature death gave his friends. Place it in juxtaposition with that upon Lanigan which terminates the final chapter of this history, and still richer food for thought pre- sents itself : " Adieu, thou soul of jest, for e'er adieu ! Winged by thy wit, the fleeting moments flew; Raised by thy pun, convulsive laughter roared Round the wide circle of the festive board. Death's frigid hand has chilled that honest tongue, Whence Clare's or Grattan's mimic accents rung ; Nor jest nor jocund song one day could save Their gay possessor from the gloomy grave. Wit, patriot, virtue sank alive with him, And proved at length this life itself a whim." — Juvenis. Lysaght's alleged patriotism and virtue must be taken with some qualification. We fear he was with whatever side paid best for the hour, although no doubt some of his ablest lines were penned in denun- ciation of the Union — such as, " May God, in whose hand Is the lot of each land, Who rules over ocean and dry land, Inspire our good King From his presence to fling 111 advisers who'd ruin our Island. 16 WITS AND WORTHIES : Don't we feel 'tis our dear native Island? A fertile and fine little Island ! May Orange and Green No longer be seen Distained with the blood of our Island I" And again — " Each voice should resound through our Island, ' You're my neighbour, but, Bull, this is my land ! Nature's favourite spot, And I'd sooner be shot Than surrender the rights of our Island !' " This is patriotic enough, but it is unfortunately the* fact, as stated by Sir Jonah Barrington, who was deeply- learned in political scandals, that Lysaght received .£400 from Lord Castlereagh to turn his pen in praise of the Union. Sir Jonah was a determined opponent of that disastrous measure, though very loose in prin- ciple otherwise, and he tells us: "I sincerely wished him joy of the acquisition, and told him 6 if he found me a good chopping-block, he was heartily welcome to hack away as long as he could get anything by his butchery.' He shook me heartily by the hand, swore I was 6 a d — d good fellow/ and the next day took me at my word by lampooning me very sufficingly in a copy of verse entitled 6 The Devil in the Lantern V " It is to be presumed that Lysaght was more true to the daughters of Erin than to Erin herself, for in the piece quoted above he impressively sings : " The fair ones we prize Declare they despise Those who'd make it a slavish and vile land ; Be their smiles our reward, And we'll gallantly guard All the rights and delights of our Island — For oh ! 'tis a lovely green Island ! Bright beauties adorn our Island ! At St. Patrick's command Vipers quitted our land — But he's wanted again in our Island !"* * Until John Cornelius O'Callaghan, Esq., obtained a copy of these stirring lines, furnished from memory by a contemporary of Lysaght's, no printed version of them existed in any accessible form. DH. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 17 Sectarian prejudice ran high in those days of Ascen- dancy. Lysaght was a Protestant, but his early in- tercourse with Lanigan had largely liberalized his mind. He found the slanders of a Protestant press and profaned pulpit utterly refuted by the exemplary lives of the Catholics themselves. A virulent oppo- nent of Catholicism, the Eight Hon. George Ogle, publicly declared that " a Papist would swallow a false oath as easily as he would a poached egg." Lysaght called the attention of Mr. Coyle, a Catholic, to the words. A challenge and meeting were the result, and Lysaght acted as second. Four shots were exchanged without effect ; Coyle declared that he would not leave the ground till one or other fell. The affair, however, ended with an apologetic explanation that the words were meant to apply not to Catholics, but to rebels. Mr. Ogle might, perhaps, with as much candour have pleaded " poet's licence" in extenuation; he was a most accomplished poet, and wrote the beautiful songs of " Banna's Banks" and " Molly Asthore." He is traditionally described as an unrecognized son of King George II. Coyle' s challenge was among the first efforts made by the long down-trodden Catholics of Ireland to regain their feet, and to wrest the scourge from the grasp of their tormentors. Lysaght lived for little beyond poetry and pistols, wine and women; and ' ' the sermons and soda-water of the day after" seem to have had small effect in mending his ways — or his health, which soon began to break. His elegy records that he was very felicitous in playing upon words. It must have proved amusing enough to hear him and Lanigan trying to out-pun each other, as they are very likely to have done ; for the anecdotes furnished by the family of the latter show that he could do something in that line himself. It is to be regretted that Lysaght's jokes are not pre- served in any accessible repertory. A scarce magazine, the London and Dublin, for 1825, contains some re- i* 18 WITS AND WORTHIES : miniscences of him, but they fail to strike. One, as a sample, we give in as many words as the octogenarian writer occupies sentences in telling : — A shopkeeper named Smith informed Lysaght that" he could not supply him with something he required until Mrs. S. came down stairs. " Occupied with the children, I suppose?" inquired Lysaght. " Thank God, she has none," replied Mr. S. stiffly. " Then Mrs. S. is a barren S." was the retort. For a better specimen we are indebted to Mr. O'Flanagan, the able biographer of the Lord Chan- cellors of Ireland. Once, when very hard pressed, Lysaght applied to his friend, Mr. Latouche the banker — a man specially cautious in his selection of employees — for a situation or two in his gift. He was asked to name them. " If you let me be cashier for one day, I'll turn runner the next," was the reply. Another remarkable Irishman, who left the bogs of Tipperary about the same time as Lanigan and Lysaght to seek his fortune, was John Toler, afterwards Earl of Norbury, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, by whose demesne, near Dublin, Lanigan will be found a frequent wanderer during the closing years of both. Mr. Toler — the story is told by our late friend, D. Owen Maddyn — had married the heiress of the Nor- wood estates, and while he was serving the office of Attorney- General, he had influence enough to get his wife made Vicountess Norwood in her own right, with remainder to her second son. The two sons of the Chief Justice, who was himself at last raised to the peerage of Norbury, had made themselves unpopular in Trinity College by their swagger. Lysaght ironically accosting the two Messrs. Toler, one the future Nor- wood, the other the future Norbury, said : " Pray tell me which is which. Which of you is Bogbevxy, and which of you is BogwooA ?" It was said by Lord Plunket that in England the wind raises the kite, but in Ireland the kite raises the DR. LAN I G AN j HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 19 wind. Lysaght occasionally employed aid of this sort to keep himself up. "Now," said a friend impres- sively who had just accommodated Lysaght by putting his name on the back of a bill, " Now don't you pro- mise religiously to take it up." 66 That I will — and the protest along with it," replied the other, walking off and laughing immoderately. Lysaght' s example, with all its faults, had at least the effect of feeding into fuller light the genius of Moore, who possessed some of his weakness and more than his talent. Moore's Diary is silent as regards his early friend, but the late Dean Meyler informed us that in a conversation which he had with Moore in 1833, the latter observed: "I look back upon Lysaght with feel- ings of love. All his words were like drops of music." This gossip about Lysaght is perhaps too full ; but the points of his character contrast so forcibly with the austere consistency and high moral tone of his early friend Lanigan, that the parallel preaches a moral even if it fails to wield interest. It should further be remembered that very little is known of Lysaght, and it ought not to prove an altogether thankless task to trace him through the fading mazes of his well-nigh obliterated footprints.* * In reply to a letter which we addressed to Dean Kenny, V.G. of Killaloe, a gentleman specially well-versed in the traditional lore of Clare, he writes, 21st April, 1871 : " After prolonged search, I made out a copy of Lysaght's poems, brought out after his death by Dr. Griffin, Protestant Bishop of Limerick. Lysaght's national songs were omitted. In my early days, before the publication of Moore's Irish Melodies, the songs of Ned Lysaght were much prized in the county Clare, but especially in rebel circles. Some of them re-ap- peared during the days of Davis ; the best of them, which were in the mouth of every one in Clare seventy years ago, and many of which, when a boy, I could myself repeat, cannot now be had. During the recent March assizes in Ennis, when Clare was well represented, I inquired if Lysaght's unpublished songs could be made out. An in- quirer like you will hear with surprise that many old men who spent their lives in Clare never heard of Ned Lysaght. Of the lot was one of my own schoolfellows, who was of a party who made their way to hear a speech from Lysaght at an election for Clare in 1807. He could hardly even remember the sound flogging inflicted on himself and others, myself amongst the number, for escaping from custody." 20 WITS AND WOETHIES : CHAPTER III. THE IEISH COLLEGE AT EOME AND THE SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS. "Do you know anything of an officer at Rome who is called the Lord Protector of Ireland ?" " There was such a personage at Rome ; one of the Cardinals usually took the title of Protector of Ireland. . . . He took the Irish College at Rome and the mission under his special patronage; his services consisted in promoting the interests of hoth at the court of Rome." — Rev. Dr. Sleviris Evidence, 28th October, 1826. Maynooth College, for the education of Irish priests, had not been established until the year 1795. France, Spain, and Belgium were the most accessible and favoured fields for feeding the Irish mission ; but Borne motioned the student to her own bosom, and he bowed in obedience to that irresistible call. Accordingly, at the early age of sixteen we find young Lanigan, with letters of introduction from the Most Eev. Dr. James Butler, Archbishop of Cashel, starting forth to pursue, at the Irish College, Kome, his studies for the sacred ministry. These interesting documents have long been preserved by the Eight Bev. Mgr. Moran, who has promised to search for them, with a view to insertion in our Appendix. Different from the better system which has long prevailed, the then Bector was an Italian, the Bev. Aloysius Cuccagni, who, however, evinced a tolerably fair acquaintance with the wants of the Irish mission, as his letters to Dr. Butler show. After receiving the illustrious Archbishop's blessing, "and bidding," states the family tradition, " a long and sad adieu to his mother, whom he loved most dearly, and to the playmates of his early years, my grand-uncle proceeded to Cork, accompanied by some friends, where he arranged with the captain of a vessel about sailing for London ; and after many promises from the master of the ship to take care of the youth, heavy hearts, on shore, bade him farewell. Young DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 21 Lanigan, when on deck, looked back with tearful eyes and a bursting heart at the receding outline of his native land, which unmanly and cruel laws compelled him to leave ; and emotions no doubt crowded upon him akin to those described in 6 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage : ' * Adieu! adieu! ray native shore Fades o'er the waters blue.' "* Mr. Lanigan, we may be assured, soon resigned himself to his fate, and forgot present troubles not only in the pleasures of literature and the consolations of religion, but in the goodfellowship of a congenial travelling companion. This individual, as he gathered the folds of an ample cloak like a toga around him, presented an imposing appearance, and his manners were affable without being patronising. Mr. Lanigan was much prepossessed by the stranger, who on his side appeared pleased with the young Irishman ; and having learned from him the route of his future journey, remarked as a pleasant coincidence that he was also going to Calais, and that perhaps ere long they would both be exploring together the walls of that ancient city which had succumbed, in 1558, to the shot and shell of the Duke of Guise. John Lanigan hailed wuth delight the fortuitous circumstance presented in the prolonged society and guidance of his fellow- traveller, who seemed so excellent a cicerone, and they arranged to stop at the same hotel in London. Upon inquiry after supper, they were informed that the boat for Calais would leave the wharf at Blackwall very early by the morning tide. " Breakfast was ordered to be prepared in due time," proceeds the family account, ' 'and the two travellers repaired to a double-bedded room for a few hours' repose. Mr. Lanigan was most happy to have met with such a skilful and pleasant guide, and sinking in luxurious rest after his laborious journey, in a few minutes was fast asleep, dreaming of * Letter from Mrs. Reany of Clonmel, 24th September, 18C2. 22 WITS AND WORTHIES : Eome and roaming, of France and friendship. When he awoke in the morning, and looking forth beheld with admiration the dome of St. Paul's rising majestically before him, emotions of an opposite sort took posses- sion of his mind on finding that his fellow-traveller had risen before him, and was gone for some time, the boat having sailed at four o'clock. Mr. Lanigan appealed for counsel and consolation to the stolid waiter, who declared he knew nothing but that he was to pay the bill. The poor fellow put his hand in his pocket ; but misfortunes never come single — his purse had vanished as well as the guide ! The latter had rifled Lanigan' s pockets during the night, ate a hearty breakfast early next morning, and having desired that his young friend should not be disturbed, started possibly for the Levant, or some such appropriate destination. Thus the artless Irish youth found him- self in the modern Babylon without a shilling in his pocket! "Even," writes Dr. Lanigan's niece, "the hard heart of the hotel-keeper was softened at his distress, and he wrote a letter to the Catholic adminis- trator of the district, requesting that he would devise DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 23 some means to relieve the young gentleman from his difficulties." But the good lady probably does more than justice to the motives of mine host. " The priest," she acids, " with the benevolence that ever characterizes true piety, hastened at once to the hotel, and on seeing Mr. Lanigan's letters of introduction, he paid the landlord and brought the almost heart- broken boy to his own house, where he remained until a remittance from home enabled him to resume his journey." It is a remarkable instance of retribution that, as has been alleged by Dr. Lanigan's represen- tatives, the vessel which conveyed the swindler from London was completely wrecked a few T hours subse- quent to his unworthy achievement. Henceforth John Lanigan, who was always a man of impulsive tendencies, intuitively recoiled, as from an imposition, whenever any stranger of imposing manners smiled blandly upon him. Unhappily for readers who love adventure, the re- mainder of Mr. Lanigan's journey to Rome was ac- complished without any further recorded incidents of interest. The good administrator had kindly intro- duced him to a party of priests who were proceeding to the Eternal City; and under their guidance and protection he was able to make a most delightful tour at a comparatively small cost. The party proceeded first to Brussels, and from thence to Aix-la-Chapelle, where they explored the marvellous and apparently well-authenticated relics of Christ's nativity and cruci- fixion ; following the majestic course of the Rhine as far as Strasburg, they then traversed the Palatinate and the dark defiles of the Tyrol ; visited Loretto and Macerata, and having crossed the rocky Appenines and the swollen Tiber as it wound its sluggish course, our traveller at last entered, with no ordinary emo- tions, " the Ancient Mistress of the World," as Titus Livy calls it ; 66 the Mother of Eloquence," according to Cassiodorus ; " the Queen of Universal Beligion," as expressed by St. Prosper. 24 WITS AND WORTHIES : Though, no doubt, many a classical recollection occurred to Mr. Lanigan's mind as he proceeded to the college wherein his theological studies were about to be prosecuted, still his patriot heart would ever and anon turn to dear suffering Ireland, for which the intensity of his love was second only to his love for God. The Irish College was indeed suggestive of some exciting recollections. Of this remarkable insti- tution—which owed its origin equally to the strong arm of persecution at home and of Catholic energy abroad— many distinguished Irishmen had been already the alumni, including Oliver Piunket, the patriot primate and martyr, beheaded and embowelled at Tyburn; Dr. John Brennan, Archbishop of Cashel, who almost in sight of the gibbet, reared his mitred head and preached the intrepid doctrines of uncompromising Catholicism ; Dr. James Cusack, the zealous Bishop of Meath, who referring to the parricide of Dr. Piunket, and urging that Armagh should be stigmatised by a special ban, observed in one of the many similar letters vainly addressed by him to Rome: ' ' Again I cry out— again and a third time I knock, if not with clamorous shouts, yet certainly with mournful sighs;"* Dr. Peter Creagh, who continued to administer the arch- diocese of Dublin before and subsequent to the statute of 1697, which commanded "all the Popish prelates, vicars-general, deans, monks, Jesuits, and all others of their religion who exercised ecclesiastical jurisdic- tion in Ireland," to depart from the kingdom before the 1st May, 1698 ;t Luke Piunket, Vicar- Apostolic of Derry ; Bonan Maginn, Vicar- Apostolic of Dromore — either of whom was probably the northern bishop noticed by Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee as having returned to Ireland at the peril of his life, and hired as a common * Three priests whom he had degraded gave evidence against him. t Captain South records that the nam her of friars alone who were expatriated during the yea - 1698, was 153 from DuhJin, 190 from Gal way, 75 from Cork, and 26 from Waterford. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LITE AND TIMES. 25 shepherd on the uplands of Magilligan ; the illustrious Hugh M'Mahon, Archbishop of Armagh, the able and intrepid custodian of the primatial rights of Ireland, as exhibited in the ci Jus Prirnatiale Ai*machanum. ,r With such a host of alumni, it is not surprising that the Irish College at Ronie should have won for itself the distinctive appellation of Seminarium Episcoporum 9 or nursery of bishops. The Irish College, after a most chequered career,, had just passed through a very momentous and critical epoch in its existence ; and when Mr. Lanigan arrived there to prosecute his studies, he found its pulse beat- ing strongly from the excitation into which those feverish throes had plunged it. Symptoms of exhaus- tion, too, were observable to Mr. Lanigan, on feeling that pulse. The patient had been subjected to a sort of Sangrado process of " bleeding and hot water," and, as some remarkable evidence now revealed in our Appendix alleges, the vineyard of previous administrators of the College had been " watered with the blood of the Irish." The infusion of new blood from Ireland was therefore eminently desirable, and the arrival of fresh, ardent, and devoted Irish youths, headed by Lanigan, with warm hearts and robustly-organised minds, was hailed as a welcome accession. When, some years ago, we mentioned to a dis- tinguished ecclesiastic and author who had received his education in the Irish College at Eome, that we had yielded to the wishes of some respected friends, and had arranged to write a memoir of Dr. Lani- gan — for the illustration of whose life, though docu- mental material was not abundant, we had yet suc- ceeded in disinterring ninny curious details and family traditions — he replied: "Yes, but where can you hop© to obtain any dates or historic information regarding the Irish College, with which an interesting and im- portant part of Lanigan's life is so intimately con- 26 WITS AND WORTHIES : nected ?" It was therefore with mingled emotions that we hailed, long after, the discovery of an elaborate document, formerly in the possession of Dr. Lanigan, throwing great light upon the unwritten history of that memorable institution.* These conflicting feel- * In a Relatio Status from the Irish hierarchy, presented to Rome in 1625, and now preserved in the archives de Propaganda Fidei, as we are informed by the Rev. Dr. Moran, the foundation of an Irish College is insisted on as a necessary means for supplying the suffer- ing Church of Ireland with virtuous and learned pastors. One of the motives urged to attain this end was " that at home they may be the more confirmed in their usual constancy in suffering persecution, seeing that they are dear to the Chief Pastor of Christendom." Mainly owing to the untiring exertions of Father Luke Wadding, an Irishman illustrious in religion and literature, the College was at length, in 1627, established through the munificence of Cardinal Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV. When we remember the few scholars which the Irish College could accommodate owing to the ex- treme poverty of its funds, the number of students who became dis- tinguished ecclesiastics is certainly very remarkable. "During the 170 years which the College lasted," writes its late respected Vice- Rector, " till its suppression by the French usurpers of Rome in 1798, it was scarcely ever able to receive more than eight students within its walls." " Since the time of the great Pope Gregory XIII.," observes Cardinal Cullen, " the Irish College was generally under the management of the Jesuits. In it some of the greatest men that ever adorned the Church have been educated. Among them it is sufficient to mention Bellarmin, De Lugo, Toledo, Suarez, Pallavicino, and hundreds of other luminaries, to whom three great Irish bishops may be added — the martyred Dr. Plunket, Dr. Brennan of Cashel, and Dr. Creagh of Dublin. I say nothing of the present Professors Perrone, Patrizi, Curci, and Secchi — all distinguished men, well known in every part of the world." Those desirous of learning more of the history of the Irish College would do well to consult Tamburini's Memoirs, written in Italian, and published soon after the pregnant and stirring events to which we have freely adverted. The work is rarely met with, but a fine copy is preserved in the library of the Irish College. Tamburini, who cultivated .a warm friendship for Lanigan, handles the Jesuits in a rough and ready way, which now- a-days might be described as sensational, and which certainly comes oddly from one whose kinsman, Michael Ange Tamburini, had been General of the Jesuits, and Thomas Tamburini one of their brightest lights ; but it is not more strange than that Bishop Ricci, nephew of the last General of the Jesuits, should have run full tilt against Jesuitical devotion in his Council of Pistoia, for which he was obliged to resign his see. Vide also the Examination of Rev. P. Kenny, S.J., in the Eighth Report on Education in Ireland, pp. 384, 390. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 27 ings were due to the fact that while the statement proved of high historical importance, its tone dealt with great severity of censure against a learned and distinguished order of Eeligious who, for a lengthened period, had presided over and administered the affairs of the College. An historic writer has often an irk- some duty to discharge ; he must needs struggle to suppress all temptation to suppression when, as in the present case, fears may arise lest some few should deprecate what many will hail with inte- rest. The enlightened Jesuits of the present day will, we believe, feel that they are no more compromised by the eccentricities and caprices of some of their pre- decessors than Pius VII., who restored the Jesuits, felt himself shackled by the acts of Clement XIV. who suppressed them. Exclusive of its value as illustrative of the too neglected history of the Irish College, the narrative is further useful as throwing light on Pope Clement's reasons, hitherto involved in some obscurity, for suppressing the Jesuits. The Cardinal Visitor having, as will be seen, reported un- favourably of the government of the College under the Jesuits, his Holiness issued a Brief, dated 18th September, 1772, summarily dismissing them.* On the 21st July in the following year their universal extermination was fulminated by the same Pontiff. He is as likely to have been influenced in this course by Cardinal Marefoschi's report — now revealed by us — * The great College of Salamanca had also been long under the control of the Jesuit Fathers. An interesting document was formerly in the possession of our friend, the late Rev. Dr. Gartlan, of that University, from which it appeared that similar steps were taken to dislodge them also from Salamanca, on the plea that all Irish stu- dents whose fathers had been concerned in O'Neill's rebellions were refused admission to the University, while those whose families had fought in the service of Queen Elizabeth or James I. were received. This document proves at least that the Jesuits are strong supporters of monarchical institutions, and not of an opposite policy, as has often been alleged by their opponents. 28 WITS AND WORTHIES : as by the lay cabal which, Dr. Reeves hints, may have led to the suppression of the institute. This cabal, headed by Voltaire and D'Alembert, had long been heaping slanders upon the Jesuits — at first too absurd to receive credence from any well-informed Catholic ; but the constant lashing of water will wear down stone — and, without meaning to convey that the Bock of Peter was penetrated, it cannot be denied that the Court of Rome caught at last some tone of that public opinion in trying to turn the tide of which Voltaire's party had toiled for twenty years. D'Alembert had been himself one of the Society of Jesus until expelled from the order, and was there- fore the more formidable and implacable in the re- sentment with which he pursued it. By the thunderbolt hurled from the strong arm of Ganganelli in 1773, 20,000 picked men of large brain were paralysed in the exercise of their ministry all over the globe — some following their own Francis Xavier, propagating the Christian faith among hordes of infidel barbarians ; others fostering religion at home, cultivating 61 fair science," and gratuitously educating unlettered youth ; while some individual members of the institute, less legitimately occupied, had, we confess, devoted themselves to political intrigue. Fr. Thenier, Prefect of the Secret Archives of the Vatican, in reply to Cretineau Joly, has defended the justice and clemency of the Holy See by adducing curious documents to which he had access ; but it is now very generally admitted that the suppression of the Jesuits was the great mistake of Ganganelli's life, although there were found many persons, especially in France, who declared him for this act far more de- serving of the epithet " Great" than a Gregory or a Leo. Plausibly it w r as argued that the Church was threatened in France and elsewhere with new schism, more alarming in its probable results than even that DR. LAN I G AN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 2a accomplished by Henry VIII. of England. The Pope yielded, and his successor saw that after the suppression of the Jesuits, Deism made rapid strides through Europe. The French Revolution burst forth, shaking the earth to its centre, and sending forth a furious host of daring infidels. The annihilating decree came, perhaps, with a bad grace from Ganga- nelli, for, from being an obscure Franciscan friar, he had been brought into public notice by the very men whom he was raised to prostrate. Ganganelli's conversation in the Vatican, when re- lieved from pronouncements ex cathedra, was tho- roughly easy and enjoyable, and second only in brilliancy to that with which his contemporary, Voltaire, enchained his listeners at Ferney. We, speak, of course, of the manner not of the matter of his delivery ; for Voltaire, as is well known, was the representative of a formidably hostile school of Deis- tical teaching which boasted of one man being able to subvert the religious inculcations of twelve. — Ganganelli possessed a refined literary taste ; but the letters and other pieces long attributed to him are now regarded, like the " Decretals" of Isidorus Mercator, as spurious.* Arts and science flourished under his regime with a freedom worthy of the ponti- ficate of Leo XII. His addition to the Vatican Gallery, known as the " Museum Clementinum," is a lasting boon to the undying spirit of the artist and virtuoso. The accomplished manners of this Pontiff, diffusing around from his exalted position, flowed freely down through the lower grades of ecclesiastical society, giving tinge and tone to it ; and many of Lanigan's subsequent views may be traced to the period of his residence in Rome.t Ganganelli's at- * On the other hand, Dr. Hamill's catalogue of hooks, now hefore us, in reference to Ganganelli's letters, contains a note to the effect that seveial of them are genuine. Dr. Hamill was a class-fellow with Lanigan in Rome. t Dr. Slevin mentioned in his interesting evidence, on 14th De- 30 WITS AND WOKTHIES : titude on the pontifical throne was graceful and ma- jestic ; but it must be confessed that, in the mind's eye of historic retrospect, it has been, on the whole, somehow associated with that of Jupiter upon his throne of gold and ivory, grasping dazzling jets of lightning with one hand, and dealing thunders with the other. As in the latter case, also, blood was offered as a sacrifice on his altar. While the vast army of Xavier, almost equal in ex- tent to the myriads of Xerxes, lay on every side pros- trate from the effects of Ganganelli's stroke, Laurence Eicci, their last General, might still be seen in an attitude of resistance, proclaiming himself a soldier of Christ and convulsively wielding the fragment of his sword. With this weapon he had already fought the good fight against infidelity ; and if, deafened by the clangour and blinded by the dust of the conflict, a veteran general, struggling for life or death, should strike right and left, and wound some of his own side, it does not follow, perhaps, that he should be tried by court-martial. Be this as it may, Eicci resisted, although the Sacred Congregation, who devoted infinite care to drawing up the Brief, would seem to have anti- cipated every objection, by clearing away all grounds on which an attitude of resistance could be raised.* We have never seen Eicci's case stated, but he may possibly have not been far wrong in his position, for some of the nicer subtleties of dogmatic theology teach cember, 1826 (p. 256), what does not seem to be generally known to historians, that the last publication of the Bull Coeni Domini, which for many centuries had been regularly published in Rome on Holy Thursday in each year, took place in 1773, under the pontificate of Ganganelli, by whom it was suspended. Dr. Slevin added, that the Bull " had always been odious to the greater part of the Catholic countries of Europe." * This important and very voluminous Bull, known as the Brief Dominus ad Redemptor, may be found at p. 607, vol. iii., of the Roman Bullarium. The point to which we refer, in all its elaborate and searching ingenuity of studied precaution, will be found in our Appendix. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 31 that a Papal decree, to be obeyed implicitly, must be made ex cathedra, and on questions of faith or morals. Nevertheless, for a want of submission, we find Ricci imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo, where he died of the wounds his heart received in 1775,* almost simultaneously with him who had inflicted them. While undergoing captivity he sent forth a manifesto declaring — 1st. That the Jesuits had done nothing to merit suppression. 2nd. That he himself had committed no crime to deserve imprisonment. 3rd. That he pardoned the authors of his persecutions. Laurence Ricci was uncle to the celebrated Jansenist Bishop, Scipio Pdcci, to whose presidency at the schis- matical Council of Pistoia we are rapidly coming. With the exception of Eicci, all the Jesuits at once submitted to a decree which their theology taught them had emanated from the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ ; and it has been oddly remarked by one of their alumni, ilahony, that " in Paraguay, t which has since relapsed into barbarism, the Jesuits could, if they liked, have decidedly spurned the man- date of the Escurial, backed by an army of 60,000 Indians devoted to their spiritual and temporal bene- factors, taught the tactics of Europe, and possessing, in 1750, a well-appointed train of artillery." To resist the canons and decrees of the Church militant with cannons of a more belligerent character, is certainly a novel idea. The Jesuits knew better, and, bowing their heads like martyrs, gave up the ghost, until, forty-one years after, the trumpet of their resurrection * The Rev. Francis Mahony tells a romantic story about a beau- tiful girl, named Marcella, who died at the same time as Ricci, in the Castle of St. Angelo, where she had been imprisoned on suspicion of having been deputed to poison Ganganelli; but we have no wish to swell these pages with sensation stories, even if proved to be vera- cious history. f In Paraguay the Jesuits possessed money to the amount of five millions sterling. One of the effects of Clement's stroke was to throw this valuable property into the hands of the schismatical Empress of Russia. 32 WITS AND WORTHIES : was sounded by Pius VII. It was a long interval of death ; but their books had formed a literature, and these, scattered through many lands over the field of their former labours, lay like so may tombstones, re- cording the worth and learning of the illustrious dead, and eliciting prayers, not for their repose, but for their resurrection. The pontificate of Clement XIV. was, while it lasted, a brilliant meteor; but sic transit gloria mundi, as he himself had been reminded when receiving the tiara.* In 1773, 20,000 Jesuits fell before his puissant arm, smitten to the earth by one stroke of his great keys. In little more than a twelvemonth from that date, he himself was laid low, and the tiara gave place to the skull-cap of the tomb. Calumny converted his premature end into capital for its purpose, and hesitated not to assert that the Pope died from poison ! The Most Eev. John Thomas Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, whose figure has yet to be more prominently introduced in these pages, was Eector of St. Clement's, Rome, during the decree sent forth by Ganganelli for the suppression of the Jesuits ; and, on assuming the government of the archdiocese of Dublin, his Grace, appreciating the great worth and pitying the disin- herited position of Dr. Beatagh, appointed him pastor of Rosemary-lane, and Vicar- General of Dublin — an office which he discharged during fourteen years of Dr. Lanigan's residence in the diocese. To this re- markable Jesuit we mean to return. It is doing Ganganelli some injustice to conclude that an unfavourable attitude towards the Jesuits was peculiar to his pontificate. Pope Innocent XIII., who cannot be called their enemy, was disposed to gratify the wishes of influential parties and suppress the order, when death, in 1758, para- * Amidst all the pomp of a Papal coronation, a bunch of flax steeped in spirits of wine is set fire to, and elevated on a long rod to the Pope's face. The bright flame is over in a moment, and a herald exclaims : " Sic transit gloria mundi /" DR. LANIGANj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 33 lysed the richly -jewelled hand which was about to sign the death-warrant of the Society of Jesus. This Pope, the 257th in apostolic succession from St. Peter, was the eighth Pontiff of his family ; but his spiritual reign was not in proportion to either dynasty or descent, having lasted three years only. The Jesuits had also a narrow escape during the pontificate of Benedict XIV., who would seem to have been the dupe of that formidably plausible man, Voltaire, for, in acknowledg- ment of a flattering dedication, his Holiness absolutely sent the " apostolical blessing" to the subsequently more fully-developed infidel. The successor of Clement XIV., Angelo Braschi, known as Pius VI., made no effort to restore the Jesuits; but for his forbearance he received scant thanks — his palace was rifled, his property plundered, he was forcibly denuded of his .pontifical robes, the fisherman's ring even torn from his finger, and we find him at last borne off a prisoner to France. These suf- ferings told severely on an old man between eighty and ninety ; in 1799 he exchanged this purgatory for a joy- ous eternity. His successor, the accomplished Pius VII. , though repeatedly memorialed on the subject, took no steps to restore the Jesuits until the year 1814* — the same year in which he himself was restored to the pontifical throne, and Louis XVIII. to the throne of his ancestors. Popular enthusiasm ran as much in favour of restoration during that year as previously it had been for levelling and destruction. The Jesuits, although restored, have never since been reinstated in their former capacity as administrators of the Irish * This imposing spectacle took place at the church of the Gesu, Rome. The bull of restoration having been solemnly read, the Pope personally handed it to the venerable Father Perriggone, one of the few survivors of Ganganelli's sweeping stroke. Ireland was repre- sented by Fathers Esmonde, St. Leger, Aylmer, Butler, and Farley. On the 4th March, 18 U, we find Clongowes Wood College, county Kildare, the palatial residence of Wogan Browne, purchased, and on the 4th July following it was opened to lay students. 2 34 WITS AND WOETHIES : College; but until the revolution of 1848, the Irish students regularly attended their lectures in the Koman College, which was placed under the control of these fathers. Since that event, however, secular priests have been entrusted with the administrative reins both of the Koman College and the Propaganda, which had also been conducted, for a long period, by the Jesuits. As regards the disclosures to be found in our Appendix — and which, besides throwing light on the reasons which seem to have finally hurried Gaganelli to the boldest step of his pontificate, are specially important as illustrating the history and vicissitudes of Dr. Lanigan's Alma Mater, the Irish College — we should be very sorry to impute to a source apparently so respectable deliberate embellishment ; but it is ex- tremely likely that the students and Cardinal Protector, in reporting so strongly against the Jesuitical adminis- tration of the Irish College, allowed themselves — no doubt unconsciously — to be influenced to some extent by intrigue, and by the popular prejudices and clamour of the day, which had already warped some of the greatest minds. Voltaire and his colleagues had found the Jesuits the most formidable obstacles with which they had to contend in the propagandism of their new notions. He therefore applied all the sinews of his muscular mind to the task of raising the ponderous weight of public opinion, and crushing the fathers under it. Popular feeling was gradually warmed into enthusiasm and frenzy. An outcry, backed by a powerful cabal which had spread its ramifications into every state in Europe, had* been already yielded to in France, where, in 1762, the Jesuits had been suppressed by an edict of " the eldest son of the Church," and their revenues confiscated ; while, three years later, similar steps were taken by the governments of Spain and Naples, and, at an earlier date, of Portugal. But Protestant Prussia stood their friend, and in lately reading the corre- DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 35 spondence of King Frederick, we were struck with the elaborate eulogium which, in reply to a wily letter from Voltaire, he passes upon the general conduct of the Jesuits, at a time when nearly every other sove- reign's arm was raised against them. The events at which we have glanced were all more or less traceable in their influences on the after-life of Lanigan, and therefore deserve more than a passing word. CHAPTER IV. HOME SICKNESS. M Erin, my country, though strangers may roam, Thy hills and thy valleys I once called my home ; Thy lakes and thy mountains no longer I see, But warmly as ev. j r my heart heats for thee ! cushla ma chree ! my heart beats for thee ! Erin I Erin ! loved cushla ma chree I" Charles Jeffreys. Shortly before Mr. Lanigan's arrival at Rome, Gan- ganelli, as we have said, had wrenched the adminis- tration of the Irish College from the Jesuits — a blow which he promptly followed up by their universal ex- tinction — and placed the seminary under the direction of secular priests. To the prejudices which prevailed against that distinguished order of religious in the last century, and especially during the pontificates of Cle- ment XIV. and Pius VI., may be traced an absence of cordiality that characterized Lanigan's allusions to them as a body during his after-life, though with an individual member, Dr. Esmonde, he maintained friendly relations. A near connexion of the author's, the late Dr. O'Reardon, who knew Dr. Lanigan per- sonally, mentioned to us as inexplicable to him, that when, on one occasion at a dinner party in Dublin, about the year 1820, he happened to praise the Jesuits, 36 WITS AND WORTHIES I Dr. Lanigan, with an extraordinary degree of warmth, bridled at tfce compliment to Loyola, and begged leave to differ utterly. The change in the management of the Irish College effected by Ganganelli would seem, after all, to have been far from an improvement. The dangers of Charybdis threatened to succeed the terrors of Scylla. Monsignor Meagher, now one of the respected Vicars- General of Dublin, who attended Dr. Lanigan's brother in his last illness, and received from him some papers which he has been kind enough to place at our disposal, had some time ago in his possession a fragment of a letter in Dr. Lanigan's autograph, apparently intended for insertion in an Italian journal, and warmly taking exception to the manner in which affairs were then ad- ministered in the College. While at the Irish College, Dr. Lanigan is said to have been a fellow-student of several compatriots who subsequently became hardly less remarkable than the preceding alumni already mentioned. We allude to James Bernard Clinch, the learned writer on Church Government ; Dr. Hamill, Vicar-General of the diocese of Dublin, a highly ac- complished and respected ecclesiastic ; Dr. MacCarthy, Coadjutor-Bishop of Cork ; Matthew O'Conor, of Mount Druid, author of " The Military Memoirs of the Irish Nation" and " History of the Irish Catholics and Dr. Charles O'Conor, better known as " Columbanus," who although publicly censured by Archbishop Troy for expressing some peculiar opinions — errors of head rather than of heart — was, nevertheless, a man of great mark, as his " Rerum Hib. Scriptores" abundantly shows.* Little is now remembered, outside the diocese of Armagh, of Dr. M. M'Cann, another fellow- student, and through life the devoted friend of Lanigan.f He, however, had a narrow escape of the notoriety involved * Some curious particulars in reference to Dr. O'Conor will be found in our final chapter. f Vide Bishop Blake's letter in Appendix. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. o7 in episcopal elevation, as a letter addressed to Cardinal Fontana, now before us, testifies.* Lanigan's progress in theological and philosophical studies was brilliant and rapid. Having attended a course of lectures on canon law in the halls of the Sapienza, he received ordination at so early an age that his kinsman, Mr. Greene, the inheritor of much family talent, opines that, as in the case of Geoffrey Keatinge, another distinguished Tipperary historian, the canonical age was dispensed with in his case. To priest's orders were speedily added other dignities. Bishop Blake, an alumnus of the College, and after- wards its President, was of opinion that he obtained his doctor's degree there ; but if so, he also received a diploma from Pavia conferring a similar distinction. f Referring to Dr. Lanigan's sojourn at the Irish College, the Bishop added : "I can say with certainty that his talents and extraordinary acquirements, as well as his amiable natural disposition, gained for him the love and admiration of all who knew him." * The postulation for the vacant See of Dromore, as we gather from the papers of Primate Curtis now in our possession, received the sup- port of Doctors Curtis, Troy, Murray, Maguire, O'Reilly, Kernan, and Murphy, all prelates of great local influence; but Dr. M'Mullen, Bishop of Down, hesitated to sign in Dr. M'Cann's favour, on the ground that he had been already canvassed by another candidate, the Rev. H. Kelly; and owing, it would seera, to a want of unanimity among the prelates, Dr. Lanigan's friend and class-fellow, Matthew M'Cann, never wore the mitre. f We wrote to the academic heads of the Irish College, Rome, to ascertain if any records of Dr. Lanigan's collegiate distinctions existed there, but received no reply. Subsequently we addressed the Right Rev. Mgr. Moran, late Vice-Rector of the Irish College, who thus replied : " I do not think there is any record of his academical distinctions whilst a student in Rome ; at least, in the Irish k College there is no such record — though it is quite possible there may be some such at the Collegio Romano. The period of his stay in Rome .was followed by such confusion and ruin in all the religious and educational institutions, that you will find it difficult to gather much from the Roman records of this time." We may add, however, that tradition is prodigal in its distribution of collegiate honours to Lanigan. 38 WITS AND WORTHIES : Mr. Lanigan frequently remarked in conversation with his friends, that the most agreeable period of his career was passed in Rome, which presented to him equally interesting features of attraction both in a classic and theological point of view. Often, during those darkly clouded days of his later life which even- tually merged into a long black night of mental suffer- ing, he derived an occasional ray of relief from looking back upon the bright hours, full of the freshness of morning, which he spent in Rome. If his thoughts when in Ireland often wandered back to Rome, it is very certain that when in Rome they were with Erin too. Did the patriot heart of the exile, as his knees sank in prayer in the Franciscan church on the Janiculum, ever wander in sympathetic emotions with the far sorer fate of the banished Earls O'Neill and O'Donel, whose bones repose beneath two flagstones in that sacred edifice?* And can it be doubted, from the peculiar character of the man, that although the crumbling arches of the Colosseum and the fluted pillars of the Pantheon furnished food for thought, a fonder train of association entwined itself, like Irish ivy round Cashel's ruins or Holy Cross Abbey, in the dear old land far away. Proofs of this may be found in the twenty-third chapter of the third volume of his history, where Dr. Lanigan traces affinity of style between Cormac's Chapel in Cashel and the low Roman churches scattered through Italy. Dr. Lanigan's academical distinctions are tradition- ally described as having fallen in showers, fertilizing the minds of his less favoured companions, and stimu- lating them to emulate his growth of brain and laurels. His remarkable talents having attracted the notice of * "The Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel; their Flig! t from Ireland, their Vicissitudes Abroad, and their Death in Exile," have been recently told, with much power of research and description, by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, M.R.I.A. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 39 the learned Tamburini, Mr. Lanigan was urged by that ecclesiastic to leave the " Seminarium Episco- porum" at Rome, and its luxurious gardens glowing with the lemon and the orange — once the favourite re- treat of Sallust* — and to accompany him to the royal University of Pavia, where the broad road to further advancement lay before him. Mr. Brennan states, in his " Ecclesiastical History," that this step was taken by Mr. Lanigan " under the advice and patronage of Cardinal Marefoschi, Lord Protector of Ireland but we hardly think that the interference of his Eminence amounted to more than, when made acquainted by Lanigan with his design, cordially bidding him God speed. His appointment to the chair of Hebrew, Ecclesiastical History, and Divinity, does not seem to have been made until some time after his arrival at Pavia. Dr. Lanigan accepted the proposal of Tamburini, and proceeded buoyantly to Pavia, with the general ' coup d'ceil of which he could not fail to have been much struck. Without, all seemed rude and ruthless ; within, the fine arts were cultivated by a people whose manners evidenced a generous and warmhearted idio- syncracy. Pavia is surrounded with fortifications which for ages withstood the hail of shot and shell ; and immense towers — memorials of a Gothic age — raise their formidable crests in every street. During its republican career, Pavia sent to the Crusades one- half its population, or 15,000 men. The University, of which Dr. Lanigan was now a professor, is the most ancient in Europe, having been founded by Charle- magne. It possesses a noble library, palatial lecture- halls, well-arranged anatomical galleries, spacious botanical gardens, and richly-endowed colleges. Hav- ing addressed the impressionable students of the Uni- * The site of the first Irish College in Rome is now occupied by the Convent of Marie Reparatrice, a modern order founded by a Flemish Lady, Madame d'lioog-Vost. 40 WITS AND WORTHIES : versity in a discourse of great learning and beauty, Dr. Lanigan hastened to fill the chairs of Hebrew, Eccle- siastical History, and Divinity. These duties he dis- charged with much credit to himself, and at so early an age that we find him styled by his pupils "a second Devoti"* and "the boy professor." But this desig- nation, which his family proudly recall, rather belongs, we think, to the period of his connexion with the Irish College. CHAPTER V. THE CITY AND UNIVERSITY OF PAVIA. " Cseruleas Ticinus aquas, et stagna vadoso Perspicuus servat turbari nescia fundo, Ac nitidum viridi lente trabit amne liquorem : Vix credas labi ; ripis tarn niitis opacis Argutos inter volucrum certamina, cantus, Somniferam ducit lucenti gurgite lympham." " No sand upturning from his shallow bed, Tesino keeps his waves unsullied still, And slowly drags his azure stream along ; Scarce might he seem to move, so soft and smooth, Amid the chaunt of birds that warble round, His limpid current flows, inspiring sleep." Silius, lib. iv. 72. Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, son of Maria Theresa, frequently attended Dr. Lanigan's classes, while not a few of the Hanoverian nobility, " and even princes/' emphatically adds the historian Brennan, * Joan Devoti, author of " Institutionem Canonicarum," was spe- cially connected with Rome, having been appointed Professor of Civil Law in the Sapienza when seventeen years of age. He afterwards became Professor of Canon Law, Latin Secretary to the Pope, Bishop of Anagni, and Archbishop of Carthage in partibus. Having yielded somewhat to the French pretensions during the captivity of the Pope, he was invited on his return to resign his bishopric. His repentance is declared in his dedication to Pope Pius VII. of his larger work, "Juris Canonici Universi Gregorii IX.," 3 vols. 4to, Romae, 1815. His death in 1819 prevented the completion in nine volumes. DB, LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 41 u received their education under this distinguished Irishman." Tamburini, who administered the Uni- versity, was accustomed to designate Dr. Lanigan " the pillar and brightest ornament of the establish- ment."* Pavia is one of the most interesting and picturesque towns in Austrian Italy, and being by association in- terwoven with some Irish memories, Dr. Lanigan warmed all the more to it. He loved to wander among the favourite haunts of the Irish scholar Albinus, installed by Charlemagne over the College of Pavia. f Here the current of his life flowed easily on, and some of his pleasantest hours were passed in reading and thought by the serpentine course of the tranquil Tesino, presenting in its calm and soothing seclusion a powerful contrast to the clangour of con- flict and scene of carnage which, thanks to Annibal and Scipio, had already marked the same banks — a contrast not more striking than the civilisation of Pavia, during the period of Dr. Lanigan's sojourn there, and its former barbarism under the Longo- bardic monarchs. But there were other exciting historical associations to allure and rivet Dr. Lanigan when, breviary closed for the day, he pursued his rambles. The plain and abbey of Chiaravelle — the * Brennan's " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland." t About the year 772, Albinus and Clemens, two distinguished Irishmen, were deputed by Charlemagne, as we are informed by the monk of St. Gall who wrote in the 9th century, to superintend re- spectively the Colleges of Pavia and Paris. The appointment of a " mere Irishman" to Pavia has been questioned by Brucker in his " Philosophical History," and Tiraboschi follows him ; but the monastic chronicler in the year 888 is more likely to have been better informed than either recent scribes. Dr. Lanigan, in the third volume of his history devotes, with his usual patriotism and exhaus- tiveness of lore, eleven pages to the question: u Many a foreigner have I known teaching in Italy at a period of its enjoying high literary splendour ; and I myself have had the honour of holding a Professor's chair in that very city of Pavia where Tiraboschi would not allow that a Scotchman, as he calls him (for he seems not to have known that the Irish were called Scots) taught in the eighth century." 42 WITS AND WORTHIES : former teeming with luxuriance, the latter built of solid' white marble, spangled with a profusion of precious stones and dignified by graceful sculpture — was the theatre of the bloody battle of Pavia after which Francis I. exclaimed he had lost all but his honour,* and subsequently flinging himself before the high altar of Chiaravelle, repeated, with the magnanimity of a true soldier of Christ : " It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy statutes." With such food for thought, the mind of Lanigan could never lie fallow ; and if he wished for further objects of interest whereon to moralise, he had but to visit the sepulchre of St. Augustine and the tomb of Eoethius, the first eulogised by Erasmus as " the most golden and august writer of the Christian world the latter " a bright speck in a dark and barbaric age, long the oracle of his sovereign and the idol of the people.''' "Whilst attached to the University of Pavia — and attached he was to it, in more senses than one — Dr. Lanigan published his magnum opus, a volume of 582 pages, a Prolegomena to the Holy Scriptures, f a work rich in lore and latinity, and which, according to Mr. Henebry Green, "is used to this hour as a class-book in Oxford." But this is not likely, or the researches of Horne, whose own work is in such active requisition at Oxford,! would hardly have failed, after the laborious inquiry of sixty years, to find even a single copy of Lanigan's. Of these remarkable dis- * The siege of Pavia was the exact counterpart of the capitulation of Sedan. In the year 1525, as in the year 1870, the monarch of France was the captive of the Emperor of Germany. f Lanigan (llev. Dr. John, Cassiliensis Hiberni) " Institutionum Biblicarum. Pars Prima qua continetur Historia librorum Sacrorum Veteris, et Novi Testam nti, Ticinium, 1793." Ticini, now known as Pavia, was formerly a town belonging to Tusubres, a people of the province of Gallia, Transpadana, in Northern Italy. Its name was derived from the river Ticinus, which, flowing by it, discharged itself into the Padus or Po. % Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," referring to Dr. Home's DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 43 sertations, Dr. Home, in his "Introduction to the Scriptures,"* thus speaks : " The second part of this work has never appeared, nor has the writer of these pages been able to obtain the sight even of a copy of the first portion. He has been informed that it was suppressed in Italy. A short analysis of the first part is given in the Monthly Review (N.S.), vol. xxii. pp. 552 — 554, where it is said that ' this volume contains a large portion of text matter, well arranged and accompanied with many learned notes, selected from the best critics of the present age, together with a considerable amount of just remarks from the author's own pen.' " "If you want enemies," says Collon, " equal others ; if you want friends, let others excel you." Dr. Lanigan paid the usual penalty of mark, for although he had many friends, he was not without foes. The dark whisper which found its way to Home's ear, that Dr. Lanigan's work was suppressed in Italy, proves it. To the hostility with which some persons whispered away Dr. Lanigan's fair fame, the late Most Rev. Dr. Blake, Bishop of Dromore, adverts — but not in re- ference to Dr. Home — with that delicacy of expression which was his specialty : " His Prolegomena to the Sacred Scriptures," he writes, "I have never read, nor have I ever seen a copy of them but one ; but I know that in Italy they were much esteemed, even by critics who were rather inclined to judge unfavourably of their author." So much for the idle gossip regard- ing its alleged suppression in Italy. Dr. Blake, it will be remembered, had been educated at Rome, was President of the Irish College there, knew Dr. ** Introduction," says (vol. i p. 889) : " It immediately took its station in literature as the class-book for the study of the Scriptures in all the colleges and universities in the British dominions." * See " Home's Introduction," 7th edition, vol. ii., p. 154, 5 vols., Longmans. It has lately (1871) attained the distinction of 18th edition. 44 WITS AND WORTHIES : Lanigan intimately in Ireland, and was well qualified to speak with authority on any point having reference to his antecedents. The value of Dr. Blake's testi- mony may be the more highly estimated when we remember that he was a fastidious critic of ecclesias- tical writings, and went so far as to condemn some compositions of the illustrious "J. K. L." We have been more fortunate than the indefatigable Thomas Hartwell Home in his otherwise exhaustive " Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures/' and have succeeded in finding, in the library of the archi- episcopal palace at Cashel, a copy of Lanigan's mysteriously scarce volume. To this his Grace Dr. Leahy has obligingly given us access. This learned work of Dr. Lanigan, comprised in one volume, seems to have formed only a portion of his plan ; for it is evident he desired to prepare another volume, if not more, to complete his design. The first part of his Biblical Institutes contains a history of the sacred books in the Old and New Testaments. So far as this work goes, for erudition and lucid arrange- ment it is unrivalled. It is also very elaborate and critical ; and this subject would seem to have been exhausted — although the matter is not diffuse — if the treatise had been completed. It was printed at Pavia in 1793, and is dedicated to Count Joseph de Wilzeck, Knight of the Golden Fleece, who appears to have held various offices of trust under the Emperor Francis II. Little clue towards his biography can be gleaned from it, excepting that on its title-page he delights in styling himself a native of Ireland and of Cashel. He gives his reasons for writing it, at some length, in the preface. He deemed it necessary to give theo- logical students a complete treatise, more enlarged than a mere manual, which would enable them to understand the aim and object of the Sacred Scripture, and to draw therefrom, as from an armoury of truth, DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 45 those weapons which might be used with deadly effect against the Lutherans, Calvinists, and other sects dating their origin from the sixteenth century. These always professed to rest their case on truthful inter- pretation of the Bible, and consequently cultivated the study of the sacred books, but frequently perverted their meaning. It too often happened that theologians overlooked the importance of a critical acquaintance with the Scriptures, which could not be obtained from the re- stricted space devoted to their examination in pre- liminary dogmatic tracts. But the Scriptures have such a necessary connexion with doctrinal and moral questions, with the liturgy, with preaching, &c, that each ecclesiastic ought to master a knowledge of them, so that their spirit and meaning could be best known to themselves, and expounded with profit to the people. Although the Scriptures were better studied in Dr. Lanigan's time than in previous ages, yet an improvement on the system of studies in many academies might be effected, so that young men training up for duties of the sacred ministry might have their minds imbued with general hermeneutic erudition. A perfect knowledge of the Scriptures is required to make a finished theologian. But Dr. Lanigan was most anxious to foil the philo- sophic infidel of his time, who, completely ignorant of old languages, histories, customs, and other matters connected with biblical literature, found it an easier task to deal in irreverent jokes and dishonest inuendoes than in outspoken argument. Hence it would be the duty of pastors to instruct the incautious and shallow in reference to petulant observations and flippant mis- representations. His mind filled with these and such like reflections, no sooner had Dr. Lanigan been appointed to the chair of Sacred Scripture in the University of Pavia than he conceived it his duty to impress their importance on students of dogmatic and 46 WITS AND WORTHIES I moral theology. He then carefully considered what would be the best method for discharging this duty. It was rightly supposed that, before coming to an exposition of the inspired writings, explanatory prelec- tions and principles in which hermeneutics were com- prised must be set before the mind of the young student. Hence he intended to dispose of his subject in three principal divisions — first, the history of the Sacred Books ; secondly, biblical antiquities ; and thirdly, hermeneutics, strictly so called, or the art and method of investigating and interpreting the real meaning of the Scriptures. He then tells us that in an essay, published in the Italian language about two years previously, on reasons for introducing biblical knowledge into academies and schools, he had already discussed, at length, the method which he considered should be observed in treating each of the three fore- going parts. But in the meantime some very learned friends, whose judgment Dr. Lanigan greatly regarded, and his attendants at lectures, whom he had always con- scientiously laboured to instruct, earnestly besought him to prepare for publication a summary of herme- neutics, accommodated to the use of young students. Not ignorant of the difficult task imposed on him, Dr. Lanigan yielded to the wishes of his friends and pupils, and commenced his work on the plan and form observed in his academic prelections, and sketched in his essay already mentioned. The two latter parts do not appear to have been published ; but in the preface to the first part, Dr. Lanigan promises that at the proper time, if God so willed it, he would explain his treatment of those meditated parts, necessary to bring his w 7 ork to a state of artistic completion.* * The present writer, whilst engaged in a translation of Dr. Lani- gan's Tvork, that he might he enabled to give an accurate abstract of its contents, observed appended a number of interesting marginal notes in MS. ; and, desirous of knowing the source from whence they came, DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 47 CHAPTER VI. THE SCHISMATICAL COUNCIL OF PISTOIA, AND SIEGE OF BELGRADE. " An Austrian Army, Awfully Arrayed, Boldly By Battery Besieged Belgrade, Cannonading cannon consuming come, Dealing Destruction — Devastating Doom! Every Endeavour Engineers Essay For Fame — For Fortune Fighting — Furious Fray !" Old Alliterative Poem. One day during the summer of 1786, Tamburini inti- mated to Lanigan that an important synod was about to be held at Pistoia, under the auspices of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and presided over by the distin- guished Bishop of the diocese, Scipio Bicci, nephew of Laurence Ricci, the last General of the Jesuits, whose name had been specially familiar to both when at Rome. Tamburini added that he himself was going to assist at its deliberations, as well as several other professors of the University of Pavia, and he urged many arguments to induce Lanigan to accom- pany them. The youthful Irishman, however, seems asked the question of Archbishop Leahy. That eminent Prelate re- plied in the following courteous letter, which will be welcome to at least his future biographer: Thurles, 3rd October, 1867. My dear Sir — The marginal notes in the copy of Lanigan's " Bi- blical Dissertations" are from the hand which now writes to you. Of what sort they are, I cannot now say, as it is some years since they were written. At one time I was thinking of giving to the public something upon the canon and inspiration of the Scriptures — or, rather, a complete treatise on Biblical Hermeneutics. It was, of course, necessary to engage in a very extensive course of reading on Biblical matters ; and it was in the course of this reading that I made these marg nal notes in Lanigan's work. I have a large quantity of matter then and so collected. Whether it shall ever see the light depends upon several contingencies — among which time, opportunity, health. — My dear Sir, yours faithfully, ^ P. Leahy. 48 WITS AND WORTHIES : to have smelt mischief, and he made some answer to the effect that as the coming synod meant to deal very much with matters of purely local discipline, it was more the province of an Italian ecclesiastic than of an Irish priest to aid it by his counsel.* It is, of course, impossible to give the exact words used by Dr. Lanigan ; but that he excused himself from attending we know on the authority of the late Very Eev. Dr. Hamill, Vicar-General of Dublin, of whose relations with Lanigan we shall hereafter take occasion to speak. * There were fifty-seven points proposed for discussion by the Bishop of Pistoia. In cursorily glancing over the bulk of them, one fails to discover anything very grave or startling to Lanigan's sense of propriety. The irreparable error of the proceeding lay in raising on the towers of Pistoia a flag of independence from the centre of unity, Rome. Among the points proposed for discussion were — the importance of holding diocesan synods ; to the right of curates to sit and vote in them ; to the necessity of reforming the missals and bre- viaries ; to the abolition of useless oaths ; to reclaiming the authority of the bishops, which had been usurped by the Court of Rome, espe- cially the power of granting dispensations, particularly in matters re- lating to marriage ; to the uniformity of doctrine and study according to the writings of St. Augustine ; to the prohibition to ordain priests to sinecures ; to permit them receiving ordination before the age of eighteen ; to the necessity of ordaining none but priests worthy of being entrusted with the sacred ministry ; to the abolition of begging for saying masses ; to the impropriety of one individual holding and doing the duty of several benefices ; to the necessity of attaching each incumbent to a particular church in the district of his benefice ; to the suppression of private oratories ; to prohibiting priests from hunting, frequenting inns, theatres, gaming-houses, or employing themselves in commercial speculations ; to a reduction of the extra- vagant luxury of temples, and of the pomp of festivals and religious ceremonies ; to the celebration of more than one mass in the same church; to the examination of all relics denominated sacred, and the elimination of those proved to be false ; to the unveiling of covered images ; to the instruction to be given to the people relative to the communion of saints and to suffrage on behalf of the dead ; to the duties of curates ; to exhorting the people in the vernacular language on the gospel for each day, and the explanation of the Latin prayers which are repeated ; to the submission of the regular monks and nuns to the curates and bishops ; and to the invalidity in procuring of orders, permissions, dispensations from Rome unless accompanied by the exequator of government. The nineteenth and last session was held 5th June, 1787. — IstoriadelV Assemhlia, Florence, 1787, p. 355. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 49 The Tipperary priest would indeed have been as much out of place at the Italian Synod of Pistoia as Tamburini would have been at a Synod of Thurles ; and we are not surprised to find that, impelled by, doubtless, still weightier reasons, he should have in- tuitively recoiled from Tamburini's proposal. Tam- burini was a fussy, active ecclesiastic, of great dash, talent, and brilliancy, whose motto seemed to be " a ut Ccesar aut nullus." Strictly speaking, he had no more right to act as major-domo of a Synod at Pistoia than at one in the mensal Presbytery in Dublin; and yet we learn that " De Pavie il appella le pro- fesseur Tamburini qu'il transforma en promoteur du synode, quoique ce professeur n'eut aucun droit d'y assister."* Although Yecchi, Guarisci, Fronti, Bot- tieri, Palruieri, and other men then highly distin- guished in Italy, attended with the object of aiding Bishop Bicci, they played quite a secondary part in comparison with that of Tamburini. Two hundred and thirty-four priests were present at the first session, which opened on the 18th September, 1786. Boscoe states that three archbishops and fourteen bishops attended it. Had Pticci confined the deliberations of his Council to matters of discipline he would have stood on safer ground; but we find him handling predestination, morals, grace, and other delicate questions; adopting the four propositions of the French clergy in 1682 ; and endorsing many of the views of Baius and Quesnel — Dames more repulsive to Catholic orthodoxy than even the father of their heresy, Bishop Jansenius, who died before his opinions were condemned.! It is hardly surprising that an undertaking of this * " Histoire Generate de l'Eglise," par M. le Baron Henrion. Tom. xi., p. 462. f This, perhaps, may serve to account for the honoured position assigned at the present moment to the picture of Jansenius in the thoroughly orthodox University of Louvain. 2* 50 WITS AND WOETHIES : sort, which originated very much in pride and pre- sumption, though under the plausible pretext of reach- ing heaven by a short-cut,* should have been overtaken by some of the penalties of Babel. The clangor of conflicting views vibrated ; and we fear that Tambu- rini, even with his musical name, failed to impart much harmony to the scene. Fourteen members re- fused to subscribe to four decrees upon the sacra- ments in general, declaring that some " useful things were mixed up with novel ideas and equivocal expres- sions;" while eleven members resisted a favourite scheme of Bishop Ricci's — namely, that all monks should be reduced to one solitary order, and perpetual vows abolished. t The bishop's own flock at last rose against him, and stung by the war which he waged against their images, their altars, and their saints, de- scended in an avalanche on his cathedral, crushed and burned his throne, invaded his palace, ancf carried off the books and papers which they believed to be bad. By a Papal decree, Ricci was obliged to resign his See, and the keen edge of satire, mercilessly exacerbating him, made his position still more miserable. His pro- ceedings were ridiculed, something after the manner of Swift, by Abati Marcheti, afterwards Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, in a work entitled " Lettera del Primicereo de Mondorbopoli a Monsig. Scipione de Ricci Mondorbopoli, a.d. 1788." " Put not your trust in princes" was illustrated in 1799, when we find Ricci imprisoned for declaring in favour of the decrees of the Constituent Assembly which had been formed under the temporary influence of the French, who then occupied Tuscany. Being set at liberty, he signed, in 1805, on the death of Pius VI. a formula of entire adhesion to the bulls from * Ricci assured his priests that the Holy Ghost was in the midst of them, and that their " oracles'' were those of God himself. — Vide "Discours D'overture," p. 113. t " Histoire Generale de l'Eglise," torn, xi., pp. 463-4. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 51 which he had previously dissented ; and thus this proud prelate became at last reconciled to the Holy See. Tamburini, wrapped in an implacable hostility against the order of Religious which his own family had largely helped to make illustrious, returned to Pavia, where the Empress Maria Theresa nominated him Professor of Theology; and here he remained until his death, 14th March, 1827 — a few months before the demise of Lanigan.* A sort of impression being still prevalent in ecclesi- astical society that Dr. Lanigan was mixed up with the proceedings of Pistoia, though Dr. Hamill will be found vindicating him from the charge in a coming chapter, we have dwelt at greater length upon that episode than we should otherwise have done ; and even to many ecclesiastics its history is but imper- fectly known. Ranke dismisses it in two lines, and it is altogether ignored by Reeves and others in their histories of the Church. This seems the more strange inasmuch as the daring character of the council, within so short a distance of the capital of Christen- dom and centre of unity, excited at the time a wonder- ful sensation. Ricci was not the only bishop whose orthodoxy was tinged by the tainted atmosphere which they, of * A bishop, not speaking ex cathedra, in reference to this Tam- burini, said : " Nothing can be more orthodox than the writings of Tamburini. His Moral Theology holds a foremost rank, and St. Liguori frequently travels out of his way to eulogise and quote it." But the good prelate will excuse us for reminding him that the family of Tamburini is Levitical, three members of it having obtained distinc- tion in the Church. Thomas, a Jesuit, wrote the Moral Theology. Some theologians have gone so far as to profess to have found in his writings reprehensible propositions ; but ecclesiastical authority has hesitated to confirm their censures. Another Tamburini, General of the Jesuits, died in 1730; but Lanigan's friend was Pierre Tambu- rini, born in 1737, at Brescia, where he remained ten years as Pro- fessor of Theology and Philosophy in its seminary, and two as its Rector, and on the strength of his reputation was invited to Rome for the purpose of directing the studies of the Irish College. 52 WITS AND WORTHIES : necessity, breathed. Following the example of Eicci, the Bishops of Colle and of Arezzo also held their councils, but they did not attain the eclat attaching to that of Pistoia. Sciarelli, Bishop of Colle, had adopted many of the Grand Duke's innovations. Henrion tells us that he delivered, in 1785, a pastoral charge completely after the taste of Bishop Eicci. Panni- lini, Bishop of Chiusi, evinced similar laxity. He published, in 17^6, pastoral instructions which Pius VI. was obliged to condemn by a brief. It is all the more creditable to Lanigan's robustly organized idio- syncracy, that at this impressionable period of his life he should have stood in an atmosphere of conta- gion, and yet, as we are assured by his friends, re- mained unscathed. The reign of the Emperor Joseph, crowned King of the Eomans in 1764, formed a trying juncture in the history of the Church, and in the steady consistency of individual theological careers.* Lanigan's residence in Italy embraced a stirring * Those desirous of learning more of Lanigan's times under that regime should consult 44 Alethini (Pisti) Epistolarum ad Auctorem Anonymum, Opusculi Inscripti Quid Est Papa ?" 