P. C. K€UY 
 ROSUNDALt. MASS. 
 

A CUSHLA GAL MO CHREE 
 
 (Bright Vein of My Heart) 
 
 An Irish Girl Wearing the National Cloak and Hood 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 JOHN I). MORRIS & COMPANY 
 
EDITORIAL BOARD 
 AND ADVISORY COMMITTEE 
 
 Maurice Francis Egan, LL.D., 
 of the Catholic University, 
 Washington 
 Lady Gregory 
 Standish O’Grady 
 D. J. O’Donoghue 
 Prof. F. N. Robinson, of Har- 
 vard University 
 W. P. Ryan 
 
 Douglas Hyde, LL.D. 
 
 James Jeffrey Roche, LL.D., 
 Editor The Pilot 
 G. W. Russell (“A. E.”) 
 Stephen Gwynn 
 Prof. W. P. Trent, of Columbia 
 University 
 
 Prof. H. S. Pancoast 
 John E. Redmond, M.P. 
 
 Charles Welsh, Managing Editor 
 Author of ‘The Life of John Newbery ’ (Goldsmith’s friend and publisher). 
 
 SPECIAL ARTICLES and THEIR WRITERS 
 
 Irish Literature Justin McCarthy 
 
 Modern Irish Poetry .... William Butler Yeats 
 Early Irish Literature . . . Douglas Hyde, LL.D. 
 
 Ireland’s Influence on Euro- 
 pean Literature Dr. George Sigerson 
 
 Irish Novels Maurice Francis Egan, LL.D. 
 
 Irish Fairy and Folk Tales . . Charles Welsh 
 
 The Irish School of Oratory , J. F. Taylor, K.C. 
 
 The Sunniness of Irish Life . . Michael MacDonagh 
 
 Irish Wit and Humor . . . . D. J, O’Donoghue 
 
 The Irish Literary Theater . . Stephen Gwynn 
 
 A Glance at Ireland’s History . Charles Welsh 
 
 Street Songs and Ballads and Anonymous Verse 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES and LITERARY APPRECIATIONS 
 
 by 
 
 George W. Russell (“ A. E.”) 
 W P. Ryan 
 Charles Welsh 
 Douglas Hyde, LL.D. 
 
 T. W. Rolleston 
 
 G. BaRxNett Smith 
 
 H. C. Bunner 
 G. A. Greene 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 S. J. Richardson 
 Standish O’Grady 
 D. J. O’Donogiiue 
 Austin Dobson 
 D r. G. Sigerson 
 N. P. Willis 
 Lionel Johnson 
 
 i-j O ? « 
 
 I — Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
,i - 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/irishauthorsthei03mcca 
 
MODERN IRISH POETRY. 
 
 The Irish Celt is sociable, as may be known from his 
 proverb, It is better to be quarreling than to be lonely,^’ 
 and the Irish poets of the nineteenth century have made 
 songs abundantly when friends and rebels have been at 
 hand to applaud. The Irish poets of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury found both at a Limerick hostelry, above whose door 
 was written a rhyming welcome in Gaelic to all passing 
 poets, whether their pockets were full or empty. Its 
 owner, himself a famous poet, entertained his fellows as 
 long as his money lasted, and then took to minding the 
 hens and chickens of an old peasant woman for a living, 
 and ended his days in rags, but not, one imagines, with- 
 out content. Among his friends and guests had been 
 Red O^Sullivan, Gaelic O’Sullivan, blind O'Heffernan, and 
 many another, and their songs had made the people, 
 crushed by the disasters of the Boyne and Aughrim, re- 
 member their ancient greatness. 
 
 The bardic order, with its perfect artifice and imperfect 
 art, had gone down in the wars of the seventeenth century, 
 and poetry had found shelter amid the turf smoke of the 
 cabins. The powers that history commemorates are but 
 the coarse effects of influences delicate and vague as the 
 beginning of twilight, and these influences were to be 
 woven like a web about the hearts of men by farm laborers, 
 peddlers, potato diggers, hedge schoolmasters, and grind- 
 ers at the quern, poor wastrels who put the troubles of their 
 native land, or their own happy or unhappy loves, into 
 songs of an extreme beauty. But in the midst of this 
 beauty was a flitting incoherence, a fitful dying out of the 
 sense, as though the passion had become too great for 
 words, as must needs be when life is the master and not 
 the slave of the singer. 
 
 English-speaking Ireland had meanwhile no poetic voice, 
 for Goldsmith had chosen to celebrate English scenery and 
 manners; and Swift w^as but an Irishman by what Mr. Bal- 
 four has called the visitation of God, and much against 
 his will; and Congreve by education and early associa- 
 tion; while Parnell, Denham, and Roscommon were poets 
 
 vii 
 
viii 
 
 MODERN IRISH POETRY. 
 
 but to their own time. Nor did the coming with the new 
 century of the fame of Moore set the balance even, for his 
 Irish melodies are too often artificial and mechanical in 
 their style when separated from the music that gave them 
 wings. Whatever he had of high poetry is in ‘ The Light 
 of Other Days,^ and in ‘ At the Mid Hour of Night,’ which 
 express what Matthew Arnold has taught us to call the 
 Celtic melancholy,” with so much of delicate beauty in the 
 meaning and in the wavering or steady rhythm that one 
 knows not where to find their like in literature. His more 
 artificial and mechanical verse, because of the ancient 
 music that makes it seem natural and vivid, and because 
 it has remembered so many beloved names and events and 
 places, has had the influence which might have belonged to 
 these exquisite verses had he written none but these. 
 
 An honest style did not come into English-speaking Ire- 
 land until Callanan wrote three or four naive translations 
 from the Gaelic. ‘ Shule Aroon ’ and ^ Kathleen O’More ’ 
 had indeed been written for a good while, but had no more 
 influence than Moore’s best verses. Now, however, the lead 
 of Callanan was followed by a number of translators, and 
 they in turn by the poets of Young Ireland, who mingled 
 a little learned from the Gaelic ballad writers with a great 
 deal learned from Scott, Macaulay, and Campbell, and 
 turned poetry once again into a principal means for 
 spreading ideas of nationality and patriotism. They were 
 full of earnestness, but never understand that, though a 
 poet may govern his life by his enthusiasms, he must, when 
 he sits down at his desk, but use them as the potter the 
 clay. Their thoughts were a little insincere, because they 
 lived in the half-illusions. of their admirable ideals; and 
 their rhythms not seldom mechanical, because their pur- 
 pose was served when they had satisfied the dull ears of 
 the common man. They had no time to listen to the voice 
 of the insatiable artist, who stands erect, or lies asleep 
 waiting until a breath arouses him, in the heart of every 
 craftsman. Life was their master, as it had been the mas- 
 ter of the poets who gathered in the Limerick hostelry, 
 though it conquered them not by unreasoned love for a 
 woman, or for native land, but by reasoned enthusiasm, 
 and practical energy. No man was more sincere, no man 
 
MODERN IRISH POETRY. 
 
 ix 
 
 had a less mechanical mind than Thomas Davis, and yet 
 he is often a little insincere and mechanical in his verse. 
 iWhen he sat down to write he had so great a desire to 
 make the peasantry courageous and powerful that he half 
 believed them already the finest peasantry upon the 
 earth, and wrote not a few such verses as 
 
 “ Lead him to fight for native land, 
 
 His is no courage cold and wary ; 
 
 The troops live not that could withstand 
 The headlong charge of Tipperary ” — 
 
 and to-day we are paying the reckoning with much bom- 
 bast. His little book has many things of this kind, and 
 yet we honor it for its public spirit, and recognize its pow- 
 erful influence with gratitude. He was in the main an 
 orator influencing men^s acts, and not a poet shaping their 
 emotions, and the bulk of his influence has been good. He 
 was, indeed, a poet of much tenderness in the simple love- 
 songs ^ The Marriage,’ ^ A Plea for Love,’ and ‘ Mary Bhan 
 Astor,’ and, but for his ideal of a fisherman defying a 
 foreign soldiery, would have been as good in ^ The Boat- 
 man of Kinsale ’ ; and once or twice when he touched upon 
 some historic sorrow he forgot his hopes for the future and 
 his lessons for the present, and made moving verse. 
 
 His contemporary, Clarence Mangan, kept out of public 
 life and its half-illusions by a passion for books, and for 
 drink and opium, made an imaginative and powerful style. 
 He translated from the German, and imitated Oriental 
 poetry, but little that he did on any but Irish subjects has 
 a lasting interest. He is usually classed with the Young 
 Ireland poets, because he contributed to their periodi- 
 cals and shared their political views; but his style was 
 formed before their movement began, and he found it the 
 more easy for this reason, perhaps, to give sincere expres- 
 sion to the mood which he had chosen, the only sincerity 
 literature knows of; and with happiness and cultivation 
 might have displaced Moore. But as it was, whenever he 
 had no fine ancient song to inspire him, he fell into rhetoric 
 which was only lifted out of commonplace by an arid in- 
 tensity. In his ^ Irish National Hymn,’ ^ Soul and Coun- 
 try,’ and the like, we look into a mind full of parched 
 sands where the sweet dews have never fallen. A miser- 
 
X 
 
 MODERlSl IRISH POETRY, 
 
 able man may think well and express himself with great 
 vehemence, but he cannot make beautiful things, for Aph- 
 rodite never rises from any but a tide of joy. Mangan 
 knew nothing of the happiness of the outer man, and it 
 was only when prolonging the tragic exultation of some 
 dead bard that he knew the unearthly happiness which 
 clouds the outer man with sorrow, and is the fountain of 
 impassioned art. Like those Avho had gone before him, he 
 was the slave of life, for he had nothing of the self-knowl- 
 edge, the power of selection, the harmony of mind, which 
 enables the poet to be its master, and to mold the world 
 to a trumpet for his lips. But O’Hussey’s Ode over his 
 outcast chief must live for generations because of the 
 passion that moves through its powerful images and its 
 mournful, wayward, and fierce rhythms. 
 
 “ Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods, 
 
 Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the untamable sea, 
 
 Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he. 
 This sharp, sore sleet, these howling floods.” 
 
 Edward Walsh, a village schoolmaster, who hovered, 
 like Mangan, on the edge of the Young Ireland movement, 
 did many beautiful translations from the Gaelic; and Mi- 
 chael Doheny, while out “ on his keeping in the moun- 
 tains after the collapse at Ballingarry, made one of the 
 most moving of ballads; but in the main the poets who 
 gathered about Thomas Davis, and w^hose work has come 
 down to us in ‘ The Spirit of the Nation,’ were of practical 
 and political, not of literary, importance. 
 
 Meanwhile Samuel Ferguson, William Allingham, and 
 Aubrey de Vere were working apart from politics; Fer- 
 guson selecting his subjects from the traditions of the 
 bardic age, and Allingham from those of his native Bally- 
 shannon, and Aubrey de Vere wavering between Eng- 
 lish, Irish, and Catholic tradition. They were wiser than 
 Young Ireland in the choice of their models, for, while 
 drawing not less from purely Irish sources, they turned to 
 the great poets of the world, Aubrey de Vere owing some- 
 thing of his gravity to Wordsworth, Ferguson much of his 
 simplicity to Homer, while Allingham had trained an ear, 
 too delicate to catch the tune of but a single master, upon 
 
MODEm IRISH POETRY. 
 
 xi 
 
 the lyric poetry of many lands. Allingham was the best 
 artist, but Ferguson had the more ample imagination, the 
 more epic aim. He had not the subtlety of feeling, the 
 variety of cadence of a great lyric poet, but he has touched, 
 here and there, an epic vastness and naivete, as in the de- 
 scription in ^ Congal ’ of the mire-stiftened mantle of the 
 giant specter Mananan mac Lir, striking against his calves 
 with as loud a noise as the mainsail of a ship makes, 
 “ when with the coil of all its ropes it beat the sounding 
 mast.” He is frequently dull, for he often lacked the 
 ‘‘ minutely appropriate words ” necessary to embody 
 those fine changes of feeling which enthrall the attention ; 
 but his sense of weight and size, of action and tumult, has 
 set him apart and solitary, an epic figure in a lyric age. 
 
 Allingham, whose pleasant destiny has made him the 
 poet of his native town, and put ^ The Winding Banks of 
 Erne ’ into the mouths of the ballad singers of Ballyshan- 
 non, is, on the other hand, a master of minutely appro- 
 priate words,” and can wring from the luxurious sadness 
 of the lover, from the austere sadness of old age, the last 
 golden drop of beauty ; but amid action and tumult he can 
 but fold his hands. He is the poet of the melancholy peas- 
 antry of the West, and, as years go on, and voluminous 
 histories and copious romances drop under the horizon, 
 will take his place among those minor immortals who have 
 put their souls into little songs to humble the proud. 
 
 The poetry of Aubrey de Vere has less architecture than 
 the poetry of Ferguson and Allingham, and more medita- 
 tion. Indeed, his few but ever memorable successes are en- 
 chanted islands in gray seas of stately impersonal reverie 
 and description, which drift by and leave no definite rec- 
 ollection. One needs, perhaps, to perfectly enjoy him, a 
 Dominican habit, a cloister, and a breviary. 
 
 These three poets published much of their best work 
 before and during the Fenian movement, which, like 
 Young Ireland, had its poets, though but a small number. 
 Charles Kickham, one of the triumvirate ” that con- 
 trolled it in Ireland; John Casey, a clerk in a flour mill; 
 and Ellen O’Leary, the sister of Mr. John O’Leary, were 
 at times very excellent. Their verse lacks, curiously 
 enough, the oratorical vehemence of Young Ireland, and is 
 
xii 
 
 MODERlS^ IRISH POETRY. 
 
 plaintive and idyllic. The agrarian movement that fol- 
 lowed produced but little poetry, and of that little all is 
 forgotten but a vehement poem by Fanny Parnell and a 
 couple of songs by T. D. Sullivan, w^ho is a good song 
 writer, though not, as the writer has read on an election 
 placard, one of the greatest poets w^ho ever moved the 
 heart of man.^’ But while Nationalist verse has ceased to 
 be a portion of the propaganda of a party, it has been 
 written, and is being written, under the influence of the 
 Nationalist newspapers and of Young Ireland societies 
 and the like. With an exacting conscience, and better 
 models than Thomas Moore and the Young Irelanders, 
 such beautiful enthusiasm could not fail to make some 
 beautiful verses. But, as things are, the rhythms are me- 
 chanical, and the metaphors conventional ; and inspiration 
 is too often worshiped as a Familiar who labors while 
 you sleep, or forget, or do many worthy things which are 
 not spiritual things. 
 
 For the most part, the Irishman of our times loves so 
 deeply those arts which build up a gallant personality, 
 rapid writing, ready talking, effective speaking to crowds, 
 that he has no thought for the arts which consume the per- 
 sonality in solitude. He loves the mortal arts which have 
 given him a lure to take the hearts of men, and shrinks 
 from the immortal, which could but divide him from his 
 fellows. And in this century, he who does not strive to be 
 a perfect craftsman achieves nothing. The poor peasant of 
 the eighteenth century could make fine ballads by abandon- 
 ing himself to the joy or sorrow of the moment, as the reeds 
 abandon themselves to the wind which sighs through them, 
 because he had about him a w^orld where all was old enough 
 to be steeped in emotion. But we cannot take to ourselves, 
 by merely thrusting out our hands, all we need of pomp 
 and symbol, and if we have not the desire of artistic per- 
 fection for an ark, the deluge of incoherence, vulgarity, 
 and triviality will pass over our heads. If we had no other 
 symbols but the tumult of the sea, the rusted gold of the 
 thatch, the redness of the quicken-berry, and had never 
 known the rhetoric of the platform and of the newspaper, 
 we could do without laborious selection and rejection; but, 
 even then, though we might do much that would be delight- 
 
MODERN IRISH POETRY, 
 
 xiii 
 
 ful, that would inspire coming times, it would not have the 
 manner of the greatest poetry. 
 
 Here and there, the Nationalist newspapers and the 
 Young Ireland societies have trained a writer who, though 
 busy with the old models, has ^ome imaginative energy; 
 while the more literary writers, the successors of Ailing- 
 ham and Ferguson and De Vere, are generally more 
 anxious to inhuence and understand Irish thought than 
 any of their predecessors w^ho did not take the sub- 
 stance of their poetry from politics. They are distin- 
 guished too by their deliberate art, and by their preoc- 
 cupation with spiritual passions and memories. 
 
 The poetry of Lionel Johnson and Mrs. Hinkson is 
 Catholic and devout, but Lionel Johnson’s is lofty and 
 austere, and like De Vere’s never long forgets the 
 greatness of his Church and the interior life whose expres- 
 sion it is, while Mrs. Hinkson is happiest when she em- 
 bodies emotions, that have the innocence of childhood, in 
 symbols and metaphors from the green world about her. 
 She has no reverie nor speculation, but a devout tenderness 
 like that of St. Francis for weak instinctive things, old 
 gardeners, old fishermen, birds among the leaves, birds 
 tossed upon the waters. Miss Hopper belongs to that 
 school of writers which embodies passions, that are not the 
 less spiritual because no Church has put them into prayers, 
 in stories and symbols from old Celtic poetry and my- 
 thology. The poetry of A. E.,” at its best, finds its sym- 
 bols and its stories in the soul itself, and has a more disem- 
 bodied ecstasy than any poetry of our time. He is the 
 chief poet of the school of Irish mystics, in which there are 
 many poets besides many who have heard the words, “If 
 ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them,” and 
 thought the labors that bring the mystic vision more im- 
 portant than the labors of any craft. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Trench and Mrs. Shorter and “ Moira 
 O’Neill ” are more interested in the picturesqueness of the 
 world than in religion. Mr. Trench and Mrs. Shorter have 
 put old Irish stories into vigorous modern rhyme, and have 
 written, the one in her ^ Ceann dubh Deelish ’ and the other 
 in ^ Come, Let Us Make Love Deathless,’ lyrics that should 
 become a lasting part of Irish lyric poetry. “ Moira 
 
xiv 
 
 MODERN IRISH POETRY. 
 
 O’Neill ” has written pretty lyrics of Antrim life; but one 
 discovers that Mrs. Hinkson or Miss Hopper, although 
 their work is probably less popular, come nearer to the 
 peasant passion, when one compares their work and hers 
 with that Gaelic song translated so beautifully by Dr. 
 Sigerson, where a ragged man of the roads, having lost all 
 else, is yet thankful for the great love gift of sorrow,” 
 or with many songs translated by Dr. Hyde in his ‘ Love 
 Songs of Connacht,’ or by Lady Gregory in her ‘ Poets and 
 Dreamers.’ 
 
 Except some few Catholic and mystical poets and Pro- 
 fessor Dowden in one or two poems, no Irishman living in 
 Ireland has sung excellently of any but a theme from Irish 
 experience, Irish history, or Irish tradition. Trinity Col- 
 lege, which desires to be English, has been the mother of 
 many verse writers and of few poets ; and this can only be 
 because she has set herself against the national genius, 
 and taught her children to imitate alien styles and choose 
 out alien themes, for it is not possible to believe that the 
 educated Irishman alone is prosaic and uninventive. Her 
 few poets have been awakened by the influence of the farm 
 laborers, potato diggers, peddlers, and hedge schoolmas- 
 ters of the eighteenth century, and their imitators in this, 
 and not by a scholastic life, which, for reasons easy for all 
 to understand and for many to forgive, has refused the 
 ideals of Ireland, while those of England are but far-off 
 murmurs. An enemy to all enthusiasms, because all enthu- 
 siasms seemed her enemies, she has taught her children to 
 look neither to the world about them, nor into their own 
 souls, where some dangerous fire might slumber. 
 
 To remember that in Ireland the professional and 
 landed classes have been through the mold of Trinity Col- 
 lege or of English universities, and are ignorant of the 
 very names of the best Irish writers, is to know how 
 strong a wind blows from the ancient legends of Ireland, 
 how vigorous an impulse to create is in her heart to-day. 
 Deserted by the classes from among whom have come the 
 bulk of the world’s intellect, she struggles on, gradually 
 ridding herself of incoherence and triviality, and slowly 
 building up a literature in English which, whether im- 
 portant or unimportant, grows always more unlike others ; 
 
MOBEm IRISH POETRY. 
 
 XV 
 
 nor does it seem as if she would long lack a living litera- 
 ture in Gaelic, for the movement for the preservation of 
 Gaelic, which has been so much more successful than any- 
 body foresaw, has already its poets. Dr. Hyde has written 
 Gaelic poems which pass from mouth to mouth in the west 
 of Ireland. The country people have themselves fitted 
 them to ancient airs, and many that can neither read nor 
 write sing them in Donegal and Connemara and Galway. 
 I have, indeed, but little doubt that Ireland, communing 
 with herself in Gaelic more and more, but speaking to 
 foreign countries in English, will lead many that are sick 
 with theories and with trivial emotion, to some sweet well- 
 waters of primeval poetry. 
 
IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 
 
 The history of Ireland and of -the Irish people dates 
 from a very remote antiquity; indeed, its beginnings are 
 lost in the twilight of fable, but its language, as Mr. Doug- 
 las Hyde says, has left the clearest, most luminous, and 
 most consecutive literary track behind it of any of the ver- 
 nacular tongues,^’ excepting the Greek. 
 
 Linguistically speaking, the Celtic people are a branch 
 of the great Aryan race. The Irish are part of a vast Indo- 
 European family which countless ages ago spread to the 
 West over a great part of Europe. The Gaelic language 
 has roots which go far down toward the parent stock; its 
 literature, consequently, is of the utmost interest and value 
 to those who seek to read the riddle of the past and to push 
 back the horizon of knowledge concerning it. The reader 
 will not, therefore, be surprised to learn that the Irish fairy 
 tales and folk stories are among the oldest of those of 
 any of the European races. Of all the traces that man in 
 his earliest period has left behind him says Mr. Douglas 
 Hyde in his ^ Beside the Fire,^ there is nothing except 
 a few’ drilled stones or flint arrowheads that approaches the 
 antiquity of these tales.^’ 
 
 And although they have man^^ counterparts in other 
 languages, w hich w’ould seem to indicate a common origin 
 in the far off past, notably in Oriental folk lore, the 
 spirit of the race is enshrined in them in a more character- 
 istic and striking degree, perhaps, than in the fairy tales 
 and folk lore of any other country. This is doubtless due 
 to their preservation in the ancient Gaelic ; to the fact that 
 the w’andering bard has lingered longer in Ireland than 
 elsewhere, and to the fact that the professional story-teller, 
 although fast disappearing, is not 3’et entirely extinct in 
 that country. 
 
 Story-telling has always been a favorite amusement of 
 the Celtic race. In ancient times the professional story- 
 tellers w’ere classified, and w’ere called, according to their 
 rank, ollaves, shannachies, files, or bards. Their duty was 
 to recite old tales, poems, and descriptions of historical 
 events in prose or verse at the festive gatherings of the 
 
 xvii 
 
xviii 
 
 IRISH FAIRY AYD FOLK TALES. 
 
 people. They were especially educated and trained for 
 this profession, which was looked upon as a dignified and 
 important one, and they were treated with consideration 
 and amply rewarded wherever they went. 
 
 It is recorded how the story-tellers used to gather to- 
 gether of an evening, and if any had a different version 
 from the others, they would all recite theirs and vote, and 
 the man who had varied would have to abide by their ver- 
 dict. In this way stories have been handed down with 
 such accuracy that the long tale of Dierdre was, in the 
 earlier decades of the eighteenth century, told almost 
 word for word as in the very ancient MS. in the Royal 
 Dublin Society. In one case only it varied, and then the 
 MS. was obviously wrong — a passage had been forgotten 
 by the copyist. But this accuracy is rather in the folk and 
 bardic tales than in the fairy legends, for these vary widely, 
 being usually adapted to some neighboring village or local 
 fairy-seeing celebrity. 
 
 While the Irish fairy tales and folk tales are among the 
 oldest in the world, they are also the most numerous and 
 diversified. Although the same personages figure in them 
 over and over again, many collectors have classified their 
 chief figures more or less. The following will give an idea 
 of the main grouping : 
 
 There are the Sociable Fairies,’^ who go about in troops, 
 and quarrel and make love much as men and women do. 
 They are land fairies or Sheoques ( Ir. Sidheog^ a little 
 fairy and water fairies or Merrows (Ir. Moruadh, a 
 sea maid 
 
 The Sheoques haunt the sacred thorn bushes and the 
 green raths or royalties — those little fields circled by 
 ditches, and supposed to have been ancient fortifications 
 and sheepfolds. Many a mortal they have said to have en- 
 ticed into their dim world. Many have listened to their 
 fairy music, till human cares and joys drifted from them 
 and they became great seers, or fairy doctors,’’ or musi- 
 cians, or poets, like Carolan, who is said to have gathered 
 his tunes while sleeping on a fairy rath ! or else they died 
 in a year and a day, to live ever after among the fairies. 
 These Sheoques occasionally steal a child and leave a with- 
 ered fairy, a thousand or maybe two thousand years old, 
 instead. 
 
IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 
 
 xix 
 
 The Merrows sometimes come out of the sea in the shape 
 of little hornless cows. In their own shape, they have 
 fishes^ tails and wear a red cap, called in Irish cohuleen 
 driuth. The men among them have green teeth, green hair, 
 pigs’ eyes, and red noses; but their women are beautiful 
 and sometimes prefer handsome fishermen to their green- 
 haired lovers. 
 
 Among “ Solitary Fairies’’ is the Lepricaun (Ir. Leith 
 hhrogan, i. e. the one shoemaker). He is seen sitting under 
 a hedge mending a shoe, and whoso catches him can make 
 him deliver up his crocks of gold, for he is a miser of great 
 wealth ; but if you take your eyes off him he vanishes like 
 smoke. He wears a red coat with seven buttons in each row, 
 and a cocked hat, on the point of which he sometimes spins 
 like a top. In Donegal he goes clad in a great frieze coat. 
 
 The Chcricaun’s (Ir. Clohhair-cean) occupations are rob- 
 bing wine cellars and riding sheep and shepherds’ dogs 
 the livelong night, until the morning finds them panting 
 and mud-covered. 
 
 The Gonconer or Ganconagh (Ir. Gean-canogh^ i.e. love- 
 talker) is a creature of the Lepricaun type, but a great 
 idler. He appears in lonely valleys, pipe in mouth, and 
 spends his time in making love to shepherdesses and milk- 
 maids. 
 
 The Far Darrig (Ir. Fear dearg, i. e. red man) is the 
 practical joker of the other world. He presides over evil 
 dreams. 
 
 The Pooka (Ir. Puca^ a word derived by some from poo, 
 a he-goat) also is of the family of the nightmare. His 
 shape is usually that of a horse, bull, goat, eagle, or ass. 
 His delight is to get a rider, with whom he rushes through 
 ditches and rivers and over mountains, and whom he 
 shakes off in the gray of the morning. Especially does he 
 love to plague a drunkard ; a drunkard’s sleep is his king- 
 dom. At times he takes more unexpected forms than those 
 of beast or bird. When it rains in Ireland at the same time 
 that the sun is shining it is a sure sign that the Pooka will 
 be out that night. 
 
 The Dullahan has no head, or carries it under his arm. 
 He is often seen driving a black coach, called coach-a- 
 bower ” (Ir. Colte-hodliar) , drawn by headless horses. It 
 rumbles to your door, and if you open it a basin of blood is 
 
XX 
 
 IRISH FAIRY ARD FOLK TALES. 
 
 thrown in your face. It is an omen of death to the houses 
 where it pauses. 
 
 The Leanhaun Slice (Ir. Leanhami sidhCy i.e. fairy mis- 
 tress) seeks the love of men. If they refuse, she is their 
 slave; if they consent, they are hers, and can escape only 
 by finding one to take their place. Her lovers waste away, 
 for she lives on their life. 
 
 The Far Gorta (man of hunger) is an emaciated fairy 
 that goes through the land in famine time, begging and 
 bringing good luck to the giver. 
 
 The Banshee (Ir. Bean-sidhe, i.e. fairy woman) is a so- 
 ciable fairy grown solitary through much sorrow. The 
 name corresponds to the less common Far Shee (Ir. Fear 
 sidhe), a man fairy. She wails, as most people know, over 
 the death of a member of some old Irish family. 
 
 There are also the “ House Spirits : the Water Sherie, a 
 kind of will-o^-the-wisp ; the Soiolth, a formless luminous 
 creature; the Pastha (piasthestia) , the lake dragon, a 
 guardian of hidden treasure; and the Bo men fairies, who 
 destroy the unwary ; and there is the great tribe of ghosts, 
 called Thivishes in some parts. 
 
 Representative stories of each of these groups will be 
 found in the writings of those who have made it their busi- 
 ness to collect and retell the fairy tales and folk lore of the 
 country, and we have, under the heading of Fairy and 
 Folk Tales of Ireland, anonymous,’’ brought together a few 
 of the typical stories to which no names are attached. 
 
 And there is fairy poetry as well, of which not a little 
 is to be found in the works of the Irish poets from William 
 Allingham to William Butler Yeats. But it is not so 
 abundant as one might expect. The ancient myths and 
 legends and the half-mythical history of Ireland and her 
 manifold wrongs and sufferings seem to have appealed 
 more to the Irish poetical spirit. 
 
 The very first collections of fairy tales and folk tales 
 are of course to be found in the old Chap-books. They 
 are,” says Mr. W. B. Yeats, to be found brown with turf 
 smoke on cottage shelves, and are, or were, sold on every 
 hand by the peddlers, but cannot be found in any library of 
 this city of the Sassanach (London). ‘The Royal Fairy 
 Tales,’ ‘ The Hibernian Tales,’ and ‘ The Legends of the 
 Fairies ’ are the fairy literature of the people.” 
 
IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. xxi 
 
 Of a certain volume of the ^ Hibernian Tales/ Thack- 
 eray writes pleasantly in his ‘ Irish Sketch Book/ remark- 
 ing : So great is the superiority of the old stories over the 
 
 new, in fancy, dramatic interest, and humor, that one canT 
 help fancying that Hibernia must have been a very superior 
 country to Ireland.^^ 
 
 These Hibernian novels, too,^^ he continues, are evi- 
 dently intended for the hedge-school universities. They 
 have the old tricks and some of the old plots that one has 
 read in many popular legends of almost all countries, 
 European and Eastern ; successful cunning is the great vir- 
 tue applauded; and the heroes pass through a thousand 
 wild extravagant dangers, such as could only have been 
 invented when art was young and faith was large. And 
 as the honest old author of the tales says they are suited 
 to the meanest as well as to the highest capacity, tending 
 both to improve the fancy and enrich the mind, let us con- 
 clude the night’s entertainment by reading one or two of 
 them, and reposing after the doleful tragedy which has 
 been represented. The ‘ Black Thief ’ is worthy of the 
 Arabian Nights, I think — as wild and odd as an Eastern 
 tale. . . . Not a little does it add to these tales that one 
 feels as one reads them that the writer must have believed 
 in his heart what he told ; you see the tremor, as it were, and 
 the wild look of the eyes as he sits in his corner and recites 
 and peers wistfully around lest the spirits he talks of be 
 really at hand.” And after telling us the Chap-book ver- 
 sion of the story of ‘ Hudden, Dudden, and Donald,’ and of 
 ‘‘ the Spaeman,” he says : “ And so we shut up the hedge- 
 school library, and close the Galway Nights’ Entertain- 
 ments ; they are not as amusing as Almack, to be sure, but 
 mau}^ a lady who has her opera box in London has listened 
 to a piper in Ireland.” 
 
 It is significant of how Ireland’s contribution to English 
 literature in every department has been ignored by the Eng- 
 lish, and in consequence by the entire literary world, that in 
 the two great collections of Chap-books made by the elder 
 and the younger Boswell, which are now in the library of 
 Harvard University, there are scarcely any of Irish ori- 
 gin, though England and Scotland are fully represented; 
 and yet during the period covered by these collections, as 
 these remarks by Thackeray and W. B. Yeats vrould indi- 
 
xxii IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES, 
 
 cate, her output of this literature was as large as, if not 
 larger than, that of either England or Scotland. If it had 
 not been for a certain purchase made by Thackeray at 
 Ennis when on his tour through Ireland, and for a certain 
 rainy day in Galway about 1840, the English people would 
 probably never have known that the Irish people had their 
 Chap-books from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century 
 as well as the people of almost all other European coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The systematic collection of Celtic folk tales in English 
 began in Ireland as early as 1825, with T. Crofton Croker’s 
 ‘ Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.’ 
 Among the novelists and tale- writers of the schools of Miss 
 Edgeworth and Lever folk tales were occasionally utilized, 
 as by Carleton in his ^ Traits and Stories,’ by Lover in 
 his ^ Legends and Stories,’ and by Griffin in his ^ Tales 
 of a Jury Boom.’ These all tell their tales in the manner 
 of the stage Irishman. Patrick Kennedy, a Dublin book- 
 seller, printed about one hundred folk and hero tales and 
 drolls in his ‘ Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts,’ 1866 ; 
 ‘ Fireside Stories of Ireland,’ 1870; and ^ Bardic Stories of 
 Ireland,’ 1871. Lady Wilde has told many folk tales very 
 effectively in her ‘ Ancient Legends of Ireland,’ 1887. 
 Mr. J. Curtin’s ^ Myths and Folk Tales of Ireland,’ 1890, 
 must not be forgotten. Douglas Hyde has published in 
 ^ Beside the Fireside,’ 1891, English versions of some of 
 the stories he had published in the original Irish in his 
 ^ Leahbar Sgeulaighteachta,’ Dublin, 1889. Miss Mac 
 Lintock has published many tales in various periodicals 
 during the past twenty years ; a period which has been re- 
 markably fruitful in active workers in this hitherto com- 
 paratively untilled field. P. W. Joyce’s ‘ Old Celtic Ro- 
 mances,’ W. Larminie’s ^ West Irish Folk Tales,’ P. J. 
 McCall’s ‘ Fenian Nights’ Entertainments,’ Seumus Mac- 
 Manus’ ^ Donegal Fairy Tales,’ D. Deeney’s ^ Peasant 
 Lore from Gaelic Ireland,’ and many other books too nu- 
 merous to mention are rich in material of this kind. But 
 Dr. Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory, and W. B. Yeats have 
 done more than all to reveal to us “ the old weird world 
 which sleeps in Irish lore.” They know the people of Ire* 
 land thoroughly, and in their works they give us not only 
 the folk and fairy tales of the people, but they make us feel 
 
IRISH FAIRY AIW FOLK TALES, xxiii 
 
 how entirely they enter into and pervade and influence 
 their every-day lives. 
 
 One reason, perhaps, why the Irish people are as a rule 
 so supremely gifted with the power of poetical self expres- 
 sion, why they are endowed with so rich and luxurious a 
 fancy, is because for centuries they have been nourished on 
 such a wealth of fairy tales and wonder stories as is ex- 
 ceeded by no other literature of the world. 
 
 Emerson says, What nature at one time provides for 
 use, she afterward turns to ornament,^’ and Herbert Spen- 
 cer, following out this idea, remarks that the fairy lore, 
 which in times past was matter of grave belief and held 
 sway over people’s conduct, has since been transformed 
 into ornament for ‘ The Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ‘ The 
 Tempest,’ ^ The Faerie Queene,’ and endless small tales and 
 poems; and still affords subjects for children’s story books, 
 amuses boys and girls, and becomes matter for jocose allu- 
 sion.” 
 
 Sir Walter Scott also' says, in a note to ^ The Lady of 
 the Lake ’ : The mythology of one period would appear to 
 
 pass into the romance of the next, and that into the nur- 
 sery tales of subsequent ages ” ; and Max Muller, in his 
 ‘ Chips from a German Workshop,’ says : The gods of 
 
 ancient mythology were changed into the demigods and 
 heroes of ancient epic poetry, and these demigods and 
 heroes again become at a later age the principal characters 
 of our nursery tales.” 
 
 In just the same way many of the Irish folk tales are 
 the detritus of the ancient bardic stories, and we can see 
 this detrition in actual process in Ireland to-day, where the 
 belief in the fairies and legends still exists in the minds 
 of many of the older folks. As Lady Wilde says in her in- 
 troduction to ^ Irish Legends ’ : With the highly sensitive 
 
 organization of their race, it is not wonderful that the 
 people live habitually under the shadow and dread of in- 
 visible powers which, whether working for good or evil, 
 are awful and mysterious to the uncultured mind that sees 
 only the strange results produced by certain forces, but 
 knows nothing of the approximate causes.” And so Tir- 
 nan-og, the country of the young, the place where you will 
 get happiness for a penny, so cheap and common will it be, 
 is still devoutly believed in by many to whom Hy Braesil, 
 
xxiv IRISH FAIRY AXD FOLK TALES. 
 
 the Island of the Blest, is also something more than a 
 name. 
 
 And it is not a little curious to note in this connection 
 that, while the fairy tales of other lands have long been the 
 natural literature of childhood, it is only in later years that 
 even in Ireland itself her fairy tales, folk lore, wonder tales, 
 and hero stories have figured in books especially made for 
 young people. 
 
 The fairy tales and folk lore of Ireland should have 
 a special interest not alone for Irish-Americans, but for 
 that greater American nation which is being evolved out of 
 the mixture of the blood of all the races of the world, to- 
 day. We inherit, we are infused by, and we are trans- 
 muting into terms of national individuality, all the ro- 
 mance, all the culture, all the art, and all the literature 
 of the past, of all the nations of the world. 
 
 And when this individuality shall have been achieved, 
 we shall have a culture which will be distinctly American, 
 we shall have an art which will be distinctly American, we 
 shall have a literature which will be distinctly American 
 
 There has entered, and there will enter, into the com 
 position of this new and individual race, a greater infu, 
 sion of the Celtic element than of any other, and it is there, 
 fore of the highest importance that the literature in which 
 this element has been cradled, the literature to which the 
 Celtic spirit responds most quickly and with the happiest 
 results, should form part of the mental nourishment of our 
 young people, in the form of the fairy tales and folk lore of 
 Ireland. 
 
 We have given our children freely for the last two hun 
 dred years of the English Mother Goose rhymes and fairy 
 tales, of the German, and even of the Norse fairy tales and 
 romances — much of the content and idea of which is re- 
 mote, and to which because of race-inherited feelings and 
 tendencies, they cannot respond — while we have left un- 
 heeded the vast treasures which exist in Irish fairy litera- 
 ture, a literature which makes the strongest appeal to the 
 largest ingredient in the composition of the new American 
 race which is being evolved. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. 
 
 Modern Irish Poetry. — W. B. Yeats 
 
 Irish Fairy and Folk Tales . — Charles Welsh . 
 
 Daunt, William Joseph O’Neill . . . . 
 
 Repealers in Prison and Out, fr. ^ Eighty-five 
 Years of Irish History ’ . 
 
 King Bagenal, fr. ‘ Eighty-five Years of Irish 
 History ’ .... ... 
 
 A Facetious Irish Peer, fr. ^ Eighty-five Years of 
 Irish History ’ 
 
 Davis, Thomas Osborne 
 
 Fontenoy 
 
 Oh ! the marriage ...... 
 
 A Nation Once Again 
 
 My Grave . 
 
 The West ’s Asleep ...... 
 
 The Girl of Dunbwy 
 
 The Welcome 
 
 My Land 
 
 Davitt, Michael 
 
 How the Anglo-Irish Problem Could be Solved, 
 fr. ^ Leaves from a Prison Diary ’ . 
 
 Despair and Hope in Prison, fr. ^ Leaves from 
 a Prison Diary ’ 
 
 Dawson, Arthur 
 
 Bumpers, Squire Jones 
 
 Deeny, Daniel 
 
 A Midnight Funeral, fr. ^ Peasant Lore from 
 
 Gaelic Ireland ’ 
 
 A Little Woman in Red, fr. ^ Peasant Lore 
 from Gaelic Ireland ’ 
 
 XXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 xvii 
 
 811 
 
 811 
 
 817 
 
 819 
 
 822 
 
 823 
 
 826 
 
 827 
 
 827 
 
 828 
 
 829 
 
 830 
 
 831 
 
 832 
 832 
 
 837 
 
 841 
 
 841 
 
 845 
 
 845 
 
 846 
 
XXVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQE 
 
 Strange Indeed ! fr. ^ Peasant Lore from Gaelic 
 Ireland ’ 847 
 
 Denham, Sir John 849 
 
 View of London from Cooper’s Hill . . . 850 
 
 De Vere, Sir Aubrey . . . . . . . 851 
 
 Lady Jane Grey, fr. ^ Mary Tudor’ . . 851 
 
 Liberty of the Press 852 
 
 The Shannon 852 
 
 De Verb, Aubrey Thomas 853 
 
 How to Govern Ireland, fr. ^ English Misrule 
 
 and Irish Misdeeds ’ 854 
 
 The Sun God 858 
 
 The Little Black Rose 858 
 
 Dirge of Rory O’More 859 
 
 Song 859 
 
 Sorrow 860 
 
 The Wedding of the Clans .... 860 
 
 Flowers I would bring 861 
 
 Song 862 
 
 The Long Dying 863 
 
 Doheny, Michael 864 
 
 A Cushla Gal Mo Chree 864 
 
 Dowden, Edward 866 
 
 The Interpretation of Literature, fr. ^ Trans- 
 cripts and Studies ’ 866 
 
 England in Shakespeare’s Youth . . . 869 
 
 The Humor of Shakespeare, fr. ^ Shakespeare : 
 
 A Critical Study ’ 870 
 
 Shakespeare’s Portraiture of Women, fr. 
 
 ^ Transcripts and Studies ’ . . . . 875 
 
 Aboard the Sea-Swallow . . . . .876 
 
 Oasis 876 
 
 Leonardo’s Monna Lisa 877 
 
 Dowling, Bartholomew 8T8 
 
 The Brigade at Fontenoy 878 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxvu 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dowling, Richard 881 
 
 A Guide to Ignorance, fr. ^ Ignorant Essays ^ . 881 
 
 On Dublin Castle 887 
 
 Downey,, Edmund 891 
 
 From Portlaw to Paradise .... 891 
 King John and the Mayor .... 900 
 
 Raleigh in Munster 909 
 
 Downing, Ellen Mary Patrick .... 916 
 
 My Owen 916 
 
 Talk by the Blackwater 916 
 
 Doyle, James Warren 918 
 
 The True Friends of the Poor and the Afflicted, 
 fr. ^ Letters on the State of Ireland ^ . . 919 
 
 Drennan, William ....... 924 
 
 Erin . . . .' 924 
 
 The Wake of William Orr 925 
 
 Drennan, William, Jr 928 
 
 The Battle of Beal-An-Atha-Buidh , . . 928 
 
 Drummond, William Hamilton .... 930 
 
 Ode Written on Leaving Ireland, fr. the Irish 
 of Gerald Nugent 930 
 
 Dufferin, Lady 932 
 
 Lament of the Irish Emigrant .... 933 
 Terence’s Farewell ;..... 934 
 Katey’s Letter 935 
 
 Dufferin, Lord 937 
 
 On Irishmen as Rulers 938 
 
 An Icelandic Dinner, fr. ‘ Letters From High 
 Latitudes ’ 942 
 
 DuFFET, Thomas 948 
 
 Come all you pale lovers .... 948 
 
 Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan 950 
 
 A Dispute with Carlyle, fr. ^ Conversations 
 with Carlyle’ 951 
 
XXVlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Muster of the North 954 
 
 The Irish Rapparees 957 
 
 The Irish Chiefs 959 
 
 Innishowen 961 
 
 Dunraven, Earl of 963 
 
 A City in the Great West, fr. ^ The Great Di- 
 vide ^ 963 
 
 Eccles, Charlotte O’Connor 967 
 
 King William 967 
 
 Edgeworth, Maria 993 
 
 Castle Rackrent 995 
 
 Continuation of the Memoirs of the Rackrent 
 
 Family 1014 
 
 The Originality of Irish Bulls Examined, fr. 
 
 ^ Irish Bulls ’ 1055 
 
 Little Dominick, fr. ^ Irish Bulls ’ . . 1060 
 
 Waste Not, Want Not 1068 
 
 • Edgeworth, Richard Lovell 1073 
 
 My Boyhood Days, fr. Memoirs . . . 1073 
 
 Egan, Maurice Francis 1080 
 
 The Orange Lilies, fr. ‘ The Land of St. Law- 
 rence ’ 1080 
 
 The Shamrock 1085 
 
 Eglington, John. See Magee, William K. 
 
 Emmet, Robert 1086 
 
 liast Speech 1087 
 
 Lines on the Burying-Ground of Arbor Hill . 1094 
 
 Esler, Mrs 1096 
 
 The Criminality of Letty Moore . . . 1096 
 
 Ettingsall, Thomas 1114 
 
 Darby Doyle ’s Voyage to Quebec . . . 1114 
 
 Fahy, Francis A 1124 
 
 How to Become a Poet 1124 
 
 The Donovans 1132 
 
 Irish Molly O 1133 
 
CONTENTS. xxix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ould Plaid Shawl 1134 
 
 Little Mary Cassidy 1135 
 
 Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland, Anonymous . 1136 
 Will-o^-the*Wisp, fr. ^ Hibernian Tales ’ . . 1136 
 
 Loughleagh (Lake of Healing) . . . 1142 
 
 Donald and His Neighbors, fr. ‘ Hibernian 
 
 Tales ^ 1147 
 
 Queen^s County Witch, A . . . . 1150 
 
 The Fairy Greyhound 1154 
 
 The Countess Kathleen O’Shea . . . 1157 
 
 Kent-Day . 1160 
 
 Conversion of King Laoghaire’s Daughters . 1162 
 
 Farquhar, George 1164 
 
 The Counterfeit Footman, fr. ^ The Beaux’ 
 Stratagem ^ 1165 
 
 Father Prout. See Mahony, Francis Sylvester. 
 
 Ferguson, Sir Samuel 1168 
 
 Speech on Robert Burns, fr. ^ Tlie Ireland of 
 
 His Day ^ 1170 
 
 The Forging of the Anchor .... 1174 
 
 Lament Over the Ruins of the Abbey of Time- 
 
 league 1177 
 
 Owen Bawn 1179 
 
 Cashel of Munster 1181 
 
 Molly Asthore 1182 
 
 Cean Dubh Deelish 1183 
 
 The Lapful of Nuts 1183 
 
 Pastheen Fion 1184 
 
 Fair Hills of Ireland 1185 
 
 Looking Seaward, fr. ^ Congal ’ . . . 1185 
 
 Grace Nugent, fr. the Irish of O’Carolan . 1186 
 
 Mild Mabel Kelly 1187 
 
 The Coolun, fr. the Irish of Maurice Dugan . 1188 
 
 Fitzgerald, Percy Hetherington .... 1190 
 
 Sheridan as an Orator, fr. ^ Lives of the Sheri- 
 dans ^ 1190 
 
 2 — Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
XXX 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Fitzpatrick, William John 
 
 Anecdotes of Keogh, the Irish Massillon, fr. 
 ‘ Irish Wits and Worthies ^ . . . 
 
 Fitzsimon, Ellen O’Connell 
 
 Song of the Irish Emigrant, or the Woods of 
 Caillino 
 
 Flecknoe, Richard 
 
 Of Drinking 
 
 On Travel 
 
 Flood, Henry 
 
 Flood’s Reply to Grattan’s Invective 
 A Defense of the Volunteers . . . . 
 
 On a Commercial Treaty with France 
 
 Forrester, Mrs. Ellen 
 
 The Widow’s Message to her Son 
 
 Fox, George 
 
 The County of Mayo, fr. the Irish of Tliomas 
 Flavell 
 
 Francis, M. E. See Mrs. Blundell. 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip 
 
 To the Duke of Grafton, fr. ‘ The Letters of 
 J unius ’ ....... 
 
 French, William Percy 
 
 The First Lord Liftinant .... 
 
 Furlong, Alice 
 The Trees 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1199 
 
 1199 
 
 1206 
 
 1206 
 
 1208 
 
 1209 
 
 1209 
 
 1210 
 1212 
 1217 
 
 1219 
 
 1220 
 1222 
 
 1224 
 
 1224 
 
 1226 
 
 1228 
 
 1233 
 
 1233 
 
 1239 
 
 1239 
 
WILLIAM JOSEPH O’NEILL DAUNT. 
 
 ( 1807 — 1894 .) 
 
 William Joseph O’Neill Daunt, the able historical writer, was 
 born at Fullamore, King’s County, April 28, 1807, and died June 
 29, 1894. He was for some years associated Avith Daniel O’Con- 
 nell in a secretarial capacity, and throughout his long life he was 
 steadfast in his admiration for that great leader and in his intense 
 hostility to English rule in Ireland. 
 
 His first published work was ‘ Ireland and Her Agitators,’ 1845, 
 which was followed by ‘ Hugh Talbot, a Tale of the Irish Confisca- 
 tions,’ 1846. In 1848 he issued his valuable ‘ Personal Recollections 
 of O’Connell,’ and in 1851 his ‘ Catechism of Irish History,’ which 
 was a text-book in Irish schools, and a novel entitled ‘ The Gentle- 
 man in Debt.’ During the later part of his life he lived quietly as 
 a country gentleman, but that he had not lost any of his early 
 views is proved by his ‘ Essays on Ireland,’ 1886, and his ‘ Eighty- 
 Five Years of Irish History,’ published in the same year. 
 
 After his death his daughter published in 1896, under the title of 
 ‘ A Life Spent for Ireland,’ his personal diary, a most entertaining 
 volume, full of good stories and valuable side-lights on the history 
 of his times. 
 
 REPEALERS IN PRISON AND OUT. 
 
 From ‘ Eighty-five Years of Irish History.’ 
 
 O’Connell, on the evening of his incarceration, had ex- 
 claimed: Thank God, I am in jail for Ireland!” He 
 
 believed that Peel’s false move tended to augment the 
 strength of the national cause. All the prisoners dined 
 together, and the party wore anything but a tragical air. 
 They all enjoyed the exhilaration of spirits arising from 
 a hope that, whatever inconveniences they might sustain, 
 their imprisonment would accelerate the triumph of the 
 cause that was nearest to their hearts. 
 
 They were for the first few days occupied with the 
 bustle of fixing themselves in their new quarters. At last 
 they settled down into something like their usual habits. 
 Charles Gavan Duffy, the editor of The Nation; Doctor 
 (afterwards Sir John) Gray, the editor of The Freeman; 
 and Richard Barrett, the editor of The Pilot, found abun- 
 dant employment superintending their several journals. 
 The moments unoccupied by business they devoted to study, 
 
 811 
 
812 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 or to taking exercise in the adjoining garden. Mr. Duffj, 
 under the impression that the imprisonment would last a 
 year, announced his purpose of reading through Carte’s 
 ‘ Life of Ormond,’ in three folio volumes. Mr. Kay still 
 exercised his supervision of the affairs of the Associa- 
 tion. John O’Connell wrote his amusing and instructive 
 ‘ Repeal Dictionary,’ which appeared in the weekly press, 
 and which I believe was subsequently published in a col- 
 lected form. Steele read Kane’s ^ Industrial Resources 
 of Ireland,’ and defaced the fair, pages of the work 
 with innumerable marks of admiration. Barrett was 
 ready for fun, — frisk, joyous frolic of any sort, and more 
 than once kept the incarcerated coterie in roars of laugh- 
 ter by attitudinizing and grimacing in a style that would 
 have done honor to Liston. Two of the visitors played 
 the short-armed orator; the comic force of the pathetic 
 passages being much enhanced by a cambric handker- 
 chief, which the gentleman who performed the action held 
 to the weeping eyes of the gentleman who performed the 
 eloquence. Nearly all the prisoners contributed to the 
 pages of a jeu d’esprit called Prison Gazette, in which 
 they quizzed each other and their friends with merry mal- 
 ice. In short, there never were prisoners who bore so 
 lightly and joyously the hours of imprisonment, or whose 
 deprivation of freedom was more soothed by the kind and 
 sympathetic offices of friends. 
 
 They had access to two gardens. In one of these was a 
 mound with a summer-house on the top. The mound 
 they amused themselves by calling Tara Hill ; the summer- 
 house was termed Conciliation Hall. In the other garden 
 they erected a large marquee, which they styled Mullagh- 
 mast, and in this marquee were received the numerous 
 deputations who bore addresses to the convicts ” from 
 the different quarters of the kingdom. I learned from a 
 gentleman, who was present on one of these occasions, 
 that O’Connell replied to the bearers of an address in the 
 following words : Tell your friends that my heart is joy- 
 
 ful, my spirits are buoyant, my health is excellent, my 
 hopes are high. My imprisonment is not irksome to me, 
 for I feel and know that it will, under Providence, be the 
 means of making our country a nation again. I am glad 
 I am in prison. There wanted but this to my career. I 
 
WILLIAM JOSEPH O’NEILL DAUNT, 
 
 813 
 
 have labored for Ireland — refused office, honor and 
 emolument for Ireland — I have prayed and hoped and 
 watched for Ireland — there was yet one thing wanted — 
 that I should be in jail for Ireland. This has now been 
 added to the rest, thanks to our enemies; and I cordially 
 rejoice at it.^^ 
 
 O’Connell, in the course of that day, was waited on by 
 a party of American tourists. When they arrived, he 
 was standing on the top of Tara Hill.” The^^ doffed 
 their hats and remained at the foot of the mound until 
 desired to walk up. You are probably more visited 
 here,” said one of them, than if you were at large.” 
 Yes,” replied the Liberator, and here I cannot use the 
 excuse of ^ not at home.’ ” 
 
 The progress of Repeal during his imprisonment en- 
 chanted him. The people,” said he, are behaving 
 nobly. I was at first a little afraid, despite all my teach- 
 ing, that at such a tr^dng crisis they would have done 
 either too much or too little — either have been stung into 
 an outbreak, or else awed into apathy. Neither has hap- 
 pened. Blessed be God! the people are acting nobly. 
 What it is to have such a people to lead ! ” 
 
 He rejoiced especially over the excellent training of the 
 Repeal Association; praised the young talent called forth 
 by the movement, bestowing particular eulogy on Mac- 
 Nevin and Barry. 
 
 In the days of the Catholic Association,” said he, I 
 used to have more trouble than I can express in keeping 
 down mutiny. I always arrived in town about the 25th 
 of October, and on my arrival I invariably found some 
 jealousies, some squabbles — some fellow trying to be 
 leader, which gave me infinite annoyance. But now all 
 goes right — no man is jealous of any other man; each 
 does his best for the general cause.” 
 
 Speaking of his pacific polic}^, he remarked that it was 
 a curious coincidence that the Conal of Ossian should 
 sajq My sword hangs at my side — the blade longs to 
 shine in my hand — but I love the peace of green Erin of 
 the streams.” 
 
 The convicted patriots received numerous presents of 
 fresh fruits and flowers. A patriotic confectioner pre- 
 sented them with two monster cakes. Mr. Scriber of 
 
814 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Westmoreland Street sent them seven musical-boxes to 
 cheer their imprisonment; and it is said that, imme- 
 diately on the arrival of the harmonious cargo, the pris- 
 oners evinced their satisfaction with more musical zeal 
 than taste — by setting the seven boxes playing together. 
 
 Mr. Steele one day placed a stone which he dignified 
 with the name of Liach Fail, or the Stone of Destiny, on 
 the side of the mimic Tara Hill in the garden, calling on 
 Dufty to doff his hat in honor of the august ceremony. 
 
 With these and similar helps and devices did the pris- 
 oners try to cheat the hours of that bondage which, under 
 every circumstance of mitigation, must ever be oppressive 
 to men of ardent minds and active habits. One day John 
 O’Connell made some remark on the high, gloomy prison 
 buildings, which excluded the view of the country from the 
 dining-room. “ I am better pleased,” said his father, 
 that the view is excluded. To see the hills, and fields, 
 and sea-coast, and to feel that you were debarred from the 
 freedom of walking among them, were a worse affliction 
 than to be deprived altogether of the sight. It would 
 tantalize too much.” . . . 
 
 On the evening of the 6th of September, O’Connell and 
 his fellow-prisoners were liberated. About ten days pre- 
 viously his intimate friend, Mr. Patrick Fitzpatrick, of 
 Eccles Street, had expressed to him the expectation that 
 the law-lords would confirm the sentence, but that the 
 prisoners would be liberated by the exercise of the Royal 
 prerogative. “ You must, in that event,” said Mr. Fitz- 
 patrick, be prepared with instant securities. How large 
 is the amount of bail required? ” 
 
 O’Connell had forgotten the amount, and descended to 
 the Governor’s office to inspect the book. Mr. Fitzpat- 
 rick speedily followed, and found O’Connell laughing 
 heartily at the personal description annexed to his name 
 in the book : Daniel O’Connell — complexion good.” 
 
 The amount of bail was £5,000 (|25,000) personally, and 
 two securities at £2,500 (|12,500) each. But it is idle, 
 quite idle to talk of it,” said O’Connell ; there is not the 
 least probability — not the smallest shadow of a chance of 
 our being set free. No, my good friend, we shall suffer 
 our full term.” 
 
 In this conviction O’Connell continued until the even- 
 
WiLLIAM JOSEPH O^NEILL DAUNT. 
 
 815 
 
 ing of the 6th. Two messengers from the Corn Exchange 
 rushed simultaneously into the prison with the news, 
 vociferating in such noisy rivalship that their tidings 
 were for a long time unintelligible. At length one of 
 them, perforce of better wind, shouted his comrade out of 
 breath, and having reached the corridor leading to O’Con- 
 nelPs apartments, he continued to bellow, I ’m first ! 
 Where ’s the Liberator? I ^m first ! 
 
 ‘‘What is it all about?’’ demanded Mr. Barrett, who 
 was calmly perambulating the corridor. 
 
 “ Only that you ’re free,” cried Edmond O’Hagarty 
 (the messenger). “I’m first! I’m first! Hurrah! 
 Where’s the Liberator? I’m first!” 
 
 They rushed into a drawing-room where O’Connell was 
 seated between two ladies, O’llagarty in his noisy delight 
 still shouting, “I’m first! I’m first! You’re free, Lib- 
 erator! Thanks be to God for that same! The judg- 
 ment ’s reversed.” 
 
 “Bah! not true; it can’t be true,” replied O’Connell 
 coolly. 
 
 “ But it is true. Liberator.” And the messenger showed 
 him the placard which had been printed in London an- 
 nouncing the fact. He examined it attentively, and said 
 to Fitzpatrick : “ After all, this may be true,” when doubt 
 was dispelled by the sudden appearance of the attorneys 
 for the defense. “ On the merits,” were the first words of 
 Mr. Ford, who threw his arms round O’Connell’s neck and 
 kissed him. O’Connell wore his green velvet Mullagh- 
 mast cap, and Ford wore a broad-brimmed beaver hat, 
 oblivious in his ecstasy of the presence of the ladies. “ On 
 the merits,” he triumphantly repeated ; “ no technical- 
 ities at all — nothing but the merits.” 
 
 The news had now spread through the prison, and the 
 other prisoners crowded to the drawing-room to learn 
 their fate. There was a quiet sort of triumph, no bois- 
 terous joy amongst the traversers. In the course of the 
 evening O’Connell said to my informant in a tone of deep 
 solemnity: “Fitzpatrick, the hand of man is not in this. 
 It is the response given by Providence to the prayers of 
 the faithful, steadfast, pious people of Ireland.” 
 
 It was near twilight when O’Connell left the prison to 
 return to his home in Merrion Square. As he walked 
 
816 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 along the streets, the people at first gazed on him in be- 
 wildered astonishment. They could scarcely believe the 
 evidence of their eyes. Was O’Connell indeed free? They 
 crowded round him to ascertain the fact; the crowds aug- 
 mented; and by the time he arrived at the western end of 
 Merrion Square, his friends were obliged to form a cordon 
 around him to avert the inconvenient pressure of the de- 
 lighted multitude. When he placed his foot on his own 
 hall-door step, to re-enter the home from which he had 
 for three months been iniquitously exiled, the popular 
 ecstasy became uncontrollable. Cheer after cheer rose 
 and swelled upon the air. The people gave vent to their 
 wild delight in vociferous acclamations; every heart beat 
 high with i3ride and triumph at the liberation of their 
 venerated leader — not by ministerial grace or favor, but 
 by the strict and stern vindication of that law which had 
 been so nefariously outraged in the trial and conviction. 
 
 O’Connell appeared on the balcony and addressed the 
 people briefly. He exhorted them to bear their victory 
 with moderation. Let them, he said, demonstrate their 
 fitness to rule themselves by the spirit of conciliation and 
 friendliness with which they should enjoy their triumph. 
 
 On the next day (Saturday, the Tth of September) the 
 liberated patriots passed in procession through the lead- 
 ing streets of the metropolis. It was a scene of inde- 
 scribable excitement. When opposite the door of the old 
 Parliament House in College Green, the cavalcade halted 
 — O’Connell rose in his triumphal car, uncovered his 
 head and pointed with significant emphasis to the edifice. 
 Then arose a mighty shout from the surrounding thou- 
 sands — again and again did O’Connell, looking proudly 
 around him, repeat his significant gesture; again and again 
 did the myriads who thronged the broad street upraise 
 their glad voices in deafening cheers. It was like the roar 
 of the ocean, that proud shout of a nation’s triumph and a 
 nation’s hope. 
 
WILLIAM JOSEPH O’NEILL DAUNT. 
 
 817 
 
 KING BAGENAL. 
 
 From ‘ Eighty-five Years of Irish History.’ 
 
 Of manners elegant, fascinating, polished by extensive 
 intercourse with the great world, of princely income, and 
 of boundless hospitality, Mr. Bageual possessed all the 
 qualities and attributes calculated to procure him popu- 
 larity with every class. A terrestrial paradise was Dun- 
 leckny for all lovers of good wine, good horses, good dogs, 
 and good society. His stud was magnificent, and he had 
 a large number of capital hunters at the service of visitors 
 who were not provided with steeds of their own. He de- 
 rived great delight from encouraging the young men who 
 frequented his house to hunt, drink, and solve points of 
 honor at twelve paces. 
 
 ‘‘ Enthroned at Dunleckny, he gathered around him a 
 host of spirits congenial to his own. He had a tender af- 
 fection for pistols, a brace of which implements, loaded, 
 were often placed before him on the dinner table. After 
 dinner the claret was produced in an unbroached cask; 
 BagenaFs practice was to broach the cask with a bullet 
 from one of his pistols, whilst he kept the other pistol in 
 terrorem for any of the convives who should fail in doing 
 ample justice to the wine. 
 
 Nothing could be more impressive than the bland, 
 fatherly, affectionate air with Avhich the old gentleman 
 used to impart to his junior guests the results of his own 
 experience, and the moral lessons which should regulate 
 their conduct through life. 
 
 “ ^ In truth, my young friends, it behooves a youth enter- 
 ing the world to make a character for himself. Respect 
 will only be accorded to character. A young man must 
 show his proofs. I am not a quarrelsome person — I never 
 was — I hate your mere duelist; but experience of the 
 world tells me there are knotty points of which the only 
 solution is the saw handle. Rest upon your pistols, my 
 boys! Occasions will arise in which the use of them is 
 absolutely indispensable to character. A man, I repeat, 
 must show his proofs — in this world courage will never be 
 taken upon trust. I protest to Heaven, my dear young 
 friends, I am advising you exactly as I should advise my 
 own sonF 
 
818 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 And having thus discharged his conscience, he would 
 look blandly around with the most patriarchal air imag- 
 inable. 
 
 His practice accorded with his precept. Some pigs, 
 the property of a gentleman who had recently settled near 
 Dunleckny, strayed into an enclosure of King BagenaPs, 
 and rooted up a flower knot. The incensed monarch or- 
 dered that the porcine trespassers should be shorn of their 
 ears and tails; and he transmitted the several appendages 
 to the owner of the swine with an intimation that he, too, 
 deserved to have Ins ears docked; and that only he had not 
 got a tail, he (King Bagenal) would sever the caudal 
 member from his dorsal extremity. ‘ Now,^ quoth Bagenal, 
 ^ if he ^s a gentleman, he must burn powder after such a 
 message as that.’ 
 
 “ Nor was he disappointed. A challenge was given by 
 the owner of the pigs. Bagenal accepted it with alacrity, 
 only stipulating that as he was old and feeble, being then 
 in his seventy-ninth year, he should fight sitting in his 
 arm-chair; and that as his infirmities prevented early 
 rising, the meeting should take place in the afternoon. 
 ‘ Time was,’ said the old man, with a sigh, ‘ that I would 
 have risen before daylight to fight at sunrise, but we can- 
 not do these things at seventy-eight. Well, Heaven’s will 
 be done.’ 
 
 They fought at twelve paces. Bagenal wounded his 
 antagonist severe!}"; the arm of the chair in which he sat 
 was shattered, but he remained unhurt; and he ended the 
 day with a glorious carouse, tapping the claret, we may 
 presume, as usual, by firing a pistol at the cask. 
 
 The traditions of Dunleckny allege that when Bagenal, 
 in the course of his tour through Europe, visited the petty 
 court of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Grand Duke, charmed 
 with his magnificence and the reputation of his wealth, 
 made him an offer of the hand of the fair Charlotte, who, 
 being politely rejected by King Bagenal, was afterwards 
 accepted by King George III.” 
 
 Such was the lord of Dunleckny, and such was many an 
 Irish squire of the day. Kecklessness characterized the 
 time. And yet there was a polished courtesy, a high-bred 
 grace in the manners of men who imagined that to shoot, 
 or to be shot at, on the sod,” was an indispensable ingre- 
 
WILLIAM JOSEPH O’NEILL DAUNT. 
 
 819 
 
 dient in the character of a gentleman. Look at Bagenal, 
 nearly fourscore, seated at the head of his table. You ob- 
 serve the refined urbanity of his manner, and the dignified 
 air which is enhanced, not impaired, by the weight of 
 years. You draw near to participate in the instructions of 
 this ancient moralist. What a shock — half ludicrous, half 
 horrible — to find that he inculcates the necessity of prac- 
 tice with the hair-triggers as the grand primary virtue 
 which forms the gentleman ! 
 
 A FACETIOUS lEISH PEEE. 
 
 From ‘ Eighty-five Years of Irish History.’ 
 
 Amongst those whom a descent of some half-dozen gen- 
 erations entitled to call themselves Irish, the greater num- 
 ber had so habitually looked on politics as a game to be 
 played for the purpose of personal aggrandizement, that 
 they had no conception of anything like political principle. 
 There was a thorough moral recklessness about them which 
 rendered them quite ready for any act of political despera- 
 tion, provided it did not tend to enlarge the power of the 
 people. Their personal habits necessarily fostered their 
 recklessness. Their profusion and extravagance were 
 great ; and some of them — not a few — resorted to modes of 
 raising the wind which showed that they mingled few 
 scruples with their system of financial pneumatics. There 
 was, withal, a strong dash of odd drollery in the brazen 
 shamelessness of their expedients. 
 
 A curious specimen of this order of men Tvas Lord 
 
 M y. His title was the result of some dexterous traffic 
 
 in Parliamentary votes. His manners were eminently fas- 
 cinating, and his habits social. He had a favorite saying 
 that a gentleman could never live upon his rents; a man 
 who depended on his rents had money only upon two days 
 in the year, the 25th of March and the 29th of September. 
 He accordingly left no expedient untried to furnish him- 
 self with money every other day too. 
 
 It chanced that when Lord Kerry^s house in St. Ste- 
 phen's Green was for sale, a lady named Keating was de- 
 
820 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 sirous to purchase a pew in St. Anne’s Church appertain- 
 ing to that mansion. Mrs. Keating erroneously took it 
 
 into her head that the pew belonged to Lord M y; she 
 
 accordingly visited his lordshij) to propose herself as a 
 purchaser. 
 
 My dear madam,” said he, I have not got any pew, 
 that I know of, in St. Anne’s Church.” 
 
 Oh, my lord, I assure you that you have ; and if 3^ou 
 have got no objection, I am desirous to purchase it.” 
 
 Lord M y started no farther difficulty. A large sum 
 
 was accordingly fixed on, and in order to make her bar- 
 gain as secure as possible, Mrs. Keating got the agreement 
 of sale drawn out in the most stringent form by an at- 
 torney. She paid the money to Lord M y, and on the 
 
 following Sunday she marched up to the pew to take pos- 
 session, rustling in the stateliness of brocades and silks. 
 The beadle refused to let her into the pew. 
 
 “ Sir,” said the lady, this pew is mine.” 
 
 Yours, madam? ” 
 
 Yes; I have bought it from Lord M y.” 
 
 Madam, this is the Kerry pew ; I do assure you Lord 
 
 M y never had a pew in this church.” 
 
 Mrs. Keating saw at once she had been cheated, and on 
 the following day she went to his lordship to try if she 
 could get back her money. 
 
 My lord, I have come to you to say that the pew in 
 St. Anne’s — ” 
 
 My dear madam, I ’ll sell you twenty more pews if you 
 have any fancy for them.” 
 
 Oh, my lord, you are facetious. I have come to ac- 
 quaint you it was all a mistake; you never had a pew in 
 that church.” 
 
 Hah ! so I think I told you at first.” 
 
 And I trust, my lord,” pursued Mrs. Keating, you 
 will refund me the money I paid you for it.” 
 
 The money? Really, my dear madam, I am sorry to 
 say that it is quite impossible — the money’s gone long 
 ago.” 
 
 But — my lord — your lordship’s character — ” 
 
 That ’s gone too ! ” said Lord M y, laughing with 
 
 good-humored nonchalance, 
 
 I have already said that this nobleman’s financial opera- 
 
WILLIAM JOSEPH O’NEILL DAUNT. 
 
 821 
 
 tions were systematically extended to every opportunity 
 of gain that could possibly be grasped at. He was colonel 
 of a militia regiment; and, contrary to all precedent, he 
 regularly sold the commissions and pocketed the money. 
 The Lord Lieutenant resolved to call him to an account 
 for his malpractices, and for that purpose invited him to 
 dine at the Castle, where all the other colonels of militia 
 regiments then in Dublin had also been invited to meet 
 him. After dinner the Viceroy stated that he had heard 
 with great pain an accusation — indeed, he could hardly 
 believe it — but it had been positively said that the colonel 
 of a militia regiment actually sold the commissions. 
 
 The company looked aghast at this atrocity, and the in- 
 nocent colonels forthwith began to exculpate themselves* 
 
 I have never done so.^^ I have never sold any.’’ Nor 
 
 I.” ’ The disclaimers were general. Lord M y resolved 
 
 to put a bold face on the matter. 
 
 I always sell the commissions in my regiment,” said 
 he, with the air of a man who announced a practice rather 
 meritorious. All present seemed astonished at this frank 
 avowal. 
 
 How can you defend such a practice? ” asked the Lord 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 << Very easily, my lord. Has not your Excellency always 
 told us to assimilate our regiments as much as possible to 
 the troops of the Line? ” 
 
 “ Yes, undoubtedly.” 
 
 Well, they sell the commissions in the Line, and I 
 thought that the best point at which to begin the assimila- 
 tion.” 
 
 It is told of this nobleman, that when he was dying he 
 was attended by a clergyman, who remonstrated with him 
 on the scandalous exploits of his past life, and strongly 
 urged him to repent. Repent? ” echoed the dying sinner; 
 
 I don’t see what I have got to repent of ; I don’t remem- 
 ber that I ever denied myself anything.” 
 
THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS. 
 
 ( 1814 — 1845 .) 
 
 Thomas Osborne Davis, born in 1814, was a native of MalloAv, an 
 historic and picturesque town, pleasantly situated on the north bank of 
 the Munster Blackwater, in the county of Cork. Through his mother 
 he could trace some kinship with the O’Sullivans, chiefs of Berehaven. 
 
 There was much in the scenery of his native place to aAvaken the 
 poetic and patriotic feelings of the boy. The stern old walls of 
 Mallow Castle had Avitnessed several sieges in the days when the 
 Lords President of Munster held their court within its ramparts. 
 Not far stands Kilcolman, where Edmund Spenser penned ‘ The 
 Faerie Queene,’ and near it is Newmarket, where John Philpot Cur- 
 ran was born and reared. 
 
 Davis from an early age exhibited a keen interest in the language, 
 the history, and the antiquities of his country. He Avas educated 
 at Trinity College, Dublin, Avhere he was graduated in 1836 ; and 
 tAvo years afterAvard he Avas called to the bar. Later on he joined 
 the Repeal Association of O’Connell, a step which colored his whole 
 after life and had influences far wider than his personal fortunes. 
 The Repeal Association, powerful as it was in some respects, was in 
 others very feeble. There attached to it, in the first place, the sus- 
 picion of being a sectarian body, a society Avhich identified national 
 Avith purely Catholic interests. The autocratic position of O’Connell, 
 too, had had the effect of making the Association appear to be merely 
 an arena in Avhich he performed as a star. The adhesion of Davis 
 to the body did much to remove these prejudices, and the result was 
 that the new recruit was followed by several others of perhaps a 
 better class than had hitherto joined O’Connell’s Association. 
 
 In 1842 The Nation newspaper was founded : an event destined 
 to bear most important fruits, literary and political, in the history 
 of Ireland. Mr. (later on Sir) Charles Gavan Duffy was the editor, 
 and Davis became one of the chief contributors. It was in the col- 
 umns of this paper that the greater part of Davis’ poems appeared, 
 and his stirring words were among the most potent agencies in 
 stimulating the revolutionary passions of the people. ‘*I re- 
 member,’’ AA^rote the Very Reverend Father O’Burke, “ with AA^hat 
 startled enthusiasm I would arise from reading Davis’ ‘ Poems ’ ; 
 and it Avould seem to me that before my young eyes I saw the dash 
 of the Brigade at Fontenoy ; it would seem to me as if my young 
 ears Avere filled with the shout that resounded at the YelloAv Ford 
 and Benurb — the war-cry of the Red Hand — as the English hosts 
 were swept away, and, like snow under the beams of the rising 
 sun, melted before the Irish onset.” 
 
 Davis soon formed a party in the Association, which aimed at 
 objects and contemplated means to which the founder of the body 
 was most vehemently opposed. In the middle of the struggle be- 
 tween the advocates of physical force — who came to be knoAvn as 
 the Young Ireland party — and O’Connell, who believed in the om- 
 nipotence of constitutional agitation, Davis died. Sept. 16, 1845. 
 
 822 
 
THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS. 
 
 823 
 
 It is impossible to describe the poignancy of regret with which 
 the news of this premature and sudden close to a career of such 
 bright promise was received. Extreme as were the political opin- 
 ions of Davis, they were free from the least suspicion of sectarian- 
 ism ; and this, together with the transparent purity of his motives 
 and his splendid talents, made him admired by men of the most 
 opposite principles. “ Perhaps the best evidence of the potency 
 and the nobility of his influence,” says a writer in ‘ A Treasury of 
 Irish Poetry,’ “was the fact that this sense of loss was overcome by 
 the recollection of the ideals he had held up, and that his memory 
 was honored by the undaunted pursuance of his work, and the 
 maintenance of the pure and lofty ardor with which he wrought.” 
 
 The great heart of O’Connell was deeply stirred when he heard 
 of his young opponent’s death. From Derrynane his habit was to 
 send a long weekly letter, to be read at the meeting of the Associ- 
 ation. This week his letter was very short — nothing but a burst of 
 lamentation. “ As I stand alone in the solitude of my mountains 
 many a tear shall I shed in memory of the noble youth. Oh ! how 
 vain are words or tears when such a national calamity afflicts the 
 country. Put me down among the foremost contributors to what- 
 ever monument or tribute to his memory be voted by the National 
 Association. Never did they perform a more imperative, or, alas ! 
 so sad a duty. I can write no more — my tears blind me.” 
 
 “ It was in his poetry,” says a writer in ‘A Treasury of Irish 
 Poetry,’ “ that he most intimately revealed himself. And though 
 Thomas Davis was extraordinarily fertile in ideas and indefatigable 
 in methodic industry, the best thing he gave to the Irish people 
 was not an idea or an achievement of any sort, but simply the 
 gift of himself. He was the ideal Irishman. North and south, 
 east and west, the finest qualities of the population that inhabit 
 the island seemed to be combined in him, developed to their high- 
 est power, and colored deeply with whatever it is in character and 
 temperament that makes the Irish one of the most separate of 
 races. The nation saw itself transfigured in him, and saw the 
 dreams nourished by its long memories and ancestral pride coming 
 true. Hence the intense personal devotion felt toward Davis by 
 the ardent and thoughtful young men who were associated with 
 him, and the sense of irreparable loss caused by his early death. 
 He stood for Ireland — for all Ireland — as no other man did, and it 
 was hardly possible to distinguish the cause from his personality.” 
 
 FONTENOY.i 
 
 Thrice at the huts of Fontenoy the English column failed, 
 And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain as- 
 sailed ; 
 
 For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery, 
 
 1 The battle of Fontenoy, fought in Flanders in 1745 between the French 
 and the Allies — English, Dutch, and Austrians — in which the Allies were 
 worsted. The Irish Brigade fought by the side of the French, and won 
 great renown by their splendid conduct in the field. 
 
824 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch aux- 
 iliary. 
 
 As vainly, through De Band’s wood, the British soldiers burst. 
 The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dis- 
 persed. 
 
 The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye. 
 And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try. 
 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride! 
 
 And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at even- 
 tide. 
 
 Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread, 
 
 Their cannon blaze in front and flank. Lord Hay is at their 
 head ; 
 
 Steady they step a-down the slope — steady they climb the 
 hill; 
 
 Steady they load — steady they fire, moving right onward still, 
 Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast. 
 Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets shower- 
 ing fast; 
 
 And on the open plain above they rose, and kept their course. 
 With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked at hostile force: 
 Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, Tvhile thinner grow their 
 ranks — 
 
 They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland’s ocean 
 banks. 
 
 More idly than the summer flies, French tirailleurs rush 
 round ; 
 
 As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground ; 
 Bomb shell, and grape, and round-shot tore, still on they 
 marched and fired — 
 
 Fast, from each volley, grenadier and voltigeur retired. 
 
 Push on my household cavalry ! ” King Louis madly cried : 
 To death they rush, but rude their shock — not unavenged they 
 died. 
 
 On through the camp the column trod — King Louis turns his 
 rein : 
 
 Not yet, my liege,” Saxe interposed, the Irish troops re- 
 main ; ” 
 
 And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo, 
 
 Were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement, and true. 
 
 Lord Clare,” he said, “ you have your wish, there are your 
 Saxon foes ! ” 
 
 The marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes ! 
 
THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS. 
 
 825 
 
 How fierce the look these exiles wear, who ’re wont to be so 
 
 gay, 
 
 The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to- 
 day— 
 
 The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith ’twas writ could 
 dry. 
 
 Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women’s 
 parting cry. 
 
 Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country over- 
 thrown, — 
 
 Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone. 
 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere. 
 
 Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were. 
 
 O’Brien’s voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands. 
 Fix bay’nets ” — charge,” — Like mountain storm, rush on 
 these fiery bands! 
 
 Thin is the English column now, and faint their volleys grow, 
 
 Yet, must’ring all the strength they have, they make a gallant 
 show. 
 
 They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that battle- 
 wind — 
 
 Their bayonets the breakers’ foam; like rocks, the men be- 
 hind! 
 
 One volley crashes from their line, when, through the surging 
 smoke. 
 
 With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish 
 broke. 
 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza ! 
 
 Revenge ! remember Limerick ! dash down the Sacsanach ! ” 
 
 Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger’s pang. 
 Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang: 
 Bright was their steel, ’t is bloody now, their guns are filled 
 with gore; 
 
 Through shattered ranks, and severed files, and trampled flags 
 they tore; 
 
 The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, 
 staggered, fled — 
 
 The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead. 
 Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack. 
 While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track. 
 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun. 
 
 With bloody plumes the Irish stand — the field is fought and 
 won ! 
 
82G 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 OH! THE MARRIAGE. 
 
 Oh ! the marriage, the marriage, 
 
 With love and mo hhuachaill ^ for me, 
 
 The ladies that ride in a carriage 
 Might envy my marriage to me; 
 
 For Eoghan is straight as a tower. 
 
 And tender and loving and true. 
 
 He told me more love in an hour 
 Than the squires of the county could do« 
 Then, Oh! the marriage, &c. 
 
 His hair is a shower of soft gold. 
 
 His eye is as clear as the day. 
 
 His conscience and vote were unsold 
 When others were carried away; 
 
 His word is as good as an oath. 
 
 And freely ’t was given to me ; 
 
 Oh ! sure ’t will be happy for both 
 The day of our marriage to see. 
 
 Then, Oh! the marriage, &c. 
 
 His kinsmen are honest and kind. 
 
 The neighbors think ^nucii of his skill, 
 
 And Eoghan ^s the lad to my mind. 
 
 Though he owns neither castle nor mill. 
 
 But he has a tilloch of land, 
 
 A horse, and a stocking of coin, 
 
 A foot for the dance, and a hand 
 In the cause of his country to join. 
 
 Then, Oh! the marriage, &c. 
 
 We meet in the market and fair — 
 
 We meet in the morning and night — 
 
 He sits on the half of my chair. 
 
 And my people are wild with delight. 
 
 Yet I long through the winter to skim. 
 
 Though Eoghan longs more I can see. 
 When I will be married to him. 
 
 And he will be married to me. 
 
 Then, Oh! the marriage, the marriage. 
 With love and mo hhuacJiaill for me. 
 The ladies that ride in a carriage 
 Might envy my marriage to me. 
 
 1 Mo hhuachaill, ma bouchal, my boy. 
 
THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS. 
 
 827 
 
 A NATION ONCE AGAIN. 
 
 When boyhood’s fire was in my blood, 
 
 1 read of ancient freemen, 
 
 For Greece and Rome who bravely stood, 
 Three Hundred men and Three men.^ 
 
 And then I prayed I yet might see 
 Our fetters rent in twain. 
 
 And Ireland, long a province, be 
 A Nation once again. 
 
 And, from that time, through wildest woe, 
 That hope has shone, a far light ; 
 
 Nor could love’s brightest summer glow 
 Outshine that solemn starlight: 
 
 It seemed to watch above my head 
 In forum, field, and fane; 
 
 Its angel voice sang round my bed, 
 
 A Nation once again.” 
 
 It whispered, too, that freedom’s ark 
 And service high and holy. 
 
 Would be profaned by feelings dark. 
 
 And passions vain or lowly : 
 
 For freedom comes from God’s right hand. 
 And needs a godly train ; 
 
 And righteous men must make our land 
 A Nation once again.” 
 
 So, as I grew from boy to man, 
 
 I bent me to that bidding — 
 
 My spirit of each selfish plan 
 And cruel jjassion ridding; 
 
 For, thus I hoped some day to aid — 
 
 Oh ! can such hope be vain ? 
 
 When my dear country shall be made 
 A Nation once again. 
 
 MY GRAVE. 
 
 Shall they bury me in the deep. 
 
 Where wind-forgetting waters sleep? 
 
 Shall they dig a grave for me. 
 
 Under the greenwood tree? 
 
 1 The Three Hundred Greeks who died at Thermopyloe, and the Hire© 
 Romans who kept the Sublician Bridge. — Davis. 
 
828 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Or on the wild heath, 
 
 Where the wilder breath 
 Of the storm doth blow? 
 
 Oh, no! oh, no! 
 
 Shall they bury me in the palace tombs, 
 
 Or under the shade of cathedral domes? 
 
 Sweet ’twere to lie on Italy’s shore; 
 
 Yet not there — nor in Greece, though I love it more. 
 In the wolf or the vulture my grave shall I find? 
 Shall my ashes career on the world-seeing wind? 
 Shall they fling my corpse in the battle mound, 
 Where coffinless thousands lie under the ground? 
 Just as they fall they are buried so — 
 
 Oh, no! oh, no! 
 
 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 tombstone 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.’^ 
 
 Oh ! ’t were merry unto the grave to go, 
 
 If one were sure to be buried so. 
 
 THE WEST’S ASLEEP. 
 
 When all beside a vigil keep, 
 
 The West ’s asleep, the West ’s asleep. 
 Alas! and well may Erin weep. 
 
 When Connaught lies in slumber deep. 
 There lake and plain smile fair and free, 
 ’Mid rocks — their guardian chivalry. 
 Sing! oh! let me learn liberty 
 From crashing wind and lashing sea. 
 
 That chainless wave and lovely land 
 Freedom and Nationhood demand; 
 
 Be sure the great God never planned 
 
TEOMA^ OSBORNE DAVIS. 
 
 829 
 
 For slumbering slaves a home so grand. 
 And long a brave and haughty race 
 Honored and sentineled the place — 
 
 Sing, oh ! not even their sons’ disgrace 
 Can quite destroy their glory’s trace. 
 
 For often, in O’Connor’s van. 
 
 To triumph dashed each Connaught clan, 
 And fleet as deer the Normans ran 
 Through Curlieu’s Pass and Ardrahan, 
 And later times saw deeds as brave; 
 
 And glory guards Clanricarde’s grave — 
 Sing, oh! they died their land to save. 
 
 At Aughrim’s slopes and Shannon’s wave. 
 
 And if, when all a vigil keep, 
 
 The West ’s asleep, the West ’s asleep — 
 Alas! and well may Erin weep. 
 
 That Connaught lies in slumber deep. 
 
 But hark! some voice like thunder spake: 
 The West ’s awake ! the West ’s awake ! ” 
 Sing, oh ! hurrah ! let England quake ; 
 iWe ’ll watch till death for Erin’s sake. 
 
 THE GIEL .OF DUNBWY. 
 
 T is pretty to see the girl of Dunbwy 
 Stepping the mountain statelily — 
 
 Though ragged her gown and naked her feet, 
 
 No lady in Ireland to match her is meet. 
 
 Poor is her diet, and hardly she lies — 
 
 Yet a monarch might kneel for a glance of her eyes ; 
 
 The child of a peasant — yet England’s proud Queen 
 Has less rank in her heart and less grace in her mien. 
 
 Her brow ’neath her raven hair gleams, just as if 
 A breaker spread white ’neath a shadowy cliff — 
 
 And love and devotion and energy speak 
 
 From her beauty-proud eye and her passion-pale cheek. 
 
 But, pale as her cheek is, there ’s fruit on her lip. 
 
 And her teeth flash as white as the crescent moon’s tip, 
 And her form and her step, like the red-deer’s, go past — 
 As lightsome, as lovely, as haughty, as fast. 
 
830 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I saw her but once, and T looked in her eve, 
 
 And she knew that I worshiped in passing her by. 
 
 The saint of the wayside — she granted my prayer. 
 Though we spoke not a word ; for her mother was there, 
 
 I never can think upon Bantry’s bright hills, 
 
 But her image starts up, and my longing eye fills; 
 
 And I whisper her softly : Again, love, we ’ll meet! 
 
 And I ’ll lie in your bosom, and live at your feet.” 
 
 THE WELCOME. 
 
 Come in thQ evening, or come in the morning, 
 
 Come when you ’re looked for, or come without warning. 
 Kisses and welcome you ’ll find here before you. 
 
 And the oftener you come here the more I ’ll adore you. 
 Light is my heart since the day we were plighted. 
 
 Red is my cheek that they told me was blighted. 
 
 The green of the trees looks far greener than ever. 
 
 And the linnets are singing, True lovers, don’t sever ! ” 
 
 I ’ll pull you sweet flowers, to wear, if you choose them : 
 Or, after you ’ve kissed them, they ’ll lie on my bosom. 
 
 I ’ll fetch from the mountain its breeze to inspire you ; 
 
 I’ll fetch from my fancy a tale that won’t tire you. 
 
 O your step ’s like the rain to the summer-vexed farmer. 
 Or saber and shield to a knight without armor; 
 
 I ’ll sing you sweet songs till the stars rise above me. 
 Then, wandering, I ’ll wish you, in silence, to love me. 
 
 We’ll look through the trees at the cliff and the eyrie; 
 We’ll tread round the rath on the track of the fairy; 
 
 We ’ll look on the stars, and we ’ll list to the river. 
 
 Till you ’ll ask of your darling what gift you can give her. 
 O she ’ll whisper you, Love as unchangeably beaming. 
 And trust, when in secret, most tunefully streaming. 
 Till the starlight of heaven above us shall quiver 
 As our souls flow in one down eternity’s river.” 
 
 So come in the evening, or come in the morning. 
 
 Come when you ’re looked for, or come without warning, 
 Kisses and welcome you ’ll find here before you. 
 
 And the oftener you come here the more I ’ll adore you. 
 
THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS. 
 
 831 
 
 Light is my heart since the day we were plighted, 
 
 Red is my cheek that they told me was blighted, 
 
 The green of the trees looks far greener than ever, 
 
 And the linnets are singing, True lovers, don’t sever ! ” 
 
 MY LAND. 
 
 She is a rich and rare land; 
 
 O she ’s a fresh and fair land ; 
 
 She is a dear and rare land — 
 
 This native land of mine. 
 
 No men than hers are braver — 
 Her women’s hearts ne’er waver; 
 
 I ’d freely die to save her. 
 
 And think my lot divine. 
 
 She ’s not a dull or cold land ; 
 
 No! she ’s a warm and bold land; 
 O she ’s a true and old land — 
 This native land of mine. 
 
 Could beauty ever guard her, 
 
 And virtue still reward her. 
 
 No foe would cross her border — • 
 No friend within it pine! 
 
 O she ’s a fresh and fair land, 
 
 O she ’s a true and rare land ! 
 
 Yes, she ’s a rare and fair land — ’ 
 This native land of mine. 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT. 
 
 (1846 ) 
 
 Michael Davitt was born in Ireland, March 25, 1846. He was the 
 son of the late Martin Davitt of Straide, County Mayo, and Scran- 
 ton, Pa. ; his mother was Mary, the daughter of John Yore, St. 
 Joseph, Mich. He with his parents was evicted in 1852 ; he began 
 work in a Lancashire cotton mill in 1856, losing his right arm by 
 machinery in 1857. He was employed as a newsboy, printer’s 
 “devil,” and assistant letter-carrier successively. He joined the 
 Fenian Brotherhood in 1865. He was arrested and tried in London 
 for treason-felony in 1870, and sentenced to fifteen years penal 
 servitude. He was released on “ ticket-of-leave ” in 1877; and with 
 the late Mr. Parnell and others founded the Irish Land League in 
 1879. He was arrested on the charge of making a seditious speech 
 the same year, but prosecution was abandoned. 
 
 He came to the United States to organize an auxiliary Land 
 League organization in 1880. He was arrested shortly after his 
 return in 1881, and sent back to penal servitude. He was released 
 May 6, 1882 ; arrested in 1883, and tried under the law of King 
 Edward HI. for seditious speech and imprisoned for three months. 
 
 He was included in the “ Parnellism and Crime” allegations, and 
 spoke for five days in defense of the Land League before The 
 Times Parnell Commission. He was first elected to Parliament for 
 the county of Meath, while a prisoner in Portland Convict Prison, 
 in 1882, but was disqualified by special vote of the House of Com- 
 mons on account of non-expiry of sentence for treason-felony. He 
 unsuccessfully contested Waterford City in 1891. He was Mem- 
 ber of Parliament for North Meath in 1892, and was unseated on 
 petition. He was returned unopposed for Northeast Cork in the 
 same year, and resigned in 1893, owing to bankruptcy proceedings 
 arising out of the North Meath election petition. He was returned 
 unopposed for East Kerry and South Mayo in 1895, while in Aus- 
 tralia, and resigned in 1899. 
 
 He traveled in the United States, Canada, Australia, Egypt, Pales- 
 tine, France, Italy, Switzerland, and in South Africa. 
 
 His publications are ‘Leaves from a Prison Diary,’ 1884; ‘De- 
 fense of the Land League,’ 1891 ; ‘ Life and Progress in Australia,’ 
 1898 ; ‘ The Boer Fight for Freedom,’ 1902 ; ‘ The Fall of Feudalism 
 in Ireland,’ 1904. 
 
 HOW THE ANGLO-IRISH PROBLEM COULD BE 
 
 SOLVED. 
 
 From ‘ Leaves from a Prison Diary.’ 
 
 The question is frequently asked, What will satisfy 
 the Irish people? And the answer is as frequently volun- 
 
 832 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT. 
 
 833 
 
 teered, Nothing. Nothing will satisfy them but total 
 separation — and that they ’won’t get.” It is an illogical 
 way of answering such a question, but pardonable in an 
 Englishman ; and the impatience which it manifests is also 
 strikingly characteristic. Your ordinary Englishman en- 
 tertains the pretty conceit that English rule is of such a 
 beneficent character that any people who do not tamely 
 submit to it are to be pitied and — dragooned. While in 
 particular, the Irish people, for their obstinacy in refusing 
 to see any virtue in English rule in Ireland, must be 
 clearly made to understand,” and must be told once for 
 all,” that England will maintain her hold upon Ireland at 
 all costs. 
 