1787. To Arch- bishop Troy's copy we found the following unpublished MS. note appended : " The author of this work, written in very pure latinity, on the Terentian model is Mamachi. Its subject of refutation is a tract published at Vienna, 1782, by Eybel, Professor of Canon Law in Latin, German, and modern Greek, under the title following : ' What is the Pope V The object of Eybel, the hireling of Joseph II., then prime minister, was to discourage by ridicule the demonstrations of respect which it was feared would be paid by the subjects of the hereditary Austrian stales to Pope Pius VI., then about to travel to Vienna for the purpose of expostulating with the Emperor on his or- dinances for a general plunder and confiscation of religious property. The scheme, however, of the author and of his employer failed. The city of Vienna and its suburbs emptied themselves of inhabitants, and went forth to the distance of six miles to meet and escort his Holi- ness. Joseph II., seeing his capital left unpeopled, sought to retrieve his shame by going out, as it were, to head the procession. The tract of Eybel was afterwards damned and interdicted by the same Pope in the Bull Super Solidilate, in which the matters now mentioned are set forth with a gravity and majesty devoid of resentment, but ever- lastingly stigmatising the base stratagem of inhospitality attempted against him by the fanatical politicians of sacrilege." DR. LANIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 53 and eventful period, and not in a theological point of view alone. More than church canons fulminated their startling notes beneath the episcopal hand which had applied the fatal torch of discord. Ordnance roared on the heights of Rohadin — rivers of blood flowed around ; and Belgrade, after having resisted the attacks of Joseph — a sort of Brummagem Charle- magne — at last fell, in 1789, before the superior gene- ralship of his officer Laudohn. The apothegm, Sic transit gloria mundi was exemplified in the life of Joseph also, as well as in that of his brother, Joseph I., which lasted but six years. He died in 1790, four years before the return of Lanigan to Ireland, and was succeeded by his brother, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Lanigan's path even in this remote land was paved with historic memories racy of his native soil. In the Austrian service many Irishmen had risen to great and deserved distinction, and he could not forget that M In far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade, Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade." A copy of Mr. Lanigan's inaugural address on accepting the chair of Hebrew and Sacred Scripture at Pavia is now before us. It is dedicated to Count Wellack, seems to have been privately printed in Italy, and is stvled, " De Origine et Progressu Hermenutico Sacrce Oratio tin am in Regio Archigymnasio Ticinensi," &c. A fine copy was long in the possession of Dr. Lanigan's old friend, the late Dean Meyler of Dublin, who valued it so highly and guarded it with such jealous care, that although more than once solicited by an old friend to allow the perusal of it for even a few days, stoutly denied him that privilege. After the Dean's death, we obtained access to this inaugural address, which seems to have been delivered on the 22nd of May, corresponding with the xi. of the kalends of June, 1789. It was delivered in the Royal College of 54 WITS AND WORTHIES : Pavia, and printed in the same city, as the title-page informs us. From the opening sentence it would seem that the Eector Magnificus of the University, the learned professors, and a distinguished audience had been addressed. This oration is composed in good scholastic Latin, and displays a perfect knowledge of sacred hermeneutics. To this literary effort it would seem he had been invited by the faculty. The prepara- tion of his essay had been deferred for some little time, owing to the almost daily class exercises to which the energies of Dr. Lanigan were necessarily devoted. " Thy modesty's a flambeau to thy merit/ ' says Henry Fielding. Lanigan's progress illustrated this fine virtue. The unaffected modesty of the youthful professor is strikingly manifested in the earnest apologies offered for his supposed shortcomings. He compliments the audience present as most select, and venerated for proficiency in learning and accomplish- ments not alone throughout Italy, but even in the other countries of Europe. He likewise delicately hints the obligations he owed the reigning Emperor, through whose influence and patronage he occupied a position in the flourishing University of Pavia. This whole lecture is evidently the emanation of a clear and vigorous mind, as fully capable of appreciating the public duties he was required to discharge as of ful- filling them in a very eminent degree. DB. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 55 CHAPTER VIII. " GIOVANNI LANIGAN IRLANDESE." " The great advantage of an University is, that a person lives in a place where his reputation depends on his learning." Dr. Johnson. It has been neatly remarked by another distinguished alumnus of the Irish College at Rome,* that "the general character of a churchman is singularly im- proved by the tributary accomplishments of the scholar, and literature is like a fine gem of Araby's incense in the golden censor of Religion." Mr. Lanigan seems to have felt this, and his pen sped while his mind inhaled the aroma of lore and letters. Beneath the sunny skies of Italy his intellect grew, and soon de- veloped fruits of ripe scholarship in many branches of literature. The diffidence traceable in Dr. Lanigan's earlier addresses to his auditory or class at Pavia gradually wore off, and we find him gaining increased confidence and pretension as plaudits fell thicker and thicker around him. This is specially evident in a learned disquisition of 159 pages upon the manner of instructing ecclesiastical students in the science of the Sacred Scriptures — " Saggio sulla Maniera d'Insegnare a' Gio- vani Ecclesiastici la Scienza de Libri Sacri, di Giovanni Lanigan Irlandese Dottore di S. Teolog. e Prof, di Sacra Scrittura nella Regia Universita di Pavia." Our Professor would seem to have been a little vain of his disquisition, for the obverse of each of the 159 pages comprising it are headed by the word, " Lanigan." Of this work no duplicate copy is known to exist other than that now before us. It was purchased in Italy by the late Rev. Dr. Laurence O'Renehan, to whose * Rev. F. Mahony. 56 WITS AND WORTHIES I industry Ireland is so much indebted ; but bis valued copy of the " Saggio" disappeared after his death, and it was only after years of diligent inquiry on our part that its present repository was at last ascertained. Not being much of an Italian scholar ourselves, we hesitated to undertake to criticize the " Saggio' 9 of Lanigan, and having submitted it to a reverend friend who received his education at Kome, and one specially conversant with the language and literature of Italy,* he thus announces his impression in a letter dated 2nd September, 1870 : " The essay is an exhaustive plan for directing the study of the Sacred Scriptures, with a running fire of sparkling criticism upon adverse plans or opinions regarding other methods of study, interpretation, and inculcation. To be competent for the due discharge of sacerdotal duty, a most intimate acquaintance with the Bible is, as he states, necessary; and in order to attain a thorough mastery of its con- tents, the study of ancient history is, according to his system, an indispensable preparatory step. Against the Calvinistic mode of Scriptural interpretation he, of course, runs full tilt ; but Becker and many other orthodox divines receive as little quarter, while Usher is warmly praised. The matter is clear, elaborate, and learned ; the arrangement artistic and effective ; the style seems to me easy, erudite, and sufficiently eloquent. Bat, better still, it is entirely free from all trace of Jansenism, then so frequently found in the schools of Austrian Italy. f On the whole, the work would make what I presume it was originally meant to form, an introductory lecture to an imposing course of Sacred Scripture. It is so finely comprehensive in * The late Rev. Thomas D. F. Barry, M.R I. A., who died suddenly at "Westland-row Presbytery, 16th May, 1871. f The entire freedom from Jansenistic tinge noticed by Mr. Barry is the more gratifying from the fact that the Baron Henrion, in his " Histoire de rEglise," speaking of the Synod of Pistoia, describes Pavia as " ecole fertile alors en partisans de la nouvelle theologies Tome xi., p. 462. An. 1787. DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 57 its grasp, and every point is dovetailed with such mosaic neatness, that it would be impossible for me, and unjust to the author, to attempt the emasculation of presenting any abstract or resume of the contents. Let it suffice to say that the 6 Saggio' of Lanigan is marked by all the vigour which characterised the re- vival of Italian literature in the eighteenth century, after its temporary depression under Spanish influ- ences. It is, in truth, singularly free from the stiff- ness or even graver blemishes which one would expect to find in the acquired Italian of a foreign student. Nothing of its sort can be more easy or eloquent." It may, indeed, be safely said, from all we can collect, that the essay would, on the whole, bear not unfavourable comparison with the writings of the eloquent Muratori, or even with those of Gozzi, Baretti, Mazzuchelli, or Caesarotti — the brightest names in Ita- lian criticism which the eighteenth century can boast. Specimens of Lanigan's strength as a philologist, and his tact as a master of idiomatic subtleties, might no doubt be freely cited. But the subjoined, besides showing the accuracy of his Italian style when following in the footprints of Muratori or Caesarotti, is somewhat racy from the mingled Tipperary energy and Italian gladiatorship with which he grapples with the men to whose views he was opposed: " Finora siamo stati, per chiamarla cosi, nella Grammatica Sacra, dopo la quale viene il trattato da alcuni detto Rettorica Sacra, sotto questo si comprende primieramente il modo meta- forico ed allegorico di parlare usato presso gli antichi Ebrei ed altri popoli orientali, come pure le maniere enigmatiche di dire, qualche volta usate dai Profeti. Che vi siano alcune frasi enigmatiche nella Scrittura, egli e innegabile ; ma mi sembra insoffribile l'uso o piuttosto 1'abuso, che in qnesta materia ha fatto del Sacro Testo I'Abbate Villefroy, e dopo lui i Padri Cappuccini della scuola Ebraica di Parigi. Eglino a forza di interpretazioni enigmatiche ci menano in un 58 WITS AND WORTHIES : mondo nuovo, e fanno parlare agli autori sacri un linguaggio per intender il quale ci vuole un intelletto angelico, che certamente quelle dell' uorao non arriva capirlo. Egli e bello a vedere questi nuovi scuopritori venire dopo diciassette secoli a rivelae certe non so quali forze ignote dei vocaboli, e in vece dei significati, che il senso comune degli uomini esige, dure alle parole e frasi del Sacro Testo certe misteriose interpretazioni, come se le Scritture soffero state scritte in uno stile arcano e niagico, e non in un modo cla potersi intendere dagli uomini." This may be thus translated. It is not easy to make so short an extract, selected at random, in- teresting, but it affords a fair sample of the style of the whole. Having arrived at page 67, Dr. Lanigan goes on to say : " Hitherto we have been, so to speak, confined within the bounds of Sacred "Grammar. We now enter a wider field, by some called 6 Sacred Rhetoric. ' It comprehends the metaphorical and allegorical manner of speaking used by the ancient Hebrews and other Eastern nations, as also the enig- matical expressions sometimes used by the prophets. It is undeniable that there are enigmatical phrases in Scripture, but the use, or rather the abuse, made in this particular of the Sacred Text by the Abbe Villefroy, and after him by the Capuchin Fathers of the Hebrew school of Paris, is to me insupportable. Their forced and enigmatical interpretations lead us into a new world, and make the sacred writers use language which would require an angelical intellect to understand them, for the human mind is quite incapable of fathoming its depths. It is curious, after the lapse of seventeen centuries, to see these discoverers pre- tending to reveal, I know not what unknown force in their expressions, and, instead of the obvious meaning which common sense suggests, putting a mysterious interpretation upon the Sacred Text, as though the Scriptures had been written in a secret or magic style, DR. LANIGANj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 59 and not in words capable of being understood by men." More to this effect might be quoted, not less racy than Irish, and reminding one of his early friend Lysaght's portrait of a real Irishman, who " Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down, With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green." Thus we see that perverse Catholic interpreters of the Bible are not spared any more than the sectaries who, as St. Peter says, " wrest the Sacred Scriptures to their own destruction. " CHAPTEB IX. HIS DOCTOR'S DEGREE. — FLIGHT ! "Now peals of shouts come thund'ring from a'far, Cries, threats, and loud laments, and mingled war ! The noise approaches ; Louder and yet more loud, I hear th' alarms Of human cries, distinct, and clashing arms ! Fear broke every slumber ; I no longer stay." Dryden's Virgil, yExEis, ii. 397 — 4.26. In 1794, Dr. Lanigan's labours, learning, and ex- emplary life received the well-merited recognition of a Doctor's Degree. From the original charter, engrossed on parchment and couched in elegant Latinity, we pre- sent a translation. How an Italian prelate could be Archbishop of Amasia — which is a city of Pontus in Asia, and the birthplace of Strabo — can only be ex- plained by the fact that Dr. Bertieri may have been a bishop in partibas, and, while virtually ruling Pavia, derived a nominal title from Amasia, in the same way as the late Dr. Murray,* while officiating as Coadjutor * " You have probably heard before this that I am now nearly three years the nominal pastor of the archdiocese of Hieropolis, and Dr. Troy's Coadjutor in Dublin." — MS. Letter from Dr. Murray to Dr. Curtis, dated Ibth Sep., 1S12. 60 WITS AND WORTHIES : Archbishop of Dublin, enjoyed the high- sounding title of Archbishop of Hieropolis in Phrygia. We are in- debted for the following document to the Very Rev. Mgr. Meagher, V.Gr., Dublin, who received it from a member of Dr. Lanigan's family whom he attended during his last illness : (Locus Sigilli.) " We, Joseph Bertieri, Archbishop of Amasia, Bishop of the venerable Church of Pavia, Count, and immediately subject to the Holy See, by Apostolic and Imperial privilege, Chancellor of the venerable College of Pavia. " To all the beloved in Christ, and to such indi- vidually as inspect these letters, health in the Lord. If it be just that those who, after having finished a proposed course of studies, having afforded certain and approved examples of excellence in reference both to their talents and to the purity of their morals, should be furnished with honorable distinctions, much more equitable it is indeed that similar honours should be conferred upon persons who have eminently attained renown, whilst obtaining the public office of teaching and discharging most important duties for the advantage both of Church and State. Hence, Im- perial enactments have wisely decreed that the Laurel should be given, without examination and free from all usual formalities, to any professor of the University of Pavia desiring to obtain it. For so, indeed, it becomes expedient to act in reference to those whose attainments are most evident. And having preferred a request to be admitted Doctor of Divinity and of Canon Law, as our beloved in Christ, the Kev. John Lanigan, of Cashel, in Ireland, Pro- fessor of Theology in the University of Pavia, has greatly excelled, not alone owing to an unblemished and spotless character, but likewise in every kind of literature and erudition, particularly in the teaching DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 61 and cultivation of theological studies and of canonical jurisprudence, most willingly do we confer, by virtue of our best faculties, the rewards due to such great and varied merits. Wherefore, the said Eev. John Lanigan, in our presence, in presence of the Most Eev. Father Abbot of the Congregation of Olivet, Rev. Stanislaus Perandoli, the Eev. Professor and illustrious Pro-Eector of this Eoyal University of Pavia, the Most Eev. Professors of said sacred faculty, and in presence of the Doctors of the venerable Col- lege, having bound himself by the customary oath, in reference to particulars which the laws of this Univer- sity require to be observed by Doctors, We, Joseph Bertieri, Archbishop and Bishop, by virtue of the authority with which we are invested, create, consti- tute, and proclaim said Eev. John Lanigan, Doctor of Sacred Theology and of Canonical Jurisprudence, granting to him all the rights and privileges which by law and custom are due to this Degree. In faith of which we have commanded these letters to be prepared in solemn form by J.J.C. and Causidicus Aloysius Ciniselli, Notary Chancellor of said University, and to be furnished with its seal. Given and perfected at Pavia, in the great hall of this University, in the xxiv. year ab Athenis Insubricis restored, and of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety- four, xxviii. of the month of June. "J. J. C. and Causidicus Aloysius Ciniselli. {Locus Sigilli.) Besides the works we have already noticed, Dr. Lanigan composed some elaborate Latin orations while at Pavia. The Eev. M. J. Brennan, O.S.F., in his "Ecclesiastical History,"* states that "on one occasion the Emperor Joseph having visited the University was * " An Ecclesiastical Historv of Ireland, bv the Rev. M. J. Brennan, O.S.F.," vol. ii., p. 483. 62 WITS AND WORTHIES : pleased to honour Dr. Lanigan's lectures by his presence. The Doctor delivered a Latin oration which was received with unbounded applause, the Emperor at the same time observing, ' that so young a man and so enlightened a professor reflected new lustre on the Irish nation, and reminded him of the ancient literary glory of that people.'" The late Mr. A. W. Harnett, of the Irish Bar, in discussing the propriety of raising a monument to the memory of Dr. Lanigan, suggested that " a decorative cross should be placed upon the Eock of Cashel, round whose hoary ruins the giant* soul of the patriot priest hovered ever, even whilst confined within his body in foreign climes. " The remark, as regards Dr. Lanigan's love of his natal spot, is eminently just. " Although as a Professor of Pavia," observes Mr. Green, " he enjoyed the distinction and privileges of personal nobility, yet he never once forgot his native Cashel ; and ' Joannes Lanigan, Hibernus Cassili- ensis' was emblazoned on every title-page of these, his writings, as if to refer all the honour to the dear old land." It may, indeed, be said that Dr. Lanigan, in the fulness of his fame abroad, did not forget Ireland, its ties, claims, literature, and traditions. Even at this early period of his life, Dr. Lanigan is said to* have been no stranger to the ecclesiastical history of Ireland, and it was for a time a question for inquiry to us whether a very able series of papers, published in Sleator's Dublin Chronicle for 1787 and 1788, and headed, " A Sketch or Summary View of the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, " may not have been contributed by Dr. Lanigan. This we at one time supposed possible, but fuller inquiry has modified that impression. Some passages occur in these papers which exhibit an anti- Catholic leaning, but we at first at- tributed it to editorial interpolation, rendered desirable by the fact that Sleator's Chronicle being a supporter DB. LANIGAN, EIS LIFE AND TIMES. 63 of the dominant religion, it was necessary to preserve a consistency of tone. "Irenasus" was a favourite pseu- donym of Lanigan's. 66 Ierneus" is the signature affixed to these papers ; but the names, although they assimilate, are not, as at the first glance we imagined, identical; for Irenaeus was a priest, whilst Ierneus signifies a native of Ierna, or Erin. The first part of this " Summary Yiew of the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland" appears in Sleator's Dublin Chronicle of December 22, 1787, and it is continued in the same journal of Feb. 2, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 28, and March 1, 4, 6, 8, 13, 15, 1788. We are now satisfied, however, that the author was Thomas Camp- bell, LL.D., author of "Strictures on the Ecclesiastical and Literary History of Ireland," Dublin, 8vo, 1789 — which is the more likely as the supplement contains letters under the signature of i( Ierneus." Although by profession an ecclesiastic, and more or less wedded to sedentary and studious pursuits, Dr. Lanigan, nevertheless, like St. Paul, discharged intre- pidly his duties as a citizen. We have heard that there is in existence an elaborate document or parch- ment, purporting to be an address from the municipality of Pavia to Dr. Lanigan, and investing him with the freedom of that ancient classic city. In what high estimation must not the Irish priest have been held when we find him receiving from a remote Continental city a compliment so distinguished and rare. Meanwhile, Napoleon Bonaparte was wreathing his youthful brow with laurels by the masterly general- ship with which he conducted the army of Italy to victory, out -manoeuvring the Austrian General Beau- lieu, and compelling the King of Sardinia to sign a treaty in his own capital. The battles of Monte- notte, Millesino, and Mondovi followed in steady suc- cession, like the flashes of his own success ; and on the 10th of May, 1796, Napoleon — following up his advantage and pursuing Beaulieu — passed the 64 WITS AND WORTHIES : memorable bridge of Lodi, which flowed like an aqueduct of blood, awed Cremona into instantaneous submission, entered Pavia, and shook to its centre the entire Duchy of Milan. The University was broken up in the general debris, the Professors fled, and Dr. Lanigan returned to his native country, leaving behind him in his haste many valuable books, manuscripts, and even money. The late Kev. Dr. Howley, of the diocese of Cash el, and some other priests, returned to Ireland with him, and, according to Mr. Bryan Kelly — Lanigan' s grand- nephew — they had proceeded only a few leagues out at sea when they heard the explosion of the University by the French. Sir Archibald Alison, describing the fall of Pavia in 1795, writes : " The pillage conti- nued the whole day, and that opulent and flourish- ing town underwent all the horrors of war ; but the terrible example crushed the insurrection over the whole of Lombardy, where hostages were taken from the principal families and despatched into France."* Sir Archibald makes no allusion to the destruction of the University, and it seems to us that the family tradition which ascribed the distant explosion to the fall of that venerable edifice, founded by Charlemagne, has originated in a misapprehension. Dr. Lanigan's mind was in a state of great agitation when flying from Pavia ; and, owing to this circumstance, he perhaps too hastily embraced the conclusion that the explosion which grated on his ears was the death- note of that ancient seat of learning in which he had spent so many happy years. Pavia was one of the few States which had, through successive centuries, suc- cessfully rebelled against the iron rod of French rule ; and when it at last fell before the annihilating arm of Bonaparte, he made it atone for past magnanimity by * Alison's History of Europe, chap. xx. DIt. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIXES. 05 the blood of its magistrates, whom he ordered to be shot.* Could the platoon of musketry that prostrated the fount of justice have been the explosion which terrified Lanigan when retreating from Pavia ? That it can hardly have been the University is tolerably evi- dent, if we are to accept as conclusive the assertion of Mr. Brennan, the ecclesiastical historian, who tells us that Bonaparte "issued a manifesto to the munici- palities of Pavia, ordering them to recall the professors, to invite the students to resume their studies, and to assure all that even amid the din of war this sacred abode of literature should remain secure and un- hiolested."t Mr. Brennan, who introduced in his " Ecclesiastical History" a biographic sketch of Dr. Lanigan from which we have more than once quoted, was a Francis- can friar, and this chapter may as well conclude with an anecdote of him. Owing to a quarrel with his prior, he in petulance conformed to the Protestant Church. The late Bishop M'Gettigan used to tell that after lionizing in the pulpits of the metropolis for some time, Brennan was invited by the Protestant Bishop of Down to preach a sermon in Letterkenny. Brennan was rather an absent man, and from force of old habit he had no sooner mounted the pulpit than he blessed himself. The congregation immediately rushed out of the church, and Brennan found his occu- pation gone. The celebrated pulpit orator, Walter Blake Kirwan, Protestant Dean of Killala, had been also a Franciscan friar; and there is a tradition among the community of Adam and Eve, Dublin, that his change of creed likewise originated in a dispute with the prior. * Eustace's " Classical Tour through Italy," vol. ii., p. 240. t Brennan's " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. i.,p. 484. To this work it has been objected by Mr. Henebry Green that the earlier and best parts of it are a complete paraphrase of the Ecclesiastical History of Dr. Lanigan. Mr. Brennan, however, is not always accurate in his dates ; he refers the fall of Pavia to the year 1 796. 8 66 WITS AND WOKTHIES : CHAPTER X. CORK EIGHTY YEARS AGO. " Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? "Whose heart hath ne'er within him hurned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there be, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell ; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung." Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto vi. The ship soon left behind the dark waters of the Gulf of Genoa, passing in its progress the famous Insula Lerinensis, whither St. Patrick, as shown by Dr. Lanigan, retired in the year 418 ; and which afforded him matter for an erudite analysis of the conflicting statements advanced by Colgan, Usher, Probus, and the Bollandists.* The distant din of musketry — broken at intervals by a louder crash — continued, while the ship which contained Lanigan and his fellow- fugitives made safety every moment more certain by the speed with which it ploughed the waves of the Mediterranean. But the dangers which they had left behind were soon emulated by present peril. A storm overtook the vessel ; the hatches were shut down, the cordage snapped, the timbers groaned, waves rushed over the deck, the pumps were plied, and at last, after a desperate struggle with wind and water — during which Lanigan was not inactive — the good ship * " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. i., pp. 172 — 177. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 07 triumphed, and sought refuge on the genial shores of Madeira.* How Lanigan occupied himself during the tedious voyage to Cork, tradition fails to state. He, no doubt, read his breviary, and ever and anon plied his telescope in the direction of the Irish shore, and possibly illus- trated the fine lines of Thomas D'Arey M'Gee, who fell by an assassin's hand ere his own return to Ireland : u Ah, dear sailor, say, have we sighted Cape Clear ? Can you see any sign ? is the morning light near ? You are young, my brave boy ; thanks, thanks for your hand ; Help me up, till I get a fond glimpse of the land. Thank God, 'tis the sun that now reddens the sky ; I shall see, I shall see my own land ere I die." Dr. Lanigan possessed a cordial appreciation of the beauties of picturesque scenery in addition to an in- tense patriotism ; and the joyous emotions with which, after a long exile, he approached his native land were greatly heightened by the splendid prospect which rose majestically on either side as, sweeping past the headland of storied Kinsale, the good ship rode proudly up the Lee, and cast anchor at St. Patrick's Bridget While the bells of Shandon rang out their gladdest peal, Dr. Lanigan, bundle in hand, eagerly rushed on shore, too sanguinely picturing to himself the caed mille a faltha which awaited him from old friends. But he lost sight of the fact that while a man's good fortune often turns his own head, his ill fortune as frequently turns away the heads of his friends. Driven from his proud position in Pavia, he came home a destitute wanderer. The avidity where- * Mr. Green, in a tribute to Dr. Lanigan's worth in the Nation of 26th February, 1853, remarks that even of the small sum which his kinsman brought with him he was speedily relieved u either by straggling offshoots of the invading force, or by one of those native banditti which infest and characterise the Appenines." But this must be a confused repetition of the former story which gave on the high authority of Dr. Lanigan's grand-niece. f This fine bridge was then quite a recent erection, having been btt in 1789, from a design by Shanahan. 68 WITS AND WOETHIES : with lie sprang upon his well-loved Ireland, from which he had been so long an exile, received a speedy chill. Plundered and penniless, haggard and hungry, he A Scene in Cork Harbour. sought the rights of hospitality from the See of Cork, which it is painful to add were frigidly denied ! Even one of his old college companions — as Dr. Lanigan's kinsfolk traditionally state— the Rev. Dr. MacCarthy, # pastor of St. Finbarr's, who officiated besides as Vicar- General to Dr. Moylan, declined to extend to him the hand of Irish hospitality and friendship. This atti- tude must have pained the priest who was obliged to assume it. Dr. MacCarthy possessed a reputation Of * Dr. MacCarthy was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Cork in 1803 ; but be died before succeeding to the mitre of Dr. Moylan. J DR. LAHIGAN, HIS LIFE AXD TIMES. 69 the opposite character. We learn from the Irish Maga- zine, when recording his death in 1810, page 337 : " Never more will he wipe away the corroding tear of anguish. Never more will he slake your burning thirst, satisfy the craving of hunger, shelter your nakedness from the winter blast, or rescue you from the devouring fangs of friendless poverty. " The stolid reserve in which, on the occasion now described, Dr. MacCarthy wrapped himself, was no doubt attri- butable to the fact, that an unfounded suspicion of Jansenism rested on Dr. Lanigan, in consequence of his personal intimacy with Tamburini, whose loud and leading voice in the Council of Pistoia had sent the shock of its echo even into the moun- tains of Kerry, of which Dr. Moylan was then Bishop ; and Dr. MacCarthy, as Vicar- General, could not assume an attitude different from that maintained by his Diocesan. The truth, however, is, that although Dr. Lanigan bore a strong affection for Tamburini as a private friend, he far from shared in Tamburini's laxity of dogmatic principle. There is generally 'truth in the saying that " a man is known by his friends ;" but Dr. Moylan, if judged by the same principle, would probably have indignantly repelled the inference that he held all the views of Camden, Castlereagh, Sir Boyle Roche, and other bad men of his time, because, as we gather from their cor- respondence with the Bishop, he maintained friendly relations with them, and even went on visits to their houses. Dr. Moylan, the Bishop to whose door Dr. Lanigan proceeded on his arrival in the South of Ireland, enjoyed the reputation of being a pious, talented, and courteous ecclesiastic. Usually, he was not unmind- ful of the question which had been put to him at his consecration: "Wilt thou, for the namesake of the Lord, be kind of access and pitiful to the poor, to the stranger, and to all that are in need?" and to 70 WITS AND WORTHIES : which he responded : " I wilL ,, But, in the present instance, he would seem to have adopted a very erroneous impression regarding Dr. Lanigan, and on the strength of that assumption to have shaped a course of duty which, we are willing to believe, cost him a struggle to pursue, especially when he called to mind that beautiful passage in the formula of episcopal consecration : " Your door is the first at which the tale of distress is heard ; let the poor always find in you the sympathy of a father, the heart, the bowels of tenderness and compassion.' ' The unmerited character of the rebuff, however, only sent the stab the deeper into poor Dr. Lanigan's heart. With a tingling cheek he turned away ; but he might, perhaps, have felt that such was the shock which the recent defection of their own Bishop had occasioned, it was hardly surprising that the clergy, especially of Cork, should view with caution and distrust a priest whose intimacy with Tamburini, the father of a threat- ened schism, was matter of notoriety. Of secular society, there were eminent wits and worthies in Cork at this time. Crofton Croker, Father Prout, Maginn, Maddyn, Maclise, Hogan, Haynes Bailey, Kenealy, Callanan, England, Fagan, and Windele, were not yet bom; but Cork pos- sessed a constellation of gifted genial men in Father Arthur O'Leary, Barry the painter, James Koche, Roger 0' Connor, John O'Driscoll, Con Leyne, and Millikin, author of " The Groves of Blarney and the accession of Lanigan might, perhaps, have been hailed with a hearty welcome, but he met nought but coldness, and he was obliged to live on a crust of bread while such street ballads as the following were carolled as if in mockery around him : " They may rail at the city where first I was born, But it's there they've the whiskey, and butter, and pork ; And a neat little spot for to walk in each morn — They call it Daunt's Square, and the city is Cork. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 7i The square has two sides — why one east and one west, And convenient's the region of frolic and spree, "Where salmon, drisheens, and beefsteaks are cooked best ; Och ! Cork is the Eden for you, love, and me !" Contemplation of the political condition of that country on which, after a long absence, he had just set his foot afforded no relief to the corroding care of personal sorrow. The jubilation evoked by the glorious outburst of its independence under the magic wand of Grattan was now succeeded by a bitter reaction ; and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wolf Tone, T. A. Emmet, M'Nevin, Tandy, and the Hon. Simon Butler, striving to check the aggressions which fell thick as hail upon the land, were driven to the alternative of organising the society of United Irishmen.* Before concluding this chapter, a few words about Dr. Moylan may prove not uninterestingly suggestive. The Bev. Thomas England, in his editorial notes to the letters of the Abbe Edge worth, not unjustly describes Dr. Moylan as " the benevolent friend of all who sought his assistance or counsel, and in a peculiar manner, the guide, the father, and the friend of his own numerous and respectable flock but the Duke of Portland, the once famous Premier of Great Britain, hit off his character with more accuracy when he noticed his "firmness," combined with that paternal expression of benignity so peculiarly his own. A letter, dated Bulstrode, 27th July, 1800, states : " There can be, and there never has been, but one opinion of the firmness, the steadiness, and the manliness of Dr. Moylan's character, which it was agreed by all those who had the pleasure of meeting him here, was as engaging as his person, * A cabinet minister, Lord Holland, in his u Memoirs of the Whig Party," says : 41 More than twenty years have now passed away. Many of my political opinions are softened — my predilection for some men weakened, my prejudices against others removed ; but my appro- bation of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's actions remains unaltered aud un- shaken. His country was bleeding under one of the hardest tyran- nies that our times have witnessed." 72 WITS AND WORTHIES : which avows and bespeaks as much good-will as can be well imagined in a human countenance." Dr. Moylan's " firmness" was exhibited in a remarkable way not long after his interview with Dr. Lanigan — though in signing resolutions in favour of the Veto, he inconsistently evinced a want of firmness greatly to be deplored. When Tone succeeded in getting the French Government to assist his efforts for the expulsion, as he said, of the " Saxon invader," whose despotism, it must be confessed, was at that time outrageous, Dr. Moylan, on the appearance of the French fleet in Bantry Bay, addressed with rare firmness a pastoral to the people, urging them to expel the " invaders," and for which, had Hoche landed, he would probably have lost his head. " At a moment," observed the Bishop, " of such general alarm and consternation, it is a duty I owe to you, my beloved flock, to recall to your minds the sacred principles of loyalty, allegiance, and good order that must direct your conduct on such an awful occa- sion. Charged, as I am, by that blessed Saviour (whose birth with grateful hearts we this day solen- nize) with the care of your souls, interested bej oid expression in your temporal and eternal welfare, it is incumbent on me to exhort you to that peaceable demeanour which must ever mark his true and faithful disciples." Dr. Moylan's anathema on the French invaders seems to have worked its way. In these unsubsidized allies of England, the winds, a formida- able ally was found. An entry in Tone's diary, penned while the remnant of the French fleet lay tossing in Bantry Bay, says : " Certainly we have been perse- cuted by a strange fatality. We have lost the Com- mander-in-Chief (Hoche) ; of four admirals, not one remains ; we have lost one ship of the line that we know of, and probably many others of which we. know nothing. We have now been six days in Bantry Bay, within 500 yards of the shore, without being able to DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 73 effectuate a landing ; we have been dispersed four times in four days, and at this moment, out of forty-three sail, we can muster, of all sizes, but fourteen. There only wants our falling in with the English to complete our destruction. "* Dr. Moylan had received his ecclesiastical education at Toulouse and Paris, and after his ordination, in the year 1761, he officiated as a vicar in the latter city, where he received many marks of regard from its then Archbishop, Christophe de Beaumont. Dr. Moylan was transferred from the Bishopric of Kerry to that of Cork, in succession to Dr. Butler — Lord Dunboyne — who, in the hope of obtaining an heir to his peerage, conformed to the Protestant Church, married, and on his deathbed — childless — returned to the fold, These were truly strange times and critical in the history of the Irish Church. The late James Roche of Cork mentioned that he was at the consecration of Dr. Nihil, Bishop of Kilfenora, when the text selected by the preacher, Walter Blake Kirwan, was apostacy — while the consecrating prelate was the subsequent apostate, Dr. Butler ! The latter, previous to his recan- tation, passed, in conjunction with the other bishops of Munster, a series of resolutions in deprecation of the conduct of the Pope in suspending the R. C. Primate, Dr. Blake. They bear date 6th July, 1782, and go on to say : " Resolved — That a joint letter be written to * Had the French effected a landing at Bantry, Cork would certainly have fallen, and it is remarkable that at that very crisis stores existed in the city to the amount of a million and a-half — the great supply for the British navy during the ensuing year. The desertion of the Irish shore by the English fleet was due to a masterly trick of Tone's. Several thousand copies of a proclamation addressed to the Irish people were, by order of Hoche, in process of printing at Brest, for distribution in Ireland whenever a landing should be effected. One of Mr. Pitt's spies heard that something of the kind was preparing, and called at the printer's for a copy. Tone, with his usual presence of mind, directed the compositor to have the words " Portugal" and " Portuguese" introduced wherever " Ireland" or " Irish" chanced to occur. The spy stalked off with the fictitious in- formation — away sailed the fleet for Portugal. 74 WITS AND WORTHIES I the Pope, intimating the alarms every bishop in Ireland must feel at the late proceedings in Armagh, viz., the suspension of the Primate without either previous trial or the allegation of any canonical fault." Dr. Moylan assumed the administrative reins of Cork to fill the seat vacated by Lord Dunboyne, when he rushed out of the diocese grasping the torch of Hymen in lieu of his crozier, and displaying a wedding instead of his episcopal ring. It is an interesting historic fact, hitherto unrecorded, and for which we are indebted to Mr. J. W. Coppinger, that the family of Coppinger, of Barryscourt, possessed for genera- tions the right of presenting priests to the Pope for appointment to the See of Cork ; but this extraordinary privilege ceased from the time of the Butler scandal. CHAPTER XI. HE CHEWS THE CUD OF SWEET AND BITTER FANCY. " On I went in sad dejection, careless where my footsteps bore, Till a ruined church before me opened wide its ancient door ; Till I stood before the portals where of old were wont to be, For the blind, the halt, and friendless, alms and hospitality. Still the ancient seat was standing, built against the buttress grey, Where the clergy used to welcome weary travellers on their way." Translation from the Irish, hy Samuel Ferguson. Old Cashel — the City of the Kings, and his own natal place — was now the destination of John Lanigan. Weary in mind and limb, he proceeded on his journey afoot, leaving behind " the spreading Lee," as Spenser expressively styles it, and possibly muttering to him- self the bitter philosophy of Shenstone : * Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn/' Or, more likely, offering up his trials in the spirit of a DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 75 Christian pilgrim, carrying his cross like the Master whom he served, and deriving serenity from the sweetly sequestered glades through which he moved. On he went, becoming more and more calm at every mile, and passing in slow succession The Castle and Groves of Blarney ; the ruins of Kiicoleman Castle, once the residence of Spenser ; the winding Blackwater ; Mallow, with its sparkling spas and rattling " rakes/' immortalised by his early acquaintance, Ned Lysaght; the ivy-clad stronghold of the Desmonds ; Buttevant, with its 76 WITS AND WORTHIES : crumbling monastery finely situated on the steep bank of the Awbeg ; the tower in the Golden Vale ; Tybrid and the grave of Keatinge ; the Devil's Bit ; the lofty Galtees tipped with the brighter gold of morning, from whence, as Dr. 0' Donovan assured us, the race of the O'Longachains, or Lanigans, originally sprang ; Galtymore, attaining an elevation of 2,500 feet, and Battlement of Cahir Castle. sternly proclaiming himself king of that royal range ; the fine cascade roaring in the western glen ; the wood of Aharlow, wherein Dr. Geoffrey Keatinge took refuge from the murderer's threats and deadly shafts,- and * Vide Appendix. DH. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AXD TIDIES. 77 where, to drown his care, he wrote his History of Ireland,* and to whose collegiate distinctions and literary achievements Dr. Lanigan has himself been compared ; Cahir Castle, flanked by its seven pictu- resque towers, and robed in the rich historic memo- ries of which the "Pacata Hibernica ,, is the record; the contiguous ruins of the grey old friary of the Canons of St. Augustine ; the graceful Suir, with the crumbling monastery of Athassel, which Lanigan in his history justly pronounces " magnificent" (iv., 335). All these objects of interest and attraction surely served to lighten and brighten his journey. Athassel, of which his old master, Dr. Hare, was now vicar, was specially full of mingled memories of Christian pro- gress and religious persecution ; and many curious traditions of both are still preserved in Tipperary. One, retained and communicated to our friend, Mr, Kennedy, by the Kev. Theobald Mathew, though un- important, is not without romantic features. A sub- terranean passage was constructed from Athassel Castle Park to the other side of the Suir ; and when the grey monastery was invaded in the olden troublous times, and the inmates obliged to resort to this means of escape, the most advanced of the fugitives were some distance on the east side of the river when the last were only quitting the building. At this point, the Abbot, who was among the vanguard, missed his richly-bound illuminated breviary. There was no occasion, however, for anyone to return. The word was passed from front to rear, and in a few minutes the book, being searched out by the last man, was transferred from hand to hand till it reached its owner. * Geoffrey Keatinge, having spent twenty-two years at the College of Salamanca, was appointed Parish Priest of Tybrid ; but having threatened to excommunicate an abandoned woman, a person under whose protection she then was, vowed with such fury to take his life, that the priest was weak enough to fly for concealment to the wood of Aharlow, where he ended his days writing history and com- posing poems, a.d. 1C50. 78 WITS AND WORTHIES : Every rood of ground within the palatinate of Tipperary was paved with stirring memories, from the scenes of Strongbow's defeats* in 1172, and the suc- cesses of the Irish during the rebellion of 1642, to the revengeful military ravages of Lord Inchiquin five years later, when he laid the whole country waste, and paved the way to that famous distribution among Cromwellian adventurers of the Papist lands, which was subsequently confirmed by the Act of Settlement after the Restoration. But it was the Golden Vale — so-called from the surpassing richness of its soil — which, we may be assured, awakened the largest amount of emotion. Conflicting chords vibrated as so many different objects familiar to Dr. Lanigan in infancy presented themselves — from the ruined homestead to the surrounding fields covered with bright luxuriance, which he persuaded himself was mainly the result of his long-dead father's industry, and whose fruit some indolent stranger was now in all probability reaping. Whether the penniless traveller slept beneath the blue vault of heaven, or sought repose within the recesses of the ivy-mantled cloisters or towers which dotted his route, tradition fails to tell. Mayhap he found one of those rare worthies described by his countryman, Goldsmith, who himself had felt the pangs of hunger, and the keener edge of false friend- ship — " Here to the houseless child of want My door is open still; And though my portion is but scant, I give it with good will." But be this as it may, poor Lanigan obtained shelter somewhere, and rising with the lark early next morn- ing resumed the road. The pangs of wounded sensi- bility were now in some degree counterbalanced by * Some of these incidents are spiritedly sketched by Dr, Lanigan in his History, vol. iv., p. 225. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 79 the joyous anticipations which the hope of seeing so many old and fond faces awakened. Indeed the distant towers of Jerusalem did not rise with brighter halo before the straining eyes of a Crusader, or the Eternal City before a pilgrim, than when the dim out- line of the Rock of Cashel, standing against the hori- zon, caught our traveller's eye and nerved his failing gait. Every word of Simmons' lines, " The Eeturned Exile," seemed to come home to him cordially — u home-looking hill ! how beloved dost thou rise Once more to my sight through the shadowy skies, Watching still, in thy sheltering grandeur unfurled, The landscape to me that so long was the world. Fair evening — blest evening ! one moment delay Till the tears of the pilgrim are dried in thy ray — Till he feels that through years of long absence, not one Of his friends — the lone rock and grey ruin — is gone. Not one; — as I wind the sheer fastnesses through, The valley of boyhood is bright in my view ! Once again my glad spirit its fetterless flight May wing through a sphere of unclouded delight, O'er one maze of broad orchard, green meadow, and slope, From whose tints I once pictured the pinions of hope ; Still the hamlet gleams white — still the church yews are weeping Where the sleep of the peaceful my fathers are sleeping." Mrs. Kennedy, afterwards of Clonmel, the last surviving member of Thomas Lanigan's family of 80 WITS AND WORTHIES * sixteen, was born during her brother's residence in Italy, and amongst the reminiscences which we gleaned from her shortly before her death in 1860, was the anecdote that her first interview with Dr. Lanigan occurred in the main street of Cashel, when he had arrived after his weary walk from Cork to revisit the home of his childhood. She was unattended by any member of her family, and her surprise was great when a fine and courtly-looking gentleman, whom she had never before seen, clasped her in his arms, ex- claiming — " Yes, I know you are my little sister." This lady bore a striking resemblance to Dr. Lanigan, and possessed much of his pleasant animation and empressement. Thirty years had intervened between John's birth and that of his youngest sister.* The cold privations and colder rebuffs which Dr. Lanigan had recently suffered, served only to impart a keener sense of relish to present enjoyment. The cheerful fire was speedily astir, the frugal contents of the larder were hospitably spread, loving faces thronged around the good Doctor's chair ; and the kitchen fire, which had prepared some viands for his refreshment, might, no doubt, be seen an hour later shedding its genial glow on some Limerick blankets, in the capacious folds of which the weary traveller reposed soundly that night, while the weeping rain dashed wildly against the window-panes of his chamber, as if imploring shelter from the harsh, piercing winds * Mrs. Kennedy survived until the 30th October, 1860. " The de- ceased lady," observes a contemporary journal, " was the relict of the late Mr. Kennedy, seed merchant, a large-hearted citizen, and a man of unblemished principle ; but her highest claim on our reverential regret springs from the fact that she was the last surviving sister of the great Dr. Lanigan, author of the ' Ecclesiastical History of Ire- land/ a wonderful and elaborate work, which placed that eminent divine in the foremost rank of European scholars, and consecrated his name and memory to the affections and sorrows of his country- men. Scarcely a year has elapsed since we noticed Mrs. Kennedy's name in the list of subscribers to the monument now in course of erection to her illustrious brother. She always manifested a profound DPt. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 81 which pursued it. And when next morning he rose betimes, buoyant and refreshed, with what emotions he must have looked again on that dear old Rock of Cashel, full of a thousand historic memories, and grasped by still fonder infantine associations. To this object of interest the mind of a theological thinker is peculiarly prone to turn. The Eev. Dr. Murray, Professor of Theology at Maynooth, sings of it : il Oli, for one hour, a thousand years ago, Within thy precincts dim, To hear the chant, in deep and measured flow, Of psalmody and hymn ! " To see of priests the long and white array, Around thy silver shrines — The people kneeling prostrate far away, In thick and chequered lines. " To see the Prince of Cashel o'er the rest, Their prelate and their king ; The sacred oread and chalice by him blest — Earth's holiest ottering I" Tipperary, at the period of Dr. Lanigan's visit in 1794, was in a state of not less luxuriant prosperity than luxurious enjoyment. It sent eight members to Parliament ; and a glimpse of the style in which the gentry lived is obtained from the research of our late friend, Daniel Owen Madclyn, who tells us that Thomas Mathew fitted up Thomastown Castle on the plan of a hotel, that his guests might do as they pleased. He seldom headed his own table, but behaved as one of the company. There were forty bed-rooms — a large coffee-room, with a bar and waiters — a detached tavern for the votaries of Bacchus. There was a daily interest in his labours and reputation ; and if anything could contri- bute to the happiness of a mellow and cheerful old age, sweetened by the best influences of religion, and surrounded by all the charms of home, it was the consolation that Ireland was at last alive to the re- sponsibility which the splendid results of Dr. Lanigan's laborious life had bequeathed her." The name Kennedy is an old one in Tipperary. The sept of O'Kennedy held Muscraighe Thire, now the baronies of Upper and Lower Ormond. 3* 82 WITS AND WORTHIES : ordinary, at which the guests might assemble, if they did not dine in private. There were news-rooms, billiard-tables, guns, fishing-tackle, rods, buckhounds, foxhounds, and harriers, twenty choice hunters in the stable, and a bowling-green on the demesne. Dr. Lanigan would not, we believe, have been un- willing to undertake the spiritual care of a parish in his native diocese of Cashel ; but Archbishop Bray,* the then occupant of the See, with whom he seems to have had an interview on the subject, rather wished to discourage clerical absenteeism ; and as Lanigan had followed a collegiate life abroad, and now returned to Ireland not from choice, but necessity, the austere Archbishop did not give much encouragement to his design of embarking in missionary duty. The poor priest accordingly withdrew from the archiepiscopal presence ; but ere passing from the threshold he glanced back at the portrait on the wall of an early patron, and as its countenance looked down from the canvas with that expression of paternal benignity so peculiarly its own, the poor wanderer perhaps thought that under other circumstances a more encouraging reception might have been his lot. In the archdiocese of Dublin, Dr. Lanigan found more friends ; and he proceeded to attach himself to old Francis-street Chapel, through the invitation of its pastor, the Very Rev. Martin Hugh Hamill, Vicar- * The letters extant of this exemplary Prelate, who, as one of the four Archbishops of Ireland, played an important role during an eventful epoch in the history of Ireland, are so few that we are tempted to put in our Appendix one hitherto unpublished, as a specimen of his style. For this we are indebted to the Rev. D. MacCarthy, of Maynooth, the custodian of the late Dr. O'Renehan's papers illustrative of Irish Church History. The letter makes no allusion to Lanigan ; but, being written at the very time we are now describing, comes in legitimately as an illustration of that circum- jacent history promised at the outset of our narrative. Lord Fitz- william, who had recently been sent to Ireland with the special mission of emancipating the Catholics, was recalled in a moment of caprice ; the British Minister stretched forth his hand, and dashed the cup from five millions of expectant lips .' DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. General and Dean of Dublin, with whom be bad made some studies in tbe Irish College at Eome. Francis- street had been, until a year or two previously, the mensal parish, and here, officiating within a stone's throw of Christ Church Cathedral on the one side, Christ Church Cathedral. and of St. Patrick's on the other,* our learned Doctor was quite in his element exploring them, in connexion with the favourite object of his thoughts, the " Eccle- siastical History of Ireland." Both then reposed in all the grandeur of their weather-beaten antiquity, and posessed, perhaps, more attraction for archaeologists than in their present brilliantly renovated state. We cannot say how far may be generally true the statement of Sir Jonah Barrington, who, in describing the Irish continentally-educated priest of the old school, says that at his college he had been " instructed to worship a throne, and to mingle his devotions to * The date of the erection of Christ Church by King Sitric and Donatus, first Bishop of Dublin, is assigned by Dr. Lanigan to the year 1010, v. iii., p. 434 ; and St. Patrick's to the vear 1190, v. iv., p. 319. 84 WITS AND WORTHIES : heaven and to monarchy ;'! hut it is at least certain that Dr. Lanigan's sympathies on arrival in Ireland were with the people, whom he found bleeding beneath the hoof of a dominant oligarchy. These popular tenden- cies were fanned by a close friendship which he had formed with a famous democrat, Dr. Dromgoole, whose brother had been already under the espionage of the informer, Dr. Conlan. But of any participation in the revolutionary plans of the day, Dr. Lanigan was innocent. When the rebellion of '98 burst forth, Major Sirr — the Vidocq of Dublin — acting, as it would appear, on erroneous information, visited, with his myrmidons, Dr. Lanigan's rooms, and, in the hope of finding some treasonable documents, ransacked the Doctor's trunks, desks, and papers ; but nothing more inflammable came to light than schemes in manuscript to blow up the now exploded authority of those enemies to true ecclesiastical history, Dr. Ledwich and Dr. Campbell, by steadily directed broadsides of early Irish canons and other demolishing documental proofs. CHAPTER XII. DR. LANIGAN'S APPOINTMENT TO, AND SUDDEN RETIRE- MENT FROM MAYNOOTH. " At present, by signing, you pledge yourself merely, "Whate'er it may be, to believe it sincerely/' Thomas Moore (Scene from " Matriculation " a College Play), We now approach a very important incident in Dr. Lanigan's life — one that materially affected his subse- quent destiny and pursuits. The Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth, for the education of the Catholic clergy at home rather than at Continental Universities, was established in 1795. The late Very Rev. Dean DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 85 Meyler observes, in some memoranda which he was good enough to hand us shortly before his death : w Edmund Burke was a very ardent advocate for the establishment of the College of Maynooth. He took an active part, along with the late Dr. Hussey, Bishop of Waterford, in the selection of its professors from amongst the bright lights of other nations, who at the commencement of the French Bevolution had fled to Ireland for safety and protection.* It was Burke himself who examined our incomparable fellow- citizen, J. B. Clinch, Esq., for the rhetoric and classical chair of the College. Like Lanigan, he was educated in the Irish College, Rome." Some of the founders of the new College of Maynooth made over- tures to the learned ex-Professor of the University of Pavia to accept the chair of Sacred Scripture and Hebrew, vacant by the premature retirement of Dr. Clancy, appointed the 27th June, 1795, but who left Maynooth the following year.f The salary then attached to the professorship was £112 per annum. Dr. Lanigan having already filled the same chair with eclat at Pavia, he was generally thought peculiarly well suited for the post. Dr. Lanigan's nomination was proposed by the Primate, Dr. O'Reilly, and seconded by Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin. Not- withstanding formidable competition, Dr. Lanigan received his appointment to the chair — as we gather from an article contributed to the Dublin Review in December, 1847, by the late Rev. Dr. Kelly, a Professor at Maynooth. At the last moment some awkwardness occurred. The Bishop of Cork, who, as * An able paper on the organization of Maynooth College, published in the Irish Magazine for March. 1808, and* evidently written by one intimately connected with that institution, states, p. 108, that their late President, Dr. Hussey, " attended Mr. Burke spiritually in his last illness." ^Ye have never seen this interesting fact mentioned in any of the biographies of Burke. f See Appendix 64 to Eighth Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education, p. 446. 86 WITS AND WORTHIES I we have seen, had been already prepossessed against Dr. Lanigan, suggested that the anti- Jansenistical for- mula, drawn up and signed by the French clergy, should be submitted to him for his signature. Dr. Lanigan and his friends are described as having felt naturally hurt at the avowal of so foul a suspicion. He declared that he would cheerfully subscribe to the Bull Uni- genitus* which had emanated from the head of his Church, but he would never so far degrade himself as to sign the dictum or formula of a French Synod — the more especially as he was not made acquainted with a specific statement of the grounds on which the suspicion it was intended to remove rested. This would seem to show that Dr. Lanigan was not even much of a Gallican. Mr. Brennan, in his " Ecclesi- astical History," states that the motion of the Bight Reverend Prelate was overruled ; but Dr. Lanigan, full of indignation, declined to remain another moment in the chair to which he had been raised. On the principle, possibly, that a story never loses in its carriage, it is rather generally sup- posed that Dr. Lanigan refused, in the first instance, to sign the Bull Unigenitus. An aged ecclesiastic, the Bight Bev. Bishop W addressing us, said : "It was not the Bull Unigenitus which was sub- mitted to Dr. Lanigan for his signature, but a test for the French refugee clergy after the Revolution, much in vogue with Bishop Douglas of London and other Prelates before admitting them to officiate in their respective dioceses. Dr. Lanigan was a man of very high and delicate feeling, and, as I have heard, ho considered that the doubt thus implied of his orthodoxy should be acknowledged by an attitude of offended * The Bull, commencing Unigenitus Dei Filius, and dated 8th September, 1713, was issued by Clement XL, in denunciation of a hundred and one propositions advanced in Quesnel's " Moral Reflections on the New Testament,"— a work strongly favouring the Jansenian system of divine grace. DB. LANIGAN, HIS LITE AND THIES. 87 dignity. He declared that he was no Jansenist, but he disdained to make any such avowal in writing. And certainly," added the good Bishop, " if any such document were presented to me for my signature, I would regard it as an insult, and I should most unquestionably refuse to sign it." One of the Pro- fessors at Maynooth, adverting to the same incident, writes : "It is very easy to raise a cry of unsound doctrine, and to exact more faith than the Church her- self demands. In dubiis libertas is a fair motto."* Previous, however, to any pointed questions being put to Lanigan, his temper was decidedly ruffled by some remarks which fell from one of the Trustees. This inci- dent predisposed him to that too hastily-formed attitude of offended dignity which he maintained throughout the whole scene. The present Professor of Sacred His- tory at Maynooth, addressing us, writes: "You are aware that Dr. Lanigan was invited by the Trustees of this College to fill the Scripture chair, about the same time that a new chair of Ecclesiastical History was offered to Dr. Lingard (author of the History of England). Both declined, and it was said Dr. Lanigan was offended at some remarks by one of the Trustees reflecting on the character of Tamburini, under whom Dr. Lanigan studied. The master was justly chas- tised, but the pupil was displease^ at the time and manner of rebuke, as it seemed to throw suspicion on himself. I can't vouch for this story. That the chair was offered and declined is certain." Macaulay represents the ecclesiastic Laud as "rash, irritable, and quick to feel for his own dignity;" and the description would, so far as it goes, perhaps fit Dr. Lanigan, unless we can accept as conclusive Dean Meyler's assertion, that in forming his ultimate deter- mination he was acting under the advice of the Primate and Dr. Hamill. Stung, as our correspondent describes * 11 In necessariis unitas in duljiis libertas in omnibus charitas."— St. Paul. 88 WITS AND WORTHIES : him, he seems not to have recovered his equanimity for the rest of the day, and henceforth received on the defensive all overtures. He left the hall, but ere he had crossed the threshold of the college gate, word reached him that Dr. Moylan had offered to withdraw his motion, provided that Dr. Lanigan would sign another document, we believe the Bull Auctorem Fidei, which was issued by Pius VI., on the 28th August, 1794, to condemn Scipio Ricci and the acts of the recent Synod of Pistoia. It is much more pre- cise and pointed than the Bull Unigenitus, issued by Clement XI., in 1713, to stigmatise a work written by the Jansenist, Quesnel, entitled " Reflections Mo- rales." The proposal to sign the recently fulmi- nated Bull Auctorem Fidei, which may be de- scribed as then "red hot," was indeed not an inviting instrument for an alumnus of Pavia to handle. Dr. Lanigan was greatly hurt, and as he had been already rebuffed by the Bishop of Cork at the door of his own palace, his cheek, we may be assured, flushed the deeper. "Take my advice, Lanigan," observed Dr. Hamill, " and do not return. Once they have got this idea into their heads, they will see Jansenism every time you open your mouth. Trifles light as air are to the suspicious confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ." The Primate, Dr. O'Reilly, expressed himself confidentially to the same effect. When Dr. Lanigan declined to sign the formula which Dr. Moylan had, in the first instance, tendered to him, Dr. Hussey, President of Maynooth and afterwards Bishop of Waterford, shook his head significantly,* and every nod he gave went, we may be assured, like a stab to Lanigan' s heart. Dr. Lanigan felt awkwardly situated. Since he stood the poorest of poor scholars in the modern Babylon, robbed of his purse, which was to have paid his way to Rome, he probably had not felt as much so ; and as he mused upon his position, * Communicated by the late Very Rev. Dean Meyler. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 89 may not Shakespeare's fine thought have come home to him with bitter force — that the loss of purse was trash, but the loss of good name an irreparable depri- vation. If aught could recoup him, it was the earnestly proffered counsel and friendship of such men as Dr. Hamill, and by degrees he persuaded himself that the undue sensibility of his nature had exaggerated the extent of the damage done. A respected Vicar-General of a southern diocese tells us that the Dr. Howley who returned to Ireland from Pavia at the same time as Dr. Lanigan, and obtained a second-rate position in the diocese of Cashel, was said to be tinged by the tainted theology which overspread Austrian Italy shortly after the defection of Scipio Kicci, Bishop of Pistoia. On the principle that a man is known by his company, some of the prejudice against Dr. Lanigan may have arisen from his having the been attached friend and travelling companion of this priest, to whose history we mean to return. We fear Dr. Lanigan was to some extent misunderstood or misrepresented, but it is perhaps some consolation to remember that the fairest com- plexion gets freckled the soonest. As regards Dr. Howley, we have been to some pains to trace his antecedents, and, like Lanigan, he seems to have been the victim of unfounded suspicions. See the letter of Rev. W. Cooney, P.P., in our Appendix. From the incident of that day at Maynooth, an inference unfavourable to Dr. Lanigan's orthodoxy was drawn by those who knew but half the history of the transaction. The Very Rev. Dean Kenny, V.G., Ennis, with whom we had a correspondence on the subject writes, 23rd May, 1866 : u Your letter removes from my mind a belief of Dr. Lanigan's tendency to Jansenism. In Maynooth, sixty years since, the general opinion was that he was appointed to a chair which he declined, knowing he should subscribe the Bull Unigenitus" The vague charge 90 WITS AND WORTHIES : of Jansenistic tendency, which floats, to Lanigan's prejudice, on the surface of some sections of sacer- dotal society, is, without any specific grounds or proof being adduced, one of these elastic epithets with which it is now most difficult to grapple ; but in presence of a large number of clergymen many years ago, Dr. Hamill, the Vicar-General of Dublin, very impressively stamped it out, as was then thought for ever, and as shall be fully shown. The sudden retirement of Dr. Lanigan, and the circumstances which gave rise to it, occasioned considerable discomfiture to those who took the strongest interest in the new College. It does not appear that any other candidate was appointed to the vacant chair. On the contrary, it seems, from the evidence of the Eev. Michael Montague, Vice- President, on 24th October, 1826, that " for some years after the establishment of the institution, the chair of Sacred Scripture was left vacant." Dr. Lanigan's enemy, Dr. Hussey, ceased to be President of Maynooth in 1797 ; and whether the office referred to by Dr. Montague was kept open for Dr. Lanigan, in the hope that the mediation of friends might effect an adjustment of the unpleasant difference, it is impos- sible to say. With the exception of Dr. Clancy's occupancy, which lasted nine months only from June, 1795, the first who filled the post was the Rev. Mat- thias Crowley — a gentleman, it is to be feared, ready to subscribe to anything, from the Bull Coeni Domini (vide p. 30, ante) to the Thirty-nine Articles.* His ap- pointment is dated 15th October, 1810. Dr. Lingard, * The Very Rev. Dean Kenny, P.P., V.G., Ennis, in one of his interesting communications addressed to the writer of these pages, *> says : " Crowley entered Maynooth College in 1802, when he was appointed lecturer in Dogmatic Theology, which he held until 1808, when the chair was discontinued. I entered Maynooth that year. Crowley remained in College until October, 1810, when he was appointed Professor of Scripture. Though I was in the College at the time, I cannot bring to mind whether he was transferred in that or the next year to the office of Dean, on the retirement of Father Fitzpatrick or Father Hart from the College. The appointment of DR. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 91 the subsequent historian, was appointed his successor, 21st October, 1811 ; but that austere man recoiled from a chair which had been already infected by the leprosy of apostacy ; and Dr. Magennis, a Dominican, sank into its uneasy arms, until, on 7th February, 1816, our late venerable friend, Dr. Browne, after- wards Bishop of Kilmore, redeemed it from all stigma. Mr. Crowley was summoned, in conjunction with the professors at Maynooth, to give evidence in 1826 before the Commissioners of Education Enquiry. This curiosity of autobiography may be found in the Appendix to the Eighth Eeport, pp. 351-3 : " Might you have continued in the situation of lecturer in the Sacred Scripture if you had wished it ? " I gave up that office in compliance with the wishes of the President at the time, who prevailed upon me to undertake the office of Dean. " Might you have continued in that office if you had wished it ? " I think I might. " You were not removed from it in any way ? " No ; the President did all he possibly could to prevail upon me to remain. " Who was the President at that time ? " Dr. [afterwards Archbishop] Everard. Crowley to the office of Dean, being made by the College autho- rities on the retirement of his predecessor, was merely provisional, and was not sanctioned by the Board of Trustees at their next meeting. The moment Crowley learned that his appointment w r as not sanctioned, he in a fit of anger went directly to Parson Ashe, the Rector of May- nooth, and read his recantation. The unhappy man was most favour- ably received by the Archbishop of Dublin, who placed him as chaplain in the Blue Coat Hospital, promising him future promotion. The then housekeeper, Miss Fanny Crofts, captivated the wretch ; a marriage, if it can be so called, followed. Crowley was removed to a small curacy where he spent some years, and finally got a parish near New- bridge, where he died many years since. The Dominicans in New- bridge will give you a copy of his epitaph." The inscription is not worth giving, but it may be mentioned as a curious on dit, firmly believed by the people, that not a blade of grass was ever known to grow on Mr. Crowley's grave. 92 WITS AND WORTHIES : " Did he know that your reason for quitting the College was your wish to conform to the Establish- ment ? " He did not. " What was the first situation you held in the Established Church? " As curate. " What emolument did you derive from your curacy ? " £75 a-year. " That was about the same as you had at May- nooth ? a I was better off at Maynooth, for I had my diet and lodging in addition. " Have you ever been married? " Yes, I have been married about thirteen years. " How many years is it since you quitted May- nooth ? " In the year 1811 or 1810. " Had you at that time any personal acquaintance with the person you afterwards married ? u Not the least. "In the instruction given at Maynooth is there anything taught which tends to shake the students in their allegiance to the established authorities in this country ? "Not the least in my time, nor have I heard that it was changed in that respect since ; I do not believe it is. " What is the largest income you have ever derived from your situation in the Established Church? 66 The largest income I have ever received is what I am receiving at present, altogether about £300 a-year." Mr. Crowley's evidence is generally frank, and ex- hibited no desire on his part to pull down the altar at which he had sacrificed. He has only within the last few years passed away, and his venerable appearance DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 93 will not soon be forgotten by those familiar with Newbridge. Strange to say, some of his former colleagues in professorial duty at Maynooth are said to have cultivated friendly relations with the parson- priest, and until the year 1835 sometimes drove across from Maynooth to see him. The most plausible reason assigned for this intercourse was their desire and hope of inducing him to return to the Church he had left. Mr. Crowley sang beautifully, and after he had treated his visitors, on one occasion, to a,voca! effort of great melody and volume, touching allusion was made to auld lang syne when he had sang the High Mass. A big tear rolled down the Parson's cheek ; Mrs. Crowley saw that he stood upon dan- gerous ground, and the gentlemen were bowed out with a degree of frigidity which prevented them from ever after repeating their visit. That class of cleric referred to at the outset of this chapter — the French refugee priest — was no novelty in Ireland at the period of which we write. Two of them were found in Doctors Anglade and Delahogue, Fellows of Sorbonne, the highly-distinguished Pro- fessors of Theology at Maynooth. Others received in Carlow College shelter and salary. The late Very Eev. Dr. Yore was fond of telling the following anec- dote, which, without being important, may, as an unpublished reminiscence, merit preservation : " One day, when walking in Carlow College park, my letters and the Evening Post were placed in my hands, con- taining the news of the restoration of the Hierarchy in France. Never can I forget the scene. I meant only to amuse the French priests with an item of ephemeral news ; but instead of awakening a momen- tary interest, I found that I had touched a chord of thoroughly spiritual cadence which vibrated long and sensitively. There, on the spot, they flung themselves upon their knees, bareheaded, and, fervently raising their hands and eyes to heaven, they uttered a loud 94 WITS AND worthies : extempore prayer of thanksgiving, so beautiful and touching that I have never since recalled the scene without participating in the emotion which had agi- tated their own hearts." Dr. Lanigan was himself no stranger to Carlow College, and the late Right Eev. Dr. O'Connor in- formed us that he met him dining there, the honoured guest of the Bishop and Professors. CHAPTER XIII. INCIDENTAL PORTRAITS. " I am happy in this opportunity of recording Johnson's friendship with the Rev. Thomas Hussey, D.D., his Catholic Majesty's chaplain of embassy at the court of London — that very respectable man, emi- nent not only for his powerful eloquence as a preacher, but for his various abilities and acquisitions. " Bosweli/s Life of Johnson. Dr. Hussey, two or three years subsequent to the stirring scene at Maynooth which we have just de- scribed, drew up an able report of the whole transac- tion, interlarded with that severity of stricture of which no one better knew the use, and transmitted it to Dr. Troy, in whose diocese Dr. Lanigan had taken up his residence. Dr. Hussey, in this document, sought to exculpate the College from the ungracious character of its attitude towards Dr. Lanigan, and submitted that as the learned Doctor had lived some time in a tainted atmosphere, it became the duty of the Maynooth authorities to ascertain whether he came home uninjured, before they entrusted to him the guidance and instruction of the future priests and bishops of Ireland. Dr. Troy, having read the document, sent it to Liffey-street for the perusal of the clergy attached to the metropolitan chapel, where it remained for several DH. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 95 years. The Kev. Walter Meyler — afterwards Dean of Dublin, and originally one of Dr. Troy's curates, who furnished us with many curious reminiscences before his death — read the manuscript. Dr. Hussey must have known very little of Dr. Lanigan personally, and we think that in this instance he was merely briefed by Dr. Moylan, who, in his published letters, alludes (p. 181) to his cordial feeling for Dr. Hussey. The document which Dr. Hussey prepared for the perusal of Dr. Troy was very ingenious. Sir John Cox Hippesley — who eventually died a Catholic, and was for a lengthened period engaged on behalf of the English government in diplomatic negociations with Roman Catholic ecclesiastics — writes, 12th January, 1799 : " It should seem that Dr. Hussey had got into great habits with Dr. Troy, but I question if Hussey has not the longer head of the two." The Archbishop does not seem to have been much in- fluenced by the unfriendly inferences so dexterously drawn by "the long head" which, as Sir J. Hippesley said, had got into such habits of close intimacy with Dr. Troy ; for, as Dr. Meyler added, his Grace invited Dr. Lanigan as a guest to his house, and went out of his way to show other marks of good feeling. If the imputation seeking to fasten on Dr. Lanigan Jansenistic predilections rests on no better evidence than Dr. Hussey's paper, we should be sorry to judge him by it. It does not appear that he was allowed an opportunity of seeing the document, or of seeking to justify himself from the inferences sought to be de- duced from it ; and, under these circumstances, it perhaps becomes our duty to weaken the impression which a knowledge of its existence may be calculated to create. Dr. Hussey exercised great influence over Dr. Troy, as a sound authority informs us ; and yet we find that the good Archbishop, for whose perusal the document was specially prepared, appeared to 96 WITS AND WORTHIES : have been wholly uninfluenced by it — a fact tolerably evident when we know that until his death he per- mitted Dr. Lanigan to officiate as a priest in his diocese, and regularly, every Saturday, had him to dine both at the presbytery table, which his presence graced, and often at his own in Cavendish-row.* We cannot accept Dr. Hussey as an authority upon any theological question, though prepared to offer his memory all the respect due to literary and diplomatic attainments of a high order. He was educated at Salamanca, and earned distinction by his talents ; but it does not appear that he ever filled a chair of moral or dogmatic theology. Dr. Hussey ruled with a high hand, and Dr. Lanigan was not the only divine who came in for a lash of the whip whenever he rode rough- shod. The same letter of Sir J. Cox Hippesley from which we have quoted mentions, as having been re- ported to Eome, " a very offensive measure of Hus- sey's in a way so as to have produced a sort of cen- sure on Bishop Douglas of London." Dr. Hussey, it appeared, had claimed the right, as chaplain to the Spanish mission, of nominating priests to officiate at the Spanish chapel in London, without the concur- rence of the diocesan, Dr. Douglas. Dr. Hussey, who never filled any chair of theology, was fond of displaying a knowledge which he contrived to acquire, en passant, of the ambages and niceties of canon law and decretals, especially when they were supposed to favour his own favourite views and ecclesiastical privi- leges. Mr. Charles Butler describes his manners as " at once imposing and elegant, and of enchanting conversation. He did not come in contact with many whom he could not subdue ; the highest rank often sank before him." " There was no society," writes Mr. Buckley, " however exalted, where he was not a * These Saturday dinners took place at the chapel-house of the mensal parish. Dean O'Connell, Archdeacon Dunne, and other priests still living regularly met Dr. Lanigan on these occasions. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 97 favourite as well as an ornament. He enjoyed the friendship of the King and of his ministers, and was the welcome associate of the great literary men who at that time reflected such lustre on England." Dr. Hussey was, indeed, a perfect gentleman, and most exemplary in all relations of life. But his manners were more fascinating in the salons of the great than in the cloister or college. Boswell, in praising Dr. Hussey for his varied ac- quirements, tells us that he possessed the great Lexi- cographer's friendship. Even with Johnson's arm to lean on, it is really surprising that, in these dark days of sullen sectarian prejudice, Dr. Hussey should have been admitted a fellow of the Koyal Society— a dignity which at the present day not more than three Irish Catholics enjoy. Dr. Hussey, as we are informed by Lord Clare in a letter published in the Castlereagh Papers, came to Ireland as first President of Maynooth College under the protection of the British Government; and the same influence was not wanting in promoting his ap- pointment to the See of Waterford in 1797. But he soon gave offence to the ruling powers by living in a style of brilliant pretension hitherto unattempted by bis predecessors, who were wont to pick their way stealthily as among penal traps ; and one of his first pastorals exhibited such patriotism and independence, as very much to disappoint and disgust those who had calculated on him as a pliant tool in their hands. Sir John Cox Hippesley, in a letter preserved among the Castlereagh Papers, writes : " One of Hussey 's pastoral letters to his clergy at "Waterford was as mischievous a performance as I ever read ; and ministers here took care he should know their senti- ments on that subject. He was in dudgeon thereat, and the Duke of Portland told me he demanded his passport ' to return to Spain ;' it was made out, but 4 98 WITS AND WORTHIES : the Doctor thought better of it, and he remains to lend his hand to the tranquillity of Ireland."* The Castlereagh Papers inform us that Dr. Hussey had rendered some important services to Great Britain in the dispute with Spain on the Sierra Leone ques- tion ; and Charles Butler, referring to the same di- plomatic mission, remarks that he acquitted himself entirely to the satisfaction of the king and ministers. Modern churchmen will be surprised to hear that Dr. Hussey received, in acknowledgment, a pension from the crown, which continued to his death. But these services and subsidy were long anterior to his appoint- ment as Bishop. Dr. Hussey's strength lay in di- plomacy, not theology; and even the Holy See re- cognised his great gifts in that craft. One of his last acts was to draw up, in 1802, the details of the Con- cordat between the Pope and the first Napoleon, " in which delicate mission," observes Mr. Buckley, the accomplished biographer of O'Leary, " he won the applause of his Holiness, Pius VII., and elicited the special and enthusiastic admiration of the discerning Bonaparte." But in the midst of this eclat the crosier dropped from his jewelled hand, and the sparkling Bishop Hussey was no more ! Some dis- crepancies exist as to the exact date of Dr. Hussey's death ; but the inscription on his tomb in Waterford, which we have copied from the original, shows that he died "2nd July, 1803, ©t. 62." The history of the Hussey family is marked by vicissitude. A reverend friend of the present writer was lately solicited for alms by an old woman, in accents so touching that he had the curiosity to ask her from whence she came. After some hesitation, she announced herself the niece of the once brilliant and potential Bishop Hussey ! * Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. iii., p. 89. Dr. Hussey's Metropolitan, Archbishop Bray, calls it a " rash and fatal pastoral." [ u O'Renehan's Collections on Irish Church History," vol. i., p. 376.) DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 09 So much for Dr. Hussey, who inflicted on Dr. Lanigan a wound which, although long since healed, will, perhaps, remain more or less a cicatrix. The re- port voluntarily drawn up by him, and forwarded to Dr. Troy with the object avowedly of damaging Dr. Lanigan in his estimation, was very elaborate. We would, indeed, be very sorry to impute any mercenary motive; but from the brilliant and somewhat ambitious character of the man, it seems not unlikely that Dr. Hussey, knowing that his appointment to a bishopric was desired on the part of the crown, had no objection that the Papal Legate, Dr. Troy, and the Holy See, through him, should be cognizant of his zealous display of theological vigilance, in order that no canonical impediment should obstruct that promotion. Although inferences unfavourable to Dr. Lanigan may be strained from Dr. Hussey's attitude of hostility towards him, others of a counterbalancing character present themselves. The inference is favourable that the entire hierarchy of Ireland, all the professors of Maynooth College — with the exception of Drs. Anglade and Delahogue, two eminent French divines, and Dr. MacHale, now Archbishop of Tuam — subscribed to his magnum opus some years later. " After this incident at Maynooth, and while attached to the Eoyal Dublin Society,'' observes the late Dean Meyler, "Dr. Lanigan regularly celebrated mass at the archiepiscopal chapel." It seems to us that this little reminiscence conveys in itself an attestation to the orthodoxy of Dr. Lanigan. Archbishop Troy made, we may safely assume, strict inquiry into his antecedents, at a period when, unlike the present, there could be no difficulty in ascer- taining them. The inference is favourable as to the result of that inquiry. It is a mistake to suppose that Dr. Troy, or his able coadjutor Dr. Murray, were supine in their surveillance of the clergy. The learned Dr. Charles O'Conor, brother of the O'Conor Don, well known by his pseudonym of " Columbanus" — an 100 WITS AND WORTHIES : ecclesiastic so distinguished that not a few influential parties recommended him to the Pope, but without effect, for appointment as Bishop of Elphin — published several pamphlets at a later date, and on his arrival in Dublin was served by Dr. Troy with a letter sternly prohibiting him from celebrating Mass or exercising other sacerdotal offices in that diocese.* When we know that Dr. Lanigan performed, hebdomadally, the functions of a priest in the mensal chapel of his Metropolitan, he is not likely to have erred in any essential point. CHAPTER XIV. DR. LANIGAN'S APPOINTMENT TO THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY. "My library- Is dukedom large enough." The Tempest, Act i., Scene ii. "The place that doth contain These books, my best companions, is to me A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the oldest sages and philosophers; And sometimes, for variety, confer "With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels, Calling their victories, if unjustly got, Unto a strict account, and in my fancy Deface their ill-placed statues." Beaumont and Fletcher. Dr. Lanigan's retirement from Maynooth, though somewhat unfortunate, is, on the whole, perhaps not much to be regretted. Had he sank into the easy chair of a professor of that establishment — which, in * Here is Dr. Troy's letter of inhibition: " 8 Cavendish -row, Dublin, 17th July, 1812. * 4 Rev. Dr. Charles O'Conor. " Rev. Sir — Since your late arrival in this city, you had never any faculties from me. I now warn you that by the exercise, public or private, of any sacerdotal functions in this archdiocese, you must DR. LANIGAX, HIS LIFE A^D TIMES. those days at least, merited quite as much as Trinity College the title of " Silent Siste^" — his Ecclesiastical History and other valuable works would have been lost to the world. This may be inferential!} 7 gathered from a remarkable article published in the Dublin Review for December, 1847, and known to have emanated from the pen of the late Rev. Dr. Kelly, one of the first professors at Maynooth who stepped boldly into the domain of literature. His remarks deserve to be pre- sented unmutilated, and here they are : " It has been sometimes remarked most unreasonably, that no Irish Catholic priest has yet taken his place in the front ranks of those who are labouring to restore Irish literature. We can point to the illustrious names which we have already mentioned in this article, and amongst others to Dr. Lanigan, who has not been dead twenty years. The clergy laboured under two insu- perable difficulties ; for, first, they could scarcely snatch a moment for study from the active duties of the mission; and, secondly, all their books were taken away and destroyed, or locked up in Trinity College, Sfcowe, or some other place, where, until very lately, a Catholia priest would not dare to think of entering.* The pro- fessors of Maynooth were the only persons from whom any co-operation could have been hitherto expected, and the library of that establishment is not only desti- necessarily incur the censures inflicted, by the laws of the Roman Catholic Church, on such clergymen of her communion as presume to officiate without the permission, or contrary to the express will of the Ordinary. — I remain, Rev. Sir, your very humble servant in ChnSt ' m % J. T. Troy, D.D., &c." Dr. O'Conor also gave offence, in common with the Pope's vicegerent. Cardinal Quarantotti, for having expressed a disposition to sanction, the Veto ; but some of the ablest ecclesiastics of the day were led into the same error, and it is remarkable that Dr. Troy himself, who inhibited Dr. O'Conor, signed the declaration of the prelates in 179I> in favour of the Veto. * The reverend writer would on inquiry have discovered that the. learned Dr. Charles O'Conor, a Catholic priest, was from 1808 to 182&. librarian at Stowe. 102 WITS AND WOKTHIES : tute of manuscripts, but it does not even contain a single copy of the printed works of Wadding, Scotus, or a great many other illustrious Irishmen. Besides, the professors of Maynooth could assign quite as satis- factory a reason for their silence as the first of the forty which the major of a certain town pleaded as an apology for not saluting his sovereign — namely, that he had no cannon ; for, unless they had previously ob- tained permission, they were absolutely prohibited from publishing anything under pain of expulsion. We believe this law, which we cannot trust ourselves to characterise, has been either actually repealed, or is in the way of being abolished, or modified in some way which will render it less injurious to the interests of country and the character of the college. We have, indeed, been told that many anonymous writings of great merit were from the pens of the professors of Maynooth, who dare not, however, acknowledge them." Dr. Kelly, in this article, gives an extended notice of Dr. Lanigan, and supplies many biographic facts which are neither new to us nor to the readers of the present volume. The circumstances attending his appointment to, and retirement from Maynooth are, however, reticently noticed by one usually most candid, and who ought to have known more of them than any man now living. " He was elected to one of the professor's chairs of Maynooth," writes Dr. Kelly, " but some difficulties arose which prevented him from entering that establishment." The excitement naturally attendant on Dr. Lani- gan's candidature and contest for the vacant chair at Maynooth, his appointment to it, and too hasty with- drawal, was now succeeded by a reaction of great depression. With abilities and attainments which would do honour to the highest office in the church or the college, he now found himself not only penniless, but without the faintest prospect of promotion. This DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TBIES. 103 mortifying reflection derived an additional pang from the fact, that his octogenarian mother was now con- strained to look to him for those little comforts which age has a right to expect and require from filial devo- tion. Perplexed and distracted, he passed a thousand vague projects in rapid review through his mind. Some seemed at first feasible, and he was more than once full of exultation ; but closer thought would, no doubt, detect some insuperable obstacle lurking in a hitherto unexplored crevice of the scheme. One cer- tain and easy avenue to wealth and title remained. Apostatize, like Brown, O'Beirne, or Kirwan, and the temporalities of bishoprics, or the substantial dignity of a deanery, would probably be his. To tergiver- sation, however, he would be the last to stoop, and the thought of it never sullied the lustre of his mind and honour. " A friend in need is a friend indeed ;" and at this crisis a learned and accomplished Englishman, General Yallancey — who had formed his acquaintance during sunnier days in Italy, and had been sent to Ireland as an architect and engineer to erect fortifications round the coast — came opportunely to the rescue. This estimable and then distinguished man suggested to the poor priest that, until something better turned up, he ought to become a literary labourer for the Royal Dublin Society, of which the General was vice- president. Dr. Lanigan eagerly embraced the pro- posal, which became all the more alluring from one of the most popular of Irish peers, Lord Donoghmore, endorsing it. The salary of one guinea and a-half per week was guaranteed ; but it does not appear that Lanigan was regularly engaged as an officer by the So- ciety until 2nd May, 1799. His first engagement was for three months only, which is not surprising when we remember the strong sectarian prejudice against "po- pish priests" so general in the last century in Ireland, and which continued to show itself at irregular inter- 104 WITS AND WORTHIES I vals until 1836, when Archbishop Murray was black- balled by the Eoyal Dublin Society. Yet Dr. Lani- gan, it would appear, completely won the good will of that body; and when some miserable economists endeavoured, at a later period/ to get his pittance re- duced, some members of the council, whose opposition to Popery had long been formidable and consistent, exerted their influence in the Librarian's favour with activity and success. His official efficiency and obli- ging disposition conciliated all ; and although his en- gagement was, in the first instance, limited to three months, he afterwards continued an officer of the Eoyal Dublin Society for a period of nearly twenty years. Dr. Lanigan received his appointment not with- out competition. The Society had advertised for an assistant-librarian competent to act as foreign corre- spondent and general literary supervisor. Among the candidates were, we believe, the Eev. Mr. Berwick, editor of the Eawdon Papers ; but Lanigan's attain- ments having appeared superior to that of his compe- titors, he was elected accordingly. The appointment gave him great satisfaction. An ample library at his disposal seemed the place of all others most congenial to his previous tastes and studies. 6i I would not re- linquish the pleasures of reading for all the treasures of the East," said Gibbon. Lanigan having been placed with some amount of authority over the very valuable and extensive library of the Eoyal Dublin Society, he felt himself lord of a territory of tomes. The position would give rise sometimes to philosophic musing, and in traversing the corridors of the library — where a sepulchral silence was enjoined among the bookworms who clustered around its contents — he moved, as it were, through the catacombs of litera- ture. Tomes richly bound and clasped, like the cof- fined great, were piled around. Thus tomes became more properly the tombs of immortal genius, embalm- DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 105 ing the literary remains of intellect, and proclaiming the superiority of mind over matter. Without the sustaining friendship of Vallancey at this juncture in Lanigan's life, it is hard to say what might not have been his fate. Dr. Lanigan speaks of his "worthy friend, General Vallancey," in the "Eccle- siastical History," p. 406, vol. iv. The General sur- vived a few years subsequent to his introduction of Lanigan to the institute of which he was president. General Vallancey w T as considered in his day the highest authority on the Irish language. Unlike O'Eeilly and other Celtic scholars, he had the satis- faction of witnessing his own apotheosis as a philo- logist. But he was a false god so far as that capacity went. Vallancey compared the Irish language with most of the languages of the world, and pronounced it to have affinity with them all ; but his philological system, like his ordnance and his fortifications, has been exploded, thanks to the irresistible proofs ad- vanced by Zetis in Germany and O'Donovan in Ire- . land. The phrase originally applied to the Geraldines, Ipsis, Hibernis Hibemiores, may, however, be quoted with thorough sincerity in his regard.* The members of the Dublin Society were very limited at- that time in comparison with the dimensions to which the list has since swelled. It is interesting, on looking over the roll of members, to see the names of those with whom Dr. Lanigan was brought into official contact. If the Ascendancy and terrorists were repre- sented by Lords Annesley, Carhampton, Castlereagh, Tyrawley, Glandore, Mr. Secretary Cooke, Speaker Foster, Eight Hon. George Ogle, Sir Boyle Roche, Viscount Haw r arden, Jack Gifiard, Major Sirr, Wil- liam Cope, Sir John Blaquiere, and the Right Hon. John Beresford, our Librarian found more congenial associates or task-masters in such friends of national * A fine oil-painting of Vallancey may be seen in the board-room of the Royal Dublin Society. 106 WITS AND WORTHIES : literature and progress as the Duke of Leinster, Lords Cloncurry, Charlemont, Fingall, Llandaff, Donogh- more, Sir John Newport, the Bishop of Derry, Henry Brooke, Bight Hon. Theophilus Jones, Judge Bobert Johnson, Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, Beauchamp Bagenall Harvey (who lost his head in 1798), Lord Mountjoy (also a victim to the events of that ill- fated year), Bight Hon. Thomas Conolly, Bichard Kirwan, Bev. Gilbert Austin, Thomas Braughhall, and Luke White. u Gold," says Spenser, " all is not that doth golden seem."* If Lanigan, with impulsive foretaste of luxu- rious literary enjoyment which was not likely to be realized, felt inclined, with Pope, " to drink deep the Pierian spring," he soon found — to quote the words of a gifted Irish poet (William Allingham) — that " the element which at first seemed like a tepid wine of gold," proved, on the test, " salt and nipping cold." It was stated by Mr. Henebry Green, in his notice of Dr. Lanigan's connexion with the Boyal Dublin So- ciety, that the learned " Doctor of Divinity plodded along, shearing sheep, curing fish, dissecting dung, and sowing hemp." This somewhat figurative lan- guage requires, perhaps, a word or two of explana- tion. The tasks assigned to Dr. Lanigan by the Boyal Dublin Society were, indeed, not of a character pre- cisely suited to his genius and proclivities. Half- a-loaf is better than no bread ; but yet it was a some- what sad spectacle to see a man of the most spark- ling and original mind driven by necessity to under- take the duties of a drudge. On the 2nd May, 1799, we find it " Besolved that the Bev. Mr. Lanigan be appointed to translate from the German the Essays on Agriculture ;" and on the 30th June following, "that Mr. Lanigan be employed in making such translations from the French upon Fisheries as shall be directed by General Vallancey and Bichard Kirwan." * " Faerie Queene," book ii., canto 8, h. 14. DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 107 These were not tasks completely suited to his taste ; but as a priest he had been too long accustomed to obey his superiors cheerfully, to feel his position as acutely as one differently situated might have done. Sheet after sheet upon fishing and fisheries fell from the hand of him who had previously known nothing of ichthyology, unless, perhaps, that appertaining to the Scriptural sense — " fishers of men." General Vallancey gave the word of command, and the priest obeyed with the alacrity of a w r ell-disciplined soldier ; but it does not appear that he was ordered to " halt." On the contrary, we find Dr. Lanigan, as the late John O'Donovan, LL.D., records, correcting the proof-sheets of the various publications of General Vallancey, in- cluding " An Essay on the Irish Language," which he traces to the Phoenician, and the elaborate " Collectanea de Eebus Hibernicis" of the same enthusiastic anti- quary, not to speak of his " Dictionary of the Irish Language." We subsequently find our theologian translating from the German " An Essay on the Practical History of Sheep in Spain, and of the Spanish Sheep in Saxony, Anhalt, Dessan, &c." It was said of the late Eev. Dr. Barrett — who, for more than half-a-century, had never ventured outside the enclosure of Trinity College — that when at last a sheep chanced to fall under his observation, he gravely expressed himself at a loss to know what species of quadruped it represented. We are certain that Dr. Lanigan, although not quite so simple as Dr. Barrett, was nevertheless profoundly innocent of the practical history of mutton ; and it is not quite clear to us that, until initiated by his task-masters into the arcana of agriculture and live-stock, he could positively dis- tinguish a bullock from a buffalo, or a hog from a hogget.* And yet to these studies, so utterly foreign and repellant to him, Dr. Lanigan sternly bent his * The site of these lucubrations had been long dear to mutton memories. After the Dublin Society had sold their premises for a 108 WITS AND WORTHIES : mind. On the 7th November, 1799, it is "ordered that Ruckart's Improvements in Agriculture Illustrated by Chemistry" be translated from the German. But it maybe said that the drudge received his due. On the 25th March, 1802, we find it ordered, Lord Frankfort in the chair, " that twenty guineas be paid to Dr. Lanigan, as a compensation for the extra- ordinary trouble he has had in correcting the proofs of the Statistical Report (22 vols.), published this year under the direction of the Society. " And on 24th March, 1803, it appears that he performed a similar labour, and received a similar bounty. On 3rd July, 1806, he is " ordered to complete the catalogue of the library, and arrange and class the books there- in." And evidence is subsequently borne by the Vice- President to the highly satisfactory manner in which Dr. Lanigan executed that task. On 2nd July, 1807, Dr. Lanigan memorials the Society for an augmen- tation of salary ; and on 24th March, 1808, we find it increased from £111 9s. 6d. to £150 per annum. "Having," observed the memorial, " for at least six years assisted General Vallancey in the care of the library without any compensation whatever, he was in 1808, in addition to his former occupation, officially appointed to perform the duties of librarian although under the title of assistant-librarian." With increase of salary he also got increased work. He was no longer to perform the mere mechanical theatre, an address written by George Colman, and repeated on the occasion of opening it to the public, 18th January, 1821, reminded us that " Here once a market reared its busy head, Where sheep, instead of tragic heroes, bled; Bright cleavers formed a band to charm the ears, Joints dangled in the place of chandeliers ; Stout butchers, stern as critics, had their day, And cut up oxen, like a modern play. Soon Science came ; his steel the butcher drops, Removes with awe the shambles and the shops, And Learning triumphed over mutton-chops 1" DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 109 labour of translating agricultural works, but was to supplement the translations with well-digested notes and annotations on [to him] the most uninteresting of topics : 66 Kesolved that 6 Duckson on the Manage- ment of Hemp' be printed and distributed through the country at the Society's expense, and that Dr. Lanigan be requested to prepare the same, with such notes and observations as may mark the distinctions to be at- tended to in this climate." He was also required to check bills and otherwise labour as an accountant. " It is not work which kills men," says a writer, u it is worry — worry is rust upon the blade." The dreadful drudgery assigned to Dr. Lanigan soon began to tell upon that once unclouded intellect, which, in sunnier days, had known no heavier burthen than a labour of love.* But he carried his cross like the Master whom he served. At the archiepiscopal dinners presided over by Dr. Troy, given every Saturday in the parochial-house, Liffey-street, a knife and fork was regularly laid for Lanigan. These reunions included, besides the paro- chial clergy, some of the brightest lights in the Church ; and well-informed laymen of the stamp of James Bernard Clinch were not exempted from an invitation. This circumstance perhaps enhanced the attraction of the entertainment, contributing as it did to free the conversation from two much technicality. * His daily round of trouble and his patient obliging disposition may be inferred from waifs and strays. In a dusty corner of the Dublin Society we found a letter written by Hely Dutton, Mount Bellew, 25th August, 1812, indulging in remarks on the refusal of that body to receive a collection of marine plants forwarded by him, together with a threat of immediate prosecution unless the MS. of a survey on which he was then engaged should be sent up to Dublin. Appended to this letter is pencilled : " Said marine plants were re- turned to Mr. Dutton's order on 4th September, 1812. — John Lani- gan." To Dr. Lanigan Mr. Dutton applies for recent publications of the Society, as he had been " for some time out of the world." His already tested obliging disposition is also appealed to for superintend- ing carefully the packing of these marine plants, before sending them on their journey to Mount Bellew. 110 WITS AND WOKTHIES : Dr. Troy found Lanigan's knowledge of books and stubborn facts useful to him in successfully prosecuting the historic rather than the religious controversies in which that eminent prelate found it desirable to engage. We find in our portfolio a letter of Dr. Troy's, now transferred to our Appendix, but it is not certain that it was addressed to Dr. Lanigan. The name of the priest to whom it was enclosed does not appear upon the face of the letter. But as an unpublished docu- ment it claims insertion in this — one of the few works which frequently introduces the once remarkable figure of Dr. Troy, It will, perhaps, be read with in- terest for its allusions to Emmet's rebellion, and as showing Dr. Troy's intimate acquaintance with, and appreciation of books. Dr. Lanigan would no doubt have succumbed much sooner than he eventually did, were it not for the re- laxation afforded by the social intercourse in which, thanks to the hospitality of a few sterling friends, occasional evenings were passed. Every Thursday regularly he dined with Mr. Sweetman, of Mountjoy- square, where it was repeatedly his good fortune to meet Archbishop Murray, and the best Catholic society of the time. The conversation was mostly of an in- tellectual character, and one who was regularly present tells us that Dr. Lanigan was always treated with the deference due to an authority, as evinced in the company constantly referring to him for his decision and guidance. The reader already knows enough of Dr. Lanigan's character to be aware of his impul- siveness, and will therefore not be surprised to hear, as a reminiscence of the late Bishop Denvir, that if you ventured to clash in opinion with him you ran risk of receiving a knock on the knuckles. But this im- patience was, indeed, part of his malady, which had been insidiously working its way for many years previous to the first unmistakeable assertion of its sway made in 1814. Mr. Sweetman's butler, now DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. Ill fifty-three years in bis service, describes Lanigan as always obliged to grasp the railings when ascending the steps of the hall-door. Dr. Lacour, who made a post mortem examination of O'Connell, and declared that he died of softening of the brain, mentioned, as a previous proof of the disease, his enfeebled and un- certain gait. These subtle indications of obscure brain disease were unknown in Lanigan's day ; but it may be interesting — at least to medical men like Dr. Forbes Winslow — to find that they existed in the case now before us. Dr. Lanigan had formed a strong friendship for the Rev. G. V. Sampson — author of some topographical and statistical volumes on the county of Londonderry — and other clergymen not of his own Church, a circum- stance which contributes to throw light on the work he brought out in 1809, with the object of re-cementing the Church of England to the Rock from which it had been hewn. Lanigan's intimacy with Dr.. Sampson was, however, of a purely social and literary character. The present writer, in looking through some old books at the Dublin Society, found a letter addressed to Lanigan, in which Mr. Sampson expresses a warm desire to " accompany you through the curiosities of this county (Londonderry), and to console you at the fireside of my parsonage. " The letter, which is a long one, and embodies some interesting topographical details, concludes, ' ' Yours, much indebted — G. V. Sampson.'' Waifs and strays like those are very ex- pressive. This fraternal intimacy between two priests of rival churches subsisted at a time when religious ascendancy in church and state had poisoned social intercourse,* and twenty years before Dr. Doyle, in his * Hugh O'Connor, father of Valentine O'Connor, Esq., D.L., who was the first Roman Catholic High Sheriff of Dublin since the Re- formation, mentioned, on the occasion of his examination, in 1825, by a select committee of the House of Commons, that as he found Ire- land an unpleasant place of residence, owing to social intercourse being poisoned, he intended to leave it. 112 WITS AND WORTHIES : memorable letter to Lord Farnliam, wrote : " Every Liberator should say it to every Orangeman — every priest to every parson — jungamus dexter as" The MS. letter from which we have culled a passage induced us to open that very excellent work, so well illustrated, and known as the " Statistical Survey of the County of Londonderry/' by the Kev. G. V. Sampson, A.B., M.K.I.A., published at Dublin in 1802; and we find the author thus alluding to the valuable aid received from Dr. Lanigan : " The imperfect manu- script, which, through extreme haste, I was necessitated to offer, required all the skilful patience of Dr. Lanigan. He certainly deserves, and as certainly he now receives, my very grateful acknowledgments' ' (p. viii.) Other Protestant clergymen might be mentioned to whom the overworked Lanigan was prodigal of literary help. After eulogizing various literary men who aided him in compiling the equally valuable " Statistical Survey of the County of Antrim," which was published at Dublin in the year 1812, the Kev. John Dubourdieu, Rector of Annahilt,* thus closes his acknowledgments and obligations, in the concluding paragraph of his pre- face to that work : " The Rev. Dr. Lanigan, Librarian to the Dublin Society, I most particularly thank for the care which he has taken in correcting the press, and in prevent- ing the work, in a great degree, from acquiring any addition to its original defects, which, from the intri- cacy of the manuscript in some places, was most diffi- cult to avoid. To Dr. Lanigan's critical knowledge and persevering correctness the works published under the auspices of the Dublin Society are much indebted." In an unpublished correspondence between the late John O'Donovan, LL.D., and Captain, now Major- * Mr. Dubourdieu also prepared a description of Annahilt parish, in the diocese of Dromore and county of Down, which will he found inserted in William Shaw Mason's " Statistical Account, or Parochial Survey of Ireland" (vol. ii., No. iL, pp. 7 to 25). DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 113 General Sir Thomas Larcom, a letter of the former, dated Rathfriland, loth April, 1834, gives an amusing account of an interview and dialogue with the Eev. John Dubourdieu, then Rector of DrombaUyroney and Drumgoolan. O'Donovan met him for the first time on that morning, and describes him as then " a very old, grey-headed, peevish man, and a haughty, aristo- cratic, half-civilized, self-sufficient little bit of an Irish Frenchman." It is evident, from succeeding letters of Dr. O'Donovan, that his first disagreeable impres- sion of Dubourdieu did not in the least diminish after a longer acquaintance. Mr. Dubourdieu may be said to have been, in secta- rian bitterness, one of the retrogressive parsons of the old school ; and it appears that one of the first ques- tions he asked on O'Donovan presenting his letter of introduction was, " Are "you a Papist ?" And yet there is some excuse for his prejudice if, as we gather from O'Donovan's account of him, his ancestry were of the Huguenots — which included the Saurins, the Tabi- teaus, the D'Oliers, the DuBedats, the Trenches, the Bassanets, the Desmouhns, the Yignolles, the Gaussons — who after the massacre of St. Bartholomew emigrated to Ireland. Mr. Dubourdieu' s bigotry makes his praise of Lanigan the more remarkable. He was the last pastor of the French church at Lisburn previous to entering on the cure of souls at Annahilt. More genial Huguenots were presented in the per- sons of General Yallancey, Mr. D'Olier, Mr. Latouche, Mr. Litton, all of whom, but especially the General, maintained frequent familiar and official intercourse with Dr. Lanigan ; and when infirmity at last necessi- tated his resignation, Mr. Litton was the gentleman deputed to succeed him. The Huguenots, of whose emigration to Ireland an interesting volume might be written, settled, on their arrival, in that part of Dublin formerly known as French-street, but since altered to Upper Mercer- 4* 114 WITS AND WORTHIES : street. Digges-street adjoining derives its name from Digges Latouche. Mr. J. Digges Latouche, to whom we mentioned these oral traditions, was not aware of them, but observed that corroboration is afforded by the fact that several houses in French-street belong to his brother, the banker. Our late friend, Dr. Spratt, remembered a Miss Jellice, the last survivor of her Huguenot family, keeping a jeweller's shop in Digges- street. The Huguenot burial-ground was in Peter- street adjacent. After a time the Huguenots moved to Dawson-street and the south side of Stephen's- green. Several of the old Huguenot houses have sur- vived the clearances recently effected by Sir Arthur Guinness to build his palatial residence. Mr. Evory Carmichael, landlord of one of them, states the inte- resting tradition that they were faced with bricks, ori- ginally made in Holland, which had been accumulated in the Phoenix Park with the object of building an Irish palace for Oliver Cromwell ; but his death de- ranged the plan. One of the Huguenot houses in Dawson-street was occupied by Mr. Brophy, state dentist, who told us he remembered a slab inserted in front of one, with the inscription — " May we never want a Williamite To kick the breach of a Jacobite/'* * Mr. Brophy added, that in the life-time of his mother a French patois was spoken in the Liberty, owing to a number of French weavers who had settled there. That they must also have been Huguenots is likely, inasmuch as Mr. Latouche tells us that his family were elected members of the guild of weavers ; and there is a picture existing which had been presented by that body to one of his ancestors, representing him in a red night-cap, an emblem of the craft. A striking revolution in their religious opinions has been re- cently exhibited by the conversion to Catholicism of Mr. Latouche of Marley, who purchased about the same time his ancestral seat, the Chateau de La Touche, in France. But the bulk of the refugees remain staunch in antagonism to the tenets of Catherine de Medicis. A dinner, attended by the representatives of the Huguenot families, still takes place annually in Dublin, to commemorate their footing in DRl LAXIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 115 CHAPTER XY. dr. lanigan's attack on jack giffard. 11 When a man voluntarily engages in a controversy, he is to do all he can to lessen his antagonist, because authority from personal respect has much weight with most people, and often more than reasoning. If my antagonist writes bad language, though that may not be essential to the question, I will attack him for his bad lan- guage." Adams — "You would not jostle a chimney-sweeper?' 7 Johnson — " Yes, sir, if it were necessary to jostle him down." The Table-talk of Samuel Johnson, p. 8. Mr. John Giffard, well known by his sobriquet of u the Dog in Office" — a man less formidable in his periodic hurricanes of wrath, than troublesome from the waspish stings which perpetually fell from him — insinuated on the 1st May, 1805, in his capacity of corporator, a speech breathing poison and polemics. The object of this aggression was to retard the infant movement, then advancing with tiny steps, for the relief of the penal disabilities under which the Catholic body groaned. Mr. Giffard was a leading member of the Royal Dublin Society, and had an influential voice on its council; but Lanigan was not the man, when duty called or conscience pointed, to remain tongue-tied, even under such very peculiar circumstances. Accordingly we find him, in a pamphlet under the signature of "Ire- nseus," published by Mr. Hugh Fitzpatrick, grappling with the demon of discord which John Giffard had let loose. His first words remind one of the style in which his admirer, Dr. Doyle, was wont, a quarter of a Ireland. In Portarlington, originally a French colony, service in French is to this day solemnized ; and it is very amusing to see u Blong," corrupted from Blanc, and other French names, still in- scribed even over the butchers' stalls of that town. We mention further traditions on this subject in the u Sham Squire," page 71 ; but the above contribution to the unwritten history of the Huguenot* in Ireland is made for the first time. 116 WITS AND WORTHIES : century later, to begin his philippics on public men and measures : " There are certain occasions on which apathy itself can be roused into action. When the demon of discord is let loose over the land, it behoves every man to check its pestilential career as far as lies in his power. I have long indulged myself in a life of privacy and retirement, endeavouring to do good and to serve my country, without meddling with politics or religious disputes. But having casually seen in the Dublin Journal an account of certain proceedings of the City Quarter Assembly, I was so much grieved and astonished at some parts of that report, that I said to myself, Semper ego auditor tantum ? Accordingly, I sketched the following observations with no other view than merely to obviate the danger that must result from the practice of exciting irritation and animosity, at a time when unanimity and a general co-operation of all descriptions of persons are so necessary for the public safety" — an allusion, obviously, to the then threatened invasion from France. Irenaeus having, in reply to that part of Giffard's speech which said : " Figure to yourselves Popish sheriffs sitting in that chair, entrusted with the lives and properties of Protestants," reminded him that Catholics, since 1793, had seats on the magisterial bench and grand jury without ill results — "Next follow these words," adds Irenseus: " 'Figure to yourselves aPopish, or, worse, a mixed assembly in this room.' In all this figuring," comments Irenseus, "I cannotfigure to myself how, in that gentleman's mind, a mixed assembly can be worse than a mere Popish one. I thought he con- ceived Popery to be the ne plus ultra of horror ; but now he has revealed the wonderful secret, that half Popery and half Protestantism are worse than total Popery." Lanigan then went on to sketch the advan- tages which would arise from admitting Catholics to a participation in the privileges of the constitution, and allowing them seats in local assemblies : " Nothing DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 117 could contribute more to our social happiness and national strength than such an admixture. We ought to recollect Sertarius's bundle of twigs. Mixed assem- blies of this nature exist in Germany, Hungary, and other countries ; and why they could not exist with us is to me a paradox.' ' Catholic Ireland was so utterly prostrate and lethargic at this time, and the monster of Ascendancy had bestrode it with such formidable weight and pertinacity, that Lanigan was deemed all but a visionary for predicting the not distant day when relief and reaction was certain to dawn. Having con- clusively disproved the base and baseless charge, that " 160 persons — men, women, and children — were burned in Scullabogue by order of the priests, " and reminded Mr. Giffard, in passing, that " the parish- priest's clerk, together with fourteen other Catholics, lost their lives on that occasion," next proceeded to vindicate Grattan : "I find a very unprovoked attack on one of the greatest men that this or any other country has produced. The attack is again repeated, and with still greater virulence, in his speech of the 2nd inst. That illustrious character, whom the Catholics are proud to acknowledge as their friend and advocate, is too far raised above such impotent blasts of malig- nity to require segis or vindication, and we shall leave his barking calumniators to the indignation of the public. ,, Slanders of Grattan formed a large share of Mr. Giffard's stock in trade; and from an obscure position, he rose to notoriety, from climbing the pedestal on which that virtuous character was raised, and spattering its base with dirt. Giffard was originally a Blue-coat boy, but he gradually advanced himself, until he played the double role of apothecary and bully, using the pestle and the pistol alternately. From his rare powers of mendacity and invective, both in the press and on the platform, Mr. Giffard found himself soon surrounded by posts of honour and emolument, through the corrupt 118 WITS AND WORTHIES : influences winch, in that dark day, guided unscrupulous statesmen in their bestowal of patronage. And it will presently be shown, on the authority of the Duke of Wellington, that even the great Pitt meant to give him high office. Part of the result of this peculation built his residence — Dromartin Castle. With briars dragged from the ditches of Dromartin he continued to teaze Mr. Grattan in his onward course ; but the latter, with a thick oaken club culled from the woods of Tinnahinch — to pursue the same metaphor — at last laid his assailant low. The following, in reply to a charge of treason, furnishes a glimpse of one of the few occasions on which Grattan lost temper. He usually possessed a rare com- mand of words, but in this instance the words obtained the command of him. They answered the purpose, how- ever, of stunning Mr. Giffard for a time ; and the public were the gainers by that interval of prostration : " The taunt proceeds from the hired traclucer of his country, the excommunicated of his fellow-citizens, the regal rebel, the unpunished ruffian, the bigoted agitator. In the city, a fireband ; in the court, a liar ; in the streets, a bully ; in the field, a coward. And so obnoxious is he to the very party he wishes to espouse, that he is only supportable by doing those dirty acts the less vulgar refuse to execute." A French invasion under Napoleon was at this time daily dreaded ; and Mr. Giffard perversely thought that scurrillous and stinging abuse was the best mode of deterring that formidable enemy. Iren^us reminded Mm that "it is not by barking and growling that an invading foe can be repelled ; but by cool, steady bravery and cordial co-operation. Chien qui aboye ne morel pas" The word "barking," introduced in the above passage, supports the tradition which describes Mr. Giffard as having secured the nickname of " the Dog in Office ;" and it is further confirmed by a para- graph at p. 29, the point of which, without this expla- nation, would not be obvious to general readers. Mr. DR. LANIGANj HIS LIFE AND TDIES. 119 Giffard having to some extent lost caste about this time, and also lost one of the fat sinecures in which he had long revelled as part payment for traducing his fatherland, Irenaeus writes : " He may think that I have paid too much attention to his speeches, and say to me with Miphiboseth, when addressing David : ' What is thy that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am ?' But I must beg leave to tell him that it was not on his account that I have obtruded these pages on the public ; but merely to curb that spirit of faction and disunion which certain prating blockheads are constantly fomenting. While I look with contempt and indignation on those basilisks of the country, I am proud to find we have still men of noble and liberal minds, who soar above all paltry disputes, and exert themselves to encourage the agriculture, manufactures, arts, sciences, and literature of Ireland, without distinction of persons. I allude to those worthy noblemen and gentlemen who preside over, and forward the objects of our invaluable institutions, the Dublin Society, Farming Society, and Eoyal Irish Academy. These wise and good men well know that, Concordia res parvce crescunt, discordia maxima dilabuntur — " a kingdom divided against itself is brought to deso- lation. " Lord Hardwicke held at this time the Viceregal reins of Ireland. Mr. Plowden informs us that he had been selected from the mass of peerage as the best qualified to resist the emancipation of Ireland, under the insi- dious mission of reconciling her to thraldom. But such was the noise evoked by Mr. Giffard's anti-Catho- lic diatribe, that the Lord Lieutenant summarily dis- missed him from the lucrative office in the revenue which for twenty-two years he had held. This stroke of statesmanship, however, offended one party without satisfying the other. Lord Hardwicke was succeeded in the Ticeroyalty by the Duke of Pdchmond, one of whose first acts, greatly 120 WITS AND WORTHIES : to the disgust of Lanigan and every friend to civil and religious liberty, was an ugly job, whereby Mr. Giffard found himself more than reinstated in the luxurious sinecure from which he had been dislodged. In the Duke of Wellington's Civil Correspondence we find a letter to Lord Hawkesbury, dated London, 13th March, 1808, stating: " Lord Hardwicke intends to bring before the House of Lords, on Monday, the case of Mr. Giffard's appointment to the office of accountant to the Board of Customs. Mr. Giffard was removed from an office worth from £500 to £700 per annum by Lord Hard- wicke, in the year 1805, for making an intemperate speech and a motion in the Common Council of Dublin against the Catholic Petition, which he did before he knew that the Lord Lieutenant disapproved of the line which he adopted. When the Duke of Richmond went to Ireland, Giffard was strongly recommended to him by the Dukes of York and Cumberland ; and I understand from Long that Mr. Pitt had intended to give Giffard office. In the House of Commons I objected to produce the papers on the plea that no parliamentary ground was laid, and that nothing existed which could show the real cause of Giffard's removal from office. Some of our indiscreet friends, however, brought in Lord Hard- wicke' s name and conduct in the transaction ; and then the debate turned upon him." Mr. Giffard, obese with fat sinecures and indomitable in calumny, con- tinued to bestride his country and to scourge it until his death in 1824. An old man named Keogh, in the employment of the writer, states that after Mr. Giffard's death, which occurred suddenly, he helped to " coffin him;" but the body swelled to such gigantic dimensions, that it was found impossible to enclose it in the ample shell provided by the undertaker. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 121 CHAPTER XYI. KIKWAN THE PHILOSOPHER. " The apparition, which for a moment halted at the threshold, and then moved on in solemn gait, actually made me start. A tall, gaunt figure, wrapt from neck to heel in a dark roquelaure, with a large- leafed hat flapped low over the face, presented the very picture of Guy Fawkes, with nothing wanted but his dark lantern, the venerable, but very singular-looking philosopher, Kirwan, stood confessed. The conversation soon became animated, and to me highly interesting." Lady Morgan. About this time it was Lanigan's good fortune to se- cure the friendship of Richard Kirwan, the accomplished President of the Royal Irish Academy, whose discoveries in the field of mineralogy and chemistry had earned for him a European celebrity. It is incidentally recorded by Mr. Brennan, in his "Ecclesiastical History," that " Kirwan bore honourable testimony to the exalted merits of Dr. Lanigan" — an attestation the more im- portant when we remember that the work on which Lanigan's fame rests did not appear till long after Kirwan' s death. The Librarian was very much over- worked — his health gave frequent indications of decay ; but he plodded away at his drudging tasks, and until 1814 his constitution was not irrevocably crushed. His evenings were frequently devoted to the lectures of Kirwan and the sermons of Beatagh. The attractions of the first relieved the dull monotony of official labour ; the soothing effect of Beatagh's spiritualised orations eased his care. Kirwan in early life had retired from the novitiate of the Jesuits ; Beatagh was an active Jesuit until the suppression of his order. Beatagh's family lost their patrimony from adherence to the ancient faith ; Kirwan retained his by abjuring it. Beatagh loved to descant on martyrology ; Kirwan on mineralogy. One pointed the way upwards, the other downwards; and both — although Kirwan had 122 WITS AND WORTHIES I wandered from the Church — did good work in their re- spective walks. The memorable discourses of Beatagh were delivered from the pulpit of old Rosemary-lane chapel ; but a subsequent chapter shall introduce this remarkable figure in the full proportions due to him. Beatagh's life was one of penance from choice; Kirwan's from necessity. During meals Kirwan suffered excruci- ating torment in his throat, owing to having suffered from dysphagia in early life ; and eating was attended with such convulsive motions of the neck and face, that when on a visit with Lord Cloncurry and others, he always asked as a favour that dinner should be served to him in a private room, where his friends should not be distressed by his dreadful contortions. During dinner at his own house, which was mostly confined to liquid, it was customary to put a chain on the hall- door, that he might not be disturbed. Once, when the city coal-yard was on fire, and, after burning for three days, seemed to threaten the city, the Lord Mayor and other personages proceeded to Kirwan's house for advice how best to act. Through a chink in the hall-door he was informed by Pope, the servant, that his master could not be seen. " Tell him," re plied the civic authority, " that the Lord Mayor requests to see him on a matter of great moment. " " If you were the King himself, " was the reply, " I dare not admit you." 66 But," said the Lord Mayor, " the city coal-yard is on fire." " If all Ireland was in flames, and this house along with it, I dare not ; for my master is at dinner," responded Pope. " Then," said his Lordship, " at least let us remain till your master has dined." This was hesitatingly granted, and the gentle- men were motioned to the drawingroom ; but just as the Lord Mayor had laid his hand on the handle, he was arrested by a shrill voice, crying : " sir, they will get in !" " What ?" exclaimed the Lord Mayor, looking round at his followers in astonishment. " The flies ! the flies !" ejaculated Pope, waving a cloth DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 123 to repel thein, and then opening the door so cautiously as only sufficed to permit the aldermanic visitors to squeeze through. "Mr. Kirwan, like Doniitian," observed Mr. Donovan, " had a great abhorrence of flies ; he allowed his servants a small premium per dozen for killing them." At last the philosopher appeared, the deputation explained their object ; and the remedy, " Throw sand on it," was quickly applied, and Dublin was saved from the fate of a second Chicago. Kirwan never lost his priestly aspect, and to the end of his long life was always to be seen wrapped! in a sacerdotal cloak. This he did not relinquish even in the house, no more than his hat — a strange cross be- tween Guy Fawkes' and Dr. Troy's. In this garb he did the honours of reception at those brilliant conver- sazioni which Dublin still remembers with delight. They had previously been held in London, and were regularly attended by Dr. Priestly, Home Tooke, Sir George Banks, and Mrs. Macaulay. Records of the conversation are still preserved in the MS. of the late Martin Dean, Esq., of Galway. In Dublin he re- sided in Cavendish-row, and each Wednesday U.L SIX o'clock was the time appointed for the admission of his friends. " At seven the knocker," observes a citizen, "was removed from the hall-door, and this was the signal that he was not to be seen ; for he felt disinclined to disturb his guests with introductions or the noise of the knocker. Those already admitted were entertained with refreshments, but, above all, with conversation enriched by extensive knowledge, travel, and intercourse with the most remarkable men of the age. Mr. Kirwan reclined on a sofa, rolled in a cloak, and another thrown over his lower limbs, his hat on, a long screen behind him, and a blazing fire before him, no matter whether winter or the dog-days. He always solicited permission to wear his hat, and was allowed this privilege even in courts of justice ; nay, he wore 124 WITS AND WORTHIES : it at the levees which he constantly attended in his capacity of Inspector- General of his Majesty's Mines." So consistently anxious was he to keep up the supply of caloric, that if accosted in the street by the Viceroy himself, he would eagerly push on, and unless his friend joined him at the same rapid pace, there was no chance of one word of conversation. All these were strong eccentricities which, had the counsel of his mother been taken, might have been early cut off. A letter from her, addressed " Dear Dickey," and dated 16th May, 1750, says: " There are several instances of people that were turned or touched, as they call it, by study ; which makes me insist so long upon your not falling into the dangerous practice, which I suspect you do, as you were so fond of it here." The inventor of phlogiston neglected the advice, and the offshoots of eccentricity which ought to have been lopped off in the bud had now developed into a gnarled oak. Shakespeare tells us that 66 music hath charms to rend the knotted oak," but Kirwan was not always soluble to its spell. Lady Morgan having once sang for him upon her harp, the philosopher, seizing her hand, with vehemence conjured her, as she says, to desist, and compared her harmony to " the howl of a dying dog." And yet Kirwan is said to have rendered great aid to Bunting in collecting the ancient music of Ireland. Kirwan' s brother having been killed in a rencontre with the Usher of the Irish House of Commons, the family estates unexpectedly fell in to him. " The ambition of youth," observes his late friend, Dr. O'Eeardon, 66 and the desire of preserving his property from the confiscation then sanctioned by bad laws, led to the disavowal of his primitive religion. By this act he gratified the state which required no more, but he became no convert to the state religion." We very much fear that, in point of fact, Kirwan became a Deist ; but in originally conforming he merely meant DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 125 to qualify himself for the Bar. He attended no place of worship, owing to the necessity for removing his hat- Mr. Kirwan was an honest Irishman, and when Lord Castlereagh offered to confer a baronetcy upon him, in the expectation that his great influence would aid in promoting the Union, he declined the dignity. He was singularly generous as a landlord and friend, and once forgave £4,000 to a man who had been in- debted to him. AYhen practising as a banister, if he found a fee of two guineas inadequate to pay him for the labour of a complicated brief, he has been known to increase it from his own pocket to the amount of £30, and hand it to Serjeant Palmer, and on another occasion to Mr. Scott, afterwards Lord Clonmel. On his brother Andrew he bestowed an estate of £800 a-year. Once in a cause of disputed property before Lord Clare, the Chancellor exclaimed, "Why this property does not belong to either of these parties, but to Mr. Kirwan the philosopher. How came he to overlook it?" " My Lord," said Counsellor Lynch, " Mr. Kirwan did not overlook it, but he is a philo- sopher ; he had enough already, he said, and did not want it." — A bit of philosophy which seemed to puzzle Lord Clare. Lanigan's privilege of entree to Kirwan's receptions was one highly appreciated. His conversation was indeed charming, without the slightest approach to monologue ; and it has been recorded, with examples, by Mr. Michael Donovan that Kirwan was the only man who, by great erudition, was able to put down Dr. Johnson — of whom it was said that if his pistol missed, he knocked his opponent down with the butt-end. Ladies were also admitted, but only on Thursdays, which was " his shaving day." A congeniality of tastes wed him to the society of Lanigan, whose mastery of biblical lore was pro- digious. " He was fond of the study of Sacred Scrip- 128 WITS AND WORTHIES : ture and of ecclesiastical history/' writes Dr. O'Kear- don, 66 and lie never omitted concluding the day as he began it, in fervent prayer to his Creator." Kirwan found the study of the Scripture of great use to him in his writings on mineralogy. His essays vindicating the cosmogony of Moses established him as the prince of spiritualised geologists ; and he prostrated those who declared the Book of Genesis incompatible with the tests of geological inquiry. For his invention of phlogiston Kirwan received a European ovation ; and if the theory has of late been impugned, it needed the concentrated strength of the greatest chemists of the world to shake it. Other discoveries of his, however — especially that of nitro- hydrogen — have well stood the test of time. Kirwan's funeral was second only in extent to that of Dr. Beatagh, who preceded him to the grave by a few months only. A remarkably fine oil-painting of Kirwan, by Hamilton, in the strange garb already sketched, may be viewed in the board-room of the Koyal Dublin Society. But the bust in the Dublin Library and the picture in the Koyal Irish Academy are better likenesses. CHAPTER XVII. CELTIC LITERATURE IN DIFFICULTIES. " If any there be which are desirous to be strangers in their own soile, and forrainers in their own cittie, they may so continue, and therein natter themselves. For such like I have not written these lines, nor taken these paines." Camden. Dr. Lanioan took a lively interest in the Gaelic Society of Dublin, established in 1808, not only for the inves- tigation and revival of ancient Irish literature, but also, to quote the original advertisement, for the develop- ment " of the history, literary and ecclesiastical, of this Island, long celebrated for the piety and learning of its DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 127 hospitable inhabitants" — a work which would fill a chasm in our long interrupted chronicles. The prospectus was supplemented by an address in Irish from the Rev. Paul O'Brien, " Gaelic Professor" at Maynooth. Spoken before the Deluge, Gaelic was at least vene- rable for its antiquity. O'Halloran declared it was the language of Japhet, and also of Paradise ; but we doubt if the searching philological acumen of Lanigan went so far. The Gaelic Society, though holding some views since exploded, was the parent of that vast family of industrious sons who have since arisen to preserve, translate, and annotate the scattered records of Ireland. Their address concluded with an appeal to " the learned of Ireland to retrieve their character among the nations of Europe, and show that their history and antiquities are not fitted to be consigned to eternal oblivion." A prominent but modest founder of the Gaelic Society was William Halliday,* w T ith whose genial labours of head and heart Lanigan was intimately associated. A cordial friendship sprang up between them ; and on Halliday's premature death at the age of twenty-four, his family entrusted to Lanigan the task of preparing a laudatory epitaph for his tomb.t There is a well-known churchyard picturesquely over- hanging the village of Dunclrum, near Dublin, from the steep sides of which, as in the case of some other old cemeteries, one might almost expect to see adi- poceret streaming. Its proximity to the medical * William Halliday, as Dr. O'Donovan, states, studied Irish as a dead language, and produced an Irish Grammar in 1808, when only in his nineteenth year. Mr. Halliday's literary efforts, we are told, were not more strongly characterised by vigour and truthfulness than by extreme modesty, amounting almost to great diffidence — a description which would also fit our late estimable and eminent friend, Dr. O'Donovan himself. t Communicated by the late Charles Hallidav, Esq., 6th March, 1862. + Adipocere is a substance resembling spermaceti, and wholly free from odour, into which the muscular fibres of dead bodies are some- times converted. It is often found in St. Kevin's churchyard, Dublin. 128 WITS AND WORTHIES : schools of the city made it, in a more barbarous but not distant day, a favourite resort with those who effected premature resurrections for the promotion of anatomical study ; and on penetrating to the more remote part of the enclosure, one is rather shocked to observe white marble tablets, to the memory of dear friends, shattered by the hail of ball and slug which record the many fierce battles between " the dead-watchers'' and "sack- em-ups," of which the sexton is old enough to give from experience a spirited description, as well as of the instruments used for the horrible purpose of exhumation, and which were more than once captured and preserved as trophies.* This is Churchtown graveyard, whither we were referred by the late Charles Halliday Esq., for the epitaph from Lanigan's pen on the tomb of his brother. This may be found in a separately railed enclosure ; but as it cannot be well read from the outside, we have procured a copy for the behoof of those disciples of Old Mortality who do not care to run the risk of having themselves impaled on the iron spikes which protect from sacrilegious intru- sion the last resting-place of William Halliday : " Beneath this stone are deposited the remains of "William Halliday, Junior, cut off by a lingering disease in the early bloom of life. He anticipated the pro- gress of years in the maturity of understanding, the acquisition of knowledge, and the successful cultivation of a mind gifted by Providence with endowments of the A distressing case occurred several years ago, when a woman from the country brought a quantity of adipocere to a soap-boiler for sale. * A hole, about the circumference of a cheese-plate, was rapidly punched, to the depth of five or six feet, at the head of the grave ; the upper part of the coffin lid was then battered in, and a rope, with an iron hook at the end of it, lowered; which having adjusted itself under the jaw of the corpse, the word of command was given for all hands to pull ; and in less time than it takes to write it, the horrible spectacle of a mouldering subject stood grimly in the midst of the desecrating visitors. The son of the late eminent Dr. Kirby, of Harcourt-street, was shot dead on a mission of this character. DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 129 highest order. At a period of life when the severer studies have scarcely commenced, he had acquired an accurate knowledge of most of the European languages, of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic ; but of his own, the Hiberno-Celtic, so little (oh ! shame to the youth of his once lettered Ireland) an object of attainment or study, he had fathomed all the depths, explored the beaulies, and unravelled the intricacies. He possessed whatever was calculated to exalt, to ennoble, to en- dear — great talents, extensive information, social vir- tues, sincere religion ; a good son, an affectionate husband, a steadfast friend. Carried off in the 24th year of his age, his worth will be long remembered, and his death lamented. Obiit, 26th October, a.d. 1812. Requiescant in pace." Knowing that Mr. Halliday belonged to a Protestant family, we were led by the prayer with which the epi- taph closed to inquire whether he had become a convert to Catholicism. This change in his religious opinions, it is said, did take place, and it is largely due to his intimate intercourse with Lanigan, whose life, at that period of Anglican ascendancy and prejudice, formed a thorough refutation of the slanders then daily heaped upon the suffering Church of Ireland by a par- tisan press and a prostituted pulpit. " Quem Di diligunt adolescens moritur" observes the classic Plautus. Our late friend, John D'Alton, describing a visit, in 1837, to Halliday 's grave, writes : " The grass within this consecrated spot was thickly spangled with daisies ; the wild bee was humming over it, and, in all the tyranny of a sultry sunshine, it was a melancholy musing to stand under the shelter of that tall monument, and to think that beneath it lay one whose early acquirements justified hopes for the illus- tration of Irish literature, that unfortunately he lived not to realize." But after reading these epitaphs in Churchtown grave- yard, the exclamation of some more matter-of-fact " Old 130 WITS AND WORTHIES .* Mortality" will probably be : " What if the distinguished defunct repose not here after all, and that these should prove to be not sarcophagi, but cenotaphs." The very intellectual family of Halliday would probably have been still more closely interwoven with Irish literature and professional eminence,- 1 itd not several of its members died prematurely. A white marble pillar, adjoining the tomb of William Halliday, records the death, on 9th May, 1836, of Dr. Daniel Halliday, " Edinburgensis, Parisiensisque, Medicine facultatem socius Academic Kegise Hiberniae sodalis." His death occurred suddenly at Paris, between the age of thirty and forty, when in the act of prosecuting his researches for a history of the Irish Brigades in the service of France. His remains were exhumed from Pere la Chaise, and deposited in Churchtown by his surviving brother Charles, from whose valuable library, now preserved by his munificence in the Koyal Irish Academy, national students will long continue to reap invaluable advantages. Colonel O'Neil was engaged on a similar work when death carried him off at Paris in 1337. John O'Con- nell applied for his materials, but failed to use them. At length, our energetic and genial friend, Mr. O'Cal- laghan came, who, nothing daunted by the fact that his path was strewn by the skeletons of the men who went before, flung himself heartily into the task, and mastered it with a zeal which blunts the regret felt at the pre- mature deaths of O'Conor, Halliday, and O'Neil. The man^who, after Halliday, did most for the Gaelic Society, in 1808, was, no doubt, Edward O'Eeilly, the compiler of the great Irish Dictionary, of whom more presently. Surely the humble men, unknown to fame, who in dark days toiled to keep the expiring embers of Celtic literature burning, ere Lanigan and others came to feed it into fuller light, deserve that their names should be no wholly unsung. The existence of O'Keilly's celebrated Irish Dictionary is due to an DR. LAXIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 131 accident. In 1774, he purchased from a young man named Wright, who was about to emigrate, a number of books consisting chiefly of Irish manuscripts, which had been collected by O'Gorman, some years pre- viously clerk to Mary's-lane Chapel — the person, as Mr. Mooney reminds us, from whom Dr. Young, Bishop of Clonfert, and General Vallancey had learned Irish. This library, which filled five large sacks, Mr. O'Eeilly purchased, and on examination found himself possessed of a collection of rare and valuable manu- scripts, for some of which he refused fifty guineas. Master of this valuable collection, he commenced the study of the Irish language, and afterwards pub- lished his celebrated Dictionary of that hitherto too neglected tongue. Mary's-lane Chapel — the hidden refugium of pious Catholics in days of persecution, and the scene of O'Gorman's daily round of lowly duty — few now re- member. Here the flame of Eeligion was kept burning by two holy priests, whose withered hands sustained the chalice of affliction, and tremblingly elevated the chalice of consolation. The humble clerk did his part by trimming the lamp, which, like that of religion, per- petually burned before the altar of propitiation. But he had another and more onerous duty to perform ; he nobly and successfully toiled, as we have seen, to keep the struggling lamp of Celtic literature burning. When the iron pressure of the penal chains became somewhat relaxed, and their clank less loud and alarming — when the tears of suffering priests ceased to mingle with the sacramental wine — we find Catholic concerts occasionally given within the walls of old St. Mary's-lane Chapel. An aged citizen tells us that at a concert here, when Catalani sang, Archbishop Troy and Henry Grattan sat together under the altar, con- versing eagerly the whole time, and not paying the slightest attention to the music, which enchained the bulk of the listeners. 132 WITS AND WORTHIES : CHAPTER XVIII. ANECDOTES OF DENIS TAAFFE. " The blood will follow wliere the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, Souls made of fire, With whom revenge is virtue.'' The Revenge, ly Br. Young. Another somewhat distinguished individual, whom we find associated with Lanigan in organising the Gaelic Society of 1808, was Denis Taaffe — an eccentric priest not engaged on missionary duty, author of a History of Ireland in four volumes, equal in bulk to those of Lanigan ; and he certainly demands in passing a page or two. The writer of a paper called, " The Forgotten Graves of the Dead," printed in the Dublin and London Magazine for 1828, p. 218, speaking of Taaffe, says : " This unpretending individual, during the last stage of his life, lived in miserable lodgings in St. James's-street, and was in the habit of retiring every morning to a dairy shop, with a penny roll of bread in his pocket, and feast upon it, with a halfpenny-worth of buttermilk, for his morning meal. Poor Taaffe ! often have I seen you sauntering along the street, tarrying with every eurly-pated boy who might pass, and cheer- ing them with a wholesome advice, relaxing your comprehensive mind, like an unstrung bow, but to gather additional strength and vigour. It seems to me that he has strong claims on his country." The grave of Taaffe is not surmounted by a stone. He was in- ferior to Lanigan in mark and worth, and some theories he held are since exploded ; but he was a remarkable, if not a venerable man. We are not surprised that those who knew only half his history consider that his last resting-place should be indicated by something more durable than the temporary luxuriance of the DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 133 nettle. The writer just quoted, writing forty-three years ago, enables the spot to be fixed with tolerable accuracy : " I asked the sexton in what part of the grave-yard the Rev. Denis Taaffe was interred ; he pointed out the spot, near Sir Toby's monument. The nettle waved in wild luxuriance over it, but not a stone was there." Taaffe and Lanigan were brother historians, and held archaeological tastes in common, but their cha- racteristics sprung from different idiosyncracies. Dr. Lanigan's strength was accuracy of analysis and logical acumen; Taaffe's, force of declamation, which, like the rush of many waters, swept sophistries rudely be- fore it. Taaffe wrote with ease, and will be read with difficulty ; Lanigan wrote slowly, and will always be studied with pleasure and profit. The work of the one bears evidence of laborious research ; want of access to important documents is apparent in every page of Taaffe. The " Ecclesiastical History" was a labour of love ; Taaffe's history was written to buy him bread and buttermilk. Taaffe also exhibited reasoning power ; his adverse criticism of Leland was not due to the strength of prostrating documents, but to inferences drawn from his own common sense ; and the more recent publica- tion of books then sealed to Taaffe show how singularly accurate were his deductions. One was formidable with the pen ; the other with the pike ! Lanigan was a patriot in the sanctuary and the study ; Taaffe dis- played his patriotism in the field as well. Taaffe slaughtered the Ancient Britons of '98, commanded by Sir Watkins W. Wynne ; Lanigan prostrated the ancient Britons of the twelfth century, headed by Giraldus Canibrensis.* The paragraphs of the one * The unenviable plight in which Dr. Lanigan leaves this ancient Briton, Cambrensis. who long wielded potent sway as an authority, may be gathered from the following, culled from the general index to the " Ecclesiastical History :" M Giraldus Cambrensis, his lies respecting Ireland, vol. iv., pp. 210, 231, 242. 26S, 279, 281, 286, 287. Preaches against the Iriah ciergv, 2G5. Hi* malignity, vanity, and c jnceiiedness, 278." 134 WITS AND WORTHIES : show that they were written " slow and sure Taaffe's passages, like his passages of arms, fell thick and fast. Lanigan showed his courage in attacking great literary contemporaries, and splashing them with the indelible stigma of green marking ink ; the other bathed his foes in the deeper dye of blood. When the atrocities of that notorious regiment of Black Horse, the Ancient Britons, reached their climax by roasting Father Roche's heart, and greasing their boots with the oil which dripped from it, Father Taaffe headed a chosen band, and having lain in ambush for the Ancient Britons as they returned, flushed with victory, through Ballyellis, contributed with his own arm to exterminate the great bulk of them. Taaffe was badly wounded, and escaped into Dublin concealed in a load of hay. Formidable eccentricities of this sort found no favour with the ecclesiastical authorities of the day, and henceforth Taaffe as a priest found his occupation gone. But although Taaffe's odd acts demanded episcopal censure, it is due to his ecclesiastical superior to state, as the result of inquiries made, that grave canonical cause led to his suspension — a stroke of chastisement evoked, let ns hope, rather by undisciplined eccentricity than de- liberate sin. He was in the habit of celebrating two Masses — one at seven and the other at twelve o'clock. On the occasion now referred to, he went to walk with a Presbyterian clergyman, who invited him to take a cup of tea. Taaffe yielded. A Catholic parlour-maid who attended the priest's later Mass apprised his ecclesiastical superior. Taaffe's defence was a most extraordinary one : " Christ ate the pasch before cele- brating the last supper." Suspension was the result. He threw himself into an attitude of rebellion, became a minister of the Establishment, but protested against the authority of his new Diocesan, and ere long re- turned to the Fold of Peter. Taaffe, even when clad in the lawn of the Establish- ment, continued an unbending democrat. To a gentle- DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TBIES. 135 man who was reproving him for his political bias, he said, as Watty Cox states, 6 6 I have taught both ancient and modern Britons ; I can fight as well as I can write and it was wittily observed by Dr. Brennan, that the great secret of his brilliant success and distinction at Ballyellis was, that there he stood without what he always disliked — a superior ! Taaffe was educated at Prague, and probably imbibed in that martial atmos- phere his taste for military enterprise. Taaffe was wretchedly situated in a back street of Dublin, suffering dreadful destitution, when the late Richard Coyne humanely provided for him, in the salu- brious air of James's-street, a well-ventilated bedroom which picturesquely overlooked the Magazine in the Phcenix Park. Taaffe had been for some time occu- pying this apartment, when Mr. Coyne paid him a visit to see if there was any additional comfort which might be in his power to supply. He was therefore naturally hurt and surprised when an oath much longer than himself greeted his arrival. " Father Taaffe," mut- tered the diminutive visitor, " what have I done to merit this reception?" "You have brought me to this weary place," was the reply, " where my sleepless eye can rest on no other object than that cursed red flag yonder — a badge of conquest, persecution, and de- fiance."* Taaffe was indeed very eccentric. The late Dr. Yore, formerly curate of St. James's, told us that he went to see him professionally one severe winter, when his life was almost despaired of; and hairing good- naturedly tried to ignite the embers of a miserable fire by blowing the bellows, Taaffe raised himself on his pillow, lustily shouting, " Blast you, is that the way to blow it ?" The observation puzzled Dr. Yore, but the historian had probably been irritated by the inflated folds of the British flag as it waved in the equinoxial gale with unwonted vigour before him. * Communicated by the late Richard Coyne. 