 All this talk is indulged* in really for the sake of con- 
 cealing the chagrin which England experiences in conse- 
 quence of the fact, revealed in recent years, that the people 
 of Ireland have discovered how to make it more difficult 
 for England to rule Ireland, than to govern all the rest of 
 her vast empire put together. English statesmen, even 
 now, are devising a middle course between things as they 
 are, and total separation. They are casting about for a 
 scheme which will combine the characteristics of modern 
 statesmanship — a scheme, for example, which will involve 
 as small a concession as possible to the demand of the 
 people concerned, and have a fair chance of passing the 
 House of Lords. Eminent statesmen have more than once 
 challenged Irish public men to say what they want, but 
 the required answer has not been forthcoming. There 
 have been answers, but they have been too reasonable. 
 English statesmen have not been able to offer upon them 
 the comment, We told you so, the thing demanded is 
 utterly out of the range of practical politics, and, in point 
 of fact, is absolutely out of the question.” The answer 
 really required is such a one as English statesmen can 
 meet with a non possumus. And for this reason, English 
 statesmen, I repeat, know that a substantial concession 
 will have to be made to the genius of Irish nationality 
 within the next few years. The demand for it is too 
 strong to be resisted; for the Irish race have to be dealt 
 with now. 
 
 If at home on Irish soil the people can make the ruling 
 
 poAvers uneasy ” to such an extent as I have indicated, in 
 
 3— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
834 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Westminster their representatives can clog the wheels of 
 legislation and endanger the very existence of government 
 by parliamentary methods; while abroad, in Great Brit- 
 ain, America, Australia, Canada, the exiled Irish have 
 discovered how to operate on the flank, so to speak, by 
 elevating the Irish question into the position of a national 
 or colonial issue. Further, EnglancFs guilt towards Ire- 
 land is known and commented on all over the world. Fur- 
 ther still, the real people of England — the working men of 
 England — have of late been asking for the reasons why 
 Ireland should be perpetually discontented, and the an- 
 swers they have received, to the credit of their common 
 sense, be it said, do not appear to have satisfied them. Re- 
 spectable England is very angry; and, to conceal their 
 annoyance at the inevitable, and to pave the way for a 
 concession, English statesmen ask the question of Irish 
 public men — “ What do you want? ’’ and require an 
 answer to which they may return an emphatic impossi- 
 ble.^’ But this is only diplomacy. They only desire us to 
 say how much we want, in order to say in reply how little 
 they will give. They ask us to formulate our demand,” 
 that they, in formulating their concession, may assure 
 their opponents of its comparative innocence. Responsi- 
 ble Irish public men have declined to fall into the trap. 
 And they have acted very wisely. For why should Irish 
 public men show their hand rather than English Prime 
 Ministers? 
 
 Apart altogether from considerations of this character, 
 however, there are others of a distinctly Irish nature which 
 the leaders of the National movement in Ireland have to 
 take into account. The varying shades of National senti- 
 ment may not be ignored. Let us therefore analyze the 
 degrees of intensity of Irish Nationalist aspirations. 
 
 We have first, the Extremists, those who believe that to- 
 tal separation from England is the only thing that would 
 satisfy Irish genius or develop it properly. These include 
 the most self-sacrificing Irishmen. They represent, in 
 their aspirations for Irish liberty, those who have made 
 the most illustrious names in Ireland’s history. They in- 
 clude many cultured men, especially among the expatri- 
 ated portion of the race, but their main strength is in the 
 working classes. Patriotism is purer among the Indus- 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT. 
 
 835 
 
 trial order because less modified by mercenary motives and 
 less liable to corrupting influences. But the Extremists 
 or Separatists are divided among themselves upon the 
 question of method. There are Separatists who advocate 
 physical force, believing moral force, that is, constitution- 
 al means, ineffectual and demoralizing. This section in- 
 cludes men who have never tried moral force and who 
 believe solely either in honorable warfare or dyna- 
 mite.^^ It also includes those who have tried moral force 
 and given it up in despair. Then there are the Separa- 
 tists who, with the experiences of ^48 and ^67 before their 
 minds, rely upon constitutional action alone. 
 
 Next in importance to the Extremists come the Home 
 Rulers, or Federalists, who may be divided into those who 
 disbelieve in the possibility of Separation and those who 
 do not see its necessity. This section of the National 
 party includes some of the ablest and most earnest men in 
 Ireland. Their methods, I need hardly say, are strictly 
 constitutional. 
 
 No Irish leader can afford to ignore either of these two 
 principal phases of Irish National sentiment. Were such 
 a man to commit hims^elf to a definite scheme, at the mere 
 invitation of an English Minister, he would run the risk 
 of alienating that section of his supporters whose views 
 were not represented in his proposals. It is an obvious 
 remark that such a contingency would not be unwelcome 
 to English statesmen. From what I have just said, it will 
 be readily perceived how difficult is the task to which 
 Irish popular leaders are asked to address themselves. 
 
 Nevertheless, I shall venture to outline a scheme of local 
 and National self-government which, I believe, would com- 
 mand the support of the majority of the Irish people at 
 home and abroad, and which would probably receive a fair 
 trial at the hands of the Extremists, though its operation 
 would undoubtedly be watched with a jealous eye. 
 
 In the first place, there should be established in Ireland 
 a system of county government, by means of Elective 
 Boards, to take the place of the existing unrepresentative 
 and practically irresponsible Grand Jury system. The 
 functions of such Boards should be more comprehensive 
 than those exercised by the Grand Juries. For example, 
 in addition to the duty of administering purely county 
 
836 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE. 
 
 business, these Boards should be permitted to initiate 
 measures of general application; such as schemes of arte- 
 rial drainage, tramways, railways, canals, docks, harbors, 
 and similar enterprises, which would be of more than local 
 importance and character. Such schemes, after being 
 fully discussed by these elective bodies, would be submitted 
 to the National Assembly to be subsequently described. 
 Then the County Boards should control the police within 
 the county, and appoint the magistrates, and be entirely 
 responsible for the preservation of law and order. 
 
 Further, should the land problem be justly and satis- 
 factorily solved on the lines of national proprietary, the 
 duty of assessing and collecting the land-tax would nat- 
 urally devolve upon the County Boards, which, deducting 
 what was necessary for the expenses of county government, 
 would remit the balance to the National Exchequer. In 
 fact the object of such a system should be to constitute 
 each county, as far as practicable, a self-governing com- 
 munity. 
 
 Manifestly any system of local self-government for Ire- 
 land involves a corresponding one of National self-gov- 
 ernment as its natural and inevitable complement. To 
 extend the principle of local self-government at all in 
 Ireland, without radically changing the system of Castle 
 rule, would only have the effect of increasing the fric- 
 tion already existing between the people and their rulers. 
 Hence, it is absolutely necessary that legislation for Na- 
 tional self-government should go hand in hand with any 
 scheme for the creation of Elective County Boards. I am 
 well aware that the hope is indulged, in some quarters, 
 that the inclusion of Ireland in a general measure of 
 county government, with the sop of an Irish Parliamen- 
 tary Grand Committee, thrown in, will suffice to choke off 
 the demand for Irish legislative independence ; but English 
 statesmen need not delude themselves with the idea that 
 any such Westminster expedient will satisfy the genius of 
 Irish Nationality. 
 
 There could be established in Dublin a National Assem- 
 bly, composed of elected members from the constituencies 
 of Ireland, who should proceed to the administration of all 
 Irish affairs, in the manner which obtains in Colonial par- 
 liaments, excepting the substitution of one for two Cham- 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT. 
 
 837 
 
 bers, here proposed. That is to saj, the Representatives of 
 the Crown in Ireland would call upon some member of the 
 National Assembly to form a government, the different 
 members of which should be constituted the heads of the 
 various Boards, which at present are practically irrespon- 
 sible bureaucracies ; but which, under the system here pro- 
 posed, would become departments of a popular govern- 
 ment, and open to the supervision of the people through 
 the National Assembly. Such a government, subject to 
 the control of the governed through their elected represen- 
 tatives, would be the practical solution of the Anglo-Irish 
 difficulty. It would be but the common definition of con- 
 stitutional rule carried into practice. It would, as already 
 remarked, be the application to misgoverned and unfor- 
 tunate Ireland of a constitution kindred to that which 
 British statesmanship has long since granted, wisely and 
 well, to a consequently peaceful and contented Canada. 
 
 Certainly if a similar act of political justice and sound 
 policy does not solve the Irish difficulty, nothing less will. 
 What possible danger could England run from such an 
 application of constitutional rule to a country much near- 
 er to the center of Imperial power than Canada? But 
 what a beneficent change for Ireland — nay, what a relief 
 to England herself — would be involved in such an act of 
 simple political justice! 
 
 DESPAIR AND HOPE IN PRISON. 
 
 From ‘ Leaves from a Prison Diary.’ 
 
 As it seldom happens that even the worst of criminals is 
 found to be all crime, neither is an association of one thou- 
 sand of convicts all repulsive moral deformity. Imprison- 
 ment, like many other unfortunate occurrences in the life 
 of those who are born under an unlucky star, has what, for 
 want of a more accurate expression, I shall term its bright 
 side also, inasmuch as its life in some very remote respects 
 approaches to that of the less criminal — because uncon- 
 victed — outside world. 
 
 All the talk of a convict prison is not of murder, theft. 
 
838 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 and indecency, nor is misery and unhappiness always pres- 
 ent among those who may be supposed to be the exclusive 
 victims of grim-visaged Despair.^^ Therefore is there that 
 I may call a negative silver lining to even the dark cloud of 
 penal existence. It is a most singular thing that I have 
 met very few individuals in prison who gave evidence, in 
 appearance or talk, of being truly miserable, no matter 
 what the length of their sentence, amount of extra punish- 
 ment, or contrast between their previous and their convict 
 life, may have been. 
 
 It is true the deepest sorrow and most acute pains of life 
 are often hid from the mockery of human pity away in the 
 recesses of the sufferer’s breast; and that therefore the 
 smiling face and cheerful conversation are not to be relied 
 upon as sure indications of a contented or happy ex- 
 istence. Yet a constant and familiar observation of men 
 of all ages, possessing the strongest of human passions, 
 while being subject to disciplinary restraints that have 
 no parallel in the daily annoyance or troubles of outside 
 life, would be almost certain to detect any tendency to- 
 wards despair or severe heart-suffering on the part of men 
 who should succumb to their fate or surroundings. It is 
 also certain that numbers of prisoners having comforta- 
 ble homes in the outer world must often indulge in sad 
 regrets for what has lost them their enjoyment, and allow 
 their minds to dwell on the painful contrast between the, 
 perhaps, happy influence and remembrance of the one, 
 and the cheerless and weary aspect of the other mode of 
 life. 
 
 But these feelings are seldom or never exhibited in the 
 general behavior or talk of four-fifths of the inmates of a 
 convict prison; and happy, indeed, is it for all concerned 
 in their custody that it is so; as such a mass of bridled 
 passions, if maddened by ever-present thoughts of family, 
 home, and former pleasures (while mind and body are 
 made conscious every hour in every day of the terrible 
 penalties which crime has purchased), would become as 
 unmanageable and dangerously restless as a thousand 
 caged hyenas. 
 
 it is only when these possible feelings overcome the re- 
 sisting influence of Hope and Patience — the bright and 
 ever-present guardian angels of the imprisoned — nowhere 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT, 
 
 839 
 
 SO needed, and thanks to a beneficent Providence, nowhere 
 so constantly present and powerful, as in a prison — that 
 the heart fails in presence of seemingly unbearable woe, 
 inducing mental aberration and finally insanity in the 
 unfortunate victims. Such cases, are, however, not fre- 
 quent, while the instances of prisoners buoying up their 
 existence under the weight of life sentences with the hope 
 of something being done for them some time, through the 
 agency of some fortunate circumstance or other, are almost 
 as numerous as are such terrible sentences themselves. 
 
 The first two years of penal servitude are the hardest 
 to bear, and test mental endurance more than the whole 
 of the remainder of an ordinarj^ sentence. Liberty has 
 only just been parted with. The picture of the outside 
 world is still imprinted upon the memory, and home and 
 friends, with perhaps a dearer object still, are made to 
 haunt the recollection whenever the association of ideas 
 recalls some incidents of happier days. Of these two years 
 the heaviest portion is comprised within the nine or ten 
 months which must be spent in what is termed “ pro- 
 bation — solitary confinement in Millbank or Penton- 
 ville; and while ‘‘solitary’’ is not much dreaded by or- 
 dinary prisoners at a later stage of penal existence, it is 
 truly a terrible ordeal to undergo at the commencement. 
 In Millbank this is specially so. The prison is but a few 
 hundred yards west of Westminster Palace, from whence 
 comes, every quarter of an hour, the voice of Big Ben, 
 telling the listening inmates of the penitentiary that 
 another fifteen minutes of their sentences have gone by! 
 What horrible punishment has not that clock added to 
 many an unfortunate wretch’s fate, by counting for him 
 the minutes during which stone walls and iron bars loill 
 a prison make! Then again there are the thousand-and- 
 one noises that penetrate the lonely cells and silent cor- 
 ridors of that cheerless abode. Now it is the strains of 
 a band from St. James’s Park, “ bringing back to the 
 memory merry days long gone by;” next it is the whistle 
 of the railway engine, Avith its suggestiveness of a journey 
 “ home and so on, during the long weary days and nights, 
 until the terrible idea of suicide is forced across the mind 
 as the only mode of release from the horrible mockery of 
 the noisy, joyful world beyond the boundary walls. . . . 
 
840 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 This all-sustaining prison virtue, Hope, necessarily 
 begets a kindred sort of comforting delusion in prisoners, 
 adapting itself to the seeming requirements of those whose 
 lot is hardest, and hiding the worst features of the objec- 
 tive present behind a picture of a pleasant and happy, 
 if imaginary, future. Prison is the paradise of castle- 
 builders — the fruitful dreamland of fortunes to be made, 
 happiness to be won, and pleasures to be tasted, that shall 
 more than compensate for the trials and privations of 
 the past by the double enjoyment of their intrinsic delights 
 and the contrast which their possession will make to the 
 days when prison walls had frowned upon liberty and 
 prison rations had but little comparison with the food of 
 the gods. Alnaschar himself never conjured up so glo- 
 rious a picture of gratification that was to come as will 
 the imaginative convict while employed at his daily tasks, 
 or in confiding his plans and prospects of the future to 
 some one who will lend an attentive ear to their narration. 
 Apart from such of the airy structures as are erected 
 upon projected crime, this phase of criminal mental 
 activity often conducts the stream of convict talk from 
 its ordinary track on ugly themes into a more pleasant 
 channel, in which it is easy to learn something of the better 
 side of those whose blacker deeds and criminal ideas I 
 have already endeavored to sketch. 
 
ARTHUR DAWSON. 
 
 ( 1700 ?— 1775 .) 
 
 Arthur Dawson was born about 1700, and was graduated B.A, 
 at Dublin University. He was a noted wit and hon vivant of the 
 days of Grattan’s Parliament. He wrote songs and verses, but 
 does not appear to have published any collection of them. He was 
 a shrewd and witty lawyer of the type of Counselor Pleyden in 
 Scott’s ‘Guy Mannering.’ In 1742 he was appointed Baron of the 
 Irish Court of Exchequer, and he died in 1775. 
 
 There is an amusing story told about the origin of ‘ Bumpers, 
 Squire Jones.’ Carolan and Baron Dawson happened to be enjoy- 
 ing the hospitalities of Squire Jones at Money glass, and slept in 
 rooms adjacent to each other. The bard, being called upon by the 
 company to compose a song or tune in honor of their host, under- 
 took to comply with their request ; and on retiring to his apart- 
 ment took his harp with him, and not only produced the melody 
 now known as ‘ Bumpers, Squire Jones,’ but also very indifferent 
 English words to it. While the bard was thus employed the Judge 
 was not idle. Being possessed of a fine musical ear as well as of 
 considerable poetical talents, he not only fixed the melody on his 
 memory, but actually wrote the song now incorporated with it be- 
 fore he retired to rest. At breakfast on the following morning, 
 when Carolan sang and played his composition, Baron Dawson, to 
 the astonishment of all present, and of the bard in particular, 
 stoutly denied the claim of Carolan to the melody, charged him 
 with audacious piracy, both musical and poetical, and to prove the 
 fact, sang the melody to his own words amidst the joyous shouts 
 of approbation of all his hearers — the enraged bard excepted, who 
 vented his execrations in curses on the Judge both loud and deep. 
 The Baron later on, it is said, avowed the source of his inspiration. 
 
 Lover in his ‘Poems of Ireland’ says : “In Bunting’s ‘General 
 Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland ’ (dementi, L<ondon) it is 
 stated that the song was only imitated from the original Irish of 
 Carolan by Baron Dawson, which I think not improbable. The 
 translation — if translation it be — is evidently a free one, however ; 
 the allusion to Salkeld and Ventris is clearly a lawyer’s. But, 
 whether original or imitated, the song is full of spirit and the meter 
 ingeniously adapted to a capriciously sportive melody.” 
 
 BUMPERS, SQUIRE JONES. 
 
 Ye good fellows all, 
 
 Who love to be told where good claret ’s in store, 
 
 Attend to the call 
 
 Of one who ’s ne^er frighted, 
 
 But greatly delighted 
 With six bottles more. 
 
 841 
 
842 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Be sure you don’t pass 
 The good house, Moueyglass, 
 
 Which the jolly red god so peculiarly owns, 
 
 ’T will well suit your humor — 
 
 For, pray, what would you more. 
 
 Than mirth with good claret, and bumpers. Squire Jones? 
 
 Ye lovers wdio pine 
 
 For lasses that oft prove as cruel as fair, 
 
 Who whimper and whine 
 For lilies and roses, 
 
 With eyes, lips, and noses. 
 
 Or tip of an ear! 
 
 Come hither, I ’ll show ye 
 How Phillis and Chloe 
 
 No more shall occasion such sighs and such groans; 
 
 For what mortal ’s so stupid 
 As not to quit Cupid, 
 
 When called to good claret, and bumpers. Squire Jones? 
 
 Ye poets who write. 
 
 And brag of your drinking famed Helicon’s brook, — 
 Though all you get by it 
 Is a dinner ofttimes, 
 
 In reward for your rhymes. 
 
 With Humphry the Duke, — 
 
 Learn Bacchus to follow. 
 
 And quit your Apollo, 
 
 Forsake all the Muses, those senseless old crones : 
 
 Our jingling of glasses 
 Your rhyming surpasses 
 
 When crowned with good claret, and bumpers. Squire Jones. 
 Ye soldiers so stout. 
 
 With plenty of oaths, though no plenty of coin. 
 
 Who make such a rout 
 Of all your commanders. 
 
 Who served us in Flanders, 
 
 And eke at the Boyne, — 
 
 Come leave off your rattling 
 Of sieging and battling. 
 
 And know you ’d much better to sleep in whole bones ; 
 Were you sent to Gibraltar, 
 
 Your notes you ’d soon alter. 
 
 And wish for good claret, and bumpers. Squire Jones. 
 
ARTHUR DAW^OH, 
 
 843 
 
 Ye clergy so wise, 
 
 Who mysteries profound can demonstrate so clear, 
 
 How worthy to rise ! 
 
 You preach once a week, 
 
 But your tithes never seek 
 Above once in a year ! 
 
 Come here without failing. 
 
 And leave off your railing 
 ’Gainst bishops providing for dull stupid drones; 
 
 Says the text so divine, 
 
 What is life without wine?” 
 
 Then away with the claret, — a bumper. Squire Jones! 
 
 Ye lawyers so just. 
 
 Be the cause what it will, who so learnedly plead, 
 
 How worthy of trust! 
 
 You know black from white. 
 
 You prefer wrong to right. 
 
 As you chance to be fee’d : — 
 
 Leave musty reports 
 
 And forsake the king ’s courts. 
 
 Where dulness and discord have set up their thrones ; 
 
 Burn Salkeld and Ventris,i 
 And all your damned entries. 
 
 And away with the claret, — a bumper. Squire Jones! 
 
 Ye physical tribe 
 
 Whose knowledge consists in hard words and grimace. 
 Whene’er you prescribe. 
 
 Have at your devotion. 
 
 Pills, bolus, or potion. 
 
 Be what will the case ; 
 
 Pray where is the need 
 To purge, blister and bleed? 
 
 When, ailing yourselves, the whole faculty owns 
 That the forms of old Galen 
 Are not so prevailing 
 
 As mirth with good claret, — and bumpers. Squire Jones!. 
 Ye fox-hunters eke. 
 
 That follow the call of the horn and the hound. 
 
 Who your ladies forsake 
 Before they ’re awake. 
 
 To beat up the brake 
 
 1 Law commentators of the time. 
 
844 : 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Where the vermin is found : — 
 
 Leave Piper and Blueman, 
 
 Shrill Duchess and Trueman, — 
 
 No music is found in such dissonant tones! 
 
 Would you ravish your ears 
 With the songs of the spheres, 
 
 Hark away to the claret, — a bumper, Squire Jones! 
 
DANIEL DEENEY. 
 
 Daniel Deeney is one of the more recent collectors of Irish folk 
 lore. His book ‘ Peasant Lore from Gaelic Ireland ’ has already 
 gone into two editions, and while it has created some discussion it 
 is generally recognized as a valuable contribution to the stock of 
 folk tales which have been recovered from the people of the Con- 
 nemara and Donegal Highlands, and were also common to the 
 Gaelic-speaking districts all over Ireland. 
 
 A MIDNIGHT FUNERAL. 
 
 From ‘ Peasant Lore from Gaelic Ireland.’ 
 
 “ Arrah ! wheesht wid ye I ’’ cried an old man with whom 
 I was discussing such topics, wid ye b’lieve this? 
 
 Would I believe what? I asked. 
 
 It ’s as thrue as I ’m living,’’ he rejoined. I heerd it 
 from the man’s own lips — God be merciful te him! — an’ 
 the Lord forbid that I should belie him ! ” 
 
 What was it? ” I inquired. 
 
 Did ye know Bryan Duggan that lives there beyant 
 in Ballymichael? ” answered the old man, like the pro- 
 verbial Irishman. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 Oh, no,” he went on, he died afore ye come here. 
 Well, he was cornin’ home wan night from Galway. ’T wis 
 afther twelve o’clock or maybe drawin’ up to wan. He 
 had his horse an’ car wid him, an’ him walkin’ along at 
 the horse’s head, smokin’ away as content as ye like, an’ 
 it a fine moonlight night — glory be to God! — when what 
 shud he see afore him in the middle o’ the road but three 
 men carryin’ a coffin. Sorra long ’t was, sor, till they let 
 down the coffin. Shure, mo leun,^ the hair wis standin’ 
 on Bryan’s head with fear, but puttin’ the sign o’ the cross 
 on hisself, he walked on till he came up till where the 
 three men wor standi n’ beside the coffin. 
 
 ^ The blissin’ o’ God on ye,’ said Bryan in Irish, ^ an’ 
 what’s wrong with yees at all, at all?’ 
 
 ‘ The same till yerself,’ spoke up wan o’ the three ; ^ but 
 come an’ take a fourth man’s place under this, an’ akse 
 no more questions.’ 
 
 1 Mo leun, to my sorrow, 
 
 845 
 
846 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Well, sor, he wis goin’ till akse, ^ what ’ll I do with me 
 horse an’ car? ’ but he thought o’ hisself in time, an’ he 
 didn’t ; for ye see he wis towld till akse no more questions, 
 an’ it widn’t be right for him t’ go agin them. But, sorra 
 call he had, for it ’s well they knew what wis passin’ in 
 his min’, an’ says another o’ them, says he, ‘ yer horse an’ 
 car ’ll be here till ye come back.’ 
 
 Well, he went with them an’ helped them t’ carry the 
 coffin, an’ sorra a heavier corpse — the Lord be good te 
 us! — he said he iver was undher. They went on till they 
 left it in the graveyard, an’ then they towld him he might 
 go back te his horse an’ car. ^ Oh,’ says Bryan, says he, 
 ‘ I ’ll help yees t’ dig the grave whin I did come.’ 
 
 “ ^ Do what yer towld,’ says the third o’ them that didn’t 
 speak afore, ^ or maybe it wid be worse for ye.’ 
 
 Well, sor, Bryan wis loath till say agin them, so he 
 wint back to his horse an’ car, an’ shure enough they wor 
 there afore him, on the very spot he left them.” 
 
 “ Did Bryan know the men? ” I inquired when the old 
 man had finished. 
 
 “ Did he know them? Feth, thin, he did, for they wor 
 three first cousins o’ his own that died long afore that.” 
 
 “ And who was in the coffin? ” 
 
 Bryan’s own brother that died in Califoornia that 
 same night, as he heerd afterwards in a letther that come 
 from his uncle in America.” 
 
 The old man assured me that Bryan niver towld a lie 
 in his life, an ’s dead now — God be merciful to him ! ” 
 Amen,” said I fervently. 
 
 Dear reader do not scoff! You may never be called 
 upon to assist the dead to carry the dead at a mysterious 
 midnight funeral; nevertheless, cast not ridicule upon the 
 story of Bryan Duggan’s experience. 
 
 A LITTLE WOMAN IN BED. 
 
 From ‘ Peasant Lore from Gaelic Ireland.’ 
 
 It was about six o’clock on a harvest morning — not long 
 ago, but quite recently. The dew was yet upon the oats 
 and upon the grass. Mickey Owen ” was fixing up the 
 
DANIEL DEENEY. 
 
 847 
 
 face of the corn ridge with his reaping hook in the little 
 garden below the road, the shore road between Carraroe 
 and Galway. 
 
 He never felt,’’ as he himself assured me, till a little 
 woman with a.red petticoat upon her head and around her 
 shoulders stood by his side. God bliss yer work,” said 
 she to him. You too,” replied Mickey, with a start. 
 
 Can ye show me the road to Galway? ” said the little 
 woman in red — the outer nether garment she wore, and 
 which reached down to her shoeless feet, was red also. 
 
 a T]2ere it is above there,” said Mickey, pointing to the 
 main road, between which and where they stood there was 
 only one other smaller garden. 
 
 “ But could I not get to the road this way? ” inquired 
 the little woman, waving her hand straight across the 
 garden in a direction parallel to the road. 
 
 Well, ye could,” replied Mickey, but not so aisy. 
 If ye go over through the gardens, ye ’ll come on a 
 boreen that ’ll bring ye till the road. But shure ye have 
 nothin’ till do but go out on the road here, an’ ye ’ll have 
 only that little wall there between the other garden an’ 
 the road to cross.” 
 
 I ’ll go the way I think best meself,” says she, and in- 
 stantly disappeared as if she had melted into air. 
 
 Mickey was terribly frightened, for then he knew she 
 was no earthly body,” as he said himself. 
 
 Dear reader, once more I caution you not to cast ridi- 
 cule upon such stories. They are not fictions. They are 
 the real experiences of our Gaelic friends, who hold 
 occasional commune with stray travelers of the mystic 
 world. 
 
 STRANGE INDEED! 
 
 From ‘ Peasant Lore from Gaelic Ireland.’ 
 
 One of the most remarkable, and best authenticated, 
 stories I have ever heard was narrated to me quite recently 
 by one who doubted not the truth of it. The narrator 
 told it in whispers. It was too solemn to be dealt with 
 in the ordinary conversational tone, too mysterious to be 
 
848 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 lightly or flippantly rehearsed. He did not wish to let 
 it ‘^go any farther." It was better not to say too much 
 about it.’^ I cannot, therefore, give the names of the 
 dramatis personw, if I may without levity so designate 
 them. Nor is it necessary. The facts lose ;iothing by the 
 omission. 
 
 Two 3mung men in a western country took a boat, and 
 rowed to a fair one spring morning not very long ago. 
 They took a little drop too much at the fair themselves, 
 and they took a little drop with them in a bottle — for 
 themselves, too, no doubt. They set sail before a fair 
 wind on their return late in the evening. They had some- 
 thing over twelve miles to go. 
 
 In their little village at home they had left a friend and 
 comrade. This young man had gone to the bog for turf 
 on the fair evening, just about half an hour after his two 
 friends left the fair. 
 
 He filled his creel, got it on his back, and started for 
 home. Chancing to look round, he saw, seated on a little 
 heathery mound, the two young men who, as I have stated, 
 had left the fair twelve miles distant only half an hour 
 before. The3^ had a bottle, and were apparently enjoy- 
 ing themselves. They beckoned to him to go to them, 
 lie sat down on the heath to get the creel more easily off 
 his back, and then — they were nowhere to be seen I 
 
 He had seen them plainly, he had not expected them 
 back so early, and he could not have been deceived. 
 Believing they were trying to trick him,’^ he looked all 
 round about in the long heather behind the little clamps’^ 
 of turf, everywhere — but they were not to be seen any- 
 where! Greatly astonished, and frightened, too, he hast- 
 ened home and told what he had seen. He and a few of the 
 neighbors went to the beach to ascertain if the boat had 
 returned. It was not there. No, indeed! It was found 
 next morning broken in fragments in a little cave ten 
 miles further away! Nine days afterwards the bodies of 
 the two unfortunate young men who had been its occupants 
 were, washed ashore. A strange, strange story, but one 
 which I have not concocted. I tell my tales as they were 
 told to me.^^ 
 
SIR JOHN DENHAM. 
 
 (1615—1669.) 
 
 Sir John Denham was bom in Dublin in 1615. He was educated 
 in England, and after taking his degree at Oxford he went to Lon- 
 don to study law. But cards and dice had more attraction for him 
 than learning or law, and he was constantly relapsing into the vice 
 of gambling, until, in 1638, when his father died, he lost all the 
 money — several thousand pounds — that had been left him. 
 
 Sir John Denham should have a special interest for our readers 
 because he was the first Irish poet of repute who wrote in English. 
 His tragedy called ‘ The Sophy ’ appeared in 1641. Speaking of the 
 poet in connection with this piece. Waller said that ‘‘ he broke out 
 like the Irish rebellion, threescore thousand strong, when nobody 
 was aware or in the least suspected it.” After this he retired to 
 Oxford, where, in 1643, he published ‘Cooper’s Hill,’ a poem of 
 some three hundred lines, on which his fame chiefly rests. 
 
 During all this time he continued to take a prominent part in 
 public affairs, acting for the King in several capacities. At the 
 Restoration he was appointed to the office of Surveyer-General Of 
 the King’s buildings, and at the coronation received the Order of the 
 Bath. 
 
 Soon after this, when in the height of his reputation for poetry 
 and genius, he married for the second time ; but the union was so 
 unhappy that for a time he became a lunatic. Fortunately he was 
 very soon restored to his full health and vigor of mind. He died 
 at his office in Whitehall, March 19, 1669, and was buried in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Dr. Johnson says that “ Denham is justly considered as one of 
 the fathers of English poetry. . . . He is one of the writers that im- 
 proved our taste and advanced our language.” Prior places Denham 
 and Waller side by side as improvers of English versification, which 
 was perfected by Dry den. Pope in his ‘ Essay on Criticism ’ speaks of 
 
 “ the easy vigor of a line 
 
 Where Denham’s strength and Waller’s sweetness join 
 
 and in his ‘ Windsor Forest ’ he calls Denham “ lofty ” and “ ma- 
 jestic,” and, talking of ‘ Cooper’s Hill,’ he prophesies — 
 
 “ On Cooper’s Hill eternal wreaths shall grow, 
 
 While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow.” 
 
 A modern critic, however, Mr. Edmund W. Gosse, says : “The 
 works of Denham are small in extent. The miscellaneous pieces 
 and ‘ Cooper’s Hill ’ are all that need attract critical attention. The 
 reputation of the last-mentioned poem rests almost entirely upon 
 its famous quatrain describing the river Thames : — 
 
 “ O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream 
 My great example, as it is my theme ! 
 
 Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, 
 
 Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full.” 
 
 849 
 
850 
 
 IRl^H LITERATURE, 
 
 VIEW OF LONDON. 
 
 From ‘ Cooper’s Hill.’ 
 
 Through imtraced ways and airy paths I fly, 
 
 More boundless in my fancy than my eye, — 
 
 My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space 
 That lies between, and first salutes the place 
 Crowned with that sacred pile, so vast, so high. 
 
 That whether ’t is a part of earth or sky 
 Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud 
 Aspiring mountain or descending cloud, — 
 
 Paul’s, the late theme of such a Muse whose flight 
 Has bravely reached and soared above thy height ; 
 Now shalt thou stand, though sword or time or fire, 
 
 Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire. 
 Secure, while thee the best of poets sings. 
 
 Preserved from ruin by the best of kings. 
 
 Under his proud survey the city lies. 
 
 And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise. 
 
 Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd. 
 Seems at this distance but a darker cloud. 
 
 And is to him who rightly things esteems 
 No other in effect but what it seems. 
 
 Where, with like haste, though several ways, they run, 
 Some to undo, and some to be undone; 
 
 While luxury and wealth, like war and peace. 
 
 Are each the other’s ruin and increase ; 
 
 As rivers lost in seas some secret vein 
 Thence reconveys, there to be lost again. 
 
 O happiness of sweet retired content! 
 
 To be at once secure and innocent ! 
 
SIR AUBREY DE VERE. 
 
 (1788—1846.) 
 
 Sir Aubrey de Vere was the eldest son of Sir Vere Hunt, who 
 afterward took the name of De Vere. He was born at Curragh 
 Chase in County Limerick, Aug. 28, 1788, received his education 
 at Harrow, where he had for schoolfellows Byron and Sir Robert 
 Peel, and when very young he married Mary, a sister of Lord Mont- 
 eagle. He wrote little till he had reached the age of thirty. His 
 first work was a dramatic poem entitled ‘Julian the Apostate,’ 
 which appeared in 1822. He next published ‘ The Duke of Mercia,’ 
 an historical drama in verse; ‘A Lamentation for Ireland,’ and 
 other poems ; followed in 1842 by ‘ A Song of Faith, Devout Ex- 
 ercises and Sonnets,’ which he dedicated tc Wordsworth. We are 
 told by his son that the ‘ ‘ sonnet was with him to the last a favorite 
 form of composition. This taste was fostered by the magnificent 
 sonnets of Wordsworth, whose genius he had early hailed, and whose 
 friendship he regarded as one of the chief honors of his later life.” 
 His last work was ‘ Mary Tudor,’ published after his death in 1847, 
 and written during the last year of his life in intervals of severe 
 illness. Sir Aubrey died as he had lived, peacefully in the arms of 
 his family at Curragh Chase, July 28, 1846. 
 
 “ His ‘ Mary Tudor,’ ” says Mr. W. MacNeile Dixon in ‘ A Treasury 
 of Irish Poetry,’ “ is worthy of comparison with the Histories of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the delineation of Queen 
 Mary we possess a portrait the most arresting that the modern 
 drama has to offer — a portrait at once human and royal, at once tragic 
 and convincing.” Love for his native land breathes through every 
 line of his ‘ Lamentation for Ireland,’ and his sonnets, such as 
 ‘The Shannon,’ ‘Lismor^,’ ‘The Soldiers of Sarsfield,’ and many 
 others, are redolent of the same feeling. Wordsworth regarded his 
 sonnets as among the most perfect of our age. 
 
 LADY JANE GREY. 
 
 From ‘ Mary Tudor.’ 
 
 [A few moments before her execution, she takes her last farewell 
 of her weeping mother.] 
 
 This bridal ring — the symbol of past joy? 
 
 What shall I give thee? — they have left me little — 
 
 What slight memorial through soft tears to gaze on? 
 
 I cannot part with it; upon this finger 
 It must go down into the grave. Perchance 
 After long years some curious hand may find it, 
 
 Bright, like our better hopes, amid the dust, 
 
 And piously, with a low sigh, replace it. 
 
 851 
 
852 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Here, take this veil, and wear it for my sake. 
 
 And take this winding-sheet to him, and this 
 Small handkerchief, so wetted with my tears. 
 
 To wipe the death-damp from his brow. This kiss— 
 And this — my last — print on his lips, and bid him 
 Think of me to the last, and wait my spirit. 
 
 Farewell, my mother! Farewell, dear, dear mother! 
 These terrible moments I must pass in prayer — 
 
 For the dying — for the dead I Farewell ! farewell ! 
 
 LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Some laws there are too sacred for the hand 
 Of man to approach : recorded in the blood 
 Of patriots, before which, as the Rood 
 Of faith, devotional we take our stand; 
 Time-hallowed laws! Magnificently planned 
 When Freedom was the nurse of i^ublic good, 
 And Power paternal : laws that have withstood 
 All storms, unshaken bulwarks of the land ! 
 
 Free will, frank speech, an undissembling mind. 
 Without which Freedom dies and laws are vain, 
 On such we found our rights, to such we cling; 
 In them shall power his surest safeguard find. 
 Tread them not down in passion or disdain ; 
 Make a man a reptile, he will turn and sting. 
 
 THE SHANNON. 
 
 River of billows, to whose mighty heart 
 The tide-wave rushes of the Atlantic Sea; 
 
 River of quiet depths, by cultured lea. 
 
 Romantic wood or city’s crowded mart; 
 
 River of old poetic founts, which start 
 
 From their lone mountain-cradles, wild and free. 
 Nursed with the fawns, lulled by the woodlark’s glee, 
 And cushat’s hymeneal song apart; 
 
 River of chieftains, whose baronial halls, 
 
 Like veteran warders, watch each wave-worn steep, 
 Portumna’s towers, Bunratty’s royal walls, 
 
 Garrick’s stern rock, the Geraldine’s gray keep— 
 River of dark mementoes! must I close 
 My lips with Limerick’s wrong, with Aughrim’s woes? 
 
AUBREY T. DE VERE. 
 
 ( 1814 — 1902 .) 
 
 Aubrey Thomas de Vere, the third son of Sir Aubrey de Vere, 
 was born in 1814 at the paternal mansion, Curragh Chase, County 
 Limerick, and he was educated at Trinity College. He composed 
 both in prose and in verse, and the list of his works is a long one. 
 In 1842 appeared ‘The Waldenses, or the Fall of Rora,’ a lyrical 
 tale ; in 1843, ‘ The Search after Proserpine, Recollections of Greece, 
 and other Poems ’ ; in 1856, ‘ Poems^ Miscellaneous and Sacred ’ ; 
 in 1857, ‘ May Carols ’ ; in 1861, ‘ The Sisters, Inisfail, and other 
 Poems ’ ; in 1864, ‘ The Infant Bridal, and other Poems ’ ; in 1869, 
 ‘ Irish Odes, and other Poems ’ ; in 1872, ‘ The Legends of St. Pat- 
 rick ’ ; in 1874, ‘ Alexander the Great,’ a dramatic poem ; and in 
 1879, ‘ Legends of the Saxon Saints.’ Besides the above-mentioned 
 drama he has written ‘ St. Thomas of Canterbury,’ ‘ The Foray of 
 Queen Mseve’ (1882) ; ‘ Legends and Records of the Church and the 
 Empire ’ (1887) ; ‘ St. Peter’s Chains ’ (1888) ; ‘ Mediaeval Records 
 and Sonnets.’ 
 
 His prose works are ‘ English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds ’ (1848) ; 
 ‘ Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey ’ (1850) ; ‘ The Church 
 Settlement of Ireland, or Hibernia Pacanda ’ (1866) ; ‘ Ireland’s 
 Church Property and the Right Use of It ’ (1867) ; ‘ Pleas for 
 Secularization ’ (1867) ; ‘ Essays, chiefly on Poetry ’ (1887) ; ‘ Essays, 
 chiefly Literary and Ethical’ (1889) ; and ‘Recollections’ (1897). 
 A volume of correspondence entitled ‘ Proteus and Amadeus,’ in 
 which the chief religious and philosophical questions in controversy 
 at the time were reviewed, published in 1878, was edited by Mr. De 
 Vere. 
 
 His ‘ Inisfail ’ is the one of his volumes of poetry which perhaps 
 possesses the greatest interest for Irish readers. The idea is very 
 original ; it is to convey in a series of poems a picture of the chief 
 events in certain great cycles of Irish history. “Its aim,” wrote 
 the poet himself, “is to embody the essence of a nation’s history. 
 Contemporary historic poems,” he went on, “ touch us with a magi- 
 cal hand; but they often pass by the most important events, and 
 linger beside the most trivial.” Accordingly he illustrated each 
 epoch by some representative poem and event. At one time he cele- 
 brates a great victory in the joyous swing of the ballad ; at another 
 an elegy depicts the darkness of a nation’s defeat. A great reli- 
 gious epoch is celebrated in stately rhyme ; and at another moment 
 the poet has resort to a lighter measure when individual love plays 
 an important part in fashioning the history of the future. In this 
 way the history of Ireland is presented in a series of tableaux. 
 
 The volume published under the title of ‘ The Infant Bridal ’ also 
 contains many exquisite gems from his various works. His prose 
 style combines the two qualities of simplicity and cultured grace. 
 Aubrey de Vere, who has been well called “the wearer of Words- 
 
 853 
 
854 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 worth’s mantle,” died at Curragh Chase, Adare, County Limerick, 
 to the great loss of poetry, in January, 1903. 
 
 “ Simplicity,” says Mr. W. MacNeile Dixon in ‘A Treasury of 
 Irish Poetry,’ “with full-heartedness — whether in joy or gi*ief — a 
 childlike transparency of soul, a courageous spirituality, these Celtic 
 qualities Mr. De Vere’s poetry preserves for us ; and because it pre- 
 serves them his memory and his work are safe. He will be enrolled 
 as a worthy successor to the bards of long ago, from Oiseen or 
 
 “That Taliessin once who made the rivers dance, 
 
 And in his rapture raised the mountains from their trance.” 
 
 HOW TO GOVERN IRELAND. 
 
 From ‘ English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds.’ 
 
 I do not affirm, or imply, that England possesses less of 
 moral truth than other nations which make it less their 
 boast. I state simply that it does not bear that propor- 
 tion which it ought to her verbal truth, and therefore that 
 she has nothing to boast of in this particular. Does a 
 truthful nation, when called on to act, allow the gates of 
 new and serviceable knowledge to be blocked up by a litter 
 of wilful and sottish prejudices? Is it a truthful act to 
 judge where you have no materials, and to condemn where 
 you pause not to judge? You often depict with minute- 
 ness and consistency the character of an Irish peasant 
 or proprietor. As long as a class of men seems to you 
 stamped with one common image, conclude that you see it 
 but from a distance, and as a mask. On closer inspec- 
 tion you would trace the diversities of individuality. You 
 know no more of the Irish peasant or proprietor than the 
 former knows of you, and you as little care to know them. 
 
 I do not call the Irish the finest peasantry in the world, 
 although, if their characters were equal to their disposi- 
 tions, they might, perhaps, justly be so termed; but I have 
 no reason to believe that they are inferior, in aught but 
 happiness and sphere* for goodness, to the same class in 
 England. The Irish peasant, sir, is rich in virtues, which 
 you know not of because you know only the worst class of 
 Irish, and only hear of the rest when they are found want- 
 ing under the severest temptations. Amongst his virtues 
 are many which, perhaps, no familiarity would enable you 
 to recognize. I speak of the Irish peasant as a man and 
 as a Christian, not as a citizen merely. There is a differ- 
 
AUBREY T, DE VERE. 
 
 855 
 
 ence between public and individual virtues: to the latter 
 class belong many which, by their own nature, remain 
 exempt from applause or material reward ; and among the 
 former there are commonly accounted several vices. Self- 
 confidence, ruthlessness, and greediness — these are not 
 virtues; but notwithstanding, when associated with a 
 manliness as willing to suffer as to inflict pain, and an 
 industry if not disinterested yet dutiful, these defects may 
 help to swell the prosperity of a nation, as long as she 
 swims with the tide. Many of the crowning virtues of per- 
 sonal character may be possessed where several funda- 
 mental virtues of civil society are wanting. 
 
 The Irish peasant has a patience under real sufferings 
 quite as signal as his impatience under imaginary grie- 
 vances; and in spite of a complexional conceit not uncom- 
 mon, he has a moral humility that does not help him to 
 make his way. He possesses a reverence that will not be 
 repulsed; a gratitude that sometimes excites our remorse; 
 a refinement of sensibility, and even of tact, which re- 
 minds you that many who toil for bread are the descend- 
 ants of those who once sat in high places; aspirations that 
 fly above the mark of national greatness ; a faith and char- 
 ity not common in the modern world; an acknowledged 
 exemption from sensual habits, both those that pass by 
 that name, and those that invent fine names for them- 
 selves; and an extraordinary fidelity to the ties of house- 
 hold and kindred, the more remarkable from being united 
 with a versatile intellect, a temperament mercurial as well 
 as ardent, and an ever salient imagination. These virtues 
 are not inconsistent with grave faults, but they are virtues 
 of the first order. I will only add, that if England has wit 
 enough to make these virtues her friends, she will have con- 
 ciliated the affections of a people the least self-loving in 
 the world, and the services of a people amongst whom, in 
 the midst of much light folly, there is enough of indolent 
 ability to direct the whole councils of England, and of 
 three or four kingdoms beside — provided only that Ire- 
 land be not of the number. 
 
 I have already recommended you to study the Irish if 
 you would learn how to govern Ireland ; and though I can- 
 not undertake to be your master, yet I would seriously 
 advise you not to allow yourself to dwell only on the worst 
 
85G 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 side of the naticnal character. If you laugh at an Irish 
 peasant's helplessness, remember that he is as willing to 
 help a neighbor as to ask aid; and that he has a remark- 
 able faculty for doing all business not his own. If you 
 think him deficient in steadiness under average circum- 
 stances, remember that he possesses extraordinary re- 
 source and powers of adaption. If you think him easily 
 deluded, remember that the same quick and fine tempera- 
 ment which makes him catch every infection or humor in 
 the air renders him equally accessible to all good in- 
 fluences; of which the recent temperance movement is the 
 most remarkable example exhibited by any modern nation. 
 
 You accuse the Irish peasant of want of gravity: one 
 reason of this characteristic is, that with him imagination 
 and fancy are faculties not working by themselves, but 
 diffused through the whole being; and remember that, if 
 they favor enthusiasm, so on the other hand they protect 
 from fanaticism. If you speak of his occasional depres- 
 sion and weakness, you should know that Irish strength 
 does not consist in robustness, but in elasticity. If you 
 complain of his want of ambition, remember that this 
 often proceeds from the genuine independence of a mind 
 and temperament which possesses too many resources in 
 themselves to be dependent on outward position; and do 
 not forget that much of the boasted progress of England 
 results from no more exalted a cause than from an un- 
 comfortable habit of body, not easy when at rest. If you 
 think him deficient in a sound judgment, ask whether his 
 mental faculties may not be eminently of a subtle and met- 
 aphysical character, and whether such are not generally 
 disconnected from a perfect practical judgment. 
 
 You are amused because he commits blunders: ask 
 whether he may not possibly think wrong twice as often 
 as the English peasant, and yet think right five times as 
 often, since he thinks ten times as much, and has a rea- 
 son for everything that he does. Y^ou call him idle: ask 
 whether he does not possess a facility and readiness not 
 usually united with painstaking qualities; and remember 
 that, when fairly tried, he by no means wants industry, 
 though he is deficient in energy. You think him addicted 
 to fancy rather than realities: — poverty is a great feeder 
 of enthusiasm. You object to his levity; — competence is 
 
AUBREY T. DE YERE. 
 
 857 
 
 a sustainer of respectability ; and many a man is steadied 
 by the weight of the cash in his pocket. You call him 
 wrong-headed : ask whether the state of things around him, 
 the bequest of past misgovernment, is not so wrong as to 
 puzzle even the solid sense of many an English statesman, 
 not inexperienced in affairs; and whether the good inten- 
 tions and the actions of those who would benefit the Irish 
 peasant are not sometimes, even now, so strangely at cross 
 purposes as to make the quiet acceptance of the boon no 
 easy task. You think him slow to follow your sensible pre- 
 cepts : remember that the Irish are imitative, and that the 
 imitative have no great predilection for the didactic vein : 
 and do not forget that for a considerable time your ex- 
 ample was less edifying than your present precepts. You 
 affirm that no one requires discipline so much; remember 
 that none repays it so well; and that, as to the converse 
 need, there is no one who requires so little aid to second 
 his intellectual development. The respect of his neighbor, 
 you say, is what he hardly seeks : remember how often he 
 wins his love, and even admiration, without seeking it. 
 You think that he hangs loosely by his opinions: ask 
 whether he is not devoted to his attachments. He seems to 
 you inconsistent in action : reflect whether extreme versa- 
 tility of mind and consistency of conduct are qualities often 
 united in one man. You complain of the disposition of the 
 Irish to collect in mobs : ask whether, if you can once gain 
 the ear of an Irish mob, it is not far more accessible to 
 reason than an English one. 
 
 I have addressed myself to Irish mobs under various cir- 
 cumstances in the last two years, and encountered none 
 that was not amenable. Ask also whether in most coun- 
 tries the lower orders have not enough to do, as well as 
 enough to eat in the day, and consequently a disposition to 
 sleep at night. If half your English population had only to 
 walk about and form opinions, how do you think you would 
 get on? You say that the Irish have no love of fair play, 
 and that three men of one faction will fall on one man of 
 another : ask those who reflect as well as observe, whether 
 this proceeds wholly from want of fair play or from other 
 causes beside. Ask whether in Ireland the common senti- 
 ment of race, kindred, or clan, does not prevail with an 
 intensity not elsewhere united with a perfect appreciation 
 
 4— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
858 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of responsibilities and immunities; and whether an Irish’ 
 beggar will not give you as hearty a blessing in return for 
 a halfpenny bestowed on another of his order as on him- 
 self. Sympathy includes a servile element, and servile 
 sympathy will always lead to injustice; — thus I have heard 
 a hundred members of Parliament (and of party) drown 
 in one cry, like that of a well-managed pack, the voice of 
 some member whom they disapproved, and whom probably 
 they considered less as a man than as a limb of a hated 
 enemy. Sympathy, however, often ministers to justice 
 also, as you find on asking an Irish gentlemen whether he 
 has not often been astonished at that refinement of fair 
 play with which an Irish peasant makes allowances for 
 the difficulties of some great neighbor, whose aid is his 
 only hope. 
 
 THE SUN GOD. 
 
 I saw the Master of the Sun. He stood 
 
 High in his luminous car, himself more bright — 
 An Archer of immeasurable might; 
 
 On his left shoulder hung his quivered load. 
 Spurned by his steeds the eastern mountain glowed, 
 Forward his eager eye and brow of light 
 He bent; and, while both hands that arch embowed. 
 Shaft after shaft pursued the flying Night. 
 
 No wings profaned that godlike form; around 
 His neck high held an ever-moving crowd 
 Of locks hung glistening; while such perfect sound 
 Fell from his bowstring that th’ ethereal dome 
 Thrilled as a dewdrop ; and each passing cloud 
 Expanded, whitening like the ocean foam. 
 
 THE LITTLE BLACK ROSE. 
 
 The Little Black Rose ^ shall be red at last; 
 
 What made it black but the March wind dry. 
 And the tear of the widow that fell on it fast? 
 
 It shall redden the hills when June is nigh ! 
 
 1 Mystical names of Ireland frequently occur in Gaelic poetry. 
 
'AUBREY T. DE YERE. 
 
 859 
 
 The Silk of the Kine shall rest at last ; 
 
 What drove her forth but the dragon fly? 
 
 In the golden vale she shall feed full fast, 
 
 With her mild gold horn and her slow dark eye. 
 
 The wounded wood-dove lies dead at last! 
 
 The pine long-bleeding, it shall not die! 
 
 This song is secret. Mine ear it passed 
 In a wind o^er the plains at Athenry, 
 
 DIRGE OF RORY O’MORE. 
 
 A. D. 1642. 
 
 Up the sea-saddened valley, at evening’s decline, 
 
 A heifer walks lowing — the Silk of the Kine ; ” 
 
 From the deep to the mountains she roams, and again 
 From the mountain’s green urn to the purple-rimmed main. 
 
 What seek’st thou, sad mother? Thine own is not thine! 
 
 He dropped from the headland — he sank in the brine! 
 
 ’T was a dream ! but in dreams at thy foot did he follow 
 Through the meadow-sweet on by the marish and mallow! 
 
 Was he thine? Have they slain him? Thou seek’st him, not 
 knowing 
 
 Thyself, too, art theirs — thy sweet breath and sad lowing! 
 Thy gold horn is theirs, thy dark eye and thy silk. 
 
 And that which torments thee, thy milk, is their milk ! 
 
 ’T was no dream. Mother Land! ’T was no dream, InnisfaiH 
 Hope dreams, but grief dreams not — the grief of the Gael ! 
 From Leix and Ikerrin to Donegal’s shore 
 Rolls the dirge of thy last and thy bravest — O’More! 
 
 SONG. 
 
 I. 
 
 When I was young, I said to Sorrow : 
 Come and I will play with thee.’^ 
 He is near me now all day. 
 
 And at night returns to say: 
 
 I will come again to-morrow — 
 
 I will come and stay with thee.’’ 
 
8G0 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE. 
 
 II. 
 
 Through the woods we walk together; 
 His soft footsteps rustle nigh me; 
 
 To shield an unregarded head 
 He hath built a winter shed; 
 
 And all night in rainy weather 
 
 I hear his gentle breathings by me, 
 
 SORROW. 
 
 Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
 
 God’s messenger sent down to thee; do thou 
 With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow ; 
 
 And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave 
 rermission first his heavenly feet to lave; 
 
 Then lay before him all thou hast : allow 
 No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, 
 
 Or mortal tumult to obliterate 
 The soul’s marmoreal calmness; grief should be — 
 
 Like joy — majestic, equable, sedate. 
 
 Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; 
 
 Strong to consume small troubles; to commend ^ 
 
 Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. 
 
 THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS. 
 
 I go to knit two clans together, 
 
 Oui^ clan and this clan unseen of yore. 
 
 Our clan fears naught; but I go, oh, whither? 
 
 This day I go from my mother’s door. 
 
 Thou, redbreast, singest the old song over. 
 
 Though many a time hast thou sung it before; 
 They never sent thee to some strange new lover 
 To sing a new song by my mother’s door. 
 
 I stepped from my little room down by the ladder— 
 The ladder that never so shook before; 
 
 I was sad last night, to-day I am sadder. 
 
 Because I go from my mother’s door. 
 
AUBREY T, DE VERE. 
 
 861 
 
 The last snow melts upon bush and bramble, 
 
 The gold bars shine on the forest’s floor; 
 
 Shake not, thou leaf; it is I must tremble, 
 
 Because I go from my mother’s door. 
 
 From a Spanish sailor a dagger I bought me, 
 
 I trailed a rosebud our gray bawn o’er ; 
 
 The creed and the letters our old bard taught me; 
 
 My days were sweet by my mother’s door. 
 
 My little white goat, that with raised feet huggest 
 The oak stock, thy horns in the ivy frore; 
 
 Could I wrestle like thee — how the wreaths thou tuggest! — 
 
 I never would move from my mother’s door. 
 
 Oh, weep no longer, my nurse and mother; 
 
 My foster-sister, weep not so sore ; 
 
 You cannot come with me, Ir, my brother — 
 
 Alone I go from my mother’s door. 
 
 Farewell, my wolf-hound, that slew MacOwing, 
 
 As he caught me and far through the thickets bore. 
 
 My heifer Alb in the green vale lowing. 
 
 My cygnet’s nest upon Loma’s shore. 
 
 He has killed ten Chiefs, this Chief that plights me. 
 
 His hand is like that of the giant Balor; 
 
 But I fear his kiss, and his beard affrights me. 
 
 And the great stone dragon above his door. 
 
 Had I daughters nine, with me they should tarry ; 
 
 They should sing old songs ; they should dance at my door. 
 They should grind at the quern, no need to marry ! 
 
 Oh, when shall this marriage day be o’er? 
 
 Had I buried, like Moirin, three fates already, 
 
 I might say, Three husbands, then why not four? 
 
 But my hand is cold, and my foot unsteady. 
 
 Because I never was married before! 
 
 FLOWERS I WOULD BRING. 
 
 Flowers I would bring if flowers could make thee fairer, 
 And music, if the Muse were dear to thee; 
 
 (For loving these would make thee love the bearer) 
 
 But the sweetest songs forget their melody, 
 
862 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And loveliest flowers would but conceal the wearer 
 A rose I marked, and might have plucked ; but she 
 Blushed as she bent ; imploring me to spare her, 
 
 Nor spoil her beauty by such rivalry. 
 
 Alas ! and with what gifts shall I pursue thee, 
 
 What offerings bring, what treasures lay before thee 
 When earth with all her floral train doth woo thee. 
 And all old poets and old songs adore thee; 
 
 And love to thee is naught ; from passionate mood 
 Secured by joy’s complacent plenitude! 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Seek not the tree of silkiest bark 
 And balmiest bud. 
 
 To carve her name while yet ’t is dark 
 Upon the wood ! 
 
 The world is full of noble tasks 
 And wreaths hard won : 
 
 Each work demands strong hearts, strong hands, 
 Till day is done. 
 
 Sing not that violet-veined skin, 
 
 That cheek’s pale roses, 
 
 The lily of that form wherein 
 Her soul reposes ! 
 
 Forth to the fight, true man ! true knight ! 
 
 The clash of arms 
 
 Shall more prevail than whispered tale. 
 
 To win her charms. 
 
 The warrior for the True, the Right, 
 
 Fights in Love’s name; 
 
 The love that lures thee from that fight 
 Lures thee to shame ; 
 
 That love which lifts the heart, yet leaves 
 The spirit free, — 
 
 That love, or none, is fit for one 
 Man-shaped like thee. 
 
 1 
 
AUBREY T. DE YE RE. 
 THE LONG DYING. 
 
 863 
 
 The dying tree no pang sustains ; 
 
 But, by degrees relinquishing 
 .Companionship of beams and rains, 
 Forgets the balmy breath of spring. 
 
 From off th’ enringM trunk that keeps 
 His annual count of ages gone, 
 
 Th^ embrace of summer slowly slips; — 
 
 Still stands the giant in the sun. 
 
 His myriad lips, that sucked of old 
 The dewy breasts of heaven, are dry; 
 His roots remit the crag and mould; 
 
 Yet painless is his latest sigh. 
 
 He falls; the forests round him roar; — 
 
 Ere long on quiet bank and copse 
 Untrembling moonbeams rest; once more 
 The startled babe his head down drops. 
 
 But ah for one who never drew 
 From age to age a painless breath ! 
 
 'And ah the old wrong ever new ! 
 
 And ah the many-centuried death! 
 
MICHAEL DOHENY. 
 
 (1805—1863.) 
 
 Michael Doheny was born at Brookhill, County Tipperary, in 
 1805. With very little schooling he went to London and studied 
 law, supporting himself as a Parliamentary reporter. He after- 
 ward settled in Cashel as a barrister and became prominent as a 
 local and national politician. He became connected with the Young 
 Ireland party in the forties and was a frequent contributor to The 
 Nation over the signature of “Eiranach.” 
 
 After the failure of the insurrection of 1848 a reward of £300 
 ($1,500) was on his head for some time. He at last succeeded in 
 evading the police and escaped to New York in 1849, where he be- 
 came a lawyer and joined John Mahoney in founding Fenianism. 
 He afterward fought in the Civil War. He is best known by a 
 small prose work, ‘The Felon’s Track,’ published after his death, 
 and a few beautiful poems. He died April 1, 1863. 
 
 A CUSHLA GAL MO CHREE.i 
 
 The long, long wished-for hour has come, 
 Yet come, astor, in vain ; 
 
 And left thee but the wailing hum 
 Of sorrow and of pain ; 
 
 My light of life, my only love ! 
 
 Thy portion, sure, must be 
 
 Man’s scorn below, God’s wrath above — 
 
 A enisle geal mo chroidhe! 
 
 I ’ve given for thee my early prime, 
 
 And manhood’s teeming years; 
 
 I ’ve blessed thee in my merriest time. 
 
 And shed with thee my tears ; 
 
 And, mother, though thou cast away 
 The child who ’d die for thee. 
 
 My fondest wishes still should pray 
 For enisle geal mo ehi'oidhe! 
 
 For thee I ’ve tracked the mountain’s sides. 
 And slept within the brake. 
 
 More lonely than the swan that glides 
 On Lua’s fairy lake. 
 
 1 A cushla gal mo chree, bright vein of my heart. 
 
 864 
 
MICHAEL DOHENY, 
 
 865 
 
 The rich have spurned me from their door, 
 Because I M make thee free ; 
 
 Yet still I love thee more and more, 
 
 A cuisle geal mo chroidhe! 
 
 1 ’ve run the outlaw^s wild career, 
 
 And borne his load of ill ; 
 
 'His rocky couch — his dreamy fear — 
 
 With fixed, sustaining will ; 
 
 And should his last dark chance befall, 
 
 Even that shall welcome be; 
 
 In death I M love thee best of all, 
 
 A cuisle geal mo chroidhe! 
 
 ’T was told of thee the world around, 
 
 ’T was hoped for thee by all, 
 
 That with one gallant sunward bound 
 Thou’dst burst long ages’ thrall ; 
 
 Thy faith was tied, alas ! and those 
 Who periled all for thee 
 
 Were cursed and branded as thy foes, 
 
 A cuisle geal mo chroidhe! 
 
 What fate is thine, unhappy Isle, 
 
 When even the trusted few 
 
 Would pay thee back with hate and guile, 
 When most they should be true! 
 
 ’T was not my strength or spirit quailed, 
 
 Or those who’d die for thee — 
 
 Who loved thee truly have not failed, 
 
 A cuisle geal mo chroidhe! 
 
EDWARD DOWDEN. 
 
 (1843 ) 
 
 Edward Dowden was born in Cork, May 3, 1843, where he re- 
 ceived his early education. He entered Trinity College in 1859. In 
 1867 he became professor of English literature. The scholarship of 
 his literary work has won him many honors. In 1888 he was chosen 
 President of the English Goethe Society, to succeed Professor Muller. 
 The following year he was appointed first Taylorian lecturer in the 
 Taylor Institute, Oxford. The Royal Irish Academy has bestowed i 
 the Cunningham gold medal upon him, and he has also received 
 the honorary degree LL.D. of the Universities of Edinburgh and 
 Princeton. 
 
 Professor Dowden has been a frequent contributor of critical 
 essays to all the high-class magazines — the Contemporary ^ Fort- 
 nightly, Westminster, Fraser''s, and Cornhill. His first book was 
 published in 1875 — ‘ Shakespeare, his Mind and Art, a Critical 
 Study.’ This is a very remarkable contribution to the literature on 
 the great English dramatist, and has already taken rank among the 
 standard works on the subject. It is now in its fourth edition, and 
 has been translated into German and Russian. A volume of 
 ‘ Poems ’ appeared in 1876, and has passed into a second edition. 
 Of his poetry, Mr. W. MacNeile Dixon says in ‘ A Treasury of Irish 
 Poetry ’ ; “ He recalls to us Marvell’s fine simplicity, his unfailing 
 sense for the beautiful, his pervading spirituality, his touch of reso- 
 lute aloofness from the haste and fever of life, his glad and serious 
 temper, his unaffected charm of phrase and movement. ” 
 
 ‘ Studies in Literature ’ (1875) contained a number of suggestive 
 criticisms on the chief literary masters of our time — the most re- 
 markable perhaps being that on Geoi’ge Eliot. Mr. Dowden has, 
 besides, contributed a Shakespeare Primer to the ‘ Literature Prim- 
 ers ’ edited by the well-known historian, Mr. J. R. Green, and he was 
 chosen to contribute ‘ Southey ’ to the series of ‘ English Men of Let- 
 ters,’ under the guidance of Mr. John Morley. In addition to the 
 books above mentioned he has written ‘ The Life of Shelley,’ ‘ Trans- 
 scripts and Studies,’ ‘New Studies in Literature,’ ‘The French 
 Revolution and English Literature,’ ‘A History of French Litera- 
 ture.’ He has edited Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnets,’ Southey’s ‘Corre- 
 spondence with Caroline Bowles,’ ‘The Passionate Pilgrim,’ ‘The 
 Correspondence of Henry Taylor,’ and a collection of lyrical 
 ballads. 
 
 THE INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE. 
 
 From ‘Transcripts and Studies.’ 
 
 The happiest moment in a critic^s hours of study is 
 when, seemingly by some divination, but really as the re- 
 
 860 
 
 
EDWARD DOWDEN. 
 
 867 ' 
 
 suit of patient observation and thought, he lights upon the 
 central motive of a great work. Then, of a sudden, order 
 begins to form itself from the crowd and chaos of his im- 
 pressions and ideas. There is a moving hither and thither, 
 a grouping or co-ordinating of all his recent experiences, 
 which goes on of its own accord; and every instant his 
 vision becomes clearer, and new meanings disclose them- 
 selves in what had been lifeless and unilluminated. It 
 seems as if he could even stand by the artist’s side and 
 co-operate with him in the process of creating. With such 
 a sense of joy upon him, the critic will think it no hard 
 task to follow the artist to the sources from whence he 
 drew his material, — it may be some dull chapter in an 
 ancient chronicle, or some gross tale of passion by an 
 Italian novelist, — and he will stand by and watch with 
 exquisite pleasure the artist handling that crude material, 
 and refashioning and refining it, and breathing into it the 
 breath of a higher life. Even the minutest difference of 
 text between an author’s earlier and later draft, or a first 
 and second edition, has now become a point not for dull 
 commentatorship, but a point of life, at which he may touch 
 with his finger the pulse of the creator in his fervor of 
 creation. 
 
 From each single work of a great author we advance to 
 his total work, and thence to the man himself, — to the 
 heart and brain from which all this manifold world of 
 wisdom and wit and passion and beauty has proceeded. 
 Here again, before we address ourselves to the interpre- 
 tation of the author’s mind, we patiently submit ourselves 
 to a vast series of impressions. And in accordance with 
 Bacon’s maxim that a prudent interrogation is the half 
 of knowledge, it is right to provide ourselves with a number 
 of well-considered questions which we may address to our 
 author. Let us cross-examine him as students of mental 
 and moral science, and find replies in his written words. 
 Are his senses vigorous and fine? Does he see color as 
 well as form? Does he delight in all that appeals to the 
 sense of hearing — the voices of nature, and the melody and 
 harmonies of the art of man? 
 
 Thus Wordsworth, exquisitely organized for enjoying 
 and interpreting all natural and, if we may so say, homeless 
 and primitive sounds, had but little feeling for the delights 
 
868 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of music. Can he enrich his poetry by gifts from the sense 
 of smell, as did Keats; or is his nose like Wordsworth’s, 
 an idle promontory projecting into a desert air? Has he 
 like Browning a vigorous pleasure in all strenuous muscu- 
 lar movements ; or does he like Shelley live rapturously in 
 the finest nervous thrills? How does he experience and in- 
 terpret the feeling of sex, and in what parts of his entire 
 nature does that feeling find its elevating connections and 
 associations? What are his special intellectual powers? 
 Is his intellect combative or contemplative? What are the 
 laws which chiefiy preside over the associations of his 
 ideas? What are the emotions which he feels most 
 strongly? and how do his emotions coalesce with one an- 
 other? Wonder, terror, awe, love, grief, hope, despond- 
 ency, the benevolent affections, admiration, the religious 
 sentiment, the moral sentiment, the emotion of power, 
 irascible emotion, ideal emotion — how do these make them- 
 selves felt in and through his writings? What is his feel- 
 ing for the beautiful, the sublime, the ludicrous? Is he of 
 weak or vigorous will? In the conflict of motives, which 
 class of motives with him is likely to predominate? Is he 
 framed to believe or framed to doubt? Is he prudent, just, 
 temperate, or the reverse of these? These and such-like 
 questions are not to be crudely and formally proposed, but 
 are to be used with tact; nor should the critic press for 
 hard and definite answers, but know how skillfully to 
 glean its meaning from an evasion. He is a dull cross- 
 examiner who will invariably follow the scheme which he 
 has thought out and prepared beforehand, and who cannot 
 vary his questions to surprise or beguile the truth from 
 an unwilling witness. But the tact which comes from nat- 
 ural gift and from experience may be well supported by 
 something of method, — method well hidden away from the 
 surface and from sight. 
 
 This may be termed the psychological method of study. 
 But we may also follow a more objective method. Taking 
 the chief themes with which literature and art are conver- 
 sant — God, external nature, humanity — we may inquire 
 how our author has dealt with each of these. What is his 
 theology, or his philosophy of the universe? By which we 
 mean no abstract creed or doctrine, but the tides and cur- 
 rents of feeling and of faith, as well as the tendencies and 
 
EDWARD DOWDEN. 
 
 869 
 
 conclusions of the intellect. Under what aspect has this 
 goodly frame of things, in whose midst we are, revealed 
 itself to him? How has he regarded and interpreted the 
 life of man? 
 
 Under each of these great themes a multitude of subor- 
 dinate topics are included. And alike in this and in what 
 we have termed the psychological method of study, we 
 shall gain double results if we examine a writer^s works 
 in the order of their chronology, and thus become ac- 
 quainted with the growth and development of his powers, 
 and the widening and deepening of his relations with man, 
 with external nature, and with that Supreme Power, un- 
 known yet well known, of which nature and man are the 
 manifestation. As to the study of an artistes technical 
 qualities, this, by virtue of the fact that he is an artist, is of 
 capital importance; and it may often be associated with 
 the study of that which his technique is employed to ex- 
 press and render — the characteristics of his mind, and of 
 the vision which he has attained of the external universe, 
 of humanity, and of God. Of all our study, the last end 
 and aim should be to ascertain how a great writer or artist 
 has served the life of man ; to ascertain this, to bring home 
 to ourselves as large a portion as may be of the gain where- 
 with he has enriched human life, and to render access to 
 that store of wisdom, passion, and power, easier and surer 
 for others. 
 
 ENGLAND IN SHAKESPEAKE’S YOUTH. 
 
 In the closing years of the sixteenth century the life 
 of England ran high. The revival of learning had en- 
 riched the national mind with a store of new ideas and 
 images; the reformation of religion had been accomplished, 
 and its fruits were now secure; three conspiracies against 
 the Queen’s life had recently been foiled, and her rival, 
 the Queen of Scots, had perished on the scaffold; the huge 
 attempt of Spain against the independence of England 
 had been defeated b}^ the gallantry of English seamen, 
 aided by the winds of heaven. English adventurers were 
 exploring untraveled lands and distant oceans; English 
 citizens were growing in wealth and importance; the far- 
 
870 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 mers made the soil give up twice its former yield; the 
 nobility, however fierce their private feuds and rivalries 
 might be, gathered around the Queen as their center. 
 
 It was felt that England was a power in the continent of 
 Europe. Men were in a temper to think human life, with 
 its action and its passions, a very important and interest- 
 ing thing. They did not turn away from this world, and 
 despise it in comparison with a heavenly country, as did 
 many of the finest souls in the Middle Ages; they did not, 
 like the writers of the age of Queen Anne, care only for 
 
 the town ; it was man they cared for, and the whole 
 of manhood — its good and evil, its greatness and gro- 
 tesqueness, its laughter and its tears. 
 
 When men cared thus about human life, their imagina- 
 tion craved living pictures and visions of it. They liked 
 to represent to themselves men and women in all pas- 
 sionate and mirthful aspects and circumstances of life. 
 Sculpture which the Greeks so loved would not have sat- 
 isfied them, for it is too simple and too calm; music 
 would not have been sufficient, for it is too purely an ex- 
 pression of feelings, and says too little about actions and 
 events. The art which suited the temper of their imagina- 
 tion was the drama. In the drama they saw men and 
 women, alive in action, in suffering, changing forever 
 from mood to mood, from attitude to attitude; they saw 
 these men and women solitary, conversing with their 
 OAvn hearts — in pairs and in groups, acting one upon 
 another; in multitudes, swayed hither and thither by their 
 leaders. 
 
 THE HUMOR OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 From ‘ Shakespeare : a Critical Study of His Mind and Art.’ 
 
 A study of Shakespeare which fails to take account of 
 Shakespeare’s humor must remain essentially incomplete. 
 The character and spiritual history of a man who is en- 
 dowed with a capacity for humorous appreciation of the 
 world must differ throughout, and in every particular, 
 from that of the man whose moral nature has never 
 rippled over with genial laughter. At whatever final issue 
 
EDWARD DOW DEN. 
 
 871 
 
 Shakespeare arrived after long spiritual travail as to 
 the attainment of his life, that precise issue, rather than 
 another, was arrived at in part by virtue of the fact of 
 Shakespeare^s humor. In the composition of forces which 
 determined the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, 
 this must be allowed for as a force among others, in im- 
 portance not the least, and efficient at all times even when 
 little apparent. 
 
 A man whose visage holds one stern intent’’ from day 
 to day, and whose joy becomes at times almost a super- 
 natural rapture, may descend through circles of hell to the 
 narrowest and the lowest; he may mount from sphere to 
 sphere of Paradise until he stands within the light of the 
 Divine Majesty; but he will hardly succeed in presenting 
 us with an adequate image of life as it is on this earth of 
 ours, in its oceanic amplitude and variety. A few men of 
 genius there have been, who with vision penetrative as 
 lightning have gazed as it were through life, at some eter- 
 nal significances of which life is the symbol. Intent upon 
 its sacred meaning, they have had no eye to note the forms 
 of the grotesque hieroglyph of human existence. Such men 
 are not framed for laughter. To this little group the 
 creator of Falstaff, of Bottom, and of Touchstone does not 
 belong. 
 
 Shakespeare, who saw life more widely and wisely than 
 any other of the seers, could laugh. That is a comfortable 
 fact to bear in mind; a fact which serves to rescue us from 
 the domination of intense and narrow natures, who claim 
 authority by virtue of their grasp of one-half of the 
 realities of our existence and their denial of the rest. 
 Shakespeare could laugh. But we must go on to ask, 
 What did he laugh at? and what was the manner of his 
 laughter? ” There are as many modes of laughter as there 
 are facets of the common soul of humanity, to reflect the 
 humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, in one of 
 his pieces of coarse yet subtile engraving, has presented a 
 group of occupants of the pit of a theater, sketched during 
 the performance of some broad comedy or farce. What 
 proceeds upon the stage is invisible and undiscoverable, 
 save as we catch its reflection on the faces of the spectators, 
 in the same way that we infer a sunset from the evening 
 flame upon windows that front the west. 
 
872 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Each laughing face in Hogarth^s print exhibits a dif- 
 ferent mode or a different stage of the risible paroxysm. 
 There is the habitual enjoyer of the broad comic, aban- 
 doned to his mirth, which is open and unashamed; mirth 
 Avhich he is evidently a match for, and able to sustain. 
 By his side is a companion female portrait — a woman 
 with head thrown back to ease the violence of the guffaw; 
 all her loose redundant flesh is tickled into an orgasm of 
 merriment; she is fairly overcome. On the other side sits 
 the spectator who has passed the climax of his laughter; 
 he wipes the tears from his eyes, and is on the way to regain 
 an insecure and temporary composure. Below appears a 
 girl of eighteen or twenty, whose vacancy of intellect is 
 captured and occupied by the innocuous folly still in pro- 
 gress; she gazes on expectantly, assured that a new blos- 
 som of the wonder of absurdity is about to display itself. 
 Her father, a man who does not often surrender himself 
 to an indecent convulsion, leans his face upon his hand and 
 Avith the other steadies himself by grasping one of the iron 
 spikes that inclose the orchestra. In the right corner sits 
 the humorist, whose eyes, around which the wrinkles gath- 
 er, are half closed, while he already goes over the jest 
 a second time in his imagination. At the opposite side 
 an elderly Avoman is seen, past the period when animal 
 violences are possible, laughing because she knows there 
 is something to laugh at, though she is too dull-witted to 
 knoAv precisely what. One spectator, as we guess from his 
 introAWted air, is laughing to think what somebody else 
 would think of this. Finally, the thin-lipped, perk-nosed 
 person of refinement looks aside, and by his critical in- 
 difference condemns the broad, injudicious mirth of the 
 company. 
 
 All these laughers of Hogarth are very commonplace, 
 and some are very vulgar persons; one trivial, ludicrous 
 spectacle is the occasion of their mirth. When from such 
 laughter as this AA^e turn to the laughter of men of genius, 
 who gaze at the total play of the world^s life ; and when we 
 listen to this, as Avith the ages it goes on gathering and 
 SAvelling, our sense of hearing is enveloped and almost 
 annihilated by the chorus of mock and jest, of antic 
 and buffoonery, of tender mirth and indignant satire, of 
 monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of desperate mis- 
 
EDWARD DOW DEN, 
 
 873 
 
 anthropic derision and genial affectionate caressing of 
 human imperfection and human folly. We hear from 
 behind the mask the enormous laughter of Aristophanes, 
 ascending peal above peal until it passes into jubilant 
 ecstasy, or from the uproar springs some exquisite lyric 
 strain. We hear laughter.of passionate indignation from 
 Juvenal, the indignation of the ancient and free soul of 
 the dead republics.’^ 
 
 And there is Rabelais, with his huge buffoonery, and the 
 earnest eyes intent on freedom, which look out at us in 
 the midst of the zany’s tumblings and indecencies. And 
 Cervantes, with his refined Castilian air and deep melan- 
 choly mirth, at odds with the enthusiasm which is dearest 
 to his soul. And Moliere, with his laughter of unerring 
 good sense, undeluded by fashion or vanity or folly or 
 hypocrisy, and brightly mocking these into modesty. And 
 Milton, with his fierce objurgatory laughter, — Elijah-like 
 insult against the enemies of freedom and of England. 
 And Voltaire, with his quick intellectual scorn and eager 
 malice of the brain. And there is the urbane and amiable 
 play of Addison’s invention, not capable of large achieve- 
 ment, but stirring the corners of the mouth with a humane 
 smile, — gracious gayety for the breakfast-tables of Eng- 
 land. And Fielding’s careless mastery of the whole broad 
 common field of mirth. And Sterne’s exquisite curiosity 
 of oddness, his subtile extravagances and humors prepense. 
 And there is the tragic laughter of Swift, which announces 
 the extinction of reason, and loss beyond recovery of human 
 faith and charity and hope. How in this chorus of laugh- 
 ters, joyous and terrible, is the laughter of Shakespeare 
 distinguishable ? 
 
 In the first place, the humor of Shakespeare, like his to- 
 tal genius, is many-sided. He does not pledge himself as 
 dramatist to any one view of human life. If we open a 
 novel by Cliarles Dickens, we feel assured beforehand that 
 we are condemned to an exuberance of philanthropy; we 
 know how the writer will insist that we must all be good 
 friends, all be men and brothers, intoxicated with the de- 
 light of one another’s presence ; we expect him to hold out 
 the right hand of fellowship to man, woman, and child; 
 we are prepared for the bacchanalia of benevolence. The 
 lesson we have to learn from this teacher is, that with the 
 
874 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 exception of a few inevitable and incredible monsters of 
 cruelty, every man naturally engendered of the offspring of 
 Adam is of liis own nature inclined to every amiable virtue. 
 Shakespeare abounds in kindly mirth: he receives an ex- 
 quisite pleasure from the alert Avit and bright good sense of 
 ^ Kosalind; he can dandle a fool as tenderly as any nurse 
 qualified to take a baby from the birth can deal with her 
 charge. But Shakespeare is not pledged to deep-dyed ultra- 
 amiability. With Jacques, he can rail at the world while 
 remaining curiously aloof from all deep concern about its 
 interests, this way or that. With Timon he can turn upon 
 the world with a rage no less than that of Swift, and dis- 
 cover in man and woman a creature as abominable as the 
 Yahoo. In other words, the humor of Shakespeare, like his 
 total genius, is dramatic. 
 
 Then again, although Shakespeare laughs incompara- 
 bly, mere laughter wearies him. The only play of Shake- 
 speare’s, out of nearly forty, which is farcical, — ^ The 
 Comedy of Errors,’ — Avas written in the poet’s earliest 
 period of authorship, and was formed upon the suggestion 
 of a preceding piece. It has been observed with truth by 
 Gervinus that the farcical incidents of this play have been 
 connected by Shakespeare Avith a tragic background, Avhich 
 is probably his OAvn inA^ention. With beautj^, or with pa- 
 thos, or Avith thought, Shakespeare can mingle his mirth ; 
 and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with play 
 of Avit or humorous characterization; but an entirely comic 
 subject someAvhat disconcerts the poet. On this ground, 
 if no other Avere forthcoming, it might be suspected that 
 ‘ The Taming of the ShreAV ’ was not altogether the Avork 
 of Shakespeare’s hand. The secondary intrigues and 
 minor incidents Avere of little interest to the poet. But in 
 the buo}^ant force of Petruchio’s character, in his sub- 
 duing tempest of high spirits, and in the person of the 
 foiled revoltress against the law of sex, who carries into 
 her wifely loyalty the same energy Avhich she had shown 
 in her virgin sauvagerie , there Avere elements of human 
 character in which the imagination of the poet took delight. 
 
 Unless it be its own excess, however, Shakespeare’s 
 laughter seems to fear nothing. It does not, when it has 
 once arrived at its full development, fear enthusiasm, or 
 passion, or tragic intensity; nor do these fear it. The tra- 
 
EDWARD DOWDEN, 
 
 873 
 
 ditions of the English drama had favored the juxtaposi- 
 tion of the serious and comic: but it was reserved for 
 Shakespeare to make each a part of the other; to inter- 
 penetrate tragedy with comedy, and comedy with tragic 
 earnestness. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE’S PORTRAITURE OP WOMEN. 
 
 From ‘ Transcripts and Studies.’ 
 
 Of all the daughters of his imagination, which did 
 Shakespeare love the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we 
 say one of the latest born of them all, — our English 
 Imogen. And what most clearly shows us how Shake- 
 speare loved Imogen is this — he has given her faults, and 
 has made them exquisite, so that we love her better for 
 their sake. No one has so'quick and keen a sensibility to 
 whatever pains and to whatever gladdens as she. To her 
 a word is a blow ; and as she is quick in her sensibility, so 
 she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at once through the 
 Queen’s false show of friendship; quick in her contempt 
 for what is unworthy, as for all professions of love from 
 the clown-prince, Cloten ; quick in her resentment, as 
 when she discovers the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. 
 Wronged she is indeed by her husband, but in her haste 
 she too grows unjust ; yet he is dearer to us for the sake of 
 this injustice, proceeding as it does from the sensitiveness 
 of her love. It is she, to whom a word is a blow, who 
 actually receives a buffet from her husband’s hand; but 
 for Imogen it is a blessed stroke, since it is the evidence 
 of his loyalty and zeal on her behalf. In a moment he is 
 forgiven, and her arms are round his neck. 
 
 Shakespeare made so many perfect women unhappy that 
 he owes us some amende. And he has made that amende 
 by letting us see one perfect woman supremely happy. 
 Shall our last glance at Shakespeare’s plays show us 
 Florizel at the rustic merry-making, receiving blossoms 
 from the hands of Perdita? or Ferdinand and Miranda 
 playing chess in Prospero’s cave, and winning one a king 
 and one a queen, while the happy fathers gaze in from 
 
876 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the entrance of the cave? We can see a more delightful 
 sight than these — Imogen with her arms around the neck 
 of Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joj by the 
 playful challenge and mock reproach — 
 
 “ Why did you throw your wedded lady from you ? 
 
 Think that you are upon the rock, and now 
 Throw me again ; 
 
 and he responds — 
 
 “ Hang there like a fruit, my soul, 
 
 Till the tree die.” 
 
 We shall find in all Shakespeare no more blissful crea- 
 tures than these two. 
 
 ABOARD THE ^^SEA-SWALLOW.” 
 
 The gloom of the sea-fronting cliffs 
 Lay on the water, violet-dark; 
 
 The pennon drooped, the sail fell in, 
 
 And slowly moved our bark. 
 
 A golden day ; the summer dreamed 
 In heaven and on the whispering sea, 
 
 Within our hearts the summer dreamed; 
 The hours had ceased to be. 
 
 Then rose the girls with bonnets loosed, 
 And shining tresses lightly blown, 
 
 Alice and Adela, and sang 
 A song of Mendelssohn. 
 
 Oh ! sweet and sad and wildly clear, 
 
 Through summer air it sinks and swells, 
 
 Wild with a measureless desire 
 And sad with all farewells. 
 
 OASIS. 
 
 Let them go by — the heats, the doubts, the strife; 
 
 I can sit here and care not for them now. 
 Dreaming beside the glimmering wave of life 
 Once more — I know not how. 
 
EDWARD DOWDEN, 
 
 877 
 
 There is a murmur in my heart; I hear 
 
 Faint — oh! so faint — some air I used to sing; 
 It stirs my sense; and odors dim and dear 
 The meadow-breezes bring. 
 
 Just this way did the quiet twilights fade 
 Over the fields and happy homes of men, 
 
 While one bird sang as now, piercing the shade, 
 Long since — I know not when. 
 
 LEONARDO’S MONNA LISA.”i 
 
 Make thyself known, Sibyl, or let despair 
 Of knowing thee be absolute: I wait 
 Hour-long and waste a soul. What word of fate 
 Hides ’twixt the lips which smile and still forbear? 
 Secret perfection 1 Mystery too fair ! 
 
 Tangle the sense no more, lest I should hate 
 The delicate tyranny, the inviolate 
 Poise of thy folded hands, the fallen hair. 
 
 Nay, nay, — I wrong thee with rough words; still be 
 Serene, victorious, inaccessible; 
 
 Still smile but speak not; lightest irony 
 Lurk ever ’neath thy eyelids’ shadow ; still 
 O’ertop our knowledge; Sphinx of Italy, 
 
 Allure us and reject us at thy will ! 
 
 J This famous painting, sometimes called La Gioconda, was bought by 
 Francis I. for four thousand gold florins, and is now one of the glories of 
 the Louvre. In Madonna Lisa the artist seems to have found a sitter 
 whose features possessed in a singular degree the intellectual charm in 
 which he delighted, and in whose smile was realized that inward, haunt- 
 ing, mysterious expression which had been his ideal. It is said that he 
 worked at her portrait during some portion of four successive years, caus- 
 ing music to be plaved during the sittings, that the rapt expression might 
 not fade from off ner countenance. 
 
BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING. 
 
 (1823—1863.) 
 
 Bartholomew Dowling was born in Listowel, County Kerry, 
 in 1823. He was taken to Canada by his parents when a boy 
 and was partly educated there. He returned to Ireland on the 
 death of his father and became clerk to the treasurer of the Cor- 
 poration of Limerick. 
 
 In 1857 he came to America and engaged in mining, farming, and 
 journalism. He was editor of The San Francisco Monitor when 
 he died in 1863. He contributed to The Natio7i over the signature 
 of “ The Southern.” He was a good linguist and a facile writer. 
 He is best known by his lyric ‘ The Brigade at Fontenoy.’ 
 
 THE BRIGADE AT FONTENOY. 
 
 (May 11, 1745.) 
 
 By our camp-fires rose a murmur, 
 
 At the dawning of the day, 
 
 And the tread of many footsteps 
 Spoke the advent of the fray ; 
 
 And, as we took our places, 
 
 Few and stern were our words. 
 
 While some were tightening horse-girths 
 And some were girding swords. 
 
 The trumpet blast has sounded 
 Our footmen to array — 
 
 The willing steed has bounded, 
 
 Impatient for the fray — ■ 
 
 The green flag is unfolded, 
 
 While rose the cry of joy — 
 
 Heaven speed dear Ireland’s banner 
 To-day at Fontenoy ! ” 
 
 We looked upon that banner. 
 
 And the memory arose. 
 
 Of our homes and perished kindred 
 Where the Lee or Shannon flows ; 
 
 We looked upon that banner. 
 
 And we swore to God on high 
 To smite to-day the Saxon’s might— 
 
 To conquer or to die. 
 
 878 
 
BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING. 
 
 879 
 
 Loud swells the charging trumpet — 
 
 ’T is a voice from our own land — 
 
 God of battles I God of vengeance ! 
 
 Guide to-day the patriot’s brand ! 
 
 There are stains to wash away, 
 
 There are memories to destroy, 
 
 In the best blood of the Briton 
 To-day at Fontenoy. 
 
 Plunge deep the fiery rowels 
 In a thousand reeking flanks — 
 
 Down, chivalry of Ireland, 
 
 Down on the British ranks! 
 
 Now shall their serried columns 
 Beneath our sabers reel — 
 
 Through their ranks, then, with the war-horse 
 Through their bosoms with the steel. 
 
 iWith one shout for good King Louis 
 And the fair land of the vine. 
 
 Like the wrathful Alpine tempest 
 We swept upon their line — 
 
 Then ran along the battle-field 
 Triumphant our hurrah. 
 
 And we smote them down, still cheering, 
 
 ‘‘Erin, slangthagal go hragh!”^ 
 
 As prized as is the blessing 
 From an agM father’s lip — 
 
 As welcome as the haven 
 
 To the tempest-driven ship — 
 
 As dear as to the lover 
 
 The smile of gentle maid — 
 
 Is this day of long-sought vengeance 
 To the swords of the Brigade. 
 
 See their shattered forces flying, 
 
 A broken, routed line — 
 
 See, England, what brave laurels 
 For your brow to-day we twine. 
 
 Oh, thrice blest the hour that witnessed 
 The Briton turn to flee 
 From the chivalry of Erin, 
 
 And France’s fleur-de-lis. 
 
 ^ Erin . . . hragh, Erin, your bright health forever. 
 
^0 
 
 IRIBH LITERATURE. 
 
 As we lay beside our camp fires, 
 When the sun had passed away, 
 And thought upt>n our brethren 
 That had perished in the fray — 
 We prayed to God to grant us, 
 And then we M die with joy, 
 One day upon our own dear land 
 Like this of Fontenoy. 
 
RICHARD DOWLING. 
 (1846—1898.) 
 
 Richard Dowling was born in Clonmel, June 3, 1846. He was 
 educated in Clonmel, Waterford, and Limerick. He was intended 
 for the legal profession, but drifted into journalism, joining the 
 staff of the Dublin Nation. He then edited a comic periodical — 
 Zozimus — to which he contributed a number of humorous essays ; 
 and afterward he was the chief spirit in another entitled Ireland's 
 Eye. In 1874 he went to London and became a contributor to The 
 Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Among other sketches, 
 he published in that journal ‘Mr. Andrew O’Rourke’s Ramblings.’ 
 He started and edited Yorick^ a comic paper which had a brief ex- 
 istence of six months, but it was not till 1879 that Dowling may be 
 said to have had his first great success. In that year Messrs. Tins- 
 ley Brothers published ‘The Mystery of Killard.’ This work was 
 written in 1875-76, but the author sought then in vain for a pub- 
 lisher. The central idea of the work — the abnormal nature of a 
 deaf-mute, which leads him to hate his own child because the child 
 can hear and speak — is one of the most original in literature, and 
 there is an atmosphere of weirdness about the whole story which 
 deeply impresses the imagination. 
 
 Mr. Dowling was the author of many novels, plays, poems, etc., 
 but there is perhaps nothing by which he is better remembered than 
 by the book of essays, ‘ On Babies and Ladders,’ which is full 
 of quaint humor and fancy. 
 
 A GUIDE TO -IGNORANCE. 
 
 From ‘ Ignorant Essays.’ 
 
 As a boy I was averse from study; and since I have 
 grown to manhood I have acquired so little substantive in- 
 formation that I could write down in a bold hand on one 
 page of this book every single fact, outside facts of per- 
 sonal experience, of which I am possessed. 
 
 I know that the Norman invasion occurred in 1066, and 
 the Great Fire in 1666. I know that gunpowder is com- 
 posed of saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal, and sausages of 
 minced meat and bread under the name of Tommy. I am 
 aware Milton and Shakespeare were poets, and that needle- 
 grinders are short lived. I know that the primest brands of 
 three-shilling champagnes are made in London. I can 
 give the Latin for seven words, and the French for four. 
 
 881 5 — Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
882 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I can repeat the multiplication table (with the pence) up 
 to six times. I know the mere names of a number of people 
 and things; but, as far as clear and definite information 
 goes, I don’t believe I could double the above brief list. 
 I am, I think, therefore, warranted in concluding that few 
 men can have a more close or exhaustive personal ac- 
 quaintance with ignorance. If you want learning at sec- 
 ond hand you must go to the learned : if you want ignor- 
 ance at first hand you cannot possibly do better than come 
 to me. 
 