136 WITS AND WORTHIES : Nemo me impune lacessit, was his motto rather than Pax vobiscum, and a stunning epigram came as natural to his muscular arm as loaded prose. Taaffe picked a bitter literary quarrel with the editors of the Oxford Review (who were all members of that Uni- versity), and lampooned them as follows : " Henceforth, Oxford ! Cowford be thy name ! Who rear'st so many calves — a nation's shame I"* Taaffe survived until the year 1813. The closing scenes of his chequered life are described as eminently Christian. Dr. McCarthy, Bishop of Cork — who had shown marked coldness to Lanigan when he waited upon him, haggard and penniless, after his flight from Pavia — went out of his way to lavish generosity upon Taaffe, and, as Dr. Brennan in his Milesian Magazine records, settled £40 a-year on him out of his private purse. CHAPTEE XIX. HE CONTINUES TO WRITE UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF IRENiEUS. " Twilight found him at his folios — morning saw his fingers run, Laboring ever, weary never of the tasks he had begun." Charles Mackey. Dr. Lanigan continued to discharge his official duties with indefatigable perseverance, while his hours of re- laxation, if such they may be called, were employed, not in taking fresh air and exercise, but in elaborating the details of his comprehensive history. He also contrived to snatch sufficient time from his magnum opus, and probably from his night's rest, to edit, with prefatory remarks, a very fine edition of the Eev. Alban Butler's posthumous meditations and discourses* * Dr. Brennan in the Milesian Magazine quotes this as Taaffe's ; but we have also known it attributed to another pen. DB. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 137 He likewise prepared for publication the first edition of the Roman Breviary ever printed in Ireland ; and it is rather strange that no effort had previously been made to bring out, in " the Island of Saints and ancient seat of learning," a work so important and valued. Dr. Lanigan's edition is esteemed the best, and a Latin preface to it, his own composition, displays a purity of style and language worthy of the Augustan age. Meanwhile he wrote much under the pseudonym of Irenaeus. But his most memorable achievement under that incognito was his introduction (i concerning the nature, present state, and true interests of the Church of England, and on the means of effecting a reconciliation between the churches ; with remarks on the false representations, repeated in some late tracts, of several Catholic tenets." This voluminous disquisi- tion was prefixed to a far smaller work, entitled " The Protestant Apology for the Boman Catholic Church ; or, the orthodoxy, purity, and antiquity of her faith and principles proved from the testimony of her most learned adversaries, by Christianus." "An unknown pen," writes Christianus, " presents you with the few following sheets ; the novelty of the title may induce you to peruse them. Who the author may be is im- material ; suffice it to say he means well." But it is more than time to unlock his visor ; for although the author gave an apologetic title to his work, it rather wore the tone of a theological tournament. The author of this ingenious production was the late William Talbot, Esq., of Castle Talbot, county Wexford, father of the dowager Lady Shrewsbury. Mr. Talbot soli- cited Dr. Lanigan "to make some preliminary re- marks for the purpose of elucidating certain theological points, and of adding to the useful tendency of his labours." " I was loth,'* writes Dr. Lanigan, u to re- fuse complying with his demand, as I wish to encou- rage the publication of every work that may conduce to soften controversial asperity, arid to make Christians 138 WITS AND WORTHIES : more and more understand each other. I like to see such tracts as Veron's ' Kule of the Catholic Faith/ Holden's ' Analysis/ Bossuet's 6 Exhibition/ and the 'Essay for Catholic Communion' becoming popular, and driving off the public stage the virulent and dis- gusting pamphlets of malignant or blundering zealots. My first intention was to confine my observations within a few pages ; but proceeding on the plan which I had laid down, I found that in some cases I could not avoid giving more detailed explanations than I had before thought necessary, unless. I were to insult the reader with general assertions in which I have never been accustomed to deal." Dr. Lanigan speaks of his efforts to soften contro- versial asperities ; but it is not easy to conduct a polemic argument without warmth, and this volumi- nous essay was no exception to the rule. Although ostensibly written to conciliate Protestants, Dr. Lani- gan' s well-put points must have thrown some of them upon their mettle. In enumerating the obstacles to a re-union of the churches, he observes: The worship- ping of the bread and wine in the Eucharist.' A horrid calumny ! The Catholics do not worship bread and wine, but Jesus Christ, their God, whom they believe to be present under the appearance of those elements. The English Church requires of communicants to re- ceive the sacrament kneeling. Pray, is not kneeling in the church an act of worship ? What would Til- lot son have answered to a Catholic who might have pressed him with this retort : ' You, sir, not I, are a worshipper of bread and wine. You have often par- taken of the sacrament with bended knees, although you do not believe that Christ is there present in any peculiar manner more than in the water of baptism ; therefore you have worshipped mere bread and wine. On the contrary, I, a Catholic, direct my worship to Christ alone, of whose substantial presence I am con- vinced ; nor would I ever bend my knees to the DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 139 Eucliaristic elements if I thought as meanly of them as you do.' " I)r. Lanigan's introduction comprises 167 pages ; Mr. Talbot's work 66 pages only ! Dr. Doyle, in a letter published in the Dublin Evening Post of 16th March, 1S27, and addressed to Daniel O'Connell, would seem to allude to this ponderous preface : " This postcript, like a preface once written to a book composed by a learned and highly gifted friend of mine, has exceeded the ordinary size, and almost equals the statement to which it is attached ; but the caccethes scribendi is often an involuntary error." Drs. Doyle and Lanigan had many views in common, and it is remarkable that both wrote in advocacy of a union of the churches. As the twig is bent, the tree will incline ; and this disposition may be due to the education which they respectively received in mixed schools, conducted by Protestant clergymen, at the earliest and most impressionable period of their lives — the one at the Rev. John Carr's, New Ross ; the other at the Rev. Patrick Hare's of Cashel. It would seem, too, that Pope Ganganelli — the effect of whose ex- ample was traceable in many points of Lanigan's later life — entertained the same project. AYe have never seen the fact stated unless in a MS. letter of Dr. Doyle's, which the late Dr. Donovan placed in our hands : " As to the union of the churches, I told you I looked upon it as not attainable, unless by a miracle of grace ; but that which was the object of the most earnest desire with the saints and doctors of the 16th and 17th centuries — that at which Clement XIY. and Bossuet laboured, and which every Pope from Leo X. to Pius VII. desired, cannot be unworthv of attention now." Mr. Talbot used to say that some of the views ad- vanced by Dr. Lanigan in his introduction to the 4( Protestant Apology" did not meet with general ap- proval ; but Dean Meyler dryly remarked to us it was 140 WITS AND WORTHIES I censoriously whispered, as the real reason of his dis- satisfaction, that the attractiveness of Lanigan's intro- duction completely threw his own performance into the shade. Dr. Lanigan's tract is undoubtedly a fine vigourous piece of composition, full of impregnable logical positions, and manifests a perfect knowledge of the best Anglican controversial works. When a second edition had been called for, Mr. Talbot asked Dr. Lin- gard to write a new introduction ; but Dean Meyler informed us that the historian of England declared that it would be impossible to improve on what Dr. Lanigan had so powerfully and pointedly expressed. He, however, was subsequently induced to comply with Mr. Talbot's request; and considerable discus- sion arose in clerical circles regarding the manner in which he discharged the task. Dean Meyler asked the eminent ecclesiastical writer, Clinch, how he liked it. " Lanigan's preface, " said Clinch, "is that of a master, Lingard's of a scholar." Comprehensive as an historical retrospect, the soundness of its criticism on contemporary men and books was equal to the general accuracy of its predictions. Provost, after- wards Bishop Elrington, and other opponents of the Papal Supremacy, had recently desired that Vicars- Apostolic should be substituted in the place of the ordinary Catholic Bishops of Ireland. " As he has announced himself an advocate of the rights of the episcopacy, " observed Dr. Lanigan (p. 148), "I am surprised at his joining in a plan which, if adopted, would fetter the hands of our Catholic Bishops to an enormous degree, and render them removable at the bare will of the Roman Pontiff. As to the Catholics of England being governed by Apostolic Vicars, who does not perceive the wide difference that exists between the religious circumstances of the two coun- tries ? The confusion that prevailed in England during a long series of civil and ecclesiastical convulsions, the smallness of the number to which the Catholics DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 141 dwindled, particularly in some parts of that country, and other motives inapplicable to Ireland, gave occa- sion to the appointment of Vicars-Apostolic. But probably the day is near at hand when the Catholic prelates of England will be considered not as Vicars, but as Ordinaries. " In this prediction Irenaeus did not prove himself a false prophet. At least w T e may claim for him the merit of possessing a clear and in- tuitive perception of the then almost imperceptibly slight tendency to religious progress in the neighbour- ing island, although he did not live to witness the full accomplishment of his anticipations, and the return of so many eminent Englishmen to the old Faith, under the rule of a restored Catholic Hierarchy. "In what I have written," concluded Irenaeus, "I can declare, from the sincerity of my heart, that I have no other object in view than the general good of Chris- tianity ; and were I ambitious of having my tomb dis- tinguished by any peculiar epitaph, I should prefer" " 6 Here lies an advocate for the union of Christians.' " "For logic, learning, and respect for religious convic- tion," observes Mr. J. H. Green, " this work is gene- rally esteemed a model of polemical writing that admits few parallels. So that," he adds, with the free dash pardonable in kinsmanship, " w T e should like to see the man that could point out — taken as a divine and theologian, as a linguist, as a Christian — in the whole history of the Irish Church since the days of Sedu- lius, Dr. Lanigan's equal." " The Protestant Apology," with the introduction of Irenaeus, was published in 1809, by Mr. H. Fitz- patrick* of Capel-street. Of Lanigan's part in the per- formance it may, indeed, w r ith truth be said, that he * A fine oil-painting of this celebrated Catholic publisher, the father of the late accomplished bon raconteur, Patrick Vincent Fitzpatrick, is now preserved by his surviving daughter. This lady says that were her brother now living, he could furnish many characteristic and striking anecdotes of Dr. Lanigan. Alas, that he should not have sur- vived another year ! In reminiscences of other men we drained his depth of memory to the dregs. 142 WITS AND WORTHIES : exhibited not only a profound acquaintance with the theological literature and lore of his own church, but with the writings of Protestant divines also, in- cluding Burnett, Bull, Bramhall, Bingham, Beveridge, Chillingworth, Cave, Daubeny, Dodwell, Elrington, Fell, Forbes, Hersley, Heylin, Montague, Magee, Van Mildert, Parr, Pearson, Priestley, Porteous, Tillot- son, Thorndyke, and Usher. The manner in which Lanigan made the fathers of the Protestant Church propound, in this book, thoroughly Catholic dogmas by accurate citations from their writings, was very ingenious. But the time in which he and Dr. Doyle attempted the task of reconciliation was not propitious. Nothing could be further from the state of religious transition which the Anglican Church is now under- going, than the tone of Protestantism then. Of Protestantism in 1820, Baron Starke says : "It is so degenerated that little more than the mere name subsists at the present day. It has undergone so many changes that if Luther and Melancthon were to rise again, they would not know the church which was the work of their hands. " In fact, the prevailing principle of the Protestantism of that day may be in- ferred from the frank remarks of Bishop Watson, who in the catalogue prefixed to his theological tracts says: "We ought to entertain no other wish than that every man may be allowed, without loss of fame or fortune, to think what he pleases, and say what he thinks." These admissions suggest the reason why Drs. Doyle and Lanigan were not more successful in re-cementing Protestantism to the Bock of Peter. The signature of Irenseus is found about this time contributing to national magazines and journals. Thus in the Irish Magazine for May, 1811, a letter appears under that pseudonym, " On the Imbecility and Weakness of the Present Ministry." From the position Dr. Lanigan filled, he was to some extent tongue-tied, but not necessarily pen-paralysed. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 143 CHAPTEE XX. DOCTOR EEATAGH. N Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfatliom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air." Gray. " Learning grew Beneath his care, a thriving vigorous plant .- The mind was well informed, the passions held Subordinate, and diligence was choice." COWPER. During the earlier residence of Dr. Lanigan in Dub- lin, Dr. Beatagh was Vicar-General of that diocese — a divine whose name has been more than once mentioned in previous pages, and some facts of interest claim to be told of him. Sprung from a sept which had been plundered by Cromwell of all they possessed save their pedigree and family virtue, Thomas Beatagh first drew breath at Kells, a spot dear to archaeologists, in 1738, and received his education in the school of Father Austin, Saul's-court, Fishamble-street — a fami- liar name to the lovers of the historic gossip of old Dublin. Having at the early age of fourteen taken the vow of chastity, he entered the novitiate of Loyola in Lorraine, and, returning to Ireland, reached, in 1773, the great goal of his ambition — the degree of a professed Jesuit, from Laurence Bicci, the last General of the order. But the cup was suddenly dashed from Beatagh's lips by the Bull of Ganganelli, issued that year. He hailed the day when his order should be re-organised, and with more than human dis- cernment discovered in youth the talent, genius, and virtues which would one day fit them to fill with eminent success, the sacred ministry. The subsequently illustrious Fr. Kenny, a working 144 WITS AND WORTHIES : artizan in a coachmaker's yard, was secured by Dr. Beatagh under these circumstances. He was much struck by the acumen with which Kenny taught catechism to the children in Eosemary-lane chapel. Kenny proved to be the greatest theologian of his day ; and nearly every bishop who spoke the English language fouud it desirable from time to time to seek his aid and counsel in intricate questions of casuistry, with which they confessedly found themselves in- adequate to deal. About the same time, Beatagh disentombed from an adjacent coffin-maker's shop in Cook-street the rough material of the future eminent Father M. B. Keogh,* the greatest preacher of his time, whose talents would probably have remained shrouded in obscurity had it not been for Beatagh's intuitive eye. Other pupils of Dr. Beatagh were Dr. Murray, afterwards Archbishop, Very Rev.B. Esmonde, Very Rev. Dr. Yore, V.G., and Very Rev. P. Coleman, V.G. Dr. Beatagh was, indeed, sharp in scenting the seed of future fame. Mr. Joseph Hamilton, in his " Vindication of the Bishops," speaking of Dr. Murray, says : " His elevation to the prelacy was an object of particular solicitude with my friend, Dr. Beatagh, who bore his faculties so meekly, that even Dr. Troy, his own Archbishop, did not know he had a legate's power until the day on which he said, ' he would lay his old bald head upon a block before he would concede the Veto.' " Worthy of veneration as Dr. Beatagh was, we believe that Dr. Lanigan, with the usual eccentricity of his later life, would not have been too well pleased to dis- charge the duties of a missionary priest under the vicariate of even a suppressed Jesuit. In uncompro- * Mr. Keogh's preaching was noted for its Massillon severity and solemn sepulchral character. Further on will be found numerous anecdotes of his bright humour — " plating on a coffin, " as he himself would say. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 145 mising antagonism to the Veto, however, both, as will be seen, were thoroughly of one mind. Pulpit oratory must have changed very much within the last half-century ; for the late Mathias J. O'Kelly assured us he had repeatedly seen Dr. Beatagh's hearers in Rosemary-lane Chapel alternately moved to tears by his objurgations, and convulsed with laughter by his account of Luther's dialogues with the devil. If this great divine loved to harrow hearts by dwelling on the text, " Revenge is mine," its terrorism was relieved by the prospect " from grave to gay — from lively to severe." While the conversion of blacks in foreign climes was an object of ambition with other philanthropists of the day, Dr. Beatagh's labours were largely devoted to the conversion of other blacks nearer home. The sweeps of Dublin, then a very demoralised race, were a special object of his mission. It is difficult to realise at this day the prodigious prestige and popularity wielded by Beatagh, but the following observations expressed by one who assisted at his funeral sufficiently prove his eminence : " The death of this illustrious man," says the late Bishop Blake, " was followed by the strongest demonstra- tions of universal grief and veneration. That general feeling of regret which united men of every sect and rank in bewailing the common loss — the crowds which at all hours of the day and night, and under the most heavy incessant rain, were seen pouring from every quarter of the city to the house where his body lay, that they might indulge their grief with one sight of that face which they almost adored — the myriads that accompanied his hallowed remains to the vault — the silent order and deep consternation which chilled every heart and appeared in every countenance — the sympathetic looks which were reflected from every win- dow and rising ground, and even from the tops of walls and the battlements of bridges — the tears, the cries and lamentations which converted this great city, as it 146 WITS AND WORTHIES : were, into a house of mourning — all these did not surprise me." Dr. Beatagh had a high opinion of Dr. Lanigan's great friend, Blake, and when the infirmities of age began to gather round him, he waited on Dr. Troy, and begged to resign his pastoral charge in favour of that promising young ecclesiastic. Dr. Troy depre- cated the appointment on the ground of Mr. Blake's youth, whereon Dr. Beatagh declared that if such was his Grace's decision, he would return and die in harness. The reverend orator who preached Dr. Beatagh's funeral panegyric said : " Having learned from the phy- sicians that his case was dangerous, he received the in- formation with as much composure and fortitude as he had ever shown in the healthiest day of his life." One of these physicians still lives ; and even after the lapse of more than half-a- century he is able to supply a more interesting fact than that advanced by the preacher in 1811. Dr. Beatagh died of gangrene of the extremities. Dr. MacKeever, now of Cavendish- row, then a very young physician, attended him, in conjunction with Dr. Adrien. Dr. MacKeever had no hopes of Dr. Beatagh's recovery, and on one of the last visits that he paid to him, he knelt down and asked the good man's blessing. Dr. Beatagh pro- nounced an impressive benediction over him, and it is by no means unlikely that it may have contributed to prosper the signally successful professional career of the good physician. Dr. Beatagh made use, on this occasion, of some rather striking words. "Thomas," he said, " when I reflect on the infirmities of my youth, and the imperfections of my ministry, I tremble." Dr. Beatagh wore a remarkable looking bob-wig, which after his death fell into the hands of Dr. MacKeever, by whom a few years ago it was presented to the nuns of George's-hill Convent, where it is now preserved as a sacred relic. But this convent once possessed relics of DE. LANIG-AN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 147 the divino more mortal than his wig. The late Rev. Michael Doyle found the coffin containing the remains of the venerable Beatagh in the vaults of George's- hill Convent, completety burrowed by rats. He re- verently collected the scattered remains with his own hands, and having replaced them in a more fitting shell, deposited them in the vaults of SS. Michael and John's, to which he was attached as curate. The incident made such an impression upon him, that, to guard against a similar posthumous incursion, he directed his own remains to be enclosed in a stone coffin, secured with clamps of iron.* The late Dean Meyler used to tell — and many priests who knew him have adopted his erroneous impression — that "when the Jesuits were restored, Dr. Beatagh refused to throw up his parish and rejoin them." But closer examination of this story, which we have more than once heard repeated, detects its inaccuracy. Dr. Beatagh died in 1811, and the resto- ration of the Jesuits did not take place for three years later. It is to be regretted that Beatagh had not the happiness of witnessing this triumphant event. The late Right Hon. R. Lalor Sheil, writing in 1829, says : 6 6 There was £16,000 in the hands of Father Beatagh, the last of the Irish Jesuits who had survived the abolition of the order. This sum had been be- queathed to the old priest by a Father Callaghan, who held it himself in trust." The amount was applied to the purchase of Clongowes Wood College subsequent to the death of Dr. Beatagh. We did not suppose, when describing in a former work a startling state of society in Dublin eighty years ago — when the butchers and Liberty boys fought wildly for days, during which time the bridges were taken and re-taken — that its subjugation was largely due to Beatagli's moral muscle. Dr. Blake, P * It is remarkable that the late eminent Surgeon, Sir Philip Crampton, moved by equally strange fears, directed his executors to embed his body in Reman cement. 148 WITS AND WORTHIES I preaching a charity sermon in 1821, says: "When Dr. Beatagh commenced his luminous career, many amongst you may remember the abject and shameful state of public morals. Her children were frequently seen, on each side of the quays of your city, drawn up in battle array, armedagainst each other with bludgeons, rusty swords, and missile weapons ; and on almost every public occasion, the generosity of her nature wantoned in excesses of the most lawless and barbarous kind. Education has, under God, nearly remedied all these evils. Those factions which formerly were wont to fill the community with alarm have disappeared." But this was one of the least of the achievements of Beatagh. A Dablin paper in recording his death, on 16th February, 1811, said : " He it was who first raised his lofty and towering voice, laid prostrate the dis- seminators of Paine's doctrine, and rescued his country from the spread of its baneful contagion and then proceeds, with an eloquent diffuseness allowable in deal- ing with such enormous virtue, to dilate on the im- possibility of " volumes telling the good he did, the thousands he has brought back from the paths of heresy, the tens of thousands he has saved from the more destructive poison of infidelity. " The conversions effected by Dr. Beatagh and other Jesuits after their extinction as an order, worked, like the bones of the prophets, miracles even in the grave ! DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 149 CHAPTER XXI. THE CITY OF THE KINGS REVISITED. " Yes, ye moss green walls, Ye towers defenceless, I revisit ye, Sad, stricken ! where are all your trophies now ?" Mysterious Mother. The usually impassive library committee at last ex- pressed strongly itself in regard to Dr.Lanigan's labours at the Royal Dublin Society. On 18th June, 1812, they gave it as their deliberate opinion, that Dr. Lanigan was "not adequately remunerated for his general ser- vices by his present salary of £150. " The helping hand, though kindly meant, was extended too late. The overworked labourer was already sinking. The civility wore smiling blossoms, but bore no fruit. Never- theless, he gathered some encouragement from this de- liberately recorded opinion of the Society, and, stimu- lated by the increasing wants of his poor mother* — who was now quite blind — he drew up another memorial, and presented it at a general meeting of the Society, 12th November, 1812, in presence of John Claudius Beresford, John GifTard, Major Sirr, Charles Kendal Bushe, Sir Richard Musgrave, John Pollock, and many other influential personages. All these names, with the exception of Bushe's, represent as strongly hostile Catholic feeling as it would almost have been possible to find at that day. The priest's petition goes on to say that, "confiding in the liberality and justice of the Society, he humbly requests that they will be pleased to take his case into consideration, and to enable him to provide for his wants, to which, he is sorry to say, in the present state of his * Dr. Lanigan supported his mother for several years hefore her death. She lived with Mis. Mary Kelly, her daughter, whom Dr.. Lanigan fully recompensed for trouble and outlay. 150 WITS AND WORTHIES : health, and at his time of life, his present salary is absolutely inadequate; particularly as by his very situ- ation under the Society, being bound to constant attend- ance, he is precluded from availing himself of every other opportunity of adding to his emoluments. That he shall continue to use his utmost exertions towards forwarding the views of the Society, and is ready to submit, as far as possible, to whatever regulations the Society may, in its wisdom, think proper to adopt." It does not appear that the prayer of this memorial was then complied with — possibly owing to, the inter- ference of that very formidable character, J ohn Giffard, whose politics and public policy it will be remembered Lanigan intrepidly impugned. Meanwhile, the de- clining state of his health diminished his chances of further promotion. On the 6th of May, 1813, we find him presenting to the Society a certificate signed by two physicians, who urgently recommended the neces- sity of extending leave of absence to Dr. Lanigan. There is nothing in the doctors' certificate, or in the record of its presentation in the Transactions of the Society to indicate the nature of the disease ; but the following extract from a letter addressed by Archbishop Troy to Mr. Plowden, dated 29th March, 1813, reveals the sadly subtle character of the visitation. "We sus- pect that the awkwardness of the incident at Maynooth, when Dr. Lanigan felt himself called upon to retire, even after his appointment to the chair of Sacred Scripture, preyed very much on his mind, fearing that the circumstance might be misunderstood to the detri- ment of hi3 posthumous reputation. By long brooding on this unpleasantness, it at last acquired the dimen- sions of an unhealthy fungus in his mind. This letter, for which we are indebted to the Eev. D. MacCarthy of Maynooth, is useful in fixing the exact date of an inci- dent of grave importance in the life of Lanigan. That he should have accomplished his magnum opus under such disadvantageous circumstances is curious. DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TBIES. 151 Archbishop Troy, writing, as we have said, on the 29th March, 1813, states: "Dr. Lanigan's mind has been deranged these some weeks past. He does not appear abroad, and his general conversation and con- duct, as I hear, are symptomatical of insanity Some time ago, when very ill, he declared openly that he accepted the Bull Unigenitus as a dogmatical and irreformable decision and judgment, against which it is unlawful to appeal. " (See p. 86, ante.) The licence granting leave of absence to Dr. Lani- gan, in accordance with the requisition signed by two medical men, was duly conceded to him ; and the old priest, with failing gait and haggard mien, tottered off to breathe the free air of Tipperary. Cashel was his destination — once the city of the Kings, but now ex- hibiting in the vicissitude of its decadence and decay a painful illustration of the phrase Sic transit gloria mundi, and possibly reminding the poor sufferer him- self of his own case and destiny. Received with open arms by his sisters, we may be as- sured that Dr. Lanigan never sank into the equally ready arms of Somnus with more luxurious enjoyment than 152 WITS AND WORTHIES : on the night of his arrival after a long absence, and the fatigue of the then interminably long journey. Bising early with the lark to find the Bound Tower of Cashel casting its stalwart shadow across that old familiar path, trod in happier bygone days, when care was but known to him as some invisible ghost of darkness, Lanigan was even already a new man. Here he continued to re- main for some months on a visit to his sister, Mrs. Kelly, who kept a small woollen drapery establishment in the town. His descendants state that his society was then much sought after by some of the most re- spectable local gentry and clergymen. Dr. Dromgoole, the great Catholic orator of the day and theological Hercules, who will be fully described in a succeeding chapter, made more than one special journey from Dublin to see him, and both he and Dr. Lanigan were often closeted together for days at this time. It will presently transpire that Lanigan was what is technically called cramming him. But of this anon. Lanigan' s levees, which his family proudly remem- ber, do not surprise us. Although the " Ecclesiastical History/' which lends chief lustre to his name, was unpublished at this time, he seems to have been re- garded as a high ornament to the diocese of Cashel ; and the late Bev. Dr. O'Connor, P.P. of Templemore, mentioned to the Bev. Mr. O'Neil, S.J., that in 1818 he made a pilgrimage to Dublin for almost the special purpose of seeing Lanigan. This trip to Cashel was a bright spot on the black retrospect of Lanigan's remaining fourteen years of life, albeit it is said to have ended with a frightful incident of a spectral character, which, however, he regarded afterwards with philosophic composure, notwithstand- ing that it agitated him enough at the time. The scenes of early, happy youth, and the associations en- twined around them, raised his drooping head and heart and new life seemed to tingle through his veins.. Dr. Lanigan's departure from Cashel in 1814 took DR. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 153 place suddenly, and we believe under circumstances so extraordinary as indeed to come within the category of the supernatural. The well-known sensation scene in " The Corsican Brothers/' when Louis de Franchi sees, some hundred miles away, the tragic death of his brother Fabian in the Forest of Fountainbleau, would seem to have found a parallel incident in the hitherto unrecorded annals of the Lanigan family.* But what the priest saw durst not be told without due expla- nation, and in truth deserves the record of a separate chapter. * More than one startling story appears to be interwoven with the history of the Lanigans of Tipperary and their present represen- tatives. The late John O'Donovan, LL.D., writing to us, observes : " You are aware that the Lanigans have succeeded the Fogartys of Castle-Fozarty, one of the finest mansions in Tipperary. The history of the * Good Woman,' and of the denizens of Castle-Fogarty, is a terrible one, and I cannot now touch upon it." 154 WITS AND WORTHIES I CHAPTER XXII. THE SPECTRAL HORSEMEN. " Father, oh ! answer me ; Let me not burst in ignorance; bat tell, Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cearments ? why the sepulchre, Wherein w r e saw thee quietly inurn'd, Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws To cast thee up again ? what may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again Revisit'st thus the glimpses o' the moon, • Making night hideous, and us fools of nature, So horribly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ? Say why is this ? wherefore ? what should we do ?" [Ghost becJcon's] Horatio — " It beckons thee to go away with it." Hamlet — " It waves me still. I'll follow it." Ghost — " I am thy father's spirit." Shakespeare. " Heavens ! — I see my brother." The Corsican Brothers. A very curious incident now claims insertion, kindly communicated by George W. Abraham, Esq., LL.D., who derived it direct from the lady in whose house it occurred. This matron, reduced in circumstances by family vicissitude, having decided on setting part of her residence in Bishop-street, the lodgings were hired by a gentleman of manners so reserved and retiring, that he was for some time in occupation ere she ascer- tained that his name was Lanigan. He required no attendance beyond having his kettle boiled for him morning and evening. Nobody seemed to know when he went in or out — an air of mystery wrapped his moody life ; and his noiseless death, which occurred suddenly one evening, was so much in keeping with the sepul- chral character of his previous existence, that it excited but slight emotions of dismay. A seal was placed upon his drawers, and the burial of the apparently friendless DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 155 deceased took place at the expense of the landlady and her brother. On the following day, an elderly gentleman of clerical aspect hurried up the steps of Mrs. 's house, his boots considerably splashed by mud, and exhibiting other evidences of a rapid and recent journey. The anxious inquiry, " Does Mr. Lanigan live here ?" was met by the reply, "He did live here, but we buried him to-day." " Then/' exclaimed her visitor, turning ashy pale, and throwing himself back panic-stricken against the hall table, " I saw my brother last night, as I'm a living man." He then went on to say that he had just arrived from the South of Ireland in obedience to an unspoken mandate. That having heard a knocking, accompanied by wailing, in the dead of night at his hall- door, he went down to open it, provided with pistols, lest it should have been a trick on the part of thieves to obtain easy entrance. That on opening it, what was his horror to recognise, by the pearly moonlight, on the left the ghost of his long-deceased father, mounted on a transparent white horse, and in the imperative attitude of parental autho- rity beckoning him with its fleshless finger to follow ; while, on the right hand, his brother, also bestriding a white charger (from whose nostrils issued long darts of light), waved its hand in the same direction ; and as both were hurried away by some superior influence, they cast their silvery eyes imploringly behind. The priest was greatly excited during this narrative ; his hands shook as if by palsy, and although the time was midwinter, big drops of sweat stood upon his face. He insisted upon having the body exhumed, and removed to the family burial-place. An alienation had for many years existed between the deceased and other members of his family, in consequence of a matrimonial alliance which gave offence to them, and the priest desired that they should now at least be united in the grim embrace of death. One child was the result of this marriage ; it was present at the disinterment, and on re-opening the 158 WITS AND WORTHIES : grave the priest, with much excited eccentricity, re- opened the family wound. "If I thought," he said, " that you possessed overmuch of her blood" — alluding to the mother — "I might, in a moment of weakness— yielding to the suggestions of nature rather than the dictates of grace — sluice your veins and let it loose. But no ! may God bless you !" The name of this priest was the Eev. Dr. Lanigan, and Dr. Abraham's belief, as well as that of the lady in whose house the scene occurred, have always been that he was identical with the hero of the preceding pages. In reply to whether the visitor could possibly have been the Eight Eev. Dr. Lanigan, Bishop of Ossory — one of the interrogatory tests with which it is our habit to receive all communications — Dr. Abraham said that such was not improbable ; but inasmuch as he was enabled to fix the year 1814 as the date of the occur- rence, Bishop Lanigan, who died in 1809, is therefore hors de combat. Besides, Mrs. described her impulsive visitor not as a prelate, but as a priest. The incident is not likely to happen a bishop, and the period of Dr. John Lanigan's return from the South of Ireland quite tallies with the date 1814.* Mrs. mentioned the story, in our informant's presence, to the late Very Eev. John Walsh, Prior of the Angus tinian community in Dublin, adding that she considered Dr. Lanigan's belief in apparitions as a proof of weak mind. 66 His intellect cannot have been very weak," was the reply, "for he wrote a very able work — the ' Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.' " Nevertheless, a belief in apparitions is by no means inconsistent with men of high intellectual attainments ; but the question will present itself to sceptics, how far the minds of dis- tinguished thinkers who have held these views may not have been diseased. A gifted painter may pro- * A notice of the Right Rev. Dr. James Lanigan, with whom Dr. John Lanigan has "been occasionally confounded, may be seen in the Appendix. DU. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 157 cluce very beautiful works of art, while the hand which guides his pencil may contain an incipient paralysis. Sir Walter Scott, writing to his son in 1822, says : " You have heard of poor Lord Castlereagh's death, by his own hand, in a fit of insanity. This explains a story he once told me of having seen a ghost, and which I thought was a very extraordinary narrative from the lips of a man of so much sense and steadiness of nerve ; but, no doubt, he had been subject to aberrations of mind, which often create such phantoms." But Scott himself — whose great mind was, as we could show here if necessary, in a state of decay for a much longer period, prior to its final break-up, than is generally supposed — was, as Mr. Adolphus tells us, peculiarly " susceptible and delicate" in relation to ghost stories, and " loved to handle them in his own manner, and at his own season." It will have been perceived that Scott, in addressing his son on these matters, spoke more guard- edly than was his wont in general society. His idio- syneracy, if fully explored, would exhibit him singularly impressionable to the supernatural. The striking way in which he refers to the delusion whereby the ghost of Byron seemed conjured up before him at Abbotsford, will not soon be forgotten by the readers of his " Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," pp. 38-9. Ireland and Scotland are twin sisters in half-shrink- ing, half-loving attention to fireside ghost stories. But the adjunct of the horse in supernatural narrative — 1 the animal which ranks next to human intelligence — seems peculiar to Ireland. The spectral horse of O'Donoghue, with its silver hoofs ploughing the blue waters of Killarney, is a legend full of beauty. Yield- ing to a national weakness we may perhaps be allowed to end this chapter with some gossip which might possibly, with more propriety, appear in a note. | jjAs the table of sins included in most Catholic prayer- books enumerates a belief in omens or apparitions, we took occasion, in the course of a correspondence 158 WITS AND WORTHIES : with the Very Eev. Dr. Husenbeth, V.G., author of many theological and biographical works, to ask what degree of sin, if any, the Church attached to belief in supernatural appearances. He writes : 66 There can be no doubt that Almighty God does at times permit supernatural appearances and occurrences. Many such are recorded in the lives of the saints, particularly of St. Francis Xavier and St. Philip de Neri. There is no decision of the Church, however, upon these things. The degree of credit to be attached to them must depend entirely upon the credibility of the evidence/ ' Readers of our "Life of Dr. Doyle" will remember the Bishop's correspondence with " Mariana," better known in later life as Rev. Mother Mary Paul Finn. As considerable interest attaches to the question of supernatural agency, no further apology will perhaps be needed for introducing the following extract of a letter addressed by that late lamented lady to our- selves : "I am not superstitious, and I believe in the bump of supernaturality, and that my beloved sister Kate had it when in Rome. She was awakened from sleep by the voice of a young friend, who distinctly called her name three times, and she exclaimed to a friend in the room, 6 Oh ! at last Anne Warren is arrived,' and (to make a short-cut) in that moment Anne Warren had died in Paris. Moreover, I one morning returned to Kate (then living at Blessington -street) from a visit I had been paying at Stevens' Hospital to a young girl for whom we were greatly interested. I found her dead ; her death had not been expected ; no one that knew anything of it saw, or could have seen, Kate ; and the moment I saw her, she said : 6 1 could have told you, when you were leaving here, that little Peggy Fogarty died this morning ; for she appeared to me, smiled, waved her hand, and disap- peared.' Now, that was said before I, or human being, named the truth to her, and with simplicity and without DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 159 fear or emotion. Don't say, "Mai non credo niente" for this fact — and I have known of so many things of the sort — I believe them. Nothing of the kind ever happened to me, and how and why they happen, I do not pretend to form an opinion ; but that they do happen cannot be denied. My own impression is, that we are infinitely more closely connected with the spiritual world than is generally supposed, but our poor mortal eyes are, unless in exceptional cases, as yet debarred from the sight. " It may also be remembered by readers of the work to w T hich we have a short time since referred, that at the very moment of the death of this identical " Kate," to whom Dr. Doyle was attached by strong bonds of friendship, a manifestation was made to him in Carlow; and our informant was not "Mariana" — who, so far as we know, was never cognizant of it — but the Bishop's grand-niece. It is further remarkabe that the writer of the above letter — Mariana herself — is stated to have appeared in India, when giving up the ghost in England ; and some evidence upon the point has been promised for our Appendix. CHAPTER XXIII. THE VETO. " Let him but stand, in spite of power, A watchman on the lonely tower; His thrilling trump will rise the land When fraud or danger is at hand, By him, as by the beacon light, The pilot must keep course aright." Scott. Dr. Lanigan never forgot the priest in the pam- phleteer, or the theologian in the librarian. We were assured by the late Dr. Yore that all this time there was not a more punctual attendant at the ecclesiastical conferences, held by the late Dean Lube in James's- 160 WITS AND WORTHIES : street.* Indeed, it may be said that in the entire archdiocese there did not exist a more vigilant church- man. When, in 1814, Quarantotti's celebrated Rescript arrived from Rome, authorising the Irish Catholic Episcopacy to vest in the government a veto in the appointment of members of their body, Ireland was at first utterly stunned and stupefied by the shock. Owing to the difficulty of transit in those days, inter- course with Rome was not of that frequency which it has since become ; and any Rescript emanating from the Holy See was regarded by the clergy as final and irrevocable. Lanigan's early Roman education now stood him in good stead, and having thrown his eye over the instrument which had paralysed his brethren of the ministry, he found — to use a phrase of his own — ■ that he could drive a coach-and-six through it. Dr. Lanigan, refreshed by a few months relaxation in Cashel, was early in the field to expose and denounce Quarantotti's Rescript ; and his letter had the effect of awakening many from an apathy which they had persuaded themselves meant exemplary submission to Rome's decree. It will be seen that this desperate resignation very soon gave place to resolute resistance. We may remind the reader that Pius VII. was, at the date of the Rescript, a prisoner at Fontainbleau, and Monsignor Quarantotti acted as the Pope's Vicegerent. When the decree reached Ireland, however, his Holiness had been reinstated at the Vatican. A letter of Dr. Lanigan's, under the signature of " An Irish Priest/' appeared in the Dublin Evening Post of the day, and immediately following the publication of the Rescript : " The ferment spread like wildfire through every gra- dation of society, and the very lowest order of people * " The nomination of the late Dean Lube was reversed by Pope Pius VII., because he was elected and appointed by the chapter of Dublin ; but upon its being represented that the clergy acted through ignorance, and not from disrespect, the Pope subsequently confirmed it." — Dean Meyler to the Author, 1st June, 1859. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 161 felt its influence ; some cursed — others moaned — all complained. Early this morning my old servant-maid accosted me abruptly with, ' Sir ! what shall we do ? Is it — can it be true that the Pope has turned Orange- man?' " Dr. Lanigan went on to say that it was absurd to think of a clerk of Propaganda presuming to decide upon a subject of the greatest magnitude, and which would require the deliberation not only of the whole Congregation and of the Pope himself, with his whole College of Cardinals, but of an entire (Ecume- nical Council. "Nay, as it appertains to local dis- cipline, an (Ecumenical Council itself could not compel us to submit, much less an understrapper of Propa- ganda ! Oh ! barefaced effrontery of a swaggering mozzorecchi /" Dr. Lanigan also thought it most extraordinary that an announcement of such importance should have been made through an English Vicar- Apostolic — Dr. Poynter — instead of one of the Irish Hierarchy. Having severely criticized the Latinity of the document, and weakened its force by a number of strong points, Dr. Lanigan went on to say: "I must beg to correct two material mistakes of yours The document is not from his Holiness Pius VII." ; and he then proceeded to show that the Veto w T as not, as Mr. Conway imagined, conceded. " Nor is there a word to indicate any sort of consent or approbation from the Sovereign Pontiff or any one of his Cardinals. Quaran- totti refers to no authority but his own." It may be said by acute ecclesiastical critics that Lanigan stretched his theological logic a little far, in stating that to vest in a Protestant King a negative in the appointment of Catholic Bishops would require the decree of an (Ecumenical Council; but it must be re- membered that this was not an utterance ex cathedra, with the authority of his name ; and the panic was so great, that he may have felt it necessary to strain a point to allay it; or perhaps the view may have been an error 6 162 WITS AND WORTHIES : of judgment, owing to the fact that his mind, in 1814, was admittedly diseased; but then there " was method in his madness.'' At all events, the desired effect was produced — at least with the laity; and an attestation to its importance was made, thirty years after, by Mr. John O'Connell, and in 1865 by Mr. O'Keeffe, both of whom quoted with hearty approval the identical passage in their respective memoirs of O'Connell. "Your serious mistake is in dubbing Mr. Quarantotti a Cardinal ; he is merely a Prelate, and is very w T ell known to several of our clergymen, who have been members of the Irish College at Koine from the year 1784 until the arrival of the French in that city. They remembered him to their cost as a consummate blockhead, and a co- partner in tyranny with the noted Cuccagni. His father had no name, but having made a lucky hit in the lot- tery owing to number forty-eight, he was vulgarly called Qnarant-otto, to which name the present gentleman had — to prove himself a hidalgo (somebody's son) — euphonized into Qaarantotti. Does Mr. Quarantotti promise us any benefit as likely to result from our complying with his recommendation — nay, with his injunction, his decree, as he has had the impudence to express it? No; he, Mr. Forty-eight, would have us submit to the Veto, &c. &c, whether we are to be emancipated or not ; and then he adds, Verum si lata fueric lex, &c. — that is, 'But if the bill for the emancipation of the Catholics shall pass, let them not only quietly (cequo animo) receive it, according to what has been already said, but let them return their greatest thanks to his Majesty, and to his most mag- nificent council {magnificentissimo ejus concilio, i.e. the British Cabinet, and not Parliament, as appears in the bog-English translation of the Freeman of this morning), for so great a benefit, and prove themselves deserving of it.' Bravo, my Italian sycophant; we doubt not that you have shown yourself worthy of the attention of the English Government. And why such DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 163 zeal, why such anxiety for carrying these measures ? There are sound unexceptionable modes of reconciling the appointment of our Bishops with the purest loyalty and ( bedience to our king, without recurring to vetos, boards, securities, conditions, and oaths, of which, God knows, we have more than enough already. On this subject, however, more perhaps some other time. The editor of the Freeman s Journal asks, 'Will we listen to the Pope and his Cardinals, or prefer to their decisions the new doctrir.es of Dr. Drorngoole 7 The booby knows, or ought to know, that the opposition to the Veto was loud and decided long before Dr. Drom- goole had been attacked by Mahometans and Jumpers." He proceeded to show that Quarantotti's Rescript bore date 6th February, while the Pope had been liberated from close captivity at Fontainbleau on the 2nd April; and it \vas therefore quite possible it had been issued without his sanction. " This discovery, " observes the biographer of O'Connell, " had a most soothing and exhilarating effect on the popular mind." "In some of the newspapers," Lanigan went on to say, "it had been announced that this was the first official act of his Holiness and council of Cardinals on their re- establishment at Rome. But to the grief of these lving editors, the date (16th April) appeared and scared that fraternity. What was to be done ? Pay attention, sir, to their ingenuity. In the London papers we are told that the Rescript was drawn up according to instruc- tions given by his Holiness, when allowed a certain share of liberty at Fontainbleau ! Pray, hirelings, w T ho told you that the Pope enjoyed such, freedom on the 16 th February or the ten or twelve days before that period ? Now, sir, Fontainbleau is about nine hundred miles distant from Rome. Will it be said that there was a regular post between Rome and Fontainbleau, or that Bonaparte sent these instructions by a special messenger? Aye, indeed, while the whole road was swarming with the allied soldiers, and the French- 164 WITS AND WORTHIES : men then at Home were in the Castle of St. Angelo ! The deistical hireling who scribbles for The Patriot, threatens us with parliamentary proceedings. No Parliament will build upon such a wretched foun- dation as Mr. Quarantotti's barbarous bog-Latin ; nor would it be wise to cram down the throats of all the inhabitants of Ireland (not only Catholics but Protes- tants) a measure which they detest — and indeed justly, considering the present political state of the country. For you will please to remark that the Irish Catholics are not in a state similar to that of the Catholic subjects of Eussia and Prussia ; nor is it intended to place them in such an enviable situation." Dr. Lanigan thus concluded : " Every attempt to weaken the Catho- lic Church in Ireland shall in the end prove fruitless ; and as long as the shamrock shall adorn our island, so long shall the faith delivered to us by St. Patrick prevail, in spite of Kings, Parliaments, Orangemen, and Quarantottis." This letter was not without effect in arousing the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood from the apathy in which they seemed sunk. A meeting of the clergy of .Dublin was held in Bridge-street chapel next day, and passed a series of resolutions declaratory of their conviction that the Rescript from Rome was non-obligatory. Mr. Henebry Green states that this meeting was the direct result of Lanigan's letter. The second letter promised by Dr. Lanigan never ap- peared, but the charge of indolence rests not upon him. The Post of the 12th May, 1814, acknowledges the second letter from " their learned and venerable correspondent," and after bearing tribute to its wit, the editor proceeds to offer a long and laboured apology for " deferring its publication" — or, as it is at last confessed, suppressing it altogether ! The reason assigned for this strangulation is the hostility of Dr. Lanigan's criticism upon the Freeman's Journal (an ardent advocate for the Veto) — and of which paper, by the way, Mr. Conway had been the editor until a few DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 1G5 years previously. Philip Whitfield Harvey, its then proprietor, had played fast and loose with the Liberal and Catholic party, of whom it had latterly professed to become an organ. The claims to historic commemo- ration of the letter of " An Irish Priest," both on the grounds of its importance and opportune appearance, have been noticed, as we said, by two recent bio- graphers, though both are ignorant of the fact that Dr. Lanigan was the writer. While Quarantotti was pilloried in Lanigan's prose, some stinging stanzas settled on his head. " Roy's Wife ' was introduced upon the stage for the first time in 1814, in the play of " Rob Roy and we find a parody upon it, entitled, " Oh ! have you heard of Quarantotti ?" in the journal to which Lanigan had addressed his own letter. As explanatory of the con- temporary allusion to Bernadotte, we may observe that he triumphed, on the 26th of July following, by the conquest of Norway and its annexation to Sweden, in which achievement he was largely aided by England's interference. It was maintained in Parliament by Lords Grey, Grenville, and Mr. Wynne, " that British policy never sustained a deeper shock, or British cha- racter a deeper stain, than in its conduct on this ques- tion." " Decretum est, says Quarantotti, Decretum est, says Bernadotte; But Berney failed, and then bewailed, So let it be with Quarantotti. The Norway men their rights defend, Despite the threats of Bernadotte ; Will the sons of Erin bend, Beneath the yoke of Quarantotti ? Oh, have you heard, 8fc. " Of British justice well, I wot ye, And British faith, speaks Quarantotti ; But British cash may better match Such traders pure as Quarantotti. Then Irishmen uphold your cause, Nor let corruption's contact rot ye ; Reject the rule, despise the laws Of Veto-factor Quarantotti. Oh, have you heard, &c." 166 WITS AND WORTHIES * Quarantotti, we may add, is described in a Roman Directory of the day as " Clerk of the Markets. " To place in full advantage of view the value of Dr. Lanigan's exposure of the worth iessness of this Re- script, and of his prompt assertion of the duty of resist- ance, it would be well to cite from the journals of the day the more than hesitating expressions of opinion on the point from some of the ablest canonists. A deputation from the Catholic Board having waited upon Dr. Troy to ask — first, if the Rescript were authentic ; secondly, had Quarantotti power to make the decree ; and, thirdly, was it obligatory on Ireland, his Grace seems to have answered all questions in the affirmative.* Moreover, neither his signature nor that of Dr. Murray, nor of the Vicar-General, Dr. Hamill, appears in the protest of the clergy of the diocese of Dublin referred to. Although imposingly announced as of " the Parish Priests," &c, six P.P.'s only signed it, and not many curates. The names when ex- amined are mostly of friars, principals of schools, chap- lains, &c; from which it may be inferred that the bulk of the secular clergy rather held aloof from any public expression of opinion, as if fearful of running counter to the views and policy of their Diocesan. Neverthe- less, the manifesto was considered intrepid and impor- tant, and received fourteen successive insertions in the journals of liberal politics. At last an aggregate meeting was held in Clarendon-street Chapel, at which O'Con- nell, Sheil, and several distinguished ecclesiastics spoke, and declared that Rome's decree was not to be obeyed. The only prelates who, on its appearance, publicly wrote a line in deprecation of the decree, were Drs. Copp'nger, Derry, and O'Shaughnessy. It is due to Dr. Troy and the other prelates to add, that they as- sembled on the 27th May at Maynooth, and there passed resolutions very much in unison with the * Vide 11 Dublin Evening Post; 1 12th of May, 1814. DR. LAXIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 167 general views expressed, twenty days previously, by Dr. Lanigan. At that meeting it was decided to send Dr. Murray to Rome, " to open a communication with the Holy See on the subject of this document." The secret history of the Rescript transpired at a later date. Lord Bentinck, in the course of personal in- terviews with Mgr. Q-.iarantotti, prevailed on him to an- ticipate the arrival of Pius YIL, and issue a Rescript which had well-nigh laid the Irish Hierarchy in chains at the feet of an Anglican king. Very friendly relations between the courts of England and Rome had been cultivated at this time ; and it is remarkable that on the arrival of Pius VII, at Genoa, on his return from captivity, the British garrison turned out and gave him royal honours. "A Letter from an Irish Priest to the Catholic Clergy of Ireland' ' was also published at this time ; and as it was the pseudonym under which he admittedly wrote upon the Veto, we may conclude it came from Lanigan's pen. It fully exposed the whole scheme, which the writer felicitously illustrated by JEsop's fable : "A farmer had a flock watched by strong and trusty mas- tiffs ; at this the wolf grieving, persuaded the farmer that he tenderly loved the sheep, and praved to be allowed to choose such dogs as he would think fit to be their guard. The farmer consented, and when too late found that the wolf-dogs had neither tongue, teeth, nor nails.'' It is an interesting historic fact, hitherto known to a few only, that the many aggregate meetings in Claren- don-street Chapel, which so materially tended to the fur- therance of Catholic Emancipation and defeat of the Veto, were held in direct antagonism to the mandate of the Archbishop of the diocese. The late Very Rev. Dr. O'Hanlon was the Prior of the house and Provincial of the Carmelite Order at that period, and he declared himself independent of the control of Drs. Troy or Murray, in his capacity at least of master of his own 168 WITS AND WORTHIES : house. In 1829, however, after the Eelief Bill had passed, Dr. Murray's influence procured the enactment of a special canon, which made it a grave offence to hold political meetings in churches. The boards and props of the platform of the once memorable aggre- gate meetings are now piled up in the vaults of Cla- rendon-street Chapel, adjoining the dust of once power- ful tongues now stilled for ever. CHAPTEE XXIV. DR. LANIGAN's MGIS COVERS DR. DROMGOOLE. "D was Drum, whose proboscis and love of religion, And snuff-box capacious to hide a cock pigeon, Will ne'er let the Doctor, when centuries rotten, Be e'er by the friends of tobacco forgotten. When the Doctor returns to primitive snuff, His ashes Fame's trumpet will scatter and puff ; And ladies his speeches will read with surprise, When the dust of his genius is thrown in their eyes ; Though a modern lash, o'er which error presides, The Doctor connubial bewitchment derides; And misses perceive that their tempers feel ruffle, When greeted as soon to be Mrs. Drumsnuffle." Dr. Brennan on the Dublin Doctors. In 1814 was published Dr. Lanigan's vindication of Dr. Dromgoole ; but as that once popular leader has been long forgotten, some facts in reference to him may prove instructive besides amusing. Dr. Dromgoole, a Dublin physician residing in Dawson-street, was an intrepid Nationalist in his day. He spoke at the meet- ings of the Catholic Board with a spirit and an ability not often met with during the prostration of Catholic spirit which characterised the beginning of the present century; and when nearly all the lay Catholics of posi- tion, anxious to grasp the sweets of Emancipation, were willing to give the government a veto in the appoint- DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 169 ment of their Bishops, Dr. Dromgoole stood forth, almost alone, in protesting against the dangers with which that privilege would be pregnant. He was a vigilant sentinel of Religion, and the stores of theological lore which he unfolded in unmasking the specious project of the crown, and indicating its fatal effects on Catholicism, proved that a little learning is not at all times a dangerous thing. " His armoury/' writes the late Sir Thomas Wyse, " was almost exclusively from the Vatican ; the weapon he delighted in was the double-edged sword of scholastic dialectics. The councils, the fathers, the dusty library of ancient and modern controversy, were his classics. Valiant, un- compromising, headstrong, he bore with a sulky com- posure, on his sevenfold shield of theology, all the lighter shafts of contemporary ridicule." In 1813, the Catholic Relief Bill, after having occupied in its formation a parliamentary committee for some months, received two readings ; and a day being appointed for the third, there was every reason to believe that it w 7 ould finally pass. The obnoxious clauses had not met the disapprobation of the Board ; on the contrary, the language held was, that any interference with the ecclesiastical arrangements was beyond its compe- tence — the Bishops had not decided — the day appointed for their meeting was later than that on which the Bill was to receive the third reading — and Mr. Grattan had declared in the House that the Bill had the approbation of the Catholics of Ireland. There w r as no time to be lost — a measure was about to be carried hostile to Irish interests and injurious to religion. The re-adoption of the resolution of 1810, " against any interference on the part of the Crown in the appointment of Irish Bishops,'' having been proposed, the motion was de- feated by the question of adjournment, moved by no less a person than the subsequently uncompromising Daniel O'Connell. Ireland, at first dazzled by the proffered boons, was now greatly alarmed at the dan- 170 WITS AND WORTHIES I gers threatened ; and the measure, it was hoped, had been virtually foiled, when a motion, made by the great Irishman just named, again revived it. That motion did not go the whole length of consenting to parlia- mentary interference in Catholic discipline, but it im- plied that Catholics would have no objection, provided such interference were sanctioned by the consent of the Bishops. But Dr. Dronigoole knew that the Bishops themselves had been sometimes seen singularly slow in detecting fell schemes draped in diplomacy, and had absolutely passed resolutions in 1799 conceding the Veto— which, however, they some years later retracted. A renewal of this vacillating policy was quite possible ; and Dr. Dromgoole vowed that it should not be his fault, if the prelates failed to see the precipice on which they stood. To the Catholic bar and aristocracy, generally, his candour gave great umbrage. Sheil, who was an ardent Vetoist, amusingly described, years after, when the asperity of party warfare had passed away, u Dromgoole's countenance as full of medical and theological solemnity ; and he carried a huge stick with a golden head, on which he pressed both hands in speaking ; and, indeed, from the manner in which he swayed his body, and knocked his stick at the end of every period to the ground, which he accompanied with a guttural ' hem !' he seemed to me a kind of rhetorical paviour, busily engaged in making the great road of liberty, and paving the way to Emancipation." And yet for what seemed to the Catholics, who were impatient for Emancipation, a rank indiscretion. Dr. Dromgoole was denounced and hunted from their Board. " You have no right," they said in substance, " to hurt the feelings of our rulers, when we are doing all in our power to conciliate them." A hornet's nest lay before the Doctor's path, and French flies, in the shape of stinging stanzas, were let loose against him by a brother Catholic physician, Mr. Brennan, who, it has recently transpired, was subsidised by the DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 171 Eiclimond administration for ridiculing Dromgoole, Keogh, and other Catholic leaders : "And pray did you hear the great Dr. Drnmsnnffle, Who bellowed six hours at the riding house mob ? Oh, he swaggered, and snorted, and made such a scuffle, The folks thought they heard a distillery swab. All lie said, he twang*d through his nose, sir; His noise k pt awake those his theme would compose, sir, And he swore he had only one rival, old Keogh, sir, Who made of the Papists a terrible job !" It is at all times an onerous task for the heavy arm of prose to parry with dexterity the feathered shafts of pasquinade, which are sure to dart home with the rapidity of lightning. Brennan's muse found an ally in the Freeman s Journal and other Catholic organs, which poured broadside after broadside against what they would fain describe as the " wooden walls" of Dronigoole's massive head. The result was that he at last was driven into exile ; and his latter days were passed in the shadow of the Vatican. It was about the year 182^ that Mr. Wyse, one of the Catholic party to whom he had been opposed, met Dromgoole in Koine : "In his large bushy eyebrows bent solemnly to the earth, and his ponderous lips, scarcely ever opened but for a dogma or an anathema, and his broad sallow features spread out over an immense head, the signs of the times seemed visibly imprinted ; and fresh hopes, at every time that he struck the ground with his heavy cane, appeared to be conjured up by the modern Thaumaturgus for the glory and regeneration of Catholic Ireland." It was honestly admitted by Sheil, after Dronigoole's death — and Sheil was at first an ardent Vetoist— " His speech formed a kind of epoch in Catholic politics ; for he was the first who ventured to employ against the opponents of Emancipation the weapons which are habitually used against the professors of the Catholic religion. Men who swear that the creed of the great majority of Christians is idolatrous and superstitious, 172 WITS AND WOKTHIES : should not be very sensitive when their controversial virulence is turned upon them. The moment Dr. Dromgoole's philippic on the Eeformation appeared, a great outcry took place, and Roman Catholics were not wanting to modify and explain the Doctor's scholastic vituperation. He himself, however, was fixed and stubborn as the rock on which his doctrines were built. No kind of apology could be extorted from him. He was of a peculiarly stubborn and inflexible mind ; but for every position which he advanced, he was able to adduce very strong and cogent reasoning." To whom was Dromgoole — a man whose previous studies were believed to have made him alone con- versant with drugs — indebted for the exhaustless armoury of crushing theological retorts with which he sustained his positions and impaled those of his foes ? Dr. Lanigan not only briefed Dromgoole with points, but wrote sixty-eight closely-printed pages comprising the " Vindication of his Statements and Principles" — a pamphlet generally supposed to be the work of Dromgoole himself, but which the late Dean Meyler assured us was really Lanigan's. This accompanied his "Speeches against Surrendering the Government of the Catholic Church in Ireland to the discretion of Parliament," and was published by Mr. H. Fitzpatrick of Capel-street, in 1814. Even these speeches, there can be no doubt from their scholastic stamp and theo- logical tone, were in fact Lanigan's, enunciated through the ponderous trombone of Dromgoole's nasal twang. Lanigan, as the public officer of an institution sub- sidised by Government, and under anti-Catholic control, was tongue-tied. He could not, without losing his daily bread— possibly incurring starvation — come forward to raise his warning voice against the smiling flower beneath which an adder crouched. Even the great Bishop Milner in England, shortly previous to the delivery of Dr. Dromgoole's speeches against the Veto, had assumed an attitude of concession which grieved DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 173 and alarmed every true friend to unshackled religion, and a new form of oath had been in part agreed to by that eminent prelate. Dr. Lanigan also vindicated Dr. Dromgoole for that part of his oration which dealt with certain insulting oaths prescribed to be taken by Catholics (p. 12). On this point both were half-a-century in advance of their time ; as it is only quite recently that parliamentary action on the subject of the " Catholic Oaths'' has been taken by the Eight Hon. William Monsell, Sir John Gray, and others. In dealing with the oath against Popery, Dr. Lanigan remarked, that by it a small minority of the inhabitants of Ireland were called upon to swear that the great body of their fellow-countrymen are addicted to Pagan superstition, and that they are idolaters. Such a belief, he said, enforced as it was by a solemn assevera- tion, must operate fatally in Ireland. The vigorous and outspoken way in which the disestablishment of the Protestant Church was predicted (p. 86), was also greatly in advance of the best intuitive political percep- tions of the time — even Plunket not excepted. The more supine Catholics considered that Dr. Dromgoole had no right to clank his chains so loudly in the ears of his oppressors, and that the frequency of his petitions for unfettered emancipation was undig- nified, and calculated to irritate Parliament. " The humanity of the divine Author of Christianity," wrote Lanigan, " desired relief from suffering ; and can it be matter of surprise that the afflicted Catholic should pray that the bitter chalice of persecution should pass from his lips." Dr. Dromgoole gave great offence to the Protes- tant press and people, by describing as a " novelty* 1 that church which called his own "idolatry." John Finlay, LL.D. — a better patriot than theologian, originally a Eoman Catholic, but of unsettled religious views afterwards— publicly declared about this time, in reply to Dr. Dromgoole, that the Protestant Church 174 WITS AND "WORTHIES : was no novelty. Dr. Lanigan, under the signature of " An Irish Priest/' entered the lists with him, and argued that Protestantism was a secession from that ancient Church which, built upon a rock, Christ promised to be with all days, even to the consumma- tion of the world. If Dr. Lanigan propped up the failing popularity of Dr. Dromgoole, the latter laboured to patch up the failing constitution of his vindicator. " Poor Dr. Lanigan's health," observes Dr. Willis, 22nd April, 1870, "was very fragile. Dr. Dromgoole and I used to be endeavouring to patch him up exactly fifty-five years ago, when he was then an occupant of the rooms of my late friend, the Rev. Patrick Corcoran, in King- street." A strong friendship subsisted betweenthem, and at this period we generally find Dr. Lanigan cele- brating Mass in the Chapel of the Capuchin Friary, Church-street, of which community Mr. Corcoran was prior. CHAPTER XXV. WOBK RESUMED — JOHN PHILPOT CURE AN. " Work, work, work, Till the eyes grow heavy and dim ; And work, work, work, Till the brain begins to swim !" Thomas Hood. Painful incidents which have transpired in the course of our inquiries show that the apparent rally of Dr. Lanigan's health in 1814 was but a temporary one, and that a joyous mental excitement operating on his nerves had galvanised them into a sort of artificial energy. In a word, disease had entered through the subtle valves of the intellect. But although we have traced the hallucination to its inmost seat, we defer yet awhile the irksome task of proving it.* * Dr. Lanigan's extraordinary delusion, in 1814, which came within the cognisance of Mr. Quinlan, a native of Cashel, will be found unveiled further on. DR. LAN I G AN, H£S LIFE AND TIMES. 175 Mingled emotions would occasionally fill him. Dr. Howley, who it will be remembered had returned with Dr. Lanigan from Pavia after the break-up of the University, renewed early relations of intimacy at this time, and passed a large portion of his leisure with the friend of his youth. One day, when taking leave, Dr. Howley with great earnestness exclaimed : " God be with Pavia !" Dr. Lanigan's eyes filled up with tears at the allusion, as stirring reminiscences of the past crowded on his mind. About the same period, Dr. Lanigan, with his friend Dr. Howley, happened to be in the sacristy of the Catholic church, Casliel, whilst Dean M'Donnell was in the pulpit. " When he preaches he wanders round the world, " observed Dr. Howley. Dr. Lanigan remarked on the peculiarity of his digression, adding, " My good friend McDonnell is an admirable preacher, and if he wanders round the world, he always finds his way home, re- turning by the same course."* Poor Dean M'Donnell became later a prey to visita- tions of the same brain disease which proved fatal to Lanigan, and was often seen rushing wildly through Cashel without his hat. But at last he shook off the toils of his subtle tormentor, and preached many a good sermon ere he died. His critic, Dr. Howley, with strongly Gallican proclivities, seems to have been highly regarded by his brother priests of the arch- diocese of Cashel. In our Appendix: will be found a very communicative letter, addressed to us with reference to him by a clergyman of that archdiocese. Richard Earl of Donoghmore, in an unpublished diary, dated 6th May, 1814, thus alludes to him: "I have become acquainted with our landlord's brother, Dr. Howley, Parish Priest of Clerihan, a most charitable, * A kindred remark was made by Archbishop Crolly in reference to a priest who could preach two hours and still not wander from his subject: 14 lie knew the still more extraordinary circumstance of a priest who could preach double that length of time, and yet never keep to his subject." 176 WITS AND WORTHIES : well-conditioned man, of the greatest possible simplicity of manners. I had had him with me at Knocklofty, more than once, at dinner, and to remain at night. His present parish is in what the Catholics call ' the archdiocese;' and though it is so very poor a one as not to allow to the possessor of it the accommodation of a coadjutor, and though there cannot be a more deserving man than poor Howley — it having been his opinion that Dr. Bray's competitor should have been preferred to him on the last vacancy for the Catholic See of Cashel — he has never received any mark of his Bishop's favour, but has been suffered to continue unnoticed in a situation entirely unworthy of him." Dr. Howley's simplicity of manner, united to mental attainments, as noticed by Lord Donoghmore, would seem to have been a characteristic of the alumni of Pavia, just as simplicity of style distinguish the most accomplished of the Oxford men. "In early life," writes Archdeacon Dunne, " I had frequently the happiness of meeting the learned historian, Lanigan, whose unaffected simplicity of manner was no less attractive than his profound and varied knowledge." Dr. Bray's " competitor" was, doubtless, Dr. Nihil, Bishop of Kilfenora. Dr. O'Benehan writes : " In reference to the vacancy caused by the death of Dr. Butler, of the suffragans none coveted the dignity ex- cept Dr. Nihil, who asked for translation, and exerted himself much in Ireland and elsewhere to obtain it." But Dr. Teaghan, Bishop of Kerry, had actually received his appointment as Archbishop of Cashel, though, when presented with the bulls, he shrank from taking them by the horns. Dr. Bray was then nomi- nated. We have no doubt that Dr. Howley bore to his grave the mortifying idea recorded by Lord Donoghmore ; but it is probable that, had he access to the episcopal correspondence of Dr. Bray, he would never have adopted an impression so unfavourable to that prelate. The O'Renehan papers demonstrate DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 177 that Dr. Bray persevered so decidedly in declining the See, that a special command from the Pope was at last necessary to induce him to accept the mitre. In reply to his reiterated cry of " Nolo Episcopari," we find Dr. Lanigan's critic, Dr. Moylan, thus addressing him: "Courage, then, my dear friend; the Omni- potent Hand that has laid this heavy burthen on your shoulders will enable you to bear it." In the paragraph, written on good information, with which our thirteenth chapter closes, we can no doubt find the real reason why Dr. Howley, who obtained academic distinction abroad, was assigned a second- rate position at home. Dr. Lanigan's enjoyment of the country received a check by the almost unprecedented!}' severe winter of 1814. Dr. Doyle, writing at this time, describes the roads between Dublin and the South of Ireland as being so blocked up with snow, that he could neither go from Carlow to witness the last moments of his brother in Dublin nor remove his remains to Wexford, as the deceased had wished. Dr. Lanigan's leave of absence had expired during this inclement interval, but it appears from the Proceedings that on the 27th January, 1814, a letter of apology was read from him before a meeting of the Society, promising to attend to his duties with increased assiduity " as soon as the weather would permit him to come up to town." Whether the extraordinary incident in Bishop-street took place' previous or subsequent to this period, can- not be ascertained. Notwithstanding the almost impassible state of the roads, the poor priest contrived to reach Dublin within the next three days. At a meeting on 3rd February, " a letter from Dr. Lanigan, informing the Society of his arrival, and of his ability and readiness to enter again on the duties of his office, was read," which having been referred to the library committee, they reported, 10th February, " that Dr. Lanigan has re- 6* 178 WITS AND WORTHIES : sumed the discharge of the duties of his office, and that he appears to the committee at present to enjoy better health than he possessed previous to his late indisposition."* Of the justice of this report hesoon gave proofs, in the increased vigilance with which he executed the Librarian's duties. A letter dated 28th April, 1814 offers several suggestions, including, "first, the absolute necessity of enlarging the library as soon as possible. There are thousands of books belonging to the Society which I am under the necessity of heaping up together behind the front rows ; consequently they are beginning to moulder, through want of air. The Society's noble collection of plates and prints is going to decay, in con- sequence of their being placed on top of each other, and thus being compressed and deprived of the benefit of ventilation. I may be permitted to add, that very often I feel the greatest difficulty, attended with much waste of time, in finding out books called for by members. It will be advisable to order the green baize to be re- moved, within which the books in the outer room are, as it were, buried." And he proceeded to detail further improvements then most desirable, but now happily un- needed. We may add, that the green baize was pulled away, a few years later, to make space for the green-room and greener curtain of the Theatre Koyal, Hawkins'- street. The Sock and Buskin now struts where Science once held sway ; nor perhaps, after all, will it be much regretted by lovers of the drama that sheep-shearing should give place to Shakespeare, and that instead of speeches on shorthorns and south-downs, declama- tion about "flocks on the Grampian Hills, "f or "a good yoke of bullocks, "1 should resound through the same edifice. The more commodious premises, raised by the Royal Dublin Society in Kildare-street promote, far more effectively than ever the old could have done, * " Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society," vol. 1., p. 79. f Fide "Douglas," act 1, scene 1. % Vide " King Henry IV./' part 2, act 3 scene 2. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 179 the important objects of that great national institu- tion. Dr. Lanigan was, we believe, present at the cere- mony of laying the first stone of the Cathedral in Marlborough-street, 14th November, 1815. The plans had been supplied by a friend of his, Mr. Sweet- man,* who cultivated the study of amateur architecture. Dr. Troy, enthroned in pontifical state on the platform, observed among the crowd of unwashed below a mise- rable little figure wrapped up in a cloak, which he knew to be Curran, the Master of the Rolls. Turning to the Rev. Walter Meyler, the Archbishop said : " Go to Mr. Curran, with my compliments, and beg of him to come upon the platform." The priest having dis- charged his message, received the characteristic reply : "No, I am incog.; but having rocked you in your cradle, I was anxious to see you stepping forth in your manhood." Not very many months after, Ireland followed Curran's hearse ; and Dr. Troy's was the first coffin laid in the vaults of the Cathedral. A collec- tion had been in progress, so early as 1797, for erecting a new church in lieu of the older building in Liffey- street ; but the Rebellion and its horrors having burst forth, the projectors of the enterprise shrank just then from presenting the appeal, lest by clanking their chains they should only arouse their keepers to renewed vigilance and oppression. In 1798, indeed, grave fears were entertained lest the cruel government of Lords Camden, Clare, and Castlereagh should carry out their threat of forcibly closing all the Catholic chapels in the city ; and it was only by dint of the tact exercised by Dr. Troy in some negociations with the Castle — for which he incurred great unpopularity — that the threatened tempest harmlessly passed over * Another member of this family, Mr. Sweetman of Mountjoy- equare, asked Dr. Lanigan to devote a portion of his leisure to super- intending the final education of his daughters, one of whom became Lady Nugent. 180 WITS AND WORTHIES : the spires of the suffering Church of Ireland. The project had been long a favourite one with Lord Clare — himself the son of a quondam Catholic — having in 1787 attempted to introduce a clause for demolishing Catholic chapels. Long after the completion of the pro-Cathedral, the Archbishop and clergy, wed to early habit and dear association, continued to celebrate Mass in old Liffey-street chapel. "Adversity wears a precious jewel in its head ;" and the old priests looked back, not without fondness, on the persecuting period through which they passed. The last Mass said there was by the Rev. Andrew Q'Connell, now Dean of Dublin, who having been shocked at observing a rat run from the vicinity of the altar, thought it was high time to remove the Blessed Sacrament to a safer rest- ing place. A large part of the building is still standing, used as Mr. Bewley's store. There is no recent Prelate of whom so few anecdotes have been preserved by his clergy as Dr. Troy. His specialties were prudence for the hour, a mouth guarded as safely as the Psalm cxl. could desire, and an eye that saw far into the future. The Dominicans, of whom he was one, had been always opposed to the definition of the Immaculate Conception. The title of " the Con- ception" was, curiously enough, applied to the mensal chapel in Liffey-street ; and on one occasion, when a preacher had celebrated the anniversary of that feast with an eloquent enthusiasm then quite novel, Dean Meyler, turning to Dr. Troy, said : " Well, my Lord, that was going a little too far, was it not?" "By no means," was the reply; " and you yourself will admit as much before you die." The definition of the dogma as an article of faith took place in 1854; the Dean died soon after. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 181 CHAPTER XXV. ANECDOTES OF CURRAN AND DR. TROY. " Sir, we could not have had a better dinner, had there been a synod of cooks." — Boswell's Life of Johnson. "Drink no longer water; but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake." — 1. Tim., v. 23. Encouraged by an increase in his salary from the Royal Dublin Society, Dr. Lanigan gave rein to the generous impulses of his heart, by taking a house in Upper Dominick-street, and freely dispensing hospita- lities to his friends. The full vigour of his judgment had now sunk in sympathy with the subdued sparkle of his eye, and he was more than ever moved by imprudent impulse. The spell of enjoyment we have touched upon w r as of sadly short duration. In less than a year, the auctioneer's " Going, going, gone !" might be heard ringing through the rooms wherein echoed a few days previously the " Hip, hip, hurrah !" of happy social intercourse ; while the click of his hammer, like the notes of the death-watch, succeeded the beat of applause which had enlivened the same board. But it is satisfactory to add that, although the great body of Dr. Lanigan's friends proffered neither help nor condolence during this painful visitation, two — superior in sincerity to the lest — made large purchases at the sale, and good-naturedly presented sundry little matters tending to conduce to the Doctor's comfort in his old age. We allude to Richard M'Cormick, Secretary of the Catholic Committee, and one of the earliest members of the Society of United Irishmen ; and to the amiable sister of that gentle- man, Mrs. Pennell. " Immediately after the Veto ex- citement," observes Mr. John Henebry Green, in a letter dated Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, 17th of September, 1862, " Dr. Lanigan's company was much 182 WITS AND WORTHIES : courted by his admirers, and he was made the lion of not a few dinner parties. Dr. Harty, his physician, told me that my kinsman used to take his glass of punch, and, like Dr. Johnson, enjoyed a good dinner; and he gave me to understand that this free social way of living helped to aggravate his mental malady." Doctors will differ as to the ill effect of stimulants on weak brains. The break-up of Sir Walter Scott's mind would hardly have been so rapid, had he been able, according to some of his biographers, to restrain his use of champagne. On the other hand, we have known doctors prescribe whiskey for softening of the brain — the very disease too often produced by indul- gence in it ; just as moderate doses of brandy are the modern medical treatment for delirium tremens. Dr. Brigham, an eminent American physician, quotes the case of a porter who, in a state of intoxication, left a parcel at a wrong house, and when sober could not re- collect what he had done with it ; but the next time he became stimulated with liquor, he recollected where he had left it. Shakespeare seems to have found his inspiration served by occasional stimulant, for, as he records, " Wine makes the brain apprehensive, quick," with other eulogy to the same effect. Dr. Harty belonged to the now obsolete school of medicine w T hich regarded stimulants as so much poison. If Dr. Lanigan thought fit sometimes to take a glass of punch, it may have been because he found that alcohol was useful in galvanizing into action dying thought, or in relieving the prostration which depressed his mind and body. Dean O'Connell, who dined in company with him every week, states that he was most tem- perate. Indeed, had poor Lanigan indulged more at this period, it w 7 ould perhaps have been better ; for our friend describes him as oppressed on these occasions by a vacancy and moodiness which rendered him the reverse of good company. The Dean refers this ac- quaintance with Lanigan to 1824 — two years subse- DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 183 qnent to the publication of his magnum opus. Dean O'Connell, it may be added, never knew him in the cheerful morning of his manhood, or the warmth of his meridian glow, but only during that dark cold night which preceded the dawn of a hidden happier day. In 1824, Dr. Lanigan's mind was in a notoriously advanced stage of decay. According to Dr. Harty, his patient " could take his glass of punch," and we have heard the same statement made disparagingly by the late John Patten, of the Eoyal Dublin Society, who evidently mistook mental eccentricity, implanted by the hand of God, as the result of convivial indul- gence. Mr. Patten mentioned it to us in connexion with the strange anecdote about the paving- stone, yet to come. We shall not insult Lanigan's philosophy by advancing the plea, that he may sometimes have taken wine to relieve the pressure of corroding care. But admitting that he did sip his punch after dinner — the special fashion of that day — it is hardly sur- prising that he who loved to live so entirely in the past, should in his own person have exemplified a national custom as old as the days of Giraldus Cambrensis. This Welsh bishop, however, " with some malignity," to quote Dr. Lanigan's words, " dis- torted a custom, innocent in itself, into a vice. Not being able to show," proceeds Lanigan, " that the clergy drank to excess, he strove to misrepresent the practice of the country, as if it were more unbecoming to drink something after dinner, than to drink as much as people do in some other countries during their long dinners." Dr. Lanigan adds, on the authority of Cambrensis, 4e he admits, however, that whatever the ancient Irish clergy did drink, led not to any breach of chastity." See his " Ecclesiastical History," vol. iv., p. 268 — a page which may be read as an effective contrast to the highly-coloured disclosures made at the synod of the Anglo-Saxon priesthood, held a. d. 9G9. 184 WITS AND WORTHIES : Dr. Troy was invariably present on the social occa- sions, at the parochial house, Liffey- street, to which we have just referred. Hardly an anecdote of Dr. Troy is preserved by the raconteurs of sacerdotal traditions. One only has reached us, and it, although by no means a remarkable one, may at least fitly wind up a chapter marked by alcoholic allusions. Materials for punch having been introduced at a dinner given by our in- formant — the late Very Kev. Dr. Spratt — Dr. Hamilj was asked to mix for his Grace the one tumbler which he never exceeded. The Vicar- General, owing to palsy in his hand, declined the office, and passed the materials to the Coadjutor- Archbishop, Dr. Murray, who, having performed the task assigned to him, handed the grateful beverage to his venerable chief. Dr. Troy tasted it, and being asked how he liked it, assumed a dubious expression: " It is like yourself — too silky," he said, addressing Dr. Murray, whose idiosyncracy was thus condensingly told. Anecdotes enough to fill a book are told of the Archbishop's brother, Wat Troy, who, unlike his Grace, conformed to the general habits of the clay at table, and attributed his longevity to never throwing a tumbler of punch over his shoulder* He resided with the Archbishop, in Cavendish-row, and when coming in late at night, he usually took off his boots in passing the archiepiscopal door, lest a " sermon," not " soda-water," should greet him at breakfast next day. Dr. Lanigan has been described as a large eater. The researches of recent physiologists go to show that constitutions engaged in laborious brain-work give out large quantities of phosphorus, and that it is necessary to eat and drink generously in order to keep up the supply of that export. This discovery throws light on the causes which may have implanted great power of gastronomy in Dr. Johnson — who liked quan- tity rather than quality of food — and other men of large mind, who have been heavily abused for gluttony. Car- DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 185 dinal Wiseman, like Lanigan, was also a large eater. " Dr. Lanigan," remarked the late Mr. Richard Coyne, in casually mentioning the circumstance, " was robust in appearance, though rather helpless physically, while he lived in my house. I found him a quiet, pious, and exemplary priest; and, although fond of the plea- sures of the table, there was no more rigid observer of the fasts and abstinences from flesh meat on fast days, notwithstanding that his failing health might well have exempted him from the obligation. Like O'Connell, he had a full thick neck." In abstinence from flesh meat on prohibited days, Lanigan was, indeed, a true son of the Church ; but he compensated himself by more than a double supply of fish, which, considering that it is the food of ali others most largely charged with phos- phorus, was, perhaps, the best diet for a man whose disease lay in giving out phosphorus. A Boswell who seems to have been intently engaged in watching the Doctor's gastronomic rather than his intellectual powers, gave us a sketch of him at table. We allude to the late Dr. Reynolds, who, under the signature of " E. L. A. Berwick," produced a number of novels ; and the sketch, of which we merely give a part, indicates perhaps the free pen peculiar to that branch of letters : k< I knew Lanigan in later life— a great wall-faced, over- grown mass of antiquarian erudition, who moved on his course as if he had fins. I saw him eat more fish on a Friday in Lent than probably any other Christian could devour during the whole seven weeks. Cod, eels, haddock, sole — all were mashed on his plate, with mustard, vinegar, red — very red pepper, catsup, oil, and soy ; and this he seamed to get through at the rate of a hundred-weight an hour, if he could have held out. Daniel Maclise's celebrated etching of old Father Prout devouring the endless succession of fish dishes in Lent, might well pass for a portrait of Lanigan." " The feast of reason and the flow of soul" would be nowhere, if it were not for more substantial 186 WITS AND W0KTHIES : feasts and flows. Henry Ward Beecher has suggested a branch of physiology but yet scantily explored, by which he believes can be determined the influence of quality and quantity of food in promoting strength of mind, idiosyncracies, and literary inspiration for special tasks. He speaks of eating as the fuel that generates steam for the engine, and adds an equally undeniable fact, that the body unfed would, in a day or two, be like a steamer without coal, unable to turn the wheel, and drifting helpless. CHAPTER XXVI. BIRTH-PLACE OF ST. PATRICK — REV. F. J. l'eSTRANGE. " St. Patrick was a gentleman, And came of decent people ; In Dublin town he built a church, And on it put a steeple." Old Ballad. About this time it fell to the turn of the late Rev. P. J. Doyle, curate in Liffey-street, and afterwards the well-known P.P. of St. Michan's, Anne-street, to preach the panegyric of his namesake, St. Patrick. On the day previous to this oratorical effort, he invited Dr. Lanigan to dine with him, and while the Doctor drained his glass, Father Pat drained his guest's erudi- tion. The subject of the sermon was fully discussed ; and Dr. Lanigan, in taking leave, thought he had fully impressed the preacher with a conviction that St. Patrick was born not in Scotland, as erroneously alleged by Alban Butler, but in France. Father Pat, how- ever, slept over it ; and the calm reaction of the following morning found him not quite satisfied on the point. On the national anniversary, Dr. Lanigan, accompanied by our informant, the late Dean Meyler, and some other priests, went into the gallery for the purpose of hearing Dr. Doyle's sermon. " My DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 187 brethren," proceeded the preacher, " our great Apostle, according to the most reliable accounts, was born of respectable parentage near Dumbarton, in Scotland." Dr. Lanigan got so excited that he exclaimed, to the amazement of the persons in his immediate vicinity : " holy St. Patrick, do you hear that, after all I have said and written to prove the contrary ?" Dr. Doyle was more famous for his plain features and exemplary virtues than for depth of lore. An anecdote may be told of him. At one of Dr. Blake's hospitable receptions of the clergy, a long interval of delay took place in the announcement of dinner, owing to the late arrival of Dr. Doyle. Conversation had com- pletely flagged when the good pastor was at last an- nounced. The celebrated Father Keogh — of whom many more anecdotes will be presently told — rushing forward to receive Dr. Doyle, exclaimed : " I am re- joiced to see you. May you continue for many years more amongst us ; and when at last you are called away to another and a better world, I will have special reason to deplore your loss, for then I shall be the ugliest priest left in the diocese." But to return to the graver subject of St. Patrick's birth-place — a favourite study with Lanigan. Indeed so thoroughly conclusive is his reasoning on the question, that we find it admitted by a recent work which has gone out of its way to condemn his tendency to historic scepticism, that, in differing with the writers who take an opposite view of the great Apostle's natal spot, " Dr. Lanigan has clearly established his theory."* And so he has, notwithstanding that St. Fiech, in his metrical account of St. Patrick's life, assigns Nemthur as the place of the Apostle's birth, which an old * "Life of St. Patrick/' by M. E. Cusack (p. 72). This work, in addition to the importance it derives from the acumen of its author, claims the value of having been largely aided by the hints and research of Mr. W. M. Hennessy, and some of the ablest contemporary Celtic scholars and historic students. 188 WITS AND WOETHIES : scholiast considers identical with Alcluith, now Dum- barton. St. Patrick has himself recorded that he was born at "Bonaven of Tabernia" — a locality utterly un- known to ancient topographers of Britain or Scotland ; but Dr. Lanigan adduces much learning to show that Bonaven is Bononia, or, as it is at present styled, Boulogne ; and that Tabernia was changed into Teronanne, a district in which Boulogne is situated. Dr. Lanigan's opinion — proved to demonstration — that St. Patrick was born in France at the close of the fourth century, is sustained with ability by Mr. Cashel Hoey in his " Essays on Religion and Literature" (pp. 106, et seq.). But the question has not been conclusively determined — to the satisfaction, at least, of Scotland, which seems unwilling to relinquish without a struggle the honour of St. Patrick's birth. In 1865 appeared an archaeological dissertation on the birth-place of St. Patrick by the Rev. Duncan MacNab, who stoutly maintains Kilpatrick, in Dumbartonshire, as the natal spot. The pamphlet was elicited by Mr. Cashel Hoey's paper, in which several of Dr. Lanigan's arguments are effectively echoed. It should be added, that a late distinguished Irish- man, Dr. Todd, inclines to the opinion that St. Patrick came from Scotland. But perhaps Dr. Lanigan is the more likely to be right in pronouncing Boulogne the natal spot, inasmuch as personal inquiries, instituted by the present writer on the spot, have discovered ample local tradition sustaining Lanigan's documental evidence. Visitors to the handsome, newly completed cathedral at Boulogne will observe, in front of a side altar, a fine statue of St. Patrick, identical in its pose and garb with that which Ireland has long been fond of dis- playing. Dr. Lanigan's outburst of indignation at a passage in Dr. Doyle's sermon, to which, as one of the congre- gation, he took exception, excited much laughter at the time, but such eccentricities are really calculated DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TBIES. 189 to awaken very different emotions. They were, no doubt, among the earlier indications of brain disease Laving commenced ; and, what is another symptom of that malady noticed by Dr. Winslow, his temper, from being serene, became frequently irritable. The same cerebral restlessness which ruffled the last days of Swift, Wbitbread, and Plunket, was already goading poor Lanigan. Some evidence of this tendency is also traceable in the later notes of his History. He, however, never failed to take a joke — even a practical joke — in good part. The Rev. M. B. Keogh, Parish Priest of Baldovle, was the ablest pulpit orator of that day, and in private the best mimic. There was no public speaker, from Grattan to O'Connell, whom he could not personate to the life. At a dinner-party in Gardiner- street, Mr. Keogh happened to be present, together with Dr. Lanigan and some political lions, including the Rev. F. J. L'Estrange, who, besides being O'Conneli's con- fessor behind the scenes, occupied a prominent position on the arena of the Catholic Association, and derived from both circumstances a large share of popularity. When the cloth had been removed, Mr. Keogh was called on for his imitations. He acquiesced, but it was soon found that instead of portraying the pecu- liarities of the public characters outside, he was adroitly depicting the company within. Dr. Lanigan was the first to recognise a pungent diatribe, full of lore and logic and hard-hitting words. " My friend," he ex- claimed, "you have executed the imitation so admirably as to surpass the original;" grasping him by the hand in pleasant congratulation as he said so. Mr. Keogh's imitation of Father L'Estrange produced quite the opposite effect. L'Estrange was a very smart and dapper little man, worthy in the main, but somewhat spoiled by adulation. He did not always understand a joke, and more than once testily interrupted the speaker, characterising the imitation to which Mr. Keogh was giving utterance as a monstrous carica- 190 WITS AND WORTHIES : cature " and an ill-timed travestie."* Keogh and Lanigan were constant guests at some leading sacer- dotal boards. If Keogh, by his buoyant wit set the table in a roar, Lanigan, by his depth, often set it thinking. 66 Mr. Keogh, will you have the kindness to give grace," observed Dr, Troy, when the cloth was removed at one of those hospitable dinners, famous for " the sack of Troy," which made the Archbishop's house socially as well as intellectually attractive. Dr. Troy's presence inspired no feeling of awe or restraint, and Keogh, stretching forth his hand to the dumb- waiter for a fresh bottle, sonorously said, screwing all the while, " For what we have received, and are about to receive, all thanks be hereby most devoutly given !" But of Keogh — who, as a second O'Leary, might be fitly styled " a monk of the screw" — more will be found in the next chapter. He fills too large a space in the eye of national retrospect to be dismissed with a passing word. * Communicated by the late Dr. James Reynolds, better known by his pseudonym of E. L. A. Berwick. In a subsequent letter he referred to the same incident. "Keogh gave an imitation of Lanigan in his own presence, at the instance of Father L'Estrange. The old man of genius, as simple as a child, was delighted with it ; while L'Estrange, whom Keogh mimicked next, expressed a perfectly opposite feeling. Amongst those present was the truly sanctified Dr. Blake, whom Keogh would sometimes peculiarly style 4 Gog's Blake ;' but Keogh was privileged to say what he liked." Mr. Keogh would sometimes indulge the eccentric humour of his nature by astonishing solemn devotees with sham imprecations. He assumed to be very vexed, one winter's evening, on finding his fire nearly out, and addressing a person present exclaimed: "Take this bellows, and blast and blow it to blazes I" He was a most innocent man, and derived quite as much enjoyment from amusing juveniles as children of a larger growth. Mrs. O'Reilly Dease, whose chaplain he was, used to tell that, on entering his room, children were to be found in paroxysms of laughter at the rich performances of him whose humour ranged from the wit of Rabelais to the grimaces of a zany. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 191 CHAPTER XXVII. ANECDOTES OF KEOGH, THE IRISH MASSILLON. " Mr. Keogh is decidedly the most popular and eloquent preacher of the day. The frequency of his solicited appeals establishes the first position, while the unprecedented amount of the different collections, whenever he pleads the cause of the destitute, may serve as a strong confirmation of the second. He seeks not to propitiate you by any borrowed embellishments ; he scorns to attract your attention by the specious charlatanism of ordinary rhetoricians. He comes before you in the simple but lofty character of a Christian minister — as one em- powered and deputed to address you in the name of heaven. He teaches you, even at the first glance, to feel that it is not his part to accommodate his opinions or expressions to your previously indulged habits. He wrings from you, by his air and manner, a tacit acknow- ledgment of his supremacy; and you stand before him in submissive silence as one bound to listen." London and Dublin Magazine, 1827. That love of hospitable and convivial pleasure charac- teristic of the old school of Irish priesthood, and which our historian sought to vindicate against the aspersions of Giraldus Cambrensis, was not only illustrated in Lanigan's own idiosyncracy, but in that of his friend, the Rev. M. B. Keogh, as well. The latter was hospi- table to a fault, and would almost coin his heart into gold to give away ; while legitimate creditors, as is often the fashion with literary men, were invariably left unpaid. A merchant to whom Mr. Keogh was indebted, knowing that he would have no chance of a settlement if directly applied for, appealed to him with the representation that, as he was in great difficulties, a pecuniary loan would be specially acceptable. The preacher replied that he could not give it just then, but if the applicant would come and dine with him on the following Sunday, he would try meanwhile to make out the loan for him somehow or another. The money was duly produced, and the merchant, full of expres- sions of gratitude, reminding him of his old claim, 192 WITS AND WORTHIES : returned the overplus to Father Keogh, who henceforth regarded him with feelings not altogether paternal. As a natural consequence of the perverse principle which he cultivated, Father Keogh was constantly iu debt and difficulties. One day, when disrobing, after delivering a charity sermon in Whitefriar-street Chapel, where a vast crowd had congregated to hear him surpass himself, two bailiffs stalked into the sacristy, and placing him in a covered car drove off in triumph. Dr. Spratt good-naturedly accompanied his friend, and as they neared the sheriff's prison, one of the officers, pulling out a pistol, said: "Father Keogh, 1 know your popularity, and in case you appeal to the mob, I draw the trigger." The idol of the people submitted to his fate with the desperate resignation lie had so often inculcated in his sermons, and turning to Dr. Spratt said : " My dear friend, I am arrested at the suit evidently of B , the coach-maker. Go to him and arrange it." The good priest did as requested, and returned to the prison with a receipt in full, which he considered equivalent to an order for the liberation of his friend. But the document proved futile ; it turned out that Mr. Keogh was arrested at the suit of an utterly different creditor, and the glee of the coach-maker, who never expected to be paid, was only equalled by Mr. Keogh' s dismay.* The late Rev. J. Lalor, P.P. of Athy, the former coadjutor of Father Keogh at BaJdoyle, used to tell that his curates, as they could never get one farthing from him, were generally most shabbily clad, and tried to console themselves by the reflection that in this respect they resembled our Lord's disciples, who were sent without scrip or staff. Mr. Lalor, at last losing patience, reefed the knee of his small-clothes, and furnished with this startling argument waited upon the * This, and several other anecdotes which follow, were com- municated by the late Very Rev. Dr. Spratt, 6th January, 1871. Dr. Spratt died/universally regretted, 27th May, 1871. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 193 pastor, and claimed the price of a new one. " My dear fellow," was the reply, " I have not a farthing in the world ; but if you go into that dressing-room yonder, you may take your choice of four." The late Dr. M 1 was in the habit of paying Father Keogh, when in delicate health, a visit every Wednesday, and remaining to dine with him. One evening the Doctor drank more than freely, and advised no end of draughts of less palatable flavour. When taking leave, Mr. Keogh placed a crumpled paper in his hand. The Doctor's knock was heard betimes next morning. " I called," said he, " to represent a slight mistake. Only fancy, you gave me an old permit instead of a note." The reply was cool : " You can- not carry more than a certain amount of whiskey without a permit ; I saw that you had exceeded the proper quantum." Father Michael Keogh's powers of sarcasm, often most capriciously and dyspeptically exercised, were withering. A priest who had formerly been a Jesuit was lionized at a dinner where Mr. Keogh was present. "I think sir," he exclaimed from the end of the table : " You were a Jesuit, but have since left the order." A stiff bow was the reply. " Judas was also in the society of Jesus," proceeded his tormentor, " but he took the cord and died a Franciscan." But Fr. Keogh's forte, after pulpit oratory, was rare powers of histrionic mimicry. He was once invited by the late good though eccentric pastor of Duleek to preach a charity sermon. After delivering a powerful appeal, which melted many of the audience to tears, Father Keogh proceeded to read aloud some papers, containing parochial announcements, which the Parish Priest had placed in his hands for that purpose. But the most illiterate member of the assembled flock at once perceived that Mr. Keogh, by his tone and gesture, was mimicking the peculiarities of their primitive pastor. The latter was not slow in 7 194 WITS AND WORTHIES : recognising his own portrait, and starting up from a seat of honour which he occupied beneath the pulpit, exclaimed: "You Dublin jackeen, was it for this I invited you to Duleek ?" How an ecclesiastic, whose brow when engaged in delivering a Divine message seemed not unsuited for the mitre, could sometimes suffer the cap and bells to usurp its place, can be accounted for in no other way than that vagaries of this sort formed part of the eccentricity of his high genius. He had a keen eye to detect the weaknesses or absurdities of his neigh- bour, but was utterly blind to his own. In hearing these anecdotes of this remarkable Irishman — which are now told publicly for the first time — it is difficult to associate them with one whose prestige was of the most brilliant and exalted character. Since Dean Kirwan preached, there had not appeared a more irresistible or impressive pulpit orator. Hundreds of Protestants daily attended his controversial sermons ; and we have heard them say that it was a rare treat to hear Father Keogh answering, in the evening, the polemical propositions enunciated from the pulpit by the Rev. Mortimer 0' Sullivan in the morning. He was entitled to the receipts taken at some of these evening sermons. Father Murphy, his prior, handed him on one of these occasions £2 10s. "I viewed the congregation," said Mr. Keogh, " and there was more than £4 10s. present." " Granted," replied his superior, " but you owe me £2 for ten years, and I had no other means of getting paid." " Those who know me," observed Dr. Willis, in a communica- tion to the author, " are aware that I never was given to weeping, especially in my younger days ; but I do declare that during a course of Lenten sermons in Church-street, Keogh had everyone of the congrega- tion in tears, including myself, whom he had so often previously, in private, convulsed with laughter." The old magazine from which an extract has been DB. LAN I G AN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 195 already culled opens with an elaborate sketch of the Rev. M. B. Keogh : " The practice of extemporary preaching, so judiciously encouraged or enforced by the Church of Rome," it states, "is admirably cal- culated to call forth the powers and the resources of such a mind as Mr. Keogh's. He is evidently of a quick and ardent temperament, swayed by sudden impulse, and often, in the hurrying moment of excite- ment, carried beyond himself by a species of inspiration. To tie down such a man to his notes, would be to extinguish half his enthusiasm ; it would be a sort of intellectual sacrilege — an insult to the majesty of genius." Mr. Keogh's success as a preacber was not due to commanding appearance, for, like Curran's, it seems to have been far from prepossessing. He had the same powers of mind and eye as Curran, who was wont to observe that it cost him half-an-hour longer to reach the hearts of the jury than it would have taken a less repulsive -featured man with the same arguments. " See him in the season of Lent," observes a contemporary critic, "for, probably, the fortieth time, standing unrobed before the unornamented altar, with- out text, form, or genuflexion, starting solemnly but abruptly upon his subject. Mark the extending of his arm, the penetrating glance of his kindled eye ; hear his deep, mellow, and impressive tones : listen to his rich, impassioned, spirit-stirring diction, and then say, if you can, that you feel tbe absence of fine features, courtly manners, or commanding stature." And yet we are not aware that the sermons of this great orator exist in any accessible form. Nor is the loss, perhaps, as great as might, at first sight, be supposed. As in the case of Dean Kirwan — whose printed ser- mons are unworthy of his high reputation — the great effect of Father Keogh's pulpit oratory seems, on post mortem examination, due rather to the manner than the matter. Dr. Spratt, having got a discourse of his reported, presented him with the proof-sheets for 196 WITS AND WORTHIES : correction ; but, although accurately taken down, Mr. Keogh would not believe that he had delivered it in that form, and, filled with disgust, tore up the sheets, and irrevocably cancelled the sermon. Mr. Keogh, during his hours of relaxation, ex- hibited all the exuberance of a liberated school- boy on the play-ground. A gentleman, who we fear played cards rather for profit than pleasure, having one evening at Eaheny pocketed pool after pool with complacent rapacity, at last, having secured an unusually large " hawl," suddenly stood up and declared it was time to leave. Keogh, with the utmost good humour, replied that it was too early to break up, and that he should give his host and friends an opportunity of retrieving their losses. But the man of lucre, with pleasant banter, extricated himself from the playful, " collaring' ' of his friends ; and just as he had reached the hall, Fr. Keogh caught him in his muscular grip, and, turning him upside down, the entire contents of his pockets fell in a loud avalanche to the ground. The money was gathered up, the gamester returned, and the play continued with varying success until a later hour. This anecdote was told by the butler of the house, who, at least, was a considerable gainer by the incident. "An idle brain is the Devil's workshop," was an apothegm of his own concoction, which his audience heard him utter more than once. Two other favourite expressions of his were, "tinselled vanity" and "fea- thered foppery," and he declared inextinguishable war against both. Like Curran, Moore, and other great contemporaries, Mr. Keogh's origin was humble. He never shrank from avowing it manfully, and, we rather think, used those avowals as physic to purge the pride engendered by public adulation. The father of the Irish Massillon was a coffin-maker in Cook- street.* A friend asked him one day, " How is your * Mr. Keogh worked at the trade for a time himself. He used to say, that when people faulted coffins, because of unsightly knots in DR. LAXIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 197 father ?" "Oh" replied Keogh with a very long visage, " I left him working for death !" Nevertheless, the sire saw the son down ; and his death occurred under the following circumstances. In attempting to attain an almost celestial degree of perfection as deliverer of divine messages, he sank from Scylla into the jaws of Charybdis. Somewhat erroneously supposing that his articulation was not quite as distinct as formerly, he desired a dentist to pull out all his front teeth, and to insert a false set in their room. Dental science was not then in its prime — the cure proved far worse than the disease. The clumsy tusks which had been substituted for nature's teeth obstructed rather than facilitated the flow of his oratory ; but, still worse, they refused to perform the office of mastication. Dyspepsia, with a hundred other ills, were fostered in this way, and Mr. Keogh rapidly sank beneath their sapping influence. One of his last letters, written from his father's house in Cook-street, where he died, was addressed to Dr. Spratt, begging his prayers. But, like Curran — whose physican re- marked to him, a day or two before his death, that he seemed to cough with greater difficulty, and was greeted with the reply : " That is very strange, for I have been practising all night" — Keogh also had his joke at that solemn hour. A priest, famous for following the fox-hounds, having paid him a visit, Keogh in a voice hardly audible muttered, "Ah, Father John, you were always in at the death." Mr. Keogh did not long survive his friend, Dr. Lanigan. He died 9th September, 1831, aged 43 years. A tablet to his memory, inscribed with a very eulogistic epitaph, is erected in the Roman Catholic Church, Baldoyle ; but his remains repose in the vaults of SS. Michael and John, Exchange-street, Dublin. the wood, he would reply: "Oh, I can hide them with an angel or two." Father Keogh inherited his talent from his mother, who kept a school. He was such an apt scholar, that the usual period for theological study was considerably abridged in his favour. 198 WITS AND WORTHIES : CHAPTEE XXVIII. LANIGAN VINDICATED BY DR. HAMILL. "Thomas h Kempis was sometimes a subject of slander and obloquy. The third book of 1 The Following of Christ' abounds with passages in which the bitterness of such a trial is feelingly acknowledged, and the sufferer beautifully exhorted to bear it silently and patiently. " Charles Butler. At this period we find Dr. Lanigan frequently dining with Archbishop Troy in Cavendish-row. Here he often met James Bernard Clinch ; and Dean Meyler used to describe the brilliant shower of sparks which fell from the good-humoured clash of argument wherein Clinch and Lanigan invariably engaged on such occa- sions. Dr. Troy was a practical illustration of St. Paul's remark, that hospitality should characterise the home of a bishop. Lord Norbury, having once observed Eneas MacDonnell, agent to the Catholics of Ireland, descending the archiepiscopal steps, wittily exclaimed: " Behold pious Eneas coming from the sack of Troy." Canon Lee, the grand-nephew of Archbishop Troy, tells us that for his Grace's kindly attitude towards Lanigan, he was condemned by some straitlaced contemporaries. This breath of censure was wafted from Cork to Dublin, across the hills of Tipperary, gathering, as it ran, increased strength at Cashel. Thus we see that although Dr. Troy's archiepiscopal mantle fell in paternal protection over Lanigan, imputations to his prejudice found occasional ex- pression. Dr. Curtis — for nearly half-a-century Pre- sident of the Irish College at Salamanca, and the pre- ceptor of Dr. Murray and nearly all the Irish bishops of the first quarter of the present century — had been appointed about this period to the primatial chair ©f Ireland. "What a pity," observed his Grace DR. LAXIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 199 at a clerical dinner-party at which our informant, Dean Meyler, was present, "that Dr. Lanigan, whose abilities are of the first order, should be under the cloud of Jansenistic imputation." " First prove that he is open to the imputation," warmly interposed Dr. Hamill, Vicar-General of the diocese, a generally reserved personage at table, " and then," he added, "it will be time enough to express your pity." " Did he not take part with Tamburini at the schismatical synod at Pistoia '?" proceeded the Primate. 6i We made our studies together in college," said Dr. Hamill ; " I have always possessed, perhaps undeservedly, his entire confidence ; there is not an incident in his life which is not as familiar to me as the retrospect of my own ; and I unhesitatingly assert that John Lanigan is free of the errors with which his enemies charge him. No one knew Tamburini better than I did, and I heard Tamburini distinctly say that Lanigan, although offered the office of theologian at the council, declined, point blank, the invitation." This speech, coming from a man distinguished for reserve, and holding great influence over the clergy, produced a marked impression ; and the " cloud," which in some estimations had floated over Lanigan, became changed into a rainbow ; but we know not what may have been the feelings of the host who thought fit to exclude him from an invitation. " My knowledge of Lanigan, with whom I made my studies in Kome, is only an iota less than your own, Sir," chimed in James Bernard Clinch, the learned essayist on Church Government ; " and I always said that he had too much good sense to be a Jansenist. From a long and intimate association, however, with Tamburini his voice has imbibed the twang of Pistoia ; but his heart is sound. Your Grace," he added, addressing the Primate, " is not the less an Irishman in heart, because your manners, from a long residence in Spain, are so strikingly Andalusian." 200 WITS AND WORTHIES : Dr. Curtis was delighted at the explanation, and cordially made the amende honorable to Dr. Lanigan, and, as head of the Irish Church, headed, at a later date, the list of subscribers to his work. Mr. Clinch's hit was a clincher. No one would ever have supposed that the successor of Malachy O'Morghair was a Celt. Sheil describes Dr. Curtis as " more Spanish than the Spanish themselves. He has a restlessness of gesture, and a flexibility of the physiognomical muscles, which surpass the vivacity of Andalusia. " Archbishop Curtis, who alluded to Lanigan as having been under a " cloud,' ' might have been further informed that every cloud has its silver lining, and that which, in some circles, floated over Lanigan's fame was not without its moral and ad- vantage. The more just and thoughtful priests from that day inquired into his antecedents, found that he had been misrepresented, and warmed towards him with a generous sympathy. Amongst others thus attracted was Dr. Blake, P.P. of SS. Michael and John's, Vicar-General of the diocese of Dublin, and afterwards well known as the saintly Bishop of Dromore. He maintained no ordinary relations of intimacy with Dr. Lanigan, as the good Bishop has himself recorded, and lived with him for several years in the one house. One of Bishop Blake's last acts was to address a letter furnishing some interesting biographic facts to Mr. M. A. O'Brennan, author of some able works on Ireland, who at that time meditated a short memoir of Lanigan ; but the task was eventually relinquished, as one too full of difficulty for a man already onerously employed. But although a cloud — to use the phrase of Arch- bishop Curtis — may have separated the society and solid worth of Lanigan from certain circles, it was perhaps, if the truth were fully known, one of those clouds which shadow for a time a heavenly body — a cloud formed rather from the miasma of prejudice* DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 201 Though not closely associated with by some of the more ascetic of the clergy — whose intellect was not perhaps built in proportion with the breadth of their zealous piety — Lanigan's society was, as we have seen, warmly cultivated by the learned Vicars- General and other leading priests of the diocese, including the dis- tinguished pulpit orator, the Rev. Dr. Morgan Darcy, P.P. of St. Audeon's.* At the hospitable table of this divine, Canon Rooney, now P.P. of Clontarf, met Dr. Lanigan in 1812, and was much charmed by his conversation ; and the Rev. M. B. Kelly, P.P., re- members to have frequently met Lanigan, about the same time, in company with a highly distinguished ecclesiastic, the Rev. Dr. Harold, of Denmark-street Chapel, who subsequently refused the Bishopric of Ohio. " The twang of Pistoia," which, Clinch says, charac- terised Dr. Lanigan's tongue while his heart remained sound, showed itself in a very marked prejudice against, not the Jesuits only, but most other religious orders as a body. He always spoke impulsively, and if differed with at all by an opponent in argument, he reiterated his views with a concentrated increase of strength. Having one night declared warmly " that there was more genuine mortification practised by the Mahometans than by many religious communities," the expression was communicated by some charitable persons to Dr. Troy, who had himself made his vows as a Dominican * This ecclesiastic was grand-uncle to Matthew P. Darcy, Esq., the present honest and accomplished M.P. for Wexford county. He had been on the English mission until recalled by the Irish Prelates to become President of the lay college at Maynooth. St. Audeon's, at no time a financially good parish, was specially poor when Dr. Lanigan's friend, Father Morgan Darcy, assumed its pastoral manage- ment. " In Audeon's," said Fr. Cooper, as he told the anecdote in presence of the late Archbishop Murray, " we curates had never more than 2s. 6d. of a Monday morning, and were obliged to live on " tick" all the week after." "That was truly tic-doloreux, Mr. Cooper," replied the Fenelon of the Irish Episcopacy, as O'Conuell loved to style him. 202 WITS AND WOETHIES : friar; and the hasty remark, as might have been ex- pected, incurred an episcopal admonition. But Dr. Troy, even in reproof, never laid his gentleness aside. # No one was better acquainted with the proceedings at Pistoia than Dr. Troy, or could distinguish more readily the difference between its " twang" and its taint. In the catalogue of his Grace's library, sold by Charles Sharp on the 25th Jane, 1823, we read, "Decreti del Goncilio Diocesano df Pistoja dell' An. 1786. Firenze, 1788" — to which the following note is appended: " Fine portrait of Soipio de Ricci, and an engraving exhibiting the clergy in fall conclave." Had Lanigan been present, his name would certainly appear in the " Decreti." Many of the priests of the old school, of which the late respected Archdeacon O'Shea of Cork may be said to have been the last survivor, evinced in the unreserve of familiar conversation some of the " twang of Pistoia." The Archdeacon, who was besides Vicar- General of Cork during the rule of Dr. Murphy — a privilege which, as he says, " I hope I did not altogether abuse" — addressing the present writer in September, 1869, added: " I have a great liking for the Jansenistic writers. I am a warm admirer of Pascal, and no book ever did more good service for the Catholic Church than Arnaud's 6 Perpetuite de la Foi.' " The " cloud" which floated over Dr. Lanigan in some few ill-informed circles took its origin, no doubt, in the misty hints which had been thrown out against his orthodoxy by the Bishop of Cork, and the more determinedly expressed inferences of Dr. Hussey of Waterford, whose rank as a theological authority we have already analyzed. The former prelate possessed very considerable influence, w r hich his many virtues and high attainments legitimately created. In the Castlereagh Papers (vol. iii., p. 89) he is pronounced * Communicated by the late Dean Meyler. * DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 203 to be the most able member of the Roman Catholic bench. But Dr. Moylan, nevertheless, was not in- fallible, as a few citations from the same State Papers will show ; and it is just to Dr. Lanigan's memory to adduce such points as indirectly tend to weaken that unfavourable opinion regarding him which Dr. Moylan was the first to start in Ireland. We hope Dr. Moylan's opinion of Dr. Lanigan was as false as the following, in reference to the Union, of which the late Earl Grey said that nothing could be more cala- mitous, or no means more corrupt than those by which it was carried. Dr. Moylan, in a private letter dated the 26th July, 1800, observes: " The great question of Legislative Union is, thank God, most happily decided. The manner in which Lord Castle- reagh has conducted that important measure is highly honourable to his lordship, and evinces the most extensive abilities. He has closed a most glorious and successful parliamentary campaign. May the Almighty grant him health and length of days to consolidate this good work !" (vol. iii., p. 864). Dr. Lanigan was wisely averse to the governmental scheme of pensioning the Catholic clergy; but not so Dr. Moylan. Lord Castlereagh, writing to Mr. Addington on 21st July, 1802, says : "Dr. Moylan, whom I look upon as one of the most discreet and respectable of the body, expressed to Lord Cornwallis in London a con- viction that the Roman Catholic clergy would, under the present circumstances, gratefully accept a provision from the State" (vol. iv., p. 227). Dr. Moylan, we think, would find few Roman Ca- tholic ecclesiastics to concur with him in the propriety of checking the influx of Papal bulls. "I put the whole of my correspondence with Lord Hobart on the Catholic subject in Dr. Moylan's hands," writes Sir J. C. Hippesley, "and had the pleasure to find that his opinions concurred entirely with my own with respect to the regulations I had sketched. A part of these 204 WITS AND WORTHIES : regulations went to the establishment of a check on the introduction of rescripts from the Pope," &c. (vol.ii., p. 370). Dr. Lanigan was not the only distinguished divine who fell under the weight of Dr. Moylan's condemnation. The " Hibernia Dominicana" of the illustrious Bishop de Burgo was formally condemned at Thurles by Dr. Moylan, in conjunction with Dr. Butler and other prelates, 28th July, 1775. The late Dr. O'Kenehan, in his " Collections" (p. 329), justly speaks of this censure as "ill advised." Again, on 15th July, 1775, Dr. Moylan expressed some views publicly in which the same eminent authority recognises " an unsound principle" (p. 328). But we have probably said enough to show that Dr. Moylan was often wrong- headed, and that his judgment on Dr. Lanigan may have been as erroneous as those other views of his on which we have incidentally touched. It is due to Dr. Moylan to add, that Cork is in- debted to him for much, including the establishment of the order of Presentation Nuns. " For more than thirty years," observes the Bev. Thomas England in a sketch of his life, " Dr. Moylan lived, respected, beloved, and revered by persons of every class in society, and of all religious persuasions. He was one of those good men whose lives are the best vindication of the principles which they profess ; and whose con- duct, exclusive of the adventitious circumstances of rank or station, would excite veneration and respect in the mind of even the most inattentive observers. 5 ' DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 205 CHAPTER XXIX. HALLUCINATIONS. " Dryden's aphorism, that 1 great wit 7 — meaning mental powers generally — 1 is nearly allied to madness,' is so true as to have become a proverb ; but it stands on older and graver authority. Seneca says Nullum magnum ingenium, sine mixtura dementia." (De Tranq. Anim. c. xv., s. 77). Croker's Boswell's Life of Johnson - . The spell of good health which Dr. Lanigan brought home from Cashel was of sadly short duration. During the winter of 1814 complaints reached the Library Committee — not certainly from a friendly source — that Dr. Lanigan's state of health — doubtless his mental health — rendered it impossible for him to continue to discharge the Librarian's duties. He endeavoured to repudiate the imputation on his efficiency ; but some influential persons exerted themselves against him, and in consequence of a suggestion from the Society, he w T rote a letter, dated 17th November, 1814, in which he resigned the care of the library, " thankfully retaining,'' he adds, " my former situation of translator, editor, and corrector of the press, which I had the honour to hold for nine years previous to the year 1808." Dr. Litton succeeded Dr. Lanigan at an increased salary of £200 a-year. It seems to us that Dr. Lanigan was misunder- stood by some persons in the Eoyal Dublin Society. One of the oldest members of that body, the late John Patten, in a conversation with the writer of the present sketch remarked, that Dr. Lanigan having had a warm argument on some philosophical subject with a member, brought up to the Library, from the street a paving-stone, with which if further provoked he would probably have offered violence to his opponent. 206 WITS AND WOKTH1ES : This anecdote puzzled us, but light is shed on it by a letter from Mr. J. H. Green, dated Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, 17th September, 1862, which mentions, on the authority of Dr. Harty, that "Dr. Lanigan's mind was so affected during his first attack that he used to imagine the paving-stones were precious stones." Might not the learned Doctor's object in producing the paving-stone, have been, not to assault his opponent, but to illustrate the philo- sophical argument under discussion by an ocularly demonstrative reference to what he conceived to be some fine specimens of precious stones in quartz ? In the eyes of the Royal Dublin Society it doubtless appeared a paving-stone, while to the more fertile in- tellect of poor Lanigan it may have been a beautiful octahedron or parallelopiped on which he felt disposed to lecture. Walter Sweetman, Esq., tells us that at his house in Mountjoy-square, Dr. Lanigan once produced from his pocket a paving-stone with which he illustrated the unsound theory described by Dr. Harty. That his hallucination ran on stones is curiously proved by a reminiscence emanating from another source. Mr. Quinlan, late Editor of the Dublin Evening Post, a native of Cashel, remembers its townspeople much puzzled while they described Dr. Lanigan boiling stones in a metal pot at the house of his sister, Mrs. Kelly of Cashel, with whom, during his tedious illness, he for a time sojourned. Mr. Quinlan refers this incident to the year 1814, which shows that Dr. Lanigan niust have been oppressed by the incubus of his delusion for a much longer period before his death than is generally supposed. It is a satisfactory reflection for those who sympathize with the old man's fate, to hope and believe that when occupied in this hopeless task, he was not, like Sisippus, unhappy. From all we can gather, the inference is that he derived interest from his queer experiments with stones. " The toil and trouble'' attendant upon DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 207 the effort to make the cauldron boil in " Macbeth, " was not so applicable to the Doctor's labour as when, in " As you like It," Shakespeare describes the charm of a man fond of retirement finding "sermons in stones." Another illustration or variation of Dr. Lanigan's lapideous delusion, compounded of tragedy and comedy, has been communicated to us. Dean Meyler's reminiscences of his old friend were full and fluent, but although he did not often tell this anec- dote, we see no reason why it should be concealed from those who like to explore the anatomy of in- sanity. Dr. Lanigan, during the later years of his sufferings, was constantly imploring his friends to pray for him. With this object be called upon Dr. Meyler one morning, who promised to remember him in his orisons ; but Lanigan, expecting or requiring a more prompt acquies:-ence, became irritable, and said he must kneel down then and there. Dr. Meyler hesitated — Dr. Lanigan insisted ; and at last, pulling large stones from his pocket, as he glanced round the room at some engravings illustrative of the seven sacraments, on which the Dean set a high value, threatened that, unless he knelt down and prayed as desired, he would smash tbem. To have longer refused would have been as mad an act as the threatened annihilation of the pictures. The Dean flung himself upon his knees ; Dr. Lanigan was satisfied, and the pictures were saved. He seems to have given too literal an interpretation to the scrip- tural text, " The kingdom of heaven is won but by violence." A still more formidable hallucination filled, at exactly the same time, the once astute brain of a friend of Dr. Lanigan's, who had discharged a professor's duties in the College of Maynooth. This hallucination was attended by circumstances at once so novel and strange that they may be legitimately referred to in 208 WITS AND WORTHIES : a work which professes to notice Dr. Lanigan's ecclesiastical contemporaries. To quote the words of the present Professor of Dogmatic Theology in May- nooth College : " A gentleman connected with the establishment became deranged, and laboured under the delusion that he was dead. One morning, before his condition was known, he went into our Professor's room in great excitement, and complained bitterly that he had not attended his funeral. ' Why/ said Dr. [afterwards Primate] Crolly, ' the fact is, I would have gone, but Father Paul would not come with me, and you have greater reason to complain of him.' The lunatic then went to Father Paul's apartments, and finding him in bed, he demanded what objection he had to attend his funeral. He declared he had none whatever, and he should certainly have gone had he heard of his death. The madman answered, ' I know that you not only stayed away yourself, but hindered Dr. Crolly from coming ; and now I will be buried here and nowhere else, and you must write an epitaph and put it over me.' He then lay down under the hearth-rug. Father Paul had by this time hastily dressed himself, and began to think in what manner he could get rid of his unwelcome visitor. Being commanded to prepare the epitaph, he took a sheet of paper, and wrote : * Your scraggedy snout shall snuff the moon ; Why, d your eyes, did you die so soon V ' I'll not lie under that epitaph,' cried the dead man. < You must,' answered Father Paul. 6 I'll not/ said he, starting up, and rushing out of the room." The Father Paul described by Dr. Crolly was the gentleman noticed by us in a previous chapter, the Rev. Paul O'Brien, Professor of Irish at Maynooth, who, at all events, cannot complain of any injustice having been shown to himself in the eulogistic epitaph of unctious latinity, from the pen of the Eev. D. Mac Carthy, and not unworthy of the Abbot of Clair- BR. LAN I G AN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 209 vaux, which now arrests attention on Father Paul's tomb at Maynooth.. We have heard that Dr. Lanigan's usual place of study and labour in the old society house in Hawkins' - street, was a glass dome through which the rays of the summer sun fell intensified upon his head ; and he appears to have been so completely wrapt up in the interesting objects of his research as altogether to forget the peril such a position involved. The cerebral irrita- tion with which he was threatened should rather have been checked by cold water applications, and other effective counter-irritants ; but Dr. Lanigan hourly heaped fuel on the flame. In addition to his avocations as Librarian, which continued for fifteen years, he was required to act as an accountant, so far as to cheque booksellers' and other bills, to translate, corre- spond in foreign languages, and to correct the various publications of the Society as they passed through the press. He was further obliged, as an ecclesiastic, to repeat daily the long office of the Catholic Church. He had little time, one would think, amidst these multifarious duties, for literary study or composition ; yet he has placed on record imperishable proofs that he manfully achieved both. It is sad to think that he almost invariably brought to the elaboration of his great work a brain fatigued, and that the labour of love but added fuel to the flame which was slowly consuming his life. Dr. Lanigan's proficiency as a linguist now stood him in good stead. He could speak and write with fluency many tongues, including German, French, English, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Spanish, and Irish ; and his pronunciation of Italian surpassed that of many well- educated natives. He was now glad to receive an occasional engagement as a teacher of languages, and the late Lady Nugent, with some other members of the Catholic aristocracy, received instruction at his hands. 7* 210 WITS AND WORTHIES : On 1st November, 1819, Dr. Lanigan was present at the banquet in Carlow to celebrate the elevation of Dr. Doyle to the See of Kildare and Leighlin. The late Bishop O'Connor informed us that the illustrious J. K. L. proposed Dr. Lanigan's health in eloquent and fitting terms, and pronounced a brilliant eulogium on the merits of his great work, the manu- script of which, Dr. Doyle added, had been submitted to him. From the year 1799, Dr. Lanigan seems to have laboured at irregular intervals at his great national undertaking, " The Ecclesiastical History of Ireland." His time was so much occupied at this period by the drudging duties of his office, already enumerated, and the few intervals of leisure at his command seemed so indispensable, not so much as a restorative as a check to the progress of that decay which overwork, care, and length of years were rapidly engendering, that we find his favourite study of hagiology relin- quished, and the magnum opus thrown by. The re- sumption of both seems due to the following incident. The Rev. Bartholomew Esmonde, S.J., was deputed by the learned community of which he was a dis- tinguished member to preach the panegyric of St. Patrick on Ireland's great anniversary. Father Esmonde, being of a studious and inquiring caste of mind, hesitated to accept as conclusive the evidence on which Alban Butler and other hagiologists of that day awarded to Scotland the honour of St. Patrick's birth. " I know no one," he said, " who is more likely to throw light on this question than my friend, Dr. Lanigan, who, I am aware, has put together many valuable notes on the subject saying which Father Esmonde repaired to his lodgings in Sackville-street, and solicited his aid in the difficulty. Dr. Lanigan adjusted his spectacles, mounted a pedestal in the shape of a fauteuil, and having taken down, with reverential care a pile of MS. from the top of a ward- DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 211 robe, brushed aside an accumulation of dust and cobweb which had all but entombed his researches. Father Esmonde hurried off with the precious burthen, promising to return it within a stated period. He made himself intimately conversant with the contents, and the result of that thorough acquaintance w T as the conviction that to bury in dust and oblivion data so erudite, and researches so important, would involve almost moral guilt — views which he conveyed to Dr. Lanigan with such empressement and earnestness, that he consented to make an effort, and give, forthwith, his lucubrations to the world. Mr. J. H. Green, ignorant of this anecdote, but aware of some herculean effort having been made in- consistent with the muscular prostration of mind and body from which Dr. Lanigan suffered at this time, observes, with the energetic sympathy of true kinsman- ship : " This last effort smashed him. Just after escaping the shark of apoplectic mania, to plunge him- self again so soon into the same devouring maelstrom of mind-toil ! In 1821 he is attacked again, and again enters Finglas never to leave it ! But he does not care now. His mission is done. The great object of his existence is gained, requiring only the courier of the press to send it to the public. A few months will do this, and then — ' hail, horrors/ welcome dissolution ! For this he has coined his brain into periods, and walked deliberately and with his eyes open into mania and paralytic imbecility !" 212 WITS AND WORTHIES : CHAPTER XXX. hamill's homilies. "At church with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place, Truth from Ins lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray." Goldsmith, As soon as Dr. Lanigan had arranged to go to press with his book, Dr. Martin Hugh Hamill, the Vicar- General of Dublin, taking his arm, personally canvassed among the clergy, with the object of enlisting their aid as subscribers. The subscription to the work was £2 12s., and soon a large indemnity was raised. Of that remarkable man, Dr. Hamill, we have already spoken, but much more remains to be legitimately told of him. Francis-street had been the archiepiscopal parish until 1796, when Dr. Troy removed it to Liffey-street, and Dr. Hamill was appointed P.P. of the former. From the time that he and Lanigan had distinguished themselves at the Irish College in Rome, Dr. Hamill notoriously possessed many varied acquire- ments ; but it was not until after his appointment to Francis-street that the suddenly-developed blaze of his talent as a preacher took all Dublin by surprise. Disciples of the then fashionable school of Voltaire and Rousseau thronged to hear him ; some were con- verted — all were pleased. Some of the greatest men in Ireland confessed themselves spell-bound by HamiLTs preaching ; and yet we are not aware that a single sermon of this powerful orator has been reported or preserved — a remark also applicable to Flood — such was the uncultivated condition of stenography at that day. The Irish Magazine for March, 1808, referring to Hamill, says : " If this good man could be prevailed DR. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 213 on to give his discourses to the public, Tillitson would be no longer the standard of pulpit eloquence with the young preacher." Dr. Hainill is understood to have perpared his sermons very carefully, and as the MSS. of them possibly still exist, it may not be too late, even now, to enrich the theologian's library and the student's mind with these long-forgotten gems of sacred oratory. Mr. Kearney tells us that in 1823 they passed into Fr. Kenrick's hands. The care with which he elaborated his compositions may be inferred from different passages in the article just quoted. The writer, drawing a parallel between Hainill and Beatagh, informs us that the former " seemed to have, from nature, a finer imagination, a more exuberant fancy, a more correct judgment, and consequently a more ex- quisite taste for the beauties of composition. He cultivated his knowledge of the English language with more labour, and thereby rendered his sermons models of classical eloquence and melodious diction." It will not, therefore, excite much surprise to hear, on the authority of a communication addressed to the writer of these pages by the Rev. John Kearney, Dr. Hamill's former curate, that Cnrran and G rat tan deserted St. Bride's Church — whither they had long been attracted by the brilliant oratory of Walter Blake Kirwan — in order to hear Hainill hold forth in old Francis-street Chapel. Our venerable informant has known the large sum of near £600 to be collected at one charity sermon alone. The accuracy of Mr. Kearney's recollection is con- firmed by the Irish Magazine for March, 1808, where, at p. 130, we are told of the constant attendance of " Grattan and Curran." Grattan was heard to say that there existed in his sermons a felicity of composi- tion and arrangement which Kirwan did not possess. Kirwan spoke in thunder, but the mild angel of the gospel breathed peace and instruction to mankind in the voice and language of Dr. Hamill. Grattan's 214 WITS AND WORTHIES : elaborate eulogium on Kirwan's pulpit oratory, which has often been quoted, makes this praise of Hamill the more remarkable. Dr. Harnill's career as a preacher was meteoric ; his health was not robust, and the remainder of his public career was wrapt in the same reserve which invariably marked his attitude in society. So early as March, 1808, he is announced by the Irish Magazine, in a glowing tribute to his extinguished oratorical light as having been " forced into retirement from the labour of the mission, by the feebleness and afflictions of age while Beatagh, who died three years later, and preceded Dr. Hamill to the tomb by nearly thirteen years, is announced as " fighting in the cause of re- ligion and human happiness, even at the very goal of mortality." The other popular preachers of the day are next passed in review ; and in reference to the celebrated Father Molloy we are told that his sermons are " too often filled with fustian and bombast. " The out- burst of Keogh's oratorical splendour had not yet dazzled Dublin. Although not a son of his diocese, Dr. Caulfield, when sinking under the infirmities of age, wrote to Dr. Hamill to know if he would allow his name to be submitted to the Holy See as Coadjutor-Bishop of Ferns. But he declined. As a theologian, Dr. Hamill was uncompromising ; he strongly disap- proved of Dr. O'Conor's writing under the signature of " Columbanus," and briefed Clinch with points to answer him in the "Letters on Church Government. " His witticisms have been preserved with reverence, and as we find them not unfrequently locked in the embrace of Curran's also, they are all the more worthy of exhibition here. The parish of Francis-street in those days grasped Kathmines, Ranelagh, Milltown, and Harold's Cross. One of Dr. Harnill's most honoured parishioners was DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 215 John Keogh of Mount Jerome, the great Catholic leader, at whose house the Doctor and Philpot Curran were frequent guests. Dr. Hamill was exact in his toilet, and on those festive occasions usually wore black silk stockings with the ornamental working commonly called " clocks." Curran became extremely im- patient if dinner was delayed one moment beyond the appointed time ; and when on one occasion Dr. Hamill made his appearance full of apologies for his late arrival, Curran accosted him with, " It is not for want of exactness of clocks that you should be so late." To which the good Vicar replied, with playful dignity : " I did not think that the Master of the Eoils would stoop so low for a pun." Dr. Hamill's eyes — unlike those of his friend, with whom they were the only fine features — were not attractive or expressive. Dark and globular, they were, however, so unevenly set that, when seeming to look oat of the window admiring some passing object, he was really peering into the face of his visitor. He loved to encourage modest merit, but he often found it necessary to snub presumption. A young and excessively good-humoured cleric, hot from the mint of Maynooth, having been sent to Dr. Hamill to be examined for faculties, made some absurd grimace during an interval that his interlocutor seemed staring into the street. The young divine was very confident in his own abilities, and seemed quite taken aback when the Doctor, without giving any decided answer, politely bowed him out. The good old Yicar fully fulfilled Cowper's carefully drawn portrait of dis- cipline : " A smile Played on his lips ; and in his speech was heard Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love. The occupation dearest to his heart Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke The head of modest and ingenuous worth That blushed at its own praise; and press the youth Close to his side that pleased him. 216 WITS AND WOKTHIES : If e'er it chanced — as sometimes chance it must-~ That one among so many overleaped The limits of control, his watchful eye Grew stern, and darted a severe rehuke ; His frown was full of terror, and his voice Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe, As left him not till penitence had won Lost favour back again, and closed the breach." One of his hands, for many years before his death, shook with palsy, and it became necessary to obtain a dispensation from Rome not to elevate the Host or chalice in the sacrifice of the Mass. Dr. Hamill was very hospitable, but in his own person extremely abstemious, which is said to have given origin to his friend Curran's blasphemous witticism, that " the elevation of the host" was not observable when he officiated. Canon Roche, formerly a curate in Francis-street, describes Dr. Hamill as a deeply-read casuist con- stantly consulted on difficult questions by the bishops and hierarchy of Ireland. It was generally considered in the archdiocese that Dr. Hamill was the most worthy to succeed to the mitre of Dr. Troy ; but when the infirmities of the old prelate rendered a Coadjutor necessary, and that Dr. Hamill was urged to undertake the office, he declined, stating that he could not possibly outlive Dr. Troy ; and it is a coincidence that both died in the same year — namely, 1823. An anecdote may here be told which will prove at least "valuable to the future biographers of Archbishop Murray. When it was represented to Dr. Troy that, in the event of his death, the diocese would be in a painfully widowed condition, his Grace summoned the two Vicars-General, Drs. Hamill and Beatagh, with the object of selecting a candidate for the office of Coadjutor. After an anxious and lengthened con- ference, the three divines adjourned with the under- standing that they were to re-assemble on that clay week, each, without consultation with the other, to DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 217 bring with him the name which he should privately decide as seemingly " most worthy" for presentation to the Pope. The appointed day having arrived, all three placed upon the table papers carefully sealed, which when opened disclosed the remarkable fact, that they respectively pointed to the one priest — namely, the Eev. Daniel Murray, an humble and very unpreten- tious curate in Liffey-street Chapel. Dr. Hamill was a man of enlarged and liberal views, and uniformly patronised, without regularly cultivating by pen, science and literature. Boccacio had been condemned by many ecclesiastics, for the severity of his sarcasm against the priests and monks of his day ; and while some zealous laics went so far as to move that the work ought not to obtain a place on the shelves of the Dublin Library, Dr. Hamill, who was a member of its committee, warmly advocated the claims of Boccacio to admission, adding, " The publication of 1 II Decamerone* formed an epoch in the history of Italian literature. Boccacio enriched the language by a number of new and beautiful words ; he had the finest imagination and the tenderest mode of ex- pression, and even Chaucer and Dryclen confessed themselves his debtors. " Dr. Hamill was rather an omnivorous reader. The catalogue of his library, sold by Charles Sharp in December, 1823, is now before us, and shows that it was of a highly attractive and valuable character. In the companionship of his books the later years of his life were passed ; he had long completely relin- quished preaching ; he rarely left home, and the duties of administrator mainly devolved on his curate and successor, the Rev. Dr. Kenrick — a saintly priest of whom a volume might be written. One day the lattter missed his hat from the sacristy, and rushing into Plunket-street adjacent — the Monroouth -street of Dublin — he detected a woman in the act of disposing of it. "I only wanted it as a relic of your reverence," 218 WITS AND WORTHIES : said the ready-witted culprit. " You seem very anxious to get rid of it then. ,, " I was only asking the value of it," rejoined the female with unshaken self-possession. CHAPTEK XXXI. THE MAD-HOUSE. " Upon the top an open tower, where hung A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung — We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue; The broad sun sank behind it, and it told In strong and black relief what we behold Shall be the Madhouse and its belfry tower." Shelley. Long ere he succeeded in completing his four volumes, Dr. Lanigan found the muscles of his mind breaking. His brain had been through life overworked, and it now began to succumb rapidly to the same influences which bathed in darkness the once bright intellects of Swift, Scott, Southey, Moore, Magee, Plunket, and Dudley. Dr. Lanigan always knew when certain paroxysms in his brain, which he so much dreaded, were coming on ; and, with rare intuition, we find him invariably, of his own accord, going out to Dr« Harty's asylum at Finglas, and there remaining until the visitation had receded. Moncton Milnes had not then written, when describing a mad-house — " Honour aright the philosophic thought, That they who, by the trouble of the brain Or heart, for usual life are overwrought, Should hither come to discipline their pain." But Lanigan knew instinctively what course it was right for him to pursue. Dr. Harty called his maisoii de sante " St. Helena ;" but in his capacity of an Esculapian Hudson Lowe, he relaxed restraint in favour of his patient-captive. He was a very active member of the Eoyal Dublin Society, and Dr. Lanigan DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 219 had been attached to him by the ties of old intercourse and intimacy. His person or prestige, therefore, was not associated, in Lanigan's eyes, with the terrors usually wielded by the keeper of a mad-house. As the poor priest was quite harmless in his im- pulses, Dr. Harty placed no restraint whatever upon him — though he seems to have resorted to a system of medical treatment now exploded (of which more anon), and to have employed undue severity in the close cus- tody of others. But these days and doctrines have happily passed away. To Pinel is due the great revo- lution in the treatment of the insane. Dr. Brown, a once high medical authority, says, with respect to the cure of mania, "the patient should be struck with fear and terror, and driven in his state of insanity into despair." Anthony Collins goes so far as to say, "furious madmen may he legally despatched by private men." Many abuses in private asylums continue to this day; but thanks to the efforts of the Lunacy Com- mission, the bulk of the owners, as enlightened dis- ciples of Pinel — who was the first to substitute health- ful recreation and soothing treatment for the strait- waistcoat and other maddening goads — possess little of the terrorism with which their profession was tradition- ally invested. Even George III. was not exempted from treatment sufficient in itself to drive mad, men of stronger nerve. Mrs. Day, wife of the late Judge Robert Day, assured Dr. O'Keardon, a near connexion of the writer, that when residing at Windsor in 1789, she often heard the King give vent to the most piteous screams, when his keeper thought fit to crush some passing whim by the application of the lash. Hatred was not an unnatural result of persecution so cruel, and therefore it hardly surprises us to find it stated, what has not heretofore been printed, that when a death-warrant was afterwards brought to the King for his signature, he blotted out the name of the real cul- prit, and cunningly substituted that of the doctor ! 