 In the first place let us consider the Injury of Knowl- 
 edge.” How much better otf the king would be if he had 
 no knowledge! Suppose his mental ken had never been 
 directed to any period before the dawn of his own memory, 
 he would have no disquieting thoughts of the trouble into 
 which Charles I. or Richard II. drifted. He would be filled 
 with no envy of the good old King John, who, from four 
 or five ounces of iron in the form of thumb-screws, and a 
 few hundredweight of rich Jew, filled up the royal pockets 
 as often as they showed any signs of growing empty. And, 
 above all, he would be spared the misery of committing 
 dates to memory. How it must limit the happiness of a 
 constitutional sovereign to know anything about the con- 
 stitution ! Why should he be burdened with the conscious- 
 ness of rights and prerogatives? 
 
 Would he not be much happier if he might smoke hiii 
 cigar in his garden without the fear of the Speaker or the 
 Lord Chancellor before his eyes? The Commons want 
 their Speaker, the Lords want their Lord Chancellor — let 
 them have them. The king wants neither. Why should he 
 be troubled with any knowledge of either? Although he is 
 a king is he not a man and a brother also? Why should 
 he be worried out of his life with reasons for all he does? 
 The king feels he can do no wrong. That ought to be 
 enough for him. Most men believe the same thing of 
 themselves, but few others share the faith. The king can 
 do no wrong, then in mercy’s name let the man alone. Sup- 
 pose it is a part of my duty to look out of the oriel window 
 at dawn, noon, and sunset, why should I be bored with 
 cause, reason, and precedent for this? Let me look out 
 of window if it is my duty to do so; but, before and after 
 looking out of the window, let me enjoy my life. 
 
RICHARD DOWLING. 
 
 883 
 
 Take the statesman. How knowledge must hamper him ! 
 He is absolutely precluded from acting with decision by 
 the consciousness of the difficulties which lay in the path 
 of his predecessors. He has to make up his subject, to get 
 facts and figures from his subordinates and others. He 
 has to arrange the party maneuvers before he launches his 
 scheme, by which time all the energy is gone out of him, 
 and he has not half as much faith in his bill as if he had 
 never looked at the pros and cons. Never mind maneu- 
 vering, but go at them,’^ said Nelson. The moment you be- 
 gin to maneuver you confess your doubtfulness of success, 
 unless you can take your adversary at a disadvantage ; but 
 if you fly headlong at his throat, you terrify him by the 
 display of your confidence and valor. 
 
 The words of Nelson apply still more closely to the gen- 
 eral. His knowledge that fifty years ago the British army 
 was worsted on this field, unnerves, paralyzes him. If he 
 did not know that shells are explosive and bullets deadly, 
 he would make his dispositions with twice the confidence, 
 and his temerity would fill the foe with panic. His simple 
 duty is to defeat the enemy, and knowing anything beyond 
 this only tends to distract his mind and weaken his arm. 
 In the middle of one of his Indian battles, and when he 
 thought the conflict had been decided in favor of British 
 arms, a messenger rode hastily up to the general in com- 
 mand, who was wiping his reeking forehead on his coat- 
 sleeve ; A large fresh force of the enemy has appeared in 
 such a place; what is to be done?’^ Gough rubbed his 
 forehead with the other sleeve, and shouted out, Beat 
 ’em ! ” Obviously no better command could have been 
 given. What the English nation wanted the English army 
 to do with the enemy was to beat ’em.’’ In the pictures 
 of the Victoria Cross there is one of a young dandy officer 
 with an eyeglass in his eye and a sword in his hand, 
 among the thick of the foe. He knows he is in that place 
 to kill some one. He is quite ignorant of the fact that the 
 enemy is there to kill him, and he is taking his time and 
 looking through his eyeglass to try to find some enticing 
 man through whom to run his sword. One of Wellington’s 
 most fervent prayers was, Oh, spare me my dandy offi- 
 cers ! ” Now dandies are never very full of knowledge, and 
 yet the greatest Duke thought more of them than of your 
 
884 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 learning-begrimed sappers or your science-bespattered 
 gunners. 
 
 If an advocate at the bar knew one quarter of the law 
 of the land, he could never get on. In the first place, he 
 would know more than the judges, and this would preju- 
 dice the bench against him. With regard to a barrister, 
 the best position for him to assume, if he is addressing a 
 jury, is, Gentlemen, the indisputable facts of the case, 
 as stated to you by the witnesses, are so-and-so. In pres- 
 ence of so distinguished a lawyer as occupies the bench 
 in this court, I do not feel myself qualified to tell you 
 what the law is; that will be the easy dutj^ of his lord- 
 ship.^’ Even in Chancery cases, the barrister would best 
 insure success by merely citing the precedent cases, in an 
 offhand way, Does not your lordship think the case of 
 Burke v. Hare meets the exact conditions of the one under 
 consideration? ” The indices are all the pleader need look 
 at. The judge will surely strain a point for one who does 
 not bore him with extracts and arguments, but leaves all 
 to himself, and lets the work of the court run smoothly and 
 just as the president wishes. 
 
 Knowledge is an absolute hindrance to the doctor of 
 medicine. Supposing he is a man of average intelligence 
 (some doctors are), he is able to diagnose, let me say, 
 fever. You or I could diagnose fever pretty well — quick 
 pulse, dry skin, thirst, and so on. But as the doctor leans 
 over the patient, he is paralyzed by the complication of 
 his knowledge. Such a theory is against feeding up, such 
 a theory against slops, such a theory against bleeding, such 
 a theory in favor of phlebotomy; there are the wet and 
 the dry, the hot and the cold methods; and while the doc- 
 tor is deliberating, vacillating, or speculating, the patient 
 has ample opportunity of dying, or nature of stepping in 
 and curing the man, and thus foiling the doctor. Is there 
 not much more sense and candor in the method adopted 
 by the Irish hunting dispensary doctor, who, before start- 
 ing with the hounds, locked up all drugs, except the 
 Glauber’s salts, a stone or two of which he left in charge 
 of his servant, with instructions it was to be meted out 
 impartially to all comers, each patient receiving an honest 
 fistful as a dose? It is a remarkable fact that within this 
 century homeopathy has gained a firm hold on an im- 
 
RICHARD DOWLING. 
 
 885 
 
 portant section of the community, and yet, notwithstand- 
 ing the growth of what the allopathists or regular profes- 
 sion regard as ignorant quackery, the span of human life 
 has had six years added to it in eighty years. Still home- 
 opathy is a practical confession of ignorance; for it says, 
 in effect, We don^t know exactly what Nature is trying 
 to do, but let us give her a little help, and trust in luck.’’ 
 Whereas allopathy pretended to know everything and to 
 fight Nature. Here, in the result of years added to man’s 
 ' life by the development of the ignorant system, we see once 
 more the superiority of ignorance over knowledge. 
 
 How full of danger to the unwedded men is knowledge 
 owned by the widow ! She has knowledge of the married 
 state, in which she was far removed from all the troubles 
 and responsibilities of life. She had her pin-money, her 
 bills paid, stalls taken for her at the opera, agreeable com- 
 pany around her board, no occasion to face money diffi- 
 culties. Now all that is changed. There is no elasticity 
 in her revenue, no margin for the gratification of her 
 whims ; she has to pay her own bills, secure her own stalls ; 
 she cannot very well entertain company often, and all the 
 unpleasantnesses of business matters press her sorely. Her 
 knowledge tells her that, if she could secure a second hus- 
 band, all would be pleasant again. It may be said that 
 here knowledge is in favor of the widow. Yes; but it is 
 against the Community.” Remember, the Community ” 
 is always a male. 
 
 There is hardly any class or member of the community 
 that does not suffer drawback or injury from knowledge. 
 As I am giving only a crude outline of a design, I leave a 
 great deal to the imagination of the reader. He will easily 
 perceive how much happier and more free would be the 
 man of business, the girl, the boy, the scientist, the contro- 
 versialist, and, above all, the literary man, if each knew 
 little or nothing, instead of having pressed upon the atten- 
 tion from youth accumulated experiences, traditions, dis- 
 coveries, and reasonings of many centuries. 
 
 To the Delights of Ignorance,” I should devote the con- 
 sideration of man devoid of knowledge under various cir- 
 cumstances and in various positions. 
 
 By the sea wdio does not love to lie propt on beds of 
 amaranth and moly, how sweet (while warm airs lull, 
 
886 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 blowing lowiy), with half-dropt eyelids still, beneath a 
 heaven dark and holy, to watch the long bright river draw- 
 ing slowly his waters from the purple hill — to hear the 
 dewy echoes calling from cave to cave through the thick- 
 twined vine — to watch the emerald-colored waters falling- 
 through many a woven acanthus wreath divine! Only to 
 see and hear the far-otf sparkling brine, only to hear were 
 sweet, stretched out beneath the pine.’’ Just so! Is not 
 that much better than bothering about gravitation and 
 that wretched old clinker the moon, and the tides, and how 
 sea-water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen and chloride 
 of sodium and bromide of something else, and fifty other 
 things not one of which has a tolerable smell when you 
 meet it in a laboratory? Isn’t it better than thinking of 
 the number of lighthouses built on the coast of Albion, 
 and the tonnage which yearly is reported and cleared at 
 the custom-houses of London, Liverpool, and that prosper- 
 ous seaport of Bohemia! Isn’t it much better than im- 
 proving the occasion by reading a hand-book on hydraulics 
 or hydrostatics? Who on the seashore wants to know any- 
 thing? There will always, down to the last syllable of 
 recorded time, be finer things unknown about the sea than 
 can be said about all other matters in the world. Trying 
 to know anything about the sea is like shooting into the 
 air an arrow attached to a pennyworth of string with a 
 view to sounding space. If we threw all the knowledge 
 we have into the ocean the Admiralty standards of high- 
 water mark would not have to be altered one-millionth 
 part of a line. 
 
 What a blessing ignorance would be in an inn ! Who 
 would not dispense with a knowledge of all the miseries 
 that follow in the wake of the vat when one is thirsty, 
 and has before him amber sunset-colored ale, and in his 
 hand a capacious, long, cool-meaning churchwarden? Who 
 would at such a moment cumber his mind with the unit of 
 specific gravity used by excisemen in testing beer? Who 
 would at such a moment care to calculate the toll exacted 
 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer before each cool gulp 
 may thrill with amazing joy the parched gullet? 
 
 Who, when upon a journey, would care to know the pre- 
 cise pressure required to blow the boiler of the engine to 
 pieces, or the number of people killed in collisions during 
 
RICHARD DOWLING, 
 
 887 
 
 the corresponding quarter of last year? Should we not be 
 better in sickness for not knowing the exact percentage of 
 deaths in cases of our class? In adversity should we not 
 be infinitely happier were we in ignorance of the chance 
 w^e ran of gaining a good position or of cutting our 
 throats? Should we not enjoy our prosperity all the more 
 if we were not, morning and evening, exercised by the fluc- 
 tuations of the share-list, fluctuations in all likelihood 
 destined never to increase or diminish our fortunes one 
 penny? And oh, for ignorance in sleep! For sleep with- 
 out dream, or nightmare, or memory! For sleep such as 
 falls upon the body when the soul is done with it and 
 aAvay ! 
 
 ON DUBLIN CASTLE. , 
 
 From ‘Zozimus.’ 
 
 Dublin Castle is in the city of Dublin, and stands on the 
 south side of the River Liffey, It is called a castle because 
 it has a great many windows and a portico to the principal 
 entrance. It you werenT told it w^as Dublin Castle you 
 wouldnT think it ^vas Dublin Castle at all. When I saw it 
 first I took it for a militia-barrack or a poorhouse for 
 gaugers. When a man showed me where the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant lived when he ^s at home I began to think that all 
 Lord Lieutenants must be very low-sized men, not in the 
 least particular about their lodgings. The Castle, as it is 
 generally called, is built on Cork-hill. Many ignorant peo- 
 ple, such as members of Parliament and lords, think that 
 Cork-hill is in the city of that name. Those who have 
 learned geography and the use of the globes know that 
 Cork-hill has for many centuries been in the city of Dub- 
 lin. The Castle surrounds a square called the Upper 
 Castle Yard, in the center of which there is a beautiful 
 tub for holding flags. There is also a policeman in the 
 Upper Castle Yard, but he is not w^orth looking at, al- 
 though his face is generally clean, and he wears a silver 
 Albert chain. There are soldiers walking up and down at 
 the gate to keep themselves warm. They always carry 
 their guns, because, if they put them out of their hands, 
 
888 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Fenians or newspaper boys or the policemen might run 
 away with them. This makes the soldiers short-tempered 
 and chew tobacco. There is a statue of Justice over the 
 gateway. This statue fell out of the sky during a thunder 
 storm, to where it stands, and only that it is red hot the 
 Government would get men to take it down, for it has no 
 business there, and looking at it only makes the people 
 who live in the Castle uncomfortable. 
 
 You can go from the Upper Castle Yard to the Lower 
 Castle Y"ard under an arched gateway. There are police- 
 men in the Lower Y^ard, but they donT wear Albert chains 
 or pare their nails. The Lower Castle Yard is not a yard 
 in the least, but makes me always think of a street with a 
 broken back. There are a few towers in it. These towers 
 are very strong. A man once told me that if you fired a 
 horse-pistol at one of them all day you would not be able to 
 make a hole in it! A great number of small boys play 
 marbles and ball here. The Lord Lieutenant loves to see 
 innocent children amusing themselves, and he often sends 
 them out presents of nuts and clay pipes to blow soap-bub- 
 bles. When there isn’t a cattle show, or a militia regiment 
 to be inspected, or a knight to be made, he himself often 
 comes out in disguise and blows soap-bubbles. It is always 
 remarked that the Lord Lieutenant’s soap-bubbles are the 
 largest and of the most beautiful colors. A man once told 
 me that it is because the Lord Lieutenant puts a great deal 
 of soft soap into the water which he uses. 
 
 There is nothing connected with the Castle about which 
 there are so many wrong notions as about the Castle Hack. 
 Some are under the belief that it is a man; others think it 
 to be an attorney ; and there are those who go so far as to 
 assert that it is a member of Parliament. Of all the peo- 
 ple who indulge in such extravagances, I .venture to say, 
 not one has seen, or even had the curiosity to inquire par- 
 ticularly about it. Now, I have seen the Hack, and learned 
 all that is to be known concerning it, and am, therefore, 
 well qualified to give correct information and a faithful 
 description of it. I gave a decent man at the Castle half-a- 
 crown, and he showed it to me and supplied me with all the 
 particulars I needed. The Castle Hack is a poor, lean, 
 wretched old horse. He is spavined and broken-winded, 
 and his bones are sharply visible through his faded and 
 
RICHARD DOWLING. 
 
 889 
 
 withered hide. He is wholly unequal to the performance 
 of any honest work in the fields, and he is one of the mean- 
 est and most wretched objects which can offend the sight 
 of a humane and worthy man. Of all the noble attributes 
 possessed by his species, none remain to him; and of all 
 the useful qualities of his fellows, he retains but one, that 
 of abject servility to the rein, for he has neither the gen- 
 erosity nor the pride, the strength nor the swiftness, which 
 makes his race fit to be the companions of men. There is 
 ever in his eye the expression of hunger for the corn-bins 
 of the Castle, and dread lest he should be worried to death 
 by those of his own race, in their rage at seeing so obscene 
 a creature wearing and dishonoring their form. His em- 
 ployment is in keeping with his appearance. It is he 
 who fetches meat for the Castle kennel, and brings the 
 soiled linen of the Castle to the laundry to be cleaned. Al- 
 though he is docile to his driver, he is spurned and de- 
 spised. It is not his to swell the pageant, but to feed 
 darkly at the Castle manger, to fear the light, and to 
 crawl and shudder in the noisome ways. Poor brute, if 
 he could only have one month’s grazing on a hill-side in 
 the sunlight he might pluck up some spirit, and lose at 
 once his taste for Castle oats, and his indifference to the 
 nature of the work which he performed. 
 
 The oldest part of the Castle now standing is the Back 
 Stairs. The entrance to this celebrated staircase is in the 
 Castle Garden. After going up a few steps a passage is 
 reached which leads by a kind of bridge, over the Lower 
 Castle Yard, into the Castle. The steps of the stairs are 
 iron ; for so many people go up and down that if they were 
 made of any softer substance they would have been worn 
 away long ago. The people who go up this stairs carry 
 bags full of things and wear their hats very low over their 
 faces. They generally have turnips, and gum-arabic, and 
 steel pens, and penny packages of stationery in their bags. 
 A man once told me that they sometimes bring the heads 
 of people and sell them at the Castle ; he also said that they 
 often sell their country. Who could believe this? I had 
 heard so many stories about this Back Stairs that I made 
 up my mind to go and see it for myself. Before setting out 
 I resolved to humor the people in the Castle, whatever 
 they might say to me. I got a bag, filled it with artichokes, 
 
890 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 and, having pulled my hat low over my eyes, went np. 
 When I got to the top I met a man who asked me if I 
 came about that affair.^’ I said, “ Yes,^’ and he led me 
 into a small room, where another man was eating the end 
 of a large quill, and reading a large blue paper with 
 writing on it, and having a large stamp in the corner. I 
 sat down. ‘‘ Did you come about that affair? said he. 
 “ Yes,^^ I answered. Well,’^ said he, did you see him? 
 
 I did,’’ I answered. What did he say? ” he asked. I 
 don’t know,” said I, feeling just as if he would order me to 
 be shot on the spot. Good,” he said ; I see you have 
 been reading the Tichborne case and have learned caution 
 from it. What have you in the bag?” Artichokes.” 
 ‘‘ How many? ” Twenty-five.” TVere there really so 
 many? ” Yes.” And ‘ choke him ’ were the words? 
 Were they?” Yes.” On the night of the 15th?” 
 Yes.” How much do you want for the artichokes? ” 
 One hundred pounds.” Say two.” Two.” Gold or 
 notes? ” Gold.” “ Very good ! There you are,” said he, 
 handing me two small bags of sovereigns; your informa- 
 tion is most important. T shall forward it to the chief 
 to-night. Good afternoon.” And off I went with my two 
 hundred sovereigns. 
 
 The Castle is the best place in the world for selling arti- 
 chokes and lies. I would go with another bag of each now 
 only the artichokes are out of season. Can you understand 
 what information I gave? — I can’t. I hope it wasn’t 
 against a Koyal Residence or asphalting the streets of the 
 city. 
 
EDMUND DOWNEY. 
 
 (1856 ) 
 
 Edmund Downey, the “ author-publisher,” was born in Waterford 
 in 1856, and is the son of a shipowner and broker. He was educated 
 at the Catholic University School and St. John’s College in that city. 
 He went to London in 1878, and was for a time in the office of Tins- 
 ley, the publisher. He afterward became a partner in the firm of 
 Ward & Downey, from which he retired in 1890, and in 1894 he 
 established the publishing business of Downey & Co. 
 
 He is the author of the well-known stories signed “ F. M. Allen,” 
 ‘Through Green Glasses,’ etc. These humorous Irish stories are 
 perhaps the better known, but they are hardly superior to his sea- 
 stories. ‘ Anchor- Watch Yarns ’ and kindred tales by Mr. Downey 
 place him in the front rank of writers of sea-stories. His ‘ Mer- 
 chant of Killogue ’ is in more serious vein. It is a patiently wrought- 
 out picture of a big central figure and of the surrounding life of an 
 Irish country town. Among his other books are ‘ Green as Grass,’ 
 1892; ‘Round Tower of Babel,’ 1892; ‘The Land Smeller,’ 1893; 
 ‘ Ballybeg Junction,’ 1894; ‘Little Green Man,’ 1895; ‘ Pinches of 
 Salt,’ 1895; ‘The Ugly Man,’ 1896. 
 
 FROM PORTLAW TO PARADISE. 
 
 Wance upon a time, an^ a very good time it was too, 
 there was a dacent little man, named Paddy Power, that 
 lived in the parish of Portlaw. 
 
 At the time I spayke of, an’ indeed for a long spell before 
 it, most of Paddy’s neighbors had wandhered from the 
 thrue fold, an’ the sheep that didn’t stray wor, not to put 
 too fine a point on it, a black lot. But Paddy had always 
 con thrived to keep his last end in view, an’ he stuck to the 
 ould faith like a poor man’s plasther. 
 
 Well, in the coorse of time poor Paddy felt his days wor 
 well-nigh numbered, so he tuk to the bed an’ sent for the 
 priest; an’ thin he settled himself down to aise his con- 
 science an’ to clear the road in the other world by manes 
 of a good confession. 
 
 He reeled off his sins, mortial an’ vanyial, to the priest 
 by the yard, an’ begor he felt mighty sorrowful intirely 
 whin he thought what a bad boy he ’d been, an’ what a hape 
 of quare things he ’d done in his time — though, as I ’ve 
 said before, he was a dacent little man in his way, only, 
 you see, bein’ so close to the other side of Jordan, he tuk 
 
 891 
 
892 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 an onaisy view of all his sayings and doings. Poor Paddy — 
 small blame to him — was very aiger to get a comfortable 
 corner in glory in his ould age, for he ^d a hard sthruggle 
 enough of it here below. 
 
 Well, whin he ^d towld all his sins to Father McGrath, 
 an^ whin Father McGrath had given him a few hard rubs 
 by way of consolation, he bent his head to get the absolu- 
 tion, an’ lo an’ behold you! before the priest could get 
 through the words that would open the gates of glory to 
 poor Paddy, the life wint out of the man’s body. 
 
 It seems ’t was a busy mornin’ in heaven, an’ as soon as 
 Father McGrath began to say the first words of the abso- 
 lution, down they claps Paddy Power’s name on the due- 
 book. However, we ’ll come to that part of the story 
 by-an’-by. 
 
 An^diow, up goes Paddy, an’ before be knew where he 
 was he found himself standin’ outside the gates of Para- 
 dise. Of coorse, he partly guessed there ’ud be throuble, 
 but he thought he ’d put a bowld face on, so he gives a hard 
 double-knock at the door, an’ a holy saint shoves back the 
 slide an’ looks out at him through an iron gratin’. 
 
 God save all here ! ” says Paddy. 
 
 God save you kindly! ” says the saint. 
 
 Maybe I ’m too airly? ” says Paddy, dhreadin’ all the 
 time that ’t is the cowld showlder he ’d get. 
 
 ’T is naither airly nor late here,” says the saint, per- 
 vidin’ you ’re on the w^ay-bill. What ’s yer name? ” says he. 
 
 Paddy Power,” says the little man from Portlaw. 
 
 There ’s so many of that name due here,” says the 
 saint, that I must ax you for further particulars.” 
 
 “ You ’re quite welcome, your reverence,” says Paddy. 
 
 What ’s your occupation? ” says the saint. 
 
 Well,” says Paddy, I can turn my hand to anything 
 in raison.” 
 
 “ A kind of Jack-of-all-thrades? ” says the saint. 
 
 Not exactly that,” says Paddy, thinkin’ the saint was 
 thryin’ to make fun of him. In fact,” says he, I ’m a 
 general dayler.” 
 
 An’ what do you generally dale in? ” axes the saint. 
 
 All ’s fish that comes to my net,” says Paddy, thinkin’, 
 of coorse, ’t would put Saint Pether in good humor to be 
 reminded of ould times. 
 
ED3IUXD DOWXEY, 
 
 893 
 
 An’ is it a fisherman you are, thin? ” axes the saint. 
 
 Well, no,” says Paddy, though I ’ve done a little 
 huckstherin’ in fish in my time; but I was partial to scrap- 
 iron, as a rule.” 
 
 To tell you the thruth,” says the saint, I ’m not over 
 fond of general daylin’, but of coorse my private feelin’s 
 don’t intherfere wud my duties here. I ’m on the gates 
 agen my will for the matther of that ; but that ’s naither 
 here nor there so far as yourself is consarned, Paddy,” 
 says he. 
 
 It must be a hard dhrain on the constitution at times,” 
 says Paddy, “ to be on the door from mornin’ till night.” 
 
 ’T is,” says the saint, of a busy day — but I must go 
 an’ have a look at the books. Paddy Power is your name? ” 
 says he. 
 
 Yis,” says Paddy; an’, though ’t is meself that says 
 it, I ’m not ashamed of it.” 
 
 An’ where are you from? ” axes the saint. 
 
 From the parish of Portlaw,” says Paddy. 
 
 I never heard tell of it,” says the saint, bitin’ his 
 thumb. 
 
 Sure it couldn’t be expected you would, sir,” says 
 Paddy, for it lies at the back of God-speed.” 
 
 Well, stand there, Paddy avic/’ says the holy saint, 
 an’ I ’ll have a good look at the books.” 
 
 God bless you ! ” says Paddy. Wan ’ud think ’t was 
 born in Munsther you wor. Saint Pether, you have such 
 an iligant accent in spaykin’.” 
 
 Faix, Paddy was beginnin’ to dliread that his name 
 wouldn’t be found on the books at all on account of his not 
 havin’ complate absolution, so he thought ’t was the best 
 of his play to say a soft word to the keeper of the kays. 
 
 The saint tuk a hasty glance at the enthry-book, but 
 whin Paddy called him Saint Pether he lifted his head an’ 
 put his face to the wicket again, an’ there was a cunnin’ 
 twinkle in his eye. 
 
 An’ so you thinks ’t is Saint Pether I am? ” says he. 
 
 Of coorse, your reverence,” says Paddy ; “ an’ ’t is a 
 rock of sense I ’m towld you are.” 
 
 Well, wud that the saint began to laugh very hearty, an’ 
 says he — 
 
 Now it ’s a quare thing that every wan of ye that 
 
894 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 comes from below thinks Saint Pether is on the gates con- 
 stant. Do you raley think, Paddy, says he, that Saint 
 Pether has nothing else to do, nor no way to pass the time 
 except by standin’ here in the cowld from yearns end to 
 year’s end, openin’ the gates of Paradise? ” 
 
 Begor,” says Paddy, that never sthruck me before, 
 sure enough. Of coorse he must have some sort of divar- 
 sion to pass the time. An’ might I ax your reverence,” 
 says he, what 3 our own name is? an’ I hopes you ’ll par- 
 don my ignorance.” 
 
 “ Don’t mintion that,” says the saint ; but I ’d rather 
 not tell you my name, just yet at any rate, for a raison of 
 my own.” 
 
 Plaize yourself an’ you ’ll plaize me, sir,” says Paddy. 
 
 ’T is a civil-spoken little man 3^ou are,” says the saint. 
 Findin’ the saint was such a nice agreeable man an’ such 
 an iligant discoorser, Paddy thought he ’d venture on a 
 few remarks just to dodge the time until some other poor 
 sowl ’ud turn up an’ give him the chance to slip into Para- 
 dise unbeknownst — for he knew that wance he got in by 
 hook or by crook they could never have the heart to turn 
 him out of it again. So saj^s he — 
 
 jMight I ax what Saint Pether is doin’ just now? ” 
 
 “ He ’s at a hurlin’ match,” says the deputy. 
 
 Oh, murdher ! ” says Paddy, couldn’t I get a peep 
 at the match while you’re examinin’ the books? ” 
 
 “ I ’m afeard not,” says the saint, shakin’ his head. 
 
 Besides,” says he, I think the fun is nearly over by this 
 time.” 
 
 Is there often a hurlin’ match here? ” axes Paddy. 
 
 Wance a year,” says the saint. You see,” says he, 
 pointin’ over his showldher wud his thumb, they have 
 all nationalities in here, and they plays the game of aich 
 nation on aich pathron saint’s day, if 3^ou undherstand 
 me.” 
 
 I do,” says Paddy. An’ sure enough ’t was Saint 
 Pathrick’s Day in the mornin’ whin I started from Port- 
 law, an’ the last thing I did — of coorse before tellin’ my 
 sins — was to dhrink my Pathrick’s pot.” 
 
 More power to you ! ” says the saint. 
 
 I suppose Saint Pathrick is the umpire to-day? ” says 
 Paddy. 
 
EDMUI^D DOWNEY, 
 
 895 
 
 says the saint. Aich of us, you see, takes our 
 turn at the gates on our own festival days.’^ 
 
 Holy Moses ! shouts Paddy. Thin T is to Saint 
 Pathrick himself I been talkin^ all this while back. Oh, 
 murdher alive, did I ever think I M live to see this day ! ’’ 
 Begor, the poor angashore ^ of a man was fairly knocked 
 off his head to discover he was discoorsin^ so fameeliarly 
 wud the great Saint Pathrick, an’ the great saint himself 
 was proud to see what a dale the little man from Portlaw 
 thought of him ; but he didn’t let on to Paddy how plaized 
 he was. Ah ! ” says he, sure we ’re all on an aiquality 
 here. You ’ll be a great saint yourself, maybe, wan of these 
 days.” 
 
 The heavens forbid,” says Paddy. that I ’d dhrame of 
 ever being on an aiquality wud your reverence! Begor, 
 ’fc is a joyful man I ’d be to be allowed to spake a few words 
 to you wance in a blue moon. Aiquality, inagh! ” ^ says he. 
 “ Sure what aiquality could there be between the great 
 apostle of Quid Ireland and Paddy Power, general day- 
 ler, from Portlaw?” 
 
 “ I wish there was more of ’em your way of thinkin’, 
 Paddy,” says Saint Pathrick, sighin’ deeply. 
 
 An’ do you mane to tell me,” puts Paddy, that any 
 crajTlmr inside there ’ud dar to put himself an an aiqual 
 footin’ wud yourself? ” 
 
 I do, thin,” saj^s Saint Pathrick; an’ worse than 
 that,” says he, there ’s some of ’em thinks ’t is very small 
 potatoes I am, in their own mind. I gives you me word, 
 Paddy, that it takes me all my time occasional!}^ to keep 
 my timper wud Saint George an’ Saint Andhrew.” 
 
 Bad luck to ’em both! ” said Paddy, intherruptin’ him. 
 
 Whisht ! ” says Saint Pathrick. I partly admires 
 your sintiments, but I must tell you there ’s no rale ill-will 
 allowed inside here. You ’ll feel complately changed 
 wance you gets at the right side of the gate.” 
 
 The divil a change could make me keep quiet,” says 
 Paddy, if I heard the biggest saint in Paradise say a hard 
 word agen you, or even dar’ to put himself on a par wud 
 you ! ” 
 
 Oh, Paddy ! ” says Saint Pathrick, you mustn’t allow 
 your timper to get the betther of you. ’T is hard, I know, 
 1 Angashore, pitiful figure. ^ inagh, forsooth. 
 
896 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 avic, to sthruggle at times agen your feelings, but the laiste 
 said the soonest mended.’’ 
 
 An’ will I meet Saint George and Saint Andhrew whin 
 I get inside? ” 
 
 You will,” says Saint Pathrick ; but you mustn’t dis- 
 grace our counthry by makin’ a row wud aither of ’em.” 
 
 I ’ll do my best,” says Paddy, as ’t is yourself that 
 axes me. An’ is there any more of ’em that thrates ^mu 
 wud contimpt? ” 
 
 Well, not many,” says Saint Pathrick. An’ indeed,” 
 says he, ’t is only an odd day we meets at all ; an’ I can 
 tell you I ’m not a bad hand at takin’ my own part — but 
 there ’s wan fellow,” says he, that breaks my giddawn ^ 
 intirely.” 
 
 An’ who is he? the bla’guard ! ” says Paddy. 
 
 He ’s an uncanonized craychur named Brakespeare,” 
 says Saint Pathrick. 
 
 A wondher you ’d be seen talkin’ to the likes of him ! ” 
 says Paddy ; an’ who is he at all ? ” 
 
 Did you never hear tell of him?” says Saint Path- 
 rick. 
 
 Never,” says Paddy. 
 
 Well,” says Saint Pathrick, he made the worst 
 bull ” 
 
 Thin,” says Paddy, intherruptin’ him in hot haste, 
 he ’s wan of ourselves — more shame for him ! Oh, wait 
 till I gets a grip of him by the scruff of the neck ! ” 
 
 “ Whisht ! I tell you ! ” says Saint Pathrick. Perhaps 
 ’t is committin’ a vaynial sin you are now, an’ if that wor 
 to come to Saint Pether’s ears, maybe he ’d clap twinty 
 years of Limbo on to you — for he ’s a hard man some- 
 times, especially if he hears of any one losin’ his timper, 
 or getting impatient at the gates. An’ moreover,” says 
 Saint Pathrick, himself an’ this Brakespeare are as thick 
 as thieves, for they both sat in the same chair below. I 
 had a hot argument wud Nick yesterday.” 
 
 Quid Nick, is it? ” says Paddy. 
 
 No,” says Saint Pathrick, laughin’. Nick Brake- 
 speare, I mane — the same indeveedual I was tellin’ you 
 about.” 
 
 I beg your reverence’s pardon,” says Paddy, an’ I 
 1 Oiddawn, kidney ; fig. back. 
 
EDMUND DOWNEY, 
 
 897 
 
 hopes you ^11 excuse my ignorance. But you wor goin’ to 
 give me an account of this hot argument you had wud the 
 bla’guard whin I put in my spoke.^’ 
 
 Begor, Saint Pathrick dhrew in his horns thin, an^ 
 fearin’ Paddy might think they wor in the habit of squab- 
 blin’ in heaven, he says, Of coorse, I meant only a frindly 
 discussion.” 
 
 An’ what was the frindly discussion about? ” axes 
 Paddy. 
 
 About this bull of his,” says Pathrick. 
 
 The mischief choke himself an’ his cattle ! ” says 
 Paddy. 
 
 Begor,” says Saint Pathrick, ’t was choked the poor 
 man was, sure enough.” 
 
 More power to the man that choked him ! ” says Paddy. 
 I hopes ye canonized him.” 
 
 ’T wasn’t a man at all,” says Saint Pathrick. 
 
 A fay male, perhaps? ” says Paddy. 
 
 Fie, fie, Paddy,” says Saint Pathrick. Come, guess 
 again.” 
 
 All, I ’m a poor hand at guessin’,” says Paddy. 
 
 Well, ’t was a blue-bottle,” says St. Pathrick. 
 
 An’ was it thryin’ to swallow the bottle an’ all he 
 was? ” says Paddy. He must have been ^ a hard case.’ ” 
 Begor, Saint Pathrick burst out laughin’ an’ says 
 he, You ’ll make your mark here, Paddy, I have no 
 doubt.” 
 
 I ’ll make my mark on them that slights your rever- 
 ence, believe me,” says Paddy. 
 
 Hush ! ” says Saint Pathrick, puttin’ his finger on 
 his lips an’ lookin’ very solemn an’ business-like. Here 
 comes Saint Pether,” he whispers, rattlin’ the kays to show 
 he was mindin’ his duties. He looks in good-humor too; 
 so it ’s in luck you are.” 
 
 I hope so, at any rate,” says Paddy; for the clouds is 
 very damp, an’ I ’m throubled greatly wud the rheumatics.” 
 
 Well, Pathrick,” says Saint Pether, cornin’ up to the 
 gates — Paddy Power could just get a sighth of the pair 
 inside through the bars of the wicket — how goes the 
 enemy? Have you had a hard day of it, my son? ” 
 
 A very hard mornin’,” says Saint Pathrick. They 
 wor flockin’ here as thick as flies at cock-crow — I mane,”- 
 
808 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 says be, gettin’ very red in the face, for he was in dbread 
 be was aftber puttin’ bis fut in it wud Saint Petber, I 
 mane just at daybreak.” 
 
 It ’s stbrange,” says Saint Petber, in a dbramey kind 
 of a way, ‘‘ but I ’ve noticed meself that there ’s often a 
 great rush of people in the airly mornin’ : often I don’t 
 know whether it ’s on my bead or my heels I do be standin’ 
 wud the noise they kicks up outside, elbowin’ wan another, 
 an’ bawlin’ at me as if it was hard of bearin’ I was.” 
 
 How did the match go? ” says Saint Patbrick, aiger to 
 divart Saint Petber’s mind from bis tbroubles. 
 
 Grand I ” says Saint Petber, brightenin’ up. “ Hurlin’ 
 is a great game. It takes all the stiffness out of my ould 
 joints. But who ’s that outside? ” catcbin’ sigbtb of Paddy 
 Power. 
 
 ‘‘ A poor fellow from Ireland,” says Saint Patbrick. 
 
 I dunno bow we ’re to find room for all these Irish- 
 men,” says Saint Petber, scratcbin’ bis bead. ’T was 
 only last week I gev ordbers to have a new wing added to 
 the Irish mansion, an’ begor I ’m towld to-day that ’t is 
 chock full already. But of coorse we must find room for 
 the poor sowls. Did this chap come via Purgatbory?” 
 say be. 
 
 No,” says Saint Patbrick. They sint him up direct.” 
 Who is be? ” says Saint Petber. 
 
 His name is Paddy Power,” says St. Patbrick. “ He 
 seems a dacent sort of craycbur.” 
 
 Where ’s be from? ” axes Saint Petber. 
 
 The parish of Portlaw,” says Saint Patbrick. 
 ‘^Portlaw!” says Saint Petber. Well, that’s 
 stbrange,” says he, rubbin’ bis chin. You know I never 
 forgets a name, but to my sartin knowledge I never beard 
 of, Portlaw before. Has he a clane record? ” 
 
 There ’s a thrifle wrong about it,” says Saint Patbrick. 
 He ’s down on the way-bill, but there are some charges 
 agen him not quite rubbed out.” 
 
 “ In that case,” says Saint Petber, we ’d best be on the 
 safe side, an’ sind him to Limbo for a spell.” 
 
 Begor, when Paddy Power beard this he nearly lost his 
 seven sinses wud the fright, so he puts his face close up 
 to the wicket, an’ be cries out in a pitiful voice — 
 
 “ O blessed Saint Petber, don’t be too hard on me. Sure 
 
EDMVND DOWt^EY. 
 
 899 
 
 even below, where the law is sthrict enough agen a poor 
 sthrugglin’ boj, they always allows him the benefit of the 
 doubt, an’ I gives you my word, yer reverence, ’t was only 
 by an accident the slate wasn’t rubbed clane. I know for 
 sartin that Father McGrath said some of the words of the 
 absolution before the life wint out of my body. Don’t 
 dhrive a helpless ould man to purgathory, I beseeches you. 
 Saint Pathrick will go bail for my good behavior, I ’ll be 
 bound ; an’ ’t is many the prayer I said to your own self 
 below ! ” 
 
 Falx, Saint Pether was touched wud the implorin’ way 
 Paddy spoke, an’ turnin’ to Saint Pathrick he says, ’T is 
 a quare case, sure enough. I don’t know that I ever re- 
 mimber the like before, an’ my memory is of the best. I 
 think we ’d do right to have a consultation over the affair 
 before we decides wan way or the other.” 
 
 Ah, give the poor angashore a chance,” says Saint 
 Pathrick. ’T is hard to scald him for an accident. Be- 
 sides,” says he, brightenin’ up as a thought sthruck him, 
 you say you never had a man before from the parish of 
 Portlaw, an’ I remimber you towld me wance that you ’d 
 like to have a represintative here from every parish in the 
 world.” 
 
 Thrue enough,” says Saint Pether; an’ maybe I’d 
 never have another chance from Portlaw.” 
 
 Maybe not,” says Saint Pathrick, humorin’ him. 
 
 So Saint Pether takes a piece of injy-rubber from his 
 waistcoat-pocket, an’ goin’ over to the enthry-book he rubs 
 out the charges agen Paddy Power. 
 
 I ’ll take it on meself,” says he, to docthor the books 
 for this wance, only don’t let the cat out of the bag on me, 
 Pathrick, my son.” 
 
 Never fear,” says Saint Pathrick. Depind your life 
 on me.” 
 
 Well, it ’s done, anyhow,” says Saint Pether, puttin’ 
 the injy-rubber back into his pocket; an’ if you hands me 
 over the kays, Pat,” says he, I ’ll relaise you for the day, 
 so that you can show your frind over the grounds.” 
 
 ’T is a grand man you are ! ” says Saint Pathrick. 
 My blessin’ on you, avid ’’ 
 
 Come in, Paddy Power,” says Saint Pether, openin’ 
 the gate ; an’ remimber always that you wouldn’t be here 
 
900 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 for majbe nine hundred an’ ninety-nine year or more only 
 that you ’re the only olfer we ever had from the Parish of 
 Portlaw.” 
 
 KING JOHN AND THE MAYOR. 
 
 I suppose it ’s well known that King John made two 
 visits to the city of Watherford. The first time he came he 
 was only a slip of a boy of about nineteen year, an’ his 
 father, who had a hard job rearin’ him (for ’t is the un- 
 mannerdly young cub he was) thought he’d kill two birds 
 wud wan stone by gettin’ rid of the prince for a short spell 
 in the first place, an’ by gettin’ the boy to make himself 
 frindly wud the Irish chiefs in the second place. 
 
 But nothin’ would suit young Masther John except di- 
 varsion an’ bla’guardin’. The moment he put his fut on 
 Irish soil he began to poke fun at the ould chieftains’ 
 beards. ’T was jealous the young jackanapes was of the 
 fine hairy faces of the crowd that met him on the quay of 
 Watherford, for divil a hair he could grow on the upper 
 part of his lip, though he was near dhraggin’ the English 
 coort into bankruptcy wud the quantities of bears’ grease 
 an’ other barbers’ thricks he thried day afther day to coax 
 out even a few morsels of a mustache. 
 
 Anyhow he made naither a good beginnin’ nor a good 
 endin’ on his first thrip to Ireland. He ate so much fresh 
 salmon that a rash broke out on him, an’ nearly dhrove 
 him to despair, for he was fond of the fay males, an’ a man 
 wud a bad rash even if he ’s a prince of the blood isn’t 
 the soort of craychur to make much headway wud the 
 girls. 
 
 He got over the rash, however, in due course; an’ built 
 an hospital in mimory of his recovery; an’ to this day it 
 stands there at the fut of John’s Hill, an’ is called the 
 
 Leper Hospital.” 
 
 As soon as he got well rid of the rash, he began to make 
 ructions in the counthry, kickin’ out the rale ould anshant 
 owners of the soil, an’ makin’ presents of what didn’t be- 
 long to him to his own follyers. Begor even owld Henery, 
 the father, got unaisy at the son’s plan of campaign, so 
 back he calls Prince John an’ puts a Misther Decoorcy ia 
 his place. 
 
EDMV^^D DOWNEY. 
 
 901 
 
 Well, time passed on, an’ when his call came, ould Hen- 
 ery the Second wint to Limbo; an’ afther a spell, the son 
 John got a howld of the throne. He had always a hank- 
 erin’ for the Watherford salmon, even afther the rash it 
 broke out on him, so as soon as he could make things snug 
 in the English coort, away he sails again for Ireland. 
 
 This time of coorse he was a full king, an’ as he was 
 several years ouldher, the Watherford people naturally 
 expected his mannei^s would have improved ; so they made 
 up their minds to forget the thricks an’ bla’guardin’ of the 
 nineteen year ould prince, an’ to give King John a hearty 
 welcome. 
 
 When the Mayor an’ Corporation heard the news that 
 the royal barge was cornin’ up the river, they put on their 
 grand robes and started down the quay. They wint out- 
 side the walls a bit until they came to a piece of slob land 
 near the mouth of a sthrame, an’ there they stud up to 
 their ankles in slush until the king’s ship hove in sighth. 
 Thin they waved a flag of welcome to his Majesty, who was 
 standin’ on deck, an’ bawled out to him to dhrop anchor 
 abreast of them. So the captain — a red-whiskered Welsh- 
 man who chawed more tobaccy than was wholesome for 
 him — puts the ship’s head in for the shore, an’ dhropped 
 anchor as soon as he got close to the slob where the Mayor 
 and Corporation wor standin’. 
 
 How are we to get ashore, boys? ” says King John, 
 makin’ a fog-horn of his fists. 
 
 Aisy, avic/’ says the Mayor. It ’s a sthrong ebb tide 
 now, an’ if you ’ll go below into your cabin the ship will 
 dhry while your clanein’ your face an’ hands an’ fixin’ the 
 crown on your poll.” 
 
 All right,” says King John. Come aboord as soon as 
 the tide laives her.” 
 
 I will,” says the Mayor. 
 
 Wud that King John went down to the cabin, an’ in 
 about half an hour the ship began to ground an’ very soon 
 afther the Mayor, not heedin’ the sighth of a fut or two 
 of wather between him an’ the king’s craft, made a start 
 to go down to her. 
 
 Howld on there, where ye are,” says he to the Corpora- 
 tion. If ye was all to come aboord maybe ’t is heel over 
 
902 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the little vessel would, for she looks a crank piece of 
 goods.’^ 
 
 All right, says the Corporation. We ^11 wait here 
 till you return, and safe journey to your worship ! 
 
 Well, whin the Mayor got on deck of coorse his boots 
 were dhrippin^ wud mud an’ wather. 
 
 Is there a door-mat aboord?” says he to the skipper. 
 Divil a wan,” says the skipper. Do you think ’t is 
 in a lady’s chamber you are? ” 
 
 You ’re an unmannerdly lot,” says the Mayor, stampin’ 
 on the decks an’ givin’ a kick out wud his left leg to shake 
 some of the wather out of his boot. 
 
 Just at that moment up comes King John from the 
 cabin, an’ a few spatthers of mud went into his royal eye. 
 
 Before the Mayor could open his mouth to ax pardon the 
 King bawls out at him, What the mischief do you mane, 
 you lubber? Will nothin’ plaize you only knockin’ the 
 sighth out of my eyes an’ dirtyin’ my decks wud your 
 muddy say-boots? ’T is more like a mud-lark than a 
 Mayor you are.” 
 
 The poor Mayor very nearly lost his timper intirely at 
 the insultin’ words of King John, for ’t was none of his 
 fault that he dirtied the decks, but he managed to conthrol 
 himself, an’ says he, I ax your majesty’s pardon for 
 bringing the mud aboord, but might I make so bowld as to 
 inquire how I could be expected to have clane boots afther 
 thrampin’ through the slush out there? An’ as for knockin’ 
 the sight out of your eyes,” says he, “ I give you me word I 
 never seen you cornin’ up the cabin stairs or I wouldn’t 
 have lashed out wud my leg.” 
 
 Give me none of your lip,” says the King. I ’d cut 
 your ugly sconce off if I thought there was a thought of 
 thraison in your mind.” 
 
 Thraison ! ” says the Mayor, mighty indignant, for 
 ’t is a proud soort of a man he was in his way. I don’t 
 know the maynin’ of the word.” 
 
 I ’ll soon tache you the maynin’ of it, you spalpeen,” 
 says the King; an’ if you don’t go down on your bended 
 knees an’ beg my pardon this minute, an’ give me your 
 note of hand for five hundred pound I ’ll dhraw your 
 teeth first for you, an’ thin I ’ll thry you for thraison, wud 
 
EDMVlsW DOWNEY. 
 
 903 
 
 meself for judge and jury, as soon as I sets fut in the 
 city.’’ 
 
 The mischief only knows what would have happened 
 thin only for a chum of the King’s who came up from the 
 cabin at that minute. 
 
 Your Majesty,” says the young lord, I think, with 
 all due respects to you, you ’re too hard agen the Mayor. 
 Sure the poor man did his best. He came aboord at the 
 risk of gettin’ a heavy cowld in his head, in ordher to 
 give you an airly welcome, an’ how could he mane thraison 
 when he ran such a risk to sarve you? ” 
 
 Maybe you ’re right,” says King John, who owed the 
 young lord a big lump of money and was partial to him 
 for other raisons too. Maybe you ’re right ; an’ I know,” 
 says he, “ that my timper is none of the best; and moreover 
 the say-sickness isn’t out of my stomach yet, bad luck to 
 it! All right,” says he, turnin’ to the Mayor, an’ spittin’ 
 on his fist. Put it there,” says King John, howldin’ out 
 his hand. 
 
 So the Mayor spit in his own fist, an’ the pair shuk 
 hands quite cordial. 
 
 All would have gone well then but for the iligant 
 beard an’ whiskers the Mayor wore. The sighth of them 
 fairly tormented King John, an’ the bla’guard broke out 
 in him again as he looked at his worship an’ saw him 
 sthrokin’ the fine silky hairs Avhich (savin’ your presence) 
 nearly shut out the view of the honest man’s stomach. 
 
 “ I ’ll take me oath ’t is a wig,” says the King to him- 
 self; “an’ faith if the wig isn’t stuck mighty fast to his 
 chin the tug I ’ll give it will soon laive it in fragments on 
 the deck.” 
 
 So the King goes over to the Mayor an’ purtended to be 
 admirin’ the beautiful goold chain his worship carried 
 round his neck, an’ while a cat would be lickin’ her ear he 
 gives the beard such an onmerciful dhrag that he tore a 
 fistful of it clane out of the dacent man’s chin. 
 
 The Mayor set up a screech — an’ small blame to him — 
 that you ’d hear from this to Mullinavat, an’ begor the 
 crowd ashore thought ’t was bein’ murdhered he was ; so 
 King John, fearin’ the Corporation might thry to sink him- 
 self an’ the ship if they knew he was afther damagin’ their 
 mayor, thought ’t was the best of his play to knuckle 
 
904 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 undlier at wance. He begs the Mayor’s pardon in a mortial 
 funk, an’ saj^s he to him, We ’d best be gettin’ ashore im- 
 majertlj the both of us.” 
 
 The poor Mayor of coorse couldn’t afford to show timper 
 agen a king, so brushin’ the scaldin’ tears off his cheek he 
 made up his mind to pocket his pride; but at the same time 
 says he to himself, “ I ’ll tache this unmannerdly cub a 
 lesson before he ’s many hours ouldher.” 
 
 All right, your majesty,” says he, aloud, to the King, 
 
 I quite agrees wud you that ’t is betther the pair of us 
 should go ashore at wance; but come here,” says he, takin’ 
 King John to the bulwarks of the ship an’ pointin’ over 
 the side. Now I ax you,” says he, how are you to get 
 ashore wud at laiste a fut of wather inside the little vessel 
 still, an’ fifty yards, more or less, of dirty soft mud fore- 
 nenst you? ” 
 
 Begcr, the King seemed puzzled at this; but he knew 
 there was no time to be lost, for the crowd ashore was be- 
 ginnin’ to grow bigger, and it was aisy to see that throuble 
 was brewin’, for a few of the quay boys were peltin’ an 
 odd pavin’-stone at the ship. I lave it to you, Misther 
 Mayor,” says he ; but whatever you do, don’t keep me 
 standin’ here in the cowld, for I have a wake chest, an’ my 
 inside is complately out of ordher afther the voyage.” 
 
 ^^Begor! ” says the Mayor, dodgin’ a box of a pavin 
 stone that came aboord that minute, I dunno what ’s 
 best to be done. You ’d get your death if you wor to 
 thramp it ashore in them patent leather boots of yours. 
 I ’ll tell you what I ’ll propose,” says he. 
 
 That ’s what I ’m waitin’ for you to do,” says the King, 
 intherruptin’ him; an’ if you don’t be quick about it, 
 maybe ’t is hit wud a stone I ’ll be, an’ in that case,” says 
 he, “ ’t will be me duty as a king to bombard the city wud 
 cannon-balls. D’ ye mind me now? ” says he, beginnin’ to 
 show timper agen. 
 
 “ I do,” says the Mayor. Sure, if you didn’t take the 
 words out of my mouth, I was goin’ to say that I ’d carry 
 you safe ashore on my OAvn two showldhers.” 
 
 Very well,” says King John; but if you wish for 
 paice an’ quietness you ’d betther stir your stumps quick, 
 for I tell you I won’t stand here to be made a cockshot of 
 by these Watherford bla’guards.” 
 
EDMUND DOWNEY, 
 
 905 
 
 Come on, thin,’’ says the Mayor. 
 
 So wud that the sailors fixed what they calls a cradle, an’ 
 a few frinds of the King lifted him up on the showlders of 
 the Mayor, an’ down the pair wor lowered into the little 
 wash of wather inside the ship. 
 
 Howld a tight grip of me now,” says the Mayor, makin’ 
 a start; “ for ’t is an onsartin sort of a journey. There ’s 
 a dale of shiftin’ sands about here, an’ if I wor to make a 
 false step or lose my bearin’s, maybe they ’d never hear of 
 your majesty again in England; p’raps ’t is swallowed up 
 in the mud the pair of us ’ud be, an’ I have a heavy family 
 dependin’ on me.” 
 
 I ’ll keep a sturdy grip,” says the King; an’ for your 
 own sake, an’ the sake of your heavy family, I ’d recom- 
 mend you to pick your steps as if ’t was threadin’ on eggs 
 you wor.” 
 
 Never fear,” says the mayor. Is the crown fixed firm 
 on your head? ” 
 
 ’T is,” says King John. 
 
 The raison I axed you,” says the Mayor, “ is that I 
 thought ’t was a thrifie too big for you. I noticed it wob- 
 blin’ about on your head afther you came up from the 
 cabin.” 
 
 Well, to tell you the thruth, an’ ’t isn’t often I do the 
 like,” says the King, I didn’t laive my measure for that 
 crown ; but I ’ve rowled a sthrip of newspaper inside the 
 rim of it, an’ it doesn’t fit at all bad now,” says he, shakin’ 
 his head, an’ fixin’ an eye-glass into his eye. 
 
 ‘‘ Did you buy it ready-made? pardon me for axin’,” says 
 the Mayor. 
 
 No,” says King John ; but it belonged to my big 
 brother, Richard.” 
 
 I ’ve heard tell of him,” says the Mayor. The ^ Lion 
 Heart’ they called him, wasn’t it?” 
 
 “It was,” says King John; “but between yerself and 
 meself ” — for he was mighty jealous of his brother, an’ 
 indeed, he hadn’t a good word to throw to a dog — “ ’t was 
 a ^ thrick ’ lion he tore the heart out of.” 
 
 “Is that so? ” says the Mayor. 
 
 “ ’T is,” says King John. “ You see,” says he, “ himself 
 an’ Blondin wor great chums intirely, an’ Blondin bein’ a 
 
 circus man — ' 
 
 o — Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
906 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I know,” intherrupted the Mayor. He crossed over 
 the Falls of Niagry on a rope, didn’t he? ” 
 
 He did,” says King John. ’T is round his neck I ’d 
 like to have had the rope, for ’t is an onaisey time of it he 
 gave meself be rescuin’ my brother. I made sure they ’d 
 cooked his goose in that Austrian castle, but nothin’ would 
 suit his chum Blondin, if you plaize, except whistlin’ some 
 of his ould circus tunes outside the walls, until the King 
 of Austria let him in. Well, Blondin brought in a thrick 
 lion wud him that he used to be showin’ off at the fairs. 
 ^ Look here,’ says he to the King of Austria, ^ that man 
 you ’re keepin’ down in the cellar is a match for a lion.’ 
 ‘ Prove it,’ says the King of Austria. ‘ I will,’ says Blon- 
 din. ‘ Well, take the muzzle off yer baste,’ says the King 
 of Austria, ^ an’ let the pair of ’em have a fair stand-up 
 fight; an’ if King Richard. bates the lion I ’ll give him his 
 liberty.’ ‘ Done ! ’ says Blondin ; so wud that he brings 
 the lion down into the cellar, an’ of coorse my brother 
 knew ’t Avas only an ould painted jackass without a tooth 
 in his head, so he makes Avan grab at the unfortunate ani- 
 mal an’ tore the heart clane out of him.” 
 
 Oh, murdher I ” says the Mayor. An’ that ’s why 
 the;^' call him the ^ Lion Heart,’ is it? ” 
 
 It is,” says King John. 
 
 An’ what ’s that they calls yerself ? ” says the Mayor, 
 who knew AA^ell that King John didn’t like to be reminded 
 of the nickname he AA^as known undher in the English 
 Coorts, an’ Avanted to take a rise out of him on the quiet. 
 
 I ’ll tell you what, my bucko,” says King John, for he 
 felt the Mayor all of a thremble undher him, an’ he knew 
 it was smotherin’ a laugh in his sleeve he was, I ’ll tell 
 you what, my bucko,” says he, “ you ’d betther give me 
 none of your sauce. Only for the onnathural way I ’m 
 placed noAv, perched up here like a canary-bird, I ’d soon 
 let you know who you wor thryin’ to poke your fun at. 
 D’ je mind me now? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Begonnies ! ” says the Mayor, ’t is no fun, I can tell 
 you, to be endeavorin’ to get safe ashore wud such a pre- 
 cious load on me shoAvlders. If yer Majesty thinks ’t is 
 for a lark I ’m carryin’ you, let me tell you that you ’re 
 intirely mistaken. Oh murdher ! ” says he, dhroppin’ on 
 wan knee, but ’t is into a boghole we are ! ” 
 
EDMUND DOWNEY. 
 
 907 
 
 Of coorse he knew there wasn’t a boghole wudin a mile 
 of him, but he wanted to divart the King’s mind from 
 what he was afther sayin’ about his nickname, for ’t is in 
 dhread he was that maybe he was carryin’ the joke too far. 
 
 Boghole!” bawls the King, nearly jumpin’ out of his 
 skin wud the fright. Let me down, you scoundhrel,” 
 says he. I see now that ’t is a thraisonable plot you have 
 agen me afther all. I wondhered why it was you worn’t 
 makin’ a sthraight coorse for the firm shore.” 
 
 An’ sure enough the Mayor had gone a dale out of his 
 road just in ordher to have a rise out of King John, to pay 
 him off for havin’ given his beard the tug. 
 
 The pair of ’em wor now standin’ close to the mouth of 
 the Pill, an’ the mud all round was as soft as butthermilk, 
 an’ the poor Mayor was more than half-way up to his 
 knees in it; but he knew every inch of the ground, an’ 
 wasn’t in the laiste danger of dhread of himself. Of coorse, 
 if King John fell from his showlders there ’ud be an end 
 of him, for he ’d rowl down into the wathers of the Pill 
 before the Mayor could have time to get a grip of him. 
 
 Go straight for the shore this minute, I command you,” 
 says the King. 
 
 The Mayor saw that his Majesty was in a fair rage, so 
 he made up his mind not to plaj' any more thricks on him 
 but to make a short cut through the mud to the Corpora- 
 tion. 
 
 Howld your grip now,” says he, givin’ the King a sud- 
 den hoist to straighten him on his back; an’ before the 
 words wor well out of his mouth oft tumbles King John’s 
 crown an’ down it rowls into the Pill. 
 
 Oh murdher ! ” says the mayor, forgettin’ himself com- 
 plately, an’ going to dhrop the King into the mud. ’T is 
 lost the crown is ! There ’s twenty fut of wather there if 
 there ’s an inch, an’ there isn’t a diver on the face of the 
 earth would take a headher into it, the wathers are that 
 filthy ! ” 
 
 What are you doin’, you ruffian? ” screams the King, 
 catchin’ a grip of the Mayor’s whisker wud wan hand an’ 
 of the goold chain wud the other. Dhrop me at the peril 
 of your life, you onnathural monsther,” says he. 
 
 ‘‘An’ what about the crown?” says the Mayor, thryin’ 
 to take the King’s fist out of his whiskers. 
 
908 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Let it go to Jericho ! ’’ says King John. 
 
 " ’T wouldn’t be the first time ’t was there, anyhow,” 
 says the Mayor, who was fond of his joke. 
 
 ’T is a quare man you are,” says King John, thryin’ to 
 smother a laugh ; but go on, 3^011 bla’guard,” says he, an’ 
 put me on dhry land at wance, an’ no more of your thricks.” 
 Never fear ! ” says the Mayor ; an’ I hopes we ’re none 
 the worst f rinds afther all ’s said an’ done.” 
 
 None the worse,” says King John, only we ’ll be 
 betther frinds as soon as you land me in a hard spot.” 
 
 So the Mayor put his best fut forward an’ in a few min- 
 utes himself an’ the King were shakin’ hands wud the Cor- 
 poration. 
 
 You ’ll catch your death of cowld,” says the Mayor to 
 King John, “ if you stand there much longer wudout your 
 crown. Have you any objection,” says he, to wearin’ my 
 hat for a spell until they have time to forge a new figure- 
 head for 3"OU? ” 
 
 Not the laiste objection in life,” says King John, fixin’ 
 the Mayor’s hat on his head. But ’t is dhry work, shakin’ 
 hands, boys,” says he, addhressin’ the crowd assembled on 
 the quay ; so the sooner we shapes our coorse for the near- 
 est shebeen the betther I ’ll like it, at any rate.” 
 
 Bravo ! ” says the Corporation, startin’ a procession 
 wud King John at the head of ’em an’ a fife an’ dhrum band 
 from Ballybricken follyin’ up in the rear. 
 
 Well, to cut a long story short. King John whin he was 
 laivin’ Watherford made a present of his borrowed caubeen 
 to the Corporation; an’ if you doubts my word you can 
 go down to the Town Hall any day an’ ax to see King 
 John’s hat, an’ the Mayor’s secrethary will show you the 
 self-same wan that King John got the loan of from the 
 ould anshent Mayor — an’ a very dilapidated speciment 
 of head gear it is too. 
 
 That ’s the true story of how King John lost his crown 
 in the wash of the Pill, as the little sthrame is called ; an’ 
 sure ’t is known as John’s Pill to this day. 
 
EDMU^S^D DOWNEY. 
 
 909 
 
 EALEIGH IN MUNSTER. 
 
 Many generations ago there appeared at the English 
 Coort a young fellow by the name of Walther Roily. He 
 was a darin’ soger an^ a darin’ navigathor, but wud all his 
 navigatin^ an^ sogerin^he could never keep his mind off 
 the money. Day an^ night he was always dhramein’ of 
 goold; an^ nothing was too hot or too heavy for him so 
 long as there was goold at the bottom of the job. Wan 
 minute he M go an^ discover a new counthry out in the 
 bowels of the unknown says, an’ another minute he ’d start 
 an’ knock the daylights out of the French army or the 
 Spanish Armady. O ! he was a darin’ man altogether an’ 
 no mistake ; but the money, as I ’ve towld you, was always 
 in his mind. 
 
 Of course he didn’t do his thravelin’ an’ sogerin’ for 
 nothing, but he found ’t wasn’t aisy at all to make a big 
 fortune, the Coort had so many pickin’s out of everything. 
 Aich an’ every man in the Coort was bustin’ wud jealousy 
 of young Walther, an’ of course they all used their enday- 
 vors to cut Roily’s share down to the lowest penny whin- 
 ever he brought a cargo of diamonds into port, or nabbed 
 a threasure-ship from the King of Spain. 
 
 Well, wan day Roily was walkin’ along the sthreets of 
 London, turnin’ over some new plan for shovelin’ in the 
 coin, whin what does he see but Eleezabeth, the Queen of 
 all England, pickin’ her steps across the road ! 
 
 ’T was a muddy day, an’ crossin’-sweepers, I ’m towld, 
 worn’t invinted in that time, so Roily, seein’ her Majesty’s 
 shoes wor rather slendher in the soles, an’ that the mud 
 was stickin’ to ’em like wax, rushes over to her, whips off 
 his cloak, an’ axes her to make a door-mat of it. Eleeza- 
 beth just looked at him for wan minute, an’ sure enough 
 she recognized him. 
 
 Roily ! ” says she, wipin’ her boots on the cloak. 
 
 The same, your Majesty, at your sarvice,” says he, 
 kneelin’ down on wan knee as if to pick up his cloak, but 
 ralely wud the intintion of remindin’ Eleezabeth that now 
 was her chance to make a knight of him aisy. 
 
 Her Majesty looks at him out undher the corners of her 
 eyes, an’ it sthruck her more than ever what a handsome 
 young chap this Roily was, an’ begor, says she to herself, 
 
910 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 he seems a rale Coort gintleman, an’ maybe I ’m doin’ 
 wrong in bein’ so bitther agen the men ” — for you must 
 know Queen Eleezabeth was teetotally opposed to mathri- 
 mony. All the single kings in Europe, an’ all the princes 
 an’ lords at her own Coort ’ud be only too aiger to lade 
 her to the althar, but she wouldn’t look at wan of ’em at 
 any price. However, this young Roily tuk her fancy all of 
 a suddint, an’ she ups wud her umbrella an’ there an’ then 
 she hits him a whack of it on the showldher, an’ says she, 
 Rise up, Sir Walther Roily — an’ call a covered car for 
 me ! ” 
 
 So Roily did as he was towld an’ he didn’t forget to pick 
 up his cloak aither. “ Send that to the wash,” says Queen 
 Eleezabeth ; an’ I ’ll see that you gets a new cloak out of 
 the royal wardrobe, for ’t was a very gintlemanly act to 
 spread it undher the soles of my feet.” 
 
 All right, your Majesty,” says Roily, openin’ the door 
 of the covered car, an’ helpin’ her into it. 
 
 Come up to the Coort,” says she, afther taytime, an’ 
 I ’ll have a talk wud you about a job that I think ’ud suit 
 you complately.” 
 
 I will,” says Roily, wud the greatest of pleasure ; an’ 
 ’t is much obliged to you I am for makin’ a knight of me.” 
 
 Don’t mintion it,” says she. An’ then the car druv off 
 towards the Palace. 
 
 The same evenin’ Roily dhresses himself in his Sunday 
 clothes, an’ fixes rings all over his fingers, an’ puts into 
 his scarf a beautiful new pin he ’d snatched out of a Span- 
 ish prince’s shirt, an’ afther oilin’ his hair, and spillin’ a 
 dhrop of scent on his han’kerchief, he starts off for the 
 Palace an’ was shown up to the Queen’s apartments. 
 
 Well, Sir Walther,” says Queen Eleezabeth, “ I ’ve 
 been makin’ enquiries about you, an’ I ’m towld you ’re on 
 the look-out for a job. Is that so? ” 
 
 It is,” says he. 
 
 What sort of a job ’ud you like? ” says she. 
 
 Anything that ’ll pay,” says he. 
 
 Did you ever hear tell of Ireland in your thravels? ” 
 axes the Queen. 
 
 I did, thin ; but at the present moment I couldn’t give 
 you the bearin’s of it, though if you axed where any part 
 
EDMVl^D DOWNEY. 
 
 911 
 
 of Afrikay or Amerikay was, I could tell you right off the 
 exact lie of it by the compass.^^ 
 
 Sthrange,’^ says she, you never ventured to Ireland ! ’’ 
 
 I ^na towld there ^s no money there, says he. 
 
 Well, there isn’t many goold mines in it,” says the 
 Queen, wud a laugh ; for we Ve been squeezin’ ’em purty 
 dhry since my ancesthor, ould Henery the Second, grabbed 
 the counthry. But wud all that,” says she, there ’s 
 dodges of makin’ money there if you only goes the right 
 way about it.” 
 
 I hear ’t is an unsettled sort of a place,” says Roily. 
 
 ’T is,” says the Queen ; an’ that ’s what I ’m dhrivin’ 
 at just now. You’re not particular what you do?” says 
 she. 
 
 No, thin,” says he. I ’m a purty hard case by this, 
 an’ if it ’s murdher you mane, I ’m the boy for flourishin’ 
 the swoord.” 
 
 Well,” says the Queen, I didn’t exactly mane that 
 whin I axed you the questhion. Are you too proud to go 
 into thrade ! ” 
 
 ’Deed, thin, I ’m not,” says Roily ; an’ if it ’s the 
 bacon thrade you mane,” says he, which I ’ve heard tell 
 is the main stay of Ireland, I ’m not at all averse to goin’ 
 into the pig line, on a royal license.” 
 
 No,” says the Queen. “ That ’s too paceful a thrade 
 for me.” 
 
 An’ what is it you ’re dhrivin’ at? ” axes Roily, seein’ 
 that her Majesty was seemin’ly afeard to come out straight 
 off wud her plan. I towld you nothing was out of my 
 line so long as I could see money at the end of it.” 
 
 “ Very well,” says the Queen. I ’ll put my plans before 
 you. I ’m advised that very little ’ud rise a rebellion agen 
 me in Munsther, so if you likes to go over an’ stir up the 
 craychurs there, you ’d have no throuble in slaughtherin’ 
 ’em.” 
 
 An’ I suppose,” says Roily, intherruptin’ her Majesty, 
 you ’d give me so much a head for the job — but where 
 does the thrade come in? ” 
 
 You ’re runnin’ away wud the story,” says she. You 
 see this is how it is. I ’ve lately come to the conclusion 
 that it ’s dangerous to go on slaughtherin’ the Irish wud- 
 out buryin’ ’em aftherwards. A pestilence is like enough 
 
912 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 to break out, an^ maybe a strong westberly win^ ^ud carry 
 that same over into this counthry; so my idaya is to put 
 all the corpses into coffins, an’ bury ’em dacently. Now 
 this is what I ’m goin’ to offer you, so pay attention. 
 Roily,” says the Queen. 
 
 I ’m doin’ that,” says he, dhrawin’ his eyebrows very 
 hard together. 
 
 Go over to Munsther,” sa^^s she, an’ I ’ll make you 
 a prisent of forty thousand acres of land.” 
 
 ‘‘ What ’s on the land? ” axes Roily. 
 
 Tember,” says she. Fine hardy threes, I ’m towld. 
 Now if you starts the Irish into a livel}^ rebellion in your 
 disthrict, you can set up a facthory an’ do the undhertakin’ 
 wholesale, for I wouldn’t ax a knight to do it by retail.” 
 
 I see,” says he, grinnin’. A nod is as good as a wink 
 to a blind horse, ma’am. An’ so it ’s an undhertaker you 
 wants to make of me? ” 
 
 It is,” says she : a Gentleman-Undhertaker.” 
 
 An’ how much will you allow me? ” axes Roily. 
 
 Two pound a coffin,” says she ; an’ the bigger the bill 
 is, the betther I ’ll like it.” 
 
 ‘‘ When ’ll I start? ” says he. 
 
 As soon as I can get the ordher made out for the forty 
 thousand acres,” answers the Queen. 
 
 You ’re sure there ’s plenty of tember on the estate? ” 
 says he. 
 
 ‘‘ Sartin,” says she. I can show you the survey of it 
 before you signs the conthract wud me.” 
 
 ’T wouldn’t pay, you know,” says he, if the wood 
 wasn’t handy.” 
 
 I know that,” says she. And now I ’ll be dismissin’ 
 you, for it ’s growin’ late, an’ I have a character to lose.” 
 
 I hope you ’ll never lose it on my account,” says Roily, 
 who had a nate way of turnin’ his words. An’ wud that he 
 makes a low bow an’ walks out of the room as graceful as 
 a dancin’-masther. 
 
 The next day, afther signin’ his conthract an’ gettin’ 
 the ordher for the forty thousand acres of land, off starts 
 Sir Walther for Ireland wud a hundred sogers to help him 
 out in the job he had in hand. lie landed afther a good 
 voyage in the harbor of Cork, an’ at wance he put matthers 
 in thrain. 
 
j^Di¥Z7iYD DOWl^EY. 
 
 913 
 
 Afther buildin’ a bit of a fort as a kind of a back-door 
 to the ocean, he tuk a jauntin’ car an’ thraveled down to 
 Youghal, where he thought he ’d make his headquarters an’ 
 start the facthory. He had some throuble in the beginnin’ 
 findin’ journeymen undhertakers, but of coorse he spun 
 a yarn to ’em about the good he ’d do the counthry by in- 
 throducin’ home-manufacture; an’ at last he got a suffi- 
 cient number of hands together, an’ thin the work began in 
 airnest. He felled the threes in all directions, an’ he got 
 up a saw-mill; an’ soon Kolly had the whole town of 
 Youghal busy, wan way or another, at the coffin thrade. 
 
 Whin all was in full swing he dhrives back to his fort, 
 an’ gives his insthructions to his men. 
 
 I ’m goin’,” says he, to take command of all the 
 throops in Cork barracks, an’ as soon as they ’re ready, 
 then I ’ll order ’em out of the city an’ get ’em to scour the 
 Province of Munsther clane. There ’s a dale of varmint in 
 the shape of natives gathered together in parts of the 
 counthry, an’ we ’ll massacray ’em so far as we can. Now 
 to all ye that I brought wud me I have this advice to give : 
 don’t put yerselves into danger. Let the other throops 
 have the first go-in at the inemy, an’ when they ’re done 
 wud ’em, let ye finish ’em off complately, for of coorse 
 there ’ll be a dale of ’em only half kilt. We ’re partly on a 
 paceful mission here, an’ thrade is what we ’re lookin’ for, 
 not glory. The hundhred of ye must get up a conthrivance 
 for cartin’ the corpses to the facthory in Youghal, where 
 we ’ll put ’em into good conthract coffins an’ give ’em a 
 dacent bury in’. I was towld yestherday,” says he, that 
 at a neighborin’ fort there was a crowd of Tallyans, an’ 
 I intinds to have the first thry at the furriners, by way of 
 practice.” 
 
 Well, in the coorse of a week Roily got things into 
 shape, an’ out he marches, with the fightin’ throops in the 
 front an’ the thradin’ throops in the rear, agen this fort 
 tlie Tallyans wor howldin.’ The poor craychurs of fur- 
 riners, men, women, an’ childer, whin they saw the great 
 army bearin’ down on ’em, sent a flag of thruce up to the 
 mast-head of the fort an’ axed for a parlez-vous, but dick- 
 ens a parlez-vous Roily would give ’em, an’ while you ’d 
 be lookin’ about you, he had the whole place sthrewn wud 
 corpses ; an’ when the front army got tired of massacrayin’ 
 
914 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 the furriners, his own hundhred men went in, just as he 
 had towld ^em, and finished off the wounded. 
 
 Six hundhred corpses they gothered up that day an^ 
 carted into Youghal; an’ Roily was in high feather as he 
 stood at the facthory gate tallyin’ the coffins as they wor 
 carried out an’ heaved into a neighborin’ thrench. 
 
 I ’ll make a clane five hundhred pound on that job,” 
 says he. If I can keep up this game, I ’ll soon be able to 
 write home.” 
 
 An’ sure enough, keep it up he did, an’ the facthory was 
 in full swing for a long spell; an’ then he bethought him 
 that Queen Eleezabeth ’ud like to hear how he was gettin’ 
 on, so, bein’ a great hand at the pen, he sat down wan day 
 an’ sent her otf a long letther, which to the best of my 
 memory was written this way : — 
 
 May it plaize your Majesty, Queen Eleezabeth. 
 
 I write these few lines, hopin’ they will find you in 
 good liealth, as this laives me at prisent. 
 
 I ’m gettin’ on grand here. I suppose the head-clerk 
 of your Coort has towld you that I ’m billin’ him for a 
 thousand coffins a week on the average. I ’m sorry to say 
 there isn’t as much profit on the job as I expected, an’ I ’m 
 sadly afeard my foreman is chaytin’ me on the putty ac- 
 count, but if I only catches him playin’ thricks on me, you 
 may depind I ’ll include him in the coffin bill purty quick. 
 He ’s a native of these parts, an’ ’t isn’t clear to me he isn’t 
 risin’ a rebellion among the facthory hands agen me. 
 
 This is a mighty poor counthry. I ’ve prodded it in all 
 parts for goold an’ diamonds, but there isn’t as much as a 
 scuttle of coal to be found anywhere in it. 
 
 I met a man the other day that lives over beyant here, 
 by the name of Spinser. He tells me yerself an’ himself 
 knows aich other, an’ often I rides over to his place in the 
 cool of the evenin’, an’ we haves a talk over the gay doin’s 
 at the London Coort. He ’s writin’ a long ballad now, an’ 
 between ourselves he nearly dhrives me crazy at times 
 dhronin’ long rigmaroles of his own writin’ into my ears; 
 but I ’m goin’ to have my revinge agen him wan of these 
 fine days by bringin’ over a ballad I ’m writin’ meself, an’ 
 maybe when he ’s had a few hours of it he ’ll come to his 
 sinses. 
 
EDMV^W DOWNEY. 
 
 915 
 
 An^ now I ’ll be sayin’ good by, so no more at prisent 
 from your faithful Undhertaker, 
 
 Sir Walther Rolly. 
 
 P. S. — If things goes on as they promise, I ’ll have to 
 start a gas-ingine here purty soon.” 
 
ELLEN MARY PATRICK DOWNING. 
 
 (1828—1869.) 
 
 Ellen Downing, known as “ Mary of The Nation,^' was born in 
 Cork, March 19, 1828. She first wrote over her initials, and after- 
 ward signed her verses “Mary.” She contributed also to The 
 United Irishman and to The Corh Magazine. She ‘ ‘ formed an at- 
 tachment,” writes Mr. A. M. Sullivan, “to one of the ‘ Young Ire- 
 land ’ writers. In Forty-eight he became a fugitive. Alas ! in 
 foreign climes he learned to forget home vows. Mary sank under 
 the blow. She put by the lyre, and in utter seclusion from the 
 world lingered for a while ; but ere long the spring flowers blossomed 
 on her grave.” She died in a convent, where she had taken the 
 name of Sister Mary Alphonsus, in 1869. 
 
 Her poems are simple and graceful, and many of them full of 
 devout feeling. 
 
 Only two collections of them have been published : ‘ Voices of 
 the Heart ’ and ‘ Poems for Children .’ 
 
 MY OWEN. 
 
 Proud of you, fond of you, clinging so near to you, 
 
 Light is my heart now I know I am dear to you ! 
 
 Glad is my voice now, so free it may sing to you 
 All the wild love that is burning within for you ! 
 
 Tell me once more, tell it over and over. 
 
 The tale of that eve that first saw you my lover. 
 
 Now I need never blush 
 At my heart’s hottest gush ; 
 
 The wife of my Owen her heart may discover. 
 
 Proud of you, fond of you, having all right in you ! 
 Quitting all else through my love and delight in you ! 
 
 Glad is my heart, since ’t is beating so nigh to you ! 
 
 Light is my step, for it always may fly to you ! 
 
 Clasped in your arms, v here no sorrow can reach to me, 
 Reading your eyes till new love they shall teach to me, 
 Though wild and weak till now, 
 
 By that blessed marriage vow. 
 
 More than the wisest know your heart shall preach to me. 
 
 TALK BY THE BLACKWATER. 
 
 Faint are the breezes, and pure is the tide. 
 Soft is the sunshine, and you by my side ; 
 916 
 
ELLEN MARY PATRICK DOWNINC. 
 
 is just such an evening to dream of in sleep; 
 
 ’T is just such a joy to remember and weep; 
 
 Never before since you called me your own 
 Were you, I, and nature so proudly alone — 
 Cushlamachree, A is blessed to be 
 
 All the long summer eve talking to thee. 
 
 Dear are the green banks we wander upon ; 
 
 Dear is our own river, glancing along; 
 
 Dearer the trust that as tranquil will be 
 The tides of the future for you and for me ; 
 
 Dearest the thought, that, come weal or come woe. 
 Through storm or through sunshine together they ’ll flOTV 
 Cushlamachree, ’t is blessed to be 
 
 All the long summer eve thinking of thee. 
 
 Yon bark o’er the waters, how swiftly it glides ! 
 
 My thoughts cannot guess to what haven it rides ; 
 
 As little I know what the future brings near; 
 
 But our bark is the same, and I harbor no fear; 
 Whatever our fortunes, our hearts will be true; 
 Wherever the stream flows ’t will bear me with you — 
 Cushlamachree, ’t is blessM to be 
 
 Summer and winter time clinging to thee. 
 
JAMES WARREN DOYLE. 
 
 ( 1786 — 1834 .) 
 
 Dr. Doyle, “ the incomparable J. K. L.,” as Matthew Arnold 
 called him, was born in 1786 in the town of New Ross, County Wex- 
 ford. His father died when he was quite young, leaving his mother 
 in poverty. When he was eleven years old he watched from be- 
 hind a hedge the battle of New Ross. In 1800, he was placed under 
 the care of the Rev. John Crane, an Augustine monk. With him 
 he spent two years, and in 1805 entered the convent of Granstown, 
 near Carnsore Point in Wexford, where in 1806 he took the vows. 
 He afterward studied for two years in the University of Coimbra 
 in Portugal. 
 
 While there he was called upon to take part in the Peninsular 
 war, and, being acquainted with the Portuguese language, was em- 
 ployed by Sir Arthur Wellesley as confidential agent and to com- 
 municate with the Portuguese government. In this capacity Doyle 
 acquitted himself well, and after the defeat of the French the 
 Portuguese government recognized his diplomatic talent and re- 
 ceived him with honor at court. Brilliant prospects were also held 
 out to induce him to embrace a political career, but he remained 
 firm to his original purpose of devoting himself to the ministry. 
 
 He returned to Ireland in 1808, and was ordained a priest. After 
 about three years in his convent his learning and ability became 
 known, and he was appointed in 1813 professor of rhetoric and 
 afterward of theology in Carlow College. An anecdote is related 
 in connection with his appointment. He was introduced to Dean 
 Staunton, the President. “What can you teach?” inquired the 
 Dean. “Anything,” replied Doyle, “from A B C to the ‘ Third 
 Book of Canon Law.’ ” The President did not altogether like the 
 confidence of the answer, and he rejoined : “ Pray, young man, 
 can you teach and practice humility?” “I trust I have at least 
 the humility to feel,” answered Doyle, “ that the more I read the 
 more I see how ignorant I have been, and how little can at best be 
 known.” The President was so struck with the reply that he mused, 
 “You ’ll do.” 
 
 In 1819 he was nominated to the bishopric of Kildare and Leigh- 
 lin. The election was confirmed at Rome, and, although he was a 
 very young man to be a bishop, his force of character and personal 
 attention to his various parishes soon brought about a wonderful 
 reformation of the abuses that existed in many of them. 
 
 Over the signature of “ J. K. L.” (James of Kildare and Leigh- 
 lin) he wrote eloquent letters in defense of his Church, aided in the 
 circulation of the Bible, and advocated strongly the union of the 
 Churches of Rome and England, in preference to the Repeal, which 
 was then being agitated for. His letters on this subject caused a 
 great sensation at the time, coming, as they did, from a Roman 
 Catholic bishop. He was also a great advocate for a united system 
 
 918 
 
JAMES WARRE^^ DOYLE. 
 
 919 
 
 of education very similar to the Irish national system of education 
 of the present day. In 1822 he opposed the veto ; and in 1824 his 
 statesmanlike abilities and deep knowledge of Irish affairs as shown 
 in his political writings was so widely recognized that he was sum- 
 moned to attend before a committee of the Lords and Commons to 
 be examined relative to the state of affairs in Ireland. At this time 
 the Duke of Wellington was asked by some one if they were ex- 
 amining Doyle. He replied, “ No, but Doyle is examining us.” 
 
 His evidence, given during several days, was so much appreciated, 
 and excited so much gratitude among his countrj^men, that on his 
 return a residence about a mile from Carlow was purchased and 
 presented to him as a token of their esteem. In 1825 he wrote 
 twelve letters on the state of Ireland, followed by a letter addressed 
 to Lord Liverpool on Catholic claims. For years he continued the 
 eloquent champion of these claims, and proved they might be 
 defended both logically and reasonably, an entirely new revelation 
 for the majority of Englishmen and Protestants. 
 
 His consistent self-denial and anxious labor of mind and body 
 told heavily upon him ; and when he died, June 16, 1834, aged only 
 forty-eight years, his appearance was more that of an old man 
 than of one in the prime of life. His remains were interred in the 
 central aisle of the Cathedral of Carlow, which he had built, and the 
 funeral was attended by more than twenty thousand people. His 
 last literary work was a preface to Butler’s ‘ Lives of the Saints.’ 
 
 ‘ The Life, Times, and Correspondence of Dr. Doyle,’ by Mr. Fitz- 
 patrick, is an admirable and discriminating biography and a graphic 
 picture of the times in which the eloquent prelate lived. 
 
 THE TRUE FRIENDS OF THE POOR AND THE 
 
 AFFLICTED. 
 
 A PICTURE OF SUFFERING IRELAND. 
 
 From ‘ Letters on the State of Ireland.’ 
 
 I am laboring as the advocate of the poor, of the unpro- 
 tected, and of the distressed. I can ask with Cicero how 
 could I fail to be interested in the general agitation of 
 religious and political, civil and ecclesiastical interests; 
 or how could I be insensible to the generous impulse 
 of our nature? St. Paul himself exclaims: Quis infir- 
 
 matur et ego non infirmor^ qiiis scandilizatur et ego non 
 uror.” In every nation a clergyman is separated from 
 society only that he may labor the more efficiently for his 
 fellow-men, and his duty of administering to their tem- 
 poral wants is not less pressing than that of devoting him- 
 
920 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 self to their spiritual concerns. The one ought to be done 
 by him, and the other ought not to be neglected. 
 
 There are times and circumstances when he is justified, 
 nay, when he is obliged, to mix with his fellow-countrymen, 
 and to suspend his clerical functions whilst he discharges 
 those of a member of society. I myself have once been 
 placed in such circumstances, and devoted many a labo- 
 rious hour to the service of a people engaged in the defense 
 of their rights and liberties. The clerical profession exalts 
 and strengthens the natural obligation we are all under 
 of laboring for our country’s welfare; and the priests and 
 prophets of the old law have not only announced and ad- 
 ministered the decrees of Heaven, but have aided by their 
 counsel and their conduct the society to which Providence 
 attached them. In the Christian dispensation priests and 
 bishops have greatly contributed to the civilization and 
 improvement of mankind; they have restrained ambition, 
 they have checked turbulence, they have enlightened the 
 councils of kings, and infused their own wisdom into 
 laws and public institutions. Arts and sciences are their 
 debtors ; history and jurisprudence have been cultivated by 
 them. They have been the teachers of mankind, and have 
 alone been able to check the insolence of power, or plead 
 before it the cause of the oppressed. 
 
 The clergy of the Catholic Church have been accused of 
 many faults; but in no nation or at no time — not even by 
 the writers of the reign of Henry the Eighth — have they 
 been charged with betraying this sacred trust, or embez- 
 zling the property of the poor. In Ireland, above all, where 
 their possessions were immense, their hearts were never 
 corrupted by riches; and, whether during the incursions 
 of the Danes, or the civil wars, or foreign invasions, which 
 desolated the country, it was the clergy who repaired the 
 ravages that were committed, rebuilt cities and churches, 
 restored the fallen seats of literature, gave solemnity to 
 the divine worship, and opened numberless asylums for the 
 poor. Whilst Ireland, though a prey to many evils, was 
 blessed with such a clergy, her poor required no extraor- 
 dinary aid; the heavenly virtue of charity was seen to 
 walk unmolested over the ruins of towns and cities, to 
 collect the wanderer, to shelter the houseless, to support 
 the infirm, to clothe the naked, and to minister to every 
 
JAMES WARREN DOYLE. 
 
 921 
 
 species of human distress ; but “ fuit Ilium et ingens gloria 
 Dardanidum! ” 
 
 When the ancient religion was expelled from her pos* 
 sessions, and another inducted in her place, the church 
 and the hospital and the cabin of the destitute became 
 alike deserted, or fell into utter ruin. This change, with 
 the others which accompanied or followed after it, in 
 Ireland threw back all our social and religious institutions 
 into what is generally called a state of nature — a state, 
 such as Hobbes describes it, in which men are always arm- 
 ing or engaged in war. Clergymen, so-called, still ap- 
 peared amongst their fellow-men, but they were no longer 
 of the seed of those by whom salvation had been wrought 
 in Israel they did not consider it a portion of their duty 
 to be employed in works of mercy, or to devote the prop- 
 erty which had passed into their hands to those sacred 
 purposes for which it was originally destined. They were 
 like the generality of mankind, solely intent on individual 
 gain, or the support or aggrandizement of their families, 
 but totally regardless of those sublime virtues or exalt- 
 ed charities which the Gospel recommends. They found 
 themselves vested with a title to the property of the poor ; 
 they did not stop to inquire whether they held it in trust; 
 there was no friend to humanity who would impeach them 
 for abuse, and they appropriated all, everything to which 
 they could extend their rapacious grasp. The churches 
 were suffered to decay, and the spacious cloister or tower- 
 ing dome through which the voice of prayer once resound- 
 ed became for a while the resort of owls and bats, till time 
 razed their foundations and mixed up their ruins with the 
 dust. The poor were cast out into the wilderness, and 
 left, like Ishmael, to die; whilst Ireland, like the afflicted 
 mother of the rejected child, cast her last sad looks towards 
 them, and then left them to perish. These men ate the 
 milk, and clothed themselves with the wool, and killed 
 that which was fat; but the flock they did not feed, the 
 weak they did not strengthen, and that which was sick 
 they did not heal, neither did they seek for that which was 
 lost; but they ruled over them with rigor and with a high 
 hand.’’ They could not be blamed; they had a title and 
 a calling different from their predecessors; and the state. 
 
922 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 from which they derived their commission, could not in- 
 fuse into them virtues which can only emanate from Christ. 
 
 The evidence already given to Parliament shows that 
 the average wages of a laboring man in Ireland (and a 
 great mass of the poor are laborers) is worth scarcely 
 THREEPENCE A DAY ! Threepence ^ a day for such as obtain 
 employment, whilst in a family where one or two persons 
 are employed there may be four, perhaps six, others de- 
 pendent on these two for their support! Good God! an 
 entire family to be lodged, clothed, fed, on threepence a 
 day! Less than the average price of a single stone of 
 potatoes ; equal only to the value of a single quart of oat- 
 meal! What further illustration can be required? Why 
 refer to the nakedness, to the hunger of individuals? Why 
 speak of parishes receiving extreme unction before they ex- 
 pired of hunger? Why be surprised at men feeding on 
 manure; of contending with the cattle about the weeds; 
 of being lodged in huts and sleeping on the clay ; of being 
 destitute of energy, of education, of the virtues or qualities 
 of the children of men? Is it not clear, is it not evident, 
 that the great mass of the poor are in a state of habitual 
 famine, the prey of every mental and bodily disease? Why 
 are we surprised at the specters who haunt our dwellings, 
 whose tales of distress rend our hearts — at the distracted 
 air and incoherent language of the wretched father who- 
 starts from the presence of his famished wife and children, 
 and gives vent abroad in disjointed sounds to the agony of 
 his soul? 
 
 How often have I met and labored to console such a 
 father! How often have I endeavored to justify to him 
 the ways of Providence, and check the blasphemy against 
 Heaven which was already seated on his tongue! How 
 often have I seen the visage of youth, which should be red 
 with vigor, pale and emaciated, and the man who had 
 scarcely seen his fortieth year withered like the autumn 
 leaf, and his face furrowed with the wrinkles of old age! 
 How often has the virgin, pure and spotless as the snow of 
 heaven, detailed to me the miseries of her family, her own 
 destitution, and sought through the ministry of Christ for 
 some supernatural support whereby to resist the allure- 
 ments of the seducer and to preserve untainted the dearest 
 
 ^ About five cents. 
 
JAMES WARREN DOYLE.. 
 
 923 
 
 virtue of her soul ! But above all, how often have I viewed 
 with my eyes, in the person of the wife and of the widow, 
 of the aged and the orphan, the aggregate of all the misery 
 which it was possible for human nature to sustain! And 
 how often have these persons disappeared from my eyes, 
 returned to their wretched abode, and closed in the cold 
 embrace of death their lives and their misfortunes ! What 
 light can be shed on the distresses of the Irish poor by 
 statements of facts when their notoriety and extent are 
 known throughout the earth? 
 
 But Ireland, always unhappy, always oppressed, is re- 
 viled when she complains, is persecuted when she struggles ; 
 her evils are suffered to corrode her, and her wrongs are 
 never to be redressed ! We look to her pastures, and they 
 teem with milk and fatness ; to her fields, and they are cov- 
 ered with bread ; to her fiocks, and they are as numerous as 
 the bees which encircle the hive ; to her ports, they are safe 
 and spacious; to her rivers, they are deep and navigable; 
 to her inhabitants, they are industrious, brave^ and intelli- 
 gent as any people on earth ; to her position on the globe, 
 and she seems to be intended as the emporium of wealth, 
 as the mart of universal commerce; and yet, . . . but no, 
 we will not state the causes, they are obvious to the sight 
 and to the touch ; it is enough that the mass of her children 
 are the most wretched of any civilized people on the globe. 
 
WILLIAM DRENNAN. 
 
 (1754—1820.) 
 
 Dr. Drennan, who first gave Ireland the name of “ The Emerald 
 Isle,” was born in Belfast in 1754. He studied medicine in the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh ; took his degree of M.D. in 1778, practiced 
 for some years in Belfast and Newry, and removed to Dublin in 
 1789. He became one of the ablest writers in favor of the United 
 Irishmen movement, and his ‘ Letters of Orellana ’ had much to 
 do in getting Ulster to join the League. 
 
 In 1794 he and Mr. Rowan were put on trial for issuing the 
 famous Address of the United Irishmen to the Volunteers of Ire- 
 land. Curran defended Rowan, who however was fined in £500 
 ($2,500) and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, while Dren- 
 nan, who was the real writer of the paper, had the good fortune to 
 be acquitted. He afterward removed to Belfast, where he com- 
 menced The Belfast Magazine. In 1815 he issued a little volume 
 entitled ‘ Glendalough, and other Poems,’ which is now very rare. 
 He died in February, 1820. 
 
 Mr. D. J. O’Donoghue, in ‘ A Treasury of Irish Poetry,’ considers 
 his verses “ perhaps rhetoric rather than poetry, but the rhetoric 
 is always strong and sincere.” They are certainly vigorous and 
 graceful ; and his hymns possess much of beauty. Moore is said 
 to have esteemed ‘ When Erin First Rose ’ the most perfect of mod- 
 ern songs. His ‘ Wake of William Orr’ electrified the nation or. 
 its appearance, and did more hurt to the Government than the loss 
 of a battle. Mr. O’Donoghue considers it his best piece. 
 
 ERIN. 
 
 When Erin first rose from the dark swelling flood 
 God blessed the green Island, and saw it was good; 
 
 The ein’rald of Europe, it sparkled and shone — 
 
 In the ring of the world the most precious stone. 
 
 In her sun, in her soil, in her station thrice blest, 
 
 With her back towards Britain, her face to the West, 
 
 Erin stands proudly insular on her steep shore. 
 
 And strikes her high harp ^mid the ocean’s deep roar. 
 
 But when its soft tones seem to mourn and to weep, 
 
 The dark chain of silence is thrown o’er the deep; 
 
 At the thought of the past the tears gush from her eyes 
 And the pulse of her heart makes her white bosom rise. 
 
 Oh ! sons of green Erin, lament o’er the time 
 When religion was war and our country a crime; 
 
 When man in God’s image inverted His plan. 
 
 And moulded his God in the image of man ; 
 
 924 
 
WILLIAM DREHHAII. 
 
 925 
 
 When the interest of State wrought the general woe, 
 
 The stranger a friend and the native a foe; 
 
 While the mother rejoiced o’er her children oppressed 
 And clasped the invader more close to her breast ; 
 
 When with Pale for the body and Pale for the soul, 
 Church and State joined in compact to conquer the whole, 
 And, as Shannon was stained with Milesian blood, 
 
 Eyed each other askance and pronounced it was good. 
 
 By the groans that ascend from your forefathers’ grave 
 For their country thus left to the brute and the slave. 
 Drive the demon of Bigotry home to his den, 
 
 And where Britain made brutes now let Erin make men. 
 Let my sons, like the leaves of the shamrock, unite — 
 
 A partition of sects from one footstalk of right; 
 
 Give each his full share of the earth and the sky. 
 
 Nor fatten the slave where the serpent would die. 
 
 Alas ! for poor Erin that some are still seen 
 Who would dye the grass red from their hatred to Green : 
 Yet, oh! when you’re up and they’re down, let them live, 
 Then yield them that mercy which they would not give. 
 Arm of Erin, be strong ! but be gentle as brave ! 
 
 And, uplifted to strike, be as ready to save ! 
 
 Let no feeling of vengeance presume to defile 
 The cause or the men of the Emerald Isle. 
 
 The cause it is good, and the men they are true. 
 
 And the Green shall outlive both the Orange and Blue! 
 And the triumphs of Erin her daughters shall share 
 With the full swelling chest and the fair flowing hair. 
 Their bosom heaves high for the worthy and brave. 
 
 But no coward shall rest in that soft-swelling wave. 
 
 Men of Erin ! awake, and make haste to be blest ! 
 
 Rise, Arch of the Ocean and Queen of the West ! 
 
 THE WAKE OF WILLIAM ORR. 
 
 There our murdered brother lies; 
 
 Wake him not with woman’s cries; 
 Mourn the way that manhood ought — 
 Sit in silent trance of thought. 
 
926 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Write his merits on your mind ; 
 Morals pure and manners kind ; 
 
 In his head, as on a hill, 
 
 Virtue placed her citadel. 
 
 Why cut off in palmy youth? 
 
 Truth he spoke, and acted truth. 
 
 Countrymen, unite,^^ he cried. 
 
 And died for what our Saviour died, 
 
 God of peace and God of love! 
 
 Let it not Thy vengeance move — • 
 
 Let it not Thy lightnings draw — 
 
 A nation guillotined by law. 
 
 Hapless Nation, rent and torn, 
 
 Thou wert early taught to mourn; 
 Warfare of six hundred years! 
 
 Epochs marked with blood and tears! 
 
 Hunted thro’ thy native grounds. 
 
 Or dung reward to human hounds. 
 Each one pulled and tore his share, 
 Heedless of thy deep despair. 
 
 Hapless Nation! hapless Land! 
 
 Heap of uncementing sand! 
 
 Crumbled by a foreign weight: 
 
 And by worse, domestic hate. 
 
 God of mercy! God of peace! 
 
 Make this mad confusion cease; 
 
 O’er the mental chaos move. 
 
 Through it speak the light of love. 
 
 Monstrous and unhappy sight! 
 Brothers’ blood will not unite; 
 
 Holy oil and holy water 
 
 Mix, and fill the world with slaughter. 
 
 Who is she with aspect wild? 
 
 The widowed mother with her child — 
 Child new stirring in the womb ! 
 Husband waiting for the tomb! 
 
WILLIAM DRE^AlSf. 
 
 927 
 
 Angel of this sacred place, 
 
 Calm her soul and whisper peace — 
 Cord, or axe, or guillotine. 
 
 Make the sentence — not the sin. 
 
 Here we watch our brother’s sleep: 
 Watch with us, but do not weep: 
 Watch with us thro’ dead of night — 
 But expect the morning light. 
 
 Conquer fortune — persevere ! — 
 
 Lo! it breaks, the morning clear! 
 
 The cheerful cock awakes the skies, 
 The day is come — arise! — arise! 
 
WILLIAM DRENNAN, JR. 
 (1802—1873.) 
 
 Mr. Drennan, the son of Dr. Drennan, was born in Dublin in 1802 
 and was graduated fr^m Trinity College in 1823. His famous bal- 
 lad ‘ The Battle of Beal-an-atha-buidh ’ was published in The Nation 
 in 1843 without a name, but it is included in the volume entitled 
 ‘ Glendalloch and other Poems,’ which was published in 1850. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BEAL-AN-ATHA-BUIDH.i 
 11598. 
 
 By O’Neill close beleaguered, the spirits might droop 
 Of the Saxon — three hundred shut up in their coop, 
 
 Till Bagenal drew forth his Toledo, and swore. 
 
 On the sword of a soldier to succor Portmore. 
 
 His veteran troops, in the foreign wars tried — 
 
 Their features how bronzed, and how haughty their stride — 
 
 Stept steadily on; it was thrilling to see 
 
 That thunder-cloud brooding o’er BEAL-AN-ATHA-BUIDH. 
 
 The flash of their armor, inlaid with fine gold, — 
 
 Gleaming matchlocks and cannons that mutteringly rolled — 
 With the tramp and the clank of those stern cuirassiers. 
 
 Dyed in the blood of the Flemish and French cavaliers. 
 
 And are the mere Irish, with pikes and with darts — 
 
 With but glib-covered heads, and but rib-guarded hearts — 
 Half-naked, half-fed, with few muskets, no guns — 
 
 The battle to dare against England’s stout sons? 
 
 Poor Bonnochts,^ and wild Gallowglasses, and Kern — 
 
 Let them war with rude brambles, sharp furze, and dry fern; 
 Wirrastriie ^ for their wives — for their babies ochaniei^ 
 
 If they wait for the Saxon at BEAL-AN-ATHA-BUIDH. 
 
 Yet O’Neill standeth firm — few and brief his commands — 
 Ye have hearts in your bosoms, and pikes in your hands ; 
 
 ^ Beal-an-atha-huidh literally means the Mouth of the Yellow Ford, 
 and is pronounced Beal-un-ath-hiiie. 
 
 2 Bonnocht^ a billeted soldier. 
 
 3 Wirrastrue {A Mhuire as truagh), Oh ! Mary, what sorrow I 
 ^ Ochanie — oclioney woe. 
 
 928 
 
WILLIAM DRENAAA, JR. 
 
 929 
 
 Try how far ye can push them, my children, at once ; 
 Fag-a-Bealach! ^ — and down with horse, foot, and great guns. 
 
 They have gold and gay arms — they have biscuit and bread; 
 Now, sons of my soul, we ’ll be found and be fed ; ” 
 
 And he clutched his claymore, and — looli' yonder,” laughed 
 he, 
 
 Vrhat a grand commissariat for BEAL-AN-ATHA-BUIDH.’^ 
 
 Near the chief, a grim tyke, an O’Shanaghan stood, 
 
 His nostrils dilated seemed snuffing for blood; 
 
 Rough and ready to spring, like the wiry wolf-hound 
 Of lern^, who, tossing his pike vrith a bound, 
 
 Cried, My hand to the Sassenach ! ne’er may I hurl 
 Another to earth if I call him a churl ! 
 
 He finds me in clothing, in booty, in bread — 
 
 My Chief, won’t O’Shanaghan give him a bed?” 
 
 Land of Owen, aboo ! ” and the Irish rushed on — 
 
 The foe fired but one volley — their gunners are gone; 
 
 Before the bare bosoms the steel-coats have fled, 
 
 Or, despite casque or corslet, lie dying and dead. 
 
 And brave Harry Bagenal, he fell while he fought 
 With many gay gallants — they slept as men ought; 
 
 Their faces to Heaven — there were others, alack ! 
 
 By pikes overtaken, and taken aback. 
 
 And my Irish got clothing, coin, colors, great store. 
 
 Arms, forage, and provender — plunder go leor! 2 
 They munched the white manchets — they champed the brown 
 chine, 
 
 Fiiilleluah! ^ for that day, how the natives did dine! 
 
 The Chieftain looked on, when O’Shanaghan rose. 
 
 And cried, Hearken, O’Neill ! I ’ve a health to propose — • 
 
 ‘ To our Sassenach hosts ’ ” and all quaffed in huge glee. 
 
 With Cead mile failte go ^ BEAL-AN-ATHA-BUIDH ! 
 
 ^ Fag-a-Bealach, clear the vray. 
 
 2 Go leor, in abundance. ® Fidlleluah, joyous exclamation. 
 
 ^ Cead mile failte go, a hundred thousand welcomes to. 
 
 7— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
WILLIAM HAMILTON DRUMMOND. 
 
 ( 1778 — 1865 .) 
 
 William Hamilton Drummond was born at Larne, County Antrim, 
 in 1778. He was educated at Belfast Academy under James Crom- 
 bie. Later he entered Glasgow College to study for the ministry, 
 but he was too poor to finish his course. He did, however, study 
 by himself and entered the Church. He taught or preached 
 throughout his life. 
 
 He was a member of the Roj^al Irish Academy and one of the 
 first members of the Belfast Literary Society. He took a scholarly 
 interest in Celtic literature. In mature life he became a polemic, 
 and his writings are noted for sharpness and vivacity. Of these 
 his essay on the ‘ Doctrine of the Trinity ’ is the best. He wrote 
 much poetry, including the ‘ Battle of Trafalgar ’ and ‘ The Giant’s 
 Causeway,’ also a work on ancient Irish minstrelsy. He died in 
 1865. 
 
 ODE WRITTEN ON LEAVING IRELAND. 
 
 From the Irish of Gerald Nugent. 
 
 What sbrrow wrings my bleeding heart, 
 
 To flee from Innisfail ! 
 
 Oh, anguish from her scenes to part, 
 
 Of mountain, wood, and vale ! 
 
 Vales that the hum of bees resound, 
 
 And plains where generous steeds abound. 
 
 While wafted by the breeze’s wing, 
 
 I see fair Fintan’s shore recede. 
 
 More poignant griefs my bosom wring, 
 
 The farther eastward still I speed. 
 
 With Erin’s love my bosom warms, 
 
 No soil but hers for me has charms. 
 
 A soil enriched with verdant bowers. 
 
 And groves with mellow fruits that teem; 
 
 A soil of fair and fragrant flowers. 
 
 Of verdant turf and crystal stream : 
 
 Rich plains of Ir, that bearded corn. 
 
 And balmy herbs, and shrubs adorn. 
 
 A land that boasts a pious race, 
 
 A land of heroes brave and bold ; 
 
 930 
 
WILLIAM HAiMILTON DRUMMOND. 
 
 931 
 
 Enriched with every female grace 
 
 Are Banba’s maids with locks of gold. 
 
 Of men, none with her sons comxmre; 
 
 No maidens with her daughters fair. 
 
 If Heaven, propitious to my vow, 
 
 Grant the desire with which I burn, 
 
 Again the foamy deep to plow. 
 
 And to my native shores return ; 
 
 ‘‘ Speed on,’’ 1 ’ll cry, my galley fleet, 
 
 Nor e’er the crafty Saxon greet.” 
 
 No perils of the stormy deep 
 
 I dread — yet sorrow wounds my heart; 
 
 To leave thee, Leogaire’s fort, I weep ; 
 From thee, sweet Delvin, must I part! 
 
 Oh ! hard the task — oh ! lot severe. 
 
 To flee from all my soul holds dear. 
 
 Farewell, ye kind and generous bards. 
 Bound to my soul by friendship strong; 
 
 And ye Dundargvais’ happy lands. 
 
 Ye festive halls — ye sons of song; 
 
 Ye generous friends in Meath who dwell, 
 
 Beloved, adored, farewell ! farewell ! 
 
LADY DUFFERIN. 
 
 ( 1807 — 1867 .) 
 
 Helen Selina Sheridan was born in 1807. She was the eldest 
 daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and granddaughter of Richard 
 Brinsley Sheridan. She was brought up with her sisters, the Hon- 
 orable Mrs. Norton (Lady Stirling-Maxwell) and the Duchess of 
 Somerset, in the seclusion of Hampton Court, whither her mother 
 had retired on the death of Mr. Sheridan. 
 
 Helen inherited the genius of the Sheridan family, and enjoyed 
 the additional advantage of sharing Avith her sisters the careful 
 training of a devoted mother, a lady distinguished by her good 
 sense and intellectual ability. At the age of eighteen she married 
 the Hon. Price Blackwood, afterward Lord Dufferin, and the fol- 
 lowing year (1826) became the mother of the late Earl of Dufferin, 
 her only son. 
 
 The inheritor and transmitter of genius, the brilliant mother of a 
 brilliant son, hers Avas one of the most enviable fates for the poet 
 and artist. To hear her exquisitely artless songs on the lips of 
 her OAvn people was Lady Dufferin’s happy lot. Her ‘ Irish Emi- 
 grant ’ is knoAAui the wide Avorld over, and, being one of the earli- 
 est things learned by Irish school-children, it comes to share in 
 later life the haunting quality which belongs to memories of those 
 dim years AA^hen the impressions are only aAAmkening. 
 
 The benevolent and kindly nature of Lady Dufferin, and her grace 
 of manner, soon secured the esteem and affection of the people, Avho 
 felt that she understood and sympathized Avith their joys and sor- 
 rows. Hence the popularity of her ballads and songs, which were 
 not due to any desire for literary fame, but Avere the genuine out- 
 come of a Avarm and sympathetic spirit. Of all her pieces ‘ The 
 Irish Emigrant’ is the universal favorite. Nothing could surpass 
 its simple and touching pathos and fidelity to nature, particularly 
 Irish nature, and on it alone Lady Dufferin’s fame as a poet 
 might safely rest. ‘ Terence’s FareAvell ’ and ‘ Katey’s Letter,’ both 
 rich in humor, are also extremely popular. ‘ Sweet Kilkenny Town,’ 
 a reply to ‘ Katey’s Letter,’ set to music by the authoress, is not, 
 perhaps, so AAudely knoAvn. No collection of her ballads and poems 
 has been made, and many of them are doubtless lost, only the most 
 popular having been preserA^ed in various selections of Irish poetry. 
 
 She also produced an amusing and piquant prose Avork entitled 
 ‘Tlie Honorable Impulsia Gushington.’ It is a satire on high life 
 in the nineteenth century. Although written in a light and humor- 
 ous style, her ladyship tells us in the preface it “was intended to 
 serve an earnest purpose in lightening the tedium and depression of 
 long sickness in the person of a beloved friend.” 
 
 In 1841 Lord Dufferin died, and her ladyship remained a widow 
 for twenty-one years, when she married the Earl of Gifford, at the 
 time nearly on his death-bed. Two months afterward she became 
 for the second time a AvidoAv, and Dowager Countess of Gifford. 
 
 932 
 
LADY DUFFERIN. 
 
 933 
 
 For some years previous to her death this amiable lady was afflicted 
 with a painful illness, which she endured with fortitude and resig- 
 nation. She expired June 13, 1867, leaving a memory dear to every 
 Irish heart. 
 
 LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT. 
 
 I hii sittin’ on the stile, Mary, 
 
 Where we sat side by side. 
 
 On a bright Ma}^ morn in’, long ago. 
 
 When first you were my bride : 
 
 The corn was springin’ fresh and green, 
 
 And the lark sang loud and high — 
 
 And the red was on your lip, Mary, 
 
 And the level ight in your eye. 
 
 The is little changed, Mary; 
 
 The day is bright as then; 
 
 The lark’s loud song is in my ear. 
 
 And the corn is green again; 
 
 But I miss the soft clasp of your hand, 
 
 And your breath, warm on my cheek. 
 
 And I still keep list’nin’ for the words 
 You never more will speak. 
 
 ’T is but a step down yonder lane. 
 
 And the little church stands near — 
 
 The church where we were w^ed, Mary ; 
 
 I see the spire from here. 
 
 But the graveyard lies between, Mary, 
 
 And my step might break your rest — • 
 
 For I ’ve laid you, darling! down to sleep 
 With your baby on your breast. 
 
 I ’m very lonely now, Mary, 
 
 For the poor make no new friends: 
 
 But, oh ! they love the better still. 
 
 The few our Father sends ! 
 
 And you were all I had, Mary — 
 
 My blessin’ and my pride ! 
 
 There ’s nothin’ left to care for now, 
 
 Since my poor Mary died. 
 
 Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary, 
 
 Tliat still kept hoping on 
 When the trust in God had left my soul. 
 
 And my arm’s young strength was gon3 ; 
 
934 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 There was comfort ever on your lip 
 And the kind look on your brow — 
 
 I bless you, Mary, for that same. 
 
 Though you cannot hear me now. 
 
 I thank you for the patient smile 
 When your heart was fit to break. 
 
 When the hunger-pain was gnawin’ there^ 
 
 And you hid it for my sake ; 
 
 I bless you for the pleasant word 
 When your heart was sad and sore — 
 
 Oh ! I ’m thankful you are gone, Mary, 
 
 Where grief can’t reach you more ! 
 
 I ’m biddin’ you a long farewell. 
 
 My Mary — kind and true! 
 
 But I ’ll not forget you, darling. 
 
 In the land I ’m goin’ to: 
 
 They say there ’s bread and work for all, 
 
 And the sun shines always there — 
 
 But I ’ll not forget Old Ireland, 
 
 Were it fifty times as fair! 
 
 And often in those grand old woods 
 I ’ll sit and shut my eyes, 
 
 And my heart will travel back again 
 To the place where Mary lies; 
 
 And I ’ll think I see the little stile 
 Where we sat side by side. 
 
 And the springin’ corn, and the bright May morn, 
 When first you were my bride. 
 
 TERENCE’S FAREWELL. 
 
 So, my Kathleen, you ’re going to leave me 
 All alone by myself in this place. 
 
 But I ’m sure you will never deceive me — 
 Oh no, if there ’s truth in that face. 
 Though England ’s a beautiful city. 
 
 Full of illigant boys — oh, what then? 
 
 You would not forget your poor Terence; 
 You ’ll come back to Ould Ireland again. 
 
LADY DUFFERIN, 
 
 935 
 
 Och, those English, deceivers by nature, 
 
 Though maybe you M think them sincere, 
 
 They ’ll say you ’re a sweet charming creature, 
 But don’t you believe them, my dear. 
 
 No, Kathleen, agra! don’t be minding 
 The flattering speeches they ’ll make ; 
 
 Just tell them a poor boy in Ireland 
 Is breaking his heart for your sake. 
 
 It ’s folly to keep you from going. 
 
 Though, faith, it ’s a mighty hard case — 
 
 For, Kathleen, you know, there ’s no knowing 
 When next I shall see your sweet face. 
 
 And when you come back to me, Kathleen — • 
 None the better will I be off then — 
 
 You ’ll be spaking such beautiful English, 
 
 Sure, I won’t know^ my Kathleen again. 
 
 Eh, now, where ’s the need of this hurry? 
 
 Don’t flutter me so in this way ! 
 
 I ’ve forgot, ’twixt the grief and the flurry, 
 Every word I was maning to say. 
 
 Now just wait a minute, I bid ye — 
 
 Can I talk if you bother me so ? — 
 
 Oh, Kathleen, my blessing go wid ye 
 Ev’ry inch of the way that you go. 
 
 KATEY’S LETTER. 
 
 Och, girls dear, did you ever hear, 
 
 I wrote my love a letter? 
 
 And altho’ he cannot read, 
 
 I thought ’t was all the better. 
 
 For why should he be puzzled 
 
 With hard spelling in the matter. 
 
 When the maning was so plain ? 
 
 That I loved him faithfully, 
 
 And he knows it — oh, he knows it — • 
 Without one word from me. 
 
 I wrote it, and I folded it, 
 
 And put a seal upon it, 
 was a seal almost as big 
 As the crown of my best bonnet; 
 
936 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 For I would not have the postmaster 
 Make his remarks upon it, 
 
 As I M said inside the letter 
 That I loved him faithfully, 
 
 And he knows it — oh, he knows it— 
 Without one word from me. 
 
 My heart was full, but when I wrote 
 I dare not put it half in ; 
 
 The neighbors know I love him. 
 
 And they ’ve mighty fond of chaffing, 
 
 So I dare not write his name outside, 
 
 For fear they would be laughing. 
 
 So I wrote From little Kate to one 
 Whom she loves faithfully,” 
 
 And he knows it — oh, he knows it — 
 Without one word from me. 
 
 Now, girls, would you believe it, 
 
 That postman, so consated, 
 
 No answer will he bring me. 
 
 So long as I have waited; 
 
 But maybe — there mayn’t be one, 
 
 For the reason that I stated — 
 
 That my love can neither read nor write* 
 But loves me faithfully. 
 
 And I know where’er my love is, 
 
 That he is true to me. 
 
LORD DUFFERIN. 
 
 ( 1826 — 1902 .) 
 
 The Right Hon. Frederick Temple Blackwood, Earl of Dufferin, 
 was son of the fourth Baron Dufferin, and was born in 1826. His 
 mother was the granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and 
 thus he was one more of the long list of the Sheridans who have 
 proved that wit can run in families. He was educated at Eton and 
 at Christ Church, Oxford, but did not take a degree. He was still 
 a minor when, in 1841, he succeeded to his father’s title. 
 
 His first literary production was a narrative of a visit he made 
 to Ireland during 1846-47, under the title of ‘ Narrative of a Journey 
 from Oxford to Skibbereen during the year of the Irish Famine.’ 
 
 In February, 1855, he formed one of the numerous train which 
 accompanied Lord John Russell to Vienna. In 1860 appeared the 
 first work that drew particular attention to his name. In this book 
 there is abundant evidence of those great gifts of humorous obser- 
 vation which were his delightful characteristic. He had in the 
 previous year made a voyage in his yacht to Iceland, and an ac- 
 count of his stay in that island appeared in ‘ Letters from High 
 Latitudes.’ This book bubbles over with fun, and his description 
 of an Icelandic dinner-party can be read by few, we think, without 
 aching sides. 
 
 His first real entrance into official life was made in 1860, when 
 he was sent to Syria as British Commissioner, for the purpose of 
 inquiring into cruelties which had been practiced by Turkish of- 
 ficials on the Christian population. He pursued his investigations 
 with relentless vigilance, and administered condign punishment to 
 the most notable malefactors. The home authorities were thoroughly 
 satisfied with his action, and he was made a Knight of the Bath. 
 In 1864 he became for a while Under Secretary for India, and dur- 
 ing the year 1866 he acted as Under Secretary for War. 
 
 In 1868 Lord Dufferin was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- 
 caster, an office with undefined duties, which constituted him, as 
 he wittily described it, “maid of all work” to the Ministry. In 
 1872 he was appointed Governor-General of Canada. Never was 
 there a more successful ruler. The Orangeman and the Roman 
 Catholic, the Conservative and the Radical, alike bent under the 
 influence of his clear judgment, his impartial action, his pleasant 
 manners, and his bewitching tongue. The speeches which he made 
 have been collected into volume form, and they can be read with a 
 pleasure that one rarely experiences when perusing spoken addresses 
 in print. Their chief characteristics are a lofty tone of feeling, 
 bright wit, and, occasionally, eloquence of a high order. On his 
 retirement from the Canadian governorship he was chosen by Lord 
 Beaconsfield as British Ambassador at the Court of St. Petersburg. 
 He was afterward Ambassador at the Ottoman Court, and in 1884 
 was appointed Governor-General of India. He was Ambassador to 
 
 937 
 
938 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Italy and to France. From 1891 to 1895 he was Lord Warden of 
 the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle. In 1890 he was 
 elected Lord Rector of St. Andrews University. He Avas made an 
 Earl of the United Kingdom in 1871, was President of the Geo- 
 gi’aphical Society, and an honorary LL.D. of Harvard UniAwsity. 
 
 Besides the works above mentioned, Lord Dufferin Avrote sev- 
 eral books on the questions that chiefly disturb his iiatiA^e country. 
 Their titles are ‘ Irish Emigration and the Tenure of Land in Ire- 
 land,’ ‘Mr. Mill’s Plan for the Paciflcation of Ireland Examined,’ 
 and ‘ Contributions to an Inquiry into the State of Ireland.’ 
 
 This most brilliant Irishman died, to the regret of all creeds and 
 parties, in 1902. 
 
 ON IRISHMEN AS RULERS. 
 
 A speech deliA^ered at Quebec, September 5, 1878. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I hardly know in what terms I am to reply 
 to the address I hn\e just listened to, so signal is the honor 
 which you have conferred upon me. That a whole prov- 
 ince, as large, as important, as flourishing as many a 
 European kingdom, should erect into an embassy the 
 mayors of its cities, — the delegates of its urban and rural 
 municipalities, — and dispatch them on a journey of several 
 hundred miles, to convey to a humble individual like my- 
 self an expression of the personal good-will of the con- 
 stituencies they represent, is a circumstance unparalleled 
 in the history of Canada, or of any other colony. 
 
 To stand as I now do in the presence of so many distin- 
 guished persons, who have put themselves to great personal 
 inconvenience on my account, only adds to my embarrass- 
 ment. And yet, gentlemen, I cannot pretend not to be de- 
 lighted with such a genuine demonstration of regard on 
 the part of the large-hearted inhabitants of the great prov- 
 ince in whose name you have addressed me; for, quite 
 apart from the personal gratification I experience, you are 
 teaching all future administrators of our affairs a lesson 
 Avhich you may be sure they will gladly lay to heart, since 
 it Avill show them with how rich a reAvard you are ready to 
 pay Avhatever slight exertions it may be Avithin their poAver 
 to make on your behalf. 
 
 And when in the history of your Dominion could such a 
 proof of your generosity be more opportunely shown? A 
 feAV weeks ago the heart of every man and women in Can- 
 
LORD DUFF ERIN. 
 
 939 
 
 ada was profoundly moved by the intelligence, not only 
 that the government of Great Britain was about to send 
 out as England’s representative to this country one of the 
 most promising among the younger generation of our pub- 
 lic men, but that the Queen herself was about to intrust to 
 the keeping of the people of Canada her own daughter. If 
 you desired any illustration of the respect, the affection, 
 the confidence with which you are regarded by your fellow- 
 subjects and by your sovereign at home, what greater proof 
 could you require than this, or what more gratifying, more 
 delicate, more touching recognition could have rewarded 
 your never-failing love and devotion for the mother country 
 and its ruler? 
 
 But though Parliament and the citizens of Canada may 
 well be proud of the confidence thus reposed in them, be- 
 lieve me when I tell you that, quite apart from these es- 
 pecial considerations, you may well be congratulated on 
 the happy choice which has been made in the person of 
 Lord Lome for the future Governor-General of Canada. 
 It has been my good fortune to be connected all my life 
 long with his family by ties of the closest personal friend- 
 ship. Himself I have known, I may say, almost from his 
 boyhood, and a more conscientious, high-minded, or better 
 qualified viceroy could not have been selected. Brought 
 up under exceptionally fortunate conditions, it is needless 
 to say he has profited to the utmost by the advantages 
 placed within his reach, many of which will have fitted him 
 in an especial degree for his present post. 
 
 His public school and college education, his experience 
 of the House of Commons, his large personal acquaintance 
 with the representatives of all that is most distinguished 
 in the intellectual world of the United States, his literary 
 and artistic tastes, his foreign travel, will all combine to 
 render him intelligently sympathetic with every phase and 
 aspect of your national life. Above all, he comes of good 
 Whig stock — that is to say, of a family whose prominence 
 in history is founded upon the sacrifices they have made in 
 the cause of constitutional liberty. When a couple of a 
 man’s ancestors have perished on the scaffold as martyrs 
 in the cause of political and religious freedom, you may be 
 sure there is little likelihood of their descendant seeking 
 to encroach, when acting as the representative of the 
 
940 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Crown, upon the privileges of Parliament or the independ- 
 ence of the people. 
 
 As for your future princess, it would not become me to 
 enlarge upon her merits — she will soon be amongst you, 
 taking all hearts by storm by the grace, the suavity, the 
 sweet simplicity of her manners, life, and conversation. 
 Gentlemen, if ever there was a lady who in her earliest 
 youth had formed a high ideal of what a noble life should 
 be — if ever there was a human being who tried to make the 
 most of the opportunities within her reach, and to create 
 for herself, in spite of every possible trammel and impedi- 
 ment, a useful career and occasions of benefiting her fellow- 
 creatures, it is the Princess Louise, whose unpretending 
 exertions in a hundred different directions to be of service 
 to her country and generation have already won for her an 
 extraordinary amount of popularity at home. 
 
 When to this you add an artistic genius of the highest 
 order, and innumerable other personal gifts and accom- 
 plishments, combined with manners so gentle, so unpre- 
 tending, as to put every one who comes within reach of 
 her influence at perfect ease, you cannot fail to understand 
 that England is not merely sending you a royal princess of 
 majestic lineage, but a good and noble woman, in whom 
 the humblest settler or mechanic in Canada will find an 
 intelligent and sympathetic friend. Indeed, gentlemen, I 
 hardly know which pleases me most, the thought that the 
 superintendence of your destinies is to be confided to per- 
 sons so worthy of the trust, or that a dear friend of my own 
 like Lord Lome, and a personage for whom I entertain such 
 respectful admiration as I do for the Princess Louise, 
 should commence their future labors in the midst of a com- 
 munity so indulgent, so friendly, so ready to take the will 
 for the deed, so generous in their recognition of any effort 
 to serve them, as you have proved yourselves to be. 
 
 And yet, alas! gentlemen, pleasant and agreeable as is 
 the prospect for you and them, we must acknowledge there 
 is one drawback to the picture. Lord Lome has, as I have 
 said, a multitude of merits, but even spots will be discov- 
 ered on the sun, and unfortunately an irreparable, and, as 
 I may call it, a congenital defect attaches to this appoint- 
 ment. Lord Lome is not an Irishman! It is not his fault 
 — he did the best he could for himself — he came as near the 
 
LORD DUFFERIX, 
 
 941 
 
 right thing as possible by being born a Celtic Highlander. 
 There is no doubt the world is best administered by Irish- 
 men. Things never went better with us either at home or 
 abroad than when Lord Palmerston ruled Great Britain — 
 Lord Mayo governed India — Lord Monck directed the des- 
 tinies of Canada — and the Robinsons, the Kennedj^s, the 
 Laffans, the Callaghans, the Gores, the Ilennesys, admin- 
 istered the affairs of our Australian colonies and West In- 
 dian possessions. Have not even the French at last made 
 the same discovery in the person of Marshal MacMalion? 
 But still we must be generous, and it is right Scotchmen 
 should have a turn. After all, Scotland only got her name 
 because she was conquered by the Irish — and if the real 
 truth were known, it is probable the house of Inverary 
 owes most of its glory to an Irish origin. Nay, I will go a 
 step further — I would even let the poor Englishman take 
 an occasional turn at the helm — if for no better reason 
 than to make him aware how much better we manage the 
 business. But you have not come to that yet, and though 
 you have been a little spoiled by having been given three 
 Irish governor-generals in succession, I am sure you will 
 find that your new viceroy^s personal and acquired quali- 
 fications will more than counterbalance his ethnological 
 disadvantages. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I must bid you farewell. Never 
 shall I forget the welcome you extended to me in every 
 town and hamlet of Ontario when I first came amongst 
 you. It was in traveling through your beautiful province 
 I first learned to appreciate and understand the nature 
 and character of your destinies. It was there I first 
 learned to believe in Canada, and from that day to this my 
 faith has never wavered. Nay, the further I extended my 
 travels through the other provinces the more deeply my 
 initial impressions were confirmed; but it was amongst 
 you they were first engendered, and it is with your smiling 
 happy hamlets my brightest reminiscences are intertwined. 
 And what transaction could better illustrate the mighty 
 changes your energies have wrought than the one in which 
 we are at this moment engaged? Standing, as we do, upon 
 this lofty platform, surrounded by those antique and his- 
 torical fortifications, so closely connected with the infant 
 fortunes of the colony, one cannot help contrasting the 
 
942 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 present scene with others of an analogous character which 
 have been frequently enacted upon the very spot. The 
 early Governors of Canada have often received in Quebec 
 deputies from the very districts from which each of you 
 have come, but in those days the sites now occupied by 
 your prosperous towns, the fields you till, the rose-clad 
 bowers, and trim lawns where your children sport in peace, 
 were then dense wildernesses of primeval forest, and those 
 who came from thence on an errand here were merciless 
 savages, seeking the presence of the viceroy either to 
 threaten war and vengeance, or at best to proffer a treach- 
 erous and uncertain peace. How little could Montmagny, 
 or Tracy, or Vaudreuil, or Frontenac, have ever imagined 
 on such occasions that for the lank dusky forms of the 
 Iroquois or Ottawa emissaries, would one day be substi- 
 tuted the beaming countenances and burly proportions of 
 English-speaking mayors and aldermen and reeves. And 
 now, gentlemen, again good-bye. I cannot tell you how 
 deeply I regret that Lady Dufferin should not be present 
 to share the gratification I have experienced by your visit. 
 Tell your friends at home how deeply I have been moved 
 by this last and signal proof of their good-will, that their 
 kindness shall never be forgotten, and that as long as I 
 live it will be one of the chief ambitions of my life to ren- 
 der them faithful and effectual service. 
 
 AN ICELANDIC DINNER. 
 
 From ‘ Letters from High Latitudes.’ 
 
 Yesterday — no — the day before — in fact I forget the 
 date of the day — I don’t believe it had one — all I know is, 
 I have not been in bed since, — we dined at the Governor’s; 
 — though dinner is too modest a term to apply to the enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 The invitation was for four o’clock, and at half-past 
 three we pulled ashore in the gig; I, innocent that I was, 
 in a well-fitting white waistcoat. 
 
 The Government House, like all the others, is built of 
 wood, on the top of a hillock ; the only accession of dignity 
 it can boast being a little bit of mangy kitchen-garden that 
 
LORD DUFF ERIN. 
 
 943 
 
 bangs down in front to the road, like a soiled apron. There 
 was no lock, handle, bell, or knocker to the door, but imme- 
 diately on our approach a servant presented himself, and 
 ushered us into the room where Count Trampe was wait- 
 ing to welcome us. After having been presented to his wife 
 we proceeded to shake hands with the other guests, most 
 of whom L already knew ; and I was glad to find that, at 
 all events in Iceland, people do not consider it necessary 
 to pass the ten minutes which precede the announcement 
 of dinner as if they had assembled to assist at the opening 
 of their entertainer’s will, instead of his oysters. 
 
 The company consisted of the chief dignitaries of the 
 island, including the bishop, the chief-justice, etc., etc., 
 some of them in uniform, and all with holiday faces. As 
 soon as the door was opened Count Trampe tucked me 
 under his arm — two other gentlemen did the same to my 
 two companions — and we streamed into the dining-room. 
 The table was very prettily arranged with flowers, plate, 
 and a forest of glasses. Fitzgerald and I were placed on 
 either side of our host, the other guests, in due order, be- 
 yond. On my left sat the rector, and opposite, next to Fitz, 
 the chief physician of the island. Then began a series of 
 transactions of which I have no distinct recollection; in 
 fact, the events of the next five hours recur to me in as 
 great disarray as reappear the vestiges of a country that 
 has been disfigured by some deluge. . . . 
 
 I gather, then, from evidence — internal and otherwise — 
 that the dinner was excellent, and that we were helped in 
 Benjamite proportions; but as before the soup was finished 
 I was already hard at work hob-nobbing with my two 
 neighbors, it is not to be expected I should remember the 
 bill of fare. 
 
 With the peculiar manners used in Scandinavian skoal- 
 drinking I was already well acquainted. In the nice con- 
 duct of a wine-glass I knew that I excelled, and having 
 an hereditary horror of heel-taps, I prepared with a firm 
 heart to respond to the friendly provocations of my host. 
 I only wish 30U could have seen how his kind face beamed 
 with approval when I chinked my first bumper against his, 
 and having emptied it at a draught, turned it towards him 
 bottom upwards with the orthodox twist. Soon, however, 
 things began to look more serious even than I had expected. 
 
944 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 I knew well that to refuse a toast, or to half empty your 
 glass, was considered churlish. I had come determined to 
 accept my host's hospitality as cordially as it was offered. 
 I was willing, at a pinch, to payer cle ma personne; should 
 he not be content with seeing me at his table, I was ready, 
 if need were, to remain under it ! but at the rate we were 
 then going it seemed probable this consummation would 
 take place before the second course: so, after having ex- 
 changed a dozen rounds of sherry and champagne with my 
 two neighbors, I pretended not to observe that my glass 
 had been refilled ; and, like the sea-captain, who, slipping 
 from between his two opponents, left them to blaze away 
 at each other the long night through, — withdrew from the 
 combat. 
 
 But it would not do; with untasted bumpers and de- 
 jected faces they politely waited until I should give the 
 signal for a renewal of /lostilities, as they well deserved 
 to be called. Then there came over me a horrid, wicked 
 feeling. What if I should endeavor to floor the Governor, 
 and so literally turn the tables on him ! It is true I had 
 lived for five-and-twenty years without touching wine, — 
 but was not I my great-grandfather's great-grandson, and 
 an Irish peer to boot! Were there not traditions, too, 
 on the other side of the house, of casks of claret brought 
 up into the dining-room, the door locked, and the key 
 thrown out of the window? With such antecedents to sus- 
 tain me, I ought to be able to hold my own against the 
 stanchest toper in Iceland! So, with a devil glittering in 
 my left eye, I winked defiance right and left, and away we 
 went at it again for another five-and-forty minutes. At 
 last their fire slackened : I had partially quelled both the 
 Governor and the rector, and still survived. It is true I 
 did not feel comfortable; but it was in the neighborhood 
 of my waistcoat, not my head, I suffered. I am not well, 
 but I will not out," I soliloquized, with Lepidus — give 
 me the wing," I would have added, had I dared. Still the 
 neck of the banquet was broken — Fitzgerald's chair was 
 not yet empty, — could we hold out perhaps a quarter of an 
 hour longer our reputation was established ; guess then my 
 horror, when the Icelandic doctor, shouting his favorite 
 dogma by way of battle cry, Si trigintis guttis, morbum 
 curare velis, erras," gave the signal for an unexpected on- 
 
LORD DUFF ERIN. 
 
 945 
 
 slaught, and the twenty guests poured down on me in suc- 
 cession. I really thought I should have run away from 
 the house; but the true family blood, I suppose, began to 
 show itself, and, with a calmness almost frightful, I re- 
 ceived them one by one. 
 
 After this began the public toasts. 
 
 Although up to this time I had kept a certain portion of 
 my wits about me, the subsequent hours of the entertain- 
 ment became henceforth enveloped in a dreamy mystery. 
 I can perfectly recall the look of the sheaf of glasses that 
 stood before me, six in number; I could draw the pattern 
 of each : I remember feeling a lazy wonder they should al- 
 ways be full, though I did nothing but empty them, — and 
 at last solved the phenomenon by concluding I had become 
 a kind of Danaid, whose punishment, not whose sentence, 
 had been reversed : then suddenly I felt as if I were dis- 
 embodied, — a distant spectator of my own performances, 
 and of the feast at which my person remained seated. The 
 voices of my host, of the rector, of the chief-justice, became 
 thin and low, as though they reached me through a whis- 
 pering tube; and when I rose to speak it was as to an au- 
 dience in another sphere, and in a language of another 
 state of being ; yet, however unintelligible to myself, I must 
 have been in some sort understood, for at the end* of each 
 sentence cheers, faint as the roar of waters on a far-off 
 strand, floated towards me; and if I am to believe a report 
 of the proceedings subsequently shown us, I must have be- 
 come polyglot in my cups. According to that report it 
 seems the Governor threw off (I wonder he did not do 
 something else), with the queen’s health in French, to 
 which I responded in the same language. Then the rector, 
 in English, proposed my health, — under the circumstances 
 a cruel mockery, — but to which, ill as I was, I responded 
 very gallantly by drinking to the beaux yeux of the Count- 
 ess. Then somebody else drank success to Great Britain, 
 and I see it was followed by really a very learned discourse 
 by Lord D. in honor of the ancient Icelanders; during 
 which he alluded to their discovery of America, and Co- 
 lumbus’ visit. Then came a couple of speeches in Ice- 
 landic, after which the bishop, in a magniflcent Latin ora- 
 tion of some twenty minutes, a second time proposes my 
 health; to which, utterly at my wits’ end, I had the au- 
 
946 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 dacity to reply in the same language. As it is fit so great 
 an effort of oratory should not perish, I send you some of 
 its choicest specimens : — 
 
 Viri illustres/’ I began, insolitus ut sum ad pub- 
 licum loquendum, ego propero respondere ad complimen- 
 tum quod recte reverendus prelaticus mihi fecit, in pro- 
 ponendo meam salutem : et supplico vos credere quod 
 multum gratificatus et flattificatus sum honore tarn dis- 
 tincto. 
 
 Bibere, viri illustres, res est, quae in omnibus terris, 
 ^domum venit ad hominum negotia et pectora:’^ (1) re- 
 quirit ‘ haustum longum, haustum fortem, et haustum 
 omnes simul : ’ (2) ut canit poeta, ^ unum tactum Naturae 
 to turn orbem facit consanguineum,’(3) et hominis natura 
 est — bibere ( 4 ) . 
 
 Viri illustres, alterum est sentimentum equaliter uni- 
 versale: terra communis super quam septentrionales et 
 meridionales, eadem enthusiasm^ convenire possunt: est 
 necesse quod id nominarem ? Ad pulchrum sexum devotio ! 
 
 ^ Amor regit palatium, castra, lucum.’(5) Dubito 
 sub quo capite vestram jucundam civitatem numerare de- 
 beam. Palatium? non regem! castra? non milites! lucum? 
 non ullam arborem habetis! Tamen Cupido vos dominat 
 baud aliter quam alios, — et virginum Islandarum pul- 
 chritude per omnes regiones cognita est. 
 
 Bibamus salutem earum, et confusionem ad omnes 
 bacularios : speramus quod ese carse et benedictse creaturae 
 invenient tot maritos quot velint, — quod geminos quottanis 
 habeant, et quod earum filise, maternum exemplum sequen- 
 tes, gentem Islandicam perpetuent in ssecula sseculorum.” 
 The last words mechanically rolled out, in the same ore 
 rotundo with which the poor old Dean of Christchurch 
 used to finish his Gloria, etc., in the cathedral. 
 
 Then followed more speeches, — a great chinking of 
 
 1 As the happiness of these quotations seemed to produce a very pleasing 
 effect on my auditors, I subjoin a translation of them for the benefit of 
 the unlearned : — 
 
 1. “ Comes home to men’s business and bosoms.” — Paterfamilias, Times. 
 
 2. “A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together .” — Nelson at the 
 Nile. 
 
 3. “ One touch of nature makes the whole world kin .” — Jeremy Bentham, 
 
 4. Apothegm by the late Lord Mountcoffeehouse. 
 
 5. “ Love rules the court, the camp, the grove .” — Venerable Bede. 
 
LORD DUFFERIW. 
 
 947 
 
 glasses, — a Babel of conversation, — a kind of dance round 
 the table, where we successively gave each alternate hand, 
 as in the last figure of the Lancers, — a hearty embrace 
 from the Governor, — and finally — silence, daylight, and 
 fresh air, as we stumbled forth into the street. 
 
THOMAS DUFFET. 
 
 (Flourished about 1676.) 
 
 Thomas Duffet “flourished in the seventeenth century,” ac- 
 cording to Lempriere’s Universal Biography. Beyond this little is 
 known except that he was an Irishman who kept a milliner’s shop in 
 the New Exchange, London, and was a writer of burlesques and 
 songs. As a song- writer he is now best remembered. His songs 
 are delightful of their kind, an artificial kind to be sure, but his was 
 an age of artificialities. Something of the delicate unreal grace, — 
 as of a duchess playing at milkmaid with a Dresden-China petticoat 
 all nosegays and true-lover knots, — which gave its most exquisite 
 inspiration to Purcell and Arne, is to be found in the songs of the 
 accomplished ex-man-milliner ; something, too, of the gay and cold 
 sparkle of Pope is in his praises of Celia. 
 
 That Buffet’s burlesques of Dry den and Shadwell and others were 
 successful, even the editors of ‘ Biographia Dramatica ’ acknowledge, 
 but they declare that for the favorable reception they found Mr. 
 Duffet stood more indebted to the great names of those authors 
 whose works he attempted to burlesque and ridicule than to any 
 merit of his own.” Of these burlesques six are at present known : 
 ‘ The Amorous Old Woman’ (doubtful), ‘ Spanish Rogue,’ ‘ Empress 
 of Morocco,’ ‘Mock Tempest,’ ‘Beauty’s Triumph,’ and ‘Psyche 
 Debauched.’ 
 
 COME ALL YOU PALE LOVERS. 
 
 Come all you pale lovers that sigh and complain, 
 
 While your beautiful tyrants but laugh at your pain, 
 Come practice with me 
 To be happy and free. 
 
 In spite of inconstancy, pride, or disdain. 
 
 I see and I love, and the bliss I enjoy 
 No rival can lessen nor envy destroy. 
 
 My mistress so fair is, no language or art 
 Can describe her perfection in every part; 
 
 Her mien ’s so genteel. 
 
 With such ease she can kill. 
 
 Each look with new passion she captures my heart. 
 
 Her smiles, the kind message of love from her eyes, 
 
 , When she frowns ’t is from others her flame to disguise. 
 Thus her scorn or her spite 
 I convert to delight. 
 
 As the bee gathers honey wherever he flies. 
 
 948 
 
THOMAS BUFFET, 
 
 949 
 
 My vows she receives from her lover unknown, 
 And I fancy kind answers although I have none« 
 How blest should I be 
 If our hearts did agree, 
 
 Since already I find so much pleasure alone. 
 
 I see and I love, and the bliss I enjoy 
 Ko rival can lessen nor envy destroy. 
 
SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY. 
 
 (1816—1903.) 
 
 Charles Gavan Duffy was bom in Monaghan in 1816. He was 
 educated in that town, and he had, at an early age, to rely on his own 
 energies. He was but a lad when he went to Dublin and obtained 
 employment as sub-editor on The Dublin Morning Register. He re- 
 turned soon afterward to his native north as the editor of a paper 
 of considerable influence in Belfast. Once more he turned his face 
 to the metropolis, and obtained an engagement on The Mountain^ 
 an O’Connell organ. 
 
 It was not till 1842, however, that his career could be said to have 
 really begun. In that year he, in conjunction with Thomas Davis 
 and John B. Dillon, founded The Nation. The memoirs we give of 
 several Irishmen — orators, poets, and prose writers — will bring home 
 to the reader a sense of the enormous significance of this event in 
 the literary and political world of Ireland. 
 
 Dulfy’s new journal attracted to it all the young talent of the 
 countr}", and there grew up a literature which challenges favorable 
 comparison with that of any other period of Irish history. Duffy 
 was soon brought face to face with the difficulties which lay in the 
 path of a journalist of anti-governmental politics ; in 1844 he was 
 tried with O’Connell, was defended by Whiteside, and was found 
 guilty. The verdict was quashed on an appeal to the House of 
 Lords. 
 
 Soon after this a breach took place between O’Connell and the 
 Young Ireland party. Duffy was one of the founders of the Irish 
 Confederation, which the more ardent section set up in opposition 
 to O’Connell’s pacific organization. When the troublous days of 
 1848 came, Duffy had to pass through the same trials as his com- 
 panions; The Nation was suppressed; he himself was arrested, and 
 only released after the Government four times attempted, and four 
 times failed, to obtain a conviction. 
 
 And now he began life again, resuscitated The Nation^ and 
 preached the modified gospel of constitutional agitation. He also 
 had a share in founding a Parliamentary party, having been elected 
 for New Ross in 1852. The object of this party was to obtain legis- 
 lative reforms, especially for the cultivators of the soil ; and one of 
 its principles was to hold aloof from both the English parties. The 
 defection of Justice Keogh and others drove several of the “ Inde- 
 pendent opposition ” party, as it was called, to despair, and de- 
 stroyed for the moment all confidence in Parliamentary agitation. 
 Duffy, being one among those who had abandoned hope, left Ireland 
 to seek brighter fortunes and more promising work in another land. 
 
 He soon found employment for his talents in Australia : he had 
 left Ireland in 1856, and in 1857 was Minister of Public Works in 
 Victoria. That office he held twice afterward, and in 1871 he at- 
 tained to the still higher position of Prime Minister of the colony. 
 Being defeated in Parliament, he demanded the right to dissolve ; 
 
 950 
 
SIR CHARLES GAYAH DUFFY. 
 
 951 
 
 but Viscount Canterbury, for reasons which were at the time the 
 subject of hot controversy, declined to accede to the request, and 
 Duffy had to resign. He was offered knighthood, which he at first 
 refused, but ultimately accepted in May, 1873. In 1876 he was 
 elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. After his departure 
 from Ireland he paid two visits of some duration to Europe, and on 
 his retirement in 1880 he went to live at Nice, where he recorded in 
 volumes as fascinating as instructive the history of the Irish move- 
 ments with which he had been connected. He died in 1903. 
 
 Sir Charles Duffy was a writer of vigorous prose and an effec- 
 tive orator. His poems are few in number. Several of them are 
 strong and slashing and warlike. There are others in sweeter vein ; 
 but all alike bear the stamp of the true poet. His publications are 
 ‘ The Ballad Poetry of Ireland,’ 1845 (fifty editions); ‘ Young Ire- 
 land,’ ‘ A Fragment of Irish History,’ ‘ Conversations with Carlyle,’ 
 ‘ The League of North and South,’ ‘ The Life of Thomas Davis,’ 
 ‘ Bird’s Eye View of Irish History,’ ‘ My Life in Two Hemispheres.’ 
 He was President of the Irish Literary Society of London. 
 
 A DISPUTE WITH CARLYLE. 
 
 From ‘ Conversations with Carlyle.’ 
 
 In all our intercourse for more than a generation I had 
 only one quarrel with Carlyle, which occurred about this 
 time, and I wish to record it, because, in my opinion, he 
 behaved generously and even magnanimously. Comment- 
 ing on some transaction of the day, I spoke with indigna- 
 tion of the treatment of Ireland by her stronger sister. 
 Carlyle replied that if he must say the whole truth, it was 
 his opinion that Ireland had brought all her misfortunes 
 on herself. She had committed a great sin in refusing and 
 resisting the Reformation. In England, and especially in 
 Scotland, certain men who had grown altogether intoler- 
 ant of the condition of the world arose and swore that this 
 thing should not continue, though the earth and the devil 
 united to uphold it ; and their vehement protest was heard 
 by the whole universe, and whatever had been done for 
 human liberty from that time forth, in the English Com- 
 monwealth, in the French Revolution, and the like, was 
 the product of this protest. 
 
 It was a great sin for nations to darken their eyes 
 against light like this, and Ireland, which had persistently 
 done so, was punished accordingly. It was hard to say 
 how far England was blamable in trying by trenchant laws 
 
952 
 
 IRISH literature. 
 
 to compel her into the right course, till in later times it 
 was found the attempt was wholly useless, and then prop- 
 erly given up. He found, and any one might see who 
 looked into the matter a little, that countries had prospered 
 or fallen into helpless ruin in exact proportion as they had 
 helped or resisted this message. The most peaceful, hope- 
 ful nations in the world just now were the descendants of 
 the men who had said, Away with all your trash ; we will 
 believe in none of it; we scorn your threats of damnation; 
 on the whole we prefer going down to hell with a true story 
 in our mouths to gaining heaven by any holy legerdemain.^^ 
 Ireland refused to believe and must take the consequences, 
 one of which, he would venture to point out, was a popula- 
 tion preternaturally ignorant and lazy. 
 
 I was very angry, and I replied vehemently that the 
 upshot of his homily was that Ireland was rightly tram- 
 pled upon, and plundered for three centuries, for not 
 believing in the Thirty-nine Articles; but did he believe in 
 a tittle of them himself? If he did believe them, what was 
 the meaning of his exhortations to get rid of Hebrew old 
 clothes, and put oft Hebrew spectacles? If he did not 
 believe them, it seemed to me that he might, on his own 
 showing, be trampled upon, and robbed as properly as 
 Ireland for rejecting what he called the manifest truth. 
 Queen Elizabeth, or her father, or any of the Englishmen 
 or Scotchmen who rose for the deliverance of the world, 
 and so forth, would have made as short work of him as 
 they did of popish recusants. Ireland was ignorant, he 
 said, but did he take the trouble of considering that for 
 three generations to seek education was an offense strictly 
 prohibited and punished by law? Down to the time of the 
 Reform Act, and the coming into power of the Reformers, 
 the only education tendered to the Irish people was mixed 
 with the soot of hypocrisy and profanation. When I was 
 a boy, in search of education, there was not in a whole 
 province, where the successors of these English and Scotch 
 prophets had had their own way, a single school for 
 Catholic boys above the condition of a Poor School. 
 
 My guardian had to determine whether I should do with- 
 out education, or seek it in a Protestant school, where I was 
 regarded as an intruder, — not an agreeable experiment in 
 the province of Ulster, I could assure him. This was whai' 
 
THE TREATY STONE, LIMERICK 
 
SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY. 
 
 953 
 
 I, for my part, owed to these missionaries of light and 
 civilization. The Irish people were lazy, he said, taking 
 no account of the fact that the fruits of their labor were 
 not protected by law, but left a prey to their landlords, 
 who plundered them without shame or mercy. Peasants 
 were not industrious, under such conditions, nor would 
 philosophers be for that matter, I fancied. If the people 
 of Ireland found the doctrines of the Reformation incred- 
 ible three hundred years ago, why were they not as well 
 entitled to reject them then as he was to reject them to- 
 day? In my opinion they were better entitled. A nation 
 which had been the school of the West, a people who had 
 sent missionaries throughout Europe to win barbarous 
 races to Christianity, who interpreted in its obvious sense 
 God^s promise to be always with his Church, suddenly 
 heard that a king of unbridled and unlawful passions 
 undertook to modify the laws of God for his own conven- 
 ience, and that his ministers and courtiers were bribed into 
 acquiescence by the plunder of monasteries and churches : 
 what wonder that they declared that they would die rather 
 than be partners in such a transaction. It might be worth 
 remembering that the pretensions of Anne Boleyn’s hus- 
 band to found a new religion seemed as absurd and profane 
 to these Irishmen as the similar pretensions of Joe Smith 
 seemed to all of us at present. After all they had endnred, 
 the people of Ireland might compare with any in the world 
 for the only virtues they were permitted to cultivate : piety, 
 chastity, simplicity, hospitality to the stranger, fidelity to 
 friends, and the magnanimity of self-sacrifice for truth 
 and justice. When we were touring in Ireland together 
 twenty years before, with the phenomena under our eyes, 
 he himself declared that after a trial of three centuries 
 there was more vitality in Catholicism than in this saving 
 light to which the people had blinded their eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle and John Forster, who were present, looked 
 at each other in consternation, as if a catastrophe were 
 imminent; but Carlyle replied placidly, That there was 
 no great life, he apprehended, in either of these systems at 
 present; men looked to something quite different to that 
 for their guidance just now.’’ 
 
 I could not refrain from returning to the subject. Coun- 
 tries which had refused to relinquish their faith were less 
 
 8— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
954 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 prosperous, he insisted, than those who placidly followed 
 the royal Reformers in Germany and England. Perhaps 
 they were; but worldly prosperity was the last test I ex- 
 pected to hear him apply to the merits of a people. If 
 this was to be a test, the Jews left the Reformers a long 
 way in the rear. 
 
 When nations were habitually peaceful and prosperous, 
 he replied, it might be inferred that they dealt honestly 
 with the rest of mankind, for this was the necessary basis 
 of any prosperity that was not altogether ephemeral ; and, 
 as conduct was the fruit of conviction, it might be further 
 inferred, with perfect safety, that they had had honest 
 teaching, which was the manifest fact in the cases he speci- 
 fied. 
 
 I was much heated, and I took myself off as soon as I 
 could discreetly do so. The same evening I met Carlyle at 
 dinner at John Forster’s; I sat beside him and had a 
 pleasant talk, and neither then nor at any future time 
 did he resent my brusque criticism by the slightest sign of 
 displeasure. This is a fact, I think, which a generous 
 reader will recognize to be altogether incompatible with 
 the recent estimate of Carlyle as a man of impatient tem- 
 per and arrogant, overbearing self-will. 
 
 THE MUSTER OF THE NORTH. 
 
 “ We deny and have always denied the alleged massacre of 1641. • But 
 that the people rose under their chiefs, seized the English towns and ex- 
 pelled the English settlers, and in doing so committed many excesses, is 
 undeniable — as is equally their desperate provocation. The ballad here 
 printed is not meant as an apology for these excesses, which we condemn 
 and lament, but as a true representation of the feelings of the insurgents 
 in the first madness of success.” — Author's note. 
 
 Joy! joy! the day is come at last, the day of hope and pride— 
 And see! our crackling bonfires light old Bann’s rejoicing tide, 
 And gladsome bell and bugle-horn from Newry’s captured 
 towers, 
 
 Hark! how they tell the Saxon swine this land is ours — is 
 ours! 
 
 Glory to God! my eyes have seen the ransomed fields of Down, 
 My ears have drunk the joyful news, Stout Phelim hath his 
 own.” 
 
SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY. 
 
 955 
 
 Oh ! may they see and hear no more ! — oh ! may they rot to 
 clay !— 
 
 iWhen they forget to triumph in the conquest of to-day. 
 
 Now, now we Ml teach the shameless Scot to purge his thievish 
 maw ; 
 
 Now, now the court may fall to pray, for Justice is the Law; 
 Now shall the Undertaker ^ square, for once, his loose ac- 
 counts — 
 
 We’ll strike, brave boys, a fair result, from all his false 
 amounts. 
 
 Come, trample down their robber rule, and smite its venal 
 spawn. 
 
 Their foreign laws, their foreign Church, their ermine and 
 their lawn, 
 
 With all the specious fry of fraud that robbed us of our own ; 
 And plant our ancient laws again beneath our lineal throne. 
 
 Our standard flies o’er fifty towers, o’er twice ten thousand 
 
 , men ; 
 
 Down have we plucked the pirate Red, never to rise again ; 
 The Green alone shall stream above our native field and flood — 
 The spotless Green, save where its folds are gemmed with 
 Saxon blood! 
 
 Pity ! 2 no, no, you dare not, priest — not you, our Father, dare 
 Preach to us now that godless creed — the murderer’s blood to 
 spare ; 
 
 To spare his blood, while tombless still our slaughtered kin im- 
 plore 
 
 Graves and revenge ” from Gobbin cliffs and Garrick’s bloody 
 shore ! ^ 
 
 Pity ! could we forget, forgive,” if we were clods of clay. 
 
 Our martyred priests, our banished chiefs, our race in dark 
 decay, 
 
 1 The Scotch and English adventurers planted in Ulster by James I. 
 were called “ Undertakers.” 
 
 2 Leland, the Protestant historian, states that the Catholic priests 
 “ labored zealously to moderate the excesses of war,” and frequently pro- 
 tected the English by concealing them in their places of worship and even 
 under their altars. 
 
 8 The scene of the massacre of the unoffending inhabitants of Isla^nd 
 Magee by the garrison of Carrickfergus. 
 
95G 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And, worse than all — you know it, priest — the daughters of 
 our land — 
 
 With wrongs we blushed to name until the sword was in our 
 hand ? 
 
 Pity ! well, if you needs must whine, let pity have its way — 
 
 Pity for all our comrades true, far from our side to-day: 
 
 The prison-bound who rot in chains, the faithful dead who 
 poured 
 
 Their blood ’neath Temple’s lawless axe or Parson’s ruffian 
 sword. 
 
 They smote us with the swearer’s oath and with the murderer’s 
 knife ; 
 
 We in the open field will fight fairly for land and life; 
 
 But, by the dead and all their wrongs, and by our hopes to-day. 
 
 One of us twain shall fight their last, or be it we or they. 
 
 They banned our faith, they banned our lives, they trod us into 
 earth. 
 
 Until our very patience stirred their bitter hearts to mirth. 
 
 Even this great flame that wraps them now, not we but they 
 have bred : 
 
 Yes, this is their own work; and now their work be on their 
 head ! 
 
 Nay, Father, tell us not of help from Leinster’s Norman peers. 
 
 If we shall shape our holy cause to match their selfish fears — 
 
 Helpless and hopeless be their cause who brook a vain delay! 
 
 Our ship is launched, our flag’s afloat, whether they come or 
 stay. 
 
 Let silken Howth and savage Slane still kiss their tyrant’s 
 rod. 
 
 And pale Dunsany still prefer his master to his God; 
 
 Little we ’d miss their fathers’ sons, the Marchmen of the 
 Pale, 
 
 If Irish hearts and Irish hands had Spanish blade and mail ! 
 
 Then let them stay to bow and fawn, or fight with cunning 
 words ; 
 
 I fear no more their courtly arts than England’s hireling 
 swords ; 
 
 Nathless their creed, they hate us still, as the despoiler hates; 
 
 Could they love us, and love their prey, our kinsmen’s lost 
 estates? 
 
SIR CHARLES GAYAH DUFFY, 
 
 957 
 
 Our rude array ’s a jagged rock to smash the spoiler^s power — ■ 
 
 Or, need we aid, His aid we have who doomed this gracious 
 hour; 
 
 Of yore He led His Hebrew host to peace through strife and 
 pain, 
 
 And us He leads the self-same path the self-same goal to gain. 
 
 Down from the sacred hills whereon a saint ^ communed with 
 God, 
 
 Up from the vale where BagenaFs blood manured the reeking 
 sod. 
 
 Out from the stately woods of Truagh M’Kenna^s plundered 
 home. 
 
 Like Malin’s waves, as fierce and fast, our faithful clansmen 
 come. 
 
 Then, brethren, on! O’Neill’s dear shade would frown to see 
 you pause — 
 
 Our banished Hugh, our martyred Hugh, is watching o’er your 
 cause — 
 
 His generous error lost the land — he deemed the Norman true ; 
 
 Oh, forward, friends, it must not lose the land again in you! 
 
 THE IRISH RAPPAREES. 
 
 A PEASANT BALLAD. 
 
 “ When Limerick was surrendered and the bulk of the Irish army took 
 service with Louis XIV., a multitude of the old soldiers of the Boyne, 
 Aughrim, and Limerick, preferred remaining in the country at the risk of 
 fighting for their daily bread ; and with them some gentlemen, loath to 
 part from their estates or their sweethearts. The English army and the 
 English law drove them by degrees to the hills, where they were long a 
 terror to the new and old settlers from England, and a secret pride and 
 comfort to the trampled peasantry, who loved them even for their excesses. 
 It was all they had left to take pride in.” — Author's note. 
 
 Righ Shemus he has gone to France and left his crown be- 
 hind : — 
 
 Ill-luck be theirs, both day and night, put runnin’ in his mind! 
 Lord Lucan 2 followed after, with his slashers brave and true, 
 
 ^ St. Patrick, whose favorite retreat was Lecale, in the County Down. 
 
 ^ After the Treaty of Limerick, Patrick Sarsfield, Lord Lucan, sailed 
 with the Brigade to France, and was killed while leading his countrymen 
 to victory at the battle of Landen, in the Low Countries, July 29, 1693. 
 
958 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And now the doleful keen is raised — What will poor Ireland 
 do? 
 
 What must poor Ireland do? 
 
 Our luck, they say, has gone to France. What can poor Ireland 
 do?^’ 
 
 Oh, never fear for Ireland, for she has so’gers still, 
 
 For Remy’s boys are in the wood, and Rory’s on the hill; 
 
 And never had i>oor Ireland more loyal hearts than these — 
 May God be kind and good to them, the faithful Rapparees! 
 The fearless Rapparees ! 
 
 The jewel waar ye, Rory, with your Irish Rapparees ! 
 
 Oh, black ’s your heart. Clan Oliver, and coulder than the clay! 
 Oh high ’s 3 'Our head. Clan Sassenach, since Sarsfield ’s gone 
 away ! 
 
 It ’s little love you bear to us for sake of long ago — 
 
 But howld your hand, for Ireland still can strike a deadl;y 
 blow — 
 
 Can strike a mortal blow — 
 
 Och! dar-a-CJiriost! ’t is she that still could strike the deadly 
 blow ! 
 
 The master’s bawn, the master’s seat, a surly hodach^ fills; 
 The master’s son, an outlawed man, is riding on the hills; 
 
 But, God be praised, that round him throng, as thick as summer 
 bees, 
 
 The swords that guarded Limerick walls — his faithful Rap- 
 parees ! 
 
 His lovin’ Rapparees ! 
 
 Who daar say, No ” to Rory Oge, who heads the Rapparees! 
 
 Black Billy Grimes, of Latnamard, he racked us long and sore — 
 God rest the faithful hearts he broke; we’ll never see them 
 more ! 
 
 But I ’ll go bail he ’ll break no more while Truagh has gallows- 
 trees. 
 
 For why ? he met one lonesome night the awful Rapparees ! 
 
 The angry Rapparees ! 
 
 They never sin no more, my boys, who cross the Rapparees. 
 
 Now, Sassenach and Cromweller, take heed of what I say — 
 Keep down your black and angry looks that scorn us night and 
 day ; 
 
 For there ’s a just and wrathful Judge that every action sees, 
 
 1 Bodach, a severe, inhospitable man ; a churl. 
 
SIR CHARLES GAYAH DUFFY, 
 
 959 
 
 And He ’ll make strong, to right our wrong, the faithful Rap- 
 parees ! 
 
 The fearless Rapparees! 
 
 The men that rode at Sarsfield’s side, the changeless Rap* 
 parees ! 
 
 THE IRISH CHIEFS. 
 
 Oh! to have lived like an Irish Chief, when hearts were fresh 
 and true. 
 
 And a manly thought, like a pealing bell, would quicken them 
 through and through; 
 
 And the seed of a generous hope right soon to a fiery action 
 grew. 
 
 And men would have scorned to talk and talk, and never a deed 
 to do. 
 
 Oh ! the iron grasp. 
 
 And the kindly clasp. 
 
 And the laugh so fond and gay; 
 
 And the roaring board. 
 
 And the ready sword. 
 
 Were the types of that vanished day. 
 
 Oh! to have lived as Brian lived, and to die as Brian died; 
 
 His land to win with the sword, and smile, as a warrior wins 
 his bride. 
 
 To knit its force in a kingly host, and rule it with kingly pride. 
 
 And still in the girt of its guardian swords over victor fields 
 to ride; 
 
 And wdien age was past, 
 
 And when death came fast. 
 
 To look with a softened eye 
 On a happy race 
 Who had loved his face, 
 
 And to die as a king should die. 
 
 Oh ! to have lived dear Owen’s life — to live for a solemn end. 
 
 To strive for the ruling strength and skill God’s saints to the 
 Chosen send ; 
 
 And to come at length with that holy strength, the bondage of 
 fraud to rend. 
 
 And pour the light of God’s freedom in where Tyrants and 
 Slaves were denned; 
 
 And to bear the brand 
 With an equal hand. 
 
 Like a soldier of Truth and Right, 
 
960 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 And, oil ! Saints, to die, 
 
 While onr flag flew high. 
 
 Nor to look on its fall or flight. 
 
 Oh! to have lived as Grattan lived, in the glow of his manly 
 years. 
 
 To thunder again those iron words that thrill like the clash of 
 spears ; 
 
 Once more to blend for a holy end, our peasants, and priests, 
 and peers, 
 
 Till England raged, like a baffled fiend, at the tramp of our 
 Volunteers. 
 
 And, oh ! best of all, • 
 
 Far rather 'to fall 
 (With a blesseder fate than he,) 
 
 On a conquering field. 
 
 Than one right to yield. 
 
 Of the Island so proud and free ! 
 
 Yet scorn to cry on the days of old, when hearts were fresh and 
 true. 
 
 If hearts be weak, oh! chiefly then the Missioned their work 
 must do; 
 
 Nor wants our day its own fit way, the want is in you and you; 
 
 For these eyes have seen as kingly a King as ever dear Erin 
 knew. 
 
 And with Brian^s will. 
 
 And with Owen’s skill. 
 
 And with glorious Grattan’s love, 
 
 He had freed us soon — 
 
 But death darkened his noon. 
 
 And he sits with the saints above. 
 
 Oh! could you live as Davis lived — kind Heaven be his bed! 
 
 With an eye to guide, and a hand to rule, and a calm and kingly 
 head. 
 
 And a heart from whence, like a Holy Well, the soul of his land 
 was fed. 
 
 No need to cry on the days of old that your holiest hope be 
 sped. 
 
 Then scorn to pray 
 For a by-past day — 
 
 The whine of the sightless dumb! 
 
 To the true and wise 
 Let a king arise. 
 
 And a holier day is come! 
 
SIR CHARLES GAY AN DUFFY. 
 
 961 
 
 INNISHOWEN. 
 
 God bless the gray mountains of dark Donegal, 
 
 .God bless Royal Aileach, the pride of them all; 
 
 For she sits evermore like a queen on her throne, 
 
 And smiles on the valley of Green Innishowen. 
 
 And fair are the valleys of Green Innishowen, 
 
 And hardy the fishers that call them their own — 
 
 A race that nor traitor nor coward have known 
 Enjoy the fair valleys of Green Innishowen. 
 
 Oh ! simple and bold are the bosoms they bear, 
 
 Like the hills that with silence and nature they share; 
 For our God, who hath planted their home near his own, 
 Breathed His spirit abroad upon fair Innishowen. 
 
 Then praise to our Father for wild Innishowen, 
 
 Where fiercely for ever the surges are thrown — 
 
 Nor weather nor fortune a tempest hath blown 
 Could shake the strong bosoms of brave Innishowen. 
 
 See the bountiful Couldah ^ careering along — 
 
 A type of their manhood so stately and strong — 
 
 On the weary for ever its tide is bestown. 
 
 So they share with the stranger in fair Innishowen. 
 
 God guard the kind homesteads of fair Innishowen. 
 Which manhood and virtue have chos’n for their own; 
 Not long shall that nation in slavery groan. 
 
 That rears the tall peasants of fair Innishowen. 
 
 Like that oak of St. Bride which nor Devil nor Dane, 
 Nor Saxon nor Dutchman could rend from her fane. 
 They have clung by the creed and the cause of their own 
 Through the midnight of danger in true Innishowen. 
 
 Then shout for the glories of old Innishowen. 
 
 The stronghold that foemen have never o’erthrown — 
 The soul and the spirit, the blood and the bone, 
 
 That guard the green valleys of true Innishowen. 
 
 No purer of old was the tongue of the Gael, 
 
 When the charging al}oo made the foreigner quail; 
 
 When it gladdens the stranger in welcome’s soft tone. 
 
 In the home-loving cabins of kind Innishowen, 
 
 Oh ! flourish, ye homesteads of kind Innishowen, 
 
 Where seeds of a people’s redemption are sown ; 
 
 Right soon shall the fruit of that sowing have grown, 
 
 To bless the kind homesteads of green Innishowen. 
 
 1 Couldah, Culdaff, the chief river in the Innishowen mountains. 
 
962 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 When they tell us the tale of a spell-stricken band. 
 
 All entranced, with their bridles and broadswords in hand, 
 Who await but the word to give Erin her own, 
 
 They can read you that riddle in proud Innishowen. 
 
 Hurra for the SpaBiuen ^ of ])roud Innishowen ! — 
 
 Long live the wild Seers of stout Innishowen! — 
 
 May Mary, our mother, l)e deaf to their moan 
 Who love not the promise of proud Innishowen ! 
 
 1 Spcemen, an Ulster and Scotch term signifying a person gifted with 
 second sight” — a prophet. 
 
EARL OF DUNRAVEN. 
 
 (1841 ) 
 
 Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, the fourth Earl of Dunraven 
 and Mount-Earl, was born in 1841, and succeeded to the title in 1871. 
 He was educated at Oxford and went into the army. Before his 
 father’s death, while Viscount Adare, he devoted himself to literary 
 pursuits, and gained a good deal of the experience afforded by the 
 discharge of the varied and adventurous duties of special corre- 
 spondent. In this capacity he served the London Daily ^ Telegraph 
 throughout the Abyssinian campaign and the Franco-Prussian war, 
 and his letters contained some of the most graphic descriptions that 
 appeared even in that journal of graphic writing during those excit- 
 ing periods. 
 
 He made a tour through the then less frequented parts of the 
 United States, and the result of his observations was given to the 
 world in a book entitled ‘ The Great Divide,’ a work which abounds 
 in brilliant descriptions. He also wrote ‘ The Upper Yellowstone ’ 
 (1874) ; ‘ The Irish Question ’ (1880) ; ‘ The Soudan : Its History, Geog- 
 raphy, and Characteristics’ (1884); and ' The Theory and Practice 
 of Navigation ’ (1900). He is an ardent yachtsman and twice built 
 a yacht to compete for the America Cup. 
 
 A CITY IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 From ‘The Great Divide.’ 
 
 Virginia City. Good Lord ! What a name for the place ! 
 We had looked forward to it during the journey as to a 
 sort of haven of rest, a lap of luxury; a Capua in which to 
 forget our woes and weariness; an Elysium where we 
 might be washed, clean-shirted, rubbed, shampooed, bar- 
 bered, curled, cooled, and cocktailed. Not a bit of it! 
 Not a sign of Capua about the place! There might have 
 been laps, but there was no luxury. A street of straggling 
 shanties, a bank, a blacksmitlPs shop, a few dry-goods 
 stores, and bar-rooms, constitute the main attractions of 
 the city.’’ A gentleman had informed me that Virginia 
 city contained brown stone-front houses and paved streets, 
 equal, he guessed, to any Eastern town. How that man 
 did lie in his Wellingtons ! The whole place was a delusion 
 and a snare. One of the party was especially mortified, 
 for he had been provided with a letter of introduction to 
 some ladies, from whose society he anticipated great pleas- 
 
964 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ure; but when lie came to inquire, be found, to bis intense 
 disgust, that they were in Virginia City, Nevada^ ten 
 thousand miles away ! However, we soon became recon- 
 ciled to our fate. We found tbe little inn very clean and 
 comfortable; we dined on deer, antelope, and bear meat, 
 a fact wbicb raised hopes of bunting in our bosoms; and 
 tbe people were exceedingly civil, kind, obliging, and 
 anxious to assist strangers in any possible way, as, so far 
 as my experience goes of America, and indeed of all coun- 
 tries, they invariably are as soon as you get off tbe regular 
 lines of travel. 
 
 Virginia City is situated on Alder Gulch. It is sur- 
 rounded by a dreary country, resembling tbe more desolate 
 parts of Cumberland, and consisting of interminable 
 waves of steep low bills, covered with short, withered 
 grass. I went out for a walk on tbe afternoon of our ar- 
 rival, and was most disagreeably impressed. I could not 
 get to tbe top of anything, and consequently could obtain 
 no extended view. I kept continually climbing to tbe sum- 
 mit of grassy bills, only to find other bills, grassier and 
 higher, surrounding me on all sides. The wind swept howl- 
 ing down the combes, and whistled shrilly in the short wiry 
 herbage; large masses of ragged-edged black clouds were 
 piled up against a leaden sky; not a sign of man or beast 
 was to be seen. It began to snow heavily, and I was glad 
 to turn my back to the storm and scud for home. 
 
 Alder Gulch produced at one time some of the richest 
 placer workings of the continent. It was discovered in 
 18G3, and about thirty millions of dollars’ worth of gold 
 have been won from it. Of late years very little has 
 been done, and at present the industrious Chinaman alone 
 pursues the business of rewashing the old dirt heaps, and 
 making money where any one else would starve. In truth, 
 he is a great washerwoman is your Chinaman, equally suc- 
 cessful with rotten quartz and dirty shirts. Alder Gulch 
 is about twelve miles in length, and half a mile broad. It 
 is closed at the head by a remarkable limestone ridge, the 
 highest point of which is known as Old Baldy Mountain,” 
 and it leads into the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri. 
 Along the sides of the valley may be seen many patches of 
 black basalt, and the bottom is covered entirely by drift, 
 composed of material weather and water worn out of met- 
 
EARL OF DVNRAVE1\L 
 
 9G5 
 
 amorphic rocks, the fragments varying in size from large 
 bowlders to fine sand and gravel. In this drift the float 
 gold is found. 
 
 In Montana the deposits of the precious metal generally 
 occur in metamorphic rocks, belonging probably to the 
 Huronian or Laureutian series. These are clearly strati- 
 fied, not unfrequently intercalated with bands of clay or 
 sand, and underlie the whole country, forming beds of 
 great thickness, very massive and close-grained in their 
 lower layers, but growing softer and looser in texture to- 
 wards the surface. The superimposed formations, carbon- 
 iferous limestones and others, appear to have been almost 
 wholly removed by erosion. 
 
 In this part of Montana, indeed, the forces of erosion 
 must have acted with great vigor for a long period of time. 
 The general character of the country where placer mines 
 exist may be said to be a series of deep gulches, frequently 
 dry in the height of summer, but carrying foaming torrents 
 after heavy rains and in snow-melting time, leading at 
 right angles into a principal valley, and combining to form 
 a little river, or, as it would be locally called, a creek. 
 
 This principal stream courses in a broad valley through 
 the mountains for perhaps 60, 80, or 100 miles, and at 
 every two or three miles of its progress receives the waters 
 of a little tributary torrent, tearing through the strata in 
 deep canons for ten or twelve miles, and searching the very 
 vitals of the hills. Down these gulches, canons, and val- 
 leys are carried the yellow specks torn from their quartz 
 and felspar cradles, hurried downward by the melting 
 snow, and battered into powder by falling bowlders and 
 grinding rocks, till they sink in beds of worthless sand and 
 mud, there to lie in peace for ages amid the solitudes of 
 primeval forest and eternal snow. 
 
 Some fine day there conies along a dirty, disheveled, to- 
 bacco-chewing fellow — fossicker,” as they would say in 
 Australia, ‘‘ prospector,’^ as he would be called in the 
 States. Impelled by a love of adventure, a passion for ex- 
 citement, a hatred of the town and its narrow ways,” and 
 of all and any of the steady wage-getting occupations of 
 life, he braves summer’s heat and winter’s cold, thirst and 
 starvation, hostile Indians and jealous whites; perhaps 
 paddling a tiny birch-bark canoe over unmapped, unheard- 
 
966 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of lakes, away to the far and misty North, or driving before 
 him over the plains and prairies of a more genial clime his 
 donkey or Indian pony, laden with the few necessaries that 
 supply all the wants of his precarious life — a little flour, 
 some tea and sugar tied up in a rag, a battered frying-pan 
 and tin cup, a shovel, axe, and rusty gun. Through un- 
 trodden wastes he wanders, self-dependent and alone, 
 thinking of the great spree he had the last time he was in 
 settlements,’’ and dreaming of what a good time he will 
 enjoy when he gets back rich with the value of some lucky 
 find, till chance directs him to the Gulch. 
 
 After a rapid but keen survey, he thinks it is a likely- 
 looking place, capsizes the pack off his pony, leans lazily 
 upon his shovel, spits, and finally concludes to take a sam- 
 ple of the dirt. Listlessly, but with what delicacy of ma- 
 nipulation he handles the shovel, spilling over its edges the 
 water and lighter mud! See the look of interest that 
 wakens up his emotionless face as the residue of sediment 
 becomes less and less! Still more tenderly he moves the 
 circling pan, stooping anxiously to scan the few remaining 
 grains of fine sand. 
 
 A minute speck of yellow glitters in the sun; with an- 
 other dexterous turn of the wrist, two or three more golden 
 grains are exposed to view. He catches his breath; his 
 eyes glisten ; his heart beats. Hurrah ! He has found the 
 color ! and “ a d — d good color too.” It is all over with 
 your primeval forest now; not all the Indians this side of 
 Halifax or the other place could keep men out of that 
 gulch. In a short time claims are staked, tents erected, 
 shanties built, and Roaring Camp” is in full blast with 
 all its rowdyism, its shooting, gambling, drinking, and 
 blaspheming, and its under-current of charity, which never 
 will be credited by those who value substance less than 
 shadows, and think more of words than deeds. 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR ECCLES. 
 
 Miss O’Conor Eccles is the fourth daughter of Alexander O’Conor 
 Eccles of Ballingarde House, County Roscommon. She was edu- 
 cated at Upton Hall, Birkenhead, and in Paris and Germany. She 
 wrote, under the pseudonym “Hal Godfrey,” ‘ The Rejuvenation of 
 Miss Semaphore,’ a delightfully humorous book which has been 
 very successful. Her work, which is scattered over many period- 
 icals, is very extensive. The humorous and the pathetic are happily 
 mingled in her writings. 
 
 KING WILLIAM. 
 
 A CHROXirLE OF TOOMEVARA. 
 
 From The Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 In Toomevara our political opinions are strong and well 
 defined, and we express them freely. 
 
 Such feuds, however, as that between Mrs. Macfarlane, 
 who kept the refreshment-room at the railway-station, and 
 Mr. James O’Brien, the station-master, were rare, since 
 usually Catholics and Protestants live on very neighborly 
 terms in our part of Ireland. They had taken a dislike to 
 each other from the first, and after-events served to inten- 
 sify it. 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlane was a tall, thin, and eminently respec- 
 table woman of fifty, possessed of many rigid virtues. She 
 was a native of the North of Ireland, and at the time our 
 story opens had been for two years proprietress of the 
 buffet, and made a decent living by it, for Toomevara is 
 situated on the Great Eastern and Western Railway, and a 
 fair amount of traffic passes through it. 
 
 The station-master, familiarly known as Jim O’Brien, 
 was Toomevara born, and had once been a porter on that 
 very line. He was an intelligent, easy-going, yet quick- 
 tempered man of pronounced Celtic type, with a round, 
 good-natured face, a humorous mouth, shrewd twinkling 
 eyes, and immense volubilit}^ Bet^veen him and Mrs. Mac- 
 farlane the deadliest warfare raged. She was cold and 
 superior, and implacably in the right. She pointed out 
 Jim’s deficiencies whenever she saw them, and she saw 
 them very often. All day long she sat in her refreshment- 
 
 967 
 
968 * 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 room, spectacles on nose, her Bible open before her, knit- 
 ting, and rising only at the entrance of a customer. Jim 
 had an uneasy consciousness that nothing escaped her eye, 
 and her critical remarks had more than once been reported 
 to him. 
 
 “ The bitther ould pill ! ’’ he said to his wife. Why, 
 the very look av her ’ud sour a crock o’ crame. She ’s as 
 cross as a bag av weasels.” 
 
 Jim was a Catholic and a Nationalist. He belonged to 
 the Laygue,” and spoke at public meetings as often as his 
 duties allowed. He objected to being referred to by Mrs. 
 Macfarlane as a Papish ” and a Rebel.” 
 
 Papish, indeed I ” said he. “ Ribbil, indeed ! Tell the 
 woman to keep a civil tongue in her head, or ’t will be 
 worse for her.” 
 
 How did the likes av her iver git a husban’? ” he would 
 ask distractedly, after a sparring match. Troth, an’ ’t is 
 no wonder the poor man died.” 
 
 ^Irs. Macfarlane was full of fight and courage. Her 
 proudest boast was of being the granddaughter, daughter, 
 sister, and widow of Orangemen. The comparative luke- 
 warmness of Toomevara Protestants disgusted her. She 
 often told her intimates that in the little town where she 
 was born no Papist was allowed to settle. Every evening 
 the fife and drum band used in her childhood to march 
 through the streets playing Protestant Boys,” when the 
 inhabitants were expected to rush to their windows and 
 join in the chorus, unless there was a good excuse, such as 
 illness. Otherwise the windows were broken. She looked 
 on herself in Toomevara as a child of Israel among the 
 Babylonians, and felt that it behoved her to uphold the 
 standard of her faith. To this end she sang the praises 
 of the Battle of the Bojme with a triumph that aggravated 
 O’Brien to madness. 
 
 God Almighty help the woman! Is it Irish at all she 
 is — or what? To see her makin’ merry because a parcel o’ 
 
 rascally Dutchmen Sure, doesn’t she know ’t was 
 
 Irish blood they spilt at the Boyne? an’ to see her takin’ 
 pride in it turns me sick, so it does. If she was English, 
 now, I could stand it; but she callin’ herself an Irish- 
 woman — faith, she has the bad dhrop in her, so she has, to 
 be glad at her counthry’s misforthunes.” 
 
CHARLOTTE O^CONOR ECCLE8. 
 
 969 
 
 Jim’s rage was the greater because Mrs. Macfarlane, 
 whatever she said, said little or nothing to him. She 
 passed him by with lofty scorn and indifference, affecting 
 not to see him; and while she did many things that O’Brien 
 found extremely annoying, they were things strictly within 
 her rights. 
 
 Matters had not arrived at this pass all at once. The 
 feud dated from Mrs. Macfarlane’s having adopted a little 
 black dog, a mongrel, on which she lavished a wealth of 
 affection, and which — as the most endearing title she knew 
 — she had named King William.” This, of course, was 
 nobody’s concern save Mrs. Macfarlane’s own, and in a 
 world of philosophers she would have been allowed to 
 amuse herself unheeded; but Jim O’Brien was not a phi- 
 losopher. 
 
 Unlike most Irishmen, he had a great love for flowers. 
 His garden was beautifully kept, and he was prouder of 
 his roses than anything on earth save his eldest daughter 
 Kitty, who was nearly sixteen. Picture, then, his rage and 
 dismay when he one day found his beds scratched into 
 holes, and his roses uprooted by King William,” who had 
 developed a perfect mania for hiding away bones under 
 Jim’s flowers. O’Brien made loud and angry complaints 
 to the dog’s owner, which she received with unconcern and 
 disbelief. 
 
 “ Please, Misther O’Brien,” she said with dignity, don’t 
 try to put it on the poor dog. Even if you do dislike his 
 name, that ’s no reason for saying he was in your garden. 
 He knows better, so he does, than to go where he ’s not 
 wanted.” 
 
 After this it was open war between the station-master 
 and the widow. 
 
 Jim, with many grumblings, invested in a roll of wire 
 netting, and spent a couple of days securing it to his 
 garden railings, Mrs. Macfarlane protesting the while that 
 she did not believe a word he had said, that he had trumped 
 up a charge just out of spite, that it was only what might 
 be expected from one of his kind, that for her part she had 
 always lived with gentry, and had no patience with low 
 agitators, and that she was quite sure it was his own chil- 
 dren, and none else, that he had to thank for the state of 
 
970 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 bis garden — if, indeed, there was anything wrong with it 
 at all, which she doubted. 
 
 Under the windows of the refreshment-room were two 
 narrow flower-beds. These Jim took care never to touch, 
 aflecting to consider them the exclusive property of Mrs. 
 Macfarlane. They were long left uncultivated, an eyesore 
 to the station-master; but one day Kelly, the porter, came 
 to him with an air of mystery, to say that “ th^ ould wan 
 — for by this term was Mrs. Macfarlane generally indi- 
 cated — was settin^ somethin’ in the beds beyant.” 
 
 Jim came out of his office, and walked up and down the 
 platform with an air of elaborate unconsciousness. Sure 
 enough, there was Mrs. Macfarlane gardening. She had 
 donned old gloves and a clean checked apron, and trowel 
 in hand was breaking up the caked earth, preparatory, it 
 would seem, to setting seeds. 
 
 “ What the dickens is she doin’? ” asked Jim, when he 
 got back. 
 
 “Not a wan av me knows,” said Kelly. “She’s been 
 grubbin’ there since tin o’clock.” 
 
 From this time Mrs. Macfarlane was assiduous in the 
 care of her two flower-beds. Every day she might be seen 
 weeding or watering, and though Jim steadily averted his 
 gaze, he was devoured by curiosity as to the probable re- 
 sults. What on earth did she want to grow? The weeks 
 passed. Tiny green seedlings at last pushed their way 
 through the soil, and in due course the nature of the plants 
 became evident. Jim was highly excited, and rushed home 
 to tell his wife. 
 
 “ Be the Hokey, Mary,” he said, “ ’t is lilies she has 
 there; an’ may I never sin, but it’s my belief they’re 
 Orange lilies; an’ if thej^ are, I ’ll root ev’ry wan av thim 
 out, if I die forrit.” 
 
 “ Be quiet now,” said Mary, a pacific creature who spent 
 much of her time soothing her quick-tempered husband. 
 “ Sure she wouldn’t do the likes o’ that on ye. ’T is too 
 hasty y’ are, Jim. How d’ye know they’re lilies at all? 
 For the love o’ God keep her tongue off ye, an’ don’t be 
 puttin’ yersel’ in her way.” 
 
 “Whisht, woman, d’ye think I’m a fool? ’T is lilies 
 th’ are annyways, an’ time ’ll tell if they ’re Orange or no; 
 
CHARLOTTE 0 VON OR EC C LEE, 971 
 
 but faith, if th ’are, I won’t sthand it. I ’ll complain to the 
 Boord.” 
 
 Sure the Boord ’ll be on her side, man. They ’ll say 
 why shudden’t she have Orange lilies if she likes.” 
 
 “ Ah, Mary, ’t is too simple y’ are inthirely. Have ye 
 no sperrit, woman alive, to let her ride rough-shod over uz 
 this way? ^ Make a mouse o’ yerself an’ the cat ’ll ate ye’ 
 ’s a thrue sayin’. Sure Saint Pether himself cudn’t sthand 
 it — an’ be the Piper that played before Moses, I won’t.” 
 
 “ Ye misforthunit man, don’t be dhrawin’ down ruc- 
 tions on yer head. Haven’t ye yer childher to think about? 
 An’ don’t be throublin’ yerself over what she does. ’T is 
 plazin’ her y’ are, whin she sees you ’re mad. Take no no- 
 tice, man, an’ p’raps she ’ll shtop.” 
 
 ‘‘ The divil fly away wid her for a bitther ould sarpint. 
 The vinom’s in her sure enough. Why should I put up wid 
 her, I ’d like to know? ” 
 
 Ah, keep yer tongue between yer teeth, Jim. ’T is too 
 onprudent y’ are. Not a worrd ye say but is brought back 
 to her by some wan. Have sinse, man. You ’ll go sayin’ 
 that to Joe Kell^^, an’ he ’ll have it over the town in no 
 time, an’ some wan ’ll carr^^ it to her.” 
 
 An’ do ye think I care a thrawneen ^ for the likes av 
 her? Faith, not a pin. If you got }^er way, Mary, ye ’d 
 have me like the man that was hanged for sayin’ nothin’. 
 Sure I never did a hand’s turn agin her, an’ ’t is a mane 
 thrick av her to go settin’ Orange lilies over foreninst me, 
 an’ she knowin’ me opinions.” 
 
 Faith, I ’ll not say it wasn’t, Jim, if they are Orange 
 lilies : but sure ye don’t know rightly yet what they are, an’ 
 in God’s name keep quiet till ye do.” 
 
 Soothed somewhat by his wife, O’Brien recovered his 
 composure, and as at that moment Joe Kelly rang the sta- 
 tion bell, announcing that the eleven o’clock mail train 
 from Dublin was signaled, he hurried out to his duties. 
 
 The days went by. The lilies grew taller and taller. 
 They budded, they bloomed; and, sure enough, Jim had 
 been in the right — Orange lilies they proved to be. 
 