220 WITS AND WORTHIES I The exploded system of treating the insane forms a striking contrast to that now in vogue. For the enjoy- ment of even criminal lunatics at Broadmoor, cricket, music, and other pleasures are provided. Lanigan, it is true, had no music — unless the music of thoughtful silence and its thousand variations ; but, as will be seen, he made this pleasure subservient to relief and recoveiy. Emerson remarks that reflection is the enemy and dissolver of fate ; and the great thinker, Carlyle, dwells with much warmth on the value of c€ silence," and the necessity for man's seclusion as a restorative and refiner. One unmistakeable symptom of cerebral decay which fatally clung to Dr. Lanigan, was an inability at times of concentrating his attention on the task which had so long engaged his pen. It still lay far removed from artistic completion. An irresistible fascination urged him to advance ; but night had overtaken his once bright intelligence, and it was not without a pitiful feeling of bewilderment that he would seek the devious path to literary glory, which in the noon of his power had seemed to the enthusiastic student full of joy and sunshine. He now found himself in a laby- rinth. His multifarious MSS. got confused in their arrangement ; piles of notes, which he had gathered with a view to fortify previous positions by welding into the text, lay all but hopelessly disconnected. In- tervals of lucid discrimination would, no doubt, come like angels' visits, few and far between — of which the poor benighted labourer never failed to take eager ad- vantage ; but ere he could well catch this renewed glimpse of what he well remembered had formed, in brighter days, his ideal of historic perfection, the thread of thought would suddenly snap, for which he often vainly groped and grasped. At length the help- less wanderer awoke to the gloomy consciousness that those occasional glimpses of light which started up before his path were mere ignis fatui, leading him to DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 221 destruction. He flung his manuscript from him, not without a struggle, and he cast after it a longing, lin- gering look. Even his luxurious library — the result of many years' toil in its accumulation — was pronounced by the physicians forbidden ground. That which would have proved nutritious aliment to a healthful mind, was poison in its abnormal state ; and Dr. Lanigan, reluctantly convinced by this argument, at last completely resigned himself to the guiding arm of his Esculapian mentor. Madame de Stael defined happiness to be a state of constant occupation upon some desirable object, with a continual sense of pro- gress towards its attainment. A proportionate feeling of sadness, therefore, weighed down the poor sufferer w T hen, as day after day in forlorn hope trying to pro- gress, he found pen and thought paralysed, his mate- rials hopelessly confused, the thread of his narrative knotted and entangled — in a word, his "occupation gone !" The old man, at this juncture, called an ally to his aid, in the person of a Capuchin friar of great learning, the Rev. Michael Kinsella. Early prejudices against the Regulars gave way, as the sinking man's soul drew nearer heaven. The worth of this priest is not unknown ; but his varied attainments, owing to the retiring modesty of his nature, have never been appreciated save by the few who shared his smile. Prominent in this little circle stood John Keogh of Mount Jerome, the able leader of the Catholic body from the close of the last to the beginning of the present century. Mr. Kinsella was the private chap- lain and spiritual director of John Keogh ; and, in tes- timony to the friar's worth, he bequeathed to him an annuity of £d % 2 as long as he lived. But except by the few Mends who surrounded him — and among whom Mr. Kinsella exercised, like a magician within his own circle, a singular witchery of power — the name o this ecclesiastic is hardly remembered. For thirty 222 WITS AND WORTHIES : years he lived a hermit's life at Harold's-cross, beneath a lowly roof which concealed from the outer world virtues and abilities worthy of a Fenelon or a Ffrench. Some waifs and strays of his literary labour, which he charged the Rev. John Kearney not to reveal in his life time, are now in the possession of that gentleman, and evince sufficient power to furnish, perhaps, new proof of Mr. Taylor's apothegm, " the world knows nothing of its greatest men." Dr. Lanigan's manuscripts were forwarded to Father Kinsella, who found that the narrative was fully con- nected from the first introduction of Christianity among the Irish to the end of the thirteenth century. The Doctor had meant to carry it down to a later date ; but it appeared to his censor that the work could not terminate more effectively than with the very erudite essay on the origin and use of the ancient round towers which supplemented the thirty-second chapter. The subject had long been a prolific source of specu- lation among archaeologists ; and Dr. Lanigan's views were evidently the result of anxious research and re- flection. Mr. Kinsella would appear to have eliminated not a few of the elaborate notes with which Dr. Lanigan's MS. teemed. But perhaps, after all, their absence is not to be deplored, for, as Voltaire says, "Woe to him who says all he can on any subject." Although poor Lanigan's memory was much impaired, his thoughts had been too long directed, with fond filial feeling, to the history of " Mother Church" to forget its existence, or the friend who had arranged to con- duct it through Mr. Graisberry's press. Accordingly, we find him inditing — sometimes from Finglas, at other times from that luxurious library into which he would steal contrary to Dr. Harty's express advice — further learned notes for the illustration of his History, and enclosing them under cover to " Kev. M. Kin- Bella." These display that profound acquaintance with DK. LANIGANj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 223 Hiberno- Celtic and general literature for which he was remarkable. His one dear object is constantly observable — the desire to do honour to Ireland. Thus, quoting from Baron, who wrote in the year 1053, and from Hillin, in the Life of St. Toilan, we learn that " Ireland surpassed all other nations in her attach- ment to the faith ; and Cambrensis Eversus, Tolland, and Ward were made to confess that for " uniformity of doctrine, and adherence to the one religion" (the capitals are Lanigan's) "Erin stood pre-eminent/' But the country had other claims to honour. Quoting from Ward's " Historical Dissertations," Lanigan writes : "No nation can be found in any part of the world more observant of antiquity ; none has transmitted, written, and preserved the genealogies, achievements, the names, extraction, bounds of authority, and finally the whole history of their ancestors more exactly than the Irish." And Spenser's " State of Ireland" is cited to show that " the Saxons of England derived their letters, and learning, and learned men from the Irish." Dr. Lanigan's last note, a quotation from Mon- tesquieu, is touching : "I should have remained silent, if my silence was not liable to be taken as proof that I had nothing to say." These notes — of which a large bundle are now before us — written in Dr. Lanigan's small but very legible characters — we cannot trace in the printed version of the " Ecclesiastical History." Father Kinsella seems to have exercised the editorial prerogative of pruning without compunction. Lanigan, in his later sheets, was, we fear, lost in a labyrinth. It was, in truth, the lame leading the blind; for Kinsella was in feeble health himself, and died soon after. Thanks to Dr. Hamill and others, troops of sub- scribers were speedily enlisted. Their names were prefixed to the first volume, and included those of the Primate (Dr. Curtis), Dr. Doyle, and nearly every member of the Episcopacy of that day, as well as 224 WITS AND WORTHIES : nearly all the Professors at Maynooth and Carlow, and many missionary priests who subsequently wore the mitre. Of laymen, we find the names of Archibald Hamilton Kowan, Charles O'Conor, author of " The Military Memoirs of the Irish Nation ;" Alexander Knox, to whom Lord Macaulay refers as "a remark- able man Dr. Dromgoole, and others. This im- portant work, " The Ecclesiastical History of Ire- land," published in four volumes in 1822, supplied a decided want. CHAPTER XXXII. RACY CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS MAGNUM OPUS. " I have read somewhere or other, in Dionysius of Harlicarnassus, that History is philosophy teaching by examples.'' — Lord Boling- BROKE ON THE STUDY AND USE OF HlSTORY, Letter 2. It was remarked by Dr. Lanigan, writing half-a- century ago, that "in these times, when a laudable spirit of research pervades almost every civilized people of the globe, and that the histories of the most remote nations, as well barbarous as polite, are sought after with an extraordinary degree of curiosity," and read with avidity, the publication of an ' Ecclesiastical History of Ireland' must be considered as a useful undertaking, from which much interesting information on the ancient state of the Christian Church may be collected. The frigid apathy, however, with which the generality of Irish readers slur over every publica- tion that treats of the ancient state of their native country, might be sufficient to deter an author from an enterprize of that nature ; but although discourag- ing such an unpatriotic feeling as exhibits itself in the great bulk of our countrymen must be, there are still several learned and investigating men amongst our compatriots, as well as in the sister island and on the Continent, by whom such a work has been long DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 225 and anxiously desired, and from whom liberal en- couragement may, therefore, be expected." The histories of Ireland from the pens of Keatinge, MacGeoghegan, O'Halloran, and others, contain little of Irish church history beyond a few detached anecdotes, in great part fabulous, chronologically inaccurate, and often contradictory. Usher, no doubt, collected much valuable material for the very early history of our national Church, in which he was largely assisted by Dr. Eothe, Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossorv ; and in Ware's " Bishops" we have also much useful in- formation. But the supplemental matter supplied by Harris is far from being trustworthy ; and Dr. Lanigan frequently found it necessary to expose the errors and looseness of that writer, hitherto in the enjoyment of a high reputation. The Irish monas- ticons were useful in furnishing materials for ecclesi- astical history; "but great caution, " said Dr. Lanigan, "must be observed in using them, as they frequently abound in error, particularly Archdall, who converts into monasteries all the churches founded by St, Patrick and our earliest native saints, is often inac- curate in his chronologies, and frequently confounds persons and places with each other that are totally different. " Ledwich he also convicted of numerous blunders. " The book, miscalled ' Antiquities of Ireland,' " wrote Dr. Lanigan, " would, from its title, lead one to suppose that some information on this subject might be obtained from it; but upon examina- tion it will be found to contain a studied misrepre- sentation of our ancient history ; that some of our earliest saints, of whose existence no doubt can be en- tertained, are by him attempted to be annihilated ; that by the magical effects of his pen he laboured to trans- form St. Senan into a river, St. Kevin into a rock, and St. Patrick, the great Apostle of our nation, into a nonentity. The reputation this book has obtained with a particular class of readers and authors, who 8 226 WITS AND WOETHIES : wish to degrade the Irish below the level of the most barbarous nations, called for particular animadversion from me ; and if, in the course of the observations made on the errors, misrepresentations, and ignorance of its writer, some asperity is indulged, the apology is more due to the reader than to the author of such palpably malevolent falsehoods. " Ledwich he repeatedly proved to be a false witness against his fatherland, and specimens might be freely given of the manner in which he loved to hit him hard. It is to be hoped that the mortifying plight in which Lanigan left Ledwich did not accelerate, his death, which followed within the next few months.* If Dr. Lanigan mortally stabbed with his iron pen the inflated errors of Archdall and Ledwich, he magnanimously spared the brilliant myths of Moore. He does not disturb the romance with which the names of St. Kevin and Kathleen are entwined ; but the more malicious gossip of false guides receives no quarter. The lucubrations of Lanigan possessed one advan- tage on which he did not touch. His researches among dusty tomes and musty records had the effect of imparting an additional sparkle and charm to some of the most picturesque parts of the rural scenery of Ireland. For example, Mr. Frazer, in his guide to Wicklow, when giving an account of the religious cell belonging to St. Mogoroc, the brother of St. Canoe, who flourished about the year 492, writes : " The situation of this cell was unknown until the identity of Dergne, or Delgne, with Delgany was pointed out by * Amusing proofs of the errors and asperity of Dr. Ledwich may- be found in Lanigan's history, vol. i., pp. 11, 14, 35, 48, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 65, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, 186, 294, 3C8, 380, 456, 459 ; vol. ii., pp. 16, 46, 95, 109, 123, 151, 153, 202, 210, 250, 253, 257, 294,295, 332, 368, 379, 386, 398. 425; vol. iii., pp. 89, 94, 160, 161, 249, 272, 346, 353, 357, 358, 359, 360, 379, 405, 472,480, 481 ; vol. iv., pp. 31, 32, 34, 65, 66. 72, 103, 113, 114, 119, 147, 349, 150, 177, 180, 203, 240, 291, 293, 299, 316, 324,354,358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 366, 388, 395, 398, 401, 405, and 408— one of the best of them. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 227 the learned Dr. Lanigan." What archaeologist or tourist has not found invested with an additional halo of fascination after a perusal of his researchful notes ? Clonmacnoise as- sumes new attraction under his learned and gossip- ping guidance ; bright Innisfallen peeps from its nest in the dark waters of Killarney with more " tempting ray;" to the Rock of Cashel nobody could have a mere instructive cicerone than the old Tipperary priest; and he treats of Kells with such fulness and distinctness, that one almost fancies he hears the toll of its bell summoning to synod, under the auspices of Paparo, the Papal Legate, prelates and mitred abbots, vicars and chancellors, priors and priests. Dr. Petrie, describing Mellifont Abbey in the Dublin Penny Journal of 24th November, 1832, observes : " It was supposed by some, but erroneously, as Dr. Lanigan satisfactorily shows, that here was held the synod of 1152, at which Cardinal Paparo, as the Legate of Pope Eugene III., distributed four palliums 228 WITS AND WORTHIES : for the Sees of Dublin, Tuam, Armagh, and Cashel. It, however, was really held at Kells, in Meath." Lanigan corrected, with a fluent pen, some curious mistakes into which Colgan, Usher, and Ware fell ; but as the passages to which he took exception were the result of oversight rather than of design, he em- ployed in the exposure a more temperate phrase- ology than that which had so successfully smashed Ledwich. The easy conclusiveness with which our historian disposed of a controversy which had long vexed the pens of Gabrial, Colgan, Pennotus, and others, was highly characteristic. In reply to the much-disputed question as to whether St. Patrick belonged to the order of Augustinian Hermits, Dr. Lanigan clearly showed, on the authority of Papal bulls, that inas- much as the Augustinian Hermits did not exist until the beginning of the thirteenth century, St. Patrick, who flourished in the fifth, could not well have been one of them. ' Another historian left in no enviable plight by Lanigan was Giraldus Cambrensis, whom he pro- nounces in his preface to be " false and flimsy. " The inaccuracies of this author and his followers Dr. Lani- gan fully exposed and refuted by proofs drawn from the most unquestionable sources, foreign and domestic. By long study and much reading on the subject of Irish ecclesiastical history, Dr. Lanigan was pecu- liarly qualified to detect the untruths and malicious aspersions thrown out against the Irish Church and people. The huge misrepresentation respecting the Culdees to which Toland, amongst our native writers, and Jamieson, Smith, and others, amongst the Scotch, gave expression, rendered indispensable a particular inquiry into the office and duties of that religious order. Having consulted a mass of authentic docu- ments, Dr. Lanigan placed the subject in a most lucid point of view. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 229 Among the minor authors whom Dr. Lanigan pillo- ried for their blunders, may be named Hanmer, Camp- bell, Cressy, Campion, Dempster, and Daehery. In administering chastisement— and few knew how to deal it better — Dr. Lanigan was singularly impartial. It may be said that some of the writers he assailed were dead, and that the courage displayed in his ana- lysis was not commensurate with its sting and vigi- lance. This remark does not apply to that most for- midable of literary antagonists, Dr. Milner, then in the zenith of his literary power, whom Dr. Lanigan brings repeatedly to task for the strange mistakes pervading his Letters on Ireland. However expert Milner may have been in polemically pummelling the Bishop of St. David's, he was constantly tripping on Irish ground. " Dr. Milner," writes Dr. Lanigan, " would do well not to meddle again with Irish history until he shall have learned something more about it." It must be admitted that Dr. Milner, in his otherwise valuable work, rather provoked these retorts, for in his ' 6 In- quiry into certain Vulgar Opinions regarding the Anti- quities of Ireland," he says: " Most of the writers who enlighten Ireland at the present day, in religious as well as in profane literature, are Englishmen." Although the great Milner was never more at home than when describing the antiquities of Winchester, addressing the clergy of the Midland District, or handling points of religious controversy, it was evident that the classic apothegm, Ne sutor ultra crepidam, applied to him when he failed to leave Ireland to the Irish. Dr. Lanigan handled Milner, and the other authors with whom he differed, roughly. Indeed it seems to us that an adherence to the style of " under- statement" would have made some of his corrections more effective and striking. But it was a blemish of the day to call things by their right names, and Dr. Lanigan followed the example of O'Connell and Cobbett. It is right to 230 WITS AND WOETHIES I add that to Dr. Milner as a writer of polemic power, Dr. Lanigan always bore willing testimony. (See his Introduction to the " Protestant Apology," p. xxix.) If Dr. Lanigan had rather a rough way of seizing on his prey, it must be said in his own vindication, that 66 the cat in gloves catches no mice." Nothing, in- deed, can be more impartial than the distribution of his critical acumen and severity. We have seen how no mistaken feeling of esprit du corps prevented Lani- gan from lashing his priestly contemporaries in historic literature. If he assailed Drs. Leland and Ledwich* of the Church of England, he also attacked the Rev. Dr. Lingard, who had already retorted on his critics, Dr. John Allen and Rev. Mr. Todd, with a telling strength of retaliation that seemed to fit the motto, Nemo me impune lacessit. No contemporary in kindred litera- ture was spared — unless, perhaps, "William Monck Mason, who, in 1820, produced " The History and Antiquities of St. Patrick's Church from 1190 to 1819." Lanigan's analytical powers of mind had sunk, before the publication of Mr. Mason's work, or he should probably have fared no better than his neigh- bours. Eleury's Ecclesiastical History has always been a favourite authority with persons of Gallican views ; but Dr. Lanigan, who was unfairly accused of holding such sympathies, gave him no quarter. At page 215, vol. iv., he applies the epithets " nonsense" and "lie" to some of Eleury's flights ; and at page 269 he ac- cuses him of suppression, disingenuousness, and an absence of discrimination — a grave indictment against any historian. For examples of Dr. Lanigan's power in argument, the reader might refer to vol. i., pp. 130- 182, where he handles Colgan ; and to pp. 152, 157, 174-5, 177, 133, and 186, in which Probus, Usher, the Bollandists, and others meet more than their match. * Ledwich deserved little clemency if, as has been alleged by Mr. Mooney in his History, he "was originally a Catholic, who calum- niated his former creed and traduced his country. " DR. LAKfGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 231 But lie had other tasks in hand besides strangling the hydra-headed bulls and blunders of Archdall and Ledwich. To perform efficiently the duties of a patriotic historian of Irish ecclesiology, Dr. Lanigan found it desirable to collect not only every tract and document that he could meet with, written upon the subject of our national Church history, but also the works of many British and Continental writers, in- cluding Bede, the Bollandists, the collectors of German history, Canisius, Muratori, Ughelli, &c., who occa- sionally have discussed points of Irish ecclesiastical history, and treated of the many ancient Irish saints who for ages continued to instruct other nations. To Muratori Dr. Lanigan confessed himself indebted for having made pubic the substance of a very ancient manuscript in the Irish character, which puts beyond dispute the existence of St. Patrick. This important document, now preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, is pronounced by the eminent authority, Mont- faucon, to be upwards of a thousand years old. With a view to show that the Irish Church, in its earlier stages, had no connexion with the Church of Rome, the existence of St. Patrick had been vehemently de- nied by Protestant polemics, and the acts attributed to the great Apostle were flippantly condemned as daring forgeries. In proving the existence of the one, and divesting the other of many fabulous appendages, Dr. Lanigan occupied the greater portion of his first volume. He proved that the Christian doctrine, preached originally to the Irish at their conversion from paganism, was perfectly identical with that taught at Borne. As regards the unity between the Church of Ireland and that of the Roman Church, Dr. Lanigan showed that the doctrine and discipline of the former had continued uninterruptedly for several suc- cessive ages, during which she never substantially de- viated from the practices of that church which acknow- ledges the Pope as its visible head. Some peculiarity 232 WITS AND WORTHIES : in the administration of the sacraments, its matri- monial regulations, the system of its hierarchy, and the mode of providing for the clergy, no doubt existed, which the author took much pains to amply discuss and explain. This he conceived to be most necessary, as it had long been customary with a certain class of authors to labour to impress the world with an opinion that the Irish, previous to the Norman invasion, were in a state of absolute barbarism. With some devotees who failed to share largely that most uncommon of gifts, common sense, Dr. Lanigan fell into disfavour, for the energetic way in which he swept away a number of long-cherished fables inter- woven with the history of some of Ireland's most sainted sons. Dr. Lanigan felt that, as the reli- gion of which he was a minister stood upon a rock, it w 7 as desirable to cast off some unwholesome herbage that had grown near its side, even although many pretty flowers had necessarily to be sacrificed in the process. Dr. Lanigan 's book, although professedly an "Ec- clesiastical History of Ireland," introduced the reader occasionally to other lands. Of the numerous missions of the Irish preachers of the Christian faith in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and other nations, and of the many religious establish- ments founded by Irish hands in these countries, a full account was given, deduced from the best authorities. "When we consider Ireland's time-honoured reputation for literature and sanctity, it is, perhaps, surprising that for more than one thousand years her history should have remained unwritten. Although ample materials had survived the devastating hand of bar- barism, no connected history of the Irish Church had appeared until the publication of Dr. Lanigan's work. "These documents," he observed, " are widely scat- tered, and are principally to be found in the decrees of synods and councils, the bulls and briefs of the Popes, DB. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES 233 the rules of the ancient monks, the epistles of bishops, the registries of our churches, the annals of the nation, and the lives of our saints. Of these materials, some have been published by Colgan, Fleming, Wadding, Usher, Ward, Ware, and Burke. Others — principally written in Irish, containing matters of the utmost im- portance to our national history, and tending to eluci- date the records and antiquities of various Celtic nations — are, for want of proper encouragement to translate and publish them, still suffered to remain in MS., a prey to moths and vermin, and must in a few years more, unless timely care be taken to prevent it, become irrecoverably lost to the world." It must also be remembered that the few published books connected with ecclesiastical history had become so scarce, as to be hardly accessible. Being mostly in the Latin tongue, moreover, they were not adapted to the perusal of the general reader. Wonderful as Dr. Lanigan's research and multi- farious illustrations must be considered, his skill of analysis and accuracy of erudition were still more won- derful. The work contained, perhaps, too large a mass of notes to present an artistic appearance ; but if not a neatly-formed mosaic, it was a strongly-built tower, which no assault could shake. Some peevish critics were found to object that " these notes consti- tuted a very labyrinth, wherein the mind grows bewil- dered, and often loses sight of the principal figure or figures." But, on the other hand, it was impossible to view without admiration the depth of Dr. Lanigan's sagacity, and the comprehensiveness of that grasp of thought ere it lost its tension; while some kindly friends saw even grace in the curving digressions which frequently marked his up-hill progress ; and though the widening flood of his discourse often ran to a con- siderable distance, it always swept majestically round again to the original point of departure. These multifarious notes were nearly unavoidable. 234 WITS AND WORTHIES : • " On account of the vast number of disquisitions/ ' writes our author, " necessary for wiping away the numerous fables, correcting the anachronisms, and overthrowing the misrepresentations by which our ancient Church history has been darkened and almost overwhelmed, a large part of the work has been necessarily thrown into notes, placed respectively after each section of the text. By adopting this mode, the thread of the histo- rical narrative is preserved entire, which would other- wise be interrupted and broken if such inquiries were inserted in the body of the work." Containing, as it did, a complete summary of the many canons of the ancient Irish Church inaccessible to the generality of readers, this history was invalu- able. Thomas Moore, whom Lanigan spared, accuses him of suppression in one or two instances ; but the charge was made after Dr. Lanigan's death, and we should like to have seen the ecclesiastical historian's reply to the Bard of Erin. Speaking of the Synod of Kells, Moore says (vol. ii., p. 191) : " It was surely unworthy of Dr. Lanigan, besides being short-sighted as a matter of policy, to suppress all mention, as he has done, in his account of this council, of the above enactment of the marriage and concubinage of the clergy.'' The inference that Dr. Lanigan was prompted, by an esprit du corps, to cloak the im- moralities which had, at a remote period, sullied some ecclesiastical sections, is groundless, for we find him touching unreservedly on this delicate point in the fourth volume of his " Ecclesiastical History," pp. 265, 271, 387. We may add, as a counterpoise to Moore's inuendo tending to impugn the morals of the ancient Irish priests, the following remarkable testimony of Giraldus Cambrensis, who had gone so far as to accuse them of too free an indulgence in the pleasures of conviviality : " The clergy of that country are highly to be praised for their religion ; and amongst other virtues their chastity forms a peculiar feature." DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 235 And again, Hoc pro miraculo duel potest quod ubi vina dominantur, Venus non re gnat. Giraldus, it would appear, was an unwilling witness in favour of the Irish clergy, for Dr. Lanigan devotes some space to a refutal of what he designates his " malignity." The chastity of the clergy in those remote days is the more remarkable when we remember that no opposi- tion church was then reigning, to put them, as Lanigan would quaintly say, " on their p's and q's." A rival priesthood, ready to point the finger of reproach at every vulnerable point in the ranks of their sacerdotal neighbours, is not without its advantages — although our Lord himself has said : " Holy Father, keep them in thy name, whom thou hast given to me, that they may be one, as you and I are one" CHAPTER XXXIII. THE BOUND TOWERS. * The pillar towers of Ireland, how wondrously they stand By the lakes and rushing rivers, through the valleys of our land ! In mystic file, through the isle, they lift their heads sublime, These grey old pillar temples — these conquerors of Time." D. Florence MacCarthy. Since Lanigan lived and laboured, an immense flood of light has been shed on the history of Ireland, thanks to the investigations of O'Donovan, O'Curry, and other Celtic scholars ; and yet we are not aware that anything he has written has been invalidated by recent discoveries ; or is at all inconsistent with the present advanced state of knowledge on the sub- ject. The same cannot be said of his patron, General Vallancey, and other conscientious workers, whose theories have been utterly prostrated amidst the un- justifiable derision of those who ought to maintain an attitude of sterner dignity. Perhaps this much, 236 WITS AND WORTHIES : however, may without impropriety he said — that the once luminous labours of Vallancey have since melted into moonshine, while the patient researches of the priest remain surrounded by an enduring halo, long destined, we hope, to throw light upon Ireland's early history. Dr. Lanigan's work Las, on the whole, well stood the test of time and the information supplied by recent discoveries. Eugene O'Carry's able work, extending to upwards of 700 pages, "The MS. Materials of Irish History 5 ' — one which specially deals with the ec- clesiastical domain — fails to indicate any error of date or fact upon the part of Dr. Lanigan, although by no means unwilling to criticise him severely, as the gene- ral tone of the work warrants us in assuming. The only two references to Dr. Lanigan in that work are hostile, and take exception to him, not on the score of error, but merely as to his taste or style. Mr. O'Curry complains that Dr. Lanigan's work, and all others which have followed in its wake, " are mere digests of Irish ecclesiastical history, omitting all the more important historical and social details which give con- sistency," &c. (p. 647). Bat when it is remembered that Dr. Lanigan's work occupies four portly volumes in coming down to merely the beginning of the thirteenth century, it would have required an Encyclo- pedia in extent to press into his narrative the mass of social details suggested by his censor, Mr. O'Curry. At p. 341, Dr. Lanigan, while styled by Mr. O'Curry " a clear and able, but often too dogmatic writer," is blamed for never missing an opportunity to deprecate* Colgan's credulity for giving to the world, in his "Acta Sanctorum," in their original simplicity, a number of lives of the Irish saints which Dr. Lanigan considered * The word used by Mr. O'Curry is " scoff" — the phrase applied to the unbelieving Jews, and which certainly does not come with the best grace from one who takes Dr. Lanigan to task for his occasional warmth of expression. DR. TiANTOANj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 287 full of legends. Bat as it is no article of faith with Catholics to believe in such miracles, Dr. Lanigan seems to have rejected altogether several of those noticed by Colgan ; and as regards the taunt of being f< dogmatical," it is no very crushing reproach to apply it to one who professionally taught dogmatic theology and dogmatic philosophy, and was proud of his pro- ficiency in both. Mr. 0' Curry blames Dr. Lanigan for thus " assuming the office of censor, and leaving the world to rest satisfied with what he decided to be true." It must be allowed, however, that a Doctor of Divinity seems, after all, a better authority to decide upon the credibility of alleged miracles and ecclesias- tical statements than a layman — even although one of the worthiest of men and ablest of Celtic philologists, which all who knew 0' Curry will readily pronounce him. Dr. Lanigan' s idiosyncracy was very peculiar, and his outspoken repudiation of some of the almost incredible stories of Colgan — a liberty quite allowable to Catholics — proved a useful safety-valve to one who held some almost indomitable opinions on delicate points of Gallican theology. One mistake, certainly, on the part of Dr. Lanigan, though not a very great one, has been detected by the scrutinizing eye of Dr. O'Donovan in the " Annals of the Four Masters" (vol. ii., p. 53). He denies that Muirchertach, the father of St. Laurence 0' Toole, was Prince of Imaile, and pronounces it to be a " mistake" on the part of Dr. Lanigan. If Dr. Lani- gan is wrong, Mr. D'Alton in his "Memoir of Arch- bishop O'Toole" (page 51) is also wrong; and the same remark applies to Moore's " History of Ireland," vol. ii., p. 308. It is only surprising that, considering the painful state of Lanigan's head, and the multifari- ous details with which he was obliged to deal, he should not have made more oversights. It must have been a great gladiatorial struggle between the muscular exer- tion to master the realization of his plan and the 238 WITS AND WORTHIES : efforts of his cruel enemy — brain disease — to prostrate his power. The victory so far lay with Lanigan, but the effort cost him his life. As regards the great question of the Round Towers of Ireland — their Christian or pagan origin — opinions may differ as to whether Dr. Lanigan was correct in assigning to them the latter position ; but we hesitate to agree with those who consider that Dr. Petrie, on the more popular side, has conclusively settled the question. This eminent archaeologist, in his able work on 66 The Round Towers and Early Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland," confesses that he found Dr. Lanigan's arguments the toughest obstacle with which he had to contend. "I have next to notice the arguments," writes Dr. Petrie, "in support of this hypothesis of the eastern origin of the towers, of a writer who was greatly superior in solid learning, honesty, and general acute- ness to any of those whose reasonings I have hitherto combated — namely Dr. Lanigan." And the men to whom he pronounces Lanigan to have been greatly superior were Lynch, author of " Cambrensis Eversus;" "Walsh, Molyneux, Ledwich, Vallancey, and Beauford of the "Collectanea De Rebus Hibernicis." Lanigan, although he had not the advantage of access to the important MSS. and annals which have since been unlocked, was vastly in advance of the views of those who antecedently and contemporaneously trod the same path, or w r andered through the same green field. As to the Round Towers, we do not go so far as to say that Dr. Lanigan has undeniably proved their pagan, any more than that Dr. Petrie has conclusively proved their Christian origin. After carefully reading the arguments of Drs. Lanigan and Petrie, the most that can be, we think, conceded is, that a great deal is to be said on both sides ; and after studying their logic, the reader, if he be of a frank and unbiassed nature, will probably admit that the question remains DR. LANIGAN 3 HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 239 pretty much as it was before the marshalling of such lore, and that, after all, the origin of those interesting temples may be compared to the indistinct glimpse of the fabulously submerged towers, beautifully expressed by Moore in reference to another train of thought : 44 On Lough Neagh's banks as the fisherman strays, "When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the Round Towers of other days In the waves beneath him shining. Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, Catch a glimpse of the days that are over; Thus, s : ghing, look through the waves of time For the long-faded glories they cover/' But it may be said that Dr. Petrie must be right and Lanigan wrong in their respective theories, for the collective wisdom of the Royal Irish Academy, in the year 1830, awarded to Petrie a prize for his book. This decision, however, cannot be regarded as con- clusive, or the tribunal which made the award infallible ; for it is on record that in a paper written by Miss L. C. Beaufort, and which also obtained the gold medal offered by the Royal Irish Academy, it is main- tained that the Pound Towers of Ireland were built at a period antecedent to the promulgation of Christianity in Ireland, and were at once observatories and de- positories of the sacred fire preserved by the worshippers of Baal. Indeed the council, as is not generally known, were far from unanimous in awarding the prize of £50 and gold medal to Dr. Petrie — a fact even traceable in their allotment, at the same time, of a second prize of £20 to Mr. O'Brien, who, adopting the pagan theory, ran full tilt against him. Dr. Petrie was an honoured member of the council ; and from its Journal of 5th November, 1830, we learn that, curiously enough, it was he himself proposed the question as regards " the best essay on the Round Towers of Ireland." It may also be well to bear in mind that the decision come to by a majority of the council of the Royal Irish Academy 240 WITS AND WORTHIES : in pronouncement of the accuracy of Petrie's views, was made at a period antecedent to the present ad- vanced state of Celtic knowledge. It has been said that Dr. Petrie's long-promised second volume on the Round Towers having never appeared, would seem to indicate a dearth of argumentative resource ; but the inference is hardly just towards him, for its non- publication is said to be entirely due to the Academy. The reason of this inactivity seems involved in some mystery ; and it is somewhat curious to record that the woodcuts meant for Petrie's second volume, drawn by his own pencil, and cut most artistically, were bought by Mr. Marcus Keane, and used by him in his " Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland," for the illustration of a hypothesis utterly opposed to Petrie's, but very much in unison with Dr. Lanigan's. The recent publication of this pretentious-looking book, and of Mr. H. O'Neill's " Fine Arts and Civilisation of Ancient Ireland," tends to show that Dr. Petrie did not, as has been repeatedly stated, establish con- clusively the Christian origin of the Round Towers, or the alleged untenability of Dr. Lanigan's theory as regards their pagan uses. Sir Win. Beetham, an indefatigable labourer in the field of Irish archaeology, openly adopted O'Brien's theory, and rejected Petrie's. Mr. O'Neill concludes his chapter on what he is pleased to style Dr. Petrie's " mistakes" with, " and so, reader, these mysterious monuments belong to the night of time." The same tide of opinion has recently taken an interesting turn in the form of that picturesque novelty, open-air lectures at Clondalkin, the Seven Churches, and elsewhere, by Messrs. Palmer and Dar- ling. It has been stated that some works published since Lanigan wrote materially help to strengthen his argu- ments in favour of the pagan origin, and the instance has been cited by Mr. Palmer and others, that, as the Ulster Annals record, a.d. 448, sixteen years after DR. LAXIGAX, HIS LIFE AXD TIMES. 241 the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, no less than fifty- seven Round Towers fell by earthquake in Ulster alone. This is certainly a startling statement, and Dr. O'Conor's edition of the " Annals," no doubt, chronicles it (p. 2) ; but having recently examined the original MS., in Latin, preserved in Trinity College, Dublin, we may add that the fall of Towers is said to have occurred in "different places," and we are not explicitly told that Ireland was the scene of the disaster. Nevertheless, there is much tough argument re- maining to strengthen the pagan theory. The whole of the available evidence for arriving at a dispassionate conclusion has yet, perhaps, to be gathered, sifted, and weighed. Thus, in Mr. Palgrave's recently published ' Travels in Arabia," it appears that he was forcibly struck by observing, depicted on the walls of cottagers' dwellings, artistic representations of structures perfectly identical with the Round Towers of Ireland. These national monuments, doubly interesting from the cloud of mystery in which their origin is wrapped, seemed to Dr. Lanigan more Eastern in their aspect than suggestive of Western worship. Several similar towers are to be found in Hindostan, and no Christian country but Ireland can boast of possessing them. "We are not disposed to attach any weight to the, at first sight, startling argument on which so much stress has been laid, that the Round Towers of Ireland must be Christian because they are generally found casting their tall shadows over the ground already dotted by the ruins of proved Christian temples. But this ap- parently tough logic is thoroughly soluble. The early missionaries of Christianity admittedly took possession of the sanctuaries of paganism, and converted them into places of Christian worship. And this is a course not only natural but usual among the preachers and promulgators of new creeds. Such persons have uni- formly erected their churches on the sites previously 8* 242 WITS AND WORTHIES : endeared to the people by religious associations. We commonly find a Protestant church set up beside the ivy-mantled Eound Tower and ruined chapel. York Minster, and St. Paul's, London, flourish on the site of pagan temples. When Constantine became a Christian, the high places on which the multitude witnessed pagan fetes were abolished, and walls where- in Apollo received blind worship were transformed into temples for the adoration of the Most High. Although beneath the dignity of history to attach importance to it, perhaps it may be added, as not uninteresting, that Winder, the Glendalough guide, used to tell, as the firm conviction of the people, traditionally handed down from generation to generation, that the tower there was used by fire-worshippers, and is so erected as to command a peculiar view of the setting sun. And it will be in the recollection of old tourists that when the aged Glendalough guide, George Irwin, es- corted visitors, he informed them of a tradition which states that the priests were wont to ascend the tower and cry, " Beal ! Beal ! Beal!" from the four holes, announcing the appearance of the sun to summon the people to daily prayer. All this seems to support Dr. Lanigan's idea, who in the thirty- seventh chapter of his fourth volume writes : " That fire was in pagan times an object of worship, or at least great veneration in Ireland, and particularly the sun, which was considered the greatest of all fires, is an indubitable fact. Now the lower part of an Irish round tower might have answered very well for a temple — that is, a place in which was an altar, whereon the sacred fire was preserved, while the middle floors could have served as habitations for the persons employed in watching it. The highest part of the tower was an observatory intended for celestial obser- vations — as, I think, evidently appears from the four windows being placed directly opposite to the four car- dinal points. The veneration in which the pagan Irish DR. LANIGAN 3 HIS LIFE ASD TIMES. 243 held the heavenly bodies, and, above all, the sun, must have led them to apply to astronomical pursuits, which were requisite also for determining the length of their years, the solstitial and equinoxial times, and the precise periods of their annual festivals. I find it stated that the doors of most of these towers face the west. If this be correct, it will add an argument to show that they contained fire-temples ; for the Magians always advanced from the west side to worship the fire.'' Every line of the foregoing, in accordance with Lanigan's usual system, is fortified by authorities, in the form of copious foot-notes. Between Ireland and the East, he showed, a frequent intercourse subsisted in days of yore. D' Alton is thoroughly of Lanigan's opinion. (See his " History of the County of Dublin," p. 922, published subsequently to Dr. Petrie's book.) The same remarks apply to Moore, and also to Miss Cusack's " History of Ireland." Dr. Petrie's idea is that these towers were used for cloictheachs, or bel- fries — a theory already propounded by an archaeologist of the seventeenth century ; but it has been pithily observed by Mr. D 'Alt on " that it would be hard to conjecture why Christians should build their churches of such frail materials as wicker and wood,* and erect everlasting belfries, or hermitages of stone, at such a vast expense as must necessarily have been expended on them." "But," as has been argued, " how can they be pagan when a cross has been found over the doorway of some of those Round Towers ?" This argument * Kildare signifies church of the oak, but the Round Tower beside it is built of sterner stuff. It has been stated by Mr. Eyrton, an architect, that a mason conversant with his business would know at a glance that the Round Towers were built at a period antecedent to the Christian era. It would indeed seem that their masonwork and origin alike bid defiance to the laborious probes of the investigator ; and their downfall shall probably never take place until involved in the common ruin of the universe.— W. J. F. 244 WITS AND WORTHIES : not only proves nothing for the advocates of the Christ tian origin of the cloictheach, or belfry theory, but it absolutely favours Dr. Lanigan's views. We read in the lives of St. Patrick that he cut the name of our Lord, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin respectively, on three pillar stones that had been raised by the pagans at Magh Selga, near Elphin — "lesus, Soter, Sal- vator." Mr. Hodder Westropp, while agreeing with Dr. Petrie as to the Christian origin of the Eound Towers, differs from him in supposing that they may have been used as belfries, and advances the notion that they were erected in cemeteries as memorials of the dead, and were used as beacons to guide funeral processions to the churchyard. Thus, we again see that the question is yet far from settled, and that the origin of the Round Towers is as indistinctly defined as their alleged outlines in Lough Neagh. Clonmacnoise. It is hard to say how far Dr. Petrie's views on this point would be modified, had his valuable life and ripe experience been longer spared to Ireland. A symptom of modification is traceable in one of his last letters, DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 245 addressed to Lord Dunraven, who said : ts I hope you appreciate the cool way Parker ignores your views of the dates of the Glendalough buildings." " Well, he does so," replies Petrie, " at least to some extent, and coolly enough, but not I think unfairly. In the very last conversation I had the pleasure of holding with you, I told you that in many instances my opinions re- specting the ages of ornamented churches were changed or modified ; and as the most striking instance of such change, I distinctly named the ornamented buildings of Glendalough. The truth is, that very many years ago I had come to the conclusion that my speculations — for they were only such— as to the age of some of these buildings were not sustainable But I confess what removed all doubt upon the subject from my mind was a passage which I met with some years ago in reading the life of St. Laurence O'Toole in Messingham's Flo rile gium — a passage which had es- caped my notice, or been forgotten, when I was writing ' The Towers.' "* Dr. Petrie 's letter, which is a long one, concludes with an allusion to the flood of resurrectionary light which has recently burst from our long- entombed ar- chives, and furnishes, at the same time, so pleasing an evidence of the toleration with which that kindliest of men viewed the expression of conflicting opinion, that it allays every scintilla of remorse on our part, for having co-operated in it. He was, indeed, a most amiable man— though how capable he was of wielding the weapon of ridicule in archaeological controversy, his scathing attacks upon Vallancey, Ledwich, and O'Brien show. " Thus, then," concludes Petrie, " you will see that I have no right to complain that Parker has dealt unfairly with me." * " The Life and Labours of George Petrie. LL.D., by William Stokes, M.D., D.C.L.," p. 182. It is right to add, however, that Dr. Stckes, in this deeply interesting volume, defends Petrie's view on the Towers as warmly as we have tried to sustain Lanigan s. 246 WITS AND WORTHIES : CHAPTEE XXXIV. CLERICAL CELIBACY — CENSORS. " Be to his virtues very kind, Be to his faults a little blind." Matthew Phior. " If I chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by. Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow." David Everett. 1769 — 1813. In a previous chapter we referred to Dr. Lanigan's lay critics ; his ecclesiastical censors now demand a word. The only serious exception which has been taken to the great work of Dr. Lanigan is not on the ground of doctrinal error ; but simply some passages in which he handled a question of sacerdotal discipline. An able ecclesiastical historian and critic, the Rev. Sylvester Malone, M.R.I.A., who has been educated in the more modern and progressive school of theology, observes, in the third chapter of his able Church His- tory of Ireland:* "In Dr. Lanigan' s four learned volumes the only serious weakness betrayed by him was in dealing with an objection against clerical celibacy." The passage thus impugned is not quoted by Mr. Malone, but it may be found in the fourth volume of Dr. Lanigan's work (p. 365), and is to the following effect : " I have not met with a single instance of a * It has been graciously observed by the Rev. Mr. Malone, ad- dressing the present writer: " For some years it was an object of my ambition to do something in continuation of his great * Ecclesiastical History/ I have come down to the Reformation. I have had the good luck to learn from many scholars, among others from the Rev. Dr. Todd, the flattering testimony, ' that it was a worthy supplement of Lanigan/ But the more I study the learned ecclesiastical histo- rian, the greater necessity I feel of additional care and research, in order to be, even in the most imperfect way, a continuation of the illustrious author." DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES'. 247 married priest in Ireland until the arrival of the Anglo- Normans and Welsh, among whom such priests were to be found. Yet I allow that the words of the canon seem to favour the marriage of the Irish clergy — at least of the orders inferior to the priesthood, although they do not agree with other documents. The Abbot Conimian, who was an Irishman, and in all probability lived in the seventh century, has, in his penitential, a canon condemning the marriage, not only of a monk, but likewise of a clerk, after he had devoted himself to God, and sentencing the delinquent to a penance of ten years, three of which on bread and water, besides abstaining from the use of matrimony. There may have been a variety of practices in Ireland re- lative to this matter, but some other arguments, be- sides the quoted passage of the sixth Irish canon, would be necessary to prove that our priests were allowed to have wives. Perhaps it will be said that, although a priest was not permitted to marry after his ordination, he might have been allowed to retain a wife whom he had before it, as now practised in the Greek Church, and that thus this canon may be re- conciled with that of Commian, who mentions after he had devoted himself to God. Bat I find no reasons for admitting that this practice was ever received in Ireland, where, on the contrary, it seems to have been condemned. This much is certain, that not only in the times of Giraldus Cambrensis, but likewise as far back as those of Lanfranc, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, there were no Irish married priests; for, if there were, he would undoubtedly have taken notice of a practice so contrary to the then general discipline of the Western Church, as he did of other Irish customs, some of which were of much less importance." If some acute church critics affirm that passages in the foregoing do not exhibit the vigour of Lanigan's usual inferences, it must be remembered that when 248 WITS AND WORTHIES : the fourth volume of his History was published, his intellect had confessedly softened. Indeed, the later chapters of his book, like his food, were badly digested ; and exhibited some symptoms of eccentricity ; but they are full of cleverness — and strength also, as wit- ness the muscular grip with which he brings Ledwich to the ground. Possibly Dr. Lanigan dwelt too much on his favorite thought, until it at last assumed some unhealthy cha- racteristics. Cardinal Wiseman, in his lecture on " Self-Culture," has written powerfully on the danger of allowing a favorite idea to dwell for any length of time in the mind : " It had been said, and he believed with truth, that there was hardly a mind so strong as not to have within it the possible seed of insanity, and that seed might be found in this form — 6 a single idea.' " But all thinkers may not have fully agreed with the Cardinal when he added : " The moment a favorite thought began to haunt the mind, when it returned again and again with new vigour, and the mind took a pleasure in dwelling upon it, it should be checked without a moment's hesitation, and cut away." Happily for the Irish Church, and for the interests of archaeology and ecclesiology, Dr. Lanigan did not lop off all impulse to his favorite study. The Dublin Review, a high ecclesiastical authority, observes (vol. xxiii., page 489) : " In the beginning of the present century Dr. Lanigan, a Catholic priest, rivalled the fame of the most illustrious of his order who had written before him, in his ' Ecclesiastical History of Ireland/ This great work created a spirit of inquiry that, combined with other causes, has resulted in the establishment of the Archaeological and the Celtic societies, w 7 hich are vieing with each other in the publication of our ancient annals, illustrated by the research of O'Donovan, Hardiman, and others of scarcely inferior acquirements." The late Kev. P. J. Carew, Professor of Divinity DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 249 at Maynootb, and afterwards widely venerated as Arch- bishop of Calcutta, published in one octavo volume an " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, from the Introduc- tion of Christianity into that Kingdom to the Thirteenth Century/' in which he fluently availed himself of all the slow and tortuous researches of the toil-worn Lanigan ; and the same remark, to some extent, applies to the similar work of Fr. Brennan, O.S.F. Dr. Carew, although he endeavoured to show the necessity for a more condensed and popular history, bore willing testimony to Dr. Lanigan's merits : " Having had occa- sion," he writes, " to collect historical evidence of the communion of the primitive Church of Ireland with the Apostolic See, it became necessary for me to ex- amine the principal writers upon Irish ecclesiastical antiquity. By this examination I was convinced that the profound learning and discernment of Dr. Lanigan entitled his history of the Irish Church to be preferred to that of any other writer on the same subject." The illustrious J. K. L., who as a critic was not dis- posed to spare a friend any more than a foe, is more cordial in his praise, and quotes largely from Dr. Lanigan's volumes. In replying to the Rev. William Phelan, he adds : " Let him cast his eye once more over the valuable work of Dr. Lanigan — a work which for extensive knowledge, deep research, and accurate criticism, surpasses, in my opinion, all that has ever been produced by the Established Church, collectively or individually, in Ireland, Usher's labours alone ex- cepted." This was written in 1824 ; and Dr. Lanigan's work has, on the whole, well stood the test of the balf-a-century which has since elapsed. The two or three inaccuracies which have been discovered must be honestly told. The Bight Bev. Dr. Moran, now Bishop of O.-sory, nephew of and late private secretary to the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, observes, in his "Essays on the early Irish Church" (p. 46) : " The most illustrious name on the roll of ecclesiastical historians 250 WITS AND WOKTHIES : of Ireland is that of Eev. John Lanigan. His critical remarks have contributed more than those of any other writer to illustrate the early life of our Apostle." But he adds that, in wishing to establish a favorite theory, he confounded St. Patrick with Sen-Patrick, another Irish Saint famed for his virtues and miracles, who was not only contemporaneous with St. Patrick, but had acted as his tutor. Little was known of Sen- Patrick when Dr. Lanigan wrote, but the Festology of iEngus has since shed a light upon his history. Father O'Hanlon, the learned biographer of St. Malachy O'Morghair, and of so many other Irish saints that he may be fitly styled the Alban Butler of Ireland, quotes Dr. Lanigan in nearly every page, and has failed to detect any graver inaccuracy than " incorrectly assigning the birth of St. Malachy to the year 1095 instead of to the previous year;" but Dr. Lanigan, we think, guarded himself against criticism by assigning the birth, " in all probability," to that year. See pp. 39 and 61 of the " Life of St. Malachy," and p. 8 also, where Mr. O'Hanlon notices the same slight inaccuracy, and, with considerable power of analysis, impales it. Eulogies of Dr. Lanigan have not been confined to Catholic prelates and writers. A belligerent opponent of Dr. Doyle, the late Dr. Ellington, Protestant Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, whom Dr. Lanigan had rather severely taken to task in his Introduction to the " Protestant Apology" (pp. xxx. to xxxv. and cxlvii.), held a high opinion of the " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," and recommended it, with a due reservation, to the students of Trinity College, Dublin, of which ho was at that time the Provost. Its learning and ability he pronounced to be of a high order. He regretted that Irish ecclesiastical history had not been cultivated in the divinity course of the University. This want, we may add, has been since in some degree supplied by Dr. King's " Church History of Ireland," which — DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 251 although strongly anti-Catholic in its tone, and hostile to Lanigan for opining that St. Patrick believed in purgatory — recognises his " erudite" volumes as " a standard work." It is somewhat remarkable, consider- ing the bias of Dr. King, that he should deliberately reject Usher's chronology, and adopt Lanigan's ; and it has been observed by a contemporary critic, that re- jecting Usher on chronology is something like rejecting Blackstone on a question of jurisprudence. A historian of far hisrher mark than Dr. King is the Eev. S. Baring o o o Gould, an English beneficed clergyman, and ecclesias- tical writer of celebrity. 66 1 take Dr. Lanigan as my authority for dates," he writes, " and I have a great opinion of his accuracy." The alphabetical index, which occupied one hundred pages, at the close of the work, was in itself a task of some severity and skill ; and being a sort of condensed history, might be read with advantage by those who could not spare time to peruse the entire work. Alphabetical indexes were not, in Lanigan's day, the frequent literary luxury which they have since become. " Will an author," asks Mr. Allibone, " let the toil of years be lost to a large part of the world — for lost it surely is — rather than add a few weeks of labour to make the whole available "?" " So essential," remarks Lord Campbell, " did I consider an index to be to every book, that I proposed to bring a bill into Parliament to deprive an author who publishes a book without an index, of the privilege of copyright, and moreover to submit him, for his offence, to a pecuniary penalty." By an expedient more ingenious than ingenuous, well known to the trade, and v. T hich deserved the pillory or the penalty much more richly than the omission of an index, "a second edition," of the " Ecclesiastical History" was issued, after Dr. Lanigan's depth, by Mr. J. dimming, 16 Lower Qnnond-quay, Dublin. In this instance, the title-page was alone altered. 252 WITS AND WORTHIES I CHAPTER XXXV. STIRRING MEMORIES OF THE PAST. " Dancing through the fern leaves, Flows the Tolka river; Rippling rise its small waves, Running on for ever. Through the woods of Finglas Like bright serpent coiling, Frothing through her shingles, Now it's madly boiling." E. F. F. (Unpublished.) Dr. Lanigan having got the incubus of his big History off his mind — to print which he had long regarded as a duty — he could ejaculate, with holy Simeon, " Now, Lord, dismiss thy servant in peace." This heavy unfulfilled responsibility had been for twenty years clinging to him, like the old man of the mountain on the back of Sinbad ; and, once emancipated from it, he certainly advanced towards temporary convalescence, to which the salubrious air and retirement of Finglas no doubt conduced. The neighbourhood abounded in historic associations, which invested with interest and attraction the fields through which he loved to ramble. They had been the resort of Addison,* Parnell, Tickell, Southern, Sheridan, Swift, Stella, t and Delany ; and upon its sward stood Ormond's camp, before the proud Confederate leader marched to the fatal battle of Kath- mines. Finglas had been the chief scene of action on the occasion of the siege which Roderic O'Connor laid * The pathway to a bathing-place on the Tolka, known by the un- inviting designation of " The Dead Man's Hole," is to this day called by the people " Addison's Walk." f Delville is still very much as it was in the days of Swift. In a re- tired grotto may be seen a fine medallion likeness of Stella, in excel- lent preservation, from the artistic hand of Mrs. Delany, with the in- scription, Fastigia despicit urbis, composed by Swift. Several old basement rooms are shown as the site of the private printing presses employed by Swift and Delany. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 253 to Dublin ; and here, in 1641, the soldiers of the Pale were attacked and beaten by Colonel Crawford. In Finglas lived the great hero, John Talbot, Lord Fur- nival. In Finglas the once potential Walter Fitz- simon, Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Deputy, Lord Chan- cellor,, and Convener of Parliaments, heaved his last sigh that he should have been among the deluded who espoused the cause of Lambert Simnel, and crowned him as Edward VI. And on the same spot previously another great Archbishop of Dublin, Fulk de Sandford, died. Through Finglas Cromwell's army hurried to the siege of Drogheda. Here, too, William halted, victorious, from the Boyne ; and in the old mansion of Finglas- wood James II. is traditionally said to have slept— doubtless a feverish and broken sleep — on the night of his final fatal defeat. But to the ecclesiastical student Finglas presented special interest, for it figures in the Bulls of Pope Clement III., Celestine, and Innocent. Every rood of Finglas had been already trod by its former vicar, Usher — a name highly interesting to Dr. Larigan, not only from the time of his early studies in Italy (p. 56, ante), but throughout the labour of his later life. Often Dr. Lanigan would read his office along the flowery banks of the winding Tolka, in which glittering struggles waged between trout and roach — cased in bright cuirass— for the dazzling fly of the palpitating angler. Standing on higher ground, where the air, laden with fragrance from the " Botanical Gardens," blew with still more refreshing purity, Lanigan would pause, perchance, to admire the distant peaks of "Wicklow, or cast an eye of interest on the closer object presented by the gambols of the villagers as they danced round the May-pole in the valley below— a relic of pagan times, like, as he said, the Round Towers of his researches. These thoughts were full of glow and sparkle, but sadder hues were occasionally shed, espe- cially when Dr. Lanigan surveyed the luxuriant lands 254 WITS AND WORTHIES : bequeathed in trust for the relief of once prosperous men reduced by vicissitude to want, but basely turned to personal aggrandisement by the false and fat trustee.* Sometimes he might be seen in those velvet lands later known as " The Bishop's Fields," breathing a prayer for the owner, Dr. Lindsay, who had done much for Irish archaeology. At other times he would pursue the path that led to the well popularly believed to have been blessed by St. Patrick; but with this plausible tra- dition the learned Doctor had no patience, and he took some trouble in demonstrating that it originated in one of Jocelyn's fables. t This path — at one time trod by pilgrims tendering homage to a holy well ; at another by fashion, rank, and hobbling gout, in quest of the pleasure or relief with which a favourite spa is sup- posed to be invested— is now deserted by all unless the lonely shepherd or the browsing goat. The virtues of the well would seem to have been long out of fashion, alike with the devout and the dyspeptic, notwith- standing that Dr. Eutty compares its magnesian tone to the waters of Malvern. The historic student, how- ever, may still be seen at times pursuing this deserted path, to explore the site of Ormond's camp, or the well-preserved walls of his magazine. * Mr. D'Alton, in his " History of the County Dublin," p. 378, informs us that Sir D. Bellingham, Lord Mayor of Dublin, granted lands near Finglas, which, in 1764, were valued at £200 per annum, " for the relief of poor debtors in the City and Four Courts Marshal- seas, and vested the same in the Clerk of the Crown, and one of the six clerks in Chancery, as trustees for that purpose. This laudable object, however, was never enforced, and the heirs of the trustees have appropriated the property." We directed the attention of William Gernon, Esq., Secretary to the Commissioners of Charitable Bequests, to the malappropriation in question ; but although the ablest lawyers have been consulted by the Board, it appears that the property cannot be rescued. Apparently as if to make some philanthropic atonement for this spoliation. Charles Frizelle of Dublin, an an- cestor of the author's family, bequeathed £200 in 1810 to trustees, who have faithfully applied the interest annually for the poor of Finglas. t " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol, i., p. 275. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 255 But men of peace and letters, rather than men of blood and battles, chiefly favoured this hamlet — from the year 807, when Flan Mac Kelly of Finglas, a famous anchorite and scribe, died, to the days of Parnell, King, Delany, and Swift. " I have just come from Finglas, where I have been drinking your health," writes Addison to Swift in 1710. Forgetting present sorrows in the contemplation of the past, Dr. Lanigan loved to wander through pictu- resque fields, fertile with bright memories, and to moralise on the mutability of human happiness and fame. Young was never so happy as when wandering solitary through a churchyard, and courting thoughts of gloom. Lanigan was also given to the society of the dead ; but he derived more than thoughts of gloom from the association. The old graveyard of Finglas, the happy asylum for the poor sufferers who at last died in Dr. Harty's so-called asylum, lay close by. To this rural cemetery, where Lanigan himself was destined ere long to sleep, he often bent his course, and mused among the graves of priests and prelates, apostles and apostates,* knights and patriots, mad- men and sages, and the rude forefathers of the hamlet. Here judges rest — judged according to their works — among the graves of some w r hose larcenies earned early death ; commanders, too, skilled in killing — at last laid low themselves! ; and shepherds sleep with the flock whom for forty years they had guarded with un- sleeping vigilance.! The good had passed away, but other losses were more legitimately deplored by Dr. Lanigan. He bemoaned the loss of that valuable memoir of St. Canice, which, as Usher records, had * The Rev. Samuel Mason, a Roman Catholic priest, having read his recantation in Christ Church, before Sir H. Sydney, received, in 1567, the living of Finglas; but, dying in the following year, was buried in this churchyard. f Baron Pocklington is interred here ; also Colonel Bridges, Cap- tain Flower, and others, whose military services are duly enumerated. { One stone over Father Benson records that for forty years he was the zealous pastor of Finglas. 256 WITS AND WORTHIES : long been preserved within Finglas Abbey ; and the old stone cross, defaced by the iconoclastic hands of The Cross of Finglas. Cromwell's soldiers, received, we may be assured, a tear of sympathy. Beneath the dark shelter of the yews planted by Canice's own hand, he thought of the terrible conse- quences which, Cambrensis tells us, pursued the English archers who sacrilegiously despoiled them to make bows. Sometimes the old man found himself in Donsoghly Castle — at other times in Drumcondra churchyard, where Grose and Grandon — both names dear to Ireland — sleep; and one day at this time, a black hearse, nodding its white plumes, might be seen wending its way thither, and enclosing the mortal part of a gifted young poet, Thomas Furlong, to whom Lanigan had often shown considerate attention when a reader at the Royal Dublin Society. Previous to his death in 1827, Lanigan occasionally met him at Fin- DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 257 glas, which the poet had often visited, and under the signature of " The Hermit in Ireland/' contributed some sparkling descriptions of its many sports to The London and Dublin Magazine for 1825. It is rather remarkable that, like Lanigan, Furlong was fond of wanderings a^d ponderings in the very district to which his body was consigned ; and his poem, " Upon Drumcondra-road I strolled," will long live. Another Finglas brooder, about this time, was the once noisy Watty Cox, now retired from the storm of politics. He outlived Lanigan by a few years, and re- ceived the last sacraments from the pastor of Finglas. The atmosphere of Finglas was holy and whole- some. Anciently a rural bishopric, the Annals of the Four Masters record the deaths of many of its abbots and prelates. In the year 1860, during some exca- vations at Finglas, a coffin was discovered containing the remains of a bishop in remarkable preservation, as if embalmed. The hand still grasped the crozier, and even the episcopal ring still shone upon the finger. The mitre and vestments were also in comparatively good preservation. A medical gentleman in the neigh- bourhood, more curious than reverential, anxious to ascertain whether any process of embalment had been pursued, disinterred the remains, and removed a por- tion of the face. The rector (who is by law custodian of the churchyard) very properly threatened legal pro- ceedings, and compelled the gentleman in question to replace the body and close the grave. The soil is indeed rich in what archaeologists call " finds." The stone cross, of which we have given a drawing, owes its re-erection to the Eev. Mr. Walsh, one of the authors of the History of Dublin, who having heard that it had been flung into a hole by Cromwell's soldiers, and covered with rubbish, dug up the ground until it came to light. This polished Irishman was vicar of Finglas during Lanigan's resi- dence—a circumstance which helped to impart addi- 9 258 WITS AND WORTHIES : tional attraction to the hamlet. The exhumation of the cross took place in 1816, and Lanigan was pro- bably present on that interesting occasion. Pastoral peace filled the place, broken only by the melodious chirping of birds, the distant tinkle of the sheep-bell, or the gentle murmur of the river, which, as Jocelyn tells us, St. Patrick crossed after perform- ing several miracles at Finglas. At eventide, 'tis true, an important and somewhat noisy visitor regularly came, presenting in its rapid, red, panoramic progress down the village hill a not uninteresting object. A merry bugle, raising distant echoes, announces the advent of the Antrim Royal Mail, its passengers from "the Black North" white with dust, and dashed by horses' foam, but with countenances joyously radiant at the prospect of a long and tedious journey soon ending, and " the honest welcome frank and free" of expectant friends in Dublin. The champing horses pause for a moment before a shebeen, to allow some weary traveller to wash the dust out of his throat; the boccagh receives his alms, and mutters "God-speed!" the guard cries " All right !" sees that the priming in his blunderbuss is safe ; and away they go again, now hid from view by interposing trees, while anon the scarlet and gold of the guard peep out rapidly here .and there among the interstices of their branches. The clatter of the horses' hoofs gradually dies away, and the neighbourhood once more relapses into a re- pose which the buzzing of the drone alone disturbs. If it were only for the advantages he derived from the quietude which soothed him at dusk to refreshing sleep, his residence at Finglas proved of undeniable benefit to him. His nerves had been previously much shattered ; and whilst he reposed in the beating heart of the city, slumber after slumber was cruelly broken by the midnight shriek of the lost one, the guttural howl of the watchman, or the rumble of hackney coaches as they hurried homeward from the rout. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 259 Without walking exercise, refreshing sleep could not well be hoped for, and the walks were therefore uninterruptedly continued. There can be no doubt that Dr. Lanigan — liking to wander over the haunts of the former wits and worthies who, as we learn from the Martyrology of Donegal, peopled the ancient col- lege and grounds of Glasnevin — would sometimes bend his course through those desolate fields destined to be- come, a few years later, the " Necropolis/' or City of the Dead. And, doubtless, had it been possible to take a prophetic view of the lofty round tower which, topped by a massive cross, now rises its pallid head above the mural slabs around, he would have lost all patience that archaeologists should commit so grave a blunder as to crown with the symbol of man's redemp- tion a structure which he felt he had himself proved to demonstration could only have been of pagan origin. Indeed, it would not very much surprise one to hear it stated by the hyperbolist, that with the same strange impulsiveness which made him start up in church and audibly dissent from a preacher's account of St. Pa- trick's birth-place, he should sometimes now turn in his grave hard by, and with his skeleton hands protest against the anomaly. Dr. Lanigan was not the only distinguished Irish- man who was an inmate of a lunatic asylum at Finglas then. Captain Wynne informed us that he visited, under similarly distressing circumstances, Harry Deane Grady, whose chief hallucination seemed to be that his wife, then living at the rate of £2,000 a-year in Mer- rion-square, had died twenty years before.