 “ They ’ll make a fine show for the Twelfth of July, I ’m 
 thinkin’,” said Mrs. Macfarlane complacently to Head 
 Constable Cullen, who had stopped to pass her the time 
 
 1 Tliraivneen, a stem of grass. 
 
972 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 o’ day,” as she walked by her beds, swinging a dripping 
 watering-pot. 
 
 So they will, ma’am,” said the Constable; so they 
 will. But what does Misther O’Brien say to them? ” 
 
 I ’m sure I don’t know, an’ I don’t care,” replied Mrs. 
 Macfarlane loftily. “ I haven’t consulted Misther O’Brien. 
 He ’s nothin’ tu me.” 
 
 To be sure — to be sure; but bein’ Orange lilies, ye know, 
 an’ we have so few of them about here; and him bein’ such 
 an out-an’-out Nationalist, an' a Catholic, I just thought 
 it might make a differ between yez.” 
 
 An’ if it does, it won’t be the first. I ’m proud tu differ 
 from the likes of him. You ’ve no sperrit down here to 
 make a fellow like that a station-master, him that was a 
 common porter to start with ; and as for his low opinions, 
 I scorn them — an ignorant, benighted, Papish rebel.” 
 
 Come, come, ma’am : ’t was the Company made him 
 station-master, not uz. Jim isn’t a bad soort an’ you ’re 
 givin’ him too hard names, so y’ are.” 
 
 He ’s a murtherin’ vagabone, like all his kind,” said 
 Mrs. Macfarlane with energy ; an’ I ’m surprised at yu,^ 
 Head Constable, so I am — yu, a decent man, that has had 
 the benefit of the pure gospel, takin’ his part.” 
 
 But sure, ma’am, the Bible bids uz love our inimies.” 
 
 So it does, but it bids us have no part with evil-doers, 
 an’ woon text is as good as another, I ’m thinkin’. Ah, 
 times is changed when a man like yUy wearin’ the Queen’s 
 uniform an’ all, can be found to wrest the Scriptures to the 
 advantage of a fellow like that.” 
 
 Sure, ma’am, I ’m for pace an’ concord. What ’s the 
 use of fightin’? We ’ve all got our own idayas, an’ maybe 
 in til’ ind, wan is as right as another.” 
 
 I ’m surprised at you. Head Constable, that I am ; and 
 if my poor father was alive this day to hear yu, he ’d say 
 the same. God be with the time when he marched through 
 Strabane at the head of six hundherd Orangemen in full 
 regalia, playin’ ^ Croppies lie down.’ ” 
 
 Speaking thus, Mrs. Macfarlane turned abruptly into 
 the refreshment-room, and banged the door behind her. 
 
 The Head Constable smiled and looked foolish,, for he 
 
 1 In the north of Ireland yu and tu are pronounced as almost the exact 
 equivalents of the French yeux and tu. 
 
CHARLOTTE O^CONOR ECCLE8. 
 
 973 
 
 was a great man in a small way, and accustomed to be 
 treated with respect; then he walked off whistling to hide 
 his discomfiture. 
 
 At the time of the blossoming of the Orange lilies James 
 O’Brien was not at home, having had to go some twenty 
 miles down the line on official business. The obnoxious 
 flowers took advantage of his absence to make a gay show. 
 When he returned, as luck would have it, Mrs. Macfarlane 
 was away, and had shut up the refreshment-room, but had 
 not locked it. No one locks doors in Toomevara unless 
 their absence is to be lengthy. She had left “ King Wil- 
 liam ” behind, and told Joe Kelly to take care of the dog, 
 in case he should be lonely, for she had been invited to the 
 wedding of an old fellow-servant, the butler at Lord Dun- 
 an way’s, who was to be married that day to the steward’s 
 daughter. 
 
 All this Joe Kelly told the station-master on his return, 
 but he did not say a word about the Orange lilies, being 
 afraid of an explosion ; and, as he said, detarmined not 
 to make or meddle, but just to let him find it out him- 
 self.” 
 
 For quite a time Jim was occupied over way-bills in his 
 little office ; but at last his attention was distracted by the 
 long-continued howling and yelping of a dog. 
 
 Let the baste out, can’t ye? ” he at length said to Kelly. 
 
 I can’t stand listening to ’um anny longer.” 
 
 “ I was afeard ’t was run over he might be, agin’ she 
 came back,” said Kelly, an’ so I shut ’um up.” 
 
 Sure there ’s no danger. There won’t be a thrain in for 
 the next two hour, an’ if he was run over it self, God knows 
 he ’d be no loss. ’T isn’t meself ’ud grieve for ’um, th’ ill- 
 favored cur.” 
 
 King William ” was accordingly released. 
 
 When O’Brien had finished his task, he stood for a time 
 at the office-door, his hands crossed behind him supporting 
 his coat-tails, his eyes fixed abstractedly on the sky. Pres- 
 ently he started for his usual walk up and down the plat- 
 form, when his ej^e was at once caught by the flare of the 
 stately rows of Orange lilies. 
 
 “ Be the Holy Poker,” he exclaimed, but I was right ! 
 ’T is orange th’ are, sure enough. What ’ll Mary say now? 
 Faith, ’t is lies they do be tellin’ whin they say there ’s no 
 
974 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 riptiles in Ireland. That ould woman bangs Banagher, an^ 
 Banagher bangs the divil.’^ 
 
 He stopped in front of the obnoxious flowers. 
 
 IsnT it the murthering pity there ’s nothin’ I can plant 
 to spite her. She has the pull over me intirely. Shamer- 
 ogues makes no show at all — you ’d pass them unbe- 
 knownst, — while Orange lilies ye can see a mile off. Now, 
 Avho but herself ’ud be up to the likes o’ this? ” 
 
 At the moment he became aware of an extraordinary 
 commotion among the lilies, and looking closer perceived 
 King William ” in their midst, scratching as if for bare 
 life, scattering mould, leaves, and bulbs to the four winds, 
 and with every stroke of his hind-legs dealing destruction 
 to the carefully tended flowers. • 
 
 The sight filled Jim with sudden gladness. 
 
 “ More power to the dog ! ” he cried, with irrepressible 
 glee. More power to ’um ! Sure he has more sinse than 
 his missis. ^ King William,’ indeed, an’ he rootin’ up 
 Orange lilies ! Ho, ho ! Tare an’ ouns ; but ’t is the biggest 
 joke that iver I hard in my life. More power to ye! Good 
 dog ! ” 
 
 Kubbing his hands in an ecstasy of delight, he watched 
 King William ” at his work of devastation, and, regret- 
 fully be it confessed, when the dog paused, animated him 
 to fresh efforts by thrilling cries of “ Rats ! ” 
 
 King William ” sprang wildly hither and thither, run- 
 ning from end to end of the beds, snapping the brittle lily 
 stems, scattering the blossoms. 
 
 Be gum, but it ’s great. Look at ’um now. Cruel wars 
 to the Queen o’ Spain if iver I seen such shport! Go it, 
 
 ‘ King William ! ’ Smash thim, me boy ! Good dog. Out 
 wid thim ! ” roared Jim, tears of mirth streaming down 
 his cheeks. “ Faith, ’t is mad she ’ll be. I ’d give sixpence 
 to see her face. O Lord ! O Lord ! Sure it ’s the biggest 
 joke that iver was.” 
 
 At last King William ” tired of the game, but only 
 when every lily lay low, and Mrs. Macfarlane’s carefully 
 tended flower-beds were a chaos of broken stalks and 
 trampled blossoms. 
 
 It was the quietest hour of the afternoon at Toomevara 
 station. Kelly was busy in the goods-store; Finnerty, the 
 other porter^, had just sauntered across to Mrs. M’Glynn’s 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR ECCLES, 
 
 975 
 
 for a half-glass of whisky, so Jim had all the fun to him- 
 self, and grudged losing any by rushing in search of some 
 one to share it. Now, gloating over the destruction 
 wrought, he picked up King William ’’ by the scrulf of 
 the neck, bundled him into the refreshment-room and shut 
 the door, then, beaming with pure joy, rushed off to tell his 
 subordinate the news. 
 
 Joe,’^ he gasped, peering into the dusky goods-store, 
 I ^m fit to be tied. What d^ ye think? Th^ ould woman’s 
 Orange lilies is ail knocked into smithereens.” 
 
 Be the laws, sir ! ye don’t say so? ” cried Kelly. Sure, 
 I thought whin ye ’d see ’um ye ’d go mad an’ break 
 things.” 
 
 But, Joe, the fun av it is, I never laid a finger on thim. 
 ’T was the dog — ’t was ‘ King William,’ if ye plaze, that 
 did the work; ^ King William,’ begorra, rootin’ up Orange 
 liiesi Faith, ’t was like Teague’s cocks that fought wan 
 another though they were all of the same breed.” 
 
 The dog? ” said Kelly, and there was an accent in the 
 interrogation that angered the station-master. 
 
 Amn’t I afther tellin’ you ’t was the dog: who else? 
 Maybe ye don’t b’leeve me? ” 
 
 Oh, I do b’leeve ye, sir. Why wouldn’t I? On’y I hard 
 ye say ye ’d pull thim up if ’t was Orange lilies they was, 
 
 an’ so I thought maybe ” 
 
 There ’s manny ’s the thing a man sez, that he doesn’t 
 do : an’ annyhow I didn’t do this, but begad ’t was fine 
 shport all the same, an’ I ’m not a bit sorry. ’T would be 
 more to me than a tin-poun’ note this minnit if I could see 
 the face av her whin she finds it out.” 
 
 She ’ll be back soon now,” said Kelly, “ an’ I misdoubt 
 but we ’ll hear from her before long.” 
 
 Kelly’s words were speedily justified. 
 
 As O’Brien in high good-humor, having communicated 
 the side-splitting joke to Mary and Finnerty, was busy over 
 an account-book, Kelly came in. 
 
 She ’s back,” he whispered, an’ she ’s neither to hold 
 nor to bind. I was watchin’ out, an’ sure ’t was shtruck 
 all of a hape she was whin she seen thim lilies; an’ now 
 I ’ll take me oath she ’s goin’ to come here, for, begob, she 
 looks as cross as nine highways.” 
 
 “ Letter come,” chuckled O’Brien, I ’m ready forrer.” 
 
976 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 At this moment the office-door was burst open with vio- 
 lence, and Mrs. Macfarlane, in her best Sunday costume, 
 bonnet, black gloves, and umbrella included, her face very 
 pale save the cheek-bones, where two bright pink spots 
 burned, entered the room. 
 
 Misther O’Brien,’^ she said, in a voice that trembled 
 with rage, will you please to inform me the meanin’ of 
 this dastardly outrage? ’’ 
 
 Arrah, what outrage are ye talkin’ ov, ma’am?” 
 asked O’Brien innocently. “ Sure, be the looks av ye, I 
 think somethin’ has upset ye iutirely. Faith, you ’re 
 lookin’ as angry as if you were vexed, as the sayin’ is.” 
 
 Oh, to be sure! A great wonder indeed that I should 
 be vexed. ^ Crabbit was that cause had,’ ” interrupted Mrs. 
 Macfarlane with a sneer. You ’re not deceivin’ me, sir. 
 Full well you know, Misther O’Brien, full well you know 
 that it ’s good reason to be angry you ’ve given me this 
 day. Full Avell you know the outrage tu which I am al- 
 ludin’. I ’m not taken in by your pretinces, but if there ’s 
 law in the land or justice I ’ll have it of yu.” 
 
 Would ye mind, ma’am,” said O’Brien imperturbably, 
 for his superabounding delight made him feel quite calm 
 and superior to the angry woman — would ye just mind 
 statin’ in plain English what you 're talkin’ about, for not 
 a wan av me knows yit? ” 
 
 Oh, yu son of Judas! Oh, yu deceivin’ wretch, as if 
 it wasn’t yu that is afther desthroyin’ 1113" flower-beds ! ” 
 Ah, thin it is yer ould flower-beds you ’re makin’ 
 all this row about? Yer dirt}" Orange lilies? Sure ’t is 
 dared out of the place they ought t’ve been long ago for 
 weeds. ’T is mesel’ that ’s glad they ’re gone, an’ so I tell 
 ye plump an’ plain, bud as for me desthroyin’ them, sorra 
 finger iver I laid on thim. I wouldn’t demane mesel’.” 
 Hould yer tongue before }^e choke with lies,” cried Mrs. 
 jMacfarlane in towering wrath. Who but }"erself would 
 do the like? Is it when I can get witnesses that heard yu 
 swear yu ’d pull them up? Don’t try to fool me.” 
 
 Begorra, you ’re right enough in that. So I did say it, 
 an’ so I might have done it too, on’y it was done for me, 
 an’ the throuble spared me. I wasn’t nixt or nigh thim 
 whin the desthruction began.” 
 
 An’ if yu please, Misther O’Brien,” said Mrs. Macfar- 
 
CHARLOTTE OVONOR ECCLE8, 
 
 977 
 
 lane with ferocious politeness, will yu kindly mintion, if 
 yu did not do the job, who did? 
 
 Faith, that ’s where the joke comes in,^’ said O’Brien 
 pleasantly. ’T was the very same baste that ruinated my 
 roses, bad cess to him; yer precious pet, ‘ King William.’ ” 
 Oh I is it leavin’ it on the dog y’ are, yu traitorous 
 Jesuit? the poor wee dog that never harmed yu? Sure ’t is 
 only a Papist would think of a mean trick like that to shift 
 the blame.” 
 
 The color rose to O’Brien’s face. 
 
 ‘‘ Mrs. Macfarlane, ma’am,” he said with labored civil- 
 ity, wid yer permission we ’ll lave me religion out o’ this. 
 Maybe if ye say much more, I might be losin’ me timper 
 wid ye.” 
 
 Much I mind what yu lose,” cried Mrs. Macfarlane, 
 once more flinging her manners to the winds. It ’s 
 thransported the likes of yu should be for a set of robbin’, 
 murderin’, destroyin’ thraytors.” 
 
 Have a care, ma’am, how ye spake to yer betthers. 
 Bobbin’, deceivin’, murdherin’, destroyin’ thraytors in- 
 deed I I like that I What brought over the lot av yez, 
 AVilliamites, an’ Cromwaylians, an’ English, an’ Scotch, 
 but to rob, an’ decave, an’ desthroy, an’ murdher uz, an’ 
 stale our land, an’ bid uz go ^ to hell or to Connaught,’ an’ 
 grow fat on what was ours before iver yez came, an’ thin 
 jibe uz for bein’ poor? Thraytors! Thraytor yerself, for 
 that ’s what the lot av yez is. Who wants yez here at all? ” 
 
 Exasperated beyond endurance, Mrs. Macfarlane struck 
 at the station-master with her neat black umbrella, and 
 had given him a nasty cut across the brow, when Kelly in- 
 terfered, as well as Finnerty and Mrs. O’Brien, who rushed 
 in attracted by the noise. Between them O’Brien was held 
 back under a shower of blows, and the angry woman 
 hustled outside, whence she retreated to her own quar- 
 ters, muttering threats all the way. 
 
 Oh, Jim agra! ’t is bleedin’ y’ are,” shrieked poor anx- 
 ious ]\Iary wildly. Oh, wirra, wirra, why did ye dhraw 
 her on ye? Sure I tould ye how ’t would be. As sure as 
 God made little apples she ’ll process ye, an’ she has the 
 quality on her side.” 
 
 “ Let her,” said Jim. Much good she ’ll get by it. Is 
 it makin’ a liar av me she ’d be whin I tould her I didn’t 
 
 9— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
978 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 touch her ould lilies. Sure I ’ll process her back for 
 assaultin’ an’ battherin’ me. Ye all saw her, an’ me not 
 touchin her, the caUiagli.’’ ^ 
 
 Begorra, ’t is thrue for him,” said Kelly. She flag- 
 ellated him wid her umbrelly, an’ sorra blow missed bud 
 the wan that didn’t hit, and on’y I Avas here, an’ lit on her 
 suddent like a bee on a posy, she ’d liaA^e had his life, so she 
 would.” 
 
 The laAA'suit between Mrs. Macfarlane and O’Brien never 
 came off. Perhaps on reflection the former saw she could 
 not proA^e that the station-master had uprooted her plants, 
 or, AA hat was more probable, the sight of him going about 
 Avith his head bound up made her realize that he might be 
 able to turn the tables on her. Accordingly, she meditated 
 a scheme by which to pay him out,” as she phrased it, 
 for his conduct, AA’ithout the interA^ention of judge or jury. 
 Not for an instant did she forget her cause of offense, or 
 belieA^e O’Brien’s story that it was the dog that had de- 
 stroyed her Orange lilies. After some consideration she 
 hit on an ingenious deAuce, that satisfied her as being at 
 once supremely anoying to her enemy and well within the 
 laAv. Her lilies, emblems of the religious and political 
 faith that were in her, were gone; but she still had means 
 to testify to her beliefs, and protest against O’Brien and 
 all that he represented to her mind. 
 
 Next day, AAdien the midday train had just steamed into 
 the station, eTim was startled by hearing a wild cheer. 
 
 Hi, ^ King William I ’ Hi, ^ King William I ’ Come back, 
 ^ King William ! ’ ^ King William,’ my darlin’, ^ King Wil- 
 liam I ’ ” 
 
 The air rang Avith the shrill party-cry, and AAdien Jim 
 rushed out he found that Mrs. Macfarlane had allowed her 
 dog to run doAvn the platform just as the passengers were 
 alighting, and was noAV folloAving him, under the pretense 
 of calling him back. There AA’as nothing to be done. The 
 dog’s name certainly was King William,” and Mrs. Mac- 
 farlane was at liberty to recall him if he strayed. 
 
 Jim stood for a moment like one transfixed. 
 
 Faith, I b’leeA^e ’t is the divil’s grandmother she is,” he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlane passed him with a deliberately unsee- 
 
 ^ Calliagh, hag. 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR ECCLE8. 
 
 979 
 
 ing eye. Had he been the gatepost she could not have 
 taken less notice of his presence, as, having made her way 
 to the extreme end of the platform cheering for King 
 William,’^ she picked up her dog, and marched back in 
 triumph. 
 
 I wonder how he likes that? she said to herself with 
 a defiant toss of the head, and a pleasing conviction that 
 he did not like it at all. 
 
 Oh, say nothin’ to her, Jim ! Oh, Jim, for God’s sake 
 say nothin’ to her I ” pleaded Mary. 
 
 I won’t,” said Jim grimly. Not a word. But if she 
 does id again, I ’ll be ready forrer, so I will. I ’ll make her 
 sup sorrow.” 
 
 Speedily did it become evident that Mrs. Macfarlane was 
 pursuing a regular plan of campaign, for at the arrival of 
 every train that entered the station that day, she went 
 through the same performance of letting loose the dog and 
 then pursuing him dovrn the platform, waving her arms 
 and yelling for King William.” 
 
 By the second challenge, Jim had risen to the situation 
 and formed his counterplot. He saw and heard her in 
 stony silence, apparently as indifferent to her tactics as 
 she to his presence; but he was only biding his time. No 
 sooner did passengers alight and enter the refreshment- 
 room, than, having just given them time to be seated, he 
 rushed up, threw open the door of his enemy’s head- 
 quarters, and, putting in his head, cried : 
 
 Take yer places, gintlemin, immaydiately. The thrain ’s 
 just off. Hurry up, will yez ! She ’s away.” 
 
 The hungry and discomfited passengers hurried out, pell- 
 mell, and Mrs. Macfarlane was left speechless with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 I bet I ’ve got the whip-hand av her this time,” chuckled 
 Jim, as he gave the signal to start. 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlaue’s spirit, however, was not broken. 
 From morning until night, whether the day was wet or 
 fine, she greeted the arrival of each train by loud cries for 
 King William,” and on each occasion Jim retorted by 
 bundling out all her customers before they could touch 
 bite or sup. 
 
 If those laugh best who laugh last O’Brien certainly had 
 the victory in this curious contest, for the result of his 
 
980 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 activity was that, during all the time their feud lasted, 
 Mrs. Macfarlane scarcely made a penny. She began to 
 look worn and anxious, but was still defiant, still indomi- 
 table. 
 
 “Ah thin! Jim, how can ye keep id up?’’ asked Mary. 
 “ Sure ’t isn’t like ye at all to be goin’ on that ways. ’T is 
 you ought to have the sinse, a married man, with yer busi- 
 ness to look afther, an’ callin’ yerself a Catholic too. 
 Faith, I dunno what Father McCarthy ’ll say to ye whin ye 
 go to yer duty. Givin’ bad example like that to yer own 
 childher.” 
 
 “ How can she keep id up? ” asked Jim. “ She began id, 
 and let her shtop first.” 
 
 “ I know she did, but what id ye expect from her? God 
 help her, she ’s that bitther, gall isn’t in it with her. Sure 
 you and her is the laughin’-shtock av iviry wan that comes 
 nigh the shtation. The shmall boys do be crowdin’ in to 
 hear her, an’ see ye chasin’ out her customers afther.” 
 
 “ Let her shtop first,” repeated Jim. “ In all me born 
 da}^s, Mary, I nivir saw a woman like ye for bein’ down on 
 yer own husban’. ’T is ashamed of ye I am for not 
 shtandin’ up betther for yer side. Wasn’t it she gave me 
 the provoke? Who else? I done her no harrm. Why did 
 she begin at me? ” 
 
 “ Maybe, but yer doin’ her harrm now.” 
 
 “ So I am, so I am,” said Jim with relish. “ Faith she 
 must be sorry she began the game. Trbth she ’s like the 
 tailor that sewed for nothin’, and foun’ the thread himself. 
 Not much she ’s makin’ these times, I ’m thinkin’.” 
 
 “ Oh, wirra, Jim ! What ’s come to ye at all? ’T is the 
 kind-hearted man ye used to be, an’ now I don’t — ” 
 
 But Jim had had enough of conjugal remonstrance, and 
 went out banging the door behind him. 
 
 The feud still continued. 
 
 Each day Mrs. Macfarlane, gaunter, fiercer, paler, and 
 more resolute in ignoring the station-master’s presence, 
 flaunted her principles up and down the platform. Each 
 day did Jim hurry the departure of the trains and sweep 
 off her customers. Never before had there been such 
 punctuality known at Toomevara, which is situated on an 
 easy-going line, where usually the guard, when indignant 
 
CHARLOTTE O'CONOR EC C LEE. 
 
 981 
 
 tourists pointed out that the express was some twenty min- 
 utes late, was accustomed to reply : 
 
 ‘‘ Why, so she is. ’T is thrue for ye.” 
 
 One day, however, Mrs. Macfarlane did not appear. 
 
 She had come out for the first train, walking a trifle 
 feebly, and uttering her war-cry in a somewhat quavering 
 voice. When the next came no Mrs. Macfarlane greeted it. 
 
 The small boys who daily gathered to see the sight — any- 
 thing is worth looking at in Toomevara — crept away dis- 
 appointed when the train, after a delay quite like that of 
 old times, at last steamed out of the station. Jim himself 
 was perplexed, and a little aggrieved. He had grown used 
 to the daily strife, and missed the excitement of retorting 
 on his foe. 
 
 Maybe T is tired of it she is,” he speculated. Time 
 forrer. She knows now she won’t have things all her own 
 way. She ’s too domineerin’ by half.” 
 
 “ What ’s Avrong with th’ ould wan, sir? ” asked Joe 
 Kelly when he met O’Brien. She didn’t shtir whin she 
 hard the thrain.” 
 
 Faith, I dunno,” said Jim. Hatchin’ more disthur- 
 bance, I ’ll bet. Faith, she ’s nivir well but whin she ’s 
 doin’ mischief.” 
 
 She looks mighty donny ^ these times,” remarked 
 Kelly, but his superior appeared to take no heed. 
 
 Secretly, however, he was uneasy, and blustered a little 
 to himself to keep up his spirits. 
 
 ’T is lyin’ low she is,” he- muttered, to shpring some 
 other divilmeut on me, but I ’m up to her.” 
 
 It would not do, and after a time he found himself wan- 
 dering in the direction of the refreshment-room. There 
 was no sign of life visible, so far as Jim could see; but he 
 was unwilling to observe too closely, for fear of catching 
 Mrs. Macfarlane’s eye while in the act of taking an undig- 
 nified interest in her proceedings. 
 
 Suddenly he remembered that the windows at the back 
 had the lower panes muffed to imitate ground glass, and 
 that one was scratched in the corner, thus affording a con- 
 A^enient peephole. He stole round as if on burglary intent, 
 with many cautious glances to right and left; then assured 
 that no one was watching him, peered in. From his posi- 
 
 ^ Donny, dauney, delicate. 
 
982 
 
 IRim LITERATURE, 
 
 tion he could not see much, but he discerned a black heap 
 of something lying in the middle of the room, and was 
 sure he heard a groan. Considerably startled, he hastened 
 round to Kelly. 
 
 Joe,^’ he said, maybe y’ ought just to look in an’ see 
 if anythin’ is. wrong wid th’ ould woman.” 
 
 An’ what ’ud be wrong wid her? ” said Kelly easily. 
 He hated being disturbed. She ’ll be out to meet the nixt 
 thrain as fresh as a throut; see if she doesn’t.” 
 
 All the same, I think ye ’d better go.” 
 
 Sure I ’ll go whin I ’m done here. I ’ve a power o’ 
 worrk to git through.” 
 
 Work indeed ! All the work ye do will nivir kill ye. 
 Faith 3^011 ’re as lazy as Finn McCool’s dog, that rested his 
 head agin’ the wall to bark.” 
 
 ’T is aisy for ,ye to talk,” said Joe. “ Sure I ’ll go if ye 
 like, sir, bud she ’ll shnap the head off av me,” and he dis- 
 appeared in the direction of Mrs. Macfarlane’s quarters. 
 
 A moment more, and Jim heard him shouting, Misther 
 O’Brien I Misther O’Brien ! ” He ran at the sound. There, 
 a tumbled heap, lay Mrs. Macfarlane, no longer a defiant 
 virago, but a weak, sickly, elderly woman, partly supported 
 on Joe Kell^^’s knee, her face ghastly pale, her arms hang- 
 ing limp. 
 
 Be me sowl, bud I think she ’s dyin’,” cried Kelly. 
 
 She just raised her head whin she saw me an’ wint off in 
 a faint.” 
 
 La}' her flat, Joe, la}^ her flat. Where ’s the whisky? ” 
 
 Jim rushed behind the counter, rummaged amongst the 
 bottles, and came back with half a glass of whisky in his 
 hand. 
 
 Lave her to me,” he said, an do you run an’ tell the 
 missus to come here at wanst. Maybe she ’ll know what 
 to do.” 
 
 He tried to force the whisky between Mrs. Macfarlane’s 
 set teeth, spilling a good deal of it in the process. She 
 opened her eyes for a moment, looked at him vacantly, and 
 fainted again. 
 
 Mary came in to find her husband gazing in a bewildered 
 fashion at his prostrate enemy, and took command in a way 
 that excited his admiration. 
 
 Here,” said she, give uz a hand to move her on to the 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR ECCLES. 
 
 983 
 
 seat. Jim, do ye run home an’ get Biddy to fill two or 
 three jars wid boilin’ wather, an’ bring thim along wid a 
 blanket. She ’s as cowld as death. Joe, fly off wid ye for 
 the docther.” 
 
 What docther will I go for, ma’am? ” 
 
 “ The firrst ye can git,” said Mary, promptly beginning 
 to chafe the inanimate woman’s hands and loosen her 
 clothes. 
 
 When the doctor came, he found Mrs. Macfarlane laid on 
 an impromptu couch composed of two of the cushioned 
 benches placed side by side. She was wrapped in blankets, 
 had hot bottles to her feet and sides, and a mustard plaster 
 over her heart. 
 
 Bravo ! Mrs. O’Brien,” he said. “ I couldn’t have done 
 better myself. I believe you have saved her life by being 
 so quick — at least, saved it for the moment, for I think she 
 is in for a severe illness. She will want careful nursing 
 to pull her through.” 
 
 She looks rale bad,” assented Mary. 
 
 “ She must be put to bed at once. Where does she live? ” 
 
 She lodges down the town,” said Mary, at old Mrs. 
 Smith’s in Castle Street; bud sure she has no wan to look 
 afther her there.” 
 
 It is too far to move her in her present state. The 
 hospital is nearer; I might try to get her there.” 
 
 As he spoke Mrs. Macfarlane opened her eyes. Appar- 
 ently she had understood, for she shook her head with some- 
 thing of her former energy, and exclaimed : No, no! ” 
 
 What did you say? ” asked the doctor* Don’t you 
 like the idea of the hospital? ” But Mrs. Macfarlane had 
 again lapsed into unconsciousness. 
 
 What are we to do with her? ” said the doctor. Is 
 there no place where they would take her in? ” 
 
 Mary glanced at Jim, but he did not speak. 
 
 Sure there ’s a room in our house,” she ventured, after 
 an awkward pause. 
 
 “ The very thing,” said the doctor, if you don’t mind 
 the trouble, and if Mr. O’Brien does not object.” 
 
 Jim made no answer, but walked out. 
 
 He doesn’t, docther,” cried Mary. Sure he has a 
 rale good heart. I ’ll run off now, an’ get the bed ready.” 
 As she passed Jim, who stood sulkily by the door, she 
 
984 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 contrived to squeeze his hand. God bless je, me own Jim. 
 You ’ll be none the worse forrit. ’T is no time for bearin’ 
 malice, an’ our blessed Lady ’ll pray for ye this day.” 
 
 Jim was silent. 
 
 ’T is a cruel shame she should fall on uz,” he said when 
 his wife had disappeared; but he offered no further resis- 
 tance. 
 
 Borne on an impromptu stretcher by Jim, Joe, Finnerty, 
 and the doctor, Mrs. Macfarlane was carried to the station- 
 master’s house, undressed by Mary, and put to bed in the 
 spotlessly clean whitewashed upper room. 
 
 The cold and shivering had now passed off, and she 
 was burning. Nervous fever, the doctor anticipated. She 
 raved about her dog, about Jim, about the passengers, her 
 rent, and fifty other things that made it evident her circum- 
 stances had preyed on her mind. 
 
 Poor Mary was afraid of her at times; but there are no 
 trained nurses at Toomevara, and guided by Dr. Doherty’s 
 directions she tried to do her best, and managed wonder- 
 fully well. 
 
 There could be no doubt Jim did not like having the in- 
 valid in the house. 
 
 “ Here ’s everythin’ upside down,” he grumbled, — Mary 
 up to her eyes in worrk, an’ the house an’ childer at sixes 
 an’ sevens, an’ all for an ould hag that cudn’t giv uz a 
 civil worrd.” 
 
 Kitty was wonderfully helpful to her mother, and took 
 care of her brothers and sisters, but her father grumbled 
 at his wife’s absence. 
 
 Why on earth should the woman be saddled on uz? ” 
 he asked. Hasn’t she anny frinds av her own soort, I ’d 
 like to know? Sure, ’t is hard enough for uz to pay our 
 own way, let alone gettin’ beef-tay an’ port wine for the 
 likes av her, to say nothin’ about her wearin’ you, Mary, to 
 skin an’ bone.” 
 
 ‘‘ God help the craythur, sure I do it willin’,” said Mary. 
 “ We cudn’t lave her there to die on the flure.” 
 
 Faith, I ’m thinkin’ ’t would be a long time before she 
 done as much for you.” 
 
 Maybe,” said Mary, an’ maybe not ; but sure, where 
 ’ud we be anny betther than her, if ’t was that plan we wint 
 on?” 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR EC C LEE. 
 
 985 
 
 Abj ’t is too soft j’ are intirely/’ said Jim, going off in 
 a huff. 
 
 In his inmost soul, however, he was pleased with his wife, 
 though he kept saying to himself : 
 
 If it had on’y been annyone else besides that ould crow, 
 I wouldn’t begrudge it.” 
 
 When from the unhappy woman’s ravings he learned how 
 the feud had preyed on her mind, and discovered the straits 
 to which she had been reduced, a dreadfully guilty feeling 
 stole over him, which he tried in vain to combat. 
 
 Sure, ’t was her own fault,” he said to himself. 
 
 Doesn’t every wan know I ’m the peaceablist man goin’, 
 if I ’m on’y let alone? She desarved to be paid out, so she 
 did, an’ I ’m not wan bit sorry.” 
 
 This did not prevent him from feeling very miserable. 
 He became desperately anxious that Mrs. Macfarlane 
 should' not die, and astonished Mary by bringing home 
 various jellies and meat extracts that he fancied might be 
 good for the patient, but he did this with a shy and hang- 
 dog air by no means natural to him, and always made some 
 ungracious speech as to the trouble, to prevent Mary think- 
 ing he was sorry for the part he had played. He replied 
 with a downcast expression to all inquiries from outsiders 
 as to Mrs. Macfarlane’s health, but he brought her dog into 
 the house, and fed it well. 
 
 Not for her sake, God knows,” he explained, but be- 
 kase the poor baste was frettin’, an’ I didn’t see him there 
 wid no wan to look to him.” 
 
 He refused, however, to stjde the animal King Wil- 
 liam,” and called it Billy ” instead, a name to which it 
 soon learned to answer. 
 
 One evening, ivhen the whitewashed room was all aglow 
 with crimson light that flooded through the western win- 
 dow, Mrs. Macfarlane returned to consciousness. Mary 
 was sitting by the bedside sewing, having sent out the chil- 
 dren in charge of Kitty to secure quiet in the house. For 
 a long time, unobserved by her nurse, the sick woman lay 
 feebly trying to understand. Suddenly she spoke. 
 
 What is the matter? ” 
 
 Mary jumped. 
 
 To be sure,” she said, laying down her needlework. 
 
986 
 
 IRWH LITERATURE. 
 
 ’T is very bad you were intirely, ma’am, but thanks be to 
 God, sure you ’re betther now.” 
 
 ‘‘ Where am I ? ” asked Mrs. Macfarlane after a consid- 
 erable pause. 
 
 In the Station House, ma’am.” 
 
 An’ who are you? ” 
 
 Sure, don’t ye know me? I ’m Mary O’Brien.” 
 
 Mary O’Brien — O’Brien? ” 
 
 Yis, faith I Jim O’Brien’s wife.” 
 
 An’ is this Jim O’Brien’s house? ” 
 
 Whose else id it be? But there now, don’t talk anny 
 more. Sure, we ’ll tell ye all about it whin you ’re betther. 
 The docther sez you ’re to be kep’ quite.” 
 
 But who brought me here? ” 
 
 Troth, ’t was carried in ye were, an’ you near dyin’. 
 Hush up now, will ye? Take a dhrop o’ this, an’ thry to go 
 to shleep.” 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlane lay silent, but she did not go to sleep. 
 She seemed to be fitting things together in her mind like 
 pieces of a Chinese puzzle, as she watched the sunset crim- 
 son glow and fade on the opposite wall. 
 
 How long have I been here? ” she asked Mary next 
 morning, when she awoke refreshed by a good night’s rest. 
 Goin’ on three weeks, ma’am.” 
 
 An’ was it you nursed me? ” 
 
 Sure I did.” 
 
 An’ who ’s goin’ to pay you? I ’ve no money.” 
 
 ^‘Not a wan of me knows,” said Mary, with a touch of 
 temper, nor cares naythur. ’T wasn’t for yer money we 
 tuk ye in. Hould up now a minnit till I change yer cap. 
 Docther Doherty ’s coinin’.” 
 
 Presently Doctor Doherty bustled in — a fresh-colored, 
 cheery little man. 
 
 That ’s right, that ’s right,” he said. Going on finely, 
 so you are. ’Pon my word, Mrs. Macfarlane, you have 
 every reason to thank Mrs. O’Brien here for being alive 
 to-day. It was touch and go, I can tell you, at one time, 
 touch and go; but here you are now, doing beautifully.” 
 When Mary went downstairs to get some beef-tea Mrs, 
 Macfarlane turned anxiouslj^ to the doctor. 
 
 Doctor,” she said, who ’s supportin’ me here? ” 
 
CHARLOTTE OVONOR ECCLE8. 
 
 987 
 
 Don’t worry your head about that yet awhile,” replied 
 the doctor. Wait till you ’re better.” 
 
 But I want tu know. ’T is preyin’ on my mind.” 
 
 The O’Briens have taken care of you ever since you fell 
 ill, and have let you want for nothing. A kinder creature 
 than that woman never drew breath.” 
 
 But, doctor, I can’t pay them back ; an’ if yu only knew, 
 this is the last house in the kingdom I ’d like to be in, an’ 
 they are the last people I ’d like tu take charity from.” 
 Noav, Mrs. Macfarlane, Mrs. Macfarlane, put all that 
 nonsense out of your head. Who ’s talking of charity? 
 Time enough to think of this when you ’re well and strong.” 
 It ’s grieved I am inti rely that ’t was to them I was 
 brought. Who sent me here at all? ” 
 
 I did,” said the doctor. There was no place else to 
 send you to. It was too far to carry you to your lodgings, 
 and they told me there was no one there to nurse you.” 
 
 No more there was; but I ’d sooner have died, doctor — 
 ’t is the truth I ’m tellin’ yu. ’T was O’Brien brought me 
 tu this.” 
 
 Oh, I heard of all that folly,” said the doctor, and 
 upon my word it seems to me you should both be ashamed 
 of yourselves. Let it pass. It is over and done with now.” 
 But, doctor, he rooted up my flowers.” 
 
 ^^Well, he says he didn’t; but sure it wasn’t to please 
 him you planted them.” 
 
 He said it was the poor dog.” 
 
 And perhaps it was; but anyhow, whatever he did it 
 seems to me his wife has made amends, and you ought to 
 live like decent, peaceful neighbors for the future.” 
 
 Where is my dog? I suppose he killed it.” 
 
 Not he. Your dog is downstairs, as fat as a fool : I ’ll 
 tell them to let it in here presently. But now lie down and 
 sleep, like a good creature^, for you ’re talking far too much. 
 Take that bottle every two hours, and as much nourish- 
 ment as you can swallow, and you ’ll soon have no need for 
 me.” 
 
 By and by said Mrs. Macfarlane to Mary, The doctor 
 thinks I ’m doin’ nicely.” 
 
 “ So he does,” said Mary. Praise be to God, but you’re 
 gettin’ stronger every minnit.” 
 
 I think, Mrs. O’Brien, ’t is time for me tu be movin’ 
 
988 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 back' to my lodgin’s. Perhaps I could manage it to-morrow. 
 I bn sure I ^m greatly obligated to yu for all yu ’ve done, 
 but it ^s a shame to be beholden to yu any longer.^’ 
 
 Is it movin^ you ’re talkin’ ov? ” asked Mary. Why, 
 woman alive, you ’re as wake as wather. You won’t be fit 
 to shtan’ for another tin days, not to talk o’ lavin’ the 
 house.” 
 
 I ’d sooner go,” said Mrs. Macfarlane obstinately. 
 
 Now, don’t be talkin’ foolishness. You ’ll kill yerself 
 wid yer nonsinse.” 
 
 “ An’ if I do,” said Mrs. Macfarlane bitterly, who is tu 
 grieve? ” 
 
 At this moment in rushed “ King William ” in wild ex- 
 citement, leaped on the bed, licked his mistress’s face, 
 wagged his tail, and whined for sheer joy. 
 
 There ’s wan that loves ye anyways,” said Mary smil- 
 ing; and she noticed two big tears start suddenly from 
 Mrs. Macfar lane’s hard eyes, and drop on the dog’s coat, as 
 she bent her head to conceal them. 
 
 Sure, she has a heart, afther all,” was Mrs. O’Brien’s 
 unspoken comment. Then she tucked in her patient, and 
 left her lying wearily back on the pillow, her thin hand rest- 
 ing on ‘‘ King William’s ” back, as he snuggled beside her. 
 
 Next day, when she came upstairs, carrying a glass of 
 milk with a fresh egg beaten into it, what was her dismay 
 to find Mrs. Macfarlane, a long figure in her white night- 
 gown, had got out of bed, and was trying to make her way 
 across the room by clinging to tables and chairs. 
 
 God be good to uz ! what are ye about? ” cried Mary in 
 dismay. Why didn’t ye ring the bell I left beside ye, if 
 ye wanted annythin’? I ’d have been up to ye before ye 
 cud say ^ Jack Robinson.’ ” 
 
 “ Thank yu,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, I only wanted to 
 find my clothes. I ’m a deal better and stronger, and ’t is 
 tu bad tu be lyin’ here any longer.” 
 
 “ Yer clothes, is it? Why, I hung thim in the room be- 
 yant. Ye won’t be wantin’ thim for another week, sure.” 
 But I do,” said Mrs. Macfarlane. I ’ll not stay here 
 any longer. I ’m goin’ away.” 
 
 Goin’ away, an’ you not fit to walk ! Ah, thin, where 
 M ye be goin’ to? Now get back to your bed again, alanna^ 
 an’ don’t be foolish.” 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR ECCLES. 
 
 989 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlane would have resisted, would have re- 
 sented being called foolish, but a sudden weakness came 
 over her. Before she knew she was caught in Mary’s 
 strong arms, and half-supported, half-carried back to the 
 bed that was so gratefully warm. There she lay exhausted. 
 At last she found voice. 
 
 Yu ’ve been very good to me, Mrs. O’Brien, an’ I ’m not 
 unmindful of it; but I cannot stay any longer under this 
 roof, and beholden to your husband. I must go.” 
 
 “ Sure ye ’ll go whin you ’re able.” 
 
 I ’m able now.” 
 
 ’Deed you ’re not, an’ as for bein’ beholden, God knows 
 we don’t grudge it to you, and you shouldn’t grudge takin’ 
 it.” 
 
 “ P’raps yu don’t, but ’t is Ms money.” 
 
 Whisht, now,” said Mary. Sure, Jim isn’t as bad as 
 ye make out. I tell ye what, I ’ve been his wife this seven- 
 teen 3^ear, an’ his heart ’s as soft as butther.” 
 
 I ’ve not found it so.” 
 
 That was bekase you wint provokin’ him ; but me b’leef 
 is of both of yez that yer bark ’s worse than yer bite, but I 
 won’t shtay here argying anny longer. l"ou ax the docther 
 to-morrow, an’ see what he thinks.” 
 
 When Jim came in to supper his wife said to him : That 
 
 craythur upstairs is mad to get away. She thinks we be- 
 grudge her the bit she ates.” 
 
 Jim was silent. Then he said: Sure, annythin’ that’s 
 
 bad she ’ll b’leeve av uz.” 
 
 But ye’ve niver been up to see her. Shlip into the 
 room now an’ ax her how she ’s goin’ on. Let bygones be 
 bygones in the name of God.” 
 
 “ I won’t,” said Jim. 
 
 Oh yes, ye will ! Sure afther all, though ye didn’t mane 
 it, you ’re the cause av it. Go to her now.” 
 
 ‘‘ I don’t like.” 
 
 Ah, go! ’T is yer place, an’ you sinsibler than she is. 
 Go an’ tell her to shtay till she ’s well. Faith I think that 
 undher all that way of hers she’s softher than she looks. 
 I tell ye, Jim, I seen her cry in’ over the dog, bekase she 
 thought ’t was th’ only thing that loved her.” 
 
 Half-pushed by Mary, Jim made his way up the steep 
 stair, and knocked at the door of Mrs. Mac far lane’s attic. 
 
990 
 
 IRISH LITERATVRE. 
 
 Come in,’^ said a feeble voice, and he stumbled into the 
 room. 
 
 When Mrs. Macfarlane saw who it was, a flame lit in her 
 hollow eyes. 
 
 I ^m sorry,’’ she said with grim politeness, that ye 
 find me here, Misther O’Brien ; but it isn’t my fault. I 
 wanted tu go a while ago, an’ your wife wouldn’t let me.” 
 
 An’ very right she was ; you ’re not fit for it. Sure, 
 don’t be talkin’ av goiu’ till you ’re better, ma’am,” said 
 Jim awkwardly. ‘^You’re heartily welcome for me. I 
 come up to say — to say, I hope ye’ll be in no hurry to 
 move.” 
 
 Yu ’re very good, but it ’s not to be expected I ’d find 
 myself easy under this roof, where I can assure yu I ’d 
 never have come of my own free will, an’ I apologize to yu, 
 Misther O’Brien, for givin’ so much trouble — not that I 
 could help myself.” 
 
 Sure, ’t is I that should apologize,” blurted out Jim. 
 An’ rale sorry I am — though maybe ye won’t b’leeve me — 
 that ever I dhruv the customers out.” 
 
 For a long time Mrs. Macfarlane did not speak. 
 
 I could forgive that easier than your rootin’ up my 
 lilies,” she said in a strained voice. 
 
 But that I never did. God knows an’ sees me this 
 night an’ He knows that I niver laid a finger on thim. I 
 kem out an’ foun’ the dog there scrattin’ at thim, an’ if this 
 was me last dyin’ worrd, ’t is thrue.” 
 
 ‘‘ An’ ’t was really the dog? ” 
 
 It was, though I done wrong in laughin’ at him, an’ 
 cheerin’ him on; but sure ye wouldn’t mind me whin I told 
 ye he was at me roses, an’ I thought it sarved ye right, an’ 
 that ye called him ^ King William ’ to spite me.” 
 
 So I did,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, and she added more 
 gently, I ’m sorry now.” 
 
 Are ye so? ” said Jim brightening. Faith, I ’m glad 
 to hear ye say it. We was both in the wrong, ye see, an’ if 
 ye bear no malice, I don’t.” 
 
 You have been very good to me, seein’ how I misjudged 
 you,” said Mrs. Macfarlane. 
 
 ‘‘Not a bit av it; an’ ’t was the wife annyhow, for be- 
 gorra I was hardened against ye, so I was.” 
 
 “ An’ you ’ve spent yer money on me, an’ I — ” 
 
CHARLOTTE O’CONOR ECCLE8, 
 
 991 
 
 Sure dou^t say a worrd about id. I owed it to you, so 
 I did, but begorra ye won^t have to complain av wantin’ 
 custom wanst you ’re well.” 
 
 I hadn’t taken a shillin’ for a fortnight,” said Mrs. 
 Macfarlane in a low voice. 
 
 Jim got very hot, and shifted uncomfortably from one 
 foot to another. 
 
 Sure, I was a brute baste,” he said, “ an’ you a woman.” 
 No; I see now I drew it on myself. ’T was I provoked 
 you ; I was set against you because — because — ” 
 
 Oh, sure I know why, an’ there ’s too much of it in 
 the world, God help uz, espicially in this misfortunit coun- 
 thry, but we ’ll live and let live. Sure people isn’t half as 
 bad as ye think whin ye don’t know thim.” 
 
 I tell you what,” said Mrs. Macfarlane; I won’t call 
 the dog ^ King William ’ any more.” 
 
 An’ why not?” said Jim in his repentance. Sure I 
 don’t mind, as long as ’t isn’t done to anger me. ’T is as 
 good a name as another.” 
 
 I had no right ever to call him that, an’ you objectin’.” 
 Begorra,” said Jim, I ’ll tell ye what: I think inesel’ 
 King William was a betther man any day than King James 
 — to his own side, — but ’t was the feelin’ av the thing that 
 vexed me. An’ now I want to tell ye not to be down-sper- 
 ited. You ’ll soon be about an’ makin’ heaps o’ money.” 
 Mrs. Macfarlane smiled wanly. 
 
 No chance o’ that, I ’m afraid. What with my illness 
 an’ all that went before it, business is gone. Look at the 
 place shut up this three weeks an’ more.” 
 
 Not it,” said Jim. Sure, sence ye ’ve been sick I put 
 our little Kitty, the shlip, in charge of the place, an’ she ’s 
 made a power o’ money for ye, an’ she on’y risin’ sixteen, 
 an’ havin’ to help her mother an’ all. She ’s a clever girl, 
 so she is, though I sez it, an’ she ruz the prices all round. 
 She couldn’t manage with the cakes, not knowin’ how to 
 bake thim like yerself ; but sure I bought her plenty av bis- 
 cuits at Connolly’s, and her mother cut her sandwidges, 
 and made tay, an’ the dhrinks was all there as you left 
 them, an’ Kitty kep’ count av all she sould.” 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlane looked at him for a moment queerly; 
 then she drew the sheet over her face and began to sob. 
 
992 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE. 
 
 Jim, feeling wretcliedly uncomfortable, crept down* 
 stairs. 
 
 Go to the craythur, Mary,’’ he said. Sure she ’r 
 cryin’. We ’ve made it up, — an’ see here, let her want fo: 
 nothin’.” 
 
 Mary ran upstairs, took grim Mrs. Macfarlane in her 
 arms and actually kissed her ; and Mrs. Macfarlane’s griir 
 ness melted away, and the two women cried together h 
 sympathy. 
 
 Now, as the trains come into Toomevara station, Jim 
 goes from carriage to carriage making himself a perfect 
 nuisance to passengers Avith well-tilled luncheon-baskets. 
 
 Won’t ye haA^e a cup o’ tay, me lady? There ’s plinty av 
 time, an’ sure we ’ve the finest tay here that you ’ll get on 
 the line. There ’s nothin’ like it this side o’ Dublin. A 
 glass o’ whisky, sir? ’T is only the best that’s kep’; or 
 sherry Avine? Ye won’t be shtoppin’ agin an^^wheres that 
 you ’ll like it as well. Sure if ye don’t want to get out — 
 though there ’s plenty o’ time — I ’ll give the ordher an’ 
 haA'e it sent to yez. Cakes, ma’am, for the little ladies? 
 ’T is a long journej^, an’ maybe they ’ll be hungry — an’ 
 apples? Apples is mighty good for childher. She keeps 
 fine apples, if }"e like tliim.” 
 
 Mrs. Macfarlane has groAvn quite fat, is at peace Avith all 
 mankind, takes the deepest interest in the O’Brien family, 
 and calls her dog Billy,” 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 (1767—1849.) 
 
 Maria Edgeworth, the author who gave the first impulse to the 
 novel of national character and to the novel with a moral purpose, 
 was born Jan. 1, 1767. She was the eldest daughter by his first 
 marriage of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who came of a family set- 
 tled in Ireland since the reign of Elizabeth which had given its name 
 to the village of Edgeworthstown in County Longford. Shortly 
 after 1773 Mr. Edgeworth removed with his family to Ireland, and 
 the mansion-house of Edgeworthstown from this time became their 
 home. 
 
 Under her father’s care Maria soon became an accomplished 
 scholar, and at a very early age was able to join him in various 
 literary projects. These, however, were not given to the world at 
 the time, and it was only in 1798 that their first joint production, 
 ‘ A Treatise on Practical Education,’ appeared. The famous ‘ Essay 
 on Irish Bulls,’ another joint production, was published in 1802, and 
 at once took a high place in the estimation both of the critics and 
 of the public. 
 
 In 1810 Miss Edgeworth published ‘ Early Lessons ’ in ten parts, 
 and in 1815 her father added a continuation to this work. ‘ Castle 
 Rackrent,’ the first of Miss Edgeworth’s independent works, ap- 
 peared in 1801. This tale, which in some respects is one of her best, 
 proved a great success, and was followed for a number of years by a 
 remarkable series, comprising ‘ Belinda,’ ‘ Leonora,’ ‘ Popular Tales,’ 
 ‘ Tales of Fashionable Life’ (containing ‘ The Absentee ’) , ‘ Patron- 
 age,’ ‘ Harrington,’ ‘ Ormond,’ and others. The rich humor, pathetic 
 tenderness, and admirable tact displayed in these works prompted 
 Sir Walter Scott, as he himself says, to “ attempt something for my 
 own country of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so 
 fortunately achieved for Ireland.” In her works Miss Edgeworth 
 showed very considerable versatility, being now philosophic with 
 wisdom, now humorous, now cleverly descriptive, now pathetic, 
 and always master of the immediate subject in hand. 
 
 Mr. Edgeworth died in 1817, and this was a severe blow to Maria. 
 Of him she writes: “ Few, I believe, have ever enjoyed such happi- 
 ness, or such advantages, as I have had in the instruction, society, 
 and unbounded confidence and affection of such a father and such 
 a friend.” Mr. Edgeworth had been married four times and left a 
 numerous family, the care and education of whom were ever a grate- 
 ful duty to his affectionate daughter. In 1820 she published his 
 ‘Memoirs,’ partly written by himself. 
 
 In 1822, ‘ Rosamond,’ a sequel to ‘ Early Lessons,’ appeared, fol- 
 lowed by ‘ Harry and Lucy’ and ‘ The Parent’s Assistant,’ which 
 contains some of her best known stories for children. 
 
 Stories for children were, indeed, her earliest work. She wrote 
 them for the amusement and instruction of her younger sisters and 
 
 993 
 
994 
 
 IRWH LITERATURE. 
 
 brothers, who were under her charge in the frequent absence of her 
 father and stepmother. 
 
 She herself tells us that she was about twenty-four years old when 
 she began this work, and she also explains that these tales were 
 first of all written on a slate ; if they were approved by the chil- 
 dren, they were copied and added to the collection. Maria Edge- 
 worth was thus enabled to write from the child’s point of view, and 
 in simple, direct language suited to their comprehension. As com- 
 pared with the characters in the books published during the fifty 
 years preceding their advent, Maria Edgeworth’s were real children, 
 and not mere lay figures named to represent them, or pegs upon 
 which to hang appropriate moral and religious sentiments. More- 
 over, they were generally well-bred and reasonable children, who 
 were early taught patience, self-control, and the necessity of bear- 
 ing the consequences of their follies and mistakes — three important 
 lessons which can never be without their effects in after-life. All 
 of her stories contain some very strong and direct moral teaching, 
 but it is rarely so obtruded as to rob the tale of its living human 
 interest. 
 
 It was not long before she ventured on more ambitious designs, 
 but when she had fairly won her place in literature as a writer of 
 novels she returned to her early work in ‘ Frank ’ and one or two 
 other tales for children. Nevertheless, her novels, clever as they 
 are, have not held the attention of readers more surely than her 
 children’s stories, and it is by these that she may after all be longest 
 remembered. 
 
 In 1823 Miss Edgeworth, with two of her sisters, visited Sir 
 Walter Scott at Abbotsford, where they spent a fortnight. Here 
 she was delighted with everything she heard and saw, and capti- 
 vated by the massive genius of the “man of the house.” He was 
 equally delighted with her culture and the simplicity of her man- 
 ners, and the visit ended in conducing still more to their mutual 
 respect and esteem. In 1834 appeared her popular story ‘ Helen.’ 
 She concluded her life’s work by ‘ Orlandino,’ a story for the young. 
 
 In recognition of her valuable contributions to the literature of 
 her country she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Irish 
 Academy. The value of this distinction may be estimated when it 
 is known that but three ladies besides Miss Edgeworth have been so 
 rewarded — Miss Beaufort, Mrs. Somerville, and Miss Stokes. The 
 later years of her long life, with few exceptions, were passed at 
 Edgeworthstown, where she remained “ unspoiled by literary fame, 
 loved in the family circle which daily assembled in the library, and 
 admired by all as a pattern of an intellectual and amiable woman.’” 
 Here too, she died on the 22d of May, 1849. 
 
 Such are the leading points in the literary life of this gifted lady, 
 who was a woman of remarkable vigor of character. She refused to 
 marry the man she loved because she did not think it right to leave 
 her friends, her parents, and her country. She had the courage to be- 
 gin the study of the Spanish language when she was seventy years 
 old. Her rare modesty caused her to wish that no life of her should 
 ever be published, and she once declared, “ My only remains shall 
 be in the church at Edgeworthstown.” It is to be regretted that 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 905 
 
 for the same reason no portrait of her exists; but we give the fol- 
 lowing sketch of her appearance from the loving pen of her friend, 
 Mrs. S. C. Hall: “In person she was very small — she was ‘lost in 
 a crowd’; her face was pale and thin, her features irregular; they 
 may have been considered plain even in youth ; but her expression 
 was so benevolent, her manners were so perfectly well bred, par- 
 taking of English dignity and Irish frankness, that one never 
 thought of her with reference to either beauty or plainness. She 
 ever occupied without claiming attention, charming continually by 
 her singularly pleasant voice, while the earnestness and truth that 
 beamed from her bright blue, very blue eyes, increased the value 
 of every word she uttered. She knew how to listen as well as 
 talk, and gathered information in a manner highly complimentary 
 to those from whom she sought it; her attention seemed far more the 
 effect of respect than of curiosity ; her sentences were frequently 
 epigrammatic ; she more than once suggested to me the story of the 
 good child in the fairy tale, from whose lips dropped diamonds and 
 pearls whenever they were opened. She was ever neat and particu- 
 lar in her dress, a duty to society which literary women sometimes 
 culpably neglect ; her feet and hands were so delicate and small as 
 to be almost childlike. In a word, Maria Edgeworth was one of 
 those women who do not seem to require beauty.” 
 
 The circulation of Miss Edgeworth’s works has been enormous. 
 An edition of the novels and tales was published in eighteen small 
 volumes, London, 1832 ; and of the tales and miscellaneous pieces 
 in nine volumes, in 1848, and the more popular stories are con- 
 stantly being reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 CASTLE KACKRENT. 
 
 Monday Morning. 
 
 Having, out of friendship for the family, upon whose 
 estate, praised be Heaven ! I and mine have lived rent-free 
 time out of mind, voluntarily undertaken to publish the 
 Memoirs of the Rackrent Family, I think it my duty to 
 say a few words, in the first place, concerning myself. My 
 real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have al- 
 ways been known by no other than Honest Thady,’’ after- 
 ward, in the time of Sir Murtagh, deceased, I remember to 
 hear them calling me Old Thady,” and now I ’ve come to 
 
 Poor Thady;” for I wear a long great-coat winter and 
 summer, which is very handy, as I never put my arms into 
 the sleeves; they are as good as new, though come Hollan- 
 tide next I ’ve had it these seven years ; it holds on by a 
 single button round my neck, cloak fashion. To look at 
 me, you would hardly think Poor Thady ” was the 
 father of Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and 
 
996 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 never minds what poor Thady says, and having better than 
 fifteen hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon 
 honest Thady; but I wash my hands of his doings, and as 
 I have lived so will 1 die, true and loyal to the family. The 
 family of the Eackrents is, I am proud to say, one of the 
 most ancient in the kingdom. Everybody knows this is not 
 the old family name, which was O^Sliaughlin, related to the 
 kings of Ireland — but that was before my time. 
 
 My grandfather was a driver to the great Sir Patrick 
 O’Shaughlin, and I heard him, when I was a boy, telling- 
 how the Castle Rackrent estate came to Sir Patrick; Sir 
 Tallyhoo Rackrent was cousin-german to him, and had a 
 fine estate of his own, only never a gate upon it, it being his 
 maxim that a car was the best gate. Poor gentleman ! he 
 lost a fine hunter and his life, at last, by it, all in one day^s 
 hunt. But I ought to bless that day, for the estate came 
 straight into the family, upon one condition, which Sir Pat- 
 rick O’Shaughlin at the time took sadly to- heart, they say, 
 but thought better of it afterwards, seeing how large a 
 stake depended upon it : that he should, by Act of Parlia- 
 ment, take and bear the surname and arms of Rackrent. 
 
 Now it was that the world was to see what was in Sir 
 Patrick. On coming into the estate he gave the finest en- 
 tertainment ever was heard of in the country; not a man 
 could stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself, who 
 could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three 
 kingdoms itself. He had his house, from one year’s end 
 to another, as full of company as ever it could hold, and 
 fuller; for rather than be left out of the parties at Castle 
 Rackrent, many gentlemen, and those men of the first con- 
 se(]ueuce and landed estates in the country — such as the 
 O’Neills of Ballynagrotty, and the Moneygawls of Mount 
 Juliet’s Town, and O’Shannons of New Town Tullyhog — 
 made it their choice, often and often, when there was no 
 room to be had for love nor money, in long winter nights, 
 to sleep in the chicken-house, which Sir Patrick had fitted 
 up for the purpose of accommodating his friends and the 
 public in general, who honored him with their company un- 
 expectedly at Castle Rackrent; and this went on I can’t 
 tell you how long. 
 
 The whole country rang with his praises ! — Long life to 
 him ! I ’m sure I love to look upon his picture, now op- 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 997 
 
 posite to me; though I never saw him, he must have been 
 a portly gentleman — his neck something short, and re- 
 markable for the largest pimple on his nose, which, by his 
 particular desire, is still extant in his picture, said to be 
 a striking likeness, though taken when young. He is said 
 also to be the inventor of raspberry whisky, which is very 
 likely, as nobody has ever appeared to dispute it with him, 
 and as there still exists a broken punch-bowl at Castle 
 Rackrent, in the garret, with an inscription to that effect — 
 a great curiosity. A few days before his death he was very 
 merry; it being his honoris birthday, he called my grand- 
 father in — God bless him ! — to drink the company's health, 
 and filled a bumper himself, but could not carry it to his 
 head, on account of the great shake in his hand ; on this he 
 cast his joke, saying: What would my poor father say to 
 
 me if he was to pop out of the grave, and see me now? I 
 remember when I was a little boy, the first bumper of 
 claret he gave me after dinner, how he praised me for 
 carrying it so steady to my mouth. Here^s my thanks to 
 him — a bumper toast.’’ Then he fell to singing the favorite 
 song he learned from his father — for the last time, poor 
 gentleman — he sung it that night as loud and as hearty 
 as ever, with a chorus : 
 
 “ He that goes to bed, and goes to bed sober, 
 
 Falls as the leaves do, falls as the leaves do, and dies in Oc* 
 tober ; 
 
 But he that goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow. 
 
 Lives as he ought to do, lives as he ought to do, and dies an 
 honest fellow.” 
 
 Sir Patrick died that night: just as the company rose to 
 drink his health with three cheers, he fell down in a sort 
 of fit, and was carried off ; they sat it out, and. were sur- 
 prised, on inquiry in the morning, to find that it was all 
 over with poor Sir Patrick. Never did any gentleman live 
 and die more beloved in the country by rich and poor. His 
 funeral was such a one as was never known before or since 
 in the county! All the gentlemen in the three counties 
 were at it; far and near, how they flocked ! my great-grand- 
 father said, that to see all the women, even in their red 
 cloaks, you would have taken them for the army drawn out. 
 Then such a fine whillaluh ! you might have heard it to the 
 
998 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 farthest end of the county, and happy the man who could 
 get but a sight of the hearse ! 
 
 But who ’d have thought it? Just as all was going on 
 right, through his own town they were passing, when the 
 body was seized for debt — a rescue was apprehended from 
 the mob; but the heir, who attended the funeral, was 
 against that, for fear of consequences, seeing that those 
 villains who came to serve acted under the disguise of the 
 law : so, to be sure, the law must take its course, and little 
 gain had the creditors for their pains. First and foremost, 
 they had the curses of the country : and Sir Murtagh Rack- 
 rent, the new heir, in the next place, on account of this 
 affront to the body, refused to pay a shilling of the debts, 
 in which he was countenanced by all the best gentlemen of 
 property, and others of his acquaintance; Sir Murtagh al- 
 leging in all companies that he had all along meant to pay 
 his fatheFs debts of honor, but the moment the law was 
 taken of him, there was an end of honor to be sure. It was 
 whispered (but none but the enemies of the family believe 
 it) that this was all a sham seizure to get quit of the debts 
 which he had bound himself to pay in honor. 
 
 It ^s a long time ago, there ’s no saying how it was, but 
 this for certain, the new man did not take at all after the 
 old gentleman ; the cellars were never filled after his death, 
 and no open house, or anything as it used to be: the ten- 
 ants even were sent away without their whisky. I was 
 ashamed myself, and knew not what to say for the honor 
 of the family; but I made the best of a bad case, and laid it 
 all at my lady’s door, for I did not like her anyhow, nor 
 anybody else; she was of the famil}^ of the Skinfiints, and a 
 Avidow; it Avas a strange match for Sir MUrtagh; the people 
 in the country thought he demeaned himself greatly, but I 
 said nothing : I knew hoAV it was. Sir Murtagh Avas a great 
 laAA^er, and looked to the great Skinflint estate; there, 
 lioweA^er, he overshot himself; for, though one of the co- 
 heiresses, he Avas never the better for her, for she outlived 
 him many ’s the long day — he could not see that to be sure 
 Avhen he married her. I must say for her, she made him the 
 best of AviA^es, being a A^ery notable, stirring woman, and 
 looking close to CA^ery thing. But I always suspected she 
 had Scotch blood in her veins; anything else I could have 
 looked over in her from a regard to the family. She was 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 999 
 
 a strict observer for self and servants of Lent and all fast 
 days, but not holidays. One of the maids having fainted 
 three times the last day of Lent, to keep soul and body to- 
 gether we put a morsel of roast beef into her mouth, which 
 came from Sir Murtagh’s dinner, who never fasted, not he ; 
 but somehow or other it unfortunately reached my lady’s 
 ears, and the priest of the parish had a complaint made of 
 it the next day, and the poor girl was forced, as soon as 
 she could walk, to do penance for it, before she could get 
 any peace or absolution, in the house or out of it. 
 
 However, my lady was very charitable in her own way. 
 She had a charity school for poor children, where they 
 were taught to read and write gratis, and where they were 
 kept well to spinning gratis for my lady in return; for she 
 had always heaps of duty yarn from the tenants, and got 
 all her household linen out of the estate from first to last ; 
 for after the spinning, the weavers on the estate took it in 
 hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady’s interest 
 could get from the Linen Board to distribute gratis. Then 
 there was a bleach -yard near us, and the tenant dare refuse 
 my lady nothing, for fear of a lawsuit Sir Murtagh kept 
 hanging over him about the watercourse. With these 
 ways of managing, ’t is surprising how cheap my lady got 
 things done, and how proud she was of it. Her table the 
 same way, kept for next to nothing; duty fowls, and duty 
 turkeys, and duty geese, came as fast as we could eat ’em, 
 for my lady kept a sharp lookout, and knew to a tub of 
 butter everything the tenants had, all round. They knew 
 her way, and what with fear of driving for rent and Sir 
 Murtagh’s lawsuits, they were kept in such good order, 
 they never thought of coming near Castle Kackrent with- 
 out a present of something or other — nothing too much or 
 too little for my lady — eggs, honey, butter, meal, fish, 
 game, grouse, and herrings, fresh or salt, all went for 
 something. As for their young pigs, we had them, and the 
 best bacon and hams they could make up, with all young 
 chickens in spring; but they were a set of poor wretches, 
 and we had nothing but misfortunes with them, always 
 breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and my 
 lady said, was all their former landlord Sir Patrick’s fault, 
 who let ’em all get the half-year’s rent into arrear: there 
 was something in that to be sure. 
 
1000 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way ; for let 
 alone making English tenants of them, every soul, he was 
 always driving and driving, and pounding and pounding, 
 and canting and canting, and replevying and replevying, 
 and he made a good living of trespassing cattle; there was 
 always some tenant’s pig, or horse, or cow, or calf, or goose, 
 trespassing, which was so great a gain to Sir Murtagh, that 
 he did not like to hear me talk of repairing fences. Then 
 his heriots and duty-work brought him in something, his 
 turf was cut, his potatoes set and dug, his hay brought 
 home, and, in short, all the work about his house done for 
 nothing: for in all our leases there were strict clauses 
 heavy with penalties, which Sir Murtagh knew well how 
 to enforce; so many days’ duty work of man and horse, 
 from every tenant, he was to have, and had, every 3^ear; 
 and when a man vexed him, why the finest day he could 
 pitch on, when the cratur was getting in his own harvest, 
 or thatching his cabin, Sir Murtagh made it a principle to 
 call upon him and his horse: so he taught ’em all, as he 
 said, to know the law of landlord and tenant. As for law, 
 I believe no man, dead or alive, ever loved it so well as Sir 
 Murtagh. He had once sixteen suits pending at a time, 
 and I never saw him so much himself: roads, lanes, bogs, 
 wells, ponds, eel-wires, orchards, trees, tithes, vagrants, 
 gravel-pits, sandpits, dunghills, and nuisances, everything 
 upon the face of the earth furnished him good matter for a 
 suit. He used to boast that he had a lawsuit for every 
 letter in the alphabet. How I used to wonder to see Sir 
 Murtagh in the midst of the papers in his office ! Why, he 
 could hardly turn about for them. I made bold to shrug 
 my shoulders once in his presence, and thanked my stars I 
 was not born a gentleman to so much toil and trouble, 
 but Sir Murtagh took me up short with his old proverb, 
 ‘‘ Learning is better than house or land.” 
 
 Out of forty-nine suits which he had, he never lost one 
 but seventeen ; the rest he gained with costs, double costs, 
 treble costs sometimes; but even that did not pay. He was 
 a very learned man in the law, and had the character of it ; 
 but how it was I can’t tell, these suits that he carried cost 
 him a power of money: in the end he sold some hundreds 
 a year of the family estate; but he was a very learned man 
 in the law, and I know nothing of the matter, except hav- 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1001 
 
 ing a great regard for the family; and I could not help 
 grieving when he sent me to post up notices of the sale of 
 the fee simple of the lands and appurtenances of Timo- 
 league. 
 
 “ I know, honest Thady,’^ says he, to comfort me, what 
 I ’m about better than you do; I hn only selling to get the 
 ready money wanting to carry on my suit with spirit with 
 the Nugents of Carrickashaughlin.’’ 
 
 He was very sanguine about that suit with the Nugents 
 of Carrickashaughlin. He could have gained it, they say, 
 for certain, had it pleased Heaven to have spared him to 
 us, and it would have been at the least a plump two thou- 
 sand a year in his way; but things were ordered otherwise 
 — for the best to be sure. He dug up a fairy-mount against 
 my advice, and had no luck afterwards. Though a learned 
 man in the law, he was a little too incredulous in other 
 matters. I warned him that I heard the very Banshee that 
 my grandfather heard under Sir Patrick’s window a few 
 days before his death. But Sir Murtagh thought nothing 
 of the Banshee, nor of his cough, with a spitting of blood, 
 brought on, I understand, by catching cold in attending 
 the courts, and overstraining his chest with making him- 
 self heard in one of his favorite causes. He was a great 
 speaker, with a powerful voice ; but his last speech was not 
 in the courts at all. He and my lady, though both of the 
 same way of thinking in some things, and though she was 
 as good a wife and great economist as 3-011 could see, and he 
 the best of husbands, as to looking into his affairs, and 
 making money for his family ; yet I don’t know how it was, 
 they had a great deal of sparring and jarring between 
 them. 
 
 My lady had her privy purse; and she had her weed 
 ashes, and her sealing money upon the signing of all the 
 leases, with something to buy gloves besides ; and, besides, 
 again often took mone3^ from the tenants, if offered prop- 
 erly, to speak for them to Sir iMurtagh about abatements 
 and renewals. Now the weed ashes and the glove money 
 he allowed her clear perquisites; though once when he saw 
 her in a new gown saved out of the weed ashes, he told her 
 to my face (for he could say a sharp thing) that she should 
 not put on her weeds before her husband’s death. But in a 
 dispute about an abatement my lady would ha.e the last 
 
 10— Irish 1 -it. Voi. 3 ‘ 
 
1002 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 word, and Sir Murtagli grew mad ; I was within hearing of 
 the door, and now I wish I had made bold to step in. He 
 spoke so loud, the whole kitchen was out on the stairs. All 
 on a sudden he stopped, and my lady too. Something has 
 surely happened, thought I ; and so it was, for Sir Murtagh 
 in his passion broke a blood-vessel, and all the law in the 
 land could do nothing in that case. My lady sent for five 
 phj^sicians, but Sir Murtagh died and was buried. She had 
 a fine jointure settled upon her, and took herself away, to 
 the great joy of the tenantry. I never said anything one 
 way or the other, whilst she was part of the family, but 
 got up to see her go at three o’clock in the morning. 
 
 It’s a fine morning, honest Thady,” says she; ‘‘good- 
 bye to ye.” And into the carriage she stepped, without a 
 Avord more, good or bad, or even half-a-crown ; but I made 
 my boAv, and stood to see her safe out of sight for the sake 
 of the family. 
 
 Then we were all bustle in the house, which made me 
 keep out of the way, for I walk slow and hate a bustle ; but 
 the house was all hurry-skurry, preparing for my new mas- 
 ter. Sir Murtagh, I forgot to notice, had no childer; so 
 the Rackrent estate went to his younger brother, a young 
 dashing officer, who came amongst us before I knew for the 
 life of me whereabouts I was, in a gig or some of them 
 things, with another spark along with him, and led horses, 
 and servants, and dogs, and scarce a place to put any 
 Christian of them into; for my late lady had sent all the 
 feather-beds off before her, and blankets and household 
 linen, down to the very knife-cloths, on the cars to Dublin, 
 which were all her own, lawfully paid for out of her own 
 money. So the house was quite bare, and my young mas- 
 ter, the moment ever he set foot in it out of his gig, thought 
 all those things must come of themseh^es, I believe, for he 
 never looked after anything at all, but harum-scarum 
 called for everything as if we were conjurers, or he in a 
 public-house. For my part, I could not bestir myself auy- 
 hoAv; I had been so much used to my late master and mis- 
 tress, all was upside down with me, and the new servants 
 in the servants’ hall were quite out of my way; I had no- 
 body to talk to, and if it had not been for my pipe and 
 tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for 
 poor Sir Murtagh. 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1003 
 
 But one morning my new master caught a glimpse of me 
 as I was looking at his horse’s heels, in hopes of a word 
 from him. ‘‘And is that old Thady? ” says he, as he got 
 into his gig; I loved him from that day to this, his voice 
 was so like the family ; and he threw me a guinea out of his 
 waistcoat pocket, as he drew up the reins with the other 
 hand, his horse rearing too ; I thought I never set my eyes 
 on a finer figure of a man, quite another sort from Sir 
 Murtagh, though withal, to me, a family likeness. A fine 
 life we should have led, had he stayed amongst us, God 
 bless him ! He valued a guinea as little as any man ; money 
 to him was no more than dirt, and his gentleman and 
 groom, and all belonging to him, the same; but the sport- 
 ing season over, he grew tired of the place, and having got 
 down a great architect for the house, and an improver for 
 the grounds, and seen their plans and elevations, he fixed 
 a day for settling with the tenants, but went off in a 
 whirlwind to town, just as some of them came into the 
 yard in the morning. 
 
 A circular-letter came next post from the new agent, 
 with news that the master was sailed for England, and he 
 must remit £500 to Bath for his use before a fortnight was 
 at an end; bad news still for the poor tenants, no change 
 still for the better with them. Sir Kit Rackrent, my young 
 master, left all to the agent ; and though he had the spirit 
 of a prince, and lived away to the honor of his country 
 abroad, which I was proud to hear of, what were we the 
 better for that at home? The agent was one of your mid- 
 dlemen, who grind the face of the poor, and can never bear 
 a man with a hat upon his head ; he ferreted the tenants out 
 of their lives ; not a week without a call for money, drafts 
 upon drafts from Sir Kit; but I laid it all to the fault of 
 the agent, for, says I, what can Sir Kit do with so much 
 cash, and he a single man? But still it went. Rents must 
 be all paid up to the day, and afore; no allowance for im- 
 proving tenants, no consideration for those who had built 
 upon their farms; no sooner was a lease out but the laud 
 was advertised to the highest bidder; all the old tenants 
 turned out, when they spent their substance in the hope 
 and trust of a renewal from the landlord. All was now 
 let at the highest penny to a parcel of poor wretches, who 
 meant to run away, and did so after taking two crops out 
 
1004 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 of the ground. Then fining down the year’s rent came into 
 fashion — anything for the ready penny; and with all this 
 and presents to the agent and the driver, there was no sucli 
 thing as standing it. I said nothing, for I had a regard for 
 the family, but I walked about thinking if his honor Sir 
 Kit knew all this, it would go hard with him but he ’d see 
 us righted; not that I had anything for my own share to 
 complain of, for the agent was always very civil to me 
 when he came down into the country, and took a great deal 
 of notice of my son Jason. 
 
 Jason Quirk, though he be my son, I must say was a good 
 scholar from his birth, and a very ’cute lad; I thought to 
 make him a priest, but he did better for himself; seeing how 
 he was as good a clerk as any in the country, the agent gave 
 him his rent accounts to copy, which he did first of all for 
 the pleasure of obliging the gentleman, and would take 
 nothing at all for his trouble, but was always proud to 
 serve the family. By and by a good farm bounding us to 
 the east fell into his honor’s hands, and my son put in a 
 proposal for it; why shouldn’t he, as well as another? The 
 proposals all went Over to the master at Bath, who 
 knowing no more of the land than the child unborn, only 
 having once been out a-grousing on it before he went to 
 England; and the value of lands, as the agent informed 
 him, falling every year in Ireland, his honor wrote over in 
 all haste a bit of a letter, saying he left it all to the agent, 
 and that he must let it as well as he could — to the best 
 bidder, to be sure — and send him over £200 by return of 
 post; with this the agent gave me a hint, and I spoke a 
 good word for my son, and gave out in the country that 
 nobody need bid against us. So his proposal was just the 
 thing, and he a good tenant, and he got a promise of an 
 abatement in the rent after the first year, for advancing 
 the half-year’s rent at signing the lease, which was wanting 
 to complete the agent’s £200 by the return of the post, with 
 all which my master wrote back he was well satisfied. 
 
 About this time we learnt from the agent, as a great 
 secret, how the money went so fast, and the reason of the 
 thick coming of the master’s drafts : he was a little too fond 
 of play, and Bath, they say, was no place for a young man 
 of his fortune, where there were so many of his own coun- 
 trymen, too, hunting him up and down day and night, who 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1005 
 
 had nothing to lose. At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote 
 over to stop the drafts, for he could raise no more money on 
 bond or mortgage, or from the tenants, or anyhow, nor had 
 he any more to lend himself, and desired at the same time 
 to decline the agency for the future, wishing Sir Kit his 
 health and happiness, and the compliments of the season, 
 for I saw the letter before ever it was sealed, when my son 
 copied it. When the answer came there was a new turn 
 in affairs, and the agent was turned out, and my son Jason, 
 who had corresponded privately with his honor occasion- 
 ally on business, was forthwith desired by his honor to take 
 the accounts into his own hands, and look them over, till 
 further orders. It was a very spirited letter to be sure ; Sir 
 Kit sent his service, and the compliments of the season, in 
 return to the agent, and he would fight him with pleasure 
 to-morrow, or any day, for sending him such a letter, if he 
 was born a gentleman, which he was sorry (for both their 
 sakes) to find (too late) he was not. Then, in a private 
 postscript, he condescended to tell us that all would be 
 speedily settled to his satisfaction, and we should turn 
 over a new leaf, for he was going to be married in a fort- 
 night to the grandest heiress in England, and had only 
 immediate occasion at present for £200, as he would not 
 choose to touch his lady’s fortune for traveling expenses 
 home to Castle Kackrent, where he intended to be, wind 
 and weather permitting, early in the next month; and de- 
 sired fires, and the house to be painted, and the new build- 
 ing to go on as fast as possible, for the reception of him 
 and his lady before that time; with several words besides 
 in the letter, which we could not make out, because, God 
 bless him ! he wrote in such a fiurry. 
 
 My heart warmed to my new lady when I read this: I 
 was almost afraid it was too good news to be true; but the 
 girls fell to scouring, and it was well they did, for we soon 
 saw his marriage in the paper, to a lady with I don't know 
 liow many tens of thousands pounds to her fortune; then 
 I watched the post-office for his landing; and the news 
 came to my son of his and the bride being in Dublin, and 
 on their way home to Castle Rackrent. We had bonfires 
 all over the country, expecting him down the next day, and 
 we had his coming of age still to celebrate, which he had 
 not time to do properly before he left the country; there^ 
 
1006 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 fore, a great ball was expected, and great doings upon his 
 coining, as it were, fresh to take possession of his ancestors’ 
 estate. I never shall forget the day he came home ; we had 
 waited and waited all day long till eleven o’clock at night, 
 and I was thinking of sending the boy to lock the gates, ancl 
 giving them up for that night, when there came the car- 
 riages thundering up to the great hall-door. I got the 
 first sight of the bride; for when the carriage door opened, 
 just as she had her foot on the steps, I held the flame full 
 in her face to light her, at which she shut her eyes, but I 
 had a full view of the rest of her, and greatly shocked I 
 was, for by that light she was little better than a blacka- 
 moor, and seemed crippled; but that was only sitting so 
 long in the chariot. 
 
 You ’re kindly welcome to Castle Rackrent, my lady,” 
 says I (recollecting who she was). Did your honor hear 
 of the bonfires? ” 
 
 His honor spoke never a word, nor so much as handed 
 her up the steps — he looked to me no more like himself 
 than nothing at all ; I know I took him for the skeleton of 
 his honor. I was not sure what to say to one or t’ other, 
 but seeing she was a stranger in a foreign country, I 
 thought it but right to speak cheerful to her; so I went 
 back again to the bonfires. 
 
 My lady,” says I, as she crossed the hall, “ there would 
 have been fifty times as many; but for fear of the horses, 
 and frightening your ladyship, Jason and I forbid them, 
 please your honor.” 
 
 Will I have a fire lighted in the state-room to-night? ” 
 Avas the next question I put to her, but never a word she 
 answered; so I concluded she could not speak a word of 
 English, and was from foreign parts. The short and the 
 long of it was, I couldn’t tell what to make of her; so I left 
 her to herself, and went straight down to the serA^ants’ hall 
 to learn something for certain about her. Sir Kit’s OAvn 
 man was tired, but the grooms set him a-talking at last, 
 and we had it all out before ever I closed my eyes that 
 night. The bride might well be a great fortune — she AA^as 
 a Jeivish by all accounts, who are famous for their great 
 riches. I had never seen any of that tribe or nation before, 
 and could only gather that she spoke a strange kind of 
 English of her OAvn, that she could not abide pork or sau- 
 
MARIA EDGE^yORTH, 
 
 1007 
 
 sages, and went neither to church nor mass. Mercy upon 
 his honor’s poor soul, thought I ; what will become of him 
 and his, and all of us, with his heretic blackamoor at the 
 head of the Castle Rackrent estate? I never slept a wink 
 all night for thinking of it; but before the servants I put 
 my pipe in my mouth, and kept my mind to myself, for I 
 had a great regard for the family; and after this, when 
 strange gentlemen’s servants came to the house, and would 
 begin to talk about the bride, I took care to put the best 
 foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob in the kitchen, 
 which accounted for her dark complexion and everything. 
 
 The very morning after they came home, however, I saw 
 plain enough how things were between Sir Kit and my lady, 
 though they were walking together arm in arm after break- 
 fast, looking at the new building and the improvements. 
 
 Old Thady,” said my master, just as he used to do, 
 how do you do? ” 
 
 Very well, I thank your honor’s honor,” said I ; but I 
 saw he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth 
 as I walked along after him. 
 
 Is the large room damp, Thady? ” said his honor. 
 
 Oh, damp, your honor ! how should it be but as dry as 
 a bone,” says I, after all the fires we have kept in it day 
 and night? It’s the barrack-room your honor’s talking 
 on.” 
 
 And what is a barrack-room, pray, my dear? ” were the 
 first words I ever heard out of my lady’s lips. 
 
 No matter, my dear,” said he, and went on talking to 
 me, ashamed-like I should witness her ignorance. To be 
 sure, to hear her talk one might have taken her for an in- 
 nocent, for it was, What ’s this. Sir Kit? ” and What ’s 
 that. Sir Kit?” all the way we went. To be sure. Sir 
 Kit had enough to do to answer her. 
 
 And what do you call that. Sir Kit? ” said she; that — 
 that looks like a pile of black bricks, pray. Sir Kit?” 
 
 “ My turf-stack, my dear,” said my master, and bit his 
 lip. 
 
 Where have you lived, my lady, all your life, not to know 
 a turf-stack when you see it? thought I ; but I said nothing. 
 Then, by-and-by, she takes out her glass, and begins spying 
 over the country. 
 
1008 
 
 IRISH LIITERATURE. 
 
 And what all that black swamp out yonder, Sir 
 Kit? ’’ says she. 
 
 My bog, my dear,^^ says he, and went on whistling. 
 
 It ’s a very ugly prospect, my dear,^^ says she. 
 
 You don’t see it, my dear,” says he; for we ’ve planted 
 it out; when the trees grow up in summer-time — ” says he. 
 
 Where are the trees,” said she, “ my dear? ” still look- 
 ing through her glass. 
 
 You are blind, my dear,” says he : “ what are these 
 under your eyes? ” 
 
 These shrubs? ” said she. 
 
 Trees,” said he. 
 
 Maybe they are what you call trees in Ireland, my 
 dear,” said she; but they are not a yard high, are they? ” 
 
 They were planted out but last year, my lady,” sa^^s I, 
 to soften matters between them, for I saw she was going the 
 way to make his honor mad with her : they are very well 
 
 grown for their age, and you ’ll not see the bog of Allybally- 
 carricko’shaughlin at-all-at-all through the skreen, when 
 once the leaves come out. But, my lady, you must not 
 quarrel with any part or parcel of Allyballycarricko’- 
 shaughlin, for you don’t know how many hundred years 
 that same bit of bog has been in the family; we would not 
 part with the bog of Allyballycarricko’shaughlin upon no 
 account at all; it cost the late Sir Murtagh two hundred 
 good pounds to defend his title to it and boundaries against 
 the O’Learys, who cut a road through it.” 
 
 Now one would have thought this would have been hint 
 enough for my lady, but she fell to laughing like one out of 
 their right mind, and made me say the name of the bog over, 
 for her to get it by heart, a dozen times; then she must ask 
 me how to spell it, and what was the meaning of it in 
 English — Sir Kit standing by whistling all the while. I 
 verily believed she laid the corner-stone of all her future 
 misfortunes at that very instant; but I said no more, only 
 looked at Sir Kit. 
 
 There were no balls, no dinners, no doings; the country 
 was all disappointed — Sir Kit’s gentleman said in a whis- 
 per to me, it was all my lady’s own fault, because she was 
 so obstinate about the cross. 
 
 What cross?” says I; ‘Ms it about her being a her- 
 etic? ” 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1009 
 
 Oh, no such matter,’’ says he ; my master does not 
 mind her heresies, but her diamond cross — it ’s worth I 
 can’t tell you how much, and she has thousands of English 
 pounds concealed in diamonds about her, which she as good 
 as promised to give up to my master before he married; 
 but now she won’t part with any of them, and she must 
 take the consequences.” 
 
 Her honeymoon, at least her Irish honeymoon, was 
 scarcely well over, when his honor one morning said to me, 
 Thady, buy me a pig ! ” and then the sausages were or- 
 dered, and here was the first open breaking-out of my lady’s 
 troubles. My lady came down herself into the kitchen to 
 speak to the cook about the sausages, and desired never to 
 see them more at her table. Now my master had ordered 
 them, and m^^ lady knew that. The cook took my lady’s 
 part, because she never came down into the kitchen, and 
 Avas young and innocent in housekeeping, which raised her 
 pity; besides, said she, at her own table, surely my lady 
 should order and disorder what she pleases. But the cook 
 soon changed her note, for my master made it a principle 
 to have the sausages, and swore at her for a Jew herself, 
 till he drove her fairly out of the kitchen; then, for fear 
 of her place, and because he threatened that my lady should 
 give her no discharge without the sausages, she gave up, 
 and from that day forAvard always sausages, or bacon, or 
 pig-meat in some shape or other, Avent up to table; upon 
 Avhich my lady shut herself up in her OAvn room, and my 
 master said she might stay there, Avith an oath ; and to 
 make sure of her, he turned the key in the door, and kept 
 it eA^er after in his pocket. We none of us ever saw or 
 heard her speak for seven years after that : he carried her 
 dinner himself. Then his honor had a great deal of com- 
 pany to dine Avith him, and balls in the house, and was as 
 gay and gallant, and as much himself as before he AA^as 
 married; and at dinner he always drank my Lady Rack- 
 rent’s good liealth and so did the company, and he sent out 
 always a servant Avith his compliments to my Lady Rack- 
 rent, and the company Avas drinking her ladyship’s health, 
 and begged to know if there was anything at table he might 
 send her, and the man came back, after the sham errand, 
 with my Lady Rackrent’s compliments, and she Avas very 
 
1010 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 much obliged to Sir Kit — she did not ^yish for anything, 
 but drank the company’s health. 
 
 The country, to be sure, talked and wondered at my 
 lady^s being shut up, but nobody chose to interfere or ask 
 any impertinent questions, for they knew my master was 
 a man very apt to give a short answer himself, and likely 
 to call a man out for it afterwards : he was a famous shot, 
 had killed his man before he came of age, and nobody 
 scarce dared look at him whilst at Bath. Sir Kit’s char- 
 acter was so well known in the country that he lived in 
 peace and quietness ever after, and Avas a great favorite 
 with the ladies, especially when in process of time, in the 
 fifth year of her confinement, my Lady Rackrent fell ill and 
 took entirely to her bed, and he gave out she was now skin 
 and bone, and could not last through the winter. In this 
 he had two physicians’ opinions to back him (for now he 
 called in two ph^^sicians for her), and tried all his arts to 
 get the diamond cross from her on her deathbed, and to get 
 her to make a will in his favor of her separate possessions, 
 but there she was too tough for him. He used to swear at 
 her behind her back after kneeling to her face, and call her 
 in the presence of his gentleman his stiff-necked Israelite, 
 though before he married her that same gentleman told me 
 he used to call her (how he Avould bring it out, I don’t 
 know) my pretty Jessica I ” To be sure it must have been 
 hard for her to guess what sort of a husband he reckoned 
 to make her. 
 
 When she was lying, to all expectation, on her deathbed 
 of a broken heart, I could not but pity her, though she was 
 a Jewish, and considering too it was no fault of hers to be 
 taken with my master, so young as she was at the Bath, 
 and so fine a gentleman as Sir Kit was when he courted 
 her^ and considering too, after all they had heard and seen 
 of him as a husband, there were now no less than three 
 ladies in our county talked of for his second wife, all at 
 daggers drawn Avith each other, as his gentleman swore, 
 at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner — I could not but 
 think them beAvitched, but they all reasoned with them- 
 selA^es that Sir Kit would make a good husband to any 
 Christian but a JeAvish, I suppose, and especially as he 
 Avas noAv a reformed rake; and it was not knoAvn hoAV my 
 lady’s fortune Avas settled in her will, nor how the Castle 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1011 
 
 Rackrent estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out against 
 him, for he was never cured of his gaming tricks; but that 
 was the only fault he had, God bless him I 
 
 My lady had a sort of fit, and it was given out that she 
 was dead, by mistake; this brought things to a sad crisis 
 for my poor master. One of the three ladies showed his 
 letters to her brother, and claimed his promises, whilst 
 another did the same. I don’t mention names. Sir Kit, in 
 his defense, said he would meet any man who dared to 
 question his conduct; and as to the ladies, they must settle 
 it amongst them who was to be his second, and his third, 
 and his fourth, whilst his first was still alive, to his morti- 
 fication and theirs. Upon this, as upon all former occa- 
 sions, he had the voice of the country with him, on account 
 of the great spirit and propriety he acted with. He met 
 and shot the first lady’s brother; the next day he called 
 out the second, who had a wooden leg, and their place of 
 meeting by appointment being in a new-ploughed field, the 
 wooden-leg man stuck fast in it. Sir Kit, seeing his situa- 
 tion, with great candor fired his pistol over his head ; upon 
 which the seconds interposed, and convinced the parties 
 there had been a slight misunderstanding between them; 
 thereupon they shook hands cordially, and went home to 
 dinner together. This gentleman, to show the world how 
 they stood together, and by the advice of the friends of both 
 parties, to re-establish his sister’s injured reputation, went 
 out with Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message 
 next day to the last of his adversaries. 
 
 I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he went 
 out — sure enough he was within an ace of getting quit 
 handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting 
 the tooth-pick out of his adversary’s finger and thumb, he 
 received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home, in 
 little better than an hour after the affair, speechless on a 
 hand-barrow to my lady. We got the key out of his pocket 
 the first thing we did, and my son Jason ran to unlock the 
 barrack-room, where my lady had been shut up for seven 
 years, to acquaint her with the fatal accident. The sur- 
 prise bereaved her of her senses at first, nor would she be- 
 lieve but we were putting some new trick upon her, to 
 entrap her out of her jewels, for a great while, till Jason 
 bethought himself of taking her to the window, and showed 
 
1012 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 her the men bringing* Sir Kit up the avenue upon the hand- 
 barrow, which had immediately the desired effect; for di- 
 rectly she burst into tears, and pulling her cross from her 
 bosom, she kissed it with as great devotion as ever I wit- 
 nessed, and lifting up her eyes to heaven uttered some ejac- 
 ulation which none present heard ; but I take the sense of 
 it to be, she returned thanks for this unexpected inter- 
 position in her favor when she had least reason to expect 
 it. My master was greatly lamented: there was no life in 
 him when we lifted him oft the barrow, so he was laid out 
 immediately, and waked the same night. The country 
 was all in an uproar about him, and not a soul but cried 
 shame upon his murderer, who would have been hanged 
 surely, if he could have been brought to his trial, whilst the 
 gentlemen in the country were up about it; but he very 
 prudently withdrew himself to the Continent before the 
 affair was made public. As for the young lady who was the 
 immediate cause of the fatal accident, however innocently, 
 she could never show her head after at the balls in the 
 county or any place; and by the advice of her friends and 
 physicians she was ordered soon after to Bath, where it 
 was expected, if anywhere on this side of the grave, she 
 would meet with the recovery of her health and lost peace 
 of mind. As a proof of his great popularity, I need only 
 add that there was a song made upon my master’s untimely 
 death in the newspapers, which was in everybody’s mouth, 
 singing up and down through the country, even down to 
 the mountains, only three days after his unhappy exit. He 
 was also greatly bemoaned at the Curragh, where his cattle 
 were well known ; and all who had taken up his bets were 
 particularly inconsolable for his loss to society. His stud 
 sold at the cant at the greatest price ever known in 
 the county; his favorite horses were chiefly disposed of 
 amongst his particular friends, who would give any price 
 for them, for his sake; but no ready money was required 
 by the new heir, who wished not to displease any of the 
 gentlemen of the neighborhood just upon his coming to 
 settle amongst them; so a long credit was given where 
 requisite, and the cash has never been gathered in from 
 that day to this. 
 
 But to return to my lady. She got surprisingly well 
 after my master’s decease. No sooner was it known for 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1013 
 
 certain that he was dead, than all the gentlemen within 
 twenty miles of us came in a body, as it were, to set my 
 lady at liberty, and to protest against her confinement, 
 which they now for the first time understood was against 
 her own consent. The ladies too were as attentive as pos- 
 sible, striving who should be foremost with their morning 
 visits; and they that saw the diamonds spoke very hand- 
 somely of them, but thought it a pity they were not be- 
 stowed, if it had so pleased God, upon a lady who would 
 have become them better. All these civilities wrought 
 little with my lady, for she had taken an unaccountable 
 prejudice against the country, and everything belonging 
 to it, and was so partial to her native land, that after 
 parting with the cook, which she did immediately upon 
 my master ^s decease, I never knew her easy one instant, 
 night or day, but when she was packing up to leave us. 
 Had she meant to make any stay in Ireland, I stood a great 
 chance of being a great favorite with her; for when she 
 found I understood the weathercock, she was always find- 
 ing some pretense to be talking to me, and asking me which 
 way the wind blew, and was it likely, did I think, to con- 
 tinue fair for England. 
 
 But when I saw she had made up her mind to spend the 
 rest of her days upon her own income and jewels in Eng- 
 land, I considered her quite as a foreigner, and not at all 
 any longer as part of the family. She gave no veils to the 
 servants at Castle Rackrent at parting, notwithstanding 
 the old proverb of as rich as a Jew,^^ which, she being a 
 Jewish, they built upon with reason. But from first to last 
 she brought nothing but misfortune amongst us; and if it 
 had not been all along with her, his honor. Sir Kit, would 
 have been now alive in all appearance. Her diamond cross 
 was, they say, at the bottom of it all ; and it was a shame 
 for her, being his Avife, not to show more duty, and to have 
 given it up when he condescended to ask so often for such 
 a bit of a trifie in his distresses, especially when he all 
 along made it no secret he married for money. But we 
 will not bestow another thought upon her. This much I 
 thought it lay upon my conscience to sa}^, in justice to my 
 poor master’s memor3\ 
 
 ’T is an ill wind that blows nobody no good ; the same 
 
1014 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 wind that took the Jew Lady Kackrent over to England 
 brought over the new heir to Castle Rackrent. 
 
 Here let me pause for breath in my story, for though I 
 had a great regard for every member of the family, yet 
 without compare Sir Conolly, commonly called, for short, 
 amongst his friends. Sir Condy Rackrent, was ever my 
 great favorite; and indeed, the most universally beloved 
 man I had ever seen or heard of, not excepting his great 
 ancestor Sir Patrick, to whose memory he, amongst other 
 instances of generosity, erected a handsome marble stone 
 in the church of Castle Rackrent, setting forth in large 
 letters his age, birth, parentage, and many other virtues, 
 concluding with the compliment so justly due, that ‘‘ Sir 
 Patrick Rackrent lived and died a monument of old Irish 
 hospitality.’’ 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE MEMOIRS OF THE 
 RACKRENT FAMILY. 
 
 HISTORY OP SIR CONOLLY RACKRENT. 
 
 Sir Condy Rackrent by the grace of God heir-at-law 
 to the Castle Rackrent estate was a remote branch of the 
 family. Born to little or no fortune of his own, he was 
 bred to the bar, at which, having many friends to push 
 him and no mean natural abilities of his own, he doubtless 
 would in process of time, if he could have borne the drudg- 
 ery of that study, have been rapidly made King’s Counsel 
 at the least, but things were disposed of otherwise, and he 
 never went the circuit but twice, and then made no figure 
 for want of a fee and being unable to speak in public. He 
 received his education chiefly in the College of Dublin, but 
 before he came to years of discretion lived in the country, 
 in a small but slated house within view of the end of the 
 avenue. I remember him, bare-footed and headed, running 
 through the street of O’Shaughlin’s Town, and playing at 
 pitch-and-toss, ball, marbles, and what not, with the boys 
 of the town, amongst whom my son Jason was a great fa- 
 vorite with him. As for me, he was ever my white-headed 
 hoy; often ’s the time, when I would call in at his father’s, 
 where I was always made welcome, he would slip down to 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1015 
 
 me in the kitchen, and love to sit on my knee whilst I told 
 him stories of the family and the blood from which he was 
 sprung, and how he might look forward, if the then present 
 man should die without children, to being at the head of 
 the Castle Rackrent estate. 
 
 This was then spoke quite and clear, at random to please 
 the child, but it pleased Heaven to accomplish my prophecy 
 afterwards, which gave him a great opinion of my judg- 
 ment in business. He went to a little grammar-school with 
 many others, and my son amongst the rest, who was in his 
 class, and not a little useful to him in his book-learning, 
 which he acknowledged with gratitude ever after. These 
 rudiments of his education thus completed, he got a-horse- 
 back, to which exercise he was ever addicted, and used to 
 gallop over the country while yet but a slip of a boy, under 
 the care of Sir KiCs huntsman, who was very fond of him, 
 and often lent him his gun, and took him out a-shooting 
 under his own eye. By these means he became well ac- 
 quainted and popular amongst the poor in the neighbor- 
 hood early, for there was not a cabin at which he had not 
 stopped some morning or other, along with the huntsman, 
 to drink a glass of burnt whisky out of an egg-shell, to do 
 him good and warm his heart and drive the cold out of his 
 stomach. The old people always told him he was a great 
 likeness of Sir Patrick, which made him first have an ambi- 
 tion to take after him, as far as his fortune should allow. 
 He left us when of an age to enter the college, and there 
 completed his education and nineteenth year, for as he was 
 not born to an estate, his friends thought it incumbent on 
 them to give him the best education which could be had for 
 love or money, and a great deal of money consequently was 
 spent upon him at College and Temple. He was a. very 
 little altered for the worse by what he saw there of the 
 great world, for when he came down into the country to 
 pay us a visit, we thought him just the same man as ever — 
 hand and glove with every one, and as far from high, 
 though not Avithout his own proper share of family pride, 
 as any man ever you see. 
 
 Latterly, seeing how Sir Kit and the Jewish lived to- 
 gether, and that there was no one between him and the 
 Castle Rackrent estate, he neglected to apply to the law as 
 much as was expected of him, and secretly many of the 
 
1016 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 tenants and others advanced him cash upon his note of 
 hand value received, promising bargains of leases and law- 
 ful interest, should he ever come into the estate. All this 
 was kept a great secret for fear the present man, hearing of 
 it, should take it into his head to take it ill of poor Condy, 
 and so should cut him off for ever by levying a fine, and 
 suffering a recovery to dock the entail. Sir Murtagh would 
 have been the man for that ; but Sir Kit was too much taken 
 up philandering to consider the law in this case, or any 
 other. These practices I have mentioned to account for the 
 state of his affairs — I mean Sir Condy’s upon his coming 
 into the Castle Rackrent estate. He could not command 
 a penny of his first j^ear’s income, which, and keeping no 
 accounts, and the great sight of company he did, with many 
 other causes too numerous to mention, was the origin of 
 his distresses. 
 
 My son Jason, who was now established agent, and knew 
 everything, explained matters out of the face to Sir Con- 
 olly, and made him sensible of his embarrassed situation. 
 With a great nominal rent-roll, it was almost all paid away 
 in interest; which being for convenience suffered to run 
 on, soon doubled the principal, and Sir Condy was obliged 
 to pass new bonds for the interest, now grown principal, 
 and so on. Whilst this was going on, my son, requiring to 
 be paid for his trouble and many years’ service in the fam- 
 ily gratis, and Sir Condy not willing to take his affairs into 
 his own hands, or to look them even in the face, he gave 
 my son a bargain of some acres which fell out of lease at a 
 reasonable rent. Jason let the land, as soon as his lease was 
 sealed, to under-tenants, to make the rent, and got two 
 hundred a year profit rent; which was little enough con- 
 sidering his long agency. He bought the land at twelve 
 years’ purchase two j^ars afterwards, when Sir Condy was 
 pushed for money on an execution, and was at the same 
 time allowed for his improvements thereon. 
 
 There was a sort of hunting-lodge upon the estate, con- 
 venient to my son Jason’s land, which he had his eye upon 
 about this time; and he was a little jealous of Sir Condy, 
 who talked of letting it to a stranger who was just come 
 into the country — Captain Moneygawl was the man. He 
 was son and heir to the Moneygawls of Mount Juliet’s 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1017 
 
 and my master was loth to disoblige the young gentleman, 
 whose heart was set upon the Lodge ; so he wrote him back 
 that the Lodge was at his service, and if he would honor 
 him with his company at Castle Rackrent, they could ride 
 over together some morning and look at it before signing 
 the lease. Accordingly, the captain came over to us, and 
 he and Sir Condy grew the greatest friends ever you see, 
 and were for ever out a-shooting or hunting together, and 
 were very merry in the evenings; and Sir Condy was invited 
 of course to Mount JulieCs Town; and the family intimacy 
 that had been in Sir Patrick’s time was now recollected, 
 and nothing would serve Sir Condy but he must be three 
 times a week at the least with his new friends, which 
 grieved me, who knew, by the captain’s groom and gentle- 
 man, how they talked of him at Mount Juliet’s Town, mak- 
 ing him quite, as one may say, a laughing-stock and a butt 
 for the whole company; but they were soon cured of that 
 by an accident that surprised ’em not a little, as it did me. 
 
 There was a bit of a scrawl found upon the waiting-maid 
 of old Mr. Money gawl’s youngest daughter. Miss Isabella, 
 that laid open the whole ; and her father, the}" say, was like 
 one out of his right mind, and swore it was the last thing 
 he ever should have thought of, when he invited my master 
 to his house, that his daughter should think of such a 
 match. But their talk signified not a straw, for as Miss 
 Isabella’s maid reported, her }"oung mistress was fallen 
 over head and ears in love with Sir Condy from the first 
 time that ever her brother brought him into the house to 
 dinner. The servant who waited that day behind my mas- 
 ter’s chair was the first who knew it, as he says; though it ’s 
 hard to believe him, for he did not tell it till a great while 
 afterwards; but, however, it ’s likely enough, as the thing 
 turned out, that he was not far out of the way, for towards 
 the middle of dinner, as he says, they were talking of stage- 
 plays, having a play-house, and being great play-actors at 
 Mount Juliet’s Town; and Miss Isabella turns short to my 
 master, and says: 
 
 ‘‘ Have you seen the play-bill. Sir Condy? ” 
 
 ‘‘No, I have not,” said he. 
 
 “ Then more shame for you,” said the captain her 
 brother, “ not to know that my sister is to play Juliet to- 
 
1018 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 night, who plays it better than any woman on or off the 
 stage in all Ireland.’’ 
 
 I am very happy to hear it,” said Sir Condy; and there 
 the matter dropped for the present. 
 
 But Sir Condy all this time, and a great while after- 
 ward, was at a terrible non-plus ; for he had no liking, not 
 he, to stage-plays, nor to Miss Isabella either — to his mind, 
 as it came out over a bowl of whisky-punch at home, his 
 little Judy M’Quirk, who was daughter to a sister’s son of 
 mine, was worth twenty of Miss Isabella. He had seen her 
 often when he stopped at her father’s cabin to drink whisky 
 out of the egg-shell, out hunting, before he came to the es- 
 tate, and, as she gave out, was under something like a 
 promise of marriage to her. Anyhow, I could not but pity 
 my poor master, who was so bothered between them, and 
 he an easy-hearted man, that could not disoblige nobody — 
 God bless him ! To be sure, it was not his place to behave 
 ungenerous to Miss Isabella, who had disobliged all her re- 
 lations for his sake, as he remarked ; and then she was 
 locked up in her chamber, and forbid to think of him any 
 more, which raised his spirit, because his family was as 
 good as theirs at any rate, and the Kackrents a suitable 
 match for the IMoneygawls any day in the year ; all which 
 was true enough. But it grieved me to see that, upon the 
 strength of all this. Sir Condy was grooving more in the 
 mind to carry off Miss Isabella to Scotland, in spite of her 
 relations, as she desired. 
 
 It ’s all over with our poor Judy ! ” said I, with a heavy 
 sigh, making bold to speak to him one night when he was a 
 little cheerful, and standing in the servants’ hall all alone 
 with me, as was often his custom. 
 
 “ Not at all,” said he; I never was fonder of Judy than 
 at this present speaking ; and to prove it to you,” said he — 
 and he took from my hand a halfpenny change that I had 
 just got along with my tobacco — “ and to prove it to you, 
 Thady,” says he, it ’s a toss-up with me which I should 
 marry this minute, her or Mr. Moneygawl of Mount Juliet’s 
 Town’s daughter — so it is.” 
 
 Oh — boo ! boo ! ” says I, making light of it, to see what 
 he would go on to next; “ your honor ’s joking, to be sure; 
 there’s no compare between our poor Judy and Miss Isa- 
 bella, who has a great fortune, they say.” 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1019 
 
 “ I ’m not a man to mind a fortune, nor never was,’^ said 
 Sir Condy, proudly, Avhatever her friends may say ; and 
 to make short of it,’’ says he, I ’m come to a determination 
 upon the spot.” With that he swore such a terrible oath as 
 made me cross myself. And by this book,” said he, 
 snatching up my ballad-book, mistaking it for my prayer- 
 book, which lay in the window ; and by this book,” says 
 he, and by all the books that ever were shut and opened, 
 it ’s come to a toss-up with me, and I ’ll stand or fall by the 
 toss ; and so Thady, hand me over that pin out of the ink- 
 horn ” ; and he makes a cross on the smooth side of the 
 halfpenny; Judy M’Quirk,” says he, her mark.” 
 
 God bless him ! his hand was a little unsteadied by all the 
 whisky-punch he had taken, but it was plain to see his 
 heart was for poor Judy. My heart was all as one as in my 
 mouth when I saw the halfpenny up in the air, but I said 
 nothing at all; and when it came down I was glad I had 
 kept myself to myself, for to be sure now it was all over 
 with poor Judy. 
 
 Judy ’s out a luck,” said I, striving to laugh. 
 
 I ’m out a luck,” said he ; and I never saw a man look 
 so cast down : he took up the halfpenny off the flag, and 
 walked away quite sober-like by the shock. Now, though 
 as easy a man, you would think, as an^^ in the wide world, 
 there was no such thing as making him unsay one of these 
 sort of vows, which he had learned to reverence when 
 young, as I well remember teaching him to toss up for bog- 
 berries on my knee. So I saw the affair was as good as 
 settled between him and Miss Isabella, and I had no more 
 to say but to wish her joy, which I did the week afterwards, 
 upon her return from Scotland with my poor master. 
 
 My new lady was young, as might be supposed of a lady 
 that had been carried off by her own consent to Scotland ; 
 but I could only see her at first through her veil, which, 
 from baslifulness or fashion, she kept over her face. 
 
 And am I to walk through all this crowd of people, my 
 dearest love? ” said she to Sir Condy, meaning us servants 
 and tenants, who had gathered at the back gate. 
 
 My dear,” said Sir Condy, there ’s nothing for it but 
 to walk, or to let me carry you as far as the house, for you 
 the back road is too narrow for a carriage, and the 
 
1020 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 great piers have tumbled down across the front approach : 
 so there ’s no driving the right way, by reason of the ruins.’^ 
 
 Plato, thou reasonest well ! said she, or words to that 
 effect, which I could noways understand ; and again, when 
 her foot stumbled against a broken bit of a car-wheel, she 
 cried out, Angels and ministers of grace defend us I 
 Well, thought I, to be sure, if she ^s no Jewish, like the last 
 she is a mad-woman for certain, which is as bad : it would 
 have been as well for my poor master to have taken up with 
 poor Judy, who is in her right mind anyhow. 
 
 She was dressed like a mad-woman, moreover, more than 
 like any one I ever saw afore or since, and I could not take 
 my eyes off her, but still followed behind her; and her 
 feathers on the top of her hat were broke going in at the 
 low back door, and she pulled out her little bottle out of 
 her pocket to smell when she found herself in the kitchen, 
 and said, I shall faint with the heat of this odious, odious 
 place.^^ 
 
 My dear, it ^s only three steps across the kitchen, and 
 there 'S a fine air if your veil was up,’’ said Sir Condy; and 
 with that threw back her veil, so that I had then a full 
 sight of her face. She had not at all the color of one going 
 to faint, but a fine complexion of her own, as I then took 
 it to be, though her maid told me after it was all put on ; 
 but even, complexion and all taken in, she was no way, in 
 point of good looks, to compare to poor Judy, and withal 
 she had a quality toss with her ; but maybe it was my over- 
 partiality to Judy, into whose place I may say she stepped, 
 that made me notice all this. 
 
 To do her justice, however, she was, when we came to 
 know her better, very liberal in her housekeeping — nothing 
 at all of the skinflint in her; she left everything to the 
 housekeeper, and her own maid, Mrs. Jane, who went with 
 her to Scotland, gave her the best of characters for gen- 
 erosity. She seldom or ever wore a thing twice the same 
 way, Mrs. Jane told us, and was always pulling her things 
 to pieces and giving them away, never being used, in her 
 father’s house, to think of expense in anything; and she 
 reckoned to be sure to go on the same way at Castle Eack- 
 rent; but when I came to inquire, I learned that lier 
 father was so mad with her for running off, after his lock- 
 ing her up and forbidding her to think any more of Sir 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1021 
 
 Condy, that he would not give her a farthing; and it was 
 lucky for her she had a few thousands of her own, which 
 had been left to her by a good grandmother, and these were 
 convenient to begin with. 
 
 My master and my lady set out in great style ; they had 
 the finest coach and chariot, and horses and liveries, and 
 cut the greatest dash in the county, returning their wed- 
 ding visits; and it was immediately reported that her 
 father had undertaken to pay all my master’s debts, and of 
 course all his tradesmen gave him a new credit, and every 
 thing went on smack-smooth, and 1 could not but admire 
 my lady’s spirit, and was proud to see Castle Kackrent 
 again in all its glory. My lady had a fine taste for build- 
 ing, and furniture, and playhouses, and she turned every 
 thing topsy-turvy, and made the barrack-room into a thea- 
 ter, as she called it, and she went on as if she had a 
 mint of money at her elbow; and to be sure I thought she 
 knew best, especially as Sir Condy said nothing to it one 
 way or the other. All he asked, God bless him ! was to live 
 in peace and quietness, and have his bottle or his whisky- 
 punch at night to himself. Now this was little enough, to 
 be sure, for any gentleman ; but my lady couldn’t abide the 
 smell of the whisky-punch. 
 
 My dear,” says he, you liked it well enough before we 
 were married, and why not now? ” 
 
 My dear,” said she, I never smelt it, or I assure you I 
 should never have prevailed upon myself to marry you.” 
 
 My dear, I am sorry you did not smell it, but we can’t 
 help that now,” returned my master, without putting him- 
 self in a passion or going out of his way, but just fair and 
 easy helped himself to another glass, and drank it off to 
 her good health. 
 
 All this the butler told me, who was going backwards 
 and forwards unnoticed with the jug, and hot water and 
 sugar, and all he thought wanting. Upon my master’s 
 swallowing the last glass of whisky-punch, my lady burst 
 into tears, calling him an ungrateful, base, barbarous 
 wretch, and went off into a fit of hysterics, as I think Mrs. 
 Jane called it; and my poor master was greatly frightened, 
 this being the first thing of the kind he had seen, and he 
 fell straight on his knees before her, and, like a good- 
 hearted cratur as he was, ordered the whisky-punch out of 
 
1022 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the room, and bid ’em throw open all the windows, and 
 cursed himself; and then my lady came to herself again, 
 and when she saw him kneeling there, bid him get up, and 
 not forswear himself any more, for that she was sure he did 
 not love her, and never had. This we learned from Mr^ 
 Jane, who was the only person left present at all this. 
 
 My dear,” returns my master, thinking, to be sure, or 
 Judy, as well he might, ‘‘ whoever told you so is an incen- 
 diary, and I ’ll have ’em turned out of the house this min- 
 ute, if you ’ll only let me know which of them it was.” 
 
 Told me what? ” said my lady, starting upright in her 
 chair. 
 
 ‘‘ Nothing at all, nothing at all,” said my master, seeing 
 he had overshot himself, and that my lady spoke at ran- 
 dom ; but what you said just now, that I did not love you, 
 Bella; who told you that? ” 
 
 “ My own sense,” she said, and she put her handkerchief 
 to her face and leant back upon Mrs. Jane, and fell to sob- 
 bing as if her heart would break. 
 
 Why now, Bella, this is very strange of you,” said my 
 poor master; if nobody has told you nothing, what is it 
 you are talking on for at this rate, and exposing yourself 
 and me for this way? ” 
 
 Oh, say no more, say no more ; every word you say 
 kills me,” cried my lady; and she ran on like one, as Mrs. 
 Jane says, raving, ‘‘ Oh, Sir Condy, Sir Condy ! I that had 
 hoped to find in you ” 
 
 Wli3^ now, faith, this is a little too much; do, Bella, try 
 to recollect yourself, my dear ; am not I your husband, and 
 of your own choosing, and is not that enough? ” 
 
 Oh, too much ! too much ! ” cried my lady, wringing her 
 hands. 
 
 Why, my dear, come to your right senses, for the love 
 of Heaven. See, is not the whisky-punch, jug and bowl and 
 all, gone out of the room long ago? What is it, in the wide 
 world, you have to complain of? ” 
 
 But still my lady sobbed and sobbed, and called herself 
 the most wretched of women; and among other out-of-the- 
 way, provoking things, asked my master was he fit com- 
 pany for her, and he drinking all night? This nettling 
 him, which it was hard to do, he replied that, as to drinking 
 all night, he was then as sober as she was herself, and that 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1023 
 
 it was DO matter how much a man drank, provided it did 
 no ways affect or stagger him ; that as to being fit company 
 for her, he thought himself of a family to be fit company 
 for any lord or lady in the land; but that he never pre- 
 vented her from seeing and keeping what company she 
 pleased, and that he had done his best to make Castle Rack- 
 rent pleasing to her since her marriage, having always had 
 the house full of visitors, and if her own relations were not 
 amongst them, he said that was their own fault, and their 
 pride’s fault, of which he was sorry to find her ladyship had 
 so unbecoming a share. 
 
 So concluding, he took his candle and walked off to his 
 room, and my lady was in her tantrums for three days 
 after, and would have been so much longer, no doubt, but 
 some of her friends, young ladies and cousins and second 
 cousins, came to Castle Rackrent, by poor master’s express 
 invitation, to see her, and she was in a hurry to get up, as 
 Mrs. Jane called it, a play for them, and so got well, and 
 was as finely dressed and as happy to look at as ever ; and 
 all the young ladies, who used to be in her room dressing 
 of her, said in Mrs. Jane’s hearing that my lady was the 
 happiest bride ever they had seen, and that, to be sure, a 
 love-match was the only thing for happiness where the 
 parties could any way afford it. 
 
 As to affording it, God knows it was little they knew of 
 the matter : my lady’s few thousands could not last forever, 
 especially the way she went on with them, and letters from 
 tradesfolk came every post thick and threefold, with bills 
 as long as my arm, of years’ and years’ standing. My son 
 Jason had ’em all handed over to him, and the pressing 
 letters were all unread by Sir Condy, who hated trouble, 
 and could never be brought to hear talk of business, but 
 still put it off and put it off, saying, Settle it anyhow,” 
 or Bid ’em call again to-morrow,” or Speak to me about 
 it some other time.” Now it was hard to find the right 
 time to speak, for in the mornings he was a-bed, and in the 
 evenings over his bottle, where no gentleman chooses to be 
 disturbed. Things in a twelve-month or so came to such a 
 pass there was no making a shift to go on any longer, 
 though we were all of us well enough used to live from 
 hand to mouth at Castle Rackrent. One day, I remember, 
 .when there was a power of company, all sitting after din- 
 
1024 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 ner in the dusk, not to say dark, in the drawing-room, my 
 lady having rung five times for candles and none to go up, 
 the housekeeper sent up the footman, who went to my mis- 
 tress and whispered behind her chair how it was. 
 
 My lady,’^ says he, there are no candles in the house.’’ 
 Bless me,” says she ; then take a horse and gallop off 
 as fast as you can to Garrick O’Fungus, and get some.” 
 And in the meantime tell them to step into the play- 
 house, and try if there are not some bits left,” added Sir 
 Condy, who happened to be within hearing. The man was 
 sent up again to my lady to let her know there was no horse 
 to go but one that wanted a shoe. 
 
 “ Go to Sir Condy, then ; I know nothing at all about the 
 horses,” said my lady ; why do you plague me with these 
 things? ” How it was settled I really forget, but to the 
 best of my remembrance the boy was sent down to my son 
 Jason’s to borrow candles for the night. Another time, in 
 the winter, and on a desperate cold day, there was no turf 
 in for the parlor and above stairs, and scarce enough for 
 the cook in the kitchen. The little gossoon was sent off to 
 the neighbors to see and beg or borrow some, but none 
 could he bring back with him for love or money, so, as 
 needs must, we were forced to trouble Sir Condy — Well, 
 and if there ’s no turf to be had in the town or country, 
 why, what signifies talking any more about it; can’t ye go 
 and cut down a tree? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Which tree, please your honor? ” I made bold to say. 
 Any tree at all that ’s good to burn,” said Sir Condy ; 
 “ send off smart and get one down and the fires lighted 
 before my lady gets up to breakfast, or the house will be 
 too hot to hold us.” 
 
 He was always very considerate in all things about my 
 lady, and she wanted for nothing whilst he had it to give. 
 Well, when things were tight with them about this time, 
 my son Jason put in a word again about the Lodge, and 
 made a genteel offer to lay down the purchase-money, to 
 relieve Sir Condy’s distresses. Now Sir Condy had it from 
 the best authority that there were two writs come down to 
 the sheriff against his person, and the sheriff, as ill-luck 
 would have it, was no friend of his, and talked how he must 
 do his duty, and how he would do it, if it was against the 
 first man in the country, or even his own brother, let alone 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1025 
 
 one who had voted against him at the last election, as Sir 
 Condy had done. So Sir Condy was fain to take the pur- 
 chase-money of the Lodge from my son Jason to settle mat- 
 ters ; and sure enough it was a good bargain for both par- 
 ties, for my son bought the fee-simple of a good house for 
 him and his heirs forever, for little or nothing, and by 
 selling of it for that same my master saved himself from a 
 jail. Every way it turned out fortunate for Sir Condy, for 
 before the money was all gone there came a general elec- 
 tion, and he being so well beloved in the county, and one of 
 the oldest families, no one had a better right to stand candi- 
 date for the vacancy; and he was called upon by all his 
 friends, and the whole county, I may say, to declare him- 
 self against the old member, who had little thought of a 
 contest. My master did not relish the thoughts of a 
 troublesome canvass and all the ill-will he might bring 
 upon himself by disturbing the peace of the county, be- 
 sides the expense, which was no trifle; but all his friends 
 called upon one another to subscribe, and they formed 
 themselves into a committee, and wrote all his circular-let- 
 ters for him, and engaged all his agents, and did all the 
 business unknown to him ; and he was well pleased that it 
 should be so at last, and my lady herself was very sanguine 
 about the election; and there was open house kept night 
 and day at Castle Rackrent, and I thought I never saw my 
 lady look so well in her life as she did at that time. There 
 were grand dinners, ^y^d all the gentlemen drinking success 
 to Sir Condy till they were carried off; and then dances 
 and balls, and the ladies all finishing with a raking pot of 
 tea in the morning. Indeed, it was well the company made 
 it their choice to sit up all nights, for there were not half 
 beds enough for the sights of people that were in it, though 
 there were shake-downs in the drawing-room always made ^ 
 up before sunrise for those that liked it. 
 
 For my part, when I saw the doings that were going on, 
 and the loads of claret that went down the throats of them 
 that had no right to be asking for it, and the sights of meat 
 that went up to table and never came down, besides what 
 was carried off to one or V other below stair, I couldn’t but 
 pity my poor master, who was to pay for all ; but I said 
 nothing, for fear of gaining m^^self ill-will. The day of 
 election will come some time or other, says I to myself, and 
 
 II— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1026 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 all will be over; and so it did, and a glorious day it was as 
 any I ever had the happiness to see. 
 
 Huzza ! huzza ! Sir Condy Rackrent forever ! was the 
 first thing I hears in the morning, and the same and noth- 
 ing else all day, and not a soul sober only just when poll- 
 ing, enough to give their votes as became ’em, and to stand 
 the browbeating of the lawyers, who came tight enough 
 upon us; and many of our freeholders were knocked off, 
 having never a freehold that they could safely swear to, 
 and Sir Condy was not willing to have any man perjure 
 himself for his sake, as was done on the other side, God 
 knows; but no matter for that. Some of our friends were 
 dumbfounded by the lawyers asking them : Had they 
 
 ever been upon the ground where their freeholds lay? ” 
 Now, Sir Condy, being tender of the consciences of them 
 that had not been on the ground, and so could not swear 
 to a freehold when cross-examined by them lawyers, sent 
 out for a couple of cleavefuls ^ of the sods of his farm of 
 Gulteeshinnagh ; and as soon as the sods came into town, 
 he set each man upon his sod, and so then, ever after, you 
 know, they could fairly swear they had been upon the 
 ground. We gained the day by this piece of honesty. I 
 thought I should have died in the streets for joy when I 
 seed my poor master chaired, and he bareheaded, and it 
 raining as hard as it could pour; but all the crowds follow- 
 ing him up and down, and he bowing and shaking hands 
 with the whole town. % 
 
 Is that Sir Condy Rackrent in the chair? ” says a 
 stranger man in the crowd. 
 
 ‘‘ The same,” says I. ‘‘ Who else could it be? God bless 
 him ! ” 
 
 And I take it, then, you belong to him? ” says he. 
 
 Not at all,” says I ; but I live under him, and have 
 done so these two hundred years and upwards, me and 
 mine.” 
 
 It ’s lucky for you, then,” rejoins he, “ that he is where 
 he is; for was he anywhere else but in the chair, this 
 minute he’d be in a worse place; for I was sent down on 
 purpose to put him up, and here ’s my order for so doing 
 in my pocket.” 
 
 It was a writ that villain the wine merchant had marked 
 
 1 Cleave, a large basket. 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1027 
 
 against my poor master for some Imndretls of an old debt, 
 which it was a shame to be talking of at such a time as this. 
 
 Put it in your pocket again, and think no more of it 
 anyways for seven years to come, my honest friend,’’ says 
 I ; he ’s a member of Parliament now, praised be God, and 
 such as you can’t touch him ; and if you ’ll take a fool’s, 
 advice, I ’d have you keep out of the way this day, or you ’ll 
 run a good chance of getting your deserts amongst my 
 master’s friends, unless you choose to drink his health like 
 everybody else.” 
 
 “ I ’ve no objection to that in life,” said he. So we went 
 into one of the public-houses kept open for my master ; and 
 we had a great deal of talk about this thing and that. 
 
 And how is it,” says he, your master keeps on so well 
 upon his legs? I heard say he was off Holantide twelve- 
 month past.” 
 
 Never was better or heartier in his life,” said I. 
 
 ^‘It’s not that I’m after speaking of,” said he; but 
 there was a great report of his being ruined.” 
 
 No matter,” says I; the sheriffs two years running 
 were his particular friends, and the sub-sheriffs were both 
 of them gentlemen, and were properly spoken to; and so 
 the writs lay snug with them, and they, as I understand 
 by my son Jason the custom in them cases is, returned the 
 writs as they came to them to those that sent ’em — much 
 good may it do them! — Avith a word in Latin, that no such 
 person as Sir Condy Rackrent, Bart., was to be found in 
 those parts.” 
 
 “ Oh, I understand all those ways better — no offense — 
 than you,” says he, laughing, and at the same time filling 
 his glass to my master’s good health, which convinced me 
 he was a warm friend in his heart after all, though appear- 
 ances were a little suspicious or so at first. To be sure,” 
 says he, still cutting his joke, when a man ’s over head 
 and shoulders in debt, he may live the faster for it, and the 
 better if he goes the right way about it, or else how is it 
 so many live on so well, as we see every day after they are 
 ruined? ” 
 
 How is it,” says I, being a little merry at the time; 
 
 how is it but just as you see the ducks in the chicken- 
 yard, just after their heads are cut off by the cook, running 
 round and round faster than when alive? ” 
 
1028 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 At which conceit he fell a-laughing, and remarked he 
 had never had the happiness yet to see the chicken-yard at 
 Castle Eackrent. 
 
 It won’t be long so, I hope,” says I ; yon ’ll be kindly 
 welcome there, as everybody is made by my master; there 
 is not a freer-spoken gentleman or a better beloved, high 
 or low, in all Ireland.” 
 
 And of what passed after this I ’m not sensible, for we 
 drank Sir Condy’s good health and the downfall of his 
 enemies till we could stand no longer ourselves. And little 
 did I think at the time, or till long after, how I was har- 
 boring my poor master’s greatest of enemies myself. This 
 fellow had the impudence, after coming to see the chicken- 
 yard, to get me to introduce him to my son Jason; little 
 more than the man that never was born did I guess at his 
 meaning by this visit: he gets him a correct list fairly 
 drawn out from my son Jason of all my master’s debts, 
 and goes straight round to the creditors and buys them all 
 up, which he did easy enough, seeing the half of them never 
 expected to "see their money out of Sir Condy’s hands. 
 Then, when this base-minded limb of the law, as I after- 
 wards detected him in being, grew to be sole creditor over 
 all, he takes him out a custodiam on all the denominations 
 and sub-denominations, and even carton and half-carton 
 upon the estate; and not content with that, must have an 
 execution against the master’s goods and down to the fur- 
 niture, though little worth, of Castle Eackrent itself. But 
 this is a part of my story I ’m not come to yet, and it ’s 
 bad to be forestalling: ill news flies fast enough all the 
 world over. 
 
 To go back to the day of the election, which I never think 
 of but with pleasure and tears of gratitude for those good 
 times, after the election was quite and clean over, there 
 comes shoals of people from all parts, claiming to have 
 obliged my master with their votes, and putting him in 
 mind of promises which he could never remember himself 
 to have made: one was to have a freehold for each of his 
 four sons; another was to have a renewal of a lease; an- 
 other an abatement ; one came to be paid ten guineas for a 
 pair of silver buckles sold my master on the hustings, 
 which turned out to be no better than copper gilt; another 
 had a long bill for oats, the half of which never went into 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1029 
 
 the granary to my certain knowledge, and the other half 
 was not fit for the cattle to touch; but the bargain was 
 made the week before the election, and the coach and 
 saddle-horses were got into order for the day, besides a 
 vote fairly got by them oats ; so no more reasoning on that 
 head. But then there was no end to them that were telling 
 Sir Condy he had engaged to make their sons excisemen, or 
 high constables, or the like ; and as for them that had bills 
 to give in for liquor, and beds, and straw, and ribands, and 
 horses, and post-chaises for the gentlemen freeholders that 
 came from all parts and other counties to vote for my 
 master, and were not, to be sure, to be at any charges, there 
 was no standing against all these ; and, worse than all, the 
 gentlemen of my master^s committee, who managed all for 
 him, and talked how they ’d bring him in without costing 
 him a penny, and subscribed by hundreds very genteelly, 
 forgot to pay their subscriptions, and had laid out in 
 agents’ and lawyers’ fees and secret-service money to the 
 Lord knows how much; and my master could never ask 
 one of them for their subscription you are sensible, nor for 
 the price of a fine horse he had sold one of them ; so it all 
 was left at his door. 
 
 He could never, God bless him again ! I say, bring himself 
 to ask a gentleman for money, despising such sort of con- 
 versation himself; but others, who were not gentlemen 
 born, behaved very uncivil in pressing him at this very 
 time, and all he could do to content ’em all was to take 
 himself out of the way as fast as possible to Dublin, where 
 my lady had taken a house fitting for him as a member of 
 Parliament, to attend his duty in there all the winter. I 
 was very lonely when the whole family was gone, and all 
 the things they had ordered to go, and forgot, sent after 
 them by the car. There was then a great silence in Castle 
 Rackrent, and I went moping from room to room, hearing 
 the doors clap for want of right locks, and the wind 
 through the broken windows, that the glazier never would 
 come to mend, and the rain coming through the roof and 
 best ceilings all over the house for want of the slater, whose 
 bill was not paid, besides our having no slates or shingles 
 for that part of the old building which was shingled and 
 burnt when the chimney took fire, and had been open to the 
 weather ever since. 
 
1030 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 I took myself to the servants’ hall in the evening to 
 smoke my pipe as usual, but missed the bit of talk we used 
 to have there sadly, and ever after was content to stay in 
 the kitchen and boil my little potatoes and put up my bed 
 there, and every post-day I looked in the newspaper, but 
 no news of my master in the House; he never spoke good 
 or bad, but, as the butler wrote down word to my son 
 Jason, was very ill-used by the Government about a place 
 that was promised him and never given, after his support- 
 ing them against his conscience very honorably, and being 
 greatly abused for it, which hurt him greatly, he having 
 the name of a great patriot in the country before. The 
 house and living in Dublin, too, were not to be had for 
 nothing, and my son Jason said: Sir Condy must soon 
 
 be looking out for a new agent, for I ’ve done my part and 
 can do no more. If my lady had the Bank of Ireland to 
 spend, it would go all in one winter, and Sir Condy would 
 never gainsay her, though he does not care the rind of a 
 lemon for her all the while.” 
 
 Now I could not bear to hear Jason giving out after this 
 manner against the family, and twenty people standing by 
 in the street. Ever since he had lived at the Lodge of his 
 own, he looked down, howsomever, upon poor old Thady,^ 
 and was grown quite a great gentleman, and had none of* 
 his relations near him; no wonder he was no kinder to poor 
 Sir Condy than to his own kith or kin. In the spring it 
 was the villain that got the list of the debts from him 
 brought down the custodiam. Sir Condy still attending his 
 duty in Parliament; and I could scarcely believe my own 
 old eyes, or the spectacles with which I read it, when I was 
 shown my son Jason’s name joined in the custodiam, but he 
 told me it was only for form’s sake, and to make things 
 easier than if all the land was under the power of a total 
 stranger. Well, I did not know what to think; it was hard 
 to be talking ill of my own, and I couid not but grieve for 
 my poor master’s- fine estate, all torn by these vultures of 
 the law; so I said nothing, but just looked on to see how it 
 would all end. 
 
 It was not till the month of June that he and my lady 
 came down to the country. My master was pleased to take 
 me aside with him to the brewhouse that same evening, to 
 complain to me of my son and other matters, in which he 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1031 
 
 said he was confident I had neither art nor part ; he said a 
 great deal more to me, to whom he had been fond to talk 
 ever since he was my white-headed boy before he came to 
 the estate ; and all that he said about poor J udy I can never 
 forget, but scorn to repeat. He did not say an unkind 
 word of my lady, but wondered, as well he might, her re- 
 lations would do nothing for him or her, and they in all 
 this great distress. He did not take anything long to heart, 
 let it be as it would, and had no more malice or thought 
 of the like in him than a child that can’t speak ; this night 
 it was all out of his head before he went to his bed. 
 
 He took his jug of whisky-punch — my lady was grown 
 quite easy about the whisky-punch by this time, and so I 
 did suppose all was going on right betwixt them, till I 
 learnt the truth through Mrs. Jane, who talked over the 
 affairs to the housekeeper, and I within hearing. The 
 night my master came home, thinking of nothing at all but 
 just making merry, he drank his bumper toast to the de- 
 serts of that old curmudgeon my father-in-law, and all ene- 
 mies at Mount Juliet’s Town.” Now my lady was no 
 longer in the mind she formerly was, and did noways relish 
 hearing her own friends abused in her presence, she said. 
 
 Then why don’t they show themselves your friends,” 
 said my master, and oblige me with the loan of the money 
 I condescended by your advice, my dear, to ask? It ’s now 
 three posts since I sent off my letter, desiring in the post- 
 script a speedy answer by the return of the post, and no 
 account at all from them yet.” 
 
 “ I expect they ’ll write to me next post,” says my lady, 
 and that was all that passed then; but it was easy from 
 this to guess there was a coolness betwixt them, and with 
 good cause. 
 
 The next morning, being post-day, I sent off the gossoon 
 early to the post-office, to see was there any letter likely to 
 set matters to rights, and he brought back one with the 
 proper postmark upon it, sure enough, and I had no time 
 to examine or make any conjecture more about it,’ for into 
 the servants’ hall pops Mrs. Jane with a blue bandbox 
 in her hand, quite entirely mad. 
 
 Dear ma’am, and what ’s the matter? ” says I. 
 
 Matter enough,” sa^^s she ; “ don’t you see my bandbox 
 is wet through, and my best bonnet here spoiled, besides 
 
1032 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 my lady^s, and all by the rain coming in through that gal- 
 lery window that you might have got mended if you ^d had 
 any sense, Thady, all the time we were in town in the 
 winter? ’’ 
 
 Sure, I could not get the glazier, ma’am,’’ says I. 
 
 You might have stopped it up anyhow,” says she. 
 
 So I did, ma’am, to the best of my abilit}’ ; one of the 
 panes with the old pillow-case, and the other with a piece 
 of the old stage green curtain. Sure I was as careful as 
 possible all the time you were away, and not a drop of rain 
 came in at that window of all the windows in the house, all 
 Avinter, ma’am, when under my care ; and now the family ’s 
 come home, and it ’s summer-time, I neA^er thought no more 
 about it, to be sure ; but dear, it ’s a pity to think of your 
 bonnet, ma’am . But here ’s what will please you, ma’am— 
 a letter from Mount Juliet’s ToAvn for my lady.” 
 
 With that she snatches it from me without a word more, 
 and runs up the back stairs to my mistress ; I follows with 
 a slate to make up the window. This window was in the 
 long passage, 'or gallery, as my lady gave out orders to 
 have it called, in the gallery leading to my master’s bed- 
 chamber and hers. And when I Avent up with the slate, the 
 door having no lock, and the bolt spoilt, was ajar after 
 Mrs. Jane, and, as I was busy with the window, I heard all 
 that was saying Avithin. 
 
 Well, Avhat ’s in your letter, Bella, my dear? ” says he: 
 you ’re a long time spelling it OA^er.” 
 
 “ Won’t you shave this morning. Sir Condy? ” says she, 
 and put the letter into her pocket. 
 
 I shaved the day before yesterday,” said he, my dear, 
 and that ’s not what I ’m thinking of now; but anything to 
 oblige you, and to have peace and quietness, my dear ” — 
 and presently I had a glimpse of him at the cracked glass 
 over the chimney-piece, standing up shaving himself to 
 please my lady. But she took no notice, but Avent on read- 
 ing her book, and Mrs. Jane doing her hair behind. 
 
 What is it you ’re reading there, my dear? — phoo, I ’ve 
 cut myself with this razor ; the man ’s a cheat that sold it 
 me, but I haA^e not paid him for it yet. What is it you ’re 
 reading there? Did you hear me asking you, my dear? ” 
 
 ^ The SorroAvs of Werter,’ ” replies my lady, as well as 
 I could hear. 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1033 
 
 I think more of the sorrows of Sir Condy/’ says my 
 master, iokinff like. What news from Mount Juliet’s 
 Town.” 
 
 No news,” says she, “ but the old story over again; my 
 friends all reproaching me still for what I can’t help now.” 
 Is it for marrying me? ” said my master, still shaving. 
 What signifies, as you say, talking of that, when it can’t 
 be helped now? ” 
 
 With that she heaved a great sigh that I heard plain 
 enough in the passage. 
 
 And did not you use me basely, Sir Condy,” says she, 
 not to tell me you were ruined before I married you?” 
 Tell you, my dear ! ” said he. Did you ever ask me 
 one word about it? And had not you friends enough of 
 your own, that were telling you nothing else from morning 
 to night, if you ’d have listened to them slanders? ” 
 
 No slanders, nor are my friends slanderers; and I can’t 
 bear to hear them treated with disrespect as I do,” says my 
 lady, and took out her pocket-handkerchief ; they are the 
 best of friends, and if I had taken their advice — But my 
 father was wrong to lock me up, I own. That was the only 
 unkind thing I can charge him with; for if he had not 
 locked me up, I should never have had a serious thought of 
 running away as I did.” 
 
 Well, my dear,” said my master, don’t cry and make 
 yourself uneasy about it now, when it ’s all over, and you 
 have the man of your own choice, in spite of ’em all.” 
 
 I was too young, I know, to make a choice at the time 
 you ran away with me, I ’m sure,” says my lady, and an- 
 other sigh, which made my master, half-shaved as he was, 
 turn round upon her in surprise. 
 
 Why, Bell,” says he, you can’t deny what you know 
 as well as I do, that it was at your own particular desire, 
 and that twice under your own hand and seal expressed, 
 that I should carry you off as I did to Scotland, and marry 
 you there.” 
 
 Well, say no more about it. Sir Condy,” said my lady, 
 pettish-like; I was a child then, you know.” 
 
 And as far as I know, you ’re little better now, my dear 
 Bella, to be talking in this manner to your husband’s face; 
 but I won’t take it ill of you, for I know it ’s something in 
 that letter you put into your pocket just now that has set 
 
1034 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 you against me all on a sudden, and imposed upon your 
 understanding.’’ 
 
 It ’s not so very easy as you think it, Sir Condy, to im- 
 pose upon my understanding,” said my lady. 
 
 My dear,” says be, I have, and with reason the best 
 opinion of your understanding of any man now breathing; 
 and you know I have never set my own in competition with 
 it till now, my dear Bella,” says he, taking her hand from 
 her book as kind as could be — till now, when I have the 
 great advantage of being quite cool, and you not ; so don’t 
 believe one word your friends say against your own Sir 
 Condy, and lend me the letter out of your pocket, till I see 
 what it is they can have to say.” 
 
 Take it then,” says she ; “ and as you are quite cool, 
 I hope it is a proper time to request you ’ll allow me to 
 comply with the wishes of all my own friends, and return 
 to live with my father and family, during the remainder of 
 my wretched existence, at Mount Juliet’s Town.” 
 
 At this my poor master fell back a few paces, like one 
 that had been shot. 
 
 You ’re not serious, Bella,” says he; and could you 
 find it in your heart to leave me this way in the very middle 
 of my distresses, all alone? ” But recollecting himself 
 after his first surprise, and a moment’s time for reflection, 
 he said, with a great deal of consideration for my lady: 
 Well, Bella, my dear, I believe you are right ; for what 
 could you do at Castle Backrent, and an execution against 
 the goods coming down, and the furniture to be canted, and 
 an auction in the house all next week? So you have my 
 full consent to go, since that is your desire; only you must 
 not think of my accompanying you, which I could not in 
 honor do upon the terms I always have been, since our 
 marriage, with your friends. Besides, I have business to 
 transact at home; so in the meantime, if we are to have any 
 breakfast this morning, let us go down and have it for the 
 last time in peace and comfort, Bella.” 
 
 Tlien as I heard my master coming to the passage door, 
 I finished fastening up my slate against the broken pane; 
 and when he came out I wiped down the Avindow-seat with 
 my Avig, and bade him a good morrow ” as kindly as I 
 could, seeing he was in trouble, though he strove and 
 thought to hide it from me. 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1035 
 
 This window is all racked and tattered/^ says I, and 
 it ’s what I striving to mend.” 
 
 It is all racked and tattered, plain enough,” says he, 
 and never mind mending it, honest old Thady,” says he ; 
 it will do well enough for you and I, and that ’s all the 
 company we shall have left in the house by-and-by.” 
 
 I ’m sorry to see your honor so low this morning,” says 
 I; but you T1 be better after taking your breakfast.” 
 
 Step down to the servants^ hall,” said he, and bring 
 me up the pen and ink into the parlor, and get a sheet of 
 paper from Mrs. Jane, for I have business that canT brook 
 to be delayed; and come into the parlor with the pen and 
 ink yourself, Thady, for I must have you to witness my 
 signing a paper I have to execute in a hurry.” 
 
 Well, while I was getting of the pen and ink-horn, and 
 the sheet of paper, I ransacked my brains to think what 
 could be the papers my poor master could have to execute 
 in such a hurry, he that never thought of such a thing as 
 doing business afore breakfast in the whole course of his 
 life, for any man living; but this was for my lady, as I 
 afterwards found, and the more genteel of him after all her 
 treatment. 
 
 I was just witnessing the paper that he had scrawled 
 over, and was shaking the ink out of my pen upon the car- 
 pet, when my lady came in to breakfast, and she started as 
 if it had been a ghost ; as well she might, when she saw Sir 
 Condy writing at this unseasonable hour. 
 
 That will do very well, Thady,” says he to me, and took 
 the paper I had signed to, without knowing what upon the 
 earth it might be, out of my hands, and walked, folding it 
 up, to my lady. 
 
 You are concerned in this, my Lady Rackrent,” said he, 
 putting it into her hands; and I beg you J1 keep this 
 memorandum safe, and show it to your friends the first 
 thing you do when you get home ; but put it in your pocket 
 now, my dear, and let us eat our breakfast, in God^s name.” 
 What is all this? ” said my lady, opening the paper in 
 great curiosity. 
 
 It ’s only a bit of a memorandum of what I think be- 
 comes me to do whenever I am able,” says my master ; you 
 know my situation, tied hand and foot at the present time 
 being, but that can^t last always, and when I ^m dead and 
 
1036 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 gone the land will be to the good, Thady, you know ; and 
 take notice it my intention your lady should have a clear 
 five hundred a year jointure oft the estate afore any of my 
 debts are paid.’^ 
 
 Oh, please your honor,’’ says I, I can’t expect to live 
 to see that time, being now upwards of fourscore years of 
 age, and you a young man, and likely to continue so by the 
 help of God.” 
 
 I was vexed to see my lady so insensible, too, for all she 
 said was : This is very genteel of you. Sir Condy. You 
 
 need not wait any longer, Thady.” So I just picked up the 
 pen and ink that had tumbled on the floor, and heard my 
 master flnish with saying : You behaved very genteel to 
 
 me, my dear, when you threw all the little you had in your 
 power along with yourself into my hands; and as I don’t 
 deny but what you may have had some things to complain 
 of ” — to be sure he was thinking then of Judy or of the 
 whisky-punch, one or t’ other, or both, — and as I don’t 
 deny but }^ou may have had something to complain of, my 
 dear, it is but fair you should have something in the form 
 of compensation to look forAvard to agreeably in the future ; 
 besides, it ’s an act of justice to myself, that none of your 
 friends, my dear, may ever have it to say against me, I 
 married for money, and not for love.” 
 
 That is the last thing I should ever have thought of 
 saying of you, Sir Condy,” said my lady, looking very 
 gracious. 
 
 Then, my dear,” said Sir Condy, we shall part as 
 good friends as Ave met; so all ’s right.” 
 
 I was greatly rejoiced to hear this, and went out of the 
 parlor to report it all to the kitchen. The next morning 
 my lady and Mrs. Jane set out for Mount Juliet’s Town in 
 the jaunting'car. Many Avondered at my lady’s choosing 
 to go away, considering all things, upon the jaunting-car, 
 as if it was only a party of pleasure ; but they did not know 
 till I told them that the coach was all broke in the journey 
 down, and no other vehicle but the car to be had. Besides, 
 my lady’s friends were to send their coach to meet her at 
 the cross-roads ; so it was all done very proper. 
 
 My poor master was in great trouble after my lady left 
 us. The execution came down, and everything at Castle 
 Rackrent was seized by the gripers, and my son Jason, to 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1037 
 
 his shame be it spoken, amongst them. I wondered, for 
 the life of me, how he could harden himself to do it; but 
 then he had been studying the law, and had made himself 
 Attorney Quirk ; so he brought down at once a heap of ac- 
 counts upon my master’s head. To cash lent, and to ditto, 
 and to ditto, and to ditto, and oats, and bills paid at mil- 
 liner’s and linen-draper’s, and many dresses for the 
 fancy balls in Dublin for my lady, and all the bills to the 
 workmen and tradesmen for the scenery of the theater, 
 and the chandler’s and grocer’s bills, and tailor’s, besides 
 butcher’s and baker’s and, worse than all, the old one of 
 that base wine merchant’s who wanted to arrest my poor 
 master for the amount on the election day, for which 
 amount Sir Condy afterwards passed his note of hand, 
 bearing lawful interest from the date thereof; and the 
 interest and compound interest was now mounted to a 
 terrible deal on many other notes and bonds for money 
 borrowed, and there was, besides, hush-money to the sub- 
 sheriffs, and sheets upon sheets of old and new attorneys’ 
 bills, with heavy balances, “ as per former account fur- 
 nished,” brought forward with interest thereon ; then there 
 was a powerful deal due to the Crown for sixteen years’ 
 arrear of quit-rent of the townlands of Carrickshauglilin, 
 with driver’s fees, and a compliment to the receiver every 
 year for letting the quit-rent run on to oblige Sir Condy, 
 and Sir Kit afore him. 
 
 Then there were bills for spirits and ribbons at the elec- 
 tion time, and the gentlemen of the committee’s accounts 
 unsettled, and their subscription never gathered; and 'there 
 were cows to be paid for, with the smith and farrier’s bills 
 to be set against the rent of the demesne, with calf and hay 
 money ; then there was all the servants’ wages, since I don’t 
 know when, coming due to them, and sums advanced for 
 them by my son Jason for clothes, and boots, and whips, 
 and odd moneys for sundries expended by them in journeys 
 to town and elsewhere, and pocket-money for the master 
 continually, and messengers and postage before his being 
 a Parliament man. I can’t myself tell you what besides; 
 but this I know, that when the evening came on the which 
 Sir Condy had appointed to settle all with my son Jason, 
 and when he comes into the parlor, and sees the sight of 
 bills and load of papers all gathered on the great dining- 
 
1038 
 
 IRISH LITERATVRE, 
 
 table for him, he puts his hands before both his eys, and 
 cried out, Merciful Jasus! what is it I see before me? 
 Then I sets an arm-chair at the table for him, and with a 
 deal of difficulty he sits him down, and my son Jason hands 
 him over the pen and ink to sign to this man’s bill and 
 t’ other man’s bill, all of which he did without making the 
 least objections. Indeed, to give him his due, I never seen 
 a man more fair and honest, and easy in all his dealings, 
 from first to last, as Sir Condy, or more willing to pay every 
 man his own as far as he was able, which is as much as any 
 one can do. 
 
 Well,” says he, joking-like with Jason, I wish we 
 could settle it all with a stroke of my gray goose-quill. 
 What signifies making me Avade through all this ocean of 
 papers here; can’t you now, Avho understand drawing out 
 an account, debtor and creditor, just sit down here at the 
 corner of the table and get it done out for me, that I may - 
 have a clear view of the balance, Avhich is all I need be 
 talking about, you know? ” 
 
 Very true. Sir Condy ; nobody understands business 
 better than yourself,” says Jason. 
 
 So I ’ve a right to do, being born and bred to the bar,” 
 says Sir Condy. Thady, do step out and see are they 
 bringing in the things for the punch, for we ’ve just done 
 all we have to do for this evening.” 
 
 I goes out accordingly^, and when I came back Jason was 
 pointing to the balance, which was a terrible sight to my 
 poor master. 
 
 Pooh ! pooh ! pooh ! ” says he. “ Here ’s so many 
 noughts they dazzle my eyes, so they do, and put me in mind 
 of all I suffered laming of my numeration table when I 
 was a boy at the day school along Avith you, Jason — units, 
 tens, hundreds, tens of hundreds. Is the punch ready, 
 Thady? ” says he, seeing me. 
 
 ‘‘Immediately; the boy has the jug in his hand; it’s 
 coming upstairs, please your honor, as fast as possible,” 
 says I, for I saw his honor Avas tired out of his life; but 
 Jason, very short and cruel, cuts me off with — “ Don’t be 
 talking of punch yet awhile ; it ’s no time for punch yet a 
 bit — units, tens, hundreds,” goes he on, counting over the 
 master’s shoulder, “ units, tens, hundreds, thousands.” 
 
 “ A-a-ah ! hold your hand,” cries my master. “ Where 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1039 
 
 in this wide world am I to find hundreds, or units itself, let 
 alone thousands? 
 
 The balance has been running on too long,’’ says Jason, 
 sticking to him as I could not have done at the time if you ’d 
 have given both the Indies and Cork to boot; the balance 
 has been running on too long, and I ’m distressed myself 
 on your account. Sir Condy, for money, and the thing must 
 be settled now on the spot, and the balance cleared off,” 
 says Jason. 
 
 I ’ll thank you if you ’ll only show me how,” says Sir 
 Condy. 
 
 There ’s but one way,” says Jason, and that ’s ready 
 enough. When there ’s no cash, what can a gentleman do 
 but go to the land? ” 
 
 How can you go to the land, and it under custodian! 
 to yourself already?” says Sir Condy; and another cus- 
 todiam hanging over it? And no one at all can touch it, 
 you know, but the custodees.” 
 
 Sure, can’t you sell, though at a loss? Sure you can 
 sell, and I ’ve a purchaser ready for you,” says Jason. 
 
 Have you so? ” says Sir Condy. That ’s a great point 
 gained. But there ’s a thing now beyond all, that perhaps 
 you don’t know yet, barring Thady has let you into the 
 secret.” 
 
 Sarrah bit of a secret, or anything at all of the kind, 
 has he learned from me these fifteen weeks come St. John’s 
 Eve,” says I, “ for we have scarce been upon speaking terms 
 of late. But what is it your honor means of a secret? ” 
 “ Why, the secret of the little keepsake I gave my Lady 
 Rackrent the morning she left us, that she might not go 
 back empty-handed to her friends.” 
 
 My Lady Rackrent, I ’m sure, has baubles and keep- 
 sakes enough, as those bills on the table will show,” says 
 Jason; but whatever it is,” says he, taking up his pen, 
 we must add it to the balance, for to be sure it can’t be 
 paid for. ” 
 
 No, nor can’t till after my decease,” says Sir Condy; 
 that ’s one good thing.” Then coloring up a good deal, 
 he tells Jason of the memorandum of the five-hundred-a- 
 year jointure he had settled upon my lady ; at which Jason 
 was indeed mad, and said a great deal in very high words, 
 that it was using a gentleman who had the management of 
 
1040 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 his affairs, and was, moreover, his principal creditor, ex- 
 tremely ill to do such a thing without consulting him, and 
 against his knowledge and consent. To all which Sir 
 Condy had nothing to reply, but that, upon his conscience, 
 it was in a hurry and without a moment^s thought on his 
 part, and he was very sorry for it, but if it was to do 
 over again he would do the same ; and he appealed to me, 
 and I was ready to give my evidence, if that would do, to 
 the truth of all he said. 
 
 So Jason, with much ado, was brought to agree to a com- 
 promise. 
 
 The purchaser that I have ready,” says he, will be 
 much displeased, to be sure, at the incumbrance on the 
 land, but I must see and manage him. Here ^s a deed ready 
 drawn up; we have nothing to do but to put in the con- 
 sideration money and our names to it.” 
 
 And how much am I going to sell? — the lands of 
 O’Shaughlin’s Town, and the lands of Gruneaghoolaghan, 
 and the lands of Crookagnawaturgh,” says he, just reading 
 to himself. And — oh, murder, Jason ! sure you won’t 
 
 put this in — the castle, stable, and appurtenances of Castle 
 Kackrent? ” 
 
 Oh, murder! ” says I, clapping my hands; this is too 
 bad, Jason.” 
 
 ‘‘Why so?” said Jason. “When it’s all, and a good 
 deal more to the back of it, lawfully mine, was I to push for 
 it?” 
 
 “ Look at him,” says I, pointing to Sir Condy, who was 
 just leaning back in his arm-chair, with his arms falling 
 beside him like one stupefied ; “ is it you, Jason, that can 
 stand in his presence, and recollect all he has been to us, 
 and all that we have been to him, and yet use him so at the 
 last? ” 
 
 “ Who will you find to use him better, I ask you? ” said 
 Jason; “if he can get a better purchaser, I’m content; 
 I only offer to purchase, to make things easy, and oblige 
 him; though I don’t see what compliment I am undei’, if 
 you come to that. I have never had, asked, or charged 
 more than sixpence in the pound, receiver’s fees, and where 
 would he have got an agent for a penny less? ” 
 
 “ Oh, Jason ! Jason ! how will you stand to this in the 
 face of the county, and all who know you? ” says I; “ and 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1041 
 
 what will people think and sa^^ when they see you living 
 here in Castle Rackrent, and the lawful owner turned out 
 of the seat of his ancestors, without a cabin to put his head 
 into, or so much as a potato to eat? ’’ 
 
 Jason, whilst I was saying this and a great deal more, 
 made me signs, and winks, and frowns; but I took no heed, 
 for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor master, and 
 couldn’t but speak. 
 
 Here’s the punch,” says Jason, for the door opened; 
 here ’s the punch ! ” 
 
 Hearing that, my master starts up in his chair, and 
 recollects himself, and Jason uncorks the whisky. 
 
 Set down the jug here,” says he, making room for it 
 beside the papers opposite to Sir Condy, but still not stir- 
 ring the deed that was to make over all. 
 
 Well, I was in great hopes he had some touch of mercy 
 about him when I saw him making the punch, and my 
 master took a glass; but Jason put it back as he was going 
 to fill again, sajdng: No, Sir Condy, it sha’n’t be said 
 
 of me I got your signature to this deed when you were 
 half seas over; you know your name and handwriting in 
 that condition would not, if brought before the courts, 
 benefit me a straw; wherefore, let us settle all before we go 
 deeper into the punch-bowl.” 
 
 Settle all as you will,” said Sir Condy, clapping his 
 hands to his ears ; but let me hear no more. I ’m bothered 
 to death this night.” 
 
 ^‘You’ve only to sign,” said Jason, putting the pen to 
 him. 
 
 “ Take all, and be content,” said my master. So he 
 signed; and the man who brought in the punch witnessed 
 it, for I was not able, but crying like a child; and besides, 
 Jason said, which I was glad of, that I was no fit witness, 
 being so old and doting. It was so bad with me, I could 
 not taste a drop of the punch itself, though my master 
 himself, God bless him! in the midst of his trouble, poured 
 out a glass for me, and brought it up to my lips. 
 
 Not a drop; I thank your honor’s honor as much as if 
 I took it, though.” And I just set down the glass as it was, 
 and went out, and when I got to the street door the neigh- 
 bor’s childer, who were playing at marbles there, seeing me 
 in great trouble, left their play, and gathered about me to 
 
1042 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 know what ailed me; and I told them all, for it was a great 
 relief to me to speak to these poor childer, that seemed to 
 have some natural feeling left in them; and when they 
 were made sensible that Sir Condy was going to leave 
 Castle Rackrent for good and all, they set up a whillalu 
 that could be heard to the farthest end of the street; and 
 one — fine boy he was — that my master had given an apple 
 to that morning, cried the loudest; but they all were the 
 same sorry, for Sir Condy was greatly beloved amongst the 
 childer, for letting them go a-nutting in the demesne, with- 
 out saying a word to them, though my lady objected to 
 them. The people in the town, who were the most of tliem 
 standing at their doors, hearing the childer cry, would 
 know the reason of it; and when the report was made 
 known, the people one and all gathered in great anger 
 against my son Jason, and terror at the notion of his com- 
 ing to be landlord over them, and they cried: No Jason! 
 
 no Jason ! Sir Condy ! Sir Condy ! Sir Condy Rackrent for- 
 ever ! ’’ 
 
 And the mob grew so great and so loud, I was frightened, 
 and made my way back to the house to warn my son to 
 make his escape or hide himself for fear of the conse- 
 quences. Jason would not believe me till they came all 
 round the house, and to the windows, with great shouts. 
 Then he grew quite pale, and asked Sir Condy what had he 
 best do? 
 
 “ I ’ll tell you what you had best do,” said Sir Condy, 
 who was laughing to see his fright; ^‘finish your glass 
 first, then let ’s go to the window and show ourselves, and 
 I ’ll tell ’em — or you shall, if you please — that I ’m going 
 to the Lodge for change of air for my health, and by my 
 own desire, for the rest of my days.” 
 
 “ Do so,” said Jason, who never meant it should have 
 been so, but could not refuse him the Lodge at this un- 
 seasonable time. Accordingly, Sir Condy threw up the 
 sash and explained matters, and thanked all his friends, 
 and bid them look in at the punch-bowl, and observe that 
 Jason and he had been sitting over it very good friends; 
 so the mob was content, and he sent them out some whisky 
 to drink his health, and that was the last time his honor’s 
 health was ever drunk at Castle Rackrent. 
 
 The very next day, being too proud, as he said to me, to 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1043 
 
 stay an hour longer in a house that did not belong to him, 
 he sets off to the Lodge, and I along with him not many 
 hours after. And there was great bemoaning through all 
 O’Shauglin’s Town, which I stayed to witness, and gave 
 my poor master a full account of when I got to the Lodge. 
 He was very low, and in his bed when I got there, and com- 
 plained of a great pain about his heart; but I guessed it 
 was only trouble and all the business, let alone vexation, 
 he had gone through of late, and knowing the nature of 
 him from a boy, I took my pipe, and whilst smoking it by 
 the chimney began telling him how he was beloved and 
 regretted in the county, and it did him a deal of good to 
 hear it. 
 
 Your honor has a great many friends yet that you don^t 
 know of, rich and poor, in the county,^^ says I ; for as I 
 was coming along the road I met two gentlemen in their 
 own carriages, who asked after you, knowing me, and 
 wanted to know where you was and all about you, and 
 even how old I was. Think of that.’’ 
 
 Then he wakened out of his doze and began questioning 
 me who the gentlemen were. And the next morning it 
 came into my head to go, unknown to anybody, with my 
 master’s compliments, round to many of the gentlemen’s 
 houses where he and my lady used to visit, and people that 
 I knew were his great friends, and would go to Cork to 
 serve him any day in the year, and I made bold to try to 
 borrow a trifle of cash from them. They all treated me 
 very civil for the most part, and asked a great many ques- 
 tions very kind about my lady and Sir Condy and all the 
 family, and were greatly surprised to learn from me Castle 
 Rackrent was sold, and my master at the Lodge for health ; 
 and they all pitied him greatly, and he had their good 
 wishes, if that would do; but money was a thing they un- 
 fortunately had not any of them at this time to spare. 
 I had my journey for my pains, and I, not used to walk- 
 ing, nor supple as formerly, was greatly tired, but had the 
 satisfaction of telling my master when I got to the Lodge 
 all the civil things said by high and low. 
 
 “ Thady,” says he, all you ’ve been telling me brings 
 a strange thought into my head. I ’ve a notion I shall not 
 be long for this world anyhow, and I ’ve a great fancy to 
 see my own funeral afore I die.” I was greatly shocked, at 
 
1044 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 the first speaking, to hear him speak so light about his 
 funeral, and he to all appearance in good health ; but recol- 
 lecting myself, answered : 
 
 To be sure it would be as fine a sight as one could see,’^ 
 I dared to say, and one 1 should be proud to witness, and 
 I did not doubt his honor’s would be as great a funeral 
 as ever Sir Patrick O’Shaughlin’s was, and such a one as 
 that had never been known in the county afore or since.” 
 But I never thought he was in earnest about seeing his own 
 funeral himself till the next day he returns to it again. 
 
 “ Thady,” says he, “ as far as the wake goes, sure I 
 might without any great trouble have the satisfaction of 
 seeing a bit of my own funeral.” 
 
 Well, since your honor’s honor ’s so bent upon it,” says 
 I, not willing to cross him, and he in trouble, we must 
 see what we can do.” 
 
 So he fell into a sort of sham disorder, which was easy 
 done, as he kept his bed, and no one to see him ; and I got 
 my shister, who was an old woman very handy about the 
 sick, and very skillful, to come up to the Lodge to nurse 
 him; and we gave out, she knowing no better, that he was 
 just at his latter end, and it answered beyond anything; 
 and there was a great throng of people, men, women, and 
 childer, and there being only two rooms at the Lodge, 
 except what was locked up full of Jason’s furniture and 
 things, the house was soon as full and fuller than it could 
 hold, and the heat, and smoke, and noise wonderful great ; 
 and standing amongst them that were near the bed, but not 
 thinking at all of the dead, I was startled by the sound of 
 my master’s voice from under the greatcoats that had been 
 thrown all at top, and I went close up, no one noticing. 
 
 “ Thady,” says he, I ’ve had enough of this ; I ’m smoth- 
 ering, and can’t hear a word of all they ’re saying of the 
 deceased.” 
 
 God bless you, and lie still and quiet,” says I, a bit 
 longer, for my shister ’s afraid of ghosts, and would die on 
 the spot with fright was she to see you come to life all on 
 a sudden this way without the least preparation.” 
 
 So he lays him still, though wellnigh stified, and I made 
 all haste to tell the secret of the joke, whispering to one 
 and t’ other, and there was a great surprise, but not so 
 great as we had laid out it would. And aren’t we to 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1045 
 
 have the pipes and tobacco, after coming so far to-night? 
 said some; but they were all well enough pleased when his 
 honor got up to drink with them, and sent for more spirits 
 from a shebeenhouse, where they very civilly let him have 
 it upon credit. So the night passed off very merrily, but 
 to my mind Sir Condy was rather upon the sad order in the 
 midst of it all, not finding there had been such a great talk 
 about himself after his death as he had always expected 
 to hear. 
 
 The next morning, when the house was cleared of them, 
 and none but my shister and myself left in the kitchen with 
 Sir Condy, one opens the door and walks in, and who 
 should it be but Judy M’Quirk herself! I forgot to notice 
 that she had been married long since, whilst young Cap- 
 tain Moneygawl lived in the Lodge, to the cap taints hunts- 
 man, who after a whilst ’listed and left her, and was killed 
 in the wars. Poor Judy fell oft greatly in her good looks 
 after her being married a year or two; and being smoke- 
 dried in the cabin, and neglecting herself like, it was hard 
 for Sir Condy himself to know her again till she spoke; but 
 when she says, It ’s Judy M’Quirk, please your honor; 
 don’t you remember her? ” 
 
 Oh, Judy, is it you?” says his honor. Yes, sure, 
 I remember you very well ; but you ’re greatly altered, 
 Judy.” 
 
 “ Sure it ’s time for me,” says she, and I think your 
 honor, since I seen you last — but that ’s a great while ago 
 — is altered too.” 
 
 And with reason, Judy,” says Sir Condy, fetching a 
 sort of a sigh. But how ’s this, Judy? ” he goes on. I 
 take it a little amiss of you that you were not at my wake 
 last night.” ^ 
 
 Ah, don^t be being jealous of that,” says she ; I didn’t 
 hear a sentence of your honor’s wake till it was all over, 
 or it would have gone hard with me but I would been at it, 
 sure ; but I was forced to go ten miles up the country three 
 days ago to a wedding of a relation of my own’s, and didn’t 
 get home till after the wake was over. But,” says she, it 
 won’t be so, I hope, the next time, please your honor.” 
 
 “ That we shall see, Judy,” says his honor, and maybe 
 sooner than you think for, for I ’ve been very unwell this 
 
1046 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 while past, and don’t reckon anyway I ’m long for this 
 world.” 
 
 At this Judy takes up the corner of her apron, and puts 
 it first to one eye and then to t’ other, being to all appear- 
 ance in great trouble; and my shister put in her word, and 
 bid his honor have a good heart, for she was sure it was 
 only the gout that Sir Patrick used to have flying about 
 him, and he ought to drink a glass or a bottle extraordinary 
 to keep it out of his stomach ; and he promised to take her 
 advice, and sent out for more spirits immediately; and 
 Judy made a sign to me, and I went over to the door to 
 her, and she said : “ I wonder to see Sir Condy so low ; has 
 he heard the news? ” 
 
 What news? ” says I. 
 
 Didn’t ye hear it, then? ” says she; my Lady Rack- 
 rent that was is kilt and lying for dead, and I don’t doubt 
 but it ’s all over with her by this time.” 
 
 Mercy on us all,” says I; how was it? ” 
 
 The jaunting-car it was that ran away with her,” says 
 Judy. 1 was coming home that same time from Biddy 
 M’Guggin’s marriage, and a great crowd of people, too, 
 upon the road coming from the fair of Crookagnavvaturgh, 
 and I sees a jaunting-car standing in the middle of the road, 
 and with the two wheels off and all tattered. ^ What ’s 
 this? ’ says I. ^ Didn’t ye hear of it? ’ says they that were 
 looking on ; At ’s my Lady Rackrent’s car, that was run- 
 ning away from her husband, and the horse took fright at a 
 carrion that lay across the road, and so ran away with the 
 jaunting-car, and my Lady Rackrent and her maid scream- 
 ing, and the horse ran with them against a car that was 
 coming from the fair with the boy asleep on it, and the 
 lady’s petticoat hanging out of the jaunting-car caught, 
 and she was dragged I can’t tell you how far upon the road, 
 and it all broken up with the stones just going to be 
 pounded, and one of the road-makers, with his sledge-ham- 
 mer in his hand, stops the horse at the last, but my Lady 
 Rackrent was all kilt and smashed, and they lifted her into 
 a cabin hard by, and the maid was found after where she 
 had been thrown in the gripe of a ditch, her cap and 
 bonnet all full of bog water, and they say my lady can’t 
 live any way. Thady, pray now is it true what I ’m 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 1047 
 
 told for sartain, that Sir Condy has made over all to your 
 son Jason? ’ 
 
 All/’ says I. 
 
 All entirely? ” says she again. 
 
 All entirely/’ says I. 
 
 Then/’ says she, that ’s a great shame ; but don’t 
 be telling Jason what I say.” 
 
 And what is it you say? ” cries Sir Condy, leaning over 
 betwixt us, which made Judy start greatly. I know the 
 time when Judy M’Quirk would never have stayed so long 
 talking at the door and I in the house.” 
 
 ^^Ohl” says Judy, for shame. Sir Condy; times are 
 altered since then, and it ’s my Lady Rackrent you ought 
 to be thinking of.” 
 
 And why should I be thinking of her, that ’s not think- 
 ing of me now? ” says Sir Condy. 
 
 No matter for that,” says Judy, very properly; ^Mt ’s 
 time you should be thinking of her, if ever you mean to do 
 it at all, for don’t you know she ’s lying for death? ” 
 
 My Lady Rackrent ! ” says Sir Condy, in a surprise ; 
 why, it ’s Mt two days since we parted, as you very well 
 know, Thady, in her full health and spirits, and she, and 
 her maid along with her, going to Mount Juliet’s Town on 
 her jaunting-car.” 
 
 She ’ll never ride no more on her jaunting-car,” said 
 Judy, for it has been the death of her sure enough.” 
 
 And is she dead, then? ” says his honor. 
 
 As good as dead, I hear,” says Judy; but there’s 
 Thady here as just learnt the whole truth of the story as I 
 had it, and it ’s fitter he or anybody else should be telling 
 it you than I, Sir Condy: I must be going home to the 
 childer.” 
 
 But he stops her, but rather from civility in him, as I 
 could see very plainly, than anything else, for Judy was, 
 as his honor remarked at her first coming in, greatly 
 changed, and little likely, as far as I could see — though she 
 did not seem to be clear of it herself, — little likely to be 
 my Lady Rackrent now, should there be a second toss-up 
 to be made. But I told him the whole story out of the face, 
 just as Judy had told it to me, and he sent off a messenger 
 with his compliments to Mount Juliet’s Town that even- 
 ing to learn the truth of the report, and Judy bid the 
 
1048 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 bo3^ that was going call in at Tim M’Enerney^s shop in 
 O’Shaughlin’s Town and buy her a new shawl. 
 
 Do so/^ said Sir Cond^^, and tell Tim to take no money 
 from you, for I must pay him for the shawl myself.’^ At 
 this my shister throws me over a look, and I says nothing, 
 but turned the tobacco in my mouth, whilst Judy began 
 making a many words about it, and saying how she could 
 not be beholden for shawls to any gentleman. I left her 
 there to consult with my shister, did she think there was 
 anything in it, and my shister thought I was blind to be 
 asking her the question, and I thought my shister must 
 see more into it than I did, and recollecting all past times 
 and everything, I changed my mind, and came over to her 
 way of thinking, and we settled it that Judy was very 
 like to be my Lady Rackrent after all, if a vacancy should 
 have happened. 
 
 The next day, before his honor was up, somebody comes 
 with a double knock at the door, and I was greatly sur- 
 prised to see it was my son Jason. 
 
 “Jason, is it you?^’ said I; “what brings you to the 
 Lodge? says I. “ Is it my Lady Rackrent? We know 
 that already since yesterday.^’ 
 
 “ Maybe so,’^ says he ; “ but I must see Sir Condy about 
 it.^^ 
 
 “ You canT see him yet,^^ says I ; “ sure he is not awake.^^ 
 “ Wliat then,’’ sa3^s he, “ can’t he be wakened, and I 
 standing at the door? ” 
 
 “ I ’ll not be disturbing his honor for you, Jason,” 
 says I ; “ many ’s the hour you ’ve waited in your time, and 
 been proud to do it, till his honor was at leisure to speak 
 to you. His honor,” says I, raising my voice, at which his 
 honor wakens of his own accord, and calls to me from the 
 room to know who it was I was speaking to. Jason made 
 no more ceremony, but follows me into the room. 
 
 “ How are you. Sir <]ondy? ” says he; “I ’m happy to 
 see you looking so well ; I came up to know how you did 
 to-day, and to see did you want for anything at the Lodge.” 
 “Nothing at all, Mr. Jason, I thank you,” says he; for 
 his honor had his own share of pride, and did not choose, 
 after all that had passed, to be beholden, I suppose, to my 
 son; “ but pray take a chair and be seated, Mr. Jason.” 
 Jason sat him down upon the chest, for chair there was 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1049 
 
 none, and after lie had sat there some time, and a silence on 
 all sides, — 
 
 What news is there stirring in the country, Mr. Jason 
 M^Quirk? says Sir Condy, very easy, yet high like. 
 
 None that ^s news to you. Sir Condy, I hear,’^ says 
 Jason. I am sorry to hear of my Lady Rackrent^s acci- 
 dent.’’ 
 
 I ’m much obliged to you, and so is her ladyship, I ’m 
 sure,” answered Sir Condy, still stiff; and there was an- 
 other sort of a silence, which seemed to lie the heaviest on 
 my son Jason. 
 
 Sir Condy,” says he at last, seeing Sir Condy disposing 
 himself to go to sleep again, Sir Condy, I dare say you 
 recollect mentioning to me the little memorandum jon 
 gave to Lady Rackrent about the £500-a-year jointure.” 
 
 Very true,” said Sir Condy; it is all in my recollec- 
 tion.” 
 
 But if my Lady Rackrent dies, there ’s an end of all 
 jointure,” says Jason. 
 
 Of course,” says Sir Condy. 
 
 “ But it ’s not a matter of certainty that my Lady Rack- 
 rent won’t recover,” says Jason. 
 
 Very true, sir,” says my master. 
 
 It ’s a fair speculation, then, for you to consider what 
 the chance of the jointure of those lands, when out of cus- 
 todian!, will be to you.” 
 
 “ Just five hundred a year, I take it, without any specu- 
 lation at all,” said Sir Condy. 
 
 That ’s supposing the life dropt, and the custodiam off, 
 you know; begging your pardon. Sir Condy, who under- 
 stands business, that is a wrong calculation.” 
 
 Very likely so,” said Sir Condy; but, Mr. Jason, if 
 you have anything to sa}' to me this morning about it, I ’d 
 be obliged to you to sa^' it, for I had an indifferent night’s 
 rest last night, and wouldn’t be sorry to sleep a little this 
 morning.” 
 
 I have only three words to say, and those more of con- 
 sequence to 3^ou, Sir Condy, than me. You are a little cool, 
 I observe; but I hope you will not be offended at what I 
 have brought here in my pocket,” and he pulls out two long 
 rolls, and showers down golden guineas upon the bed. 
 
 i2'-'lrish Lit. Vol. 
 
1050 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 What’s this?” said Sir Condy; ‘Mt ’s long since” — 
 but his pride stops him. 
 
 All these are your lawful property this minute, Sir 
 Condy, if you please,” said Jason. 
 
 Not for nothing, I ’m sure,” said Sir Condy, and laughs 
 a little. Nothing for nothing, or I ’m under a mistake 
 with 3^011, Jason.” 
 
 Oh, Sir Condy, we ’ll not be indulging ourselves in any 
 unpleasant retrospects,” says Jason; it ’s my present in- 
 tention to behave, as I ’m sure you will, like a gentleman 
 in this affair. Here ’s two hundred guineas, and a third 
 I mean to add if you should think proper to make over to 
 me all your right and title to those lands that you know 
 of.” 
 
 I ’ll consider of it,” said my master ; and a great deal 
 more, that I was tired listening to, was said by Jason, and 
 all that, and the sight of the ready cash upon the bed, 
 worked with his honor; and the short and the long of it 
 was. Sir Condy gathered up the golden guineas, and tied 
 them up in a handkerchief, and signed some paper Jason 
 brought with him as usual, and there was an end of the 
 business: Jason took himself away, and my master turned 
 himself round and fell asleep again. 
 
 I soon found what had put Jason in such a hurry to con- 
 clude this business. The little gossoon we had sent off the 
 day before with my master’s compliments to Mount Juliet’s 
 Town, and to know how my lady did after her accident, 
 was stopped early this morning, coming back with his 
 answer through O’Shaiighlin’s Town, at Castle Rackrent, 
 by m3 son Jason, and questioned of all he knew of my lady 
 from the servant at Mount Juliet’s Town ; and the gossoon 
 told him my Lady Rackrent was not expected to live over- 
 night; so Jason thought it high time to be moving to the 
 Lodge, to make his bargain with my master about the join- 
 ture afore it should be too late, and afore the little gossoon 
 should reach us with the news. My master was greatly 
 vexed — that is, I may say, as much as ever I seen him — 
 when he found how he had been taken in ; but it was some 
 comfort to have the ready cash for immediate consumption 
 in the house, anyway. 
 
 And when Judy came up that evening, and brought the 
 childer to see his honor, he unties the handkerchief, and — 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1051 
 
 God bless him ! whether it was little or much he had, ^t was 
 all the same with him — he gives ’em all round guineas 
 apiece. 
 
 Hold up your head,” says my shister to Judy, as Sir 
 Condy was busy filling out a glass of punch for her eldest 
 boy — Hold up your head, Judy; for who knows but we 
 may live to see you yet at the head of the Castle Rackrent 
 estate? ” 
 
 Maybe so,” says she, but not the way you are think- 
 ing of.” 
 
 I did not rightly understand which way Judy was look- 
 ing when she made this speech till a while after. 
 
 Why, Thady, you were telling me yesterday that Sir 
 Condy had sold all entirely to Jason, and where then does 
 all them guineas in the handkerchief come from? ” 
 
 They are the purchase-money of my lady’s jointure,” 
 says I. 
 
 Judy looks a little bit puzzled at this. A penny for 
 your thoughts, Judy,” says my shister; ^Miark, sure Sir 
 Condy is drinking her health.” 
 
 He was at the table in the room, drinking with the ex- 
 ciseman and the gauger, who came up to see his honor, 
 and we were standing over the fire in the kitchen. 
 
 I don’t much care is he drinking 1113^ health or not,” 
 says Judy; and it is not Sir Condj" I ’111 thinking of, with 
 all your jokes, whatever he is of me.” 
 
 Sure you wouldn’t refuse to be my Lady Rackrent, 
 Judy, if you had the offer? ” sa^^s I. 
 
 But if I could do better I ” saj^s she. 
 
 How better? ” sa^^s I and 1113^ shister both at once. 
 
 How better? ” says she. Why, what signifies it to be 
 my Lady Rackrent and no castle? Sure what good is the 
 car, and no horse to draw it? ” 
 
 And where will ye get the horse, Jud3’? ” says I. 
 
 Never mind that,” sa3\s she; maybe it is 3^our own son 
 Jason might find that.” 
 
 Jason ! ” sa3^s I ; don’t be trusting to him, Jud3^ Sir 
 Condy, as I have good reason to know, spoke well of 3^ou 
 when Jason spoke very indifferently of you, Judy.” 
 
 No matter,” says Judy; “ it ’s often men speak the con- 
 trary just to what they think of us.” 
 
 “ And you the same way of them, no doubt,” answered I. 
 
1052 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Nay, don’t be denying it, Judy, for I think the better of 
 ye for it, and shouldn’t be proud to call ye the daughter of a 
 shister’s son of mine, if I was to hear ye talk ungrateful, 
 and any way disrespectful of his honor.” 
 
 What disrespect,” says she, to say I ’d rather, if it 
 was my luck, be the wife of another man? ” 
 
 You ’ll have no luck, mind my words, Judy,” says I; 
 and all I remembered about my poor master’s goodness in 
 tossing up for her afore he married at all came across me, 
 and I had a choking in my throat that hindered me to say 
 more. 
 
 “ Better luck, anyhow, Thady,” says she, than to be 
 like some folk, following the fortunes of them that have 
 none left.” 
 
 Oh ! King of Glory ! ” says I, ‘‘ hear the pride and un- 
 gratitude of her, and he giving his last guineas but a min- 
 ute ago to her childer, and she with the fine shawl on her 
 he made her a present of but yesterday ! ” 
 
 “ Oh, troth, Judy, you ’re wrong now,” says my shister, 
 looking at the shawl. 
 
 And was not he wrong yesterday, then,” says she, to 
 be telling me I was greatly altered, to affront me? ” 
 
 But, Judy,” says I, what is it brings you here then at 
 all in the mind you are in; is it to make Jason think the 
 better of you? ” 
 
 I ’ll tell you no more of my secrets, Thady,” says she, 
 “ nor would have told you this much, had I taken you for 
 such an unnatural fader as I find you are, not to wish your 
 own son prefarred to another.” 
 
 Oh, troth, you are wrong now, Thady,” says my shister. 
 
 Well, I was never so put to it in my life; between these 
 women, and my son, and my master, and all I felt and 
 thought just now, I could not, upon my conscience, tell 
 which was the wrong from the right. So I said not a word 
 more, but was only glad his honor had not the luck to hear 
 all Judy had been saying of him, for I reckoned it would 
 have gone nigh to break his heart ; not that I was of opinion 
 he cared for her as much as she and my shister fancied, but 
 the ungratitude of the whole from Judy might not plase 
 him ; and he could never stand the notion of not being well 
 spoken of or beloved-like behind his back. Fortunately for 
 all parties concerned, he was so much elevated at this time, 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1053 
 
 there was no danger of his understanding anything, even 
 if it had reached his ears. There was a great horn at the 
 Lodge, ever since my master and Captain Money gawl was 
 in together, that used to belong originally to the celebrated 
 Sir Patrick, his ancestor; and his honor was fond often of 
 telling the story that he learned from me when a child, how 
 Sir Patrick drank the full of this horn without stopping, 
 and this was what no other man afore or since could with- 
 out drawing breath. Now Sir Condy challenged the gau- 
 ger, who seemed to think little of the horn, to swallow the 
 contents, and had it filled to the brim with punch ; and the 
 gauger said it was what he could not do for nothing, but 
 he M hold Sir Condy a hundred guineas he M do it. 
 
 Done,’^ says my master ; I ^11 lay you a hundred gol- 
 den guineas to a tester you don^t.^^ 
 
 Done,^’ says the gauger ; and done and done ^s enough 
 between two gentlemen. The gauger was cast, and my 
 master won the bet, and thought he ^d won a hundred guin- 
 eas, but by the wording it was adjudged to be only a tester 
 that was his due by the exciseman. It was all one to him ; 
 he was as well pleased, and I was glad to see him in such 
 spirits again. 
 
 The gauger — bad luck to him ! — was the man that next 
 proposed to my master to try himself, could he take at a 
 draught the contents of the great horn. 
 
 Sir Patrick’s horn! ” said his honor; hand it to me: 
 I ’ll hold you your own bet over again I ’ll swallow it.” 
 
 Done,” says the gauger ; I ’ll lay ye anything at all 
 you do no such thing.” 
 
 A hundred guineas to sixpence I do,” says he; bring 
 me the handkerchief.” I was loth, knowing he meant the 
 handkerchief with the gold in it, to bring it out in such 
 company, and his honor not very able to reckon it. Bring 
 me the handkerchief, then, Thady,” says he, and stamps 
 Avith his foot; so Avith that I pulls it out of my greatcoat 
 pocket, where I had put it for safety. Oh hoAv it grie\^ed 
 me to see the guineas counting upon the table, and they the 
 last my master had ! Says Sir Condy to me : Your hand 
 
 is steadier than mine to-niglit, old Thady, and that ’s a 
 AA^onder ;,fill you the horn for me.” And so, Avisliing his 
 honor success, I did ; but I filled it, little thinking of Avhat 
 would befall him. lie SAvalloAA^s it down, and drops like 
 
1054 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 one shot. We lifts him up, and he was speechless, and 
 quite black in the face. We put him to bed, and in a short 
 time he wakened, raving with a fever on his brain. He 
 was shocking either to see or hear. 
 
 Judy ! Judy ! have 3'Ou no touch of feeling? Won’t you 
 stay to help us nurse him? ” sa^s I to her, and she putting 
 on lier shawl to go out of the house. 
 
 I ’m frightened to see him,” says she, and wouldn’t 
 nor couldn’t stay in it: and what use? He can’t last till 
 the morning.” With that she ran olf. There was none but 
 my shister and mj^self left near him of all the many friends 
 he had. 
 
 The fever came and went, and came and went, and lasted 
 five da3^s, and the sixth he was sensible for a few minutes, 
 and said to me, knowing me very well, I ’m in a burning 
 pain all withinside of me, Thady.” I could not speak, but 
 1113^ shister asked him would he have this thing or t’ other 
 to do him good? No,” says he, nothing will do me good 
 no more,” and he gave a terrible screech with the torture 
 he was'dn; then again a minute’s ease — ^‘brought to this 
 'by drink,” sa.ys he. Where are all the friends? — where ’s 
 Judy? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his 
 days,” said he; and there was the last word he spoke, and 
 died. He had but a very poor funeral after all. 
 
 If you want to know any more, I ’m not very well able to 
 tell 3^ou; but my Lady Kackrent did not die, as was ex- 
 pected of her, but was only disfigured in the face ever after 
 by the fall and bruises she got; and she and Jason, imme- 
 diatel}^ after my poor master’s death, set about going to 
 law about that jointure; the niemorandum not being on 
 stamped paper, some say it is worth nothing, others again 
 it may do; others say Jason won’t have the lands at any 
 rate ; manj^ wishes it so. For my part, I ’m tired wishing 
 for an^Thing in this world, after all I’ve seen in it; but 
 I ’ll say nothing — it would be a folly to be getting myself 
 ill-will in ni}^ old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of 
 marrying, Judy, as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for 
 it: who is? As for all I have here set down from memory 
 and hearsay of the family there ’s nothing but truth in it 
 from beginning to end. That you may depend upon, for 
 where ’s the use of telling lies about the things which 
 everybody knows as well as I do? 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1055 
 
 [The Editor could have readily made the catastrophe of 
 Sir Condy^s history more dramatic and more pathetic, if 
 he thought it allowable to varnish the plain round tale of 
 faithful Thady. He lays it before the English reader as a 
 specimen of manners and character which are perhaps un- 
 known in England. Indeed, the domestic habits of no 
 nation in Europe were less known to the English than those 
 of their sister country till within these few years. 
 