* True wit, * His career at the bar, without being pre-eminently successful, forensically viewed, had been, owing to Grady's rare cunning, un- precedentedly profitable ; and his account books, now held by his son, prove that for many years he had been in receipt of a profes- sional income of £18,000 per annum. His daughters all married peers ; and in allusion to the sprigs of nobility who daily thronged his salon, his residence earned the appellation of u the House of Lords." 260 WITS AND WORTHIES : we are told, to madness is allied ; and Grady was a genuine wit, contributing his share to the hard hits then constantly interchanged between the Bar and the Bench. Lord Norbury, who lived near Finglas, and had earned an ugly sobriquet from his ill-disguised relish for a capital conviction, was once twitted by Grady thus : " The incident reminds me, my Lord, of a certain judge who was never known to weep but once, and that was in a theatre." " Deep tragedy, I suppose, Mr. Grady?" " No, indeed, my Lord ; it was at the 6 Beggars' Opera,' when Macheath was re- prieved !" This famous brow-beating judge, a Tipperary man like Lanigan, and noticed already, resided, as we said, near Finglas ; and his grounds were some times visited by our patient in the course of those dear daily walks from which, with all his sufferings, he derived some solace. AYe find the following anecdote in our note- book, transcribed from the files of the Freeman for November, 1827 ; and as the incident occurred at this precise period of our narrative, it may claim in- sertion in a work which, to be amusing, must some- times, as Gibbon says, take refuge in circumjacent history. Lord Norbury's lands adjoined Dean Lind- say's. The Chief's cattle having trespassed on his neighbour, the Dean got the damage valued by the parish appraiser, under the then recent Trespass Act. The Dean's cattle had previously visited the Chief's domain, which explains the following laconic reply : "Dear Dean — Forgive us our trespasses, as we for- give them who trespass against us. — Yours, Nor- bury." DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AXD TIMES. 261 CHAPTER XXXYI. HIS MARTYRDOM. u The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact." Midsummer Night's Dream, Actx., Scene i. Dr. Lanigan left Finglas with the pressure of his disease so much alleviated that we find him superin- tending the removal of the hooks from the old house of the Pioyal Dublin Society in Hawkins'-street — now the Theatre Royal — and arranging them at Leinster House, Kildare-street, which had just been purchased for £20 ; 000, and subject to a rent of £1,000 a-year. It may here be observed parenthetically that a consi- derable sum had been recently expended in beauti- fying and enlarging the house in Hawkins'-street ; and we are informed by Sir Packard Orpen, the oldest member of the Society, that a great conflict of opinion existed as to the prudence of the removal to Kildare-street. Sir Richard deprecated it, and John Claudius Beresford, a man of brilliantly ambitious aspirations, headed the party in favour of the change. Dr. Lanigan had not been long engaged in the re- sumption of his old pursuits, when a terrible relapse suddenly overtook him, stabbing his mind with the barbed edge of cerebral pain and the poignant know- ledge of intellectual annihilation. The phosphorescent light of his once luminous mind was daily dying out;* * This is no metaphor. An important element in the composition of the brain is phosphorus. When the mind is ovei worked, the supply of phosphorus diminishes, and passes from the person. Dr. Bence Jones and Professor Haughton, T.C.D., have experimented and •written on this strange physiological feature. '1 he brain does not seem to grow stronger from excessive work, like the blacksmith's arm or the ballet dancer's leg ; it cannot bear more than a certain amount of high pressure, under which it often goes out of order, as in the case of other complicated machinery. 262 WITS AND WORTHIES : and he knew it. But weakened as his mind had now become, it had yet sufficient muscular power left, like the spasmodic grasp of expiring energy, to grapple with the philosophy of insanity, and accurately infer the best mode of lightening, while it could not remove, the iron pressure of that cruel visitor which had in- sidiously forced too fatal entrance. Accordingly, whenever he felt bad attacks in his head coming on, we find him leaving Dublin, and re- pairing voluntarily to Dr. Harty's asylum at Finglas, and resuming some portion of the treatment which had previously given him relief. Swift, during a walking excursion with some lite- rary friends — we believe in the very neighbourhood now frequented by Dr. Lanigan — was suddenly missed; and when Dr. Young returned in quest of him, he found the Dean absorbed in silent meditation before a stalwart elm, the summit of which was in a state of decay. " I shall be like that tree," said Swift ; " Til die at the top first." Similar presentiments had long filled the mind of Dr. Lanigan — the stage was dark- ening ere the curtain fell ; but, unlike Swift, he sought and obtained through religion the most un- bounded consolation. "In the Catholic church close by," writes Mr. A. M. Sullivan, " the aged divine was wont to spend hours, during the closing days of his life, in silent and solitary prayer before the altar." Nor is he likely to have prayed for longer life than- seemed allotted to his now fragile frame. Far from repining, he doubtless rather felt grateful that Deaths instead of " coming like a thief in the night," should every day give new notice of his approaching end. He felt that, having nearly attained the Scriptural age, three score years and ten, great gratitude was due for so long a time. " One would not like to remain over long in the state of infancy," he would say ; " neither should he desire to have the last stage of human life prolonged. Looking to a better world, where pain DR. LAX I G AX , HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 263 and sorrow will be no more, we can easily part with this." And as the remainder would naturally be a period of increasing infirmity and decay, he was glad to cast off " this mortal coil." It was in the chapel of Finglas — where prayers and thoughts akin to those rose forth from the dying priest — that a friend of the writer's saw him for the first time. A literateur, under the signature of " Tigher- nach, ,, in the Irish Literary Gazette of 10th October, 1857, observes: " John Cornelius O'Callaghan, Esq., author of ' The Irish Brigades/ ' Green Book/ and ' Macarias Excidium/ in his youthful days saw Dr. Lanigan, whose features always reminded him of Sir Walter Scott's portraits, which they closely resem- bled. " Mr. O'Callaghan was then a schoolboy at the Piev. Joseph Joy Deane's, near Castleknock ; and it ia noteworthy that Lanigan's appearance and expression should have been so remarkable — for he was not then known as the great ecclesiastical historian — as to ar- rest attention. On showing the letter of Tighernach to Mr. O'Callaghan, he adds that the incident took place at Finglas chapel in the year 1821, and that Dr. Lanigan was accompanied by another patient from Dr. Harty's asylum, the Count McCarthy, whose brain had been turned, many years before, by the beauty of Marie Antoinette, for whom he had formed a wildly romantic love. The gallant chevalier was reading from a French prayer-book, while the good pastor of Finglas officiated ; and, repeats Mr. O'Callaghan, "my impression, after nearly half-a-century, is that Dr. Lanigan bore a most striking resemblance to Sir Walter Scott."* The pastor alluded to was the primitive Fr. Benson, * Mr. O'Callaghan's annotations to the " Macarias Excidium" are studded with our ecclesiastical historian's name ; and he also makes frequent reference to him in the " History of the Irish Brigades," styling him, at p. 270, first issue, u the learned and critical Lanigan/* 264 WITS AND WORTHIES : whose monument in Finglas records that he died 1st January, 1823. Anecdotes are told of his simplicity and zeal ; and it was, we believe, on the occasion described above that Mr. O'Callaghan heard him say, " Why don't you send your children to the chapel, if it were only to give them a confused idea of their catechism !" Some of the similitude of expression and pose of feature, " sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought," which struck Mr. O'Callaghan as resembling Scott's, may have been due to the fact that the same species of mental disease was at work in both. " Yv hen in the vigour of life," writes the late Bishop Blake, " Dr. Lanigan must have been very fresh- coloured and comely. He was of rather a full habit of body, but not very corpulent. My acquaintance with him was in his later years, when his sight was much impaired and the infirmities of age were more apparent." Poor Br. Lanigan was stricken in all the points wherein he had been strongest. The once vigorous brain had softened ; those eyes, which loved to read by the pale moonlight in Cashel, had lost their former power and sparkle ; his memory, which, as Mr. Con- way records, had been singularly " tenacious and accu- rate," was now frequently, at fault ; and he who at one time thought nothing of walking from Cork to Casbel, now exhibited those painful symptoms of failing gait which marked the last days of Scott and O'Connell. Dr. Harty — possibly more for the sake of " auld lang syne" than as aiding in the then slow march of medical progress — placed no restraint upon his patient beyond forbidding him to exert the mind or open books — the latter trial far more difficult to bear than the fly-blister, cupping-glass, drastic drugs, or strait- waistcoat. The poor patient was therefore doomed, although insatiable in literary yearning, and often parched by dry monotony, to sit like Tantalus within clutch of the spring whose flowing and pellucid waters DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. he durst not taste. Considering the severity and stringency with which patients labouring under mental disease were treated at that day, Dr. Harty would in- deed seem to have been not unindulgent, at least to Lanigan. He allowed him to take the rural rambles as formerly, merely on the distinct parole that he should avoid reading and all occasions of excitement. But in the music of silence there are a thousand variations ; and Lanigan found, in the resources of a disciplined mind, ample means to live tranquilly in the seclusion of Finglas ; and indeed it may be added that Rousseau enjoyed not more equanimity on his lonely island of St. Pierre. A stroll through frosted fields had its attractions quite as much as those saunters over flowery meadows on sultry summer days, of which he retained so agreeable a remembrance in connexion with his former stay at Fiuglas. His previous life having been passed in the close atmosphere of univer- sity halls and libraries, he valued his present rural liberty, and watched with more interest than might otherwise have been the case, the agricultural opera- tions of the peasantry. Accompanied, probably, by robin redbreasts, intent on the freshly exposed worm, he would walk in the wake of the ploughshare as it turned up coins of the reigns of James, William, and Mary ;* while through the neighbouring field the sower stalked, casting his seed, as Thompson says, into the faithful bosom of the earth. Sometimes the Ward hounds would take a dash across, and poach upon the manor of the Finglas harriers; and altogether winter wreathed the hamlet not less picturesquely than summer had done. Dr. Harty permitted Dr. Lani^an's rambles the more readily, as his asylum — a tall house standing close to the roadway — possessed no grounds. Cir- cumstances connected with the close of this physician's * See Lewis's *• Topographical Dictionary of Ireland," vol. L, p. 630. 266 WITS AND WOKTHIES : life are not devoid of interest. His death was ac- celerated by two public trials which went against him. One, in which Mr. Hayden was plaintiff, showed that Dr. Harty permitted a patient in his establishment to sign a legal instrument. Mr. Macdonogh offered the Doctor either horn of a dilemma — if the inmate were insane, he should not have been allowed to sign a legal document ; if he were not insane, he had no right to be imprisoned in a madhouse. Heavy damages were the result. The other trial to which we allude — one terminating in damages to the amount of £1,000 — pre- sents so startling a romance of real life, and is so cal- culated to relieve the details of Dr. Lanigan's unsen- sational career, that many readers will doubtless be glad to find in the following chapter the story of Dr. Harty and William Henry Mathew. CHAPTEE XXXVII. A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE. " I am not mad. I would to heaven I were ! For then, 'tis like, I should forget myself." Christmas, 1851, found the hearts and the hearths of the citizens of Dublin more than usually happy ; a cup of joy was presented to a struggling young student — Henry William Mathew — in the shape of £1,000, given by the verdict of a jury in the Court of Exchequer, before whom he was obliged to bring Dr. William Harty, a physician well known and very much respected. The life of this young man was involved in mystery ; he was born under an unlucky star — he had the mis- fortune of being illegitimate. Born during the period of Dr. Lanigan's residence at Dr. Harty's asylum, when baby-farming was not the familiar phrase it has since become, Mr. Mathew was, from an early date, exposed to much vicissitude. The story DR. LANIGANj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 267 of his existence and sorrows is romantic. The name of his mother is not known. Fortunately for her, it has not been publicly disclosed, but she is described as having been of the rank of a lady. Dr. Harty was doomed to drain the bowl of shame and grief to the dregs, and at that period of life when poor mortals are least prepared to bear them. The earliest memory of the young man was, that he had been placed at school near London; afterwards he found himself with a Mr. Harris in Arklow. From thence he was removed to the College of Kilkenny ; and when he was brought from it, he was fifteen years of age. Some of his holidays were passed with Mrs. Sherlock, who was the matron of the Blue Coat Hospital. He became an inmate of the house of Mr. Stokes in Dublin — entered Trinity College — read for a sizar- ship — failed, but tried again, and got first place. Mr. Stokes removed to Drumcondra-road, and Mathew w 7 ent with him. Dr. Harty treated him with very capricious kindness, often with despotism. The skeleton of past sin was not alone in the secret chamber, but out in the world — a phantom with flesh and blood, rebuking him for the error of his creation, and reminding him daily of the great indiscretion of his life. A very small sum had been left for Mr. Mathew by his mother, which was soon exhausted ; and it was indispensable that he should earn a livelihood by trouble of brain and labour of hand, in teaching. By instructing a young person in the house of a Mr. Townsend in Delgany, he earned a scanty maintenance. Subsequently he returned to his rooms in Trinity, read for scholarship, and supported himself by pre- paring young men for college examination. He got, after this, temporary employment at an establishment in Wicklow, and afterwards was engaged in a school in Tipperary. He returned to, and remained in College till September, 1849. The links that composed his chain of sorrows and difii- 268 WITS AND WORTHIES : culties were various and galling. Enough to say that he got into debt and ill-health, and became such a source of unhappiness to Dr. Harty, his father, that he rashly determined to incarcerate him in a madhouse — a pro- ceeding quite indefensible, and for which the unfortu- nate old gentleman wept tears of tribulation. Here the poor prisoner was visited once a- week by Dr. Harty, who essayed to persuade him that the best proof he could give of being sane was to admit himself insane ; but Mr. Mathew was proof against this logic, and Surgeon Cusack, who had a hurried interview with him, is said to have left with the impression that Mathew laboured under the delusion that he was possessed of his senses. Mathew had certainly exhibited, at an earlier period, some symptoms of eccentricity ; but it appeared in evidence that they were mostly the characteristics of dyspepsia, brought on by solitary study. It was even proved that he had more than once repeated a fine soliloquy from " Hamlet," wherein occurred the pas- sage, " Who would bear the whips and scorns of time, &c, when he himself might his quietus make with a bodkin ?" But all this failed to convince the jury of his madness ; and some amusement was occasioned by one of them asking the witness, in presence of the Chief Baron, if he also recollected the passage which touched upon " the law's delay." Mathew had quite recovered from his illness, and the querulousness to which it gave birth, by change of air to Deny, when he was summoned to Dublin by Dr. Harty and Mr. Stokes ; and one day all three — to quote the words of the present Lord Chief Justice Whiteside — " drove off in a covered car, as it were to the house of a friend : they drove to the asylum. Dr. Harty introduced the plaintiff to Mr. Gumming, who received him, looking at him very significantly. Dr. Harty, Mr. Stokes, and Mr. Gumming disappeared. 6 Where is Dr. Harty ?' said the plaintiff. 6 He is gone.' ' What place is this?' ' It is a place for patients.' 'I DR. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 269 am not a patient ; what kind of patients ?' ' Yv r eak- ininded patients.' 6 Send for Mr. Camming im- mediately/ said the plaintiff. ' Nonsense,' was the reply — £ go to bed.' 'I insist upon seeing Mr. Camming.' ' Go to bed,' was the answer. 6 I never go to bed at eight o'clock in the evening.' 'You must go to bed here at eight,' said the keeper. He was then brought up to a cell, his clothes were hung up outside, and he was confined for the night. He had to control himself in this madhouse as best he could. Reflect upon his condition. He had no father — at least one who would interfere to protect him ; he had no brother, he had no relative, no friend ; he was de- fenceless and unprotected. In this condition he is thrust into a madhouse, and left there to pine — to be- come mad — to have the despondency, under which from casual ill health he was labouring, increased — to have his mind weakened, and to endanger the de- struction of a fine intellect. Oh, nothing, in short, but the strength of that intellect which the Almighty had given to him, and which never, for a moment, had been interrupted or broken, could have sustained him throughout his sufferings, together with the calm consciousness that, however for a time he might be imprisoned and oppressed, the day of retribution would assuredly come. He appealed to the visiting doctors, and appealed in vain ; he appealed to the board, and appealed in vain ; he appealed to Dr. Harty for mercy in vain ; but at length he awakened the friendship of a worthy young man, and the defendant, fearing the consequence of his acts, and knowing that though the laws might be evaded, they are strong to protect the weak and punish wrong, he thought it better to remove Mr. Mathew from the madhouse." It is due to Dr. Harty to say that he swore he had considerable experience in treating the insane, and believed Mathew sufficiently so for a madhouse ; but his evidence carried little weight. 270 WITS AND WORTHIES : The case made a peculiarly deep impression upon the present writer, for a near relative, now no more, was one of the special jury who tried it ; and as he re- turned home each evening, after having given anxious attention to its details, we well remember the interest with which we listened to the revelation after re- velation which each day's sifting brought to light. Mathew was seven and a-half hours under examina- tion ; and the physician who, prompted by Dr. Harty, signed the certificate consigning him to a madhouse, admitted, "I must say I never saw more self-posses- sion, or heard better evidence." The trial lasted six days. The Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, in a letter dated 21st April, 1872, refers to this case as " the strangest in which he had ever been en- gaged." On a dark December evening, while yule logs blazed, and anxious faces read by its glare the disclosures of the day, the most striking of the scenes of the drama occurred. The last witness produced on the sixth day was Dr. Harty. From early morn until hissing gas-light, he had been waiting in an ante-chamber, and was so exhausted that it was necessary to conduct and assist him to the witness-box. The hand of death was on him ; feeble, tottering, and conscience- stricken, he crawled up the stairs, and gave testimony so remark- able that we extract it from the special report. The old physician's confession stunned all Dublin, where he had been for so many years a familiar friend and figure. Dr. Harty (to Chief Baron Pigott) — "I feel ex- hausted, my Lord. I have been waiting all day with- in the precincts of the Court." Chief Baron — " If you desire it, the Court shall be adjourned, and it may be more agreeable for you to give your evidence in the morning." Dr. Harty — " Oh ! no, my Lord, no. I would prefer it this evening. I am here ; it is better to go on now. Perhaps it might be too " The DR. LANHUHj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 271 witness was here asked : " Do you know the plaintiff ¥* Dr. Harty—" I do." " Whose son is he ?" Dr. Harty — " With sorrow and shame, and in deep con- trition, I here acknowledge that I am the guilty father of that poor, helpless boy ! !" " How long has his mother been dead?" "Near twenty years." "Did you pay for his education and schooling ?" " I did, altogether." " Was it out of your own money, Dr. Harty ?" " Out of my own, altogether." " Had you any funds for his education from any other source?" " I had no funds but a sum of £150 which lay in my hands, and was left by his mother, at my discretion, for his benefit." Dr. Harty was here cross-examined by Mr. Whiteside : " Did you ever tell this young gentleman he was your son ?" " I never did." " Did you ever tell him he was born in Monmouth- shire ?" " Yes, for that was perfectly true." " Was his mother a lady ?" " She might fairly be designated as such." "Was there any religious ceremony between you?" "No; I was married — there could not be." " Will you swear there was none ?" " Most peremp- torily not." " Were you practising as a physician in Dublin?" "Yes." " Was it an accidental visit brought you to Monmouthshire ?" " No ; certainly not." "How long did you remain there ?" " Two days." " Did she come to Dublin ?" " Yes ; she lived near Dublin." "How did she get the £150?" " She acquired it by her services." " When did she die ?" u In 1833." It was truly observed by Mr. S. X. Ellington at the time : " No trial has, for a great number of years, ex- cited so much interest. The mysterious aspect imparted to the case ; the extraordinary revelations made ; and the very painful position in which the plaintiff and the principal defendant were placed, would have more pro- perly formed themes for the graphic and imaginative pens of Dumas or George Sand than for the inquiry of a solemn tribunal. The circumstances connected 272 WITS AND WORTHIES : with the trial were indeed strange — ' stranger than fic- tion.' To find an aged gentleman, whose character as a medical practitioner stands high in our city, com- pelled to appear in a court of justice, is far from being an ordinary occurrence, and is sufficient, in it- self, to awaken the liveliest emotion. The case is intensely interesting to every reader, in every part of the world, almost as much as in our own city ; it is interesting to the members of the Bar, the medical profession, the laborious student, who burns the mid- night lamp too frequently to the sacrifice of health and happiness, and to the reading million, who will find this case a romance in real life." In personal appearance, Dr. Harty was not very prepossessing, but his manners seem to have exercised fascination. Dr. Brennan, who mercilessly lashed on their most vulnerable points all the Dublin physicians of his time, did not exempt Harty from his scourging satire. In the year 1812, several years prior to the birth of Mr. Mathew, he sang, when reviewing the Dublin doctors : " Come next, Adonis Harty, 0, Come next, Adonis Harty, ; Your face and frame Show equal claim, Tarn Veneri quam Marti, 0." The allusion to Mars being probably to the Doctor's love of blood-letting. Dr. William Harty had graduated in Trinity College, Dublin, and obtained a scholarship there in 1799. He received ample recognition as an active and in- telligent member of the medical profession ; he was one of the commission for investigating the causes of typhus fever, and for adopting remedial measures when epidemics swept Ireland. He also wrote several medical essays. Taylor, in his " History of the Uni- versity of Dublin," awards Dr. Harty a niche in that volume. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 273 CHAPTER XXXVHI. THE RESOURCES OF HIS MIND ALLEVIATE ITS SUFFERING. u A man of genius carries everywhere a charm, which secures to him both variety and enjoyment." Galt's Life of Byron". It was now vain to hope for recovery, or to expect to avail himself ever again of the valuable library which he had spent his best years in accumulating. Dr. Lanigan signed its death-warrant not without a pang ; but it was not until 1828 that we find it finally broken up by the auctioneer's hammer. The catalogue of Dr. Lanigan's library, sold by Charles Sharp on Thurs- day and Friday, 6th and 7th of March, 1828, is now preserved in the Queen's Inns, Dublin, and reveals a collection of rarity, value, and extent. There is one book mentioned of whose fate we should be glad to learn something — an interleaved copy of Pallavicino's " Istoria del Concilio di Trento," containing, as Mr. Sharp records, " important and copious MS. annota- tions." The Rev. Dr. Donovan's famous " Catechism of the Council of Trent" appeared the year following, and this book is not unlikely to have been secured by him. " Nothing," says Channing, " can supply the place of books — they are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. Let every man gather some good books under his roof, and obtain access, for himself and his family, to some social library. Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to this." If Dr. Channing' s re- marks be true in the case of a man of the world, sur- rounded by numerous daily pleasures from which to chose, they came home with sterner truth to an asce- tical ecclesiastic who had no family ties to bind him 9* 274 WITS AND WORTHIES to this world, and whose ruling passion had been the society of books. Prohibited from his favourite, if not his only indulgence, and means of support — reading and writing — Dr. Lanigan's life at Finglas might at first sight be supposed to have been a sad and solitary one. But a strong Christian philosophy continued to sustain him, and as he wandered through the fields and picturesque haunts of that locality, now in the winter of his life, he lived, like the bee, on the trea- sures which during a brighter, happier day he had gathered. " No enjoyment, however small," writes Sydney Smith, "is confined to the present moment. A man is the happier for life from having made once an agreeable tour, or enjoyed any considerable interval of innocent pleasure." Thus, retrospects spangled by bright spots lit Lanigan along his pilgrimage. But his resources for consolation were indeed prolific. If, as a theologian, he knew on the one hand that "'those whom the Lord lovetli he chasteneth by suffering," he also enriched this comforting reflection by gems derived from the best profane philosophers and thinkers. With Shakespeare he felt — " Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venemous, Wears yet a precious j^wel in his head. And thus our life, removed from public haunts, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." And this is specially applicable to him, for even his delusion that paving- stones were precious stones only served to make his pilgrim's path the brighter. To the poetry of Moore, which dwells on " the round towers of other days," and other kindred themes deeply congenial to the taste of Lanigan, he was no stranger. " Nothing, " writes Moore — ■ " Nothing is lost on him who sees With an eye that feeling gave ; For him there's a story in every breeze, And a picture in eyery wave." DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 275 And speaking of a lonely ramble along the banks of the Slaney, Moore writes. 25th August, 1835 : <; It is delightful to me to be alone in such a scene, for it is only alone I can enjoy Nature thoroughly; men and women disturb such scenes dreadfully." Dr. Lanigan was very susceptible to poetic senti- ment — a taste which he seems to have derived from his master, Taruburini, whose poems, published at Pavia in 1790, afforded Lanigan in after-life many a delightful hour. Tambnrini's poetical pieces are duly mentioned in the catalogue of Dr. Lanigan's books, to which reference has just been made. Wrapt in tranquil contemplation of the beauties of Nature, drinking, with Thompson, " physic from the fields, and draughts of vital air;" inhaling flowers of poesy one minute, gathering the wild flowers of Finglas the next, and flinging retrospects into the past, Lani- gan pursued the daily tenor of his way ; and if by that wise system with which he treated his mind — con- stantly keeping it occupied, and never allowing it to brood — he did not attain real happiness, he at least reached a state of placid contentment and of improved bodily health. He thus avoided the errors into which Parnell the poet fell, and which proved fatal to him on the very spot in which Lanigan's life was now cast. " His preferment to the vicarage of Finglas," says Mr. Brewer, 44 should have been peculiarly desirable, from its contiguity, as a place of residence, to Glas- nevin, the favourite resort of his literary friends ; but Parnell removed to Finglas in the clouded evening of his brief life, and brooded in his retirement over the agonies of a breaking heart." But Home's " Dis- courses" had not then appeared to warn him. (i Never ruminate," he says, "on past provocations. This is the amusement of many in their solitary hours ; and thev might as well play with cannon-balls or thunder- bolts." Lanigan tried to avoid the fatal mistake of Parnell* 276 WITS AND "WORTHIES : To adopt a thought which the former was fond of re- peating, in picturesque rambles by day through brightly smiling flowers and cheerful vistas, he was, like the bee, laying up a little store of honey to sus- tain him in the winter of his discontent — the dark adversity of the waking pillow on which for hours before dawn his head uneasily lay. And if he needed further consolation, he had but to think of the sleepless mental suffering of James, in Finglas-wood, hard by, on the night of his irrevocable defeat at the Boyne.* If uneasy lies the head beneath a ruling crown, with what increased pain — quite a crown of thorns — must not James' head have tossed that long dark night. Sometimes Lanigan would look from his attic window, in that tall gaunt house which towered above all its neighbours, and gaze upon the sleeping city spread out like a mighty map before him ; and per- haps sigh as he mused upon so many thousand beings enjoying at that hour the solacing restorative denied to him. But then the larks were already up and sing- ing, and why should not this bird of passage be cheer- ful too. They were pleasantly engaged in building their nests ; and he, taking a leaf from their policy, would, perchance, amuse himself in building the framework of some future essay, filled with the off- spring of bright ideas, never, alas! to be matured. Dr. Lanigan fancied he found that much of the mental depression from which he previously suffered had arisen from a rebellious stomach. Dr. Harty told him that his general organisation would be re- lieved by taraxicum. Feeling that an all-wise and bounteous Providence would never have so lavishly strewn the highways with this venerable herb, unless for the relief and refreshment of suffering humanity, Lanigan occasionally sucked the milk from its fibres as he walked ; and between that and " Adversity's sweet milk, Philosophy," he got on pretty well. * See D'Alton's " History of the County Dublin," p. 378. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 277 CHAPTER XXXIX. FROM GRAVE TO GAY. "For lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon the earth ; the time of the singing of the birds is come. ,; The Song of Solomon, ii, 11, 12. " Is this the noble nature Whom passion could not shake — whose solid virtue The shot of accident or dart of chance Could neither graze nor pierce ?" Iago — " He is much changed. " Lud. — u Are his wits safe ? is he not light of brain ?" Iago — " He is that he is." Shakespeare. Spring passed away, and the grass, which had been like iron blades with frost, now sent forth soft violets and golden buttercups; while the bright laburnum hung her arms, holding rich festoons, above his head. Lanigan's mind drew sips of honey from every smiling flower. Disciplined by Keligion and Philo- sophy, he made every blossom subservient to God's glory and his own peace ; and he felt, with the poet, "There's not a flower that decks the vale, There's not a beam that lights the mountain, There's not a shrub that scents the gale, There's not a wind that stirs the fountain, There's not a hue that paints the rose, There's not a leaf around us lying, But in its use or beauty shows True love to us and love undying l" Summer came, and Lanigan pursued his walks, tasting his tonic, taraxicum, one minute ; sipping from wild honeysuckles the next — illustrating the advantage of bitters in this life, as tending to impart additional pleasure to the sweets with which they contrast. Thus he made these simple practices serve both mind and body. Dr. Lanigan need not trust to flowers to find food 278 WITS AND WORTHIES : for thought. The ground which he trod once lived. Rich and racy historic annals were redolent for miles round, Within easy access lay Castleknock, where, four hundred years before Christ, a battle was fought by King Conmael ; and in the second century another, when Coohal, grasping for the crown of Leinster, with the King of Munster for an ally, was opposed by Goll and Conn of the Hundred Battles ; but a dash from the bright spear of Coll laid Coohal low, and his re- mains were buried beneath the vast tumulus, Knock- maroon Hill. Hither, as St. Evin records, St. Patrick made a special mission to convert the native Irish ; and throughout a subsequent period we find the for- tress of Castleknock sometimes held by Christian soldiers, at other times by the Danes ; until, after many exciting vicissitudes and bloody struggles — during which it was successively occupied by Nial, Monarch of Ireland, King Roderick O'Connor, Hugh Tyrrell, and even Bruce, the hero of Bannockburn — the fortress was at last reduced by the Cromwellian General, Monk (afterwards Duke of Albemarle), with his smashing siege train, who hung from its battle- ments the guards that had so valiantly defended them. But Owen Roe O'Neill enjoyed the rich revenge of re- taking the castle, and proclaiming from its pinnacle the Cromwellian defeat. Within those walls the patriot prelate, St. Laurence 0' Toole, had previously nerved Roderic O'Connor by his voice and blessing ; and from Finglas, along the line to Castleknock, was fought the bloody battle which terminated in the success of the Norman arms. Nor were the old castles of the vicinage destitute of the more tender elements of romance. The beautiful Eibhleen, daughter of O'Byrne, Chieftain of Wicklow, was carried off by Roger Tyrrell, whose lustful life carried terror through counties round, and locked up in the turret of Castleknock. Hearing footsteps at night on the stone stairs outside, she opened a vein in DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 279 her neck by means of a brooch, and bled to death. Of this second Eebecca, who preferred death to dis- honour, one of the Vincentian fathers for some time resident at Castleknock writes : "It was long a popular belief that at the hour of midnight a female figure robed in white might be seen, moving slowly round the castle. Her suicide, though wholly unjustifiable, was believed to have been palliated by ignorance, and in making the rounds of the castle she was supposed to have been completing her purgatory." Later we find Lord Fingal's aunt, Lady de Lacy — whose husband had gone forth in the van of the Ca- tholic army — defending the same castle, with 50 men, against Ormond's 4,000 foot and 500 horse ; and by her valour and tactics causing 400 of the besiegers to fall. And when at last the ammunition failed, she broke up the arms which the fort contained, buried her jewels and robes, and after telling her little gar- rison that no quarter could be expected, she rushed forth at their head, cutting through the enemy's lines, until, overwhelmed by superior numbers, she was left alone alive a prisoner in Ormond's hands. And did not Mullaghiddart graveyard, as its gloomy length lay stretched beside the weeping waters of the Tolka, claim a passing tear ? Ware had already searched it for Bering's tomb, who, like Lanigan, had written under the name of " Irenaaus." Here too, with many other priests, lay Clarke, the great convert- preacher of St. Mary's, where Lanigan celebrated his weekly Mass. CLirke's sermon's Lanigan had heard with profit, and he now preserved the fruit long alter the tree had died. Dr. Lanigan, not unpleasantly fatigued, nightly re- tired to rest in the bed provided for him in the asylum ; paternally patted the head of an ingenuous- looking boy as he passed — no doubt the subsequently famous William Henry Mathew — dreamt of love and war, saints, sinners, and sieges ; and rose betimes 280 WITS AND WORTHIES : braced for a fresh start through fields and flowers; exploring old castles, and deciphering tomb -stones. If, perchance, his lips felt parched, or the weakness of disease temporarily shackled his pace, he found a "vivifying elixir in the holy wells which dot the district. He sauntered onwards still through paths and fields fertilized by floods of patriot blood.* He thought of the fatal famine time when Scotch and Irish Celts stood, shoulder to shoulder, near Finglas- wood, and, in joining to expel the English invaders, mingled their blood in the chalice of national woe. A bold act of Bruce was the capture of Castleknock ; but Dublin withstood his siege, and the hero of Ban- * It is recorded by Mr. Prendergast, in his very valuable " Crom- wellian Settlement of Ireland," that after the rebellion of 1641, 3,000 acres were confiscated in the barony of Castleknock alone. All the respectable families in the neighbourhood may be said to have ranged themselves on the patriot side, including the Luttrels, afterwards noted for their anti-Catholic virus and terrorism. Tn our works, " The Sham Squire" and" Ireland Before the Union," we fur- nished many startling details of Simon Luttrell, Lord Carhampton. As a postscript we may now add, that until the 18th century the Luttrels professed the Roman Catholic faith ; and the old list of the dead, preserved in the Catholic chapel of Blanchardstown, records, by desire, the names of the family, in order that prayers may be offered for their eternal repose. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 281 nockburn returned to Scotland, where more legitimate duties called his claymore forth. This was the first and only occasion when Scottish bonnets and Irish helmets marched in embattled array, to the mingled music of pibroch and harp. One day about this time, when our poor Doctor's equanimity seemed brightest, the cerebral dome gave painful indications of falling in, and crushing for ever in one dread chaos the elements of joy and care. But the rafters had merely cracked as yet, and the roof paused in its descent. Summer glided over, as the winter had done ; and the flowers drooped and died, like the tranquilly ex- piring life of the good old priest. Supported on one side by fair Religion, and on the other by strong Philo- sophy, he sought to baffle the too frequent recurrence of the horrible thought, that every hour he was sink- ing more deeply and darkly into that black impene- trable night which the joyous light of day was destined never to terminate. A philosophic poet has mused, " The body may decay — but by the might Of the soul's flame, Mind will not lose its light." But poor Lanigan's struggle against his fate was vain ; he was succumbing by slow yet sure gradations. It is told of an eminent thinker, that when con- scious of approaching death, he suffered dreadful terror from the fear that, possibly, God would not spare his mind unto the end. But the spiritualized old priest, while he felt himself becoming more and more childish day by day, derived consolation from meditating on the words of the Man of Sorrows : " Unless you be- come like little children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven."* The insidious progress of the * Several of the details illustrative of Dr. Lanigan's life at Finglas were derived from the late Rev. Redmond O'Hanlon whilst the fatal disease which soon after laid him low had already grasped his once stalwart frame ; and if we caught contagiously the tone of the dying priest, the infection is hardly to be regretted. 282 WITS AND WORTHIES : disease wjiich had laid its iron grasp upon him was slow and tortuous. The indications of its presence were at first so slight, that Dr. Lanigan tried to per- suade himself that they would prove merely the neu- ralgic creations of a susceptible imagination. But by slow degrees the disease drew its toils tighter and tighter around him, until, after months, and even years, hoping against hope, the grim truth became at last too painfully evident, that countless literary plans, which he had hoped to realize before he died, were doomed to perish in the collapse of his once compre- hensive mind. Was it not calculated to remind him of that exquisite system of mental and bodily torture known as the ' 'Iron Shroud of Venice," which at first seemed to the wretched sufferer a dungeon with dis- tant extremities, but gradually and stealthily advanced from all sides upon him, until, after a cruelly pro- longed period of dread anticipation, it at last darkly enclosed the shrinking victim in its crushing, invisible grasp ! The records of lunacy at Finglas are for the most part of a dreary character, and hardly one incident remains to be told calculated to relieve their gloom. Stories are, no doubt, related of men who, like the once famous Mr. Q'Callaghan of Cork, imagined that the base of their trunk was a fragile sheet of glass, and never sat down for fear of smashing it; but he must be heartless who would laugh at such delusions. A really good story, however, was once told by Daniel O'Connell to his private secretary, Mr. Daunt, con- cerning a Lord Chancellor of the day, who was fond of investigating into the management of lunatic asylums. He made an agreement with Sir Philip Cramp ton, the Surgeon-General, to visit without any previous intimation a lunatic asylum at Finglas. Some wag wrote word to the asylum that a patient would be sent there in a carriage that day, who was a smart little man that thought himself one of the DR. LANIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 283 judges, or some great person of that sort, and who was to be detained by them. The Doctor was out when the Chancellor arrived. He appeared to be very talkative, but the keepers humoured him and answered all his questions. He asked if the Surgeon- General had come ; the keeper answered "No, but that he was expected immediately." "Yfell," said he, " I shall inspect some of the rooms until he arrives. " "0 sir," said the keeper, "we could not permit that at all." " Then I shall walk for awhile in the garden," said his lordship, " while I am waiting for him." " We cannot let you go there either," said the keeper. "What," said he, "don't you know I am the Lord Chancellor ?" " Sir," said the keeper, " we have four more Lord Chancellors here already !" He got into a great fury, and they were beginning to think of a strait-waistcoat for him, when fortunately Sir Philip Crampton arrived. " Has the Lord Chancellor come yet?" said he. The man burst out laughing, and said : " Yes, sir ; we have him safe, but he is by far the most violent patient we have." CHAPTER XL. SINKING TO UNSTARTLBD REST. " Lay on him the curse of the withered heart — The curse of the sleepless eve ; Till he wish and pray that his life might part, Nor yet find leave to die." Walter Scott. " Thou has' heen called, Sleep ! the friend of woe ; But 'tis the happy that have called thee so." Southey's Curse of Kehama. When M'Cullagh and Millar suffered from the effects of over- tasked brains, they morbidly sought in despair the same fatal ease to the mind that mortifica- tion brings to the body, and at last drowned their care in the blood of suicide. How happy for Lanigan, and 284 WITS AND WORTHIES : for Lanigan's friends, that he weathered the tempest to the end, and died the death of the just, exclaiming with Paul : "I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course." A temporary convalescence raised the spirits of his friends; but the improvement was of short duration. Time was when he could forget his daily griefs and eorroding worry in recuperative rest. But now sleeplessness, that invariable adjunct of advanced brain-disease, overtook him ; and he would, we are assured, strive to beguile the long dark night with mechanical snatches of prayer and poetry — some- times saying with the Psalmist : " My soul hath de- sired thee in the night, Lord;" and probably at other times, crying, u balmy Sleep, nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, and steep my senses in forgetfulness !" Prayer after prayer was muttered, and hour after hour tolled their gloomy chimes, until at last Scott's lines, already cited, seemed to come home to him with the piercing force of a banshee's whisper. The visitation struck him home with searching subtlety. His ten- derest sensibilities were stabbed to the quick. Yet he derived some consolation from the stinging cerebral pains which crowned a life of care, by comparing them to the crown of thorns. At the same time that poor Lanigan suffered thus miserably from sleeplessness, a great thinker of trans- cendent talent, Lord Dudley and Ward, was subjected to the like withering influence.* In a letter, dated * Many amusing anecdotes are told of Lord Dudley's absence, and habit of thinking aloud; but when we know the cause, these peculiarities cease to be laughable. Although the point has not been mooted by physiologists, it is, perhaps, a question whether that "absence," so characteristic of many distinguished men, is not less a symptom of over-tasked mind than of threatened brain-disease. Lord Dudley was so absent that, when Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he directed a letter intended for the French to the Prussian ambassador, DR. LANIGAN 3 HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 285 2nd July, 1822, addressed to Bishop Copleston, he writes: " Pray let me see you, not so much out of kindness to a friend, as out of compassion to an un- happy fellow-creature. My situation is truly horrible. I know not what is to become of me. My feeble body cannot long resist the violent agitation of my mind. Sleep has forsaken me. It was that alone which hitherto sustained me, and enabled me to go through the day. I am weary without being able to repose." Lord Dudley, although he afterwards filled the office of Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Canning's administration, soon followed Lanigan to the grave ; and, like him also, died insane. Lanigan had long been obliged to contract his sleep, in order to keep pace with his heavy round of duty ; and it may be well to warn officials and students against the penalties involved by this ill-advised economy. " The most frequent and immediate cause of insanity," says a celebrated physician, " and one of the most important to guard against, is the want of sleep. Indeed so rarely do we see a recent case of insanity that is not preceded by want of sleep, that it is regarded as almost a sure precursor of mental derangement." It is perfectly certain that the greatest men have been the greatest sleepers ; and if at times, engaged on some specially herculean task, they have abridged before the affair of Navarino, which Prince Lieven set down as one of the cleverest ruses ever attempted to be played, and gave himself im- mense credit for not falling into the trap laid for him by the sinister diplomacy of the English secretary. Of a lighter character are the anecdotes told by Moore. A gentleman who proposed to walk with Lord Dudley from "the House" to the Traveller's Club, heard him mutter, " I think I may endure the fellow for ten minutes." On another occasion, when he gave somebody a seat in his carriage from a country house, he was overheard by his companion, after a fit of thought and silence, saying to himself, " Now, shall I ask this man to dine with me when we arrive in town?" The other, not pre- tending to hear him, muttered, " Now, if Lord Dudley should ask me to dinner, shall I accept his invitation ?" 286 WITS AND WORTHIES I their period of rest, they compensated for the priva- tion by a double supply of sleep when their work was done. The great Thackeray, in an unpublished letter, writes : "I finished ' Pendennis' a week ago, and have been asleep almost ever since.'' In 1870, the following paragraph appeared in a literary journal, which shows the efforts nature makes to recuperate the brain for immense expenditure of thought : " Charles Lever, the popular Irish novelist, has lapsed into a state of lethargy, which causes him to sleep eighteen hours out of the twenty-four." Nature did its duty, and we were delighted to find Mr. Lever lately in Dublin, enjoying better health than he had known for many years previously. At the very same time that Lanigan suffered from his mental disease, -another eminent Irishman, Arch- bishop Magee, was sinking from similar causes and with similar symptoms. Dr. Wills, in his memoir of Dr. Magee, states that the latter had repeatedly stinted himself to two hours sleep. The journals of the year 1831 enumerate, in a heartless tone, the hallucinations under which the Archbishop laboured ; but it would pain his family to reproduce them here. Dr. Cheyne describes him as marked by Lanigan's earlier symptoms, including that of " a determination of blood to the head ;" but the author of the 66 Atone- ment" does not appear to have been subjected to the bleeding which Dr. Harty confessed he freely em- ployed with the object of reducing Lanigan. Dr. Harty, referring to his former patient, on the 24th June, 1851, observed that " Dr. Lanigan's final attack deprived him of almost all mental capacity — he could hardly connect the letters of his own name. Dr. Lanigan was full, and somewhat corpulent, and had to be bled a great deal." But this antiphlogistic system soon brought him down, and his friend, Walter Sweetman, Esq., was startled at finding him a withered old man whom a breath would blow away. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 287 There has been so great a revolution of late in medical science, that few will hesitate to condemn the phlebotomising to which poor Lanigan was freely sub- jected. It is generally admitted that Cavour would now be living were it not for the Sangrado operations of his Italian physicians. And we have heard it stated by an eminent authority that many men nearer home have alternately been murdered and starved to death by the old doctors of leading rank. The blood is the life, and to deprive a sinking man of blood, is to sap his strength and, probably, life. The present opinion of the faculty is, that whatever tends to make blood is wholesome. Corpulence is a sign of disease, not of health, and should be reduced not by phlebotomy, but by avoiding sugar, butter, ale, and a few T other simple aliments. Dr. Harty, himself a not undistinguished Irishman, was a disciple of San- grado rather than of Abernethy, and practised the lowering system by phlebotomy and other depletives once in high vogue with the faculty, but long since re- garded as utter barbarism. Mr. Anderson, a respect- able medical practitioner, tells us that when serving his apprenticeship to Mr. Craven, apothecary to the city prisons, he was brought into daily professional in- tercourse with Dr. Harty, physician to the same insti- tutions, and had frequent opportunities of co-oper- ating in the draining process of phlebotomy which was practised on the criminals under Dr. Harty's aus- pices. Often forty or fifty of these wretched beings were ranged on a form to undergo venesection. This treatment seems to have been regarded almost as a panacea, and was specially resorted to whenever Dr. Harty suspected the criminals of feigning illness. That the lowering system to a great extent was prac- tised on Lanigan, one already prostrate in mind and body* we know by the confession of Dr. Harty himself. * Failing gait is a sympathetic symptom of failing mind. O'Con- nell died of the same disease, though less demonstratively. It sapped 288 WITS AND WORTHIES .* This sapping system told. ".I shall never forget," observes Mr. Sweetman, his former pupil, the contrast presented by Dr. Lanigan's appearance when I visited him at Finglas, and what I had remembered him a few years previously. I had known him as a large Jon- sonian-looking man of a full habit ; he was now a withered, wasted, little old man, whom a breath would blow away." " Ah !" he would sometimes exclaim, with Job, when obliged to pause abruptly in conversation owing to lost links in the chain of his ideas, " the Lord hath given," alluding to the past period of mental plenitude, and then pointing piteously to the deserted dome of his brow, " and the Lord hath taken away !" Dr. Harty ought not, perhaps, to be too strongly censured for his thirst of blood, for the ablest of the faculty once shared the same vampire propensity. The golden fountain of Moore's melody might not have been so prematurely exhausted, if it were not for the same draining process. He sometimes suffered from headaches, probably due to overwork. Writing on 8th January, 1817, he suicidically says : " My head still troubles me, and I intend to have it bled copiously to- morrow — ten or twelve ounces." We fear this process drained it to that utter vacuity with which his days closed. Dr. Lanigan resumed his strolls ; but though they brought relief, they had not their former charm. Yet he liked to hear the little birds pouring forth their melody in " profuse strains of unpremeditated art." Blood was again drawn from him freely, and a low regimen pre- scribed. He now knew not the way to any of his former haunts — not even to that bright spot in special connexion with the society of which he was himself an officer — the Botanic Gardens, where he had often his once powerful constitution by creeping through the subtle approaches of the brain. See an interesting paper read before the Societe Medicale d'Emulation, by Dr. Lacour, O'ConnelFs French phy- sician, embodying the result of £ post-mortem examination of the head, and printed in the Lancet for 4th December, 1847. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 289 admired the sensitive acacia as it waved its golden hair, or the stalwart palm tree upraising his swarthy arms. The reasoning power had now become much weakened ; the wisdom with which he formerly treated his case was gone ; he drew not a particle of pleasure from the thoughts and objects which he whilom loved. He cared for nothing ; but with a sort of miserable fatal fascination, he employed what remained of that mind which had once been so large, in brooding upon its own approaching doom. He dwelt much on the disease, and by so dwelling accelerated its crisis ; but with the true Christian philosophy of which his entire life had been an exponent, he hourly bowed that same mind to the terrible visitation. " God/' says a Kempis, " is wont to visit his elect in two ways — by trial and con- solation. " Dr. Lanigan experienced the trial, but the Christian fortitude and resignation with which God blessed him brought abundant consolation. His rela- tive, Mr. J. H. Green, thus eloquently alludes to the wreck of that once fine intellect : " That seemingly strong-built man is as mentally impotent as a baby. From head to foot a man, but for brain or mind a statue. Solid to view as the marble-painted pillar, yet hollow to the touch as the vacant tube within. Poor fellow ! thy prodigious liberality has left thee poor indeed. Cold and dark is that once glowing chamber of thought, for its fire is out, and thy roof is in, poor ruin ! All ye who pass by Finglas, see if there is any poverty like unto his poverty." The days had gone when Lanigan, of stalwart frame and robust mind, exemplified in his own person the type of a Tipperary hero — " Tall is his form, his heart is warm, His spirit light as any fairy — His wrath is fearful as the storm That sweeps the hills of Tipperary ;" and yet the description was once not inapplicable to him, even to that formidable wrath with which he 10 290 WITS AND WORTHIES : loved to sweep away the sophistries spawned by the enemies of his creed and country. Again he got a relapse, and again and again, until his dome of thought became an utter chaos. The memory had withered ; but, like the oasis of a waste, some vestige of verdure remained. In a conversation with his old friend, the Very Eev. E. J. O'Hanlon, who had called upon him, he said : " I know not what I had for breakfast, and except that I feel no craving, I do not even know that I have breakfasted. I, who could formerly grasp any course of study, how abstruse soever, cannot now apply my mind to a recollection of the simplest event of yesterday. I know that I am now speaking to you, but in ten minutes after you have left the house, I will have no remembrance whatever of our conversation, or of you." And this was the man who a short time pre- viously had deserved the following character from Frederick W. Conway, published in the Dublin Evening Post of 7th of August, 1828 : " His memory was tenacious and accurate, and he abounded in his- torical and philosophical anecdote, which rendered him an agreeable and instructive companion. " Often a piece of bread, swallowed with a false appetite, would cause intense suffering to mind and body. Thus his daily bread, instead of proving the staff of life, too often served to drive a nail into his coffin. Once he fer- vently exclaimed, " In praying, Lord, as you your- self have taught us to do, to give us this day our daily bread, grant that that bread may discharge the end for which it was wisely given." This appeal was irresis- tible, and let us hope that Dr. Lanigan's final sojourn on earth was not marked, as previously, by additional sufferings which might well be spared. In the calamitous condition described by Mr. Henebry Green, Dr. Lanigan remained for six long years. Thomas Grant, now a servant in the Hard- wicke Fever Hospital, and formerly an attendant in DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 291 Dr. Harty's lunatic asylum, describes Dr. Lanigan's mental ailment as having finally merged into an intense melancholy. He never read or wrote even at the outset; a miserable fascination led him to sit alone, sad and motionless ; and when the servant came to ask him if he wanted anything, he would reply, " No ; leave me — God bless you !" When more than ordi- narily communicative, he would sometimes say, " I am a poor old man, and good for nothing." It required an effort almost incompatible with his strength to snap the cords of apathetic irresolution which bound him ; but while a vestige of mind remained, he never allowed a Sunday or holiday to pass without tottering to Finglas Chapel, and there prostrating himself before God. During this period he was occasionally visited by a female member of his family, who was often a long time in the room before he became fully conscious of her pre- sence ; and as the anxious ear of sisterly solicitude caught the plaintive sighs which ever and anon escaped him, she mayhap compared them to the sobs of that banshee, the herald of approaching death, said to follow his family.* Sleeplessness sapped his strength more cruelly than ever, but a cold languor was rapidly creep- ing over him to lull him into " That unstartled sleep The living eye hath never known/' Necrencephalus, or softening of the brain, has ra- pidly increased since Lanigan's day. In the ten years 1857-66, 11,685 deaths were registered in England and Wales from this cause — 7,168 males, and 4,517 females. * Dr. Lanigan had several sisters, including Mary, Anne, Hobanna, and Catherine. The latter was considered the finest girl in Cashel. Dr. Lanigan had one brother living in Dublin at this time, who from premature infirmity was obliged to enter Simpson's Hospital. The registry of that institution records : " November, 1829. James Lani- gan, aged 50; blind; merchant's clerk; residence, Mecklenburgh- street." 292 WITS AND WOKTHIES : CHAPTER XLI. THE EEV. DE. CHARLES O'CONOR INTRODUCED. " Like aught that's forbidden Weak man to behold, Death and sorrow are hid in The City of Gold." MacCarthy's Book of Irish Ballads. " Death comes to set thee free — Oh, meet him cheerily, As thy true friend ; And all thy fears shall cease, And in eternal peace Thy trials end." FouauE, Author of " Undine." The peculiarity of Dr. Lanigan's fate was not alto- gether exceptional. Isolated as his case might seem to be, he had yet fellow-sufferers, whose lives, if looked into, would be equally interesting and instructive. Without stretching far for an illustration, Dr. Charles O'Conor's history was one closely parallel with his case. Referring to Dr. Harty's asylum, Mr. Henebry Green, the kinsman of Lanigan, observes : " Several important Irishmen were also co-inhabitants of this gloomy Golgotha of the living about this period, among whom was one whose case is strikingly parallel to that of Dr. Lanigan, the Rev. Charles O'Conor, author of " Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres." We had been previously under the impression that Dr. O'Conor, after leaving Stowe, resided with his brother, The O'Conor Don ; but as Mr. Green had an interview with Dr. Harty shortly before the death of the latter, when he gave the inquirer full informa- tion regarding Dr. Lanigan and other patients who had been under his surveillance, we may, perhaps, conclude that the above interesting statement is correct. Besides being occupants of the same asylum DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 293 in the clouded evenings of their lives, Drs. Lanigan and O'Conor had been, in their bright morning, alumni of the Irish College in Eome ; both had sprung from a thoroughly Celtic stock; they were distinguished ecclesiastical authors and Celtic scholars ; and their literary researches were respectively directed to the elucidation of the history and antiquities of Ireland. Both obtained doctors' degrees — both filled the office of librarian, and their genial disposition in that ca- pacity has been publicly praised — in O'Conor's case by Dr. Dibdin, in Lanigan's by Dr. Dubourdieu. Gallican views characterised the theology of each, though to a much greater extent in the case of O'Conor; both wrote on the Veto — O'Conor for, Lanigan against it. One wrote under the signature of " Columbanus," an early saint and ecclesiastical writer ; the other used the nom du plume of " Irenaeus," another early saint and ecclesiastical writer. And both produced — besides their larger writings — books, now of extreme rarity and value, of which the second volume never appeared. In small things, too, they had characteristics in common — even to having been fond of the pleasures of the table, though never in- dulging to excess.* Both Lanigan and O'Conor died during the same year — one was born in 1758, the other two years later ; and, like the withered elm which stimulated Swift's soliloquy and sad presen- timent, both died at the top first. * See Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1828, page 467. It adds: " A fast day was to him a day of real penance \" See also the recently published second volume of Allibone's Dictionary for an interesting notice of Dr. O'Conor; but the author of that great work errs in attributing to him, Roger O'Conor's " Chronicles of Eri" — that daring literary forgery of which we published an exposure in " Ire- land Before the Union." High critical authority is quoted by Mr. Allibone as if in praise of the " Chronicles of Eri," but the extract refers to utterly different books. As Mr. Allibone's valuable work is certain to reach a second edition, it might be also well to correct the statement that Mr. Emmet wrote "Pieces^of Irish History." The author was Dr. Macneven. 294 WITS AND WORTHIES I The private diary of Richard Duke of Buckingham and Chandos supplies, under date 4th July, 1827, the following authentic particulars of Dr. O'Conor's frequently denied insanity : " The poor Doctor leaves Stowe. This terminates a connexion of twenty-nine years. He leaves me in the greatest possible aber- ration of mind. For the last three clays he has been packing, and unpacking, and repacking ; and at last leaves three trunks corded up and directed with the greatest care, with the keys on the table, saying to Broadway that they must be examined by a justice of the peace, and then forwarded to me. All his letters and papers he has scattered about.' ' .... It is remarkable that Dr. O'Conor's mental disease was characterised by a form of hallucination precisely similar to one which affected Lanigan — an impression, after eating hearty meals, that no food had entered his mouth for some days. " To show the wanderings of the poor man's intellect," continues the Duke, " he went yesterday to Broadway, to tell him he had been to the kitchen door, which was shut against him ; that he was famished, for that I had ordered that he should have nothing to eat in the place, and therefore that he begged Broadway would give him some victuals, as for himself. Broadway tried to reason him out of the folly ; and when he found that he had failed, he went to Pool, the steward, who assured him that no such order had been given. The poor Doctor had never been near the kitchen door, and had just been eating a hearty luncheon when he told them so." It may be said that we act unkindly towards the learned Dr. O'Conor's memory, in thus aiding to un- veil the hallucinations of his mind. But we are really, in doing so, promoting the charities of history. It is no dark stigma on O'Conor's memory to say that he died the death of Swift, Scott, Southey, Moore, Magee, and Lanigan. Dr. Reeves, an eminent ecclesiologist and Anglican cleric, has pronounced Dr. Charles DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 295 O'Conor to be about "the brightest name which the Church of Rome can produce but, on the other hand, the highest Catholic ecclesiastical authorities in these countries have denounced O'Conor as wholly un- orthodox ; and this view, owing to the acrirnoniousness and eccentricity of O'Conor's writings on Church government, is that universally held by all Catholic divines. The truth is — and Dr. O'Conor has never hitherto received the benefit of it — his senses were disordered during the period of the composition of these writings which gave most offence ; and the poor Doctor was, of course, no more morally responsible than was Moore for the inconsistent tone pervading the last volume of his " History of Ireland." We now know, on the authority of the Duke of Bucking- ham, that " Dr. O'Conor had long been to some extent insane." There can be little doubt that he was so affected when suspended by Dr. Troy, whose letter conveying the inhibition will be found in our fourteenth chapter. But to return to Lanigan, who claims our more legi- timate meed of notice and sympathy. From a general knowledge of human nature, and of the family tradi- tion, it may be inferred that just as the darkest hour is that before the dawn, poor Lanigan, even when his malady seemed blackest, had yet an indistinct conscious- ness of a sickly rav of hope looming far in the dis- tance. Lanigan's life and labours flashed noiselessly in his time, and even the last full flicker of the vital spark failed to attract attention from friends who had whilom felt its warmth. But, as Arnold well observed of another mind, in truer metaphor, it was not until after it had passed away, that the world began to hear the thunder which succeeds the lightning flash. It is one of the curiosities of bibliographical experience, that Lanigan's four volumes were regarded by the trade during his lifetime, and later, as unsaleable. But about thirty years ago they at last made the noise which 296 WITS AND WORTHIES : roused the world to their importance, and copies at the present day sometimes fetch from three to four pounds. Even in the act of extending new ramifications of his disease, God was merciful. At the very moment that his hypochondriasis seemed to reach its deepest gloom, a rebound of the disease shot forth in the form of brilliant hallucinations, which like funereal torches lit his dark path to the grave. " I have just come from seeing poor Dr. Lanigan," observed O'Connell in a conversation with his kinsman, Dr. O'Reardon, " at this period. His delusion is a most extraordinary one. He thinks that the streets of his native Cashel are paved with precious stones, and he smiled a ghastly smile of pride when he described the houses as built of gold." Thus we again see that, with more literal significance than even the poet meant, adversity, ugly and vene- mous, often wears a jewel in its head. At other times, sweet visions of the past flooded the vacant brow of the old man, and he would imagine himself once more in the Eternal City, wandering among the ruins of the Colosseum ; or at Pavia — win- ning golden opinions by his lectures before the Emperor Joseph. Past pain now gave place to a delicious dreaminess, in the midst of which the paternal figure of the village pastor might be indistinctly seen, extending his arms in ghostly absolution over him. Guarded by all good angels, and soothed by a holy lullaby, Lanigan sank to rest like a lonely babe upon the breast of Care. And if the scrutinizing eye of Him who searcheth Jerusalem with candles, discovered in his servant, when he stood before the judgment-seat, any remnant of earthly imperfection which Eternal justice required to be purified by suffering in another world (if, indeed, the crosses patiently endured here below, the protracted agonies of infirmity borne with heroic fortitude, enabled DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 297 him not to terminate his purgatory and his life to- gether), it may be safely assumed by Catholics that speedily — to quote the language of Holy Writ — the stubble and the straw were consumed, and that nothing but the gold and the precious stones remained. Lanigan in his retreat passed away as silently as an infant in its cradle, and as noiseless in its surrounding effects was the death of the old man in second infancy. He had been so long out of the world, that even his friends seemed to forget him. In vain have we searched for obituary notices of the man who had fought the good fight, measured his strength in in- tellectual gladiatorship with muscular minds, and made, by a life of earnest labour, Ireland his debtor. Long years after, we find Thomas Moore, during the progress of his i( History of Ireland," in an unpub- lished letter to John D'Alton, expressing uncertainty as to whether Lanigan were still alive ! " His labo- rious sifting of Usher/ ' adds Moore, " is of infinite value, and for his accuracy I have the highest re- spect." 298 WITS AND WORTHIES I CHAPTER XLIL DB. LANIGAN's DEATH, DUST, TOMB, AND ELEGY. " Shall they bury me in the palace tombs, Or under the shade of cathedral domes ? Sweet 'twere to lie on Italy's shore ; No ! on an Irish green hillside, On an opening lawn — but not too wide ; For I love the drip of the wetted trees — I love not the gales, but a gentle breeze To freshen the turf. Put no tomb-stone there, But green sods decked with daisies fair; Nor sods too deep, but so that the dew The matted grass roots may trickle through. Be my epitaph writ on my country's mind — • He served his country, and loved his kind.'" Davis. HE day on which it pleased God to relieve this man of mark from his suffering, was the 7th July, 1828, the anniversary of the death of his country- man and cotemporary, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Two days after, they interred his body in the old churchyard of Fin- glas, where for thirty- three years not even a headstone marked the spot. His funeral cortege was short, and con- sisted only of his brother James (who died shortly after) and Dr. Harty. DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 299 A successful effort has recently been made to rescue, by a suitable monument, the remains of Dr. Lanigan from the ignominious neglect in which they too long lay. A continuance of this neglect would, it was sub- mitted, be most discreditable to the national spirit and patriotic feeling of Irishmen. " To perpetuate in popu- lar recollection," observed the national appeal, which found a prompt and cordial response, ns not natives of the countries for which they were destined. The debt increased daily. Nothing was done towards liquidating the principal, and the payment of the interest was sometimes neglected. " This state of things was most displeasing to Prince Ludovisi, who was deeply interested in the College founded by his brother. He was annoyed because most of these changes had been made without his knowledge, and many against his expressed wishes. He attributed the purchase of the house, which was in a bad situation, to bad will on the part of the Jesuits ; 1 unnni consanguineis Eminen- tissimi fundatoris, videlicet situs loci in recessu ignobilis plateae extra conspectum positi.' 