 Mr. Young’s picture of Ireland, in his tour through that 
 country, was the first faithful portrait of its inhabitants. 
 All the features in the foregoing sketch were taken from 
 the life, and they are characteristic of that mixture of 
 quickness, simplicity, cunning, carelessness, dissipation, 
 disinterestedness, shrewdness, and blunder, which, in dif- 
 ferent forms and with various success, has been brought 
 upon the stage or delineated in novels. 
 
 It is a problem of difficult solution to determine whether 
 a union will hasten or retard the amelioration of this coun- 
 try. The few gentlemen of education who now reside in 
 this country will resort to England. They are few, but 
 they are in nothing inferior to men of the same rank in 
 Great Britain. The best that can happen will be the in- 
 troduction of British manufacturers in their places. 
 
 Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, 
 teach the Irish to drink beer? or did they learn from the 
 Irish to drink whisky?] 
 
 THE OKIGINALITY OF IRISH BULLS 
 EXAMINED. 
 
 From ‘ An Essay on Irish Bulls.’ 
 
 The difficulty of selecting from the vulgar herd of Irish 
 bulls one that shall be entitled to the prize, from the united 
 merits of pre-eminent absurdity and indisputable origi- 
 nality, is greater than hasty judges may imagine. Many 
 bulls, reputed to be bred and born in Ireland, are of for- 
 eign extraction ; and many more, supposed to be unrivaled 
 in their kind, may be matched in all their capital points : 
 for instance, there is not a more celebrated bull than Paddy 
 
1056 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Blake’s. When Paddy heard an English gentleman speak- 
 ing of the fine echo at the lake of Killarney, which repeats 
 the sound forty times, he very promptly observed : Faith, 
 
 that ’s nothing at all to the echo in my father’s garden, in 
 the county of Galway : if you say to it, ‘ How do you do, 
 Paddy Blake? ’ it will answer, ^ Pretty well, I thank you, 
 sir.’ ” 
 
 Now this echo of Paddy Blake, which has long been the 
 admiration of the world, is not a prodigy unique in its 
 kind; it can be matched by one recorded in the immortal 
 works of the great Lord Verulam. 
 
 “ I remember well,” says this father of philosophy, that 
 when I went to the echo at Port Charenton, there was an 
 old Parisian that took it to be the work of spirits, and of 
 good spirits; ^ for,’ said he, ^ call Satan, and the echo will 
 not deliver back the devil’s name, but will say Va-t-en.’ (go 
 away) ” 
 
 The Parisian echo is surely superior to the Hibernian! 
 Paddy Blake’s simply understood and practiced the com- 
 mon rules of good breeding; but the Port Charenton echo 
 is “ instinct with spirit,” and endowed with a nice moral 
 sense. 
 
 Among the famous bulls recorded by the illustrious Joe 
 Miller, there is one which has been continually quoted as 
 an example of original Irish genius. An English gentle- 
 man was writing a letter in a coffee-house, and perceiving 
 that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that 
 liberty which Hephmstion used with his friend Alexander, 
 instead of putting his seal upon the lips of the curious 
 impertinent, the Englishman thought proper to reprove 
 the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with poetical 
 justice; he concluded writing his letter in these words: I 
 
 would say more, but a tall Irishman is reading over 
 
 my shoulder every word I write.” 
 
 You lie, you scoundrel ! ” said the self-convicted Hiber- 
 nian. 
 
 This blunder is unquestionably excellent; but it is not 
 originally Irish : it comes, with other riches, from the East, 
 as the reader may find by looking into a book by M. Gal- 
 land, entitled, The Kemarkable Sayings of the Eastern 
 Nations.” 
 
 A learned man was writing to a friend ; a troublesome 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1057 
 
 fellow was beside him, who was looking over his shoulder 
 at what he was writing. The learned man, who perceived 
 this, continued writing in these words, ‘ If an imperti- 
 nent chap, who stands beside me, were not looking at what 
 I write, I would write many other things to you which 
 should be known only to you and to me.’ 
 
 The troublesome fellow, who was reading on, now 
 thought it incumbent upon him to speak, and said, ‘ I 
 swear to you that I have not read or looked at what you 
 are writing.’ 
 
 The learned man replied, ^ Blockhead, as you are, why 
 then do you say to me what you are now saying? ’ ” 
 
 Making allowance for the difference of manners in eas- 
 tern and northern nations, there is certainly such a sim- 
 ilarity between this Oriental anecdote and Joe Miller’s 
 story, that we may conclude the latter is stolen from the 
 former. Now an Irish bull must be a species of blunder 
 peculiar to Ireland ; those that we have hitherto examined, 
 though they may be called Irish bulls by the ignorant 
 vulgar, have no right, title, or claim to such a distinction. 
 We should invariably exclude from that class all blunders 
 which can be found in another country. For instance, a 
 
 speech of the celebrated Irish beauty. Lady C , has been 
 
 called a bull; but as a parallel can be produced, in the 
 speech of an English nobleman, it tells for nothing. When 
 her ladyship was presented at court, his Majesty George 
 II. politely hoped “ that, since her arrival in England, she 
 had been entertained with the gayeties of London.” 
 
 O yes, please your Majesty, I have seen every sight in 
 London worth seeing, except a coronation.” 
 
 This naivete is certainly not equal to that of the English 
 earl marshal, who, when his king found fault with some 
 arrangement at his coronation, said, Please your Maj- 
 esty I hope it will be better the next time.” 
 
 A nawete of the same species entailed a heavy tax upon 
 the inhabitants of Beaune, in France. Beaune is famous 
 for Burgundy; and Henry IV. passing through his king- 
 dom, stopped there, and was well entertained by his loyal 
 subjects. His Majesty praised the Burgundy which they 
 set before him — It was excellent ! it was admirable ! ” 
 
 O sire! ” cried they, do you think this excellent? we 
 have much finer Burgundy than this.” 
 
1058 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Have you so? then you can afford to pay for it/’ cried 
 Henry lY. ; and he laid a double tax thenceforward upon 
 the Burgundy of Beaune. 
 
 Of the same class of blunders is the following speech, 
 'Which we actually heard not long ago from an Irishman : — 
 Please your worship, he sent me to the devil, and I 
 came straight to your honor.” 
 
 We thought this an original Irish blunder, till we recol- 
 lected its prototype in Marmontel’s ‘ Annette and Lubin.’ 
 Lubin concludes his harangue with, “ The bailiff sent us 
 to the devil, and we came to put ourselves under your pro- 
 tection, my lord.” 
 
 The French, at least in former times, were celebrated 
 for politeness; yet we meet with a naive compliment of a 
 Frenchman wliich would have been accounted a bull if it 
 had been found in Ireland : — 
 
 A gentleman was complimenting Madame Denis on the 
 manner in which she had just acted Zara. “ To act that 
 part,” said she, a person should be young and hand- 
 some.” “ Ah, madam ! ” replied the complimenter naive- 
 ment, you are a complete proof of the contrary.” 
 
 We know not any original Irish blunder superior to this, 
 unless it be that which Lord Orford pronounced to be the 
 best bull that he had ever heard : — 
 
 I hate that woman,” said a gentleman, looking at one 
 who had been his nurse, I hate that woman, for she 
 changed me at nurse.” 
 
 Lord Orford particularly^ admires this bull, because in 
 the confusion of the blunderer’s ideas he is not clear even 
 of his personal identity. Philosophers will not perhaps be 
 so ready as his lordship has been to call this a blunder of 
 the first magnitude. Those who have never been initiated 
 into the mysteries of metaphysics may have the presump- 
 tuous ignorance to fancy that they understand what is 
 meant by the common words I or me; but the able meta- 
 physican knows better than Lord Orford’s changeling how 
 to prove, to our satisfaction, that we know nothing of the 
 matter. 
 
 Personal identity,” says Locke, consists not in the 
 identity of substance, but in the identity of consciousness, 
 wherein Socrates and the present Mayor of Quinborough 
 agree they are the same person ; if the same Socrates sleep- 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1059 
 
 ing and waking do not partake of the same consciousness, 
 Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person; and 
 to punish Socrates waking for what sleeping Socrates 
 thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of, 
 would be no more right than to punish one twin for what 
 his brother twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because 
 their outsides are so like that they could not be distin- 
 guished; for such twins have been seen.’’ 
 
 We may presume that our Hibernian’s consciousness 
 could not retrograde to the time when he was changed at 
 nurse; consequently there was no continuity of identity 
 between the infant and the man who expressed his hatred 
 of the nurse for perpetrating the fraud. At all events, the 
 confusion of identity which excited Lord Orford’s admi- 
 ration in our Hibernian is by no means unprecedented in 
 France, England, or ancient Greece, and consequently it 
 cannot be an instance of national idiosyncrasy, or an Irish 
 bull. We find a similar blunder in Spain, in the time of 
 Cervantes : — 
 
 Pray tell me Squire,” says the duchess, in ^ Don 
 Quixote,’ “ is not your master the person whose history is 
 printed under the name of the sage Hidalgo Don Quixote 
 de la Mancha, who professes himself the admirer of one 
 Dulcinea del Toboso? ” 
 
 The very same, my lady,” answered Sancho ; ‘‘ and I 
 myself am that very squire of his who is mentioned, or 
 ought to be mentioned in that history, unless they have 
 changed me in the cradle.” 
 
 In Moliere’s ^ Amphitryon ’ there is a dialogue between 
 Mercure and Sosie evidently taken from the Attic Lucian. 
 Sosie, being completely puzzled out of his personal identity, 
 if not out of his senses, says literally, Of my being my- 
 self I begin to doubt in good earnest; yet when I feel my- 
 self, and when I recollect myself, it seems to me that I 
 am I.” 
 
 We see that the puzzle about identity proves at last to be 
 of Grecian origin. It is really edifying to observe how 
 those things which have long been objects of popular ad- 
 miration shrink and fade when exposed to the light of 
 strict examination. An experienced critic proposed that 
 a work should be written to inquire into the pretensions 
 of modern writers to original invention, to trace their 
 
1060 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 thefts, and to restore the property to the ancient owners. 
 Such a work woujd require powers and erudition beyond 
 what can be expected from any ordinary individual ; the 
 labor must be shared among numbers, and we are proud 
 to assist in ascertaining the rightful property even of bulls 
 and blunders; though without pretending, like some lit- 
 erary bloodhounds, to follow up a plagiarism where com- 
 mon sagacity is at a fault. 
 
 LITTLE DOMINICK. 
 
 From ‘ An Essay on Irish Bulls.* 
 
 Little Dominick was born at Fort Reilly, in Ireland, and 
 was bred nowhere till his tenth year; when he was sent to 
 Wales, to learn manners, and grammar, at the school of 
 Mr. Owen ap Davies ap Jenkins ap Jones. This gentleman 
 had reason to think himself the greatest of men; for he 
 had, over his chimney-piece, a well-smoked genealogy, duly 
 attested, tracing his ancestry in a direct line up to Noah; 
 and, moreover, he was nearl}^ related to the learned ety- 
 mologist, who, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, wrote a 
 folio volume to prove that the language of Adam and Eve 
 in Paradise was pure Welsh. With such causes to be 
 proud, Mr. Owen ap Davies ap Jenkins ap Jones was ex- 
 cusable for sometimes seeming to forget that a school- 
 master is but a man. He, however, sometimes entirely 
 forgot that a boy is but a bo^^; and this happened most 
 frequently with respect to Little Dominick. 
 
 This unlucky wight was flogged every morning by his 
 master ; not for his vices, but for his vicious constructions : 
 and laughed at by his companions every evening, for his 
 idiomatic absurdities. They would probably have been 
 inclined to sympathize in his misfortunes, but that he was 
 the only Irish boy at school; and as he was at a distance 
 from all his relations, and without a friend to take his 
 part, he was a just object of obloquy and derision. Every 
 sentence he spoke was a bull, every two words he put to- 
 gether proved a false concord, and every sound he artic- 
 ulated betrayed the brogue. But as he possessed some of 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1061 
 
 the characteristic boldness of those who have been dipped 
 in the Shannon, though he was only little Dominick, he 
 showed himself able and willing 1 1 fight his own battles 
 with the host of foes by whom he was encompassed. Some 
 of these, it was said, were of nearly twice his stature. 
 This may be exaggerated: but it is certain that our hero 
 sometimes ventured, with sly Irish humor, to revenge him- 
 self on his most powerful tyrant, by mimicking the Welsh 
 accent, in which Mr. Owen ap Jones said to him — Cot 
 pless me, you plockit, and shall I never learn you Enclish 
 crammar? 
 
 It was whispered in the ear of this Dionysius that our 
 little hero was a mimic, and he was now treated with in- 
 creased severity. 
 
 The midsummer holidays approached; but he feared 
 that they would shine no holida^^s for him. He had written 
 to his mother to tell her that school would break up on the 
 21st ; and to beg an answer, without fail, by return of post : 
 but no answer came. 
 
 It was now nearly two months since he had heard from 
 his dear mother, or any of his friends in Ireland. His 
 spirits began to sink under the pressure of these accu- 
 mulated misfortunes: he slept little, eat less, and played 
 not at all. Indeed, nobod}^ would play with him on equal 
 terms, because he was nobody’s equal: his schoolfellows 
 continued to consider him as a being, if not of a different 
 species, at least of a different cast from themselves. 
 
 Mr. Owen ap Jones’ triumph over the little Irish plockit 
 was nearly complete, for the boy’s heart was almost broken, 
 when there came to the school a new scholar — O, how un- 
 like the others ! — His name was Edwards : he was the son 
 of a neighboring Welsh gentleman; and he had himself 
 the spirit of a gentleman. MJien he saw how poor Domi- 
 nick was persecuted, he took him under his protection; 
 fought his battles with the Welsh boys; and instead of 
 laughing at him for speaking Irish, he endeavored to 
 teach him to speak English. In his answers to the first 
 questions Edwards ever asked him. Little Dominick made 
 two blunders, which set all his other companions in a roar; 
 yet Edwards would not allow them to be genuine bulls. 
 
 In answer to the question — ‘‘Who is your father?’^ 
 
1062 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Dominick said, with a deep sigh — “ I have no father — I 
 am an orphan — I have only a mother.” 
 
 Have you any brothers and sisters? ” 
 
 ^^No! I wish I had; for perhaps they would love me, 
 and not laugh at me,” said Dominick, with tears in his eyes ; 
 ‘‘ but I have no brothers hut myself. 
 
 One day Mr. Owen ap Jones came into the schoolroom 
 with an open letter in his hand, saying — Here, you little 
 Irish plockit, here ’s a letter from your mother.” 
 
 The little Irish blockhead started from his form; and, 
 throwing his grammar on the floor, leaped up higher than 
 he or any boy in the school had ever been seen to leap be- 
 fore; then, clapping his hands, he exclaimed — A letter 
 from my mother! And iviU I hear the letter? — And will 
 I see her once more? — And will I go home these holidays? 
 — O, then I will be too happy ! ” 
 
 There’s no tanger of that,” said Mr. Owen ap Jones; 
 for your mother, like a wise ooman, writes me here, that, 
 py the atvice of your cardian, to oom she is going to be 
 married, she will not pring you home to Ireland till I send 
 her word you are perfect in your Enclish crammar at 
 least.” 
 
 I have my lesson perfect, sir,” said Dominick, taking 
 his grammar up from the floor; “ tvill I say it now? ” 
 
 ‘‘No, jon plockit, you ivill not; and I will write your 
 mother word, you have proke Priscian’s head four times 
 this tay, since her letter came.” 
 
 Little Dominick, for the first time, was seen to burst 
 into tears — “ Will I hear the letter? — Will I see my 
 mother? — Will I go home? ” 
 
 “ You Irish plockit ! ” continued the relentless gram- 
 marian : “ you Irish plockit, will you never learn the dif- 
 ference between shall and tvill f ” 
 
 The Welsh boys all grinned, except Edwards, who 
 hummed loud enough to be heard — 
 
 “ And ivill I see him once again ? 
 
 And tvill I hear him speak ? ” 
 
 Many of the boys were, unfortunately, too ignorant to feel 
 the force of the quotation; but Mr. Owen ap Jones un- 
 derstood it, turned on his heel, and walked off. 
 
 Soon afterwards, he summoned Dominick to his awful 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1063 
 
 desk; and pointing with his ruler to the following page 
 in Harris’ ^ Hermes/ bade him reat it, and understand it,” 
 if he could. 
 
 Little Dominick read, but could not understand. 
 
 Then reat it alout, you plockit.” 
 
 Dominick read aloud — 
 
 a There is nothing appears so clearly an object ‘of the 
 mind or intellect only as the future does: since we can find 
 no place for its existence anywhere else : not but the same, 
 if we consider, is equally true of the past — ” 
 
 Well, CO on — What stops the plockit? — Can’t you reat 
 Enclish now? ” 
 
 “Yes, sir; but I was trying to understand it — I was 
 considering, that this is like what they would call an Irish 
 bull, if I had said it.” 
 
 Little Dominick could not explain what he meant in 
 English, that Mr. Owen ap Jones would understand; and 
 to punish him for his impertinent observation, the boy was 
 doomed to learn all that Harris and Lowth have Avritten 
 to explain the nature of shall and will . — The reader, if he 
 be desirous of knowing the full extent of the penance en- 
 joined, may consult Lowth’s Grammar, p. 52, ed. 1799; and 
 Harris’ ^ Hermes,’ pp. 10, 11, and 12, fourth edition. 
 
 Undismaj^ed at the length of his task, Little Dominick 
 only said — ^ I hope, if I say it all, without missing a word, 
 you will not give my mother a bad account of me and my 
 grammar studies, sir? ” 
 
 “ Say it all first, without missing a word, and then I 
 shall see Avhat I shall say,” replied Mr. Owen ap Jones. 
 
 Even the encouragement of this oracular answer excited 
 the boy’s fond hopes so keenly, that he lent his little soul 
 to the task; learned it perfectly; said it at night, without 
 missing one word, to his friend Edwards; and said it the 
 next morning, without missing one word, to his master. 
 
 “ And now, sir,” said the boy, looking up, “ will you 
 write to my mother? — And shall I see her? And shall I go 
 home? ” 
 
 “ Tell me, first, whether you understand all this that 
 you have learned so cliply? ” said Mr. Owen ap Jones. 
 
 That was more than his bond. Our hero’s countenance 
 fell; and he acknowledged that he did not understand it 
 perfectly. 
 
1064 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Then I cannot write a coot account of you and your 
 crammar studies to your mother; my conscience coes 
 against it! said the conscientious Mr. Owen ap Jones. 
 
 No entreaties could move him. Dominick never saw 
 the letter that was written to his mother; but he felt the 
 consequence. She wrote word, this time punctually by re- 
 turn of the post, that she was sorry she could not send for 
 him home these holidays, as she had heard so bad an ac- 
 count from Mr. Owen ap Jones, &c., and as she thought it 
 her duty not to interrupt the course of his education, 
 especially his grammar studies. 
 
 Little Dominick heaved many a sigh when he saw the 
 packings up of all his schoolfellows; and dropped a few 
 tears as he looked out of the window, and saw them, one 
 after another, get on their Welsh ponies, and gallop off 
 towards their homes. 
 
 I have no home to go to ! ” said he. 
 
 Yes, you have,’’ cried Edwards; and our horses are 
 at the door, to carry us there.’’ 
 
 To Ireland? Me ! the horses ! ” said the poor boy, quite 
 bewildered. 
 
 ^‘No; the horses cannot carry you to Ireland,” said 
 Edwards, laughing good-naturedly^; but you have a home, 
 now, in England. I asked my father to let me bring you 
 home with me ; and he says — ‘ Yes,’ like a dear, good 
 father, and has sent the horses — Come, let ’s away.” 
 
 But will Mr. Owen ap Jones let me go? ” 
 
 Yes! he dare not refuse; for my father has a living in 
 his gift, that Owen ap Jones wants, and which he will not 
 have if he do not change his tune to you.” 
 
 Little Dominick could not speak one word, his heart 
 was so full. 
 
 No boy could be happier than he was during these holi- 
 days : the genial current of his soul,” which had been 
 
 frozen by unkindness, flowed with all its natural freedom 
 and force. 
 
 Whatever his reasons might be, Mr. Owen ap Jones, from 
 this time forward, was observed to change his manners 
 towards his Irish pupil. He never more complained, un- 
 justly, of his preaking Priscian’s head; seldom called him 
 Irish plockit; and once, would have flogged a Welsh boy 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH 
 
 1065 
 
 for taking np this cast-off expression of the master^s but 
 that the Irish blockhead begged the culprit off. 
 
 Little Dominick sprang forward rapidly in his studies ; 
 he soon surpassed every boy in the school, his friend Ed- 
 wards only excepted. In process of time his guardian 
 removed him to a higher seminary of education. Edwards 
 had a tutor at home. The friends separated. Afterw^ards, 
 they followed different professions, in distant parts of the 
 world; and they neither saw, nor heard, any more of each 
 other, for many years. 
 
 Dominick, now no longer little Dominick, went over to 
 India, as private secretary to one of our commanders-in- 
 chief. How he got into this situation, or by what grada- 
 tions he rose in the world, we are not exactly informed ; 
 we know only that he was the reputed author of a much 
 admired pamphlet on India affairs ; that the dispatches of 
 the general to whom he was secretary were remarkably 
 
 well written; and that Dominick OHeilly, Esq., returned 
 to England, after several years’ absence, not miraculously 
 
 rich, but with a fortune equal to his wishes. His wishes 
 were not extravagant : his utmost ambition was, to return 
 to his native country with a fortune that should enable 
 
 him to live independently of all the world ; especially of 
 some of his relations, who had not used him well. His 
 mother was no more. 
 
 On his first arrival in London, one of the first things 
 he did was to read the Irish newspapers. To his inex- 
 
 pressible joy he saw the estate of Fort Reilly advertised 
 to be sold — the very estate which had formerly belonged 
 to his own family. Away he posted, directly, to an attor- 
 ney’s in Cecil Street, who was empowered to dispose of the 
 land. 
 
 When this attorney produced a map of the well-known 
 demesne, and an elevation of that house in which he spent 
 the happiest hours of his infancy, his heart was so touched, 
 
 that he was on the point of paying down more for an old 
 
 ruin than a good new house would cost. The attorney 
 
 acted honestly hy his cUeiit, and seized this moment to 
 exhibit a plan of the stabling and offices; which, as some- 
 times is the case in Ireland, were in a style far superior 
 to the dwelling-house. Our hero surveyed these with 
 
 transport. He rapidly planned various improvements in 
 
1066 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 imagination, and planted certain favorite spots in the de- 
 mesne! During this time the attorne}^ was giving direc- 
 tions to a clerk about some other business; suddenly the 
 name of Owen ap Jones struck his ear. — He started. 
 
 Let him wait in the front parlor : his money is not 
 forthcoming,’^ said the attorne}^, and if he keep Edwards 
 in jail till he rots — ” 
 
 ‘‘Edwards! Good heavens! in jail! What Edwards?” 
 exclaimed our hero. 
 
 It was his friend Edwards! 
 
 The attorney told him that Mr. Edwards had been in- 
 volved in great distress, by taking on himself his father’s 
 debts, which had been incurred in exploring a mine in 
 Wales; that, of all the creditors, none had refused to com- 
 pound, except a Welsh parson, who had been presented to 
 his living by old Edwards; and that this Mr. Owen ap Jones 
 had thrown young Mr. Edwards into jail for the debt. 
 
 “What is the rascal’s demand? He shall be paid off 
 this instant,” cried Dominick, throwing down the plan of 
 Fort Reilly; “ send for him up, and let me pay him off on 
 this spot.” 
 
 “ Had we not best finish our business first, about the 
 O’Reilly estate, sir? ” said the attorney. 
 
 “ No, sir; damn the O’Reilly estate! ” cried he, huddling 
 the maps together on the desk; and, taking up the bank- 
 notes, which he had begun to reckon for the purchase 
 money — “I beg your pardon, sir — if you knew the facts,' 
 you would excuse me. — Why does not this rascal come up 
 to be paid? ” 
 
 The attorney, thunderstruck by this Hibernian impet- 
 uosity, had not yet found time to take his pen out of his 
 mouth. As he sat transfixed in his arm-chair, O’Reilly 
 ran to the head of the stairs, and called out, in a stentorian 
 voice, “Here, you Mr. Owen ap Jones; come up and be 
 paid off this instant, or you shall never be paid at 
 
 L^pstairs hobbled the old schoolmaster, as fast as the 
 gout and Welsh ale would let him — “ Cot pless me, that 
 voice? ” he began — 
 
 “ Where ’s your bond, sir? ” said the attorney. 
 
 “ Safe here. Cot be praised ! ” said the terrified Owen ap 
 Jones, pulling out of his bosom first a blue pocket-hand- 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1067 
 
 kerchief, and then a tattered Welsh grammer, which O’Reilly 
 kicked to the farther end of the room. 
 
 ^^Here is my pond,” said he, ^^in the crammer,” which he 
 gathered from the ground; then, fumbling over the leaves, he 
 at length unfolded the precious deposit. 
 
 O’Reilly saw the bond, seized it, looked at the sum, paid 
 it into the attorney’s hands, tore the seal from the bond ; 
 then, without looking at old Owen ap J ones, whom he 
 dared not trust himself to speak to, he clapped his hat on 
 his head, and rushed out of the room. He was, however, 
 obliged to come hack again, to ask where Edwards was to 
 be found. 
 
 ^^In the King’s Bench prison, sir,” said the attorney. ^Hut 
 am I to understand,” cried he, holding up the map of the 
 O’Reilly estate, ^^am I to understand that you have no further 
 wish for this bargain?” 
 
 ^Wes — Ko — I mean, you are to understand that I’m otf,” 
 replied our hero, without looking back — ^^I’m off — That’s 
 plain English.” 
 
 Arrived at the King’s Bench prison, he hurried to the 
 apartment where Edwards was confined — The bolts flew 
 back ; for even the turnkeys seemed to catch our hero’s 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 ^ ^Edwards, my dear boy ! how do you do ? — Here’s a bond 
 debt, justly due to you for my education — O, never mind 
 asking any unnecessary questions ; only just make haste 
 out of this undeserved abode — Our old rascal is paid off — 
 Owen ap Jones you know — Well how the man stares? — 
 Why, now, will you have the assurance to pretend to forget 
 who I am? — and must I spake, continued he, assuming 
 the tone of his childhood — ^%nd must I spake to you again 
 in my old Irish brogue, before you will ricollict your own 
 Little Dominick 
 
 When his friend Edwards was out of prison, and when 
 our hero had leisure to look into the business, he returned 
 to the attorney, to see that Mr. Owen ap Jones had been 
 satisfied. 
 
 ^Hir,” said the attorney, have paid the plaintiff in this 
 suit, and he is satisfied: but I must say,” added he, with a 
 contemptuous smile, ^That you Irish gentlemen are rather in 
 too great a hurry in doing business; business, sir, is a thing 
 that must be done slowly, to be well done.” 
 
1068 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 I am ready now to do business as slowly as you please; 
 but when my friend was in prison, I thought the quicker 
 I did his business the better. Now tell me what mistake I 
 have made, and I will rectify it instantly.’’ 
 
 Instantly ! ’T is well, sir, with your promptitude, that 
 you have to deal with what prejudice thinks so very un- 
 common — an honest attorney. Here are some bank-notes 
 of yours, sir, amounting to a good round sum ! You have 
 made a little blunder in this business: you left me the 
 penalty, instead of the principal, of the bond — just twice 
 as much as you should have done.” 
 
 Just twice as much as was in the bond; but not twice 
 as much as I should have done, nor half as much as I 
 should have done, in my opinion ! ” said O’Reilly : but 
 
 whatever I did, it was with my eyes open. I was per- 
 suaded you were an honest man ; in which, you see, I was 
 not mistaken; and as a man of business, I knew that you 
 would pay Mr. Owen ap Jones only his due. The remain- 
 der of the money I meant, and now mean, should lie in your 
 hands for my friend Edwards’ use. I feared he would not 
 have taken it from my hands: I therefore left it in yours. 
 To have taken my friend out of prison, merely to let him 
 go back again to-day, for want of money to keep himself 
 clear with the world, would have been a blunder, indeed! 
 but not an Irish blunder: our Irish blunders are never 
 blunders of the heart ! ” 
 
 WASTE NOT, WANT NOT. 
 
 Mr. Gresham, a Bristol merchant, who had, by honor- 
 able industry and economy, accumulated a considerable 
 fortune, retired from business to a new house which he had 
 built upon the Downs, near Clifton. Mr. Gresham, how- 
 ever, did not imagine that a new house alone could make 
 him happy. He did not propose to live in idleness and ex- 
 travagance; for such a life would have been equally in- 
 compatible with his habits and his principles. He was 
 fond of children ; and as he had no sons, he determined to 
 adopt one of his relations. He had tv^o nephews, and he 
 invited both of them to his house, that he might have an 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1069 
 
 opportunity of judging of their dispositions, and of the 
 habits which they had acquired. 
 
 Hal and Benjamin, Mr. Gresham’s nephews, were each 
 about ten years old. They had been educated very differ- 
 ently. Hal was the son of the elder branch of the family. 
 His father was a gentleman, who spent rather more than 
 he could afford ; and Hal, from the example of the servants 
 in his father’s family, with whom he had passed the first 
 years of his childhood, learned to waste more of everything 
 than he used. He had been told, that gentlemen should 
 be above being careful and saving;” and he had unfor- 
 tunately imbibed a notion that extravagance was the sign 
 of a generous disposition, and economy of an avaricious 
 one. 
 
 Benjamin, on the contrary, had been taught habits of 
 care and foresight. His father had but a very small for- 
 tune, and was anxious that his son should early learn that 
 economy insures independence, and sometimes puts it in the 
 power of those who are not very rich to be very generous. 
 
 The morning after these two boys arrived at their 
 uncle’s, they were eager to see all the rooms in the house. 
 Mr. Gresham accompanied them, and attended to their 
 remarks and exclamations. 
 
 Oh ! what an excellent motto ! ” exclaimed Ben, when 
 he read the following words, which were written in large 
 characters over the chimneypiece, in his uncle’s spacious 
 kitchen : — 
 
 WASTE NOT, WANT NOT.” 
 
 Waste not, want not!” repeated his cousin Hal, in 
 rather a contemptuous tone; I think it looks stingy to 
 servants; and no gentleman’s servants, cooks especially, 
 would like to have such a mean motto always staring them 
 in the face.” Ben, who was not so conversant as his cousin 
 in the ways of cooks and gentlemen’s servants, made no 
 reply to these observations. 
 
 Mr. Gresham was called away whilst his nephews were 
 looking at the other rooms in the house. Some time after- 
 wards he heard their voices in the hall. 
 
 “Boys,” said he, “what are you doing there?” “Nothing, 
 sir,” said Hal ; “ you were called away from us, and we did 
 
1070 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 not know which way to go.’’ “ And have you nothing to 
 do? ” said Mr. Gresham. 
 
 No, sir, nothing,” answered Hal, in a careless tone, 
 like one who was well content with the state of habitual 
 idleness. 
 
 No, sir, nothing! ” replied Ben, in a voice of lamenta- 
 tion. 
 
 ‘‘ Come,” said Mr. Gresham, if you have nothing to do, 
 lads, will you unpack these two parcels for me? ” 
 
 The two parcels were exactly alike, both of them well 
 tied up with good whip-cord. Ben took his parcel to a 
 table, and, after breaking off the sealing-wax, began care- 
 fully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood 
 still, exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his 
 hands, and tried first at one corner, and then at another, to 
 pull the string off by force. 
 
 I wish these people wouldn’t tie up their parcels so 
 tight, as if they were never to be undone,” cried he, as he 
 tugged at the cord; and he pulled the knot closer instead 
 of loosening it. 
 
 ‘‘Ben! why, how did you get yours undone, man? — 
 .What’s in your parcel? — I wonder what is in mine. I 
 wish I could get this string off — I must cut it.” 
 
 “ Oh, no,” said Ben, who now had undone the last knot 
 of his parcel, and who drew out the length of string with 
 exultation, “ don’t cut it, Hal. Look what a nice cord this 
 is, and yours is the same : it ’s a pity to cut it ; ‘ Waste not, 
 leant not!’ you know.” 
 
 “ Pooh ! said Hal, what signifies a bit of pack- 
 thread? ” 
 
 “ It is whip-cord.” 
 
 “ Well, whip-cord ! what signifies a bit of whip-cord ! you 
 can get a bit of whip-cord twice as long as that for two- 
 pence; and who cares for two-pence! Not I, for one! so 
 here it goes,” cried Hal, drawing out his knife; and he cut 
 the cord, precipitately, in sundry places. 
 
 “ Lads! have you undone the parcels for me? ” said Mr. 
 Gresham, opening the parlor-door as he spoke. “ Yes, sir,” 
 cried Hal; and he dragged off his half-cut, half-entangled 
 string, — “ here ’s the parcel.” “ And here ’s my parcel, 
 uncle; and here’s the string,” said Ben. “You may keep 
 the string for your pains,” said Mr. Gresham. “ Thank 
 
MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1071 
 
 you, sir,” said Ben ; what an excellent whip-cord it is ! ” 
 And you, Hal,” continued Mr. Gresham, you may keep 
 your string too, if it will be of any use to you.” It will 
 be of no use to me, thank you, sir,” said Hal. No, I am 
 afraid not, if this be it,” said his uncle, taking up the 
 jagged, knotted remains of HaPs cord. 
 
 A few days after this, Mr. Gresham gave to each of his 
 nephews a new top. 
 
 But how’s this?” said Hal; these tops have no 
 strings; what shall we do for strings? ” I have a string 
 that will do very well for mine,” said Ben; and he pulled 
 out of his pocket the fine, long, smooth string which had 
 tied up the parcel. With this he soon set up his top, which 
 spun admirabl^^ well. 
 
 Oh, how I wish I had but a string ! ” said Hal ; what 
 shall I do for a string? I ’ll tell you what; I can use the 
 string that goes round my hat ! ” But then,” said Ben, 
 what will you do for a hat-band? ” I ’ll manage to do 
 without one,” said Hal; and he took the string off his hat 
 for his top. It soon was worn through; and he split his 
 top by driving the peg too tightly into it. His cousin Ben 
 let him set up his the next day; but Hal was not more for- 
 tunate or more careful when he meddled with other peo- 
 ple’s things than when he managed his own. He had 
 scarcely played half an hour before he split it, by driving 
 in the peg too violently. 
 
 Ben bore this misfortune with good humor. Come,” 
 said he, it can’t be helped : but give me the string, because 
 that may still be of use for something else.” 
 
 It happened some time afterwards that a lady, who had 
 been intimately acquainted with Hal’s mother at Bath, 
 now arrived at Clifton. She was informed by his mother 
 that Hal was at Mr. Gresham’s; and her sons, who were 
 friends of his, came to see him, and invited him to spend 
 the next day with them. 
 
 Hal joyfully accepted the invitation. He was always 
 glad to go out to dine, because it gave him something to do, 
 something to think of, or at least something to say. Be- 
 sides this, he had been educated to think it was a fine thing 
 to visit fine people ; and Lady Diana Sweepstakes ( for that 
 was the name of his mother’s acquaintance) was a very 
 fine lady, and her two sons intended to be very great gen- 
 
1072 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 tlemen. He was in a prodigious hurry when these young 
 gentlemen knocked at his uncle’s door the next day; but 
 just as he got to the hall door, little Patty called to him 
 from the top of the stairs, and told him that he had dropped 
 his pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 Pick it up, then, and bring it to me, quick, can’t you, 
 child?” cried Hal, for Lady Di’s sons are waiting for 
 me.” 
 
 Little Patty did not know anything about Lady Di’s 
 sons; but she was very good-natured, and saw that her 
 cousin Hal was, for some reason or other, in a desperate 
 hurry, so she ran downstairs as fast as she possibly could, 
 towards the landing-place, where the handkerchief lay; 
 but, alas! before she reached the handkerchief, she fell, 
 rolling down a whole flight of stairs, and when her fall 
 was at last stopped by the landing-place, she did not cry, 
 but she writhed as if she was in great pain. 
 
 Where are you hurt, my love? ” said Mr. Gresham, who 
 came instantly, on hearing the noise of some one falling 
 downstairs. Where are you hurt, my dear? ” 
 
 Here, papa,” said the little girl, touching her ankle; 
 
 I believe I am hurt here, but not much,” added she, trying 
 to rise; only it hurts me when I move.” I ’ll carry you; 
 don’t move, then,” said her father; and he took her up in 
 his arms. My shoe; I ’ve lost one of my shoes,” said she. 
 
 Ben looked for it upon the stairs, and he found it stick- 
 ing in a loop of whip-cord, which was entangled round one 
 of the banisters. When this cord was drawn forth, it ap- 
 peared that it was the very same jagged entangled piece 
 which ‘Hal had pulled off his parcel. He had diverted him- 
 self with running up and downstairs, whipping the banis- 
 ters with it, for he thought he could convert it to no better 
 use; and, with his usual carelessness, he at last left it hang- 
 ing just where he happened to throw it when the dinner- 
 bell rang. Poor little Patty’s ankle was terribly sprained, 
 and Hal reproached himself for his folly, and would have 
 reproached himself longer, perhaps, if Lady Di Sweep- 
 stakes’ sons had not hurried him away. 
 
RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH. 
 
 (1744—1817.) 
 
 Richard Lovell Edgeworth, an elegant writer and an ingenious 
 mechanic, was born in 1744, at Edgeworthtown, County Longford, 
 Ireland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Oxford. 
 Being of a mechanical turn of mind, he spent much time in experi- 
 ments, and invented many ingenious devices, among them a tele- 
 graph. He was a member of the Irish Parliament, and with 
 other Irish patriots opposed the Union. He gave great attention 
 to education and the most practical modes of diffusing it. 
 
 In conjunction with his talented daughter, Maria, he wrote a series 
 of essays on ‘ Practical Education,’ and also published a series of 
 stories for the young with the same view. He wrote a work on 
 ‘Roads and Carriages,’ and began his own memoirs, which were 
 finished by his daughter. He was a man of varied talent, great 
 practical knowledge, and philanthropic aims. He died at Edge- 
 worthtown, in June, 1817. 
 
 MY BOYHOOD DAYS. 
 
 From ‘ Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq.’ 
 
 When I was between two and three years old, I was car- 
 ried over, with my father and mother, to Ireland, to their 
 house at Edgeworthtown, in the county of Longford. I 
 remember distinctly several small circumstances, which 
 happened before I was four years old. This I notice, be- 
 cause the possibility of remembering from so early an age 
 has been doubted. When I was about five years old, I was 
 taught my alphabet: I remember well the appearance of 
 my hornbook; and once I was beaten for not knowing the 
 word instep. I recollect as distinctly as if it happened 
 yesterday, that I had never before heard or spelled that 
 word. This unjust chastisement put me back a little in 
 my learning; but as the injustice was afterwards discov- 
 ered, it saved me in succeeding times from all violence from 
 my teachers. My mother then taught me to read herself. 
 I lent my little soul to the business, and I read fluently 
 before I was six years old. The first books that were put 
 into my hands were the Old Testament, and >Esop’s Fables. 
 iEsop’s Fables were scarcely intelligible to me: the frogs 
 and their kings, — the fox with the bunch of grapes, con- 
 
 1073 
 
 13— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1074 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 fused my understanding ; and the satyr and the traveler ap- 
 peared to me absolute nonsense. I understood the lion and 
 the mouse, and was charmed with the generous conduct of 
 the one, and with the gratitude of the other. 
 
 When I began to read the Old Testament, the creation 
 made a great impression upon my mind : I personified the 
 Deity as is usual with ignorance. A particular part of my 
 father’s garden was Paradise : my imagination represented 
 Adam as walking in this garden; and the whole history 
 became a drama in my mind. I pitied Adam, was angry 
 with Eve, and I most cordially hated the devil. What 
 was meant by Adam’s bruising the serpent’s head, I could 
 not comprehend, and I frequently asked for explanations. 
 The history of Joseph and his brethren I perfectly under- 
 stood, it seized fast hold of my imagination, and of my 
 feelings. I admired and loved Joseph with enthusiasm; 
 and I believe, that the impression, which this history made 
 upon my mind, continued for many years to have an in- 
 fluence upon my conduct. 
 
 My only playfellow in my early childhood was my young- 
 est sister Margaret; my elder sister was four years older 
 than I was. The early attachment which was formed be- 
 tween my sister Margaret (now Mrs. John Ruxton) and 
 me, has been one of the most constant sources of pleasure 
 that I have ever possessed. There was and is a great re- 
 semblance in our tempers, and characters, and tastes. I 
 know how highly I praise myself in saying this, but it must 
 be true, or we could not through so many different scenes 
 of life have preserved as perfect a friendship and affection 
 for each other, as ever existed between brother and sister. 
 We were constant playfellows, and such constant friends, 
 that for much more than half a century the most violent, 
 indeed I may say the only quarrel, that we ever had, was 
 upon the following important occasion. 
 
 The gardener gave us some playthings, made of rushes; 
 the good-natured old man presented them to us with much 
 complacency, and divided them with impartiality. A grid- 
 iron he gave to little Miss; to little Master, a grenadier’s 
 cap. Little Miss, however, was not pleased with the dis- 
 tribution; she insisted upon having the grenadier’s cap, 
 which, after some reluctance on Master’s part, she ob- 
 tained : but, after having strutted her little hour under this 
 
RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1075 
 
 heroic accoutrement, she became covetous of the more use- 
 ful implement, with which she had seen me amusing my- 
 self. I had fried the gold fish that were caught in the 
 lake of the pond of the Black Islands; and I had gone 
 through a considerable part of the story of the prince half 
 marble and half man, as I had lately read it in the Arabian 
 Nights, Entertainments. I was in the character of the 
 Black Genius, exclaiming, Fish ! fish ! do your duty — 
 when my sister insisted that she ought to' be the cook. I 
 told her there were men cooks, but not female grenadiers. 
 We disputed; we grew angry; we proceeded to violence; a 
 battle ensued, in which the grenadiers cap was beaten to 
 pieces. Loud were the lamentations. My mother heard 
 the disturbance; and, instead of what is commonly called 
 scolding us, took pains to do justice between us, and 
 brought us to reason and peace, by mildly pointing out the 
 folly of our quarrel. It is often from disputes like these, 
 that children learn the consequences of passion, and the 
 danger of giving way to it ; and it is by the impartial and 
 judicious conduct of parents, on such seemingly trival oc- 
 casions, that they may begin to form the temper to habits 
 of self-command. 
 
 Of this sister of mine I may say, that she has an uncom- 
 monly good temper, and she is as little inclined to violence 
 as any of the gentlest of her sex. My mother took various 
 means early to give me honorable feelings and good prin- 
 ciples ; and by these she endeavored to correct, and to teach 
 me to govern, the violence of my natural temper. She was 
 lame, and not able to subdue me by force: if I ran away 
 from her when she was going to punish me, she could not 
 follow and catch me; but she obtained such power over my 
 mind, that she induced me to come to her to be punished 
 whenever she required it. I resigned myself, and without 
 a struggle submitted to the chastisement she thought prop- 
 er to infiict. The consequence of this submission was my 
 acquiring, if I may say so, the esteem as well as the 
 affection of my mother. But she was not blind to my 
 faults: she saw the danger of my passionate temper. It 
 was a difficult task to correct it ; though perfectly submis- 
 sive to her, I was with others rebellious and outrageous in 
 my anger. My mother heard continual complaints of me; 
 yet she wisely forebore to lecture or punish me for every 
 
1076 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 trifling misdemeanor ; she seized proper occasions to make 
 a strong impression upon my mind. 
 
 One day, my elder brother Tom, who, as I have said, was 
 almost a man when I was a little child, came into the nur- 
 sery where I was placing, and where the maids were iron- 
 ing. Upon some slight provocation or contradiction from 
 him, I flew into a violent passion; and, snatching up one 
 of the box-irons, which the maid had just laid down, I flung 
 it across the table at my brother. He stooped instantly; 
 and, thank God ! it missed him. There was a red-hot 
 heater in it, of which I knew nothing until I saw it thrown 
 out, and till I heard the scream from the maids. They 
 seized me, and dragged me downstairs to my mother. 
 Knowing that she Avas extremely fond of my brother, and 
 that she was of a Avarm indignant temper, they expected 
 that signal vengeance Avould burst upon me. They all spoke 
 at once. When my mother heard what I had done, I saw 
 she was struck with horror, but she said not one word in 
 anger to me. She ordered everybody out of the room ex- 
 cept myself, and then drawing me near her, she spoke to 
 me in a mild .voice, but in a most serious manner. First, she 
 explained to me the nature of the crime, which I had run 
 the hazard of committing; she told me, she was sure that 
 I had no intention seriously to hurt my brother, and did 
 not know, that if the iron had hit my brother, it must 
 have killed him. While I felt this flrst shock, and whilst 
 the horror of murder was upon me, my mother seized the 
 moment, to conjure me to try in future to command my 
 passions. 
 
 I remember her telling me, that I had an uncle by the 
 mother’s side who had such a violent temper, that in a flt 
 of passion one of his eyes actually started out of its 
 socket. You,” said my mother to me, “ have naturally a 
 violent temper : if you groAV uj) to be a man without learn- 
 ing to goAwn it, it will be impossible for you then to com- 
 mand yourself; and there is no knowing what crime you 
 may in a fit of passion commit, and how miserable you may 
 in consequence of it become. You are but a very young 
 child, yet I think you can understand me. Instead of 
 speaking to you as I do at this moment, I might punish you 
 severely; but I think it better to treat you like a reasonable 
 creature. My wish is to teach you to command your tern- 
 
RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH. 
 
 1077 
 
 per; nobody can do that for you, so well as you can do it 
 for yourself.’’ 
 
 As nearly as I can recollect, these were my mother’s 
 words; I am certain this was the sense of what she then 
 said to me. The impression made by the earnest solemnity 
 with which she spoke never, during the Avhole course of 
 my life, was effaced from my mind. From that moment I 
 determined to govern my temper. The determinations 
 and the good resolutions of a boy of between five and six 
 years old are not much to be depended upon, and I do not 
 mean to boast that mine were thenceforward uniformly 
 kept; but I am conscious that my mother’s warning fre- 
 quently recurred to me, when I felt the passion of anger ris- 
 ing within me; and that both whilst I was a child, and after 
 I became a man, these her words of early advice had most 
 powerful and salutary influence in restraining my temper. 
 
 Of the further rudiments of my education I recollect 
 only that I was taught arithmetic, and made expert in 
 counting at the card table, when my father and mother 
 used to play cribbage. The attention to teach me numbers 
 was bestowed particularly, because my father, not being 
 infected with that foolish pride, which renders parents 
 averse to the idea of putting a son into business or com- 
 merce, destined me for a merchant. . . . 
 
 My mother inspired me with a love of truth, a dislike of 
 low company, and an admiration of whatever was generous. 
 Fortunately for me, the few visitors who frequented our 
 house seemed to join with her in a wish to instil generous 
 sentiments. One lady in particular, who, as I observed, 
 was treated by my mother with much respect, made a salu- 
 tary impression upon me. She gave me Gay’s Fables with 
 prints, with which I was much delighted; and desired me 
 to get by heart the fable of the Lion and the Cub. She 
 explained to me the design of this fable, which was within 
 the compass of my understanding. It gave me early the 
 notion, that I ought to dislike low company, and to despise 
 the applause of the vulgar. Some traits in the history of 
 Cyrus, which was read to me, seized my imagination, and, 
 next to Joseph in the Old Testament, Cyrus became the 
 favorite of my childhood. My sister and I used to amuse 
 ourselves with playing Cyrus at the court of his grand- 
 father Astyages. At the great Persian feasts I was, like 
 
1078 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 young Cyrus, to set an example of temperance, to eat noth- 
 ing but water-cresses, to drink nothing but water, and to 
 reprove the cup-bearer for making the king my grandfather 
 drunk. To this day I remember the taste of those water- 
 cresses; and for those who love to trace the characters of 
 men in the sports of children I may mention, that my 
 character for sobriety, if not for water drinking, has con- 
 tinued through life. 
 
 At seven years old, I became very devout. I had heard 
 some of the New Testament, and some account of the suffer- 
 ings of martyrs; these inflamed mj imagination so much, 
 that I remember weeping bitterly before I was eight years 
 old, because I lived at a time when I had no opportunity 
 of being a martyr. I however dared to think for myself. 
 — My father was about this time enclosing a garden ; part 
 of the wall in its progress afforded means of climbing to 
 the top of it, which I soon effected. My father repri- 
 manded me severely, and as no fruit was at that time ripe, 
 he could not readily conceive what motive I could have 
 for taking so much trouble, and running so great a risk. I 
 told him truly, that I had no motive but the pleasure of 
 climbing. I added, that if the garden Avere full of ripe 
 peaches, it Avould be a much greater temptation; and that 
 unless he should be certain that nobody tvould climb over 
 the wall, he ought not to have peaches in the garden. 
 After having talked to me for some time, he discoA^ered that 
 I had reasoned thus : if my father knows beforehand, that 
 the temptation of peaches will necessarily induce me to 
 climb OA^er the garden wall; and that if I do, it is more 
 than probable that I shall break my neck, I shall not be 
 guilty of any crime, but my father will be the cause of my 
 breaking my neck. This I applied to Adam, without at 
 the time being able to perceive the great difference betAA^een 
 things human and divine. My father, feeling that he was 
 not prepared to give me a satisfactory ansAver to this dif- 
 ficulty, judiciously declined the contest, and desired me 
 not to meddle with Avhat Avas above my comprehension. I 
 mention this, because all parents, who encourage their 
 children to speak freely, often hear from them puzzling 
 questions and observations, and I wish to point out, that 
 on such occasions children should not be discouraged, but 
 
RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH, 
 
 1079 
 
 on the contrary, according to the advice of Rousseau, par- 
 ents should fairly and truly confess their ignorance. 
 
 So strong were my religious feelings at this time of my 
 life, that I strenuously believed, that if I had sufficient 
 faith, I could remove mountains ; and accordingly I prayed 
 for the objects of my childish wishes with the utmost fer- 
 vency, and with the strongest persuasion that my prayers 
 would be heard. How long the fervor of this sort of devo- 
 tion lasted I do not remember ; but I suppose that going to 
 school insensibly allayed it. 
 
MAURICE F. EGAN. 
 
 (1852 ) 
 
 Maurice Francis Egan, professor of English language and litera- 
 ture at the Catholic University of Washington, was born in 1852 
 and was educated at La Salle College and Georgetown, D. C. He 
 was successively sub-editor of McGee's Illustrated Weekly and The 
 Catholic Review, and editor of Freeman^ s Journal ; afterward he 
 became professor of English literature in the University of Notre 
 Dame, Indiana, and was also one of the editors of the ‘ World’s Best 
 Literature. ’ 
 
 He has written the following books : ‘ That Girl of Mine,’ ‘ That 
 Lover of Mine,’ ‘ A Garden of Roses,’ ‘ Stories of Duty,’ ‘ The Life 
 Around Us,’ ‘ The Theater and Christian Parents,’ ‘ Modern Novelists,’ 
 ‘ Lectures on English Literature,’ ‘ A Gentleman,’ ‘ Jack Chumleigh,’ 
 ‘ Jack Chumleigh at Boarding School,’ ‘ A Primer of English Litera- 
 ture,’ ‘ The Disappearance of John Longworthy,’ ‘A Marriage of 
 Reason,’ ‘The Success of Patrick Desmond,’ ‘The Flower of the 
 Flock,’ ‘Preludes’ (poems), ‘ Songs and Sonnets and other Poems,’ 
 ‘The Vocation of Edward Conway,’ ‘The Chatelaine of the Roses,’ 
 ‘Jasper Thorne,’ ‘In a Brazilian Forest,’ ‘The Leopard of Lanci- 
 anus,’ ‘ Studies in Literature,’ ‘The Watson Girls.’ 
 
 THE ORANGE LILIES. 
 
 From ‘ From the Land of St. Lawrence.’ 
 
 When Neil Durnan^s wife died, there was no lonelier 
 man in the County Meath. His farm was in good condi- 
 tion. He was not, in the estimation of elderly men, old; 
 be was healthy, and he had seen triumphant Orangemen 
 defeated in his lifetime, over and over again. He was a 
 very warm farmer. His elder son was a Franciscan 
 friar over in Italy; his younger had gone to America. The 
 first was out of his world; he had never quite forgiven 
 Friar Francis, who, after the education he had, might have 
 been a decent parish priest at home, for joining the 
 beggars,’’ as he called the members of the great Order. 
 The younger son, Maurice, was in America, — in a place 
 called Wisconsin. Father and son had never got on well 
 together. They both had strong opinions ; so one day, with 
 a hundred pounds to his credit, Maurice went over the sea, 
 and the father’s heart had ached ever since, though he had 
 not shown this in word or deed. 
 
 1080 
 
MAURICE F. EGAN. 
 
 1081 
 
 It was this heartache that made him look seaward. His 
 old neighbors were gone. To the farm on his left had come 
 a Belfast man who kept hunters, whose wife and daughters 
 went about dropping pieces of pasteboard at their neigh- 
 bors.’^ 
 
 It ’s on wheels they come,” he said, and them calling 
 themselves decent women, and then drop a handful of 
 pasteboards with their names on them. And there are 
 afternoon tays and feet champeeters and few de joys going 
 on all the time, and him an Orange squireen of a fellow, 
 with his garden full of yellow lilies, just to spite the likes 
 of me on the twelfth of July.” 
 
 His neighbor on the right was not the less obnoxious; 
 he had acquired poor Pat Dolan’s farm, and was making it 
 pay by means of all sort of new-fangled machinery. 
 
 Taking the bread out of poor men’s mouths,” the ag- 
 grieved Mr. Durnan said ; sure, what right has he to do 
 that? Pat Dolan would have cut off his finger before he 
 turned a man from his day’s work, — and he turned out of 
 the farm his grandfather had before him, just because he 
 was too kind and generous to his own people.” 
 
 The sight of the squireen’s women folk, on wheels, with 
 cardcases in their hands, was an evil thing, the farm 
 machinery was worse, but the front garden with its orange 
 lilies worst of all. 
 
 And when I remarked to that woman,” says I, the 
 orange lilies, saving your presence, ma’am, are symbolical 
 of the devil himself and of all Orange haythen, — what 
 did she say in a high English voice, but ^ Oh, Mr. Durnan, 
 you ’re so old-fashioned ! We must forget old feuds.’ And 
 the likes of her keeping them up with their orange lilies ! ” 
 If it had not been for the enormous mastiff that guarded 
 the Squire’s house at night, he would have made short work 
 of the masses of bloom that glowed in a hundred tints 
 of yellow, like coiled, jeweled snakes, in the center of his 
 neighbor’s lawn. As it was, he was helpless; the splendid 
 flowers were a menace, a threat, a hated blot on the land- 
 scape. Finally he could endure them no more; he made a 
 good bargain in the sale of his farm, and then a struggle 
 began within him. Should he go to his son? — to this in- 
 dependent son of his, who had gone off with the portion his 
 mother had a right to give him, refusing aught else; who 
 
1082 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 had married a Yankee; who — and this made Neil Dur- 
 nan feel very bitter — had never asked for anything, and 
 who — and this made the bitterness more bitter — -might be 
 better off in this world’s goods than he was? 
 
 If Maurice had come to him, poor, suppliant, he would 
 have clasped him in his arms, and killed the fatted calf, 
 and sent out for all the purple and fine linen to be brought. 
 If he should find Maurice with his three little children, 
 suffering, poor, in need of help, his heart and his hand 
 would go out to them with all the force of a strong nature. 
 But the thought that Maurice might be “ warmer ” than he, 
 rejoicing perhaps in all those new machines which he so 
 much detested, filled him with anger. Rumors had come 
 to him of the prosperity of Maurice in that far-off Wiscon- 
 sin; he had pretended to doubt them; he had smiled when 
 hints of this prosperity had appeared in the letters the son 
 wrote to his mother, but he feared they w^ere true. 
 
 Three sons, and one dead,” he murmured, and not one 
 of them named for me. Sure, he sent word to ask me 
 once as to the naming of his first one, but I said, ^ No, — 
 ’t was unbefitting that a child of his Yankee wife should 
 be named for me.’ I did not mean it, but I suppose they 
 thought I did.” 
 
 Love, which was warm at the core of the old man’s 
 heart, conquered at last^ and on Sunday before he started 
 for Queenstown, he achieved a victory over himself. It 
 was the day on which the Blue Ribbon Society went to 
 Communion. He had a grudge against one member, whose 
 father had been a Scotchman, and whose mother was a 
 County Meath woman ; the son called himself Scotch-Irish. 
 He had always avoided walking in the procession next to 
 this man, though once or twice he had been paired with 
 him. But on this morning he took his place beside him. 
 It was hard; but he did not wince. 
 
 I ’ve done he said, when it was over, and now 
 
 I can stand anything ! ” 
 
 Over the ocean, through New York and Chicago, Neil 
 Durnan sped. He cared neither for the Brooklyn Bridge, 
 nor Niagara Falls, nor the great buildings in the western 
 metropolis; he was intent on his son, — full of love, full of 
 envy, jealous as any father could be, and hoping that a 
 cyclone or some horror might have made this proud son of 
 
MAURICE F. EGAN, 
 
 1083 
 
 his dependent on him. Of what use was the goodly sum 
 to his credit in the bank, if Maurice had a greater sum? 
 
 He found Maurice grave, cordial, quiet; a man of con- 
 sequence, and of sound judgment ; he was large, handsome, 
 red-haired, — of the type of his mother. The old man’s 
 worst fears were fulfilled: the Wisconsin farm of over 
 five hundred acres was in perfect condition. And, in this 
 month of July, all modern appliances were in use to de- 
 velop its richness. 
 
 Neil Human had to go to his comfortable room, to groan 
 and almost to weep. The spectacle of his proud son’s 
 success, in which he had no hand, was like a dagger to his 
 heart. His three grandsons were called Lewis, John, and 
 Maurice, — not one Neil among them. His son’s wife was 
 very sweet in her manner to him, too much of a lady, 
 entirely,” he said. There was no denying that his grand- 
 sons were fine, affectionate little boys, well instructed in 
 their religion. The smallest of the three was gentle, and 
 somewhat delicate, — like the one that died,” his mother 
 said, softly. Neil found great consolation in this boy. 
 He told him of the leprechauns, and of all the wonderful 
 things that happened over in Ireland, in the old days. 
 Still his heart was bitter; he would not pray; his beads 
 hung against the wall, untouched. His son had dared to 
 make for himself a world of his own, — and he was outside 
 of it. 
 
 He had promised to meet his little grandson at a stream 
 near the graveyard ; the church, red brick, with a Gothic 
 tower, was at the edge of his son’s farm. In this stream 
 grandfather and grandson fished with the gaudy flies 
 brought from Ireland. During the long, sultry afternoons, 
 this spot, covered by great spruce trees, was cool, and 
 though not even a minnow bit at the elaborate flies, the two 
 were happy. On this afternoon the little boy came, flushed 
 and bright-eyed, carrying a bunch of orange lilies. 
 
 For you, grandpapa ! ” he called out. 
 
 Neil Human stood like a bull at the sight of red. Then 
 he tore the obnoxious flowers from the child’s hand, threw 
 them upon the ground, and trampled upon them. The boy 
 opened his blue eyes, horrified, amazed, by the angry face 
 and brutal gestures of his grandfather. 
 
1084 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 O grandpapa ! he cried, how can you ! They were 
 for you ; I gathered them at — 
 
 But Neil Durnan had gone off, muttering. Everywhere 
 he was to endure insults, and from his own kin ! 
 
 My son did this,’^ he said, bitterly, or his Yankee 
 wife ! 
 
 He strode into the graveyard, not knowing where he 
 was. He would leave this place; he would go at once, he 
 resolved. And when he resolved to act in any matter, it 
 was hard to move him. He would not say good-bye ; a cold 
 hand seemed to clutch at his heart as he thought of the 
 tear-filled eyes of the little Maurice; but he would go, — 
 and at once. 
 
 There Avas a trailing mock-orange vine in his path, and 
 as he made his next step, a tendril-coil of it caught his 
 foot ; he went doAvn, and lay for a moment prone, in a bed 
 of the splendid yelloAA^-and-red fioAvers his heart detested. 
 He tore them aAA ay from him, and saw that they clustered 
 about a small stone cross ; he read 
 
 Neil Duknan: 
 AGED TWELVE t 1896. 
 MAY HE REST IN PEACE. 
 
 “ Neil Durnan ! His proud son had indeed named the 
 dead little boy for him. He forgot the yellow splendor 
 about him, and read the name again; tears ran doAvn his 
 wind-reddened cheeks. He knelt for a moment; then he 
 plucked a handful of the flowers that grew on this sacred 
 grave, those hated flowers that dotted in a dozen places the 
 green of the graA^eyard. He clasped the long leaA^es almost 
 tenderly, and went back to the place Avhere his little grand- 
 son had begun to fish, in a sober and subdued Avay, with the 
 gorgeous flies. 
 
 “ Here, Maurice,^’ he said, are some of the flowers you 
 brought me just now. I know AAdiere you got them. Tell 
 me about your little brother — Neil.’^ The old man^s voice 
 choked. 
 
 Maurice smiled brightly, and began to talk of the dear, 
 little brother who had died almost a year ago. And so 
 
MAURICE F. EGAN. 
 
 1085 
 
 they sat there, lovingly, the whole twelfth of July after- 
 noon, with the orange lilies between them, symbols, not of 
 war, but of victory. 
 
 THE SHAMROCK. 
 
 >When April rains make flowers bloom 
 And Johnny-jump-ups come to light, 
 And clouds of color and perfume 
 
 Float from the orchards pink and white, 
 I see my shamrock in the rain, 
 
 An emerald spray with raindrops set. 
 Like jewels on Spring’s coronet, 
 
 So fair, and yet it breathes of pain. 
 
 The shamrock on an older shore 
 Sprang from a rich and sacred soil 
 .Where saint and hero lived of yore. 
 
 And where their sons in sorrow toil; 
 And here, transplanted, it to me 
 Seems weeping for the soil it left. 
 
 The diamonds that all others see 
 Are tears drawn from its heart bereft. 
 
 When April rain makes flowers grow, 
 
 And sparkles on their tiny buds 
 That in June nights will overflow 
 And fill the world with scented floods, 
 The lonely shamrock in our land — 
 
 So fine among the clover leaves — 
 
 For the old springtime often grieves — 
 
 I feel its tears upon my hand. 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 (1778—1803.) 
 
 Robert Emmet was born in Cork March 4, 1778. He was 
 originally intended for the bar and entered Trinity College, but in 
 1798 he had joined the Society of United Irishmen and in a speech 
 at the Debating Society of the college said : “ When a people ad- 
 vancing rapidly in knowledge and power perceive at last how far 
 their government is lagging behind them, what then, I ask, is to be 
 done in such a case ? What but to pull the government up to the 
 people ? ” The result was that Emmet was expelled. 
 
 He then went to live with his brother at Fort George, and after- 
 ward traveled through Spain, Holland, and Switzerland, and 
 visited Paris, where he became the confidant of the Jacobins and 
 the center of a select circle of exiles who were both Irish patriots 
 and French republicans. 
 
 Buoyed up with promises of assistance from France, Emmet once 
 more returned to Ireland and did all in his power to organize an in- 
 surrection. His patriotism was measured not only by words but by 
 deeds. The death of his father had put him in possession of stock 
 to the amount of £1,500 ($7,500). This he converted into cash, and, 
 taking a house in Patrick Street, Dublin, he had pikes, rockets, 
 and hand-grenades made and stored there in great quantities. An 
 explosion occurred which destroyed a portion of the house, killing 
 one man and injuring others ; but Emmet, instead of being dis- 
 couraged by this disaster, only redoubled his care and resided 
 entirely on the premises. At this time he wrote: “I have little 
 time to look at the thousand difficulties which stand between me 
 and the completion of my wishes. That these difficulties will dis- 
 appear I have an ardent and, I trust, rational hope. But if it is not 
 to be the case, I thank God for having gifted me with a sanguine 
 disposition. To that disposition I run from reflection : and if my 
 hopes are without foundation — if a precipice is opened under my 
 feet, from which duty will not suffer me to run back — I am grate- 
 ful for that sanguine disposition which leads me to the brink and 
 throws me down, while my eyes are still raised to those visions of 
 happiness which my fancy has formed in the air.” 
 
 On July 23, 1803, the day appointed for the rising, not more than 
 a hundred insurgents assembled, and they were at once joined by 
 a noisy rabble, who, in passing through the streets to attack the 
 Castle, shot dead one Colonel Brown and rushed upon a carriage 
 containing Lord Kilwarden, the Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland, his 
 daughter, and the Rev. Mr. Wolfe. Lord Kilwarden and Mr. Wolfe 
 were savagely murdered, but Emmet, on hearing of the outrage, 
 rushed from the head of his party and bore the lady to an adjoining 
 house for safety. The leaders now lost all control over the mob, 
 and in utter disgust Emmet and his companions left them and fled 
 to the Wicklow Hills. 
 
 1086 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 1087 
 
 His friends did their best to aid in his escape, and all preparations 
 were made, but he refused to quit Ireland without first seeing and 
 bidding farewell to Miss Sarah Curran, daughter of John Philpot 
 Curran, to whom he was betrothed. The delay was fatal, and he 
 was arrested. Only the pathetic lines of Moore can depict the feel- 
 ings of Miss Curran on this event : — 
 
 “ Oh ! what was love made for, if ’t is not the same 
 Thro’ joy and thro’ torments, thro’ glory and shame ? 
 
 I know not, I ask not, if guilt ’s in that heart, 
 
 I but know that I love thee whatever thou art I 
 
 “ Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss, 
 
 Still thy angel I ’ll be ’mid the horrors of this, — 
 
 Thro’ the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue, 
 
 And shield thee, and save thee, or perish there too.” 
 
 While in prison. Emmet tried to induce his jailer by a gift of 
 money to deliver a letter to Miss Curran, but the official gave it to 
 the Attorney-General instead. On hearing of this, he offered to 
 the authorities to plead guilty and speak no word of defense if the3^ 
 would permit his letter to reach its intended destination, but the 
 offer was refused. He was brought to trial in September for high 
 treason and sentenced to be executed, a sentence which was im- 
 mediately carried out. 
 
 Thomas Moore, who was the intimate friend of Emmet at college, 
 says of him in his ‘ Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald ’ : “ Were I to 
 number the men among all I have ever known who appeared to me 
 to combine in the greatest degree pure moral worth with intellectual 
 power, I should among the highest of the few place Robert Emmet.” 
 
 LAST SPEECH OF ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 My Lords,— I am asked what have I to say why sentence 
 of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law. 
 I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, 
 nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the 
 mitigation of that sentence which you are to pronounce, 
 and I must abide by. But I have that to say which inter- 
 ests me more than life, and which you have labored to 
 destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should 
 be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny 
 which has been cast upon it. I do not imagine that, seated 
 where you are, your mind can be so free from prejudice as 
 to receive the least impression from what I am going to 
 utter. I have no hopes that I can anchor my character in 
 the breast of a court constituted and trammeled as this 
 
1088 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I only wish, and that is the utmost that I expect, that 
 your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories 
 untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds 
 some more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the storms 
 by which it is buffeted. Was I only to suffer death, after 
 being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in 
 silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a mur- 
 mur; but the sentence of the law which delivers my body 
 to the executioner will, through the ministry of the law, 
 labor in its own vindication to consign my character to 
 obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere, whether in 
 the sentence of the court or in the catastrophe time must 
 determine. A man in my situation has not only to en- 
 counter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power 
 over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the 
 difficulties of established prejudice. The man dies, but his 
 memor}^ lives. That mine may not perish, that it may 
 live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this op- 
 portunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges 
 alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to 
 a more friendly port — when my shade shall have joined 
 the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their 
 blood on the scaffold and in the field in the defense of their 
 country and of virtue, this is my hope — I wish that my 
 memory and name may animate those who survive me, 
 while I look down with complacency on the destruction of 
 that perfidious government which upholds its domination 
 by blasphemy of the Most High — which displays its power 
 over man, as over the beasts of the forest — which sets man 
 upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, 
 against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a 
 little more or a little less than the government standard — 
 a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries 
 of the orphans and the tears of the widows it has made. 
 
 [Here Lord Norbury interrupted Mr. Emmet, saying — 
 ‘‘ that the mean and wicked enthusiasts who felt as he did, 
 were not equal to the accomplishment of their wild de- 
 signs.”] 
 
 I appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the Throne 
 of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear — by the 
 blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me 
 — that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 1089 
 
 through all my purposes, governed only by the conviction 
 which I have uttered, and by no other view than that of the 
 emancipation of my country from the superinhuman op- 
 pression under which she has so long and too patiently 
 travailed ; and I confidently hope that, wild and chimerical 
 as it may appear, there is still union and strength in Ire- 
 land to accomplish this noblest of enterprises. Of this I 
 speak with confidence, of intimate knowledge, and with the 
 consolation that appertains to that confidence. Think not, 
 my lords, I say this for the petty gratification of giving you 
 a transitory uneasiness. A man who never yet raised his 
 voice to assert a lie, will not hazard his character with pos- 
 terity by asserting a falsehood on a subject so important to 
 his country, and on an occasion like this. Yes, my lords, 
 a man who does not wish to have his epitaph written until 
 his country is liberated, will not leave a weapon in the 
 power of envy, or a pretense to impeach the probity which 
 he means to preserve, even in the grave to which tyranny 
 consigns him. 
 
 [Here he was interrupted. Lord Norbury said he did 
 not sit there to hear treason.] 
 
 I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, 
 when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sen- 
 tence of the law. I have also understood that judges some- 
 times think it their duty to hear with patience and to 
 speak with humanity; to exhort the victim of the laws, and 
 to offer, with tender benignity, their opinions of the motives 
 by which he was actuated in the crime of which he was 
 adjudged guilty. That a judge has thought it his duty 
 so to have done, I have no doubt ; but where is the boasted 
 freedom of your institutions — where is the vaunted im- 
 partiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice, 
 if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, and not 
 justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the execu- 
 tioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerel}^ and 
 truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was 
 actuated? My lords, it may be a part of the system of 
 angry justice to bow a man’s mind by humiliation to the 
 purposed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than 
 the purposed shame, or the scaffold’s terrors, would be the 
 shame of such foul and unfounded imputations as have 
 been laid against me in this court. You, my lord, are a 
 
1090 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 judge; I am the supposed culprit. I am a man; you are a 
 man also. By a revolution of power we might change 
 places, though we never could change characters. If I 
 stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my 
 character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at this 
 bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you 
 calumniate it? Does the sentence of death, which your 
 unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, condemn my tongue 
 to silence and my reputation to reproach? Your execu- 
 tioner may abridge the period of my existence; but while 
 I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and 
 motives from your aspersions ; and, as a man to whom fame 
 is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in 
 doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, 
 and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor 
 and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my 
 lords, we must appear on the great day at one common tri- 
 bunal; and it will then remain for the Searcher of all 
 hearts to show a collective universe who was engaged in the 
 most virtuous actions or swayed by the purest motives. . . . 
 
 I am charged with being an emissary of France. An 
 emissary of France I and for what end? It is alleged that I 
 wished to sell the independence of my country; and for 
 what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is 
 this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles con- 
 tradiction? No; I am no emissary; and my ambition was 
 to hold a place among the deliverers of my country, not 
 in power nor in proflt, but in the glory of the achievement. 
 Sell my country's independence to France! and for what? 
 Was it a change of masters? No, but for my ambition. Oh, 
 my country, was it personal ambition that could influence 
 me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not, by 
 my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration 
 of my family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of 
 your oppressors? My Country was my idol. To it I sac- 
 rificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it 
 I now offer up myself, O God ! No, my lords; I acted as an 
 Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the 
 yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and the more 
 galling yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner 
 and perpetrator in the patricide, — from the ignominy ex- 
 isting with an exterior of splendor and a conscious de- 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 1091 
 
 pravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my 
 country from this doubly riveted despotism — I wished to 
 place her independence beyond the reach of any power on 
 earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the 
 world. Connection with France was indeed intended, but 
 only as far as mutual interest would sanction or require. 
 
 Were the French to assume any authority inconsistent 
 with the purest independence, it would be a signal for 
 their destruction. We sought their aid — and we sought it 
 as we had assurance we should obtain it — as auxiliaries in 
 war and allies in peace. Were the French to come as in- 
 vaders or enemies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I 
 should oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes! 
 my countrymen, I should advise you to meet them upon the 
 beach with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. 
 I would meet them with all the destructive fury of war. 
 I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their 
 boats, before they had contaminated the soil of my coun- 
 try. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire 
 before superior discipline, I would dispute every inch of 
 ground, burn every blade of grass, and the last entrench- 
 ment of liberty should be my grave. What I could not do 
 myself, if I should fall, I should leave as a last charge to 
 my countrymen to accomplish; because I should feel con- 
 scious that life, any more than death, is unprofitable when 
 a foreign nation holds my country in subjection. But it 
 was not as an enemy that the succors of France were to 
 land. I looked, indeed, for the assistance of France; but 
 I wished to prove to France and to the world that Irishmen 
 deserved to be assisted — that they were indignant at slav- 
 ery, and ready to assert the independence and liberty of 
 their country; I wished to procure for my country the 
 guarantee which Washington procured for America — to 
 procure an aid which, by its example, would be as im- 
 portant as its valor; disciplined, gallant, pregnant with 
 science and experience ; that of a people who would perceive 
 the good and polish the rough points of our character. 
 They would come to us as strangers and leave us as friends, 
 after sharing in our perils and elevating our destiny. These 
 were my objects; not to receive new taskmasters, but to 
 expel old tyrants. It was for these ends I sought aid from 
 France; because France, even as an enemy, could not be 
 
1092 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 more implacable than the enemy already in the bosom of 
 my country. 
 
 I have been charged with that importance in the emanci- 
 pation of my country as to be considered the keystone of 
 the combination of Irishmen; or, as your lordship ex- 
 pressed it, the life and blood of the conspiracy.^’ You 
 do me honor overmuch ; you have given to the subaltern all 
 the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this 
 conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to 
 your own conceptions of yourself, my lord — men before the 
 splendor of whose genius and virtues I should bow with 
 respectful deference, and who would think themselves dis- 
 graced by shaking your blood-stained hand. 
 
 What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to the 
 scaffold, which that tyranny (of which you are only the 
 intermediary executioner) has erected for my murder, that 
 I am accountable for all the blood that has and will be 
 shed in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor 
 — shall 3^ou tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as 
 not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent 
 Judge to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I 
 to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality 
 here? By you, too, although if it were possible to collect 
 all the innocent blood that you have shed in your unhal- 
 lowed ministry in one great reservoir, your lordship might 
 swim in it. 
 
 Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with 
 dishonor ; let no man attaint my memory, by believing that 
 I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country’s 
 liberty and independence; or that I could have become the 
 pliant minion of power, in the oppression and misery of 
 my country. The proclamation of the provisional govern- 
 ment speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured 
 from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, 
 or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I 
 would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the 
 same reason that I would resist the domestic oppressor. 
 In the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the 
 threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only 
 by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived 
 but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the 
 dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor and the 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 1093 
 
 bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their 
 rights and my country her independence, am I to be loaded 
 with calumny, and not suffered to resent it? No; God 
 forbid ! 
 
 [Here Lord Norbury told Mr. Emmet that his sentiments 
 and language disgraced his family and his education, but 
 more particularly his father. Dr. Emmet, who was a man, 
 if alive, that would not countenance such opinions. To 
 which Mr. Emmet replied: — ] 
 
 If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the 
 concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this 
 transitory life, oh ! ever dear and venerated shade of my 
 departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct 
 of your suffering son, and see if I have even for a moment 
 deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism 
 which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and 
 for which I am now about to offer up my life. My lords, you 
 are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek 
 is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround 
 your victim — it circulates warmly and unruffled through 
 the channels which God created for noble purposes, but 
 which you are now bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous 
 that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a 
 few more words to say — I am going to my cold and silent 
 grave — my lamp of life is nearly extinguished — my race is 
 run — the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its 
 bosom. I have but one request to make at my departure 
 from this world, it is — the charity of its silence. Let no 
 man write my epitaph ; for as no man, who knows my mo- 
 tives, dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ig- 
 norance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and 
 peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb 
 remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can 
 do justice to my character. When my country takes her 
 place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till 
 then, let my epitaph be written. I have done. 
 
1094 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 LINES BY ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 WRITTEN ON ARBOR HILL BURYING-GROUND, DUBLIN, WHERE THE 
 BODIES OP INSURGENTS SHOT IN 1798 W'ERE INTERED. 
 
 No rising column marks this spot, 
 
 Where many a victim lies; 
 
 But oh! the blood which here has streamed, 
 
 To Heaven for justice cries. 
 
 It claims it on the oppressor’s head, 
 
 Who joys in human woe. 
 
 Who drinks the tears by misery shed, 
 
 And mocks them as they flow. 
 
 It claims it on the callous judge. 
 
 Whose hands in blood are dyed, 
 
 Who arms injustice with the sword, 
 
 The balance throws aside. 
 
 It claims it for this ruined isle, 
 
 Her wretched children’s grave; 
 
 Where withered Freedom droops her head. 
 
 And man exists — a slave. 
 
 O sacred Justice! free this land 
 From tyranny abhorred ; 
 
 Resume thy balance and thy seat — 
 
 Resume — but sheathe thy sword. 
 
 No retribution should we seek — 
 
 Too long has horror reigned ; 
 
 By mercy marked may freedom rise, 
 
 By cruelty unstained. 
 
 Nor shall a tyrant’s ashes mix 
 With those our martyred dead; 
 
 This is the place where Erin’s sons 
 In Erin’s cause have bled. 
 
 And those who here are laid at rest. 
 
 Oh ! hallowed be each name ; 
 
 Their memories are forever blest — 
 
 Consigned to endless fame. 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 
 
 1095 
 
 Unconsecrated is this ground, 
 Unblest by holy hands; 
 
 No bell here tolls its solemn sound, 
 No monument here stands. 
 
 But here the patriot’s tears are shed, 
 The poor man’s blessing given; 
 These consecrate the virtuous dead, 
 These waft their fame to heaven. 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 Mrs. E. Rentoul Esler was born in County Donegal. She is a 
 daughter of the Rev. Dr. A. Rentoul. She was educated privately 
 and in France and Germany. In 1883 she married Dr. Robert Esler 
 of London and Bally menor. She has published ‘ The Way of Trans- 
 gressors,’ ‘ The Way They Loved at Grimpat,’ ‘ A Maid of the Manse,’ 
 ‘ Mid Green Pastures,’ ‘ The Wardlaws,’ ‘ Youth at the Prow,’ and 
 ‘ The Awakening of Helena Thorpe.’ Her studies of North Ireland 
 life, of that Presbyterian portion of it which is as different as 
 possible from the Catholic, are vivid and true. 
 
 THE CRIMINALITY OP LETTY MOORE. 
 
 Mary Willett had decided to emigrate. As this is not 
 her story, it is unnecessary at this juncture to explain why. 
 
 It was an October afternoon, but chilly; the frost bad 
 come too soon, and the leaves were too russet and too brown 
 for the time of year, and the breath of the north wind was 
 cold. 
 
 Mary stood by the window of Letty Moore’s kitchen, 
 looking out. One takes a careless attitude sometimes when 
 not quite at ease with the topic under discussion. Letty 
 sat facing the light, which fell fully on her small-featured, 
 large-eyed face, and showed the anxiety there. 
 
 ‘‘ I wouldn’t go, if I were you,” Letty said. 
 
 If you were me you just would,” Mary answered with 
 a short laugh. 
 
 Y'ou are so young,” Letty went on wistfully. 
 
 That is a fault one outgrows with time.” 
 
 And you are so pretty.” 
 
 That should help me.” 
 
 I don’t know that it does, always, when a girl has her 
 way to make.” 
 
 It is decided that I am going, anyway, so there is no 
 use in seeing the worst side of things now.” 
 
 Letty began to cry. Does John approve? ” she asked, 
 elohn was Mary’s brother. 
 
 “ Of course he does; but for him I couldn’t go — he will 
 find the money; he says it is only fair, since I am set on it.” 
 
 Letty wiped away her fast-falling tears. “ I wish — I 
 wish — ” she said miserably. 
 
 “If there was any good in wishing,” Mary interrupted 
 
 1096 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1097 
 
 in a hard tone, I should wish that home was a happier 
 place for us young ones, and that John might marry you.’^ 
 That has been nothing but your fancy ever,^^ Letty said 
 firmly, and for the moment the bright flush of color in her 
 face made her almost as pretty as her friend. Because 
 you like me you think he does, it ^s nothing but that.’’ 
 
 I don’t know that he ’ll ever tell you of it,” Mary went 
 on, having so little to offer you as things are, but he has 
 always been fond of you.” 
 
 A current of thought ran, like slow and harmless flame, 
 through Letty’s mind; she had not a fortune, it was true, 
 but she had her industry — that meant money, and a home 
 of her own, in case John thought the paternal home was too 
 full already. But girls do not enunciate thoughts of this 
 kind, even to their closest intimates. Letty seemed to 
 think in lightning flashes, but when she spoke her words 
 were measured, and quite irrelevant to the subject of her 
 thoughts. 
 
 ‘‘ When do you mean to go? ” she asked. 
 
 Next week, if I am living.” 
 
 Oh, dear,” Letty said with a bursting sigh, and the 
 weather growing colder every day, and — everything ! ” 
 
 Mary shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 I ’ll give you my fur cloak,” said Letty, hurriedly. 
 
 It ’ll not need much altering to fit you, and it ’s that 
 warm it ’ll keep the life in you, and I ’ll make you a hood 
 for the journey, a lined one, to fit close round your face.” 
 
 Mary threw her arms about her friend’s neck, and burst 
 into tears, all her wounded pride, her resentment, perhaps 
 her dread of the enterprise before her, finding utterance 
 thus. 
 
 Letty Moore was a professional ; that is to say, she had 
 been trained to dressmaking, and lived hj it exclusively^ in 
 which respect she differed from several others at Grimpat, 
 who worked at the business fitfully, and had some income 
 apart from it. But there was not a fortune in the industry 
 even to a professional. No Grimpat woman ever thought 
 of more than one new dress in the year, and, where that 
 was a good one, such as a silk, why, it did for several sub- 
 sequent years, of course. But this involved few^ changes 
 of fashion, and on the whole was for the peace of mind of 
 dressmakers. 
 
 14— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1098 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 There were times when Letty wished that she was not 
 the best dressmaker, which goes to prove that she was a 
 little more of a woman and a little less of an artist than 
 might have been believed, and that was when accident 
 brought her now and then a sudden rush of work and re- 
 sponsibility. It was on the very evening of Mary^s visit 
 to her that old Mr. Tedford died, and as he was very well- 
 to-do, and of the highest respectability, it seemed as if the 
 whole neighborhood claimed kindred with him and went 
 into mourning. Letty stitched and stitched, and fitted,' 
 and altered, and sent home parcels all day long, so that 
 the eve of her friend^s departure had arrived before she 
 found time to make in her fur cloak the few alterations she 
 had spoken of. 
 
 When these were completed she locked up her house 
 and took the carrier’s cart to Nutford. She was bound to 
 supply the hood she had premised, and there was no suita- 
 ble material to be procured nearer home. Owing to work 
 and preoccupation, Letty had forgotten that the day was 
 a Thursday, and that the Nutford shops closed early on 
 Thursdays. When she found the windows all shuttered 
 and the doors all barricaded, Letty’s natural conclusion 
 was that Nutford was also in mourning for Mr. Tedford. 
 But after a moment the reasonable explanation occurred 
 to her, and she sped from house to house and from street 
 to street — in vain; such shops as remained open offered 
 nothing better than could be found at Grimpat. 
 
 Letty went home in a kind of despair. She had prom- 
 ised that hood, and Mary was depending on it, and to pre- 
 sent herself before Mary in the morning without it was a 
 prospect she had not the moral courage to face. Arrived 
 at her own house, she opened every trunk, and drawer, and 
 receptacle. She studied the possibilities of every remnant, 
 but there was nothing that would be of the slightest ser- 
 vice. Scarlet satin, striped yellow and black silk, and 
 patchwork Avere equally out of the question. She could 
 not send her friend out into the world barred like a zebra 
 or gay as a parrokeet. 
 
 To think of disappointing her, and her so fond of me ! ” 
 said Letty, with a sob. She recalled Mary’s quick rush of 
 rapture at the mention of the hood, her half-whispered 
 words, If only CA^erybody was as good as you ! ” and felt 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1099 
 
 that to break her promise was too grievous to think 
 about. 
 
 ‘‘ I don^t know how I ^11 face her, and that ’s the truth, 
 she said. 
 
 The floor was littered with scraps, cuttings, and odds 
 and ends. She began to sort them mechanically, putting 
 the larger pieces back whence they had been taken, gather- 
 ing the smaller bits into a covered basket that she kept for 
 refuse, opening and shutting the drawers mechanically, 
 scarcely knowing what she did. 
 
 Suddenly she paused, and a kind of tremor stole over 
 her. In one of the drawers was a piece of silk which she 
 had been commissioned to keep till the spring. Old Mrs. 
 Smith had bought it as a present for her niece, and had 
 intrusted it to the dressmaker pending her niece’s next 
 visit. Letty withdrew the silk from its wrappings of tissue 
 paper and laid it on the bed. On the outer cover was the 
 vendor’s name, “ John Marshall, Nutford.” 
 
 If only I had been in time,” said Letty, I could have 
 got a bit of that ; it ’s the very thing.” 
 
 She drew forth a fold of the silk and touched it with 
 caressing fingers. The ground was black, with a pattern 
 of triangular patches of pink — a quaint, old-fashioned 
 pattern, the mode of an hour, a pretty but ephemeral thing ; 
 but Letty did not know that. She took her yard-measure 
 and ran along the length of the piece. Nine yards,” she 
 said. Those were not the days of voluminous sleeves or 
 bouffant skirts. Three-quarters of a yard would make 
 the hood, and I have the lining, and the wadding, and black 
 strings that would do, and I could match the silk to- 
 morrow at Marshall’s and put it back. It wouldn’t be a 
 sin ; I don’t think it would be a sin. It is for Mary’s sake, 
 not to disappoint her, and her so fond of me. Oh, dear! 
 I hope it’s not a sin; I wouldn’t do a sin for anything.” 
 But she had taken up the scissors, and had cut off the 
 length of silk required, even while she protested. 
 
 Until late in the night she sewed feverishly. When the 
 hood was finished, she tried it on herself. It makes me 
 just bonnie ! ” she said with a gay little laugh, and truly 
 at the moment her eyes were as bright as stars and her 
 cheeks like roses. Letty did not know that the fever of a 
 first misdoing was in her veins. 
 
1100 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 She slept little that night, because she had Mary, and the 
 hood, and John Willett, and all the others to think about. 
 The thought that when Mary had gone she would scarcely 
 hear of John, and certainly never anything intimate con- 
 cerning him, added a conscious element to her depression. 
 
 There was niuch excitement at the Willetts’ when Letty 
 arrived there, almost as much as if the occasion had in- 
 volved a marriage or a funeral. The neighbors had come 
 to say good-bye ; a few of the more intimate would remain 
 to speed Mary’s departure, the others left their little gifts 
 and good wishes and went away. 
 
 To dispose of gifts at the last moment, when one is start- 
 ing on a journey to another continent, involves trouble; 
 Mary was very busy and excited, half-laughing, half-tear- 
 ful, her sisters disposed to envy her, and to promise that 
 they would join her as soon as she advised them to do so, 
 wliile Mrs. Willett moved about like a large and solemn 
 Minerva, talking mournfully of wilful children and dan- 
 gers that awaited those who were ungrateful for a home. 
 
 Letty had determined to go with Mary to Nutford; she 
 wanted her to wear the cloak on her journey to Liverpool, 
 but she did not want her to wear it at Grimpat, where it 
 would be recognized. When she had said good-bye to her 
 friend she would go to Marshall’s and match the silk. She 
 did not acknowledge this even to herself, but it is possible 
 that amid her sorrow and her fears she found it not alto- 
 gether unpleasant to travel half an hour side by side with 
 Mary’s brother. 
 
 The leavetakings were over at last, and Mary, a little 
 despondent, a little elated, steamed away towards the New 
 World. Letty watched her out of sight, wiped her tears, 
 and then took her way briskly towards the draper’s. The 
 practical trod hard on the heels of the dramatic, as alwmys 
 happens in this mixed life of ours. 
 
 Mr. Marshall could not match the silk; he said it was 
 useless even to attempt to do so; that the dress was 
 one of a set purchased in lengths and so retailed, that he 
 bought the lot at a clearance sale, and had not the faintest 
 idea where they had been made. 
 
 Letty thought she would faint when she received this 
 information; floating darkness seemed to shut the man’s 
 unimaginative face away from her, and the breath on her 
 
MBS. ESLER 
 
 1101 
 
 lips felt cold. Mr. Marshall was frightened — he caught 
 at her hastily across the counter, and helped her to seat 
 herself. You are not well,’^ he said. 
 
 Not just too well,^^ she answered dully. “ I have been 
 working very hard lately, owing to Mr. Tedford^s death, 
 you know, and then to see Mary Willett go away has been 
 a kind of trial ; she is my oldest friend.^’ 
 
 The world is full of trouble, said Mr. Marshall ; the 
 occasion demanded speech, and he could not think of any 
 more apt or apposite. 
 
 Letty said nothing; she leaned her arms on the counter 
 and contemplated him in pale dismay. 
 
 You donT know even if that bit of silk was French or 
 English? she asked, after a pause. 
 
 I donT know a thing about it but what I have told you. 
 Is it very important that it should be matched? 
 
 The dress length is a bit short for what I want ; I can’t 
 make it the way it was intended, unless I get three-quarters 
 of a yard more.” 
 
 Then you ’ll have to make it some other way,” the man 
 answered pleasantly. What would you say to a bit of 
 black or a bit of pink for trimming? ” 
 
 Letty shook her head as she rose. “ No, no,” she said, 
 it wouldn’t be a bit of good ; nothing will be any good 
 but just the silk itself.” 
 
 Mr. Marshall looked after her as she went down the shop. 
 She works too hard,” he said, and she is a nice little 
 body — getting on, too, when one comes to think of it. She 
 has been a regular customer of mine for seven or eight 
 years.” Then Mr. Marshall sighed, though neither he nor 
 any one else could have told why. 
 
 Letty went down the street like one in a dream. The 
 cold north wind ruffled her hair and fluttered her trim 
 skirts, and blew coldly into her distended eyes. I am a 
 thief,” she was saying to herself, a thief!” Taking the 
 silk when she believed she could put it back scarcely seemed 
 a liberty, much less a crime; now its aspect was altogether 
 different. 
 
 I wonder what I ’m to do ! ” the girl said to herself. 
 There were women to whom she would have gone imme- 
 diately and made confession, and offered anything in com- 
 pensation for the missing material; but in Mrs. Smith’s 
 
1102 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 case this was not to be thought of. Mrs. Smith would 
 simply tell the whole parish that Letty Moore was not 
 lionest, or to be trusted, because she had stolen a piece of 
 her silk gown. Then the thought of John Willett came 
 into Letty’s mind, and of how he would receive this tid- 
 ings. What will become of me, any way? ” she said. 
 
 I ^11 not charge her for anything but the bare making,’’ 
 said Letty. I ’ll put in all the lining and bone free, and 
 give her value that way, and I ’ll line the bottom of the 
 skirt with a bit of silk ; if she notices it, I ’ll say I had it 
 by me, and she is welcome to it.” Then she sighed again; 
 it struck her already that the path of the wrong-doer is 
 a tortuous one, and Letty was very fond of plain dealing 
 and straight ways. 
 
 When she reached home, she took out the piece of silk 
 and looked at it ; then she began to cry in a tired way. To 
 think of me being a thief; but it ’s just what I am. I sup- 
 pose it ’s this way people begin to rob banks and get sent 
 to prison. I wonder will she find out? If she doesn’t 
 I ’ll — ” she did not know what wild condition she 
 wanted to offer to destiny, she only knew that she 
 was ready to promise anything provided she escaped 
 the consequences of this one misdoing. Meantime, Mrs. 
 Smith had also been to Nutford, and had also had an 
 errand to John Marshall’s, and thus, by one of the evil 
 chances which overtake certain unfortunates, she sat down 
 in the very chair poor Letty had vacated, and was wel- 
 comed by Mr. Marshall with just the same smile and the 
 same insinuating movement of the hands. Mrs. Smith 
 laid her reticule on the counter, opened it, took out her 
 list, and spoke first of bombazine. 
 
 While Mr. Marshall waited on her, she picked up ab- 
 stractedly the strip of silk Letty had left behind, and 
 wound it absent-mindedly round the finger of her cotton 
 glove. When her purchases were effected and she was 
 about to open her purse, the bit of silk caught her atten- 
 tion for the first time. 
 
 Another bit of my silk, Mr. Marshall,” she said, un- 
 bending. Have you got a new consignment of them dress 
 lengths? I wouldn’t mind a black one for myself, if you 
 have a black as good a bargain.” 
 
 Mr. Marshall shook his head. It ’s a rare chance to 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1103 
 
 get such goods as they were, so cheap. One doesn’t do that 
 twice in half a dozen years. I could sell them ten times 
 over if I had more. There was a young lady in to match 
 one of them a while ago, and she is just distracted that 
 there is not more to be had. That ’s her pattern round 
 your finger.” 
 
 Mr. Marshall,” said Mrs. Smith impressively, you 
 told me you had just one pink and black, and that you sold 
 it to me, yet here ’s another pink and black of somebody 
 else’s ! ” 
 
 Whatever I told you at the time was the truth,” said 
 Mr. Marshall, with dignity. There is no need to say 
 what isn’t, to sell my goods.” 
 
 But here ’s another pattern of the same,” Mrs. Smith 
 persisted. ‘‘ Who brought this pattern? ” 
 
 It was Miss Moore.” 
 
 Letty Moore the dressmaker ! Well, now, to think of 
 that ! Fancied my silk for herself, I suppose, and thought 
 to match it. But you haven’t another, you say? Well, 
 I ’m glad of that ; set her up, indeed, with a gown like my 
 niece’s. Now she’s cut this pattern off my piece; I don’t 
 call that dealing on the square, do you? ” 
 
 Miss Moore is a very respectable young woman, and 
 wouldn’t do anything she couldn’t stand over, I ’m sure,” 
 said Mr. Marshall, with decision. I have done business 
 with her for a very long time, and I have a great regard 
 for her.” 
 
 “ That ’s as may be, Mr. Marshall ; but if she ’s cut a 
 pattern off my stuff, I don’t call it on the square, and so 
 I ’ll tell her.” 
 
 Letty was not feeling at all well that afternoon. There 
 are mental shocks that try the sensitive as much as a 
 period of illness. In town communities the filching of a 
 small piece of material would not seem a very serious 
 matter; the culprit would regard it with indifference, and 
 the defrauded person would probably not take it very much 
 to heart. But Grimpat morals were very rigid; neither 
 Letty nor anybody else regarded a breach of the eighth 
 commandment lightly. 
 
 She ’ll not want the gown till the spring, and in that 
 time, maybe, the Lord will somehow give me a chance of 
 putting things right,” the girl said ; but she was not hope- 
 
1104 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 ful. Letty meant to pray very hard, and to practice divers 
 good deeds in anxious desire of a miracle. But instead of 
 a miracle from the sky, came Mrs. Smith up the garden 
 path — reticule, umbrella, and widow’s weeds complete. 
 
 I called to speak about that bit of silk that you took 
 charge of for my niece,” said Mrs. Smith, after an inter- 
 change of greetings. She had not failed to observe Letty’s 
 start of dismay, and the sudden pallor that followed it. 
 
 Yes, Mrs. Smith.” 
 
 I ’m not sure when my niece will be coming, and so I 
 thought I ’d as well send her the bit of stuff, and let her 
 have it made up at home; so I ’ll take it.” 
 
 I ’ll send it,” said Letty, it ’s too much for you to 
 carry.” 
 
 Not a bit,” said Mrs. Smith, the weight of nine yards 
 of silk is neither here nor there. I gave you no linings, 
 did I?” 
 
 The girl answered No,” faintly. 
 
 Then it will be lighter to carry.” 
 
 Letty went upstairs and took out the piece of silk, and 
 folded it neatly with hands that were as cold as ice. She 
 knew she was going to be found out and ruined. At the 
 moment she wished that she could die; if she were dead, 
 her misdeed and Mrs. Smith’s comments thereon would 
 matter less. She stood with her hands resting on the 
 folded parcel, waiting for some merciful miracle of this 
 kind, but none came. Her heart beat slowly and faintly, 
 but it kept on beating. When Letty saw that help would 
 not come from this quarter, she went downstairs. 
 
 You ’ve tied it up, have you? ” said Mrs. Smith, a little 
 suspiciously. You mightn’t have done that without 
 measuring it, for fear you might give me somebody else’s 
 piece instead of my own.” 
 
 That ’s your piece, right enough,” said Letty dully, 
 a There was only one of that sort.” Then she clutched at 
 her terror with desperation. I ’ll measure it for you, if 
 you like, Mrs. Smith.” 
 
 This offer reassured the elder lady. Not at all. Miss 
 Moore,” she said with some cordiality. It ’s been all 
 right in your hands, I ’m sure.” Then she took her leave 
 graciously enough. 
 
 Letty looked after the old woman’s rigid figure as she 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1105 
 
 walked away. Maybe she won’t open it for a while, and 
 in the interval I ’ll make her ‘a present worth twice the 
 value of what I ’ve took, then she ’ll know, if she thinks 
 about it at all, that I ’ve paid her back.” 
 
 But Mrs. Smith was not the type of person to act in such 
 an irrelevant manner; she took off her bonnet and shawl 
 and gloves when she reached home, but she measured the 
 silk before she put them away, and the silk was three- 
 quarters of a yard short. 
 
 One never knows people,” said the lady, nodding to 
 herself. I would have thought Letty Moore as honest as 
 the sun. Well ! I ’ll show her up.” 
 
 Drama was rather remote from Mrs. Smith’s experience, 
 but she saw a good many dramatic possibilities in the 
 present situation, and they exhilarated her. Herself as 
 a confiding and defrauded person, Letty Moore as an 
 abashed culprit, who had long traded on the good faith of 
 the community, and the whole of Grimpat for an admir- 
 ing audience, afforded a striking situation. Mrs. Smith 
 banked up the fire with ashes, because she intended to be 
 absent some time ; then she went back to Letty Moore’s. 
 
 Letty was sitting behind the geraniums by the window. 
 She did not feel able to work that evening, and so was 
 thankful that work was rather slack. Thus it happened 
 that she saw Mrs. Smith come in at the little gate. At the 
 moment she was not able to meet her ; like a terrified child 
 she ran upstairs and hid her face in the pillow of her 
 little bed. 
 
 Mrs. Smith knocked till she w^as tired, then she lifted 
 the door latch and entered. The kitchen was empty, but 
 the worthy woman concluded that Letty was at home, 
 otherwise she would not have left the door on the latch ; she 
 therefore sat down to await her appearance. 
 
 Letty had heard the knocking; the lifting of the latch 
 was a softer sound, and did not reach her. In the pro- 
 tracted silence which followed she concluded that Mrs. 
 Smith had gone away, and so, after a time, she picked up 
 courage to descend the stairs. But Mrs. Smith was sitting 
 in wait for her at the stair-foot. 
 
 The good woman had rehearsed every form of accusation 
 in the interval, and had thought of saying, You stole my 
 silk, give me back my silk ; ” but at sight of the girl, a 
 
1106 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 milder mood came over her, and she said, politely enough, 
 I called about that silk, it seems shorter than when I 
 left it with you/^ 
 
 It couldn^t be shorter, Mrs. Smith,’^ said Letty, look- 
 ing at her antagonist with terrified eyes. What could 
 make it shorter? 
 
 That ’s what I donT know,^’ said the visitor firmly; I 
 only know that I gave you nine yards of silk, and* that you 
 gave me back eight and a quarter. I know, too, that you 
 were trying to match it, for I found the pattern at Mar- 
 shairs.'^ 
 
 Letty sat down, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, her 
 face pale and stricken. People have committed a murder 
 and felt less overwhelmed, at the moment of arrest, than 
 did honest, upright little Letty Moore, in face of the knowl- 
 edge that she was discovered to have “ conveyed three- 
 quarters of a yard of cheap silk. 
 
 I neednT deny that I took it, Mrs. Smith, since you 
 know all about it,^^ she said slowly. “ I didn’t know it was 
 a dress length. I thought it had been cut off the piece, and 
 that I could match it. I knew it came from Marshall’s.” 
 
 And what did you want with my silk — what had you 
 to do with it? ” said Mrs. Smith, her anger rising. It 
 was stealing, whatever you say.” 
 
 I had promised Mary Willett a hood, but with Mr. Ted- 
 ford’s death, and all, I was kept busy until the last minute ; 
 when I went to buy the silk the shops were all closed. If 
 they had been Grimpat shops, I would have knocked and 
 made them open, but I couldn’t do that at Nutford. I felt 
 as if I couldn’t break my word to Mary. Your silk was 
 here in the house, and when I was looking for something 
 that would do I came on it; I thought if I took what I 
 wanted off it I could put it back the next day, but Mt. Mar- 
 shall says it can’t be matched. I am quite willing to make 
 it good to you in any way you like.” 
 
 “ I ’ll have my bit of silk, or nothing,” said Mrs. Smith 
 frigidly. I don’t want your money, or your trimmings, 
 or your matchings, I just want my material back again, 
 and I ’ll have it, or I ’ll know why.” 
 
 Letty said nothing, but her silence and her stricken atti- 
 tude, instead of mollifying Mrs. Smith, goaded her to fury. 
 
 If there ’s law in the land or in the Church,” she went 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1107 
 
 on, her voice rising, I ’ll take the mask off your face — a 
 meek, pretentious, whited sepulchre. To think of the 
 gowns, and cloaks, and linings folk have entrusted to you, 
 Letty Moore, believing in you as if you were the Gospel; 
 it ’s easy to see now how you come to be so well-to-do, with 
 three-quarters off here, and a yard off there, but I ’ll open 
 people’s eyes.” 
 
 Letty rose and stood before her accuser. 
 
 You ’ll have to do what you think right,” she said, in 
 a suffering, toneless voice. I never took a thread or a 
 hook-and-eye belonging to living woman in my life before. 
 I have told you just the truth of how I came to do it this 
 time.” 
 
 Mrs. Smith gave a snort of infinite scorn. Every thief 
 who is caught says it was the first time. We ’ll see how 
 many folks have missed things when I show you up. And 
 you teaching in the Sabbath School, too ! Well, next Sab- 
 bath you can teach the eighth commandment. To think of 
 such a — a whited sepulchre ! ” In her vocabulary Mrs. 
 Smith could not at the moment find another term as scath- 
 ing. As she spoke she went out, and banged the door 
 heavily behind her. 
 
 Letty resumed the seat she had quitted, and leaning her 
 elbows on the table, took her face between her hands. She 
 felt quite cold, and her pulses beat in languid throbs. Mrs. 
 Smith would tell every one that she had stolen her silk, and 
 one and another would come to think, in time, that she had 
 always been dishonest. It would ruin her business, but, a 
 hundred times worse than that, it would ruin her good 
 name. To think of all the people who trusted her learning 
 that she was a thief! To think of the minister, and John 
 Willett, and his mother, who, in her own way, had been dis- 
 posed to favor her! The talk would creep to Nutford, too, 
 and Mr. Marshall, who had always thought so well of her 
 as a customer, would probably set some one in future to 
 watch her when she entered, lest she should secrete the 
 reels of cotton or remnants of ribbon that were lying loose. 
 
 At this thought two slow tears of bitter suffering ran 
 slowly the length of her pale cheeks. 
 
 God knows I didn’t mean to steal,” she said aloud, and 
 the tones fell curiously on the still air. ‘^-God knows I 
 never defrauded man or woman before of anything in all 
 
1108 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 the days of my Then after a long pause she added, 
 
 There is always God/’ 
 
 She faced the position with despairing patience. Even 
 God could not bring her blamelessly through it, because she 
 had taken the piece of silk ; she was guilty. Had she been 
 wrongly accused, she would have met whatever followed, 
 confidently foreseeing her ultimate justification; but for 
 the guilty justification was impossible. I can never hold 
 up my head again,” she said blankly. 
 
 After a little, the sense of physical prostration passing 
 away, she rose and resorted to her needlework mechani- 
 cally. But it dropped from her limp hands — she felt too 
 tired, too stupid, and uninterested. 
 
 It was towards dusk when the door opened, and the min- 
 ister came in. The moment she saw him Letty knew what 
 he had come to speak about. 
 
 Mr. Witherow was a tall, slim man with a clearly cut 
 and rather rigid face, a face to which anxieties about his 
 congregation had added as many lines as the years had 
 done. In creed Mr. Witherow was a Calvinist of the Cal- 
 vinists, whose ideas of Heaven, and Immortality, and the 
 Day of Judgment were as clearly defined as his knowledge 
 of week-day and Sacrament services. Mr. Witherow had 
 never doubted once in his whole lifetime that, at the Day 
 of Judgment, he would be called by name to answer before 
 the assembled nations for each individual member of the 
 congregation committed to his charge. In his dreams Mr. 
 Witherow frequently heard himself asked in a voice that 
 was like a thunder-peal, Richard Witherow, what of An- 
 drew Wilson? Richard Witherow, what of William Burt, 
 committed to you in the long past? ” This made him 
 thankful that his congregation was small; it made the 
 attendant anxieties less, and showed him a shorter period 
 of reckoning on the Dread Day. But it kept his life here 
 very strenuous, and loaded him with a sense of personal 
 responsibility that is not generally felt in the profes- 
 sion. 
 
 I have had a visit from Mrs. Smith,” the minister began 
 simply. She is in a terrible state about three-quarters of 
 a yard of silk that she says you cut off her dress length.” 
 
 I took it,” said Letty slowly. I told her I took it.” 
 
 Mr. Witherow inclined his head sorrowfully. I did not 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1109 
 
 mean to steal, and she knows that,^^ Letty pursued stead- 
 ily. I offered her any compensation she would accept — 
 She wishes to have you made an example of ; she says 
 you ought to be excommunicated,” said Mr. Witherow, and 
 his thought was as serious as his words. 
 
 If you will sit down, sir, I will tell you just how it hap- 
 pened,” said Letty, “ and then if you think well to cut me 
 off from the means of grace — I sha^n’t complain.” Then 
 she told all the story over again, amid slow, unheeded tears. 
 
 It is very unfortunate,” Mr. Witherow said with a sigh, 
 when she had concluded. To borrow a piece of silk with- 
 out leave was a very small thing in itself, but it is an 
 opening of the door to evil. When people borrow money 
 in that way, meaning to put it back, the act sometimes 
 brings them penal servitude.” 
 
 Letty gave a shudder. I have been thinking it all out,” 
 she said ; in old times people were hanged for as little as 
 this.” 
 
 Indeed yes,” said the minister thoughtfully, ‘‘ people 
 were hanged or transported for the merest trifles; a man 
 got fourteen years^ penal servitude once, and died under 
 sentence, for stealing a potato-pie. We have reason to 
 thank God we are not so cruel nowadays.” 
 
 I suppose she could have me arrested? ” said Letty in a 
 dreary voice. 
 
 I dare say she could, and flned, but I don’t think she 
 will, though I hold her to be a rather bad kind of Chris- 
 tian; she only wants to expose you, and she will do that, 
 talking among the neighbors,” 
 
 I think the best thing I can do is to restore sevenfold 
 and then to go away from here,” the girl said huskily. 
 
 I ’ll make as good a living among strangers as I can do 
 at Grimpat, once I have lost my character, and I would 
 rather not wait for the old neighbors to give me the cold 
 shoulder. I meant no harm, God knows, but I ’ll have to 
 take the consequences of doing harm, all the same.” 
 
 When Mrs. Smith came I reasoned with her,” said the 
 minister slowly. I told her she was showing a very bad 
 spirit, even if you were guilty, which I did not believe. I 
 talked to her very seriously.” Then he rose to go. I will 
 talk to her again,” he said. Have you any objection that 
 I should offer to restore sevenfold? The Scriptures do not 
 
1110 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 speak of more, and fourfold was generally held to be suffi- 
 cient.’’ 
 
 A hundredfold,” said Letty with a sob. I have a 
 little money saved in all these years. I ’ll give her any- 
 thing she asks.” 
 
 Mr. Witherow felt very depressed as he walked down the 
 road, not so much by the thought of Lett}^’s individual suf- 
 fering as at the thought of all the suffering that so often 
 follows inadequate causes. No doubt it is because she 
 belongs to the elect that her first step astray is punished 
 so severely,” he said with a sigh. Mr. Witherow firmly 
 believed that the path of the elect here was thick with 
 thorns, but in compensation he held that these made for 
 the safety of pedestrians towards the Kingdom. Then his 
 thoughts reverted to Mrs. Smith. She certainly was an un- 
 lovely Christian, but she had been placed in his care, and 
 he was responsible for her. Her unloveliness would not 
 justify him if he had one day to answer I do not know ” 
 to the question Kichard Witherow, what has become of 
 Sarah Smith? ” 
 
 I ’ll tell her of Letty’s offer,” he said ; “ if she declines 
 to accept it, I ’ll excommunicate her for her lack of char- 
 ity — and that will surprise her more than losing her silk,” 
 he added, smiling for the first time. 
 
 Mrs. Smith was having tea when Mr. Witherow called 
 on her. She was looking bright and animated, because she 
 anticipated interesting results from the several calls she 
 intended to pay before bed-time. 
 
 Mr. Witherow took off his hat as he entered, but he did 
 not accept the seat Mrs. Smith indicated, not intending to 
 unbend to the intimacy implied in a sitting attitude. 
 
 I have been to see Miss Moore,” he began gravely, and 
 I have learned all particulars regarding your loss. Miss 
 Moore is willing to restore the value of the silk sevenfold. 
 What is its value? ” 
 
 The piece cost twenty-seven shillings.” 
 
 Then let us assume that what she took — borrowed 
 under a misapprehension, actually — is worth half-a-crown. 
 In lieu of that, she authorizes me to offer you seventeen- 
 and-sixpence.” 
 
 I Avon’t take it,” said Mrs. Smith triumphantly. “ I 
 
MRS. ESLER. 
 
 1111 
 
 would rather show her up than have the price of twenty 
 silk dresses/^ 
 
 If YOU don’t accept Miss Moore’s offer,” said the min- 
 ister imperturbably, I will summon you before the Ses- 
 sion. A woman who would want to destroy the character 
 and prospects of a girl who has lived in our midst since 
 childhood, and is a credit to the community — ” 
 
 “ A canting publican,” interrupted Mrs. Smith. 
 
 A credit to the community,” Mr. Witherow repeated 
 firmly. The woman who would want to destroy her and 
 her prospects for a half-crown matter, is not only a bad 
 Christian, but a bad woman.” 
 
 Me ! ” said Mrs. Smith, with a shriek. 
 
 If the matter comes before the Session we shall have no 
 option but to excommunicate you,” Mr. Witherow went on. 
 
 It will be a great grief to your children in America to 
 learn that the church in which their father was an elder 
 has been obliged to excommunicate their mother. It will 
 be a blot on the family history.” 
 
 I want nothing but my own again, I have a right to 
 that,” Mrs. Smith maintained stoutly, but the usual color 
 of her cheek looked thin and veinous, and her breath came 
 hurriedly. 
 
 To restore your own little bit of silk is impossible 
 under the circumstances. Miss Moore acknowledges that 
 she took it. The Bible exacts nothing but confession and 
 fourfold restitution ; Miss Moore offers sevenfold — you had 
 better accept her offer.” 
 
 She ’s got you on her side,” said Mrs. Smith bitterly. 
 A sleek, canting — ” 
 
 Mrs. Smith,” said the minister, I hope I shall al- 
 ways be found on the side of the merciful. I desire noth- 
 ing better either now or at the Last Da}^ The wish to 
 ruin a poor young friendless girl could only be prompted 
 by the devil, and as a minister of the Gospel I will oppose 
 it, in every corner of the parish. This is my last word. I 
 am very sorry that a woman of your age, so long held in 
 esteem by the neighbors, should have ever wished to act 
 such a cruel and evil part. Good-evening.” 
 
 Mr. Witherow had scarcely reached the little gate out- 
 side the cottage ere Mrs. Smith was after him. I will 
 take that seventeen-and-sixpence,” she said. 
 
1112 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Mr. Witlierow turned. ‘‘ Do you understand what that 
 binds you to? he asked. If you accept restitution, and 
 subsequently talk of your loss, you will be guilty of 
 slander, a serious offense in the eyes of the law of the 
 land.’’ 
 
 “ I wouldn’t be bothered with it,” said Mrs. Smith 
 fiercely. To tie one hand and foot and tongue, and every- 
 thing, and call this a free country, too ! ” 
 
 Mr. Witherow laid his hand on the old woman’s trem- 
 bling shoulder. Mrs. Smith,” he said, your husband 
 was one of the oldest elders in my congregation when I was 
 ordained; his was a gentle and beautiful nature; he was 
 one of the elect — his memory is yet fragrant in our midst. 
 You are yourself a woman, the mother of other women ; you 
 have been young ; possibly that experience is not so remote 
 that you are unable to recall it. Try on that account to 
 feel generously, and, because of all that is honorable in 
 your life-history, to act generously towards a sister wo- 
 man. No one ever regrets a good deed, while a deliberate 
 cruelty cannot fail to plant a sharp thorn in that last pil- 
 low on which each of us must ultimately lay his or her 
 dying head. You have now an opportunity of behaving 
 nobly and making me proud of you. I will leave it to your- 
 self to think whether or not you will embrace the oppor- 
 tunity.” 
 
 Towards eight o’clock Letty Moore was reading her 
 Bible; there are times when people find that the only 
 refuge. ^ I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
 whence cometh my help,’ ” she read aloud ; as she did so, 
 she turned her face involuntarily towards the window; 
 but it was night, and the blind Avas doAvn. At that mo- 
 ment there came a peremptory knock to the door. Letty 
 opened it, and Mrs. Smith came in. To see the girl quail 
 at her approach gave the old woman her last moment of 
 evil pleasure. 
 
 I came to speak about that silk,” she said. 
 
 Letty did not answer ; she only waited for the terrible an- 
 nouncement that Avas likely to folloAV. I was thinking 
 that maybe you might like to buy the whole of it,” she AA^ent 
 on. It cost twenty-scA^en shillings new — you can ha\^e it 
 for that.” 
 
 Mrs. Smith Avas surprised and a little dismayed at the 
 
3IRS. ESLEB. 
 
 1113 
 
 passion of Letty’s sudden burst of tears. “ You are a good 
 woman/’ she said between her sobs, a good, good woman, 
 though I thought hard things about you ! I suppose it was 
 because I was that miserable. You are a good woman ! ” 
 Letty always maintained that nobody knew the greatness 
 of Mrs. Smith’s nature till there was occasion to test it ; in 
 proof of her greatness she adduced that Mrs. Smith hated 
 to be praised. When Letty married John Willett, Mrs. 
 Smith sat beside the minister at the wedding-feast. Be- 
 yond the circle of those three, there never crept a whisper 
 of Letty’s misdoing ; it is the solitary secret the latter ever 
 kept from her husband. As to the piece of silk, it still lies 
 in Letty’s best-room bottom drawer, and when she wants to 
 remind herself that well-meaning people may go far astray 
 under sudden temptation, or that human hearts are often 
 kinder than the careless would believe, she takes out the 
 piece of silk and looks at it. 
 
THOMAS ETTINGSALL 
 
 (1800?— 1850.) 
 
 Thomas Ettingsall was born about the close of the eighteenth 
 century. He kept a fishing-tackle establishment at Woods Quay, 
 Dublin, about 1824, and afterward removed to Cork Hill. He was 
 a clever and witty writer and contributed sketches and stories to 
 The Irish Penny Journal (1840) and the Dublin Penny Journal 
 (1832). 
 
 It was in the last-named magazine, Dec. 15, 1832, that his ‘ Darby 
 Doyle’s Voyage to Quebec,’ which has been often erroneously at- 
 tributed to Lover, appeared. He was concerned with H. B. Code 
 in the authorship of ‘ The Angling Excursions of Gregory Green- 
 drake,’ which was published in Dublin in 1824. He was “ Geoffrey 
 Greydrake ” of that work, which was reprinted from The Warder. 
 He died, in poor circumstances it is said, about 1850. 
 
 DARBY DOYLE^S VOYAGE TO QUEBEC. 
 
 I tuck the road, one fine morning in May, from Inche- 
 gelagh, an’ got up to the Cove safe an’ sound. There I 
 saw many ships with big broad boords fastened to ropes, 
 every one ov them saying, The first vessel for Quebec.” 
 Siz I to myself, Those are about to run for a wager; this 
 one siz she ’ll be first, and that one siz she ’ll be first.” At 
 any rate, I pitched on one that was finely painted, and 
 looked long and slender like a corragh on the Shannon. 
 When I wint on boord to ax the fare, who sliou’d come up 
 out ov a hole but Ned Flinn, an ould townsman ov my 
 own. Och, is it yoorself that ’s there, Ned? ” siz I ; are 
 ye goin’ to Amerrykey? ” Why, an’ to be sure,” siz he; 
 
 I ’m mate ov the ship.” Meat! that ’s yer sort, Ned,” 
 siz I ; then we ’ll only want bread. Hadn’t I betther go 
 and pay my way? ” You ’re time enough,” siz Ned ; I ’ll 
 tell you when we ’re ready for sea — leave the rest to me. 
 Darby.” Och, tip us your fist,” siz I ; you were always 
 the broath ov a boy; for the sake ov ould times, Ned, we 
 must have a dhrop.” 
 
 So, my jewel, Ned brought me to where there was right 
 good stuff. When it got up to three o’clock I found myself 
 mighty weak with hunger. I got the smell ov corn beef an’ 
 
 Hi4 
 
THOMAS ETTi:^GSALL, 
 
 1115 
 
 cabbage that knock’d me up entirely. I then wint to the 
 landleddy, and siz I to her, Maybee your leddyship id not 
 think me rood by axin’ iv Ned and myself cou’d get our 
 dinner ov that fine hot mate that I got a taste ov in my 
 nose?” “In troath you can,” siz she (an’ she look’d 
 mighty pleasant), “ an’ welkim.” So, my darlin’ dish and 
 all came up. “ That ’s what I call a flaugholoch ^ mess,” siz 
 I. So we eat and drank away. Many ’s the squeeze Ned 
 gave my fist, telling me to leave it all to him, and how 
 comfortable he ’d make me on the voyage. Day afther day 
 we spint together, waitin’ for the wind, till I found my 
 pockets begin to grow very light. 
 
 At last, siz he to me, one day afther dinner, “ Darby, the 
 ship will be ready for sea on the morrow — you ’d betther 
 go on boord, an’ pay your way.” “ Is it jokin’ you are, 
 Ned? ” siz I; “ shure you tould me to leave it all to you.” 
 “ Ah ! Darby,” siz he, “ you ’re for takin’ a rise out o’ me ; 
 shure enough, ye were the lad that was never without a 
 joke — the very priest himself cou’dn’t get over ye. But, 
 Darby, there ’s no joke like the thrue one. I ’ll stick to my 
 promise; but. Darby, you must pay your way.” “ O Ned,” 
 siz I, “ is this the way you ’re goin’ to threat me afther 
 all? I ’m a rooin’d man; all I cou’d scrape together I spint 
 on you. If you don’t do something for me, I ’m lost. Is 
 there no place where you cou’d hide me from the captin? ” 
 “Not a place,” siz Ned. “ An’ where, Ned, is the place I 
 saw you coinin’ out ov? ” “ Oh, Darby, that w^as the hould 
 where the cargo ’s stow’d.” “ An’ is there no other place? ” 
 siz I. “ Oh, yes,” siz he, “ where we keep the wather 
 casks.” “ An’, Ned,” siz I, “ does any one live down 
 there? ” “ Not a mother’s soul,” siz he. “ An’, Ned,” siz 
 I, “ can’t you cram me down there, and give me a lock ov 
 straw an’ a bit? ” “ Why, Darby,” siz he (an’ he look’d 
 
 mighty pittyful), “ I must thry. But mind. Darby, you ’ll 
 have to hide all day in an empty barrel, an’ when it comes 
 to my watch, I ’ll bring you down some prog; but if you ’re 
 diskiver’d, it ’s all over with me, an’ you ’ll be put on a 
 dissilute island to starve.” “ O Ned,” siz I, “ leave it all to 
 me.” “ Never fear. Darby, I ’ll mind my eye.” When 
 night cum on I got down into the dark cellar, among the 
 barrels; poor Ned fixt a place in a corner for me to sleep, 
 1 Flaugholoch, princely— i. e. a fine mess. 
 
1116 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 an’ every night he brought me down hard black cakes an’ 
 salt meat. There I lay snug for a whole month. 
 
 At last, one night, siz he to me, Now, Darby, what ’s 
 to be done? we’re within three days’ sail of Quebec; the 
 ship will be overhauled, and all the passengers’ names 
 call’d over ; if you are found, you ’ll be sould as a slave for 
 your passage money.” An’ is that all that frets you, 
 my jewel,” siz I ; can’t you leave it all to me? In throath, 
 Ned, I ’ll never forget your hospitality at any rate. But, 
 tWhat place is outside of the ship? ” “ Why, the sea, to be 
 sure,” siz he. Och ! botheration,” siz I, I mean what ’s 
 the outside the ship? ” Why, Darby,” siz he, part of 
 it ’s called the bulwark.” An’ fire an’ faggots,” siz I, is 
 it bulls work the vessel along? ” No, nor horses,” siz 
 he, neither; this is no time for jokin’; what do you mean 
 to do? ” Why, I ’ll tell you, Ned; get me an empty meal- 
 bag, a bottle, an’ a bare ham-bone, and that ’s all I ’ll ax.” 
 So, begad, Ned look’d very queer at me; so he got them for 
 me, anyhow. Well, Ned,” siz I, you know I ’m a great 
 shwimmer; your watch will be early in the mornin’; I’ll 
 jist slip down into the sea; do you cry out, there’s a man 
 in the wather, as loud as you can, and leave all the rest to 
 me.” 
 
 Well, to be sure, down into the sea I dropt without so 
 much as a splash. Ned roared out with the hoarseness of a 
 brayin’ ass — a man in the sea ! a man in the sea ! ” Every 
 man, woman, and child came running up out of the holes, 
 the captin among the rest, who put a long red barrel like a 
 gun to his eye — gibbet me, but I thought he was for 
 shootin’ me ! down I dived. When I got my head over the 
 wather agen, what shou’d I see but a boat rowin’ to me, as 
 fast as a throut afther a pinkeen.^ When it came up close 
 enough to be heard, I roared out : Bad end to yees, for a 
 
 set ov spalpeen rascals, did ye hear me at last? ” The boat 
 now run ’pon the top ov me ; down I dived agen like a duck 
 afther a frog, but the minnit my skull came over the 
 wather, I was gript by the scruft ov the neck, and dhragged 
 into the boat. To be shure, I didn’t kick up a row — Let 
 go my hair, ye blue devils,” I roared; “ it ’s well ye have me 
 in your marcy in this dissilute place, or by the powthers 
 I ’d make ye feel the strinth ov my bones. What hard look 
 1 Pinkeen, a small fish. 
 
TEOMAS ETTIEG^ALL. 
 
 1117 
 
 I had to follow yees, at all at all — which ov ye is the mas- 
 ther? As I sed this every mother’s son began to stare at 
 me, with my bag round my neck, an’ my bottle by my side, 
 an’ the bare bone in my fist. There he is,” siz they, 
 pointin’ to a little yellow man in a corner of the boat. 
 
 “ May the rise blisthers on your rapin’-hook shins,” 
 
 siz I, you yallow-lookin’ monkey, but it ’s a’most time for 
 you to think ov lettin’ me into your ship — I ’m here plowin’ 
 and plungin’ this month afther ye; shure I didn’t care 
 a thratvneen was it not that you have my best Sunday 
 clothes in your ship, and my name in your books. For 
 three sthraws, if I don’t know how to write, I ’d leave my 
 mark, an’ that on your skull ” ; so saying I made a lick at 
 him with the ham-bone, but I was near tumblin’ into the 
 sea agen. An’, pray, what is your name, my lad? ” siz 
 the captin. What ’s my name ! What id you give to 
 know?” siz I; ye unmannerly spalpeen, it might be 
 what ’s your name. Darby Doyle, out ov your mouth — ay. 
 Darby Doyle, that was never afraid or ashamed to own it 
 at home or abroad ! ” An’, Mr. Darby Doyle,” siz he, do 
 you mean to persuade us that you swum from Cork to this 
 afther us?” This is more ov your ignorance,” siz I — 
 ay, an’ if you sted three days longer and not take me up, 
 I ’d be in Quebec before ye, only my purvisions were out, 
 and the few rags ov bank notes I had all melted into paste 
 in my pocket, for I hadn’t time to get them changed. But 
 stay, wait till I get my foot on shore; there’s ne’er a cot- 
 toner in Cork iv you don’t pay for leavin’ me to the marcy 
 ov the waves.” 
 
 All this time the blue chaps were pushin’ the boat with 
 sticks through the wather, till at last we came close to the 
 ship. Every one on board saw me at the Cove, but didn’t 
 see me on the voyage ; to be sure, every one ’s mouth was 
 
 wide open, crying out Darby Doyle. The stop your 
 
 throats,” siz I, it ’s now you call me loud enough ; ye 
 wouldn’t shout that way when ye saw me rowlin’ like a tub 
 in a millrace the other day forenenst your faces.” When 
 they heard me say that, some of them grew pale as a sheet 
 — every thumb was at work till they a’most brought the 
 blood from their forreds. But, my jewel, the captin does 
 no more than runs to the book, an’ calls out the names that 
 paid, and them that wasn’t paid — to be shure, I was one ov 
 
1118 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 them that didn’t pay. If the captin looked at me before 
 with ivondlierment , he now looked with astonishment ! 
 
 Nothin’ was tawk’d ov for the other three days but Darby 
 Doyle’s great shwim from the Cove to Quebec. One sed, 
 I always knew Darby to be a great shwimmer.” Do 
 ye remimber,” siz another, when Darby’s dog was nigh 
 been drownded in the great duck hunt, when Darby peeled 
 olf and brought in the dog, and made afther the duck him- 
 self, and swum for two hours endways; and do ye remimber 
 when all the dogs gother round the duck at one time ; whin 
 it wint down how Darby dived afther it, and sted down 
 for a’most an hour — and sted below while the creathur 
 was eatin’ a few frogs, for she was weak an’ hungry; and 
 when everybody thought he was lost, up he came with the 
 duck by the leg in his kithogue? ” ^ 
 
 Begar, I agreed to all thej^ sed, till at last we got to 
 Amerrykey. I was now in a quare way; the captin 
 wouldn’t let me go till a friend of his would see me. By 
 this time, my jewel, not only his friends came, but swarms 
 upon swarms, starin’ at poor Darby. At last I called Ned. 
 
 Ned, avic,” siz I, I want to go about my hisness.’^ Be 
 easy. Darby,” siz he; haven’t ye your fill ov good aitin’? 
 an’ the captin’s got mighty fond ov ye entirely.” “ Is he, 
 Ned?” siz I; but tell us, Ned, are all them crowds ov 
 people goin’ to sea?” “ Augh, ye omadhaun,” ^ siz Ned, 
 ‘‘ sure they are come to look at you.” Just as he said this, 
 a tall yallow man, with a black curl^^ head, comes and 
 stares me full in the face. “ You ’ll know me agen,” says I, 
 bad luck to yer manners and the schoolmasther that 
 taught ye.” But I thought he was goin’ to shake hands 
 with me, when he tuck hould ov my fist and opened every 
 finger, one by one, then opened my shirt and look’t at my 
 breast. Pull away, ma-bouchal,” siz I, I ’m no desar- 
 thur, at any rate.” But never an answer he made, but 
 walk’d down into the hole where the captin lived. This 
 is more ov it,” siz I; Ned, what cou’d that tallah-faced 
 man mean? ” Why,” siz Ned, he was lookin^ to see iv 
 your fingers were webb’d, or had ye scales on your breast.” 
 His impidence is great,” siz I ; “ did he take me for a duck 
 or a bream? But, Ned, what ’s the meanin’ ov the boords 
 acrass the stick the people walk on, and the big white boord 
 ^ Kithogue, left hand. ^ Omadhaun, silly fellow. 
 
THOMAS ETTINGSALL. 
 
 1119 
 
 up there? Why, come over and read,’’ siz Ned. But, 
 my jewel, I didn’t know whether I was stannin’ on my head 
 or on my heels when I saw in great big black letters — 
 
 THE GREATEST WONDHER OP THE WORLD ! ! ! 
 
 TO BE SEEN HERE, 
 
 A Man that heats out Nicholas the Diver! 
 
 He has swum from Cork to Amerrykey ! ! 
 
 Proved on oath by ten of the Crew and twenty Passengers. 
 Admittance Half a Dollar. 
 
 Bloody wars ! Ned,” siz I, does this mean your humble 
 sarvint?” Divil another,” siz he, — so I makes no more 
 ado, than with a hop, skip, and jump, gets over to the 
 captin, who was now talkin’ to the yallow fellow that was 
 afther starin’ me out ov countenance. Pardon my rude- 
 ness, your honor,” siz I, mighty polite, and makin’ a bow 
 — at the same time Ned was at my heels — so rising my foot 
 to give the genteel scrape, sure I scraped all the skin off 
 Ned’s shins. May bad luck to your brogues,” siz he. 
 
 You ’d betther not curse the wearer,” siz I, or ” 
 
 Oh, Darby ! ” siz the captin, “ don’t be unginteel, an’ so 
 many ladies and gintlemin lookin’ at ye.” The never an 
 other mother’s soul shall lay their peepers on me till I see 
 sweet Inchegelagli agen,” says I. Begar ye are doin’ it 
 well. How much money have ye gother for my shwim- 
 min’? ” Be quiet. Darby,” siz the captin, and he looked 
 very much friekened. I have plenty, an’ I ’ll have more 
 for ye iv ye do what I want ye to do.” An’ w^hat is it, 
 avic? ” siz I. ‘‘ Why, Darby,” siz he, I ’m afther houldin’ 
 a wager last night with this gintleman for all the worth ov 
 my ship, that you ’ll shwim against any shwimmer in the 
 world; an’. Darby, if ye don’t do that, I ’m a gone man.” 
 “ Augh, give us your fist,” siz I ; did ye ever hear ov 
 Paddy’s dishaving any man in the European world yet — 
 barrin’ themselves? ” Well, Darby,” siz he, I ’ll give 
 you a hundred dollars; but. Darby, you must be to your 
 word, and you shall have another hundred.” 
 
 So sayin’, he brought me down into the cellar; but, my 
 jewel, I didn’t think for the life ov me to see such a won- 
 
1120 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 dherful place — nothin’ but goold every way I turned, and 
 Darby’s own sweet face in twenty places. Begar I was 
 a’ruost ashamed to ax the gintleman for the dollars. “ But,” 
 siz I to myself agen, the gintleman has too much money. 
 I suppose he does be throwin’ it into the sea, for I often 
 heard the sea was richer than the land, so I may as well 
 take it anyhow.” Now, Darby,” siz he, here ’s the dol- 
 lars for ye.” But, begar, it was only a bit of paper he was 
 handin’ me. Arrah, none ov yer tricks upon thravelers,” 
 siz I ; I had betther nor that, and many more ov them, 
 melted in the sea; give me what won’t wash out ov my 
 pocket.” Why, Darby,” siz he, this is an ordher on a 
 merchant for the amount.” Pho, pho ! ” siz I, I ’d sooner 
 take your word nor his oath ” — lookin’ round mighty re- 
 spectful at the goold walls. Well, Darby,” siz he, ye 
 must have the real thing.” So, by the powthers, he reck- 
 on’d me out a hundred dollars in goold. I never saw the 
 Iflve since the stockin’ fell out of the chimly on my aunt 
 and cut her forred. Now, Darby,” siz he, ye are a rich 
 man, an’ ye are worthy of it all — sit down. Darby, an’ take 
 a bottle ov wine.” So to please the gintleman, I sat down. 
 Afther a bit, who comes down but Ned. Captin,” siz he, 
 the deck is crowded ; I had to block up the gangway to 
 prevint any more from cornin’ in to see Darby. Bring him 
 up, or, blow me, iv the ship won’t be sunk.” Come up. 
 Darby,” siz the captin’, lookin’ roguish pleasant at myself. 
 So, my jewel, he handed me up through the hall as tendher 
 as iv I was a lady, or a pound ov fresh butther in the dog 
 days. 
 
 When I got up, shure enough, I couldn’t help starin’; 
 such crowds of fine ladies and yallow gintlemen never was 
 seen before in any ship. One ov them, a little rosy-cheek’d 
 beauty, whispered the captin somethin’, but he shuk his 
 head, and then came over to me. Darby,” siz he, I know 
 an Irishman would do anything to please a lady.” In 
 throth you may say that with yer own ugly mouth,” siz I. 
 “ Well, then. Darby,” siz he, the ladies would wish to see 
 you give a few strokes in the sea.” Och, an’ they shall 
 have them in welcome,” siz I. That ’s a good fellow,” siz 
 he; now strip off.” ^‘Decency, Katty,” siz I; is it in 
 my mother-naked pelt before the ladies? Bad luck to the 
 undacent brazen-faced — but no matther! Irish girls for- 
 
THOMAS ETTIHGSALH 
 
 1121 
 
 ever, afther all ! But all to no use. I was made to peel 
 off behind a big sheet, and then I made one race and jumpt 
 ten yards into the wather to get out ov their sight. Shure 
 enough, every one’s eyes danced in their head, while they 
 look’d on the spot where I went down. A thought came 
 into my head while I was below, how I ’d show them a little 
 divarsion, as I could use a great many thricks on the 
 wather. So I didn’t rise at all till I got to the tother side, 
 and every one run to that side; then I took a hoult ov my 
 two big toes, and, makin’ a ring ov myself, rowled like a 
 hoop on the top ov the wather all round the ship. I b’leeve 
 I opened their eyes ! Then I yarded, back-swum, an’ dived, 
 till at last the captin made signs for me to come out, so I 
 got into the boat an’ threw on my duds. The very ladies 
 were breakin’ their necks runnin’ to shake hands with me. 
 “ Shure,” siz they, you ’re the greatest man in the 
 world ! ! ” So for three days I showed off to crowds ov 
 people, though I was fryin’ in the wather for shame. 
 
 At last the day came that I was to stand the tug. I saw 
 the captin lookin’ very often at me. At last, Darby,” siz 
 he, are you anyway cow’d? The fellow you have to shwim 
 agenst can shwim down wather falls an’ catharacts.” 
 Can, he, avic? ” siz I ; but can he shwim up agenst them? 
 Wow, wow. Darby, for that ! But, captin, come here ; is all 
 my purvisions ready? — don’t let me fall short ov a dhrop 
 ov the rale stuff above all things.” An’ who shou’d come 
 up while I was tawkin’ to the captin but the chap I was to 
 shwim with, an’ heard all I sed. Begar ! his eyes grew as 
 big as two oysther shells. Then the captin call’d me aside. 
 
 Darby,” siz he, do ye put on this green jacket an’ white 
 throwsers, that the people may betther extinguish you from 
 the other chap.” With all hearts, avic,” siz I, green for 
 ever — Darby’s own favorite color the world over ; but 
 where am I goin’ to, captin?” To the shwimmin’ place, 
 to be shure,” siz he. Divil shoot the failers an’ take the 
 hindmost,” siz I; here ’s at ye.” 
 
 I was then inthro juiced to the shwimmer. I look’d at 
 him from head to foot. He was so tall that he could eat 
 bread an’ butther over my head — with a face as yallow as a 
 kite’s foot. Tip up the mitten,” siz I, ma-bouchal,” siz 
 I. (But, begad, I was puzzled. Begar,” siz I to myself, 
 I ’m done. Cheer up, Darby I If I ’m not able to kill him, 
 
 15— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1122 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I ’ll frighten the life out ov him.”) Where are we goin’ 
 to shwiiii to? ” But never a word he answered. Are ye 
 bothered, neighbor? ” I reckon I ’m not,” siz he, mighty 
 chuff. Well, then,” siz I, why didn’t ye answer your bet- 
 thers? What id ye think iv we shwum to Keep Cleer or the 
 Keep ov Good Hope? ” I reckon neither,” siz he agen, 
 eyein’ me as iv I was goin’ to pick his pockets. Well, 
 then, have ye any favorite place? ” siz I. Now, I ’ve 
 lieard a great deal about the place where poor Boney died ; 
 I ’d like to see it, iv I ’d any one to show me the place; 
 suppose we wint there? ” Not a taste of a word cou’d I get 
 out ov him, good or bad. 
 
 Off we set through the crowds ov ladies an’ gintlemen. 
 Such cheerin’ and wavin’ ov hats was never seen even at 
 Dan’s enthry ; an’ then the row ov purty girls laughin’ an’ 
 rubbin’ up against me, that I cou’d Iiar’ly get on. To be 
 shure, no one cou’d be lookin’ to the ground, an’ not be 
 lookin’ at them, till at last I was thript up by a big loomp 
 ov iron stuck fast in the ground with a big ring to it. 
 
 Whoo, Darby ! ” siz I, makin’ a hop an’ a crack ov my 
 fingers, you ’re not doAvn yet.” I turn’d roun’ to look at 
 what thript me. What d’ ye call that? ” siz I to the 
 captin, who was at my elbow. Why, Darby?” siz he; 
 
 that ’s half an anchor.” Have ye any use for it? ” siz 
 I. ^‘Not in the least,” siz he; ^^it’s only to fasten boats 
 to.” Maybee, you ’d give it to a body,” siz I. An’ wei- 
 kim, Darb}',” siz he ; it ’s yours.” God bless your 
 honor, sir,” siz I, it ’s my poor father that will pray for 
 you. When I left home the creather hadn’t as much as an 
 anvil but what was sthreeled away by the agint — bad end 
 to them. This will be jist the thing that ’ll match him; he 
 can tie the horse to the ring, while he forges on the other 
 part. 
 
 Now, will ye obleege me by gettin’ a couple ov chaps to 
 lay it on my shoulder when I get into the wather, and I 
 won’t have to be cornin’ back for it afther I shake bans with 
 this fellow.” Begar, the chap turned from yallow to white 
 when he heard me say this. An’ siz he to the gintleman 
 that was walkin’ by his side, I reckon I ’m not fit for the 
 shwimmin’ to-day — I don’t feel myself.” An’ murdher 
 an Irish, if you ’re yer brother, can’t you send him for yer- 
 gelf, an’ I ’ll wait here til^te comes? Here, man, take a 
 
TEOMA^ ETTIEG^ALL, 
 
 1123 
 
 dhrop ov this before ye go. Here ’s to yer betther health, 
 and your brother’s into the bargain.” So I took off my 
 glass, and handed him another; but the never a dhrop ov 
 it he ’d take. No force,” siz I, “ avic; maybee you think 
 there ’s poison in it — well, here ’s another good luck to us. 
 An’ when will ye be able for the shwim, avic?” siz I, 
 mighty complisant. I reckon in another week,” siz he. 
 So we shook hands and parted. The poor fellow went 
 home — took the fever — then began to rave. Shwim up 
 the catharacts! — shwim to the Keep ov Good Hope! — 
 shwim to St. Helena ! — shwim to Keep Cleer ! — shwim with 
 an anchor on his back ! — Oh ! oh ! oh ! ” 
 
 I now thought it best to be on the move; so I gother up 
 my winners ; and here I sit undher my own hickory threes, 
 as independent as any Yankee. 
 
FRANCIS A. FAHY. 
 
 (1854 ) 
 
 Francis A. Fahy was born in Kinvara, County Galway, Sept. 
 29, 1854. At the age of sixteen he wrote a play, ‘ The Last of the 
 O’Learys,’ which was performed in his native town. He went to 
 London as a civil service clerk in 1873, where he still lives. He 
 has taken an active part in various Irish literary movements in 
 London, especially in the formation of the Southwark Irish Literary 
 Club and the Irish Literary Society, which grew out of it. He 
 wrote many poems for the Irish papers, signed Dreoilin^' (the 
 Wren), and in 1887 published a collection of Irish songs and poems 
 in Dublin. 
 
 His songs are eminently singable and many of them are well- 
 known favorites in the concert-hall and drawing-room. They are 
 not only artless, simple, and winning, but altogether Irish in their 
 admixture of humor, sentiment, and pathos. Though in some re- 
 spects his name may well be bracketed with that of Mr. A. P. Graves, 
 he differs from him in that sings of the inner and 
 
 home life of the people, while Mr. Graves’ songs are almost all 
 pastoral and deal with out-of-door life. 
 
 HOW TO BECOME A POET. 
 
 Of all the sayings which have misled mankind from the 
 days of Adam to Churchill, not one has been more harmful 
 than the old Latin one, A poet is born, not made.’’ 
 
 The human intellect, it is said, may, by patient toil and 
 study, gather laurels in all fields of knowledge save one — 
 that of poesy. You may, by dint of hard work, become 
 a captain in the Salvation Army, a corporation crossing- 
 sweeper — ay, even an unsuccessful Chief Secretary for 
 Ireland ; but no amount of labor or perseverance will win 
 you the favor of the Muses unless those fickle-minded 
 ladies have presided at your birth, wrapped you, so to 
 speak, in the swadding clothes of metre, and fashioned 
 your first yells according to the laws of rhythm and rhyme. 
 
 Foolish, fatal fallacy! How many geniuses has it not 
 nipped in the bud — how many vaulting ambitions has it 
 not brought to grief, what treasures of melody has it not 
 shut up for ever to mankind ! 
 
 Hence the paucity of poetical contributions to the press, 
 the eagerness of publishers to secure the slightest scrap of 
 
 1124 
 
FRANCIS A. FAHY. 
 
 1125 
 
 verse, the bashfulness and timidity of authors, who yet in 
 their hearts are quite confident of their ability to transcend 
 the best efforts of the stars of ancient or modern song. 
 
 Now the first thing that will strike you in reading poeti- 
 cal pieces is the fact that nearh^ all the lines end in rhymed 
 words, or words ending in similar sounds, such as “ kick, 
 lick, stick,’’ drink, ink, wink,” etc. 
 
 This constitutes the real difference between prose and 
 poetry. For instance, the phrase, The dread monarch 
 stood on his head,” is prose, but 
 
 ‘ ‘ The monarch dread 
 Stood on his head.” 
 
 is undeniable poetry. 
 
 Rhyme, is, in fact, the chief or only feature in modern 
 poetry. Get your endings to rhyme and you need trouble 
 your head about little else. A certain amount of common 
 sense is demanded by severe critics; the general public, 
 however, never look for it, would be astonished to find it, 
 and, as a matter of fact, seldom or never do find it. 
 
 By careful study of the best authors you will soon dis- 
 cover what words rhyme with each other, and these you 
 should diligently record in a small note-book, procurable at 
 any respectable stationers’ for the ridiculously small sum 
 of one penny. 
 
 Few researches afford keener intellectual pleasure than 
 the discovery of rhymes, in such words, say, as cat, rat, 
 Pat, scat,” shed, head, said, dead,” and it is excellent 
 elementary training for the young poet to combine such 
 words into versed sentences, and even sing them to a 
 popular operatic air. 
 
 For example — 
 
 “ With that the cat 
 Sprang at the rat, 
 
 Whereat poor Pat 
 Yelled out ‘ Iss-cat.’ 
 
 The roof of the shed 
 Fell plop on his head, 
 
 No more he said, 
 
 But fell down dead.” 
 
 These first efforts of your muse are of high interest, and, 
 although it would not be advisable to rush to press with 
 
1126 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 them, they should be sedulously preserved for the use of 
 future biographers, when fame, honors, and emoluments 
 shall liave showered in upon you. 
 
 A little caution is needed in the use of such rhymes as 
 fire, higher, Maria,^’ Hannah, manner, dinner,’’ “ fight, 
 riot, quiet.” There is excellent authority for these, but it 
 is well to recognize that an absurd prejudice does exist 
 against them. 
 
 You will soon make the profitable discovery that there is 
 a host of words, the members of which run, like beagles, in 
 couples, the one invariably suggesting the other, such as 
 peeler, squealer”; ^Mick, stick”; “Ireland, sireland”; 
 “ ocean, commotion,” and so on. 
 
 “ ’Tvvas then my bold peeler 
 Made after the squealer ; 
 
 “ He fetched him a lick 
 Of a murdering stick ; ” 
 
 “His shriek spread from Ireland, 
 
 My own beloved sireland; ” 
 
 “ And raised a commotion 
 Beyond the wide ocean.” 
 
 Were it not for such handy couplets as these, most of 
 our modern bards would be forced to earn their bread 
 honestly. 
 
 Of equal importance is “ apt alliteration’s artful aid.” 
 It consists in stringing together a number of words begin- 
 ning with the same letter. A large school of our bards owe 
 their fame to this figure. You should make a free use of it. 
 How effective are such phrases as “ For Freedom, Faith, 
 and Fatherland we fight or fall”; “Dear Dirty Dublin’s 
 damp and dreary dungeons ” ; “ Softy shone the setting sun 
 in Summer splendor ” ; “ Blow the blooming heather ” ; 
 “ Winter winds are wailing wildly.” 
 
 Of great effect at this stage of your progress will be the 
 adroit and unstinted employment of such phrases as “ I 
 wis,” “ I wot,” “ I trow,” “ In sooth,” “ Methinks,” “ Of 
 yore,” “ Erstwhile,” “ Alack,” a plentiful sprinkling of 
 which, like currants in a cake, will impart a quaint poeti- 
 cal flavor to your verses, making up for a total want of 
 sense and sentiment. Observe their effect in the following 
 admirable lines from Scott; — 
 
FRA^^GI^ A. FAHY. 
 
 1127 
 
 “ It were, I ween, a bootless task to tell 
 How here, of yore, in sooth, the foeman fell, 
 
 Erstwhile the Paynim sank with eerie yell, 
 
 Alack, in goodly guise, forsooth, to ” 
 
 Of like value are words melodious in sound or poetical 
 in suggestion, like nightingale,’’ moonlight,” rounde- 
 lay,” “ trill,” dreamy,” and so on, which, freely used, 
 throw a glamour over the imagination and lull thought, the 
 chiefest value of verse nowadays. 
 
 ‘ ‘ There trills the nightingale his roundelay 
 In dreamy moonlight till the dawn of day.” 
 
 Note that in poetic diction you must by no means call 
 a spade a spade.” The statement of a plain fact is highly 
 objectionable, and a roundabout expression has to be re- 
 sorted to. For example, if a girl have red hair, describe it 
 as 
 
 “ Glowing with the glory of the golden God of Day,” 
 
 or, if Nature has blest her with a ‘‘‘ pug-nose,” you should, 
 like Tennyson, describe it as 
 
 “ Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower.” 
 
 For similar reasons words of mean significance have to 
 be avoided. For instance, for dead drunk,” use spirit- 
 uously disguised ” ; for thirty days in quod,” one moon 
 in durance vile.” You may now be said to have mastered 
 the rudiments of modern poetry, and your future course 
 is easy. 
 
 You may now choose, although it is not at all essential, 
 to write on a subject conveying some meaning to your 
 reader’s mind. You would do well to try one of a familiar 
 kind, or of personal or everyday interest, of which the 
 following are specimens : — Lines on beholding a dead 
 rat in the street ” ; Impromptu on being asked to have 
 a drink ” ; Reverie on being asked to stand one ” ; Epi- 
 taph on my mother-in-law ” ; Ode to my creditors ” ; 
 ^‘Morning soliloquy in a police cell”; ‘^Acrostic on a 
 shillelah.” Through pieces of this character the soul of 
 the writer permeates. Hence their abiding value and 
 
1128 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 permanency on second-hand book-stalls. Then you may 
 seek fresh woods and pastures new/^ and weave garlands 
 in fields untrod by the ordinary bard. One of these is 
 
 Spring.’’ Conceive the idea of that season in your mind. 
 Winter gone, Summer coming, coughs being cured, over- 
 coats put up the spout, streets dryer, coals cheaper, or — if 
 you love nature — the strange facts of the leaves budding, 
 winds surging, etc. Then probably the spirit (waterproof) 
 of poesy will take possession of you, and you will blossom 
 into song as follows : — 
 
 “ ’ T is the Spring ! ’T is the Spring ! 
 
 Little birds begin to sing. 
 
 See ! the lark is on the wing, 
 
 The sun shines out like anything ; 
 
 And the sweet and tender lamb 
 Skips besides his great big dam, 
 
 While the rough and horny ram 
 Thinketh single life a sham. 
 
 “ Now the East is in the breeze. 
 
 Now old maids begin to sneeze. 
 
 Now the leaves are on the trees. 
 
 Now I cannot choose but sing : 
 
 Oh, ’t is Spring ! ’t is Spring ! ’t is Spring ! ” 
 
 Verses like the above have an intrinsic charm, but 
 if you should think them too trivial, you may soar into 
 the higher regions of thought, and expand your soul in 
 epics on, say, “ The Creation,” The Deluge,” The Fall 
 of Rome,” The Future of Man.” You possibly know 
 nothing whatever of those subjects, but that is an advan- 
 tage, as you will bring a fresh unhackneyed mind to bear 
 upon them. 
 
 I need hardly tell you that there is one subject above all 
 others whose most fitting garb is poetry, and that is — Love. 
 Fall in love if you can. It is easy — nothing easier to 
 a poet. He is mostly always in love, and with ten at a 
 time. But if you cannot, or (hapless wretch!) if you find 
 it an entirely one-sided affair — very little free trade, and 
 no reciprocity — ay, even if you be a married man who 
 walketh the floor of nights, and vainly seeketh to soothe 
 the seventh olive-branch — despair not. To write of Love, 
 needeth not to feel it. If not in love, imagine you are. 
 Extol in unmeasured terms the beauty of your adored one 
 
FRANCIS A. FAHY. 
 
 1129 
 
 — matchless, as the pipe-bearing stranger in the street — 
 peerless, as the American House of Representatives. 
 Safely call on mankind to produce her equal, and inform 
 the world that you would give up all its honors and 
 riches (of which you own none) for the sake of your 
 Dulcinea; but tell them not the fact that you would not 
 forego your nightly pipe and glass of rum punch for the 
 best woman that ever breathed. Cultivate a melancholy 
 mood. Call the fair one all sorts of names, heartless, cold, 
 exacting — yourself, a miserable wight, hurrying hot haste 
 to an early grave, and bid her come and shed unavailing 
 tears there. At the same time keep your strength up, and 
 don^t forget your four meals a day and a collation. 
 
 I need not touch on the number of feet required in the 
 various kinds of verse, as if a verse lacks a foot anywhere 
 you are almost sure to put yours in it. 
 
 And now to cast your lines in pleasant places.’’ 
 
 Having fairly mastered the gamut of poetical composi- 
 tion, you will be open to a few hints as to the publication 
 of your effusions. It is often suggested that the opinion of 
 a friend should be consulted at the outset as to their value. 
 Of course you may do so, but, as friends go nowadays, you 
 must be prepared to ignore his verdict. It is now you will 
 discover that even the judgment of your dearest and most 
 intellectual friend is not alone untrustworthy, but really 
 below contempt, and that what he styles his candor is 
 nothing less than brutality. I have known the greatest 
 coolnesses ascribable to this cause, and the noblest off- 
 spring of the muse consigned to oblivion in weak defer- 
 ence to a friendly opinion. On the other hand, it is often 
 of great value to read aloud your longest epics to some 
 one who is in any way indebted to you and cannot well 
 resent it. 
 
 Where the poet’s corners of so many papers await you, 
 the choice of a medium to convey your burning thoughts to 
 the world will be easily made. You will scarcely be liable, 
 I hope, to the confusion of mind of a friend of mine who, 
 in mistake, sent his Ode to Death ” to the editor of a 
 comic paper, and found it accepted as eminently suitable. 
 
 You should write your poem carefully on superfine paper 
 with as little blotting, scratching, and bad spelling as you 
 can manage. 
 
1130 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE. 
 
 To smooth the way to insertion, you might also write a 
 conciliatory note to the editor, somewhat in this vein : — 
 
 “ Respected Sir, — It is with much diffidence that a young poet of 
 seventeen {no mention of the wife and five children) begs to send you 
 his first attempt to woo the Muses {it may he your eighty -first, hut no 
 matter). Hoping the same may be deemed worthy of insertion in the 
 widely read columns of your admirable journal, with whose opinions 
 I have the great pleasure of being in thorough accord {you may have 
 never read a line of it before), I have the honor to be, respected sir, 
 your obedient humble servant, Homer. 
 
 “ P.S. — If inserted, kindly affix my full name as A. B. ; if not, my 
 nom-de-plume, ‘Homer.’ 
 
 “ N.B. — If inserted send me twenty copies of your valuable paper. 
 — Homer.” 
 
 It will be vain to attempt to describe your feelings from 
 the time you post that letter until you know the result of 
 3^our venture. Your reason is unhinged; you cannot rest 
 or sleep, l^ou hang about that newspaper office for hours 
 before the expected edition is out of the press. At last it 
 appears. Trembling with eagerness you seize the coveted 
 issue, and disregarding the Double Murder and Suicide 
 in the Collapse of the Bank of the Out- 
 
 break of War between France and Germany,’’ you dash to 
 the poet’s corner and search with dazed eyes for your fate. 
 
 You may have vaguely heard, at some period of your life, 
 of the mean, petty jealousies that befoul the clear current 
 of journalism, and frown down new and aspiring talent, 
 however promising, and you may have indignantly refused 
 to believe sucli statements. Alas! now shall you feel the 
 full force of their truth in your own person. 
 
 Y^ou look for your poem blindly, confusedly — amazed, 
 bewildered, disgusted ! You turn that paper inside out, 
 upside down; you search in the Parliamentary debates, in 
 the Money Market, in the Births, Deaths, and Marriages, 
 in the advertisements — everywhere. No sign of it ! 
 
 With your heart in your boots you turn to the Answers 
 to Correspondents,” there to find your nom-de-plume head- 
 ing some scurrilous inanity from the editorial chair, of one 
 or other of the following patterns : — 
 
 “ Homer — Don't try again ! ” 
 
 “Homer — Sweet seventeen. So young, so innocent. Hence we 
 spare you.” 
 
FRA^^CI^ A, FAHY. 
 
 1131 
 
 “ Homer — Have you no friends to look after you ? ” 
 
 “ Homer — Do you really expect us to ruin this paper ? ” 
 
 “Homer — Send it to the Telegraph man. We have a grudge 
 against him.” 
 
 “ Homer — The 71st Ode to Spring this year ! And yet we live.” 
 
 While it would be quite natural to indulge in any num- 
 ber of cuss ’’ words, your best plan will be to veil your 
 wrath, and, refraining from smashing the editorial win- 
 dows, write the editor a studiously polite letter, asking 
 him to be good enough to point out for your benefit any 
 errors or defects in the poem submitted to him. This will 
 fairly corner him, and he will probably be driven to dis- 
 close his meanness in the next issue : — 
 
 “ Homer — If you will engage to pay for the working of this journal 
 during the twelve months it would take us to explain the defects in 
 your poem, we are quite wulling to undertake the job.” 
 
 Insults and disappointments like these are the ordinary 
 lot of rising genius, and should only nerve you to greater 
 efforts. Perseverance will ultimately wfin, though it may 
 not deserve, success. 
 
 And who shall paint the joy that will irradiate life when 
 you find yourself in print for the first time? who shall de- 
 scribe the delirium of reading your own verses? a delight 
 leading you almost to forgive the printer's error which 
 turns your blessM rule ’’ into blasted fool,’’ and your 
 “ Spring quickens ” into Spring chickens ” ; who will 
 count the copies of that paper you will send to all your 
 friends? 
 
 By-and-bye your fame spreads and you rank of the elite; 
 you assume the air and manners of a poet. You wear 
 your hair long (it saves barber’s charges). You are fond 
 of solitary walks, communing with yourself (or somebody 
 else). You assume a rapt and abstracted air in society 
 (when asked to stand a drink). You despise mere mun- 
 dane matters (debts, engagements, and the like). Your 
 eyes have a far-away look (when you meet a poor relation). 
 When people talk of Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, etc., 
 you smile pityingly, and say: Ah, yes! Poor Alfred (or 
 
 Robert or Algernon, as the case may be) ; he means well — 
 he means well ” ; and you ask your friends if they have read 
 your Spirit Reveries,” and if not, you immediately pro- 
 
1132 
 
 IBISH LITERATURE. 
 
 cluce it from your pocket, and read it (never be without 
 copies of 3^our latest pieces for this purpose). 
 
 And now farewell and God-speed. You are on the high 
 road to renown. 
 
 “ Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour, 
 
 They crown you with laurels and throne you in power, 
 
 Oh, think of the friend who first guided your way. 
 
 And set you such rules you could not go astray, 
 
 And who, as reward, doth but one favor claim. 
 
 That you icon't dedicate your first vol. to his name.” 
 
 THE DONOVANS. 
 
 If you would like to see the height of hospitality, 
 
 The cream of kindly welcome, and the core of cordiality: 
 Joys of all the olden time — you’re wishing to recall again? 
 Come down to Donovans, and there you ’ll meet them all 
 again. 
 
 Cead mile fdilte ^ they ’ll give you down at Donovans, 
 
 As cheery as the springtime and Irish as the cannmvaun^ 
 The wish of my heart is, if ever I had any one — 
 
 That every luck that lightens life may light upon the 
 Donovans. 
 
 As soon as e’er you lift the latch, the little ones are meeting 
 you ; 
 
 Soon as you ’re beneath the thatch, oh ! kindly looks are greet- 
 ing you : 
 
 Scarcely are you ready to be holding out the fist to them. 
 
 When down by the fireside you ’re sitting in the midst of them. 
 Cead mile fdilte they ’ll give you down at Donovans, &c. 
 
 There sits the cailin deas ^ — oh ! where on earth ’s the peer of 
 her? 
 
 The modest face, the gentle grace, the humor and the cheer of 
 her — 
 
 Eyes like the summer skies when twin stars beam above in 
 them, 
 
 Oh ! proud will be the boy that ’s to light the lamp of love in 
 them. 
 
 Cead mile fdilte they ’ll give you down at Donovans, &c. 
 
 1 Cead mile fdilte, a hundred thousand welcomes. 
 
 2 Cannawaun, bog-cotton. ^ Cailin deas, pretty girl. 
 
FRANCIS A. FAHY. 
 
 1133 
 
 Then when you rise to go, it Ah, then, now sit down 
 again ! ’’ 
 
 “ Isn^t it the haste you ^re in? and Won^t you soon come 
 round again?” 
 
 Your cauheen and your overcoat you ’d better put astray from 
 them, 
 
 will take you all your time to try and tear yourself away 
 from them. 
 
 Cead mile fdilte they ’ll give you down at Donovans, &c. 
 
 IRISH MOLLY O. 
 
 Oh ! fairer than the lily tall, and sweeter than the rose. 
 
 As modest as the violet in dewy dell that blows ; 
 
 With heart as warm as summer noon, and pure as winter 
 snow — 
 
 The pride of Erin’s isle is she, dear Irish Molly O ! 
 
 No linnet of the hazel grove than she more sweetly sang. 
 
 No sorrow could be resting where her guileless laughter rang. 
 No hall of light could half so bright as that poor cabin glow 
 Where shone the face of love and grace of Irish Molly O ! 
 
 But fever’s breath struck down in death her father strong and 
 brave. 
 
 And who should now his little ones from want and sorrow save? 
 
 Oh, never fear, my mother dear, across the seas I ’ll go, 
 
 And win for ye a new home there,” said Irish Molly O ! 
 
 And far away ’mid strangers cold she toiled for many a year. 
 And no one heard the heart-wrung sigh or saw the silent tear, 
 But letters fond the seas beyond would kind and constant go, 
 With gold won dear, and words of cheer, from Irish Molly O! 
 
 And one by one she sent for all the loved ones o’er the foam. 
 And one by one she welcomed them to her fond heart and home, 
 And last and best her arms caressed the aged head of snow — 
 Oh, mother, we ’ll be happy now ! ” said Irish Molly O ! 
 
 Alas ! long years of toil and tears had chilled her young heart’s 
 glow, 
 
 And grief and care had blanched her hair and stilled her pulse’s 
 flow. 
 
 And when the spring bade wild birds sing and buds in beauty 
 blow — 
 
 They made your grave where willows wave, poor Irish Molly O ! 
 
1134 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE OULD PLAID SHAWL. 
 
 Not far from old Kinvara, in the merry month of May, 
 
 When birds were singing cheerily, there came across my way. 
 As if from out the sky above an angel chanced to fall, 
 
 A little Irish cailin in an ould plaid shawl. 
 
 She tripped along right joyously, a basket on her arm; 
 
 And, oh ! her face, and, oh ! her grace, the soul of saint would 
 charm ; 
 
 Her brown hair rippled o’er her brow, but greatest charm of all 
 Was her modest blue eyes beaming ’neath her ould plaid shawl. 
 
 I courteously saluted her — God save you, miss,” says I ; 
 
 God save you kindly, sir,” said she, and shyly passed me by ; 
 Off went my heart along with her, a captive in her thrall. 
 Imprisoned in the corner of her ould plaid shawl. 
 
 Enchanted with her beauty rare, I gazed in pure delight. 
 
 Till round an angle of the road she vanished from my sight; 
 But ever since I sighing say, as I that scene recall, 
 
 “ The grace of God about you and your ould plaid shawl.” 
 
 I ’ve heard of highway robbers that, with pistols and with 
 knives. 
 
 Make trembling travelers yield them up their money or their 
 lives. 
 
 But think of me that handed out my heart and head and all 
 To a simple little cailin in an ould plaid shawl I 
 
 Oh ! graceful the mantillas that the signorinas wear. 
 
 And tasteful are the bonnets of Parisian ladies fair. 
 
 But never cloak or hood or robe, in palace, bow’r, or hall. 
 
 Clad half such witching beauty as that ould plaid shawl. 
 
 Oh ! some men sigh for riches, and some men live for fame. 
 And some on history’s pages hope to win a glorious name; 
 
 My aims are not ambitious, and my wishes are but small — 
 You might wrap them all together in an ould plaid shawl. 
 
 I ’ll seek her all through Galway, and I ’ll seek her all through 
 Clare, 
 
 I ’ll search for tale or tidings of my traveler everywhere. 
 
 For peace of mind I ’ll never find until my own I call 
 That little Irish cailin in her ould plaid shawl. 
 
FRANCIS A, FAHY, 
 
 1135 
 
 LITTLE MARY CASSIDY. 
 
 Oh, is little Mary Cassidy ^s the cause of all my misery, 
 
 The raison that I am not now the boy I used to be ; 
 
 Oh, she bates the beauties all that we read about in history, 
 
 Sure half the country side ^s as lost for her as me. 
 
 Travel Ireland up and down, hill, village, vale, and town, 
 
 Girl like my colleen dhown you ’ll be looking for in vain. 
 
 Oh, I ’d rather live in poverty with little Mary Cassidy, 
 
 Than Emperor without her be o’er Germany or Spain. 
 
 ’T was at the dance at Darmody’s that first I caught a sight of 
 her, 
 
 And heard her sing the Drinan Donn, till tears came in my 
 eyes, 
 
 And ever since that blessed hour I ’m dreaming day and night 
 of her; 
 
 The divil a wink of sleep at all I get from bed to rise. 
 
 Cheeks like the rose in June, song like the lark in tune. 
 Working, resting, night or noon, she never leaves my mind; 
 
 Oh, till singing by my cabin fire sits little Mary Cassidy, 
 
 ’T is little aise or happiness I ’m sure I ’ll ever find. 
 
 What is wealth, what is fame, what is all that people fight 
 about. 
 
 To a kind word from her lips or a love-glance from her eye ? 
 
 Oh, though troubles throng my breast, sure they ’d soon go to 
 the right-about 
 
 If I thought the curly head of her would rest there by and by. 
 Take all I own to-day, kith, kin, and care away, 
 
 Ship them all across the say, or to the frozen zone ; 
 
 Lave me an orphan bare — but lave me Mary Cassidy, 
 
 I never would feel lonely with the two of us alone. 
 
1136 
 
 IRISH LITERATVRE, 
 
 FAIRY AND FOLK TALES OF IRELAND. 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 
 Following is a small selection from the vast and rich store of 
 Anonymous Fairy and Folk Tales which have been current for cen- 
 turies in Ireland. A much larger number of these stories is to be 
 found elsewhere in this Library under the names of the authors 
 who have written them down from traditional story-tellers and 
 others, and who have published collections of them, from the time 
 of Thomas Crofton Croker down to the present day. — [E d, 
 
 WILL O’ THE WISP. 
 
 From ‘ Hibernian Tales,’ a Chap-book, 
 
 In old times there was one Will Cooper, a blacksmith 
 who lived in the parish of Loughile ; he was a great lover of 
 the bottle, and all that he could make by his trade went to 
 that use, so that his family was often in a starving condi- 
 tion. One day as he was musing in his shop alone after a 
 fit of drunkenness, there came to him a little old man, al- 
 most naked and trembling with cold. My good fellow,” 
 said he to Will, put on some coals and make a fire, that I 
 may get myself warmed.” 
 
 Will, pitying the poor creature, did so, and likewise 
 brought him something to eat, and told him, if he thought 
 proper, he was welcome to stay all night. The old man 
 thanked him kindly, and said he had farther to go ; ‘‘ but,” 
 says he, as you have been so kind to me, it is in my power 
 to make you a recompense; make three wishes,” says he, 
 for anything you desire most, and let it be what it 
 will, you shall obtain it immediately.” Well,” says Will, 
 since that is the case, I wish that any person who takes 
 my sledge into their hand may never get free of it till I 
 please to take it from them. Secondly, I have an armed 
 chair, and I wish that any person sitting down on the same 
 may never have power to rise until I please to take them off 
 it. I likewise wish for the last,” says Will, that what- 
 ever money or gold I happen to put into my purse, no per- 
 son may have power to take it out again but myself.” 
 Ah ! unfortunate Will ! ” cries the old man, “ why did not 
 you wish for Heaven? ” 
 
F'AIRY and folk tales. 
 
 1137 
 
 With that he went a^vay from the shop, as Will thought, 
 very pensive and melancholy, and never was heard of 
 more. The old man^s words opened WilPs eyes; he saw it 
 was in his power to do well had he made a good use of the 
 opportunity, and when he considered that the wishes were 
 not of the least use to him, he became worse every day, 
 both in soul and body, and in a short time he was reduced 
 to great poverty and distress. 
 
 One idle day as he was walking along through the fields 
 he met the devil in the appearance of a gentleman, who 
 told him if he would go along with him at the end of seven 
 years, he should have anything he desired during that 
 time. Will, thinking that it was as bad with him as it 
 could be, although he suspected it was the devil, for the 
 love of rising in the world, made bargain to go with him 
 at the end of the seven years, and requested that he would 
 supply him with plenty of money for the present. Accord- 
 ingly, Will had his desire, and dreading to be observed by 
 his neighbors to get rich on a sudden, he removed to a 
 distance from where he was then living. However, there 
 was nobody in distress or in want of money but Will was 
 always ready to relieve, insomuch that in a short time he 
 became noted, and went in that country by the name of 
 Bill Money, in regard of the great sums he could always 
 command. He then began to build houses, and before 
 the seven years were expired he had built a town, which, 
 in imitation of the name he then had, was called Bally- 
 money, and is to this day. However, to disguise the busi- 
 ness, and that nobody might suspect him having any deal- 
 ings with Satan, he still did something now and then at 
 his trade. 
 
 The seven years being expired, he was making some arti- 
 cle for a friend, when the devil came into the shop in his 
 former appearance. Well, Will,^^ says he, “ are you ready 
 to go with me now? ” I am,’^ says Will, if I had the job 
 finished ; take that sledge,’’ says he, and give me a blow 
 or two, for it is a friend that is to get it, and then I will 
 go with you where you please.” The devil took the sledge, 
 and they soon finished the job. Now,” says Will, stay 
 you here till I run to my friend with this, and I will not 
 stay a minute.” Will then went out and the devil stopped 
 in the shop till it was near night, but there was no sign 
 
1138 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of Will coming near him, nor could he by any means get 
 the sledge out of his hands. He thought if he was once 
 in his old abode, perhaps there might be some of the smith 
 trade in it who would disengage him of the sledge, but all 
 that were in hell could not get it out of his hands, so he had 
 to retain the shape he was then in as long as the iron re- 
 mained in his hand. The devil, seeing he could get nobody 
 to do anything for him, went in search of Will once more, 
 but somehow or other he could not get near him for a 
 month. 
 
 At length he met him coming out of a tavern, pretty 
 drunk. Well, Will,’^ says he, that was a pretty triek 
 you put on me ! ’’ “ Faith, no,'’ says Will, it was you 
 
 that tricked me, for when I came back to the shop you were 
 away, and stole my sledge with you, so that I could not 
 get a job done ever since.” Well, Will,” says Satan, I 
 could not help taking the sledge, for I cannot get it out of 
 my hand ; but if you take it from me I will give you seven 
 years more before I ask you with me.” Will readily took 
 the sledge, and the devil parted from him well pleased that 
 he had got rid of it. Will having now seven years to play 
 upon, roved about through the town of Ballymoney, drink- 
 ing and sporting, and sometimes doing a little at his trade 
 to blindfold the people; yet there was mauy suspected he 
 had dealings with Satan, or he could not do half of what he 
 had done. 
 
 At length the seven years were expired, and the devil 
 came for him and found him sitting at the fire smoking, 
 in his own house, where he kept his wonderful chair. 
 
 Come, Will,” says he, are you ready to go with me 
 now? ” I am,” says Will, if you sit down a little till I 
 make my will and settle everything among my family, and 
 then I will go with you wherever you please.” So, setting 
 the arm-chair to Satan, he sat down, and Will went into 
 the chamber as if to settle his affairs; after a little he 
 came up again, bidding the devil come along, for he had all 
 things completed to his mind, and would ask to stay no 
 longer. When Will went out the devil made an attempt 
 to rise, but in vain; he could not stir from the chair, nor 
 even make the least motion one way or other, so he was as 
 much confounded to think what was the matter, as when he 
 was first cast into utter darkness. Will, knowing what 
 
FAIRY AiYD FOLK TALE&. 
 
 1139 
 
 would occur to Satan, stayed away a month, during which 
 time he never became visible in the chair to any of the 
 family, nor do we hear that any one else ever observed him 
 at any time but Will himself. However, at the month^s 
 end Will, returning, pretended to be very much surprised 
 that the devil did not follow him. What,^’ says Will, 
 kept you here all this time? I believe you are making 
 a fool of me; but if you do not come immediately I will 
 have the bargain broken, and never go with you again.’’ 
 I cannot help it,” says Satan, for all I can do I cannot 
 stir from my seat, but if you could liberate me I will give 
 you seven years more before I call on you again.” Well,” 
 says Will, I will do what I can.” He then went to Satan 
 and took him by the arm, and with the greatest ease lifted 
 him out of the chair and set him at liberty once more. 
 
 No sooner was Satan gone than Will was ready for his 
 old trade again; he sported and played, and drank of 
 the best, his purse never failing, although he sunk all the 
 property and income he had in and about Ballymoney long 
 before; but he did not care, for he knew he could have 
 recourse to the purse that never would fail, as I told you 
 before. However, an accident happened the same purse, 
 that a penny would never stay in it afterwards, and Will 
 became one of the poorest men to be found. This was at 
 the end of the seven years of his last bargain, when Satan 
 came in quest of him again, but was so fearful of a new 
 trick put upon him by Will that he durst not come near the 
 house. At length he met him in the fields, and would not 
 give him time to bid as much as farewell to his wife and 
 children, he was so much afraid of being imposed upon. 
 Will had at last to go, and traveling along the road he 
 came to an inn, where many a good glass he had taken in 
 his time. Here ’s a set of the best rogues,” says Will, 
 in Ireland; they cheated me many a time, and I will give 
 all I possess could I put a trick upon them.” . . . ^^ Well,” 
 says Satan, I do not care if we stop.” But,” says Will, 
 I have no money, and I cannot manage my scheme with- 
 out it ; but I will tell you what you can do — you can change 
 yourself into a piece of gold; I will put you in my purse, 
 and then you will see what a hand I will make for you and 
 me both, before we are at our journey’s end.” Satan, ever 
 willing to promote evil, consented to change himself into 
 
1140 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 gold, and when he had done so, Will put the piece into his 
 purse and returned home. 
 
 Satan, understanding that Will did not do as he pre- 
 tended, strove to deliver himself from confinement, but 
 by the power of the purse he could never change himself 
 from gold, as long as Will pleased to keep him in it, and no 
 other person, as I have told you before, had power to take 
 anything out of it but himself. Will would go to drink 
 from one ale-house to another, and would pretend to be 
 drunk when he was not, where he would lay down his purse 
 and bid the waiters take what they pleased for the reckon- 
 ing. Every person saw he had money plenty, yet all they 
 could do they could never get one penny out of the purse, 
 and he would get so drunk when they would give it back 
 to him that he would not seem to understand anything, 
 and so would sneak away. In this manner he cheated 
 both town and country round, until Satan, weary of con- 
 finement, had recourse to a stratagem of his own, and 
 changed himself from pieces of gold into a solid bar or 
 ingot of the same metal, but could not get out of the purse. 
 
 This, however, put a great damp upon Wilks trade, for 
 when he had no coin to show he could get nothing from 
 anybody, and how to behave he did not know. He took a 
 notion that he would perhaps force him into coin again, 
 and accordingly brought him to an iron forge, where he had 
 the ingot battered, for the length of an hour,, at a fearful 
 rate; but all they could do they never changed it in the 
 least, neither could they injure the purse, for the quality 
 of it became miraculous after his wish, and the people 
 swore the devil was surely in the purse, for they never saw 
 anything like it. They were compelled at last to give 
 over, and Will returned home and went to bed, putting the 
 purse under his head. His wife was asleep, and the devil 
 kept such a hissing, puffing, and blowing under the bolster 
 that he soon awakened her, and she, almost frightened out 
 of her wits, awakened Will, telling him that the devil was 
 under his head. Well, if he be,^^ says Will, “ I will take 
 him to the forge, where I assure you he will get a sound 
 battering.^’ Oh, no,^^ says Satan, I would rather be in 
 hell than stay here confined in this manner, and if you 
 let me go I will never trouble you again.’^ “ With all my 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 
 
 1141 
 
 heart/^ says Will ; on that head you shall have your free- 
 dom/’ and opening the purse, gave Satan his liberty. 
 
 Will was now free from all dread or fear of anything, 
 and cared not what he did. But I forgot to mention that 
 at the time Will wished nobody might take anything out 
 of the purse, he wished he might never put his hand in it 
 himself but he would find money — but after Satan being in 
 it he found it empty ever after. By this unlucky accident, 
 he that had seen so much of the world for such a length of 
 time was reduced to the most indigent state, and at length 
 forced to beg. his bread. In this miserable condition he 
 spent many years until his glass was run, and he had to pay 
 that debt to nature which all creatures have since the fall 
 of Adam. However, his life was so ill-spent and his actions 
 so bad that it is recorded he could get no entrance to any 
 place of good after his decease, so that he was destined to 
 follow his own master. 
 
 Coming to the gates of hell, he made a horrible noise to 
 get in ; then Satan bid the porter ask who it was that made 
 such a din, and not to admit him till he would let him 
 know. The porter did so, and he bade him tell his master 
 that he was his old friend. Will Cooper, wanting to come 
 to him once more. When Satan had heard who it was he 
 ordered the gates to be strongly guarded ; for if that 
 villain gets in,” says he, we are all undone.” Will 
 pleaded the distress he was in, that he could not get back- 
 ward nor forward with the darkness he was surrounded 
 with, and having lost his guide, if Satan would not let him 
 in ; and being loath to listen to the noise and confusion he 
 was making at the gate, Satan sent one of his servants 
 to conduct him back to earth again, and particularly not 
 to quit him until he left him in Ireland. 
 
 Now,” says Satan to Will when he was going away, 
 
 you were a trusty servant to me a long time ; now you 
 are going to earth again, let me see you be busy, and gain 
 all to me that you can ; but remember how you served me 
 when in the purse, and you shall never be out of darkness. 
 I will give you a light in your hand to allure and deceive 
 the weary traveler, so that he may become a prey to us.” 
 So lighting a wisp, he gave it to Will, and he was con- 
 ducted to earth, where he wanders from that day to this, 
 under the title of Will o’ the Wisp. 
 
1142 
 
 IRWH LITERATURE, 
 
 LOUGHLEAGH (LAKE OF HEALING). 
 
 From the ‘ Dublin and London Magazine,’ 1825. 
 
 Do you see that bit of a lake/’ said my companion, 
 turning his eyes towards the acclivity that overhung 
 Loughleagh. Troth, and as little as you think of it, and 
 as ugly as it looks with its weeds and its flags, it is the most 
 famous one in all Ireland. Young and ould, rich and 
 poor, far and near, have come to that lake to get cured 
 of all kinds of scurvy and sores. The Lord keep us our 
 limbs whole and sound, for it ’s a sorrowful thing not to 
 have the use o’ them. ’T was but last week we had a 
 great grand Frenchman here; and, though he came upon 
 crutches, faith he went home sound as a bell; and well 
 he paid Billy Reily for curing him.” 
 
 And, pray, how did Billy Reily cure him? ” 
 
 Oh, well enough. He took his long pole, dipped it 
 down to the bottom of the lake, and brought up on the 
 top of it as much plaster as would do for a thousand 
 sores ! ” 
 
 What kind of plaster? ” 
 
 What kind of plaster? why, black plaster to be sure; 
 for isn’t the bottom of the lake filled with a kind of black 
 mud which cures all the world? ” 
 
 Then it ought to be a famous lake indeed.” 
 
 Famous, and so it is,” replied my companion, but it 
 isn’t for its cures neather that it is famous; for, sure, 
 doesn’t all the world know there is a fine beautiful city at 
 the bottom of it, where the good people live just like 
 Christians? Troth, it is the truth I tell you; for Ehemus- 
 a-sneidh saw it all when he followed his dun cow that was 
 stolen.” 
 
 Who stole her? ” 
 
 I ’ll tell you all about it : — Shemus was a poor gossoon, 
 who lived on the brow of the hill, in a cabin with his ould 
 mother. They lived by hook and by crook, one way and 
 another, in the best way they could. They had a bit of 
 ground that gave ’em the preaty, and a little dun cow that 
 gave ’em the drop o’ milk; and, considering how times go, 
 they weren’t badly off, for Shemus was a handy gossoon 
 to boot; and, while minden the cow, cut heath and made 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 
 
 1143 
 
 brooms, which his mother sould on a market-day, and 
 brought home the bit o’ tobaccy, the grain of salt, and other 
 nic-nackenes, which a poor body can’t well do widout. 
 Once upon a time, however, Shemus w’ent farther than 
 usual up the mountain, looken for long heath, for town’s- 
 people don’t like to stoop, and so like long handles to their 
 brooms. The little dun cow was a’most as cunning as a 
 Christian sinner, and follov/ed Shemus like a lap-dog every- 
 where he ’d go, so that she required little or no herden. 
 On this day she found nice picken on a round spot as green 
 as a leek ; and, as poor Shemus was weary, as a body would 
 be on a fine summer’s day, he lay down on the grass to rest 
 himself, just as we ’re resten ourselves on the cairn here. 
 Begad, he hadn’t long lain there, sure enough, when, what 
 should he see but whole loads of ganconers ^ dancing about 
 the place. Some o’ them were hurlen, some kicking a 
 football, and others leaping a kick-step-and-a-lep. They 
 were so soople and so active that Shemus was highly de- 
 lighted with the sport, and a little tanned-skinned chap in 
 a red cap pleased him better than any o’ them, bekase he 
 used to tumble the other fellows like mushrooms. At one 
 time he had kept the ball up for as good as half-an-hour, 
 when Shemus cried out, ^ Well done, my hurler ! ’ The 
 word wasn’t well out of his mouth when whap went the 
 ball on his eye, and flash went the fire. Poor Shemus 
 thought he was blind, and roared out, ^ Mille murdher ! ’ ^ 
 but the only thing he heard was a loud laugh. ^ Cross o’ 
 Christ about us,’ says he to himself, ^ what is this for? ’ 
 and afther rubbing his eyes they came to a little, and he 
 could see the sun and the sky, and, by-and-by, he could see 
 everything but his cow and the mischievous ganconers. 
 They were gone to their rath or mote; but where was the 
 little dun cow? He looked, and he looked, and he might 
 have looked from that day to this, bekase she wasn’t to be 
 found, and good reason why — the ganconers took her away 
 with ’em. 
 
 Shemus-a-sneidh, however, didn’t think so, but ran 
 home to his mother. 
 
 “ ^ Where is the cow, Shemus? ’ axed the ould woman. 
 
 1 Ir. gean-canach, love-talker, a kind of fairy appearing in lonesome 
 valleys, a dndeen (tobacco pipe) in his mouth, making love to milkmaids, 
 etc. 2 Mille murdher y a thousand murders. 
 
1144 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ‘ Och, musba, bad luck to her/ said Shemus, ^ I donna 
 where she is ! ’ 
 
 ^ Is that an answer, you big blaggard, for the likes o^ 
 you to give your poor ould mother? ’ said she. 
 
 ^ Och, musha,’ said Shemus, ‘ don^t kick up saich a 
 holllious^ about nothing. The ould cow is safe enough, I T1 
 be bail, some place or other, though I could find her if I 
 put my e}^es upon TippeenSy and, speaking of eyes, faith, 
 I had very good luck o’ my side, or I had naver a one to 
 look after her.’ 
 
 u i Why, what happened j^our eyes, agrali? ’ axed the ould 
 woman. 
 
 ^ Oh ! didn’t the ganconers — the Lord save us from all 
 hurt and harm ! — drive their hurlen ball into them both ! 
 and sure I was stone blind for an hour.’ 
 
 ‘ And may be,’ said the mother, ^ the good people took 
 our cow ? ’ 
 
 ^ No, nor the devil a one of them,’ said Shemus, ‘ for, 
 by the powers, that same cow is as knowen as a lawyer, 
 and wouldn’t be such a fool as to go with the ganconers 
 while she could get such gras^ as I found for her to-day.’ ” 
 
 In this way, continued my informant, they talked about 
 the cow all that night, and next mornen both o’ them set 
 off to look for her. After searching every place, high and 
 low, Avhat should Shemus see sticking out of a bog-hole but 
 something very like the horns of his little beast ! 
 
 Oh, mother, mother,” said he, I ’ve found her ! ” 
 
 Where, alanna? ” axed the ould woman. 
 
 In the bog-hole, mother,” answered Shemus. 
 
 At this the poor ould creathure set up such a pullallue 
 that she brought the seven parishes about her; and the 
 neighbors soon pulled the cow out of the bog-hole. You ’d 
 swear it was the same, and yet it wasn’t, as you shall hear 
 by-and-by. 
 
 Shemus and his mother brought the dead beast home 
 with them; and, after skinnen her, hung the meat up in 
 the chimney. The loss of the drop o’ milk was a sorrowful 
 thing, and though they had a good deal of meat, that 
 couldn’t last always; besides, the whole parish faughed^ 
 upon them for eating the flesh of a beast that died with- 
 out bleeden. But the pretty thing Avas, they couldn’t eat 
 
 1 Bollhous, rumpus. ^ Faughed, despised. 
 
FAIRY A^^D FOLK TALEB. 
 
 1145 
 
 the meat after all, for when it was boiled it was as tough 
 as carrion, and as black as a turf. You might as well 
 think of sinking your teeth in an oak plank as into a piece 
 of it, and then you ^d want to sit a great piece from the 
 wall for fear of knocking your head against it when pulling 
 it through your teeth. At last and at long run they were 
 forced to throw it to the dogs, but the dogs wouldn^t smell 
 to it, and so it was thrown into the ditch, where it rotted. 
 This misfortune cost poor Shemus many a salt tear, for he 
 was now obliged to work twice as hard as before, and be 
 out cutten heath on the mountain late and early. One day 
 he was passing by this cairn with a load of brooms on his 
 back, when what should he see but the little dun cow and 
 two red-headed fellows herding her. 
 
 That ’s my mother’s cow,” said Shemus-a-sneidh. 
 
 No, it is not,” said one of the chaps. 
 
 “ But I say it is,” said Shemus, throwing the brooms on 
 the ground, and seizing the cow by the horns. At that the 
 red fellows drove her