11 The students were far from satisfied with their new masters. They made a bitter complaint to Prince Ludo- visi of their Rector, Father Giambattista Rossi. They pleaded that they were utterly unable to apply to study, or even to cultivate Christian virtue, so plagued were they 314 WITS AND WOBTHIES : by his whims. They declared that one of the best youths among them had been driven mad by Father Giambattista Rossi's ill-treatment. They besought the Prince to hear their story, and to remove the Hector, and place another in his stead. They added that this could be done without injury to his reputation, as his physicians attested that his health was seriously injured by his naturally choleric temper. c< Prince Ludovisi petitioned Innocent X. to define, in the Brief of the patronage of the College, what were the reciprocal duties of the patron and the alumni — especially those of the patron— concerning the nomination of the Rector and other officers. The students prayed his Holi- ness to declare the College to be under the patronage of Prince Ludovisi. The Pope issued a Brief in which he declared the Irish College to be under the patronage of Prince Ludovisi, his heirs and descendants. The Brief is dated the 22nd May, 1647, and enters into a detailed de- finition of the rights of the patron and students, confirming to the Prince that of admitting and removing the students. It specifies the qualifications for admission. All present- ing themselves for reception into the Ludovisian Seminary were to be natives of Ireland, born in wedlock, of Catholic parents, of good reputation, provided with baptismal certi- ficates, and professors of the Catholic faith ; they were not to be burthened with the cure of souls ; they were to be sound in body and mind, free from defects in speech, or from any disfiguring infirmity {facie decori) ; they were to be suited to the study of theology and philosophy. Monks, religious, and apostates were alike ineligible. They were to be sixteen years of age, and were to apply to the study of grammar and humanities, as also to that of theology, philosophy, Greek, and Hebrew letters, according to their capacity. " The Jesuits had been governing the College till this time independently of any one. Father Caraffa, then General, called a meeting of his assistants, Secretary, and Procurator- General, at the vineyard named Del Macao, outside the Porta Pia, which belonged to the noviciate house on Monte Cavallo. He declared that he did not in- tend by his silence concerning the Pontifical Brief any DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 315 prejudice to the rights of the Company. Father Pyrrhus Gherardi, who was made notary by the same Fr. General, drew up a protestation against the Papal Brief, which was signed by the assistants for Italy, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, and by the Secretary-General, as well as by Gherardi himself. It was endorsed, 1 Protestatio P. Vin- centii Caraffae contra Breve Innocentii X., factum in favorem Principis Ludovisii pro eligendis alumnis.' With the ex- ception of this clandestine act, the Jesuits took no further steps during the life of Innocent X. " Innocent X. died in 1655, and was succeeded by Alexander VII. The General and Procurator-General of the Society of Jesus petitioned the new Pope that, con- cerning the Brief of his predecessor, he would refer the disputed patronage of the Irish College to the decision of the Rota. It is uncertain whether the Jesuit fathers obtained their request or not. They did not under- take any legal proceedings themselves, and it is cer- tain that neither Prince Nicholas Ludovisi nor his heirs ever availed themselves of the Brief, because the alumni were always nominated by the Rector of the College, and approved of by the General without any reference to any other authority. " Meanwhile the College finances were suffering. It was encumbered with a debt of 3,800 scudi for the house, and 800 scudi more for interest which had not been paid. Father Oliva, the General of the Jesuits, and the Rector of the College bethought them of selling the noble vineyard of Castel Gandolfo to the Jesuit noviciate of St. Andrew, on Monte Cavallo. Although the apostolical beneplacito was obtained, it does not appear that appraisers were con- sulted, or that any of the usual precautions were taken to ensure the equity of the contract. The Jesuits alone were principals, agents, buyers, sellers, judge, and jury. The price agreed on was 6,000 scudi, and the sale was effected on 31st January, 1667. As an equivalent for the 6,000 scudi, the noviciate charged itself with the debt of 3,800 scudi which the Irish College owed ; ceded also to the College another vineyard, which was in a neglected state, and also situated in the neighbourhood of Castel Gandolfo. This vineyard was worth about 1,060 scudi. The noviciate 316 WITS AND WORTHIES : also disbursed 1,140 scudi, which were spent partly in put- ting the vineyard ceded by the noviciate into order, and partly in liquidation of outstanding debts. " Not alone the students, but all the Irish inhabitants of Eome, were loud in their outcry against the promoters of this sale, which they believed to be ruinous to the College, as appears from the memorial addressed by the Irish students to Cardinal Imperiali, the Protector of Ireland. They bitterly complained of the wrongs and hardships they underwent, especially of the sale of the house near St. Isidore by those who were only adminis- trators of the property, and the purchase of an inferior house for so large a sum that they were obliged to sell their vineyard. They inquired why one Rector kept eight alumni in the College, another three or four, and another five or six, when the income of the establishment was fixed. "'But,' as the Irish students say in their memorial to Cardinal Imperiali, 'the eloquent advocate of the Jesuit fathers asks who we are who make such a fuss, and if we are not the sons of sailors or fishermen ? We ought rather to ask him who he is, who thus interferes uninvited in our affairs ! It is indeed true that our fathers have sailed upon the tempestuous sea of this century ; but, though exposed to the storms of persecution, and battered upon the rocks of heresy, they have never lost sight of their country. We are not the sons of fishermen indeed, but by the grace of God are destined, though unworthy, to the sublime office of fishermen, and, with a view towards that destination, have come to Eome — not from curiosity, nor to seek pleasure, nor to be made slaves, but to enjoy the pious legacy of our distinguished founder.' " [We may here observe, parenthetically, that, as we are reminded by Dr. Moran, now Bishop of Ossory, and late Vice-Rector of the Irish College, it rejoiced in the title of Seminarium Episcoporum, or nursery of bishops.] " The students having repudiated the suspicion of per- sonal vanity, or touchiness,* indignantly proceed : ' The * " Touchiness" is the only word which literally expresses the original. Webster gives "irascibility" and " peevishness" as synony- mous with ** touchiness but surely " sensitiveness" is a nearer ap- proach to it ; and yet there are many sensitive minds which never betray outward symptoms of *' touchiness.'' DR. LANIGrAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 317 advocate says that our lives are a disgrace to decent people, and only to be excused in fishermen or sailors. To this we reply, we were obnoxious to this charge either before or after your Eminence's visit. If before it, why did not our superiors reprove us ? If after, we are ready to suffer any penalty your Eminence may inflict. If one only be guilty, why are all blamed ? If even all were guilty, why should it be made a reproach to the whole nation ?' They proposed to the Cardinal that their College should be united to that of the Propaganda. 6 We declare, weeping, that we walk about in the depth of winter with torn clothes, and that our superiors do not allow the Masses founded by charitable persons to be said in our chapel.' " [After the usual concluding formula, occur the signatures Bernard M'Dermott, Rochus Matthew, alias MacMahon, James Gallagher, John Cassinus, James Gerrall, Cornelius Dohilly.] " Thus the College, which was deprived of the house destined for the students by the founder, and bought by his heir, as also of the vineyard at Castel Gandolfo, had nothing but the 1,000 scudi a-year, which was punctua lly paid by Prince Ludovisi. However, even this was mis- managed, as it would appear; and notwithstanding the re- monstrances of the Irish, this annual income was exchanc; I for the sum of 28,750 scudi, which was charged with debts, which made the income, and even the capital, uncertain. Prince Ludovisi considered that the Irish College had been wronged, and began a lawsuit. The Irish College had to pay 251-50/100 scudi for the expenses of the litigation. It also lost one quarter's income, pending the decision, which amounted to 166 scudi. The losses of the College were altogether 439 scudi odd. Many times they applied to the Father-General, but without success. There are many documents extant on this subject. The principal is a petition to the Father-General of the Jesuits from the Rector of the Irish College, and representing that the Eoman College had obtained unfair possession of some of the property of the Irish, and that the reputation of the Society of Jesus was compromised by the decay of the Irish College. He adds that the Irish prelates watched the interests of their College with a most jealous eye, and 318 WITS AND WORTHIES : whether from zeal or from excessive suspicion, might bo induced to form an unfavourable opinion of the admin- istrators. A document in the handwriting of Father della Rocca, Rector of the Irish College, states that the Roman College had cost the Irish College many thousands of scudi, from law-suits, expenses incidental thereto, delays in the investment of capital, &c, and that the Irish Seminary had lost 270 scudi of its 1,000 scudi annual income. " The exchange of the annual payment of 1,000 scudi for the capital of 28,750 was a real loss to the Irish College. As Father Rossa says, * The Rector does not defend the transaction. It was ruinous. If it had not been a national business, there would have been a lawsuit. A prelate offered to bear the law expenses, saying the case was clear. Father Tamburini was not averse to it. I feared to give scandal, and to be suspected of national antipathy, and hoped to be superseded by another Rector. As Father Gabriel Grassi, and many other of the most influential fathers said, < The one that took in Oliva was the cause of it all ; and as for that fool, Giordano, it will go hard with him if he is saved at all P " The same Father della Rocca has left some other me- moranda concerning the injuries said to have been inflicted upon the College through the mismanagement of its rulers. It appears that the Jesuits had placed a lay brother, named Domenico Evangelista, in charge of the large vine- yard at Castel Gandolfo. In his memorial to the Father- General, Fr. della Rocca says that this lay brother diverted the course of the water which was brought to Castel Gandolfo for public use, and also altered that of the con- tiguous vineyard of the Irish College — ' watering his cabbages with the blood of the Irish. ' No attention was paid for more than sixteen months, but after making three petitions to the Father-General, the water was restored to the College. " Serious charges were made against this Brother Domenico — first, that of denying the fact of the deviation of the watercourse, and of perforating the public reservoir, 80 as to waste the water. " On the 5th of December, 1725, whilst the same Father DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 319 della Rocca was Rector, four young men who came to Rome with the intention of becoming Jesuits were left at the Irish College for many days. Much expense was caused by their visit. The account informs us that these young men, Thomas Brennan, John Reilly, Clement Kelly, and Patrick Colgan, stayed at the College 195 days, that they were given dessert* every day, and were remarkable for the quantity of house-linen they wore out, and of wood they burnt. The Father-Rector endeavoured in vain to obtain a reimbursement. He says, * I know all this is one of the tricks generally played upon foreign Rectors.' "In consequence of these events, Cardinal Barbarigo, Bishop of Montefiascone, was deputed to visit the Irish College in 1693. He stated that the institution had been much prejudiced by the exchange of the 28,750 scudi, instead of the annual income of 1,000 scudi. The eminent visitor made the proposal that the Irish and Scotch Colleges should be united to the English College, and that the saving consequent on the change would enable them to support a greater number of students. The Cardinal found great fault with the negligent manner in which the alumni were prepared for the public duties of their ministry. He suggested that they should teach the catechism in some public church, and learn from a parish priest the manner of administering the sacraments, and that they should read aloud some spiritual book in Irish, in the refectory three times a week, when the Irish Rector, or some one skilled in the vernacular language, was present. He ani- madverted upon the mal-administration of their miserable revenues, which were partially spent upon the support of three Jesuits, and of other officials, when there were not more than six alumni in the College. These and many other suggestions of Cardinal Barbarigo were considered so wise and useful, that they were adopted by the Congrega- tion of the Sacra Yisita, and were enforced upon the Rector for the time, under pain of deposition. It would appear that they fell into disuse, and that the College, so far from * The expression in the original is antipasto, and signifies that which is served before the dinner properly begins. It generally con- sists of sausages, salt, sardines, &c., and corresponds to our dessert. — W. J. F. 820 WITS AND WORTHIES : benefiting, relapsed into such a state that the alumni com- plained to Clement XI., and besought him to depute other Apostolic Visitors. The Pope granted their request, and entrusted to Cardinal Beneto Imperiali the task of making the examination in 1719." Some of the " grievances," of the Irish students are rather amusing, including the complaint that they did not get physic enough — not even Jesuits' Bark. But other objections were of a graver character : " They bitterly complained of the sale of their vineyard, and after some other hints at maladministration, proceeded to make detailed statements of the imperfect observance of their rules. They had no place suitable for the celebra- tion of Mass, and were obliged to go to distant churches, where they were detained two, three, or four hours. The Bector retorted that they had at first been sent to churches close to the College, but that they had displeased the sacristans, and that they refused to go to St. Ignazio, where two Masses could have been assigned to them. The Bector was further accused of giving them bad bread, of stinting the house-linen, of fomenting quarrels amongst the students, of giving them an insufficient quantity of inferior wine, of taking their own clothes and substituting them by worthless ones, of letting out the lower floor of the College to disreputable persons, of replying with dis- courtesy when the last annoyance was complained of, and of sending his lay-brother to give the signum of silence (a very lenient mode of punishment) to the reader, and to visit them in their rooms at unseasonable hours. All these charges were flatly denied, except the last two, which were admitted and excused by the statement that their Bector was half afraid to meet the alumni. It was further alleged that bad meat, stale bad fish, putrid eggs, and rotten fruit were served at table, and that the sick were deprived of little delicacies which it had been the custom to give them. All such charges were denied or explained away. Further it was said that when any remonstrance was attempted, the Bector revenged it by all manner of insults, and even encouraged the servants to do the same. He was further accused of undisguised favouritism, closing his eyes to the faults of his satellites and tale-bearers, and acting with un- DE. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 921 deserved severity to others ; but these imputations' were also indignantly repudiated. The Rector was further charged with protecting one of the students who was alleged to have committed acts of gross violence, main- taining that the community lived in great peace, and calling such events " necessary evils" — all of which alle- gations were denied. The original petition is signed Jo- annes Cassinus, Jacobus Ferrall, Cornelius Dohilly, Ber- nardus Maria Dermott. The students repeated their prayer to be affiliated to the Propaganda about this time. It was not then granted, but their good friend Cardinal Imperiali retained the office of Apostolic Visitor until his death, which took place in 1737. If the apostolical visits did not always promote the effect that might be expected, they almost invariably brought the Irish College some pecuniary advantage. Shortly after Cardinal Barbarigo's visit in 1696, the reigning Pontiff, Innocent XII., granted the College an exemption from all duties and taxes on food ; and immediately subsequent to that of Cardinal Imperiali, the Pretender — or James III., as he was styled in Rome— uniformly granted money for travelling expenses, and bestowed on the students a house in the Strada Orsiui for the same object. In 1771, at the period of the visit made by the com- piler of the Report before us, Cardinal Marefoschi, there were in the College eight alumni, three Jesuits (of whom one was the Rector, one a prefect, and one a lay broiher), one secular cleric, prefect of the alumni, and two secular servants. He declares that he found the accounts in con- fusion, and the pious legacies mal- administered, and hints that undue influence was used in order to induce the students to become Jesuits, referring to a memorial ad- dressed by the Irish clergy to Innocent XII. in 1692, and suggesting that the same oath imposed by Alexander VII. upon the alumni of the Propaganda bo required of them. He referred to the letter addressed to the congregation of the Propaganda Fide by the Archbishop of Dublin, in which he expressed his regret that the Irish College was rather a Jesuit than a missionary seminary. This docu- ment, which is given at length, is dated 28th March, 1765, and signed * Patritius Archiepiscopus Dubliniensis et Hiber- 11 322 "WITS AND WOKTHIES : nix Primas.'* In consequence of this appeal, Clement XIV. dispensed the alumni of the Irish College from the oath re- quired from them until then, and imposed upon them the solemn affirmation taken by those of the Propaganda, agreeably to the formula prescribed by Alexander VII. in his constitution, Cum circa juramenti vinculum, of the 20th July, 1660, with the modification added thereto in the decree of Clement IX., promulgated on 20th December, 1668, by which they bound themselves not to enter any religious order, society, or secular congregation, without especial license from the Apostolic See. This document, dated April, 1771 is signed ' M. Cardinal Marefoschi, Visitor Apostolic and Protector. Sergius Sersale, Convisi- tator.' Cardinal Marefoschi proposed that the students should make written notes of their chief causes of complaint, to be communicated to Father Petrelli, the Rector, who should then reply to them in writing. But, indeed, they are more apt to interest doctors like Kitchener than doctors of divinity. It is, however, better to print them, lest worse should be inferred. It is only right to give, in reply to the often repeated charge of maladministration, the vindi- catory replies of the Jesuits in detail to each charge. In estimating the extent of one of the chief grievances alleged to have existed, the habits of the country should be weighed. Italy has been always peculiar in its diet ; and the recently published diary of Archbishop Troy, penned about the very period in question, bitterly records that on arrival in Rome he was entertained at breakfast with ' ' cold bad brocoli." " 1. There was formerly but one table for masters and students. Now they are separated, and the food at the fathers' is superior. "Reply. — There was not always a common table. When the present Rector came, he found two distinct tables. The food is alike for both, with the exception of some pre- sents, which had frequently been shared with the students. II. After Cardinal Imperiali's visit, it was ordered that the bread and cheese was to be ad libitum. The present * The Most Rev. Dr. Fitzsimon, who filled the See of Dublin from 1763 until his death in 1769. DR. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 323 Rector said he would not give the third pagnotta (small loaf). " 'Reply. — The Rector often declared he had no intention of saving the bread, and that a third loaf was often given to those who required it. " Many accusations concerning the quantity and quality of the provisions were made, but all were contradicted by the Rector. He was accused of removing a lay brother who could have furnished some proofs of these charges, but replied that he was discharged for different reasons, that he attested to the good quality and abundance of every- thing, and that the former prefect had been removed at the wish of the students, concerning whom he could have made some unpleasant revelations. "III. The food was always scarce, and has long been bad ; until the visit of Cardinal Corsini, the Protector, the cheese was decomposed and black. 1 1 Reply. — The food has always been the same, and ac- cording to the regulation. The cheese was never either putrid or black. " Vll. On days of abstinence the oil and vinegar were removed, contrary to custom. " Reply. — The oil and vinegar were never refused except once, and that was upon a day when it was not usual to give them. ' ' VIII. On fast days, when the fathers had salad or fish, the students only received ten, or at most twelve chesnuts each, without regard to age or constitution. 1 6 Reply. — The fathers did receive the usual fi>h or salad, and the students got more than the prescribed share of it. ;, X. The morning collation during Lent was dispensed with by the present Rector. It was granted to two per- sons at the physician's suggestion, but in their case was generally scraps of bread left by the servants in the kit- chen. " Reply. — It never was the custom to give a collation in the morning to the whole College during Lent ; those who required it, asked and obtained it. It is possible that by a mistake of the dispenser, half loaves may have been given, but this was changed by the Rector's order. 324 WITS AND WORTHIES : 4 4 XL Fresh fish was hardly ever given, and never sal- mon — generally ill-cooked stock fish ; and when eggs were given, they were fried in oil instead of butter. 44 Reply — The fish served at table was always fresh, as the accounts of the fish- monger testify ; when stock-fish w r as given, it was well cooked ; salmon was not necessary — in its place eels were given ; and the eggs were cooked as usual with butter in the earthen frying-pan. "XIL, XIII., XIY. During the villeggiatura* the usual excursions were stopped, the ordinary collations retrenched, and the food, which was tolerably good while the Rector dined at the same table, became less and of worse quality. 44 Reply — The food was the same during the whole vaca- tion. 4 4 XV. The alumni were obliged to take their recreation in a garret, which was divided into two rooms, in one of which were five beds, and here a sick person slept for a long time. The odour of this garret was dreadful. There was no table on which to play at their usual games, and if they made the least noise, the Rector, who occupied the large room formerly used for recreation, reproved them. 44 Reply — The recreations during the villeggiatura were taken in the large room, which was more airy than that underneath it. With regard to the odour, the students were chiefly the cause of it, but when the Rector heard of it, he took measures to alter the system of drainage. The beds were much better disposed by this Rector than by any former one. He only blamed them for making ex- cessive noise, and shaking down such a quantity of rubbish upon the Rector's room, that they very nearly pulled down the attics too. If this villeggiatura was less pleasant than the others, the real reason, as in many other cases, was suppressed. 44 XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX. The clothes are inferior ; the nightgowns which were in rags, w T ere only mended lately, on hearing of the visit ; only one pair of stockings a-year was given, summer or winter. When slippers were asked for, they were denied, or old worn ones, used by other people, were given. Until the news of the visit, the * Vacation spent in the country. — Ed. DR. LANIGAX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 325 shirts, handkerchiefs, and nightcaps were of the coarsest linen. They were hastily supplied by others of the finest quality, as will appear by comparing the old ones with those shown to his Eminence and to Monsignor Convisi- tatore. The Fathers sell the students' wardrobes which they bring with them, and only give them fourteen scudi to renew them on their departure. " The Hector replied that with regard to the clothes, everything has been done as usual, and without any thought of the visit ; if new slippers have been refused, it was with good reason. The quality of the stuff was a mistake of the tailors. The clothes they bring with them, being of no further use, are sold for the benefit of the College, and they always receive more than the profits of the sale. 1 ' XX. None of the fathers join in the pious exercises, except in the litanies of the saints. ' ' Reply — They have others of their own, and are not negligent in watching over the due performance of all. " XXI. The students are not allowed to confess to any one except the Prefect of Spirituals. " Reply — They never asked to do so. "XXII. All Cardiual Barbarigo's injunctions con- cerning the singing of the office on feasts, the practice of the rubrics and ceremonies, teaching the cathechism, and learning to administer the sacraments, are neglected. " Reply — Refer to the ensuing visit of Cardinal Imperiali, who passed this matter over in silence, either because he saw nothing to reprove, or because he thought we had ensured good order, by banishing a few enemies of dis- cipline, peace, and harmony. " XXIII., XXIV., XXV., XXVI., XXVII. Whenever the Prefect goes out, he takes with him two students, who have to wait in an anteroom, or garden, while he pays visits ; there is no rest after dinner at any time of the year; the students sleep two in a room ; there is no one to hear the younger students repeat their lessons, except the seniors, which is a great loss of time. There is no one capable of hearing the higher schools, and a great scarcity of books. " Reply — All this is the usual rule — two sleep in a room because there are not rooms for all, and there ought always to be one room vacant. No one can help the younger 826 WITS AND WORTHIES : students except those who know their language. The alumni are hardly judges of the capacity of the Prefect. They have all the books they want. "XXVIII., XXIX., XXX. The servants are insolent to the students with impunity, and the lay brother has pre- cedence over them. The sick are left without help or doctor. The number of students is diminished. When they were more numerous their journey back was paid. " Reply — The Rector was not told of the servants dis- respect. He is not aware of any precedence of the lay brother. The sick receive care proportioned to their needs. The number of students is and ought to be eight. If their journey back was paid, it was an act of charity, and not of justice. "XXXI. A house was sold, and the profits have dis- appeared. " Reply — Kefer to the account books. " XXXII. When a new Rector comes, his journey is paid one way. When the last one went to France, his way was paid with 90 scudi (£18.) " XXXIII. The present Rector has suppressed some of the archives on hearing of the visit. " Reply — A vile calumny, which should be punished like all the other falsehoods. " XXXIV. All the accounts are in confusion, as may be seen from the specimen-sheet. "Reply — The present Rector, Ignazio Maria Petrelli, denies the confusion, and humbly begs the most Eminent Cardinal Marefoschi and Monsignor Sersale to do him justice, and clear him from the caluminous falsehoods issued to his prejudice by the alumni of the Irish College. " Cardinal Marefoschi urged the Supreme Pontiff, Clement XIV., to unite the Irish College to that of the Propaganda, appealing to the experience of 150 years, during which time they had been exclusively under Jesuit control. He blamed the fathers for their choice of books, suggesting that their studies were more suited for Jesuits than for secular priests, and appending to his memorial a synopsis of the books used and of the course gone through. He suggested that at the Roman College they were exposed to meet youths of every description, whereas as the Propa- DR. LAX I G AN j HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 327 ganda their companions would all be Church students, and some of them were already Irish. Consequently, Clement XIV. issued a Brief, Alias nos, dated the 18th September, 1772, by which he authorised the Cardinal Visitor to dis- miss the Jesuits from the government and administration of the Irish College, which he did by the decree published on the 23rd of the the same month. In the following year Ganganelli utterly suppressed the Society of Jesus, and we conceive that the foregoing pages throw light on the influences which finally determined him to fulminate that desperate decree. This great step he performed with great conclusiveness. The Brief Do minus ad Redeniptor, which is exhaustively ample, thus ends : " Even should the superiors and other members of the Society of Jesus, who have an interest real or affected in its concerns, not consent to the tenor of these letters, and have been neither warned nor informed of them, it is our will that these letters shall not be invalidated on any ac- count of subreption, or obreption, or nullity, or any other great reason that can be alleged, unforeseen and essential, or on account of neglect of formalities, or other rules that should be observed in the foregoing, nor for any other capital head or custom, even if included in the body of the law, under the pretext of an enormous and a very enor- mous leison, or any other pretext, occasion, or cause, even just, reasonable, and privileged. It must not be imagined that these letters should have otherwise been expressed. They must not be cited, retracted, or invalidated in law. This constitution cannot be provided against or combated by way of discussion in entirety of restitution, deduction, terms of law, fact, grace, or justice in whatever manner it has been granted or obtained, as well by justice as by any other way. We will that these presents be firm and effica- cious, and have full and entire effect, and obtain it, and that they may be inviolably observed by each of those whom they now concern, or shall hereafter concern. So and not otherwise, as herein contained, we will that they be judged and defined by all judges whomsoever, whether ordinary or delegated by the Auditors of the Apostolic palace, by the Cardinals of the Holy Koman Church, and also by legates en latere nuncios of the Apostolic See, and 328 WITS AND WOETHIES : others enjoying or entitled to any authority and power in any cause whatever, taking from them all right and faculty of judging or interpreting them, declaring that in such case they will, whether wittingly or by ignorance, offend against these presents." The Bull Cceai Domine, to which reference is also made at p. 80, ante, as having been for the first time suspended by Ganganelli, was finally annulled in 1868 by the present Pontiff, Pio Nono. DR. GEOFFBEY KEATINGE. (Page 76, ante.) Dr. Lanigan has been compared to Geoffrey Keatinge by Mr. Henebry Green ; and so far as both having been Tip- perary men in priest's orders, and authors of Histories of Ireland, the parallel is fair enough. But no two works could differ more utterly than Keatinge's and Lanigan's. The effort of Keatinge was to gather and preserve the popular traditions, with which much fable was almost of necessity mixed ; Lanigan's great object was to weed his- tory of every shred of fable, and to expose the myths of previous false teachers. Keatinge's work is very valu- able from the exhaustive fulness with which it records the traditionary accounts of early times ; but Lanigan has proved Keatinge wrong in saying that " Emly was mistaken for an archbishopric, from the fact of the Archbishop of Cashel retiring thither with his clergy during the Danish persecution." Dr. Lanigan shows that there was at that time 7io Archbishop of Cashel (Eccl. Hist., vol. iii., p. 278). That Keatinge was guiltless of some blunders laid at his door by Harris, Dr. Lanigan also proves (vol. iv., p. 143), and we learn that they are entirely clue to his incompetent translator, Dermod O'Conor. DE. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 329 ARCHBISHOP BRAY AND THE RECALL OF LORD FITZ WILLIAM. {Page 82, ante). "Thurles, 14th March, 1795. " My yeey dear and honoured Loud — I have strong hopes, as Lord Fitzwilliam has not yet quitted this kingdom, that the British Cabinet will consider his immediate removal a very dangerous experiment. If Lord Fitzwilliam continues here, what has happened in both Houses and throughout the kingdom in consequence of his expected departure, must eventually and most naturally serve the Catholic cause. " I shall be anxious to hear the issue of our deputation to the throne. The vote of thanks, &c, in both Houses to his Excellency, and the county addresses pouring in from every quarter, must be a great support to it. The circumstances being most extraordinary, momentous, and altogether unforeseen, seem to justify that sudden, strong, and very bold measure. " With pleasure I often reflect that we had left Dublin before these sudden changes could ever be surmised. I feel with particular satisfaction the great attention paid by his Excellency to Dr. Troy. Your Lordship's remark is very just — a certain description of soi-disant Catholics in Dublin should feel confounded, but they have not grace enough to become sensible of the contrast. I was ap- prehensive in Dublin, and on our return, that an attack of the gout was hovering about your Lordship, and I am now happy to learn from your Lordship that you are much re- covered from it. If my good wishes and prayers prove effectual, your Lordship will long enjoy the full beneiit of good health, with every other blessing. "My old and faithful servant, John Rowe, died the very day we left Dublin, in Cashel, rather unexpectedly. I hope they had found him prepared ; he was truly pious and un- commonly charitable. I hold a month's mind for him next "Wednesday, and I beg leave to recommend him to your prayers. Adieu, my ever dear Lord ; my best regards wait on your good ladies ; and believe me, with every good 330 WITS AND WORTHIES : wish, your Lordship's very affectionate and truly devoted humble servant, "THOMAS BRAY. "The Right Rev. Dr. Moylan." Dr. Moylan's " good ladies" refers to the Ursuline Com- munity recently established by him in Cork, and in which two of his own sisters wore the habit. THE LATE EEV. DR. HOWLEY. (Page 89, ante). The following letter has been addressed to us by the Rev. William Cooney, formerly pastor of the parish which Dr. Howley administered. It serves to vindicate a worthy man, whose views have been to some extent misunderstood. Dr. Howley, it will be remembered, returned to Ireland from Pavia with Dr. Lanigan, and both were afterwards intimately associated : " Cahercc-nlish, Co. Limerick, 16th July, 1871. " My Dear Sir — I can give you a few recollections of Dr. Howley, personal and traditional. He christened me some fifty years ago. He was of a full habit of body, like Dr. Lanigan, with broad features. I recollect him saying Mass at my father's house. He dropped dead in his garden, in 1825, and was buried in the chapel-yard; and a fine tombstone was erected over him by his grateful parish- ioners, with the following epitaph : 4 Here lie the remains of the Rev. William Howley, D.D., Parish Priest of Clerihan. During twenty-seven years he discharged his duty with unaffected piety and exemplary zeal, and was beloved by the poor and respected by the rich. He founded and built the chapel of Clerihan, and his flock have erected this tomb to record his worth and their regret of the loss of so ex- cellent a pastor. He died 3rd February, 1825, aged 66 years. May his soul rest in peace. Amen.' My immediate pre- decessor, the late Rev. William Heffernan, so well known throughout the south of Ireland for his talents, his eccen- tricities, and his many good parts, when praying for the D2. LANIGANj HIS LITE AND TIMES. 331 faithful departed on All Souls' day, would commence the list with, ' Dr. Howley, my sainted predecessor — peace to his bones abroad there.' " I once saw the parish book kept by Dr. Howley, before it was burned, together with other interesting parochial matters. It was well written in a fine Roman hand, and there was a preface attached to it in beautiful classic Latin. He was considered to be a good linguist and classical scholar, and a very sound theologian. He was an honest, simple man — honest even to innocence — still a very sensible, prudent priest. He built the very pretty chapel of Cleiihan long before there was any notion of church-building amongst priest or people. Since the partial relaxation of the penal laws, the most that could be done was to get up rude chapels thatched with straw. This was the almost universal state of religious houses of wor- ship till Dr. Howley built his then famous chapel, which wasj well known throughout Tipperary. For the county was not then divided into ridings, and all the people coming to Cionmel to the assizes, elections, and markets, from the very banks of the Shannon, had to pass by Clerihan. When arrived, they were certain to visit the then great parish chapel, and were sure to find Dr. Howley on the premises, saying his prayers or reading his breviary. He would accompany every one who came iuside the sacred edifice, and feeling a natural pride * in the work of his own hands,' would show everything — would point out the three commodious galleries with the Latin inscriptions in front, 1 Gloria in excelsis Deo,' ' Jubilate Deo omnis terra/ He would then point up to the dove (a beautiful one he procured from Italy), and the rays of glory in golden streaks around it. Then keeeiing on the altar-steps, and pulling the bell-handle inserted in the step, would ring a very harmonious chime of bells which lay under and behind the altar, to the mingled delight and bewilderment of the be- holders. These bells were silent for a long time after his death ; but when I was restoring the chapel some years since, I got the little bells to ring again, and procured a new dove instead of the old one, fallen to pieces. " Dr. Howley was of a very respectable old family, and he had some of his immediate friends living with him ; but 832 WITS AND WORTHIES I they were no burthen to him, as each had a competency of his own. He had a brother, Colonel Howley, who saw much foreign service, but who, I believe, abandoned the old faith. He had no curate for several years, he was very well able to do all himself, as there was but little duty in the small parish. But as he was not a man to make a slavish obeisance even to a bishop — he was too simple and independent to act the flatterer or sycophant — he was sent a curate — a curate was forced on him. The honest old man was so incensed at the injustice of quarter- ing an idle priest on him, with his very slender means, when he saw the curate at the gate he stood up to turn him out again, till he was induced by his friends to keep quiet. His manners were simple, plain — yet courtly. On this account he was a favourite with the aristocracy. I heard it said that he and the Earl of Donoghmore used to con- verse in Italian, and he was a constant visitor at Darling Hill, the residence of Major Pennefather, who was father to the two great judges, Edward, the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and Richard, the late Baron Pennefather. " I remember a brother-in-law of mine — a very shrewd man, who used to serve Mass for Dr. Howley — say that he never saw a priest celebrate the divine nrysteries with such real devotion. Once the consecration took place, his manner and appearance all changed, and he looked like one entranced by the presence of bis Saviour. His priestly purity and piety and devotion were so well known amongst the people, that they attributed to him the power of 6 heal- ing,' and several persons were ' cured' by means of his holy prayers. Still he never made a practice of this ; he was too humble and too prudent to do so, lest his sacred ministry should be brought into contempt. " Dr. Howley's family had a considerable middle interest in Helen Park and Clearagh, now owned by Mr. Laurence Waldron, who preceded your late brother-in-law as M.P. for Tipperary. They lived at Helen Park and the entire property fell to an heiress who was married to a Mr. Leatham, a Protestant. The late Serjeant, Sir John Howley, Assistant- Barrister for Tipperary, as well as the Howleys of Rich Hill, near Limerick, were near relatives of his. I could tell many laughable anecdotes about the DR. LAN I G AN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 333 old Doctor. He was a very simple man, and still a great man. — Believe to be, &c. " WILLIAM COONEY. u W. J. Fitzpatrick, Esq." One of the modes in which the Doctor displayed his simplicity was riding a black donkey through the rural scenes of his pastoral labours. The Master whom he served had ridden an ass, why should he recoil from be- striding another. The Eev. Mr. Cooney in a subsequent letter expressed the greatest surprise at hearing from us that Dr. Howley's theological orthodoxy had been vaguely impugned ; and Mr. Cooney having applied to the oldest priest in the diocese, the Rev. Mr. Burke, P.P., Newport, to know if any grounds existed for suspicion, received from that clergyman an unqualified negative. LETTER OF DR. TROY. {Page 110, ante.) Mr. Plowden was, at the date of the following letter, en- gaged on his " History of Ireland Since the Union" and other important works of national interest. Why so fluent a correspondent as his Grace should not pay Mr. Plowden the civility of addressing him direct, can only be accounted for by the fact that the historian's tone was usually hostile to that government with which Dr. Troy desired — from motives of policy— to maintain friendly relations. Dr. Troy, moreover, with his wonted astuteness may have hesitated to allow himself to be drawn into a correspond- ence with Mr. Plowden, who in his history, published six years afterwards, printed letters addressed to himself which had manifestly not been written for publication : "Dublin, 15th August, 1803. " Rev. dear Sir — Please to acquaint Mr. Plowden wi;h my compliments, that I did not receive his letter of the 20th of May until last week." [Here parts required to complete sets of books are indicated.] " One of Sir Richard Musgrave's worst calumnies is his 334 WITS AND WORTHIES : assertion that none of our prelates, except Dr. Moylan, enforced the duty of loyalty when the Rebellion of 1798 commenced. I expected that Mr. Plowden would have proved the contrary by a reference to the collection of * Remonstrances,' published by Coghlan. I also hoped that Dr. Bellew would have been vindicated by the inser- tion of Mr. Cooke's letter to him, and the affidavits I en- closed to you for Mr. Plowden, who completely vindicates Dr. Caulfield.* It is to be regretted that Mr. Plowden could not publish the mentioned and other documents. I frequently desired Messrs. Keating to send me half-a- dozen copies of the 'Remonstrances,' &c, and beg they may be forwarded to me without delay. I mean to have them re-published here with additional ones. I have not a single copy of them. Mr. C. Butler has been so kind to send me a copy of the second part of ' Horas Bibliee.' Best compliments and thanks to him. " One priest only has been apprehended since the late insurrection. He is a parish priest in the diocese of Ross and county of Cork, and was discharged in less than twenty- four hours. Nevertheless, some of the English papers state that priests sitting in committee have been taken up. Faulkner s Journal stated that Connolly of Maynooth College was in Kilmainham Jail ; a schoolmaster of that name who taught in the village, but in no manner con- nected with the College, is the person in prison. See President Dunn's declaration on that subject. " I have been honoured with several letters from Eng- land, complimenting me on the late printed exhortation occasioned by that wicked insurrection here on the 23rd ultimo. Amongst others from Lords Cornwallis, Hertford, Castlereagh, Sir J. C. Hippesley, and Mr. Corry. We are apparently quiet here — we were so on Friday, 22nd ultimo. French intrigue and gold will, I fear, fan the flame of rebellion which seems extinguished. May God protect us and direct our poor over-credulous people. All friends are well. — Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully yours, " * J. T. TROY. * Bishop of Ferns. DR. LANIGANj HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 335 " P.S. — Please to Land the enclosed to Rev. G. Plunkett. The late insurrection prevented the appointed meeting of our prelates at Maynooth on the 27th ultimo, when I had resolved to recommend the 1 Harmony of the Gospels, or the Life of Christ' to the patronage of their Lordships. Drs. Plnnkelt, Caulfield, and O'Reilly have since hecome subscribers, likewise the College of Maynooth. Please to inform Messrs. Keating of these particulars. Perhaps Mr. Plowilen's present leisure may enable him to arrange and publish the documents which I sent and referred to." ANECDOTES OF THE EEY. DR. LAXIGAX. (Page 156, ante). Dr. James Lanigan, of whom little is known outside Ossorv, has been more than once confounded wi;h Dr. John Lanigan. The former died in February, 1812, and previous to his consecration as bishop was Professor of Mathematics in the University of Xantes. But he proved more orthodox than Bishop Colenso, who was also pro- moted from mathematics to the mitre, and a journal of the day in recording his death describes him as possessing " an intellect inquisitive and capacious, delicacy of percep- tion, a faithful memory, a judgment that could both com- bine and discriminate with admirable accuracy, in the most intricate and perplexed reasoning ; all these informed a mind that could sport with ease through the different in- termediate ranges of knowledge, from the rudiments of classical learning to the sublime part of theology. Thus prepared, what wonder if he acquitted himself well of the various duties inseparable from the state of a dignitary and ecclesiastic ?" Like John Lanigan he had the cacccthes scribendi, though with the exception of a book on the Eucharist, we can identify little from his pen ; and Cox's Irish Magazine tells us, somewhat quaintly, that " an early prepossession for literary pursuits charmed him away from domestic happi- ness, and from the society of every respectable connexion !" To this eulogium it may be added that the inscription upon WITS AND WORTHIES : Dr. James Lanigan's tomb in Kilkenny records that as a preacher he had few equals. An amusing anecdote is told of Bishop Lanigan, who at the time of the Union made a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle, with a complimentary address to the "Viceroy, Lord Cornwallis. The antagonism of the Catholic hierarchy and laity had been silenced by diplo- matic promises of prompt emancipation, meant to be broken like the pie-crust with which his Excellency feasted the deputations. Like Harry Deane Grady — who had a simi- larly constituted eye, which he facetiously called his " jury eye," from the success with which he worked it upon that body — one of Lord Cornwallis' eyes was smaller than the other, and had acquired a rapid, uninterrupted winking motion, which he is said to have turned to profitable ac- count in his negociations with political jobbers on the great question of the Union. Bishop Lanigan, who had never seen Lord Cornwallis, composed in the remote seclusion of Ossory, the compliments with which he meant to ply him personally. The Viceroy was sitting upon his throne when Dr. Lanigan, at the head of his clergy, sonorously pro- ceeded to read the address : "Your Excellency has always kept a steady eye upon the interests of Ireland." An ill- suppressed smile rippled on every face in St. Patrick's Hall. Curran used to say that Dr. Lanigan's remark was second only to the Mayor of Coventry's compliment to Queen Elizabeth — "When the Spanish Armada attacked your Majesty, ecod, they caught the wrong sow by the ear." In reference to this eye the late Commissioner Casey, father of Edmund Casey, Esq., D.L., used to tell that he overheard two fellows say, on a certain " command-night" at Crowe- street Theatre, when the arrival of Lord Cornwallis was greatly delayed from his fear of being stoned by the mob, " A two-year old paving-stone would come very nately to compose his other eye." Bishop Lanigan, though an exemplary Christian prelate, was, we fear, a bad politician and a worse diplomatist. He supported the Legislative Union of Ireland with England, though he should have included that fell scheme in the anathemas which he fulminated against other " unions in DR. LAX I G AX, HIS LIFE AXD TIMES. 337 the prohibited degrees." His policy in 1798 was, perhaps, more sensible, though his tone assumed too much of the government partisan. A remarkable letter addressed to Archbishop Troy by his suffragan of Ossory, and obviously written for the perusal of Lord Castlereagh, is to be found in the correspondence of that statesman, vol. i., p. 161. The following extract from a letter of the Rev. Thomas O'Shea, P.P. of Ossory, shows how little is remembered of this prelate, even in his own family and diocese : " My re- lative, the Eight Eev. James Lanigan, was usually styled ' the learned Lanigan' by his contemporaries. I regret not being in a position to furnish any authentic interesting anecdotes in connexion with his episcopal career. He died the year before I was born ; and though in my boyhood I have heard my parents speak occasionally of him, I remember little beyond the catechetical lectures, and the at once amus- ing and instructive conferences which he used to hold with a certain layman during Mass ; and his having been a great but very strict patron of the different spiritual con- fraternities which existed in the diocese." MART ANA'S GHOST. {Page 159, ante). There was wailing in the Convent of St. Joseph at Leek, on the 22nd March, 1865, when Mariana Finn, or, as she was better known in religion, " Reverend Mother Mary Paul," died. Her death was sudden, though disease had been for years at work. For twenty years this gifted woman had been Superioress of the Convent, Navan. She founded St. Joseph's Convent, Balbriggan ; Sr. Xivier's Convent, Kidderminster, Worcester; St. Joseph's Convent, Leek, North Staffordshire; Loretto Convent, Leith, Edin- burgh ; and sent on the mission to India zealous nuns to diffuse and perpetuate the teaching of which she had been the inculcator. Apart from the apostolic achievements, which will long survive as monuments of her zeal, Mrs. Finn will perhaps be best remembered as the " Mariana" of Bishoo Doyle's 11* 338 WITS AND WORTHIES : " Life." His correspondence with her has been compared by a high critical authority to that of Sulpicius Severus with Sister Claudia. The letters possess, it added, all the beauties of the classic effusions, but were at the same time free from the blemishes with which the style of the elegant Sulpicius was disfigured. The favourite child of a Protestant banker, Mariana Finn was brought up in strong Anglican tenets ; but the prejudices which had been im- bibed with her mother's milk, at last gave place to views of considerable liberality. " Even when a child," she writes, " the inconsistencies of my Catechism set me thinking. 1 found that the accusations from the Pro- testant pulpit were absolutely falsified by the conduct of my Catholic friends, and this was the happy foundation of all that arose afterwards." Soon after this decisive change in her opinions, Mariana was introduced to Dr. Doyle at an evening party in Kutland-square. Her acquaintance with him gradually ripened into a strong feeling of friend- ship. Every conversation with the Bishop attracted her still closer to the Church of which he was so bright an ornament, until at last the fair young convert's devotion reached its zenith, in a determination to abandon for ever a happy home and join the Sisters of Charity. Of much personal attractiveness, and gifted with a naturally spark- ling disposition, her accomplishments and talents were of the most fascinating character. With a nerve of iron Mariana tore herself from the adulation of those who had long courted her society, and in May, 1822, entered the chilling noviciate of the Order of Charity. Mrs. Finn's attainments were as varied as her own ac- complished conversation. She was a painter and a poet, a patriot and a philosopher ; but her philosophy was dis- ciplined by the purest Christianity, and her love of country was second only to her love of God. As a wit she was perfect. Her mind was perpetually sending forth brilliant sparks, but they never hurt where they fell. Always sparkling, never satiric, she lost no friend and made no enemy. Her countenance was uniformly lit up with joyous animation. The slow consuming ngony of compli- cated disease never caused a cloud to cross her brow, or that sunny smile to darken. DR. LA NIG AX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 339 The present writer refers not without emotion to this subject ; for he possessed largely the generously proffered friendship of her who is gone, and he will perhaps be ex- cused for dwelling thus fully upon her qualities. An obi- tuary notice, contributed by him to a paper of the day, thus concluded : " Six hours before her dissolution Mariana Finn was up and doing, labouring in the vineyard of the Lord with a hearty good will, a light heart, and that earnest joy which was her specialty and made all around sunshine. A brighter halo now surrounds her. May her virtues be our model! May her glory be ours!" He little thought when penning these lines that thereby hung a thrilling tale. The following letter from the Superioress of the Convent of Loretto, in the Himalayas, written three months later, discloses the startling evidence to which we referred. The Religious to whom the apparition appeared in that remote region was desirous of joining the institute over which Mrs. Finn presided, and in which her two sisters were already nuns ; but three members of a family in the same convent was contrary to rule, and she was consequently induced to join the foreign mission, ask- ing God every day " never to take her out of life till He had permitted her to see Rev. Mother Paul's face once more." M Loretto Convent, Himalayas, 1st June, 1865. " My dear SistePw in Christ — Before your favour of the 24th reached this place, we had a presentiment — we were prepared for the coming news. Sister Johannah had a visit from her dear, dear Mother ! She was dressed in her religious habit and looked extremely happy, and thanked Johannah for all the prayers, Masses, and communions she offered for her since her entrance into religion, which were countless. Johannah asked her to remain here — she thought she was alive, and had come on a visit to us. She replied she was too, too happy to tarry, and disappeared in a bright ray of light. I was disposed to treat this as a dream, but Johannah says she was not asleep ! She is by no means an imaginative soul ; quite the contrary — she finds it difficult to attach importance to any supernatural nocturnal visitations ; yet she is happy 340 WITS AND WORTHIES : and consoled in private conviction that she has seen her dear mother in glory. She described the light that sur- rounded her as like transparent gold ! " I feel sad and lonely, for I am one of the last of a band of religious who founded Loretto Abbey, Rathfarnham. My dear associates, who were far superior to me in sanctity, all, all have gone to receive their crowns. I was the ninth — eight are in heaven. When am I to receive my summons to the judgment seat ? Whenever it pleases my spouse and my God. Oh, may he find me ready ! Pray for me. Mother Frances came after me ; she was the eleventh. How is she ? She, at all events, is ready to meet her Judge at any moment. She was a saintly novice. If dear Kev. Mother permits, I would be glad if you could send this scrawl to Johannah's sister. Johannah is a most holy perfect crea- ture, and is quite well, thank God. No doubt you have heard that the York Community sent two nuns to heaven on the same day, 16th March. — With sincere sisterly affec- tion, &c. " MARY JOSEPH WAS DR. LANIGAN A JANSENIST ? {Page 199, ante). Those who knew him best say, " No ;" but some few who knew him least say, " Yes ;" and that " yes" ought not to go unanswered. It is a fact known to theologians, and re- corded by Drs. De La Hogue, Dalgairn, and others, that the Bull Unigenitus — issued in 1713 to condemn Jansenism — was protested against by the Jansenists, and an appeal to a General Council demanded. A letter of Dr. Troy, already referred to, and lately found among the O'Renehan MSS. at Maynooth, observes : " He [Dr. Lanigan] declared openly that he accepted the Bull Unigenitus as a dogma- tical and irreformable decision and judgment, against which it is unlawful to appeal." An inference so plain needs no comment. Dr. Lanigan was not the only distinguished Irish eccle- siastic against whom the offensive epithet was hurled. DR. LAXIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 341 Dr. Doyle, who never bore a tinge of Jansenism, informs us, in his reply to Bishop Ellington (Life, vol. ii., p. 48) : " I have been even called a Yetoist and a Jansenist ; but, until now, I do not recollect that I have been charged with suffering anger to prevail over my judgment.'' PRIMATE CURTIS AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. {Page 200, ante). The late Rev. Dr. Ennis, P.P., Booterstown, in a com- munication addressed to the writer (6th May, 1855), fur- nished some curious particulars of Dr. Curtis : " I have heard that Dr. Curtis, the late Primate, was slightly tinged with some continental opinions, now not in vogue, including the propriety of Patriarchates. He im- bibed these opinions during his long residence in Spain, where he had been almost from his youth resident in the College of Salamanca. He was not a man of any great vigour of intellect; but deeply learned, and one of the most accomplished theologians of the day. He knew the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War, and an intimacy between them continued through life after. He gave the Duke some important information which led to the success of more than one great victory over the French. " On the death of the Primate, Dr. O'Reilly, great ex- ertions were made by the government to get a successor of moderate views appointed. The Veto agitation was then rife, and opinions were divided even among ecclesiastics as to the expediency of conceding it. A warm recom- mendation from the Duke of Wellington greatly helped to procure the appointment of Dr. Curtis. Very friendly relations with the court of England were then maintained by Pius VII. and his minister, Cardinal Gonsalvi. Dr. Curtis was one of the oldest bishops ever appointed. He was upwards of seventy years of age at the time. He had been Dr. Murray's preceptor at college. The Duke offered him at one time an English Protestant bishopric with 842 WITS AND WORTHIES : £6,000 per annum. Dr. Curtis replied that not for £6,000,000 annually would he change his religion. The Duke appeared quite astonished at the reply." DR. LANIGAN'S PAPERS. The late Mrs. Anne Kennedy of Clonmel, and sister of Dr. Lanigan, stated, in a letter dated 14th November, 1859 : " I am the last of my family now living ; but there is a nephew of mine residing in Cashel, Mr. Bryan Kelly. I have one daughter, who lives with me — a Mrs. Reany. I regret much that I have not any of Dr. Lanigan's MSS. My brother, Mr. James Lanigan, who was in Dublin at the time, took possession of all Dr. Lanigan's MSS., books, pictures, &c. He survived the Doctor only a short time, leaving no children. His wife, who was a Miss O'Kelly of the county Kildare, got all his effects. She is also dead ; so that it would be difficult to find out where any of those things are, that would be so highly prized now. I heard that my sister, Mrs. Kelly of Cashel, gave some papers belonging to my brother to a bookseller. I was not at my brother's burial. Mr. Kennedy of Clonmel was only a short time dead previously, and my family were too young to be present at it." Further inquiry having been made, especially in refer- ence to any remaining MSS. of Dr. Lanigan, Mr. Bryan Kelly of Cashel wrote in reply : " I have no letter or MSS. of Dr. Lanigan, and the only information I can give is, that previous to my mother's death she gave a large quan- tity of them to a Mr. M'Namara of Cork, who said he was collecting them for the purpose of publishing his bio- graphy. His printer for many years was Mr. Coyne, of Capel-street, Dublin. If he is living, I believe he must have some of these MSS. I have no portrait of him. It is useless to look for any documents in Cashel, for I am sure there are none — Dr. Lanigan having spent little of his time there." The late Mrs. Coyne, widow of Richard Coyne, Capel-street, and who was then living, had been DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 343 asked if any of Dr. Lanigan's MSS. remained in her pos- session, but a negative reply was the result. The statement that many of Dr. Lanigan's papers found their way to Cork, induced us to insert the following letter in the leading journal of the South, edited by the late J. F. Maguire, Esq., M.P. : TO THE EDITOR OF " THE CORK EXAMINER." "Dear Sir — Inquiries were lately made in Dublin after the papers of the learned Dr. Lanigan, author of the " Ec- clesiastical History of Ireland," who died in the year 1828. It appears that a large quantity of his papers were given, many years ago, to a Mr. M'Naniara, bookseller, Cork, who then meditated the publication of a memoir of Dr. Lanigan. No work on the subject ever appeared. I infer that Mr. M'Namara is dead, but perhaps this letter might meet the eye of some one who knows the executors of Mr. M'Namara, or who can point out the present re- pository of Dr. Lanigan's papers." In reference to this letter the editor was kind enough to write, introducing some expressions of undeserved eulogy omitted here: "Considering the national importance of the task, and that it could not possibly be placed in more competent hands, we sincerely hope that Mr. Fitzpatrick may receive every possible assistance." Our inquiries instituted in Cork failed to obtain any tidings of Mr. M'Namara, or the fate of his effects. It ap- pears, however, from a letter of Richard Coyne in 1816, published in the Blue Book on Orange Lodges, p. 189, that Mr. M'Namara of Cork became a bankrupt, and seve- ral of his books passed into the hands of Cumming of Dublin. BISHOP BLAKE. The following letter from Dr. Blake, the venerable Bishop of Dromore, was addressed to Mr. J. H. Green, who shortly after contributed a spirited biographic sketch oi Dr. Lanigan to the Nation newspaper : 344 WITS AND WORTHIES : " Violet Hill, Newry, 24tli July, 1851. "Dear Sir — It is to me a most pleasing duty to com- municate to you whatever information I can respecting your illustrious cousin, the Kev. J. Lanigan, D.D., with whom I had the honour and happiness to be intimately acquainted for many years, and whose memory I shall always revere. Your memoir of this great man will be read with avidity by the learned public, and particularly by Irish ecclesiastics, who have often lamented that nothing of this kind, worthy of the subject, has hitherto appeared ; and I rejoice to learn that you hope to have it completed before the end of next September. I will now answer your queries seriatim, to the best of my recol- lection : " 1 and 2. The works of Dr. Lanigan which I remember to have seen and read with great satisfaction were, his ' Ecclesiastical History of Ireland the Letters of an Irish Priest, under the name of Irenasus ; his Preface to the ' Protestant Apology for the Koman Catholic Keligion ; ? and a few short letters written occasionally on some im- portant religious or patriotic subject, and published in the newspapers. His Prolegomena to the Scriptures I cannof say that I have ever read, nor have I ever seen a copy ot them but one among his books ; but I know that in Italy they were much esteemed, even by critics who were rather inclined to judge unfavourably of their author, and had a rapid sale. Of his translations for the Koyal Dublin Society, I can say but little from my own knowledge ; but the esteem and veneration in which he was there held, and the confidence with which he was consulted by the most learned of that body, attest sufficiently the high value at- tached to whatever came from his pen. " 3. I believe that to the knowledge of the German, the French, the English, and the Hebrew, you might have added that of the Italian, most perfectly ; also, of the Greek, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and not a little of the Irish, as possessed by Dr. Lanigan. " 4. I remember to have seen a portrait of Dr. Lanigan in the parlour of a very respectable and pious lady, named Ternan, who occupied a part of the house in which the DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 345 venerable Father Corcocan (well-known to Father Mathew) resided in North King-street, Dublin. It was a tolerably good likeness, and taken while Dr. L. was yet in middle age. .... " 8. At what time precisely Dr. L. went to Rome or to Pavia, I cannot say ; when I commenced my studies in the Irish College in Rome, about the age of sixteen, Dr. L. was already a priest, and one of the professors of Pavia University, which situation he was soon after obliged to leave, on account of the events of the French Revolution, and returned to Ireland. 4 ' 9. It is probable that all Dr. L's. friends in Pavia must have been driven from it by the troubles of the times ; at least, I know none of them. Perhaps, some information concerning him might be gleaned from the re- gistries or other books of the College. " 10. I presume it was in Rome, after completing his studies, Dr. L. received the honour and dignity of D.D., but I can say with certainty that his talents and extra- ordinary acquirements, as well as his amiable natural dis- position, gained for him the love and admiration of all who knew him. *' I remain, with sincere wishes for your success, dear Sir, your faithful servant, « * MICHAEL BLAKE." In reference to Dr. Blake's allusion to the portrait of Dr. Lanigan, a friend, much interested in the subject, writes : "I have worn out a pair of boots trying to find it, in vain. I have seen several offch e surviving friends of the Ternan family ; they do not recollect anything about it. Dr. Blake must have been mistaken ; and yet his positive statement is most unaccountable, for he had an excellent memory." Dr. Willis of Dublin, who was a constant visitor of Father Corcoran, tells us that the name of the lady who was an occupant of the house was Lewins, not Ternan. She afterwards became the first wife of Martin Crean, for some years secretary to O'Connell ; but all effort to trace the fate of the picture has failed. We re- gret that no authentic portrait of Dr. Lanigan takes its place amongst the other illustrations procured for this 3^6 IRISH WITS AND WORTHIES. volume. An accurate picture of his tomb, however, is given, and forms, perhaps, a not inappropriate design THE END. CRITICAL OPINIONS ON MR. FITZPATRICK'S PREVIOUS WORKS. Just ready, New Edition, in two richly bound volumes, large Svo, with additional Letters, Anecdotes, Plates, and Alphabetical Index, published by James Duffy, Sons, if Co., THE LIFE, TIMES, AND CORRESPONDENCE OP THE RIGHT REV. DR. DOYLE, BISHOP OF KILDARE AND LEIGH LIN (J. K. L.) The Press, when thd organ of the, Right hlon. B. Disraeli, said: " It is impossible for us to notice, even in the most cursory manner, a hundredth part of the interesting subjects embraced in these volumes. A more graphic, impartial, and truthful picture of a man and his times has seldom been produced. It is perfectly Boswellian in effect ; and neither pains nor labour has been spared to render the work complete in every respect, and thoroughly trustworthy. — ^Nothing is taken for granted, the best and most reliable evidence being always produced to substantiate even every apparently trifling incident. The result is an historical painting of a most interesting and stirring period, drawn to the very life — a painting which is as much distinguished for its breadth of design, its noble proportions, and its skilful execution, as for the exact nicety and studied minute* ness of every detail." The Neiv Monthly Magazine, when edited by W. Harrison Ainsworth, said: " The task has, indeed, fallen to able and worthy hands. With an industry truly indefatigable, with an accuracy wholly unimpeachable, and with a skill and discrimination of no common order, Mr. Fitz- patrick has woven the scattered and tangled materials in his pos- session into an admirable and truly fascinating biography. He shines, most justly, in the light reflected from the illustrious dead, and his name shall descend to future times linked with that of him to whose glorious memory he has paid this earnest and grateful tribute." 2 CEIf ICAL OPINIONS The Morning Herald, when the organ of the late Lord Derby, said : " Mr. Fitzpatrick has chosen a good subject, has devoted much time and much labour to it, and has produced a valuable book, which contains much information upon a critical time in both Irish and English history We have said that Mr. Fitz- patrick has done his work well. More than that, he has done it con amore. The result is the addition to our national libraries of one of the most admirable histories that modern times have seen — a history which claims for its author no ordinary meed of praise, and demands the attention of his contemporaries as Dr. Doyle challenged the ad- miration of those who lived in the same age." The Morning Post, when the organ of the late Lord Palmerston, said : " Of this distinguished man Mr. Fitzpatrick has published the ' Life, Times, and Correspondence/ after having accumulated ample materials by unwearied personal investigations and epistolary in- quiries extending through several years. In these researches he was courteously assisted by several members of both Houses of Parlia- ment, and by other eminent public men, to whom he applied with the view of collecting reminiscences of Dr. Doyle and opinions of his character and attainments. The work of Mr. Fitzpatrick is not, however, like many voluminous biographies, a dry detail of facts minutely chronicled, with little regard to their importance or their suggestive value, and relieved only by dovetailed correspondence, the extent of which exonerates the compiler from the trouble of compo- sition. On the contrary, Mr. Fitzpatrick's ' Life of Dr. Doyle' is in every respect an original work, tracing the intellectual progress, examining the motives and policy, and illustrating the character and habits of by far the ablest Roman Catholic prelate of recent times." [Three columns of eulogy followed.] From The Weekly Register. 11 Every one interested in the cause of the Catholic Church, or that of Ireland, should buy and read Mr. Fitzpatrick's volumes. His labours have been well, carefully, and conscientiously performed. He has taken great pains to collect his materials, and to omit nothing that can throw light upon this subject A good, great, and important work." From The Athenceum. il Mr. Fitzpatrick has rendered ample justice to all the virtues and abilities of this once redoubtable prelate and politician We readily render to the biographer the justice that is due to him. Among the attractions of these volumes, the bishop's letters to and from women will, probably, be counted the most striking. They re- mind us of those of Sulpicius Severus to Sister Claudia. They are ON JIR. FITZPATEICK'S PREVIOUS WORKS. 3 marked by the many beauties which distinguish the latter, and are, at the same time, entirely free from the absurdities by which those of the elegant Sulpicius are disfigured. We must now take our leave of Mr. Fitzpatrick, with all commendation for his zeal and industry. He has done his utmost to afford a true portraiture of the great Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, and in this he has succeeded, no doubt." From The Spectator, " Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose previous biographical works have been favourably received, has published a 4 Life of Dr. Doyle,' full of amusing and instructive matter. We cannot but express our regret that so good a man and so sincere a patriot should not have survived to our own happier times. A lively, gossipping, and sensible bio- graphy." From The Dublin University Magazine. " The author has succeeded so well, that the names of Johnson and Boswell are not more indissoluble united than the names of Doyle and Fitzpatrick will be henceforth. We cannot give the able and learned author greater praise than to say that he has presented to the world a work every way worthy the memory of ' J. K. L.' n From The Union. " It has been a rare thing to find the temporal and spiritual swords wielded effectively by the same hand. Yet that it has been possible to unite ardent political and religious zeal and activity, without the faculties becoming mutually destructive, is proved to demonstration by the biography before us. Mr. Fitzpatrick has done a wise thing in selecting such a subject for a biography, and has earned no slight title to the gratitude of his countrymen for the manner in which he has executed it. A book which will henceforth be indispensable to every one who desires to familiarize him elf with the political history of the present century. Dr. Doyle's correspondence is of the most varied nature. From The Caledonian Mercury. 44 Comprehensive research, laborious arrangement, and minute ana- lyzation. Mr. Fitzpatrick has a commendable patriotic desire to do and have justice done to the more eminent of Ireland's sens. He en- tertaius the belief that Ireland, unlike most other nations, idolizes her great men while they live, and neglects their memory when they are dead. He cannot help regretting that neither by * storied urn or monumental bust,' nor in the written pages of the world's his- tory, have illustrious Celts received that measure of justice and honour to which they are entitled. He has, therefore, in these, as in previous volumes, furnished satisfactory evidence of his own deter- mination, if not to do the whole work required, at least to lay the foundation upon which the temple of Irish worth and genius may be 4 CRITICAL OPINIONS reared, and its niches becomingly filled. For this lie is entitled to the gratitude of every true patriot' There is an im- mense treasury of political knowledge to be gleaned from this book — some curious secrets also." AMEKICAN OPINIONS. " The Life of Dr. Doyle" has been republished in America. A few notices from upwards of a hundred are subjoined : The Canadian Freeman. " Sincerely do we rejoice at the publication of this much desired work, and we are quite sure it will be read with the greatest avidity ; for the name of the illustrious Dr. Doyle is a household word amongst the sea- divided children of Erin. Mr. Fitzpatrick has given a finished portrait of this patriot prelate, and is entitled to a prominent place among the best of biographers." The Toronto Mirror. " This book, which we have carefully perused, after some application, is really the most deserving that has reached this province for the last ten years. It is a splendid chapter in the history of the Irish Church, and the political history of the Irish people from 1800 upwards." The Boston Pilot. " Our words may sound extravagant. We can only repeat the motto in Doyle's coat of arms — ' Tolle lege. 1 Take up the book which narrates his life, times, and correspondence, and read. We appeal to the monuments of history, so beautifully, so accurately, so eloquently displayed before us by the great historian of one of the greatest men. The book before us is a monument of Mr. Fitzpatrick's skill, of his knowledge of men and events, and of his great power of discernment, of his faithfulness, of his impartiality, of his herculean labour, of his exalted Christianity." The Herald and Visitor {Philadelphia). " Boswell's celebrated ' Biography of Dr. Johnson' is not a superior work to this of Dr. Doyle. It presents the whole man — his letters, his conversation, his labours, his genius, his virtues, his early life, his temper — everything of interest appertaining to him ; and the arrange- ment, style, and spirit of the work are all that an enlightened nation could demand from a graceful, accomplished writer. 'J. K. L.' has found as good a historian as the 'great grim lion of British literature.' These two volumes are the best volumes ever published in America." Published by W. B. Kelly, 8 Graf ton-street, and sold everywhere, price 2s. 6d., bth Edition, greatly enlarged, IRELAND BEFORE THE UNION. BY THE AUTHOR OF ''THE SHA.M SQUIRE." From The Leader. " We are not surprised that Mr. Fitzpatrick's ' Ireland Before the Union' should have gone through a fifth edition. That it deserves its popularity — and that that popularity has not yet reached, by a long way, the limits of its duration — will only be denied by those who are ignorant of its nature, and who are therefore incapable of appreciating the skill of selection and the labour of research which have been em- ployed in its composi-ion. Mr. Fitzpatrick is one of those writers of whose diligence historians are more fond of availing themselves than confessing the merits. They are authors whose minute industry pierces the black background of unrecorded times, and illumines by perforation. Mr. Fitzpatrick illustrates a period in Irish history of which very little, comparatively speaking, is known. His notes are copious and interesting ; and to those who have not yet seen his book we cannot commend a volume better calculated, to excite and to in- struct.'' From The Morning Post. " Remarkably rich, thanks to Mr. Fitzpatrick's unpretending art in collecting curious light reading. There is an anecdotage to keep the tabletalker lively for half a season. It would require a vivid imagi- nation in the romance writer to invent fiction stranger than some of the facts here revealed. But we must refer the historical student, who would know something more than the historian has yet deigned to tell us, to this remarkable production of patriotic industry. Wonderfully clear, and vivid, and varied, is the portraiture interspersed in the illus- tration of the man and his times, and very often illumined by bright flashes of wit and humour. Mr. Fitzpatrick has been called the Irish Boswell, but he includes all the best qualities of his best editors added to Boswell. This volume alone would make a reputation for patient industry in scenting out facts as savoury but as deeply buried as the truffle. It ought to have a place in every historical library.'' From Notes and Queries. " Curious and valuable, for which the future historian will be as much indebted to Mr. Fitzpatrick as his readers of the present day." 6 CRITICAL OPINIONS. From The Field. 11 Most complete and entertaining. As anecdote follows anecdote, and revelation after revelation is unfolded, we are lost in wonder. His book teems with anecdotes of the bar, the press, political circles, and public life of the period, many of them new to the reading world. To those, therefore, who wish to contrast things as they are with bygone days and the men who lived in them, we cordially recommend a perusal of ' Ireland Before the Union/ " " Capital/' — Athenceum. " Of absorbing interest." — Court Circular. " A volume of r.are attraction." — Imperial Review. " Of the utmost value." — London Review. " Will amply repay careful perusal." — Era* "Most curious and valuable." — Notes 8f Queries. "Astonishing as were the revelations made in ' The Sham Squire/ the narratives in this volume are still more extraordinary." — Irish Times. 4< Curious and very sensational." — Star. " The author is Mr. Fitzpatrick, who has hunted up his facts in many quarters, and woven them into an exciting narrative." — Daily Tele- graph. By the same Author, cloth, lettered, bs., LADY MORGAN, EE E FRIENDS, FOES, AND CAREER. From the Athenceum. " Good and honest Curious. The writer has bestowed his heart not less than his industry upon his task A volume full of good things, and informed with a genuine lore. We foresee a demand for the book at the libraries, with the speedy issue of a new edition The most serious part of his labour is a reply to Croker's malignant articles. He answers Croker, not like Lady Morgan, with airy banter and delightful mockery, but with solid fact. Mr. Fitzpatrick has given us a work to which we may refer all those who may be in search of some trustworthy information about * Lady Morgan, her Friends, Foes, and Adventures/ " " An extremely amusing book." — Critic. " Racy and alluring." — Warder. "A most delightful volume, a complete cyclopaedia of Irish cele- brities from 1744 to 1859/' — Irish Times. u Pleasant and trustworthy." — Spectator. " Chivalrous and patriotic, complete and irresistible." — Nation. Date Due 2T ■ r.*.. ' — mn, 13 ft>73 BOSTON COLLEGE 9031 01638822 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless reserved. Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime. If you cannot find what you want, ask the Librarian who will be glad to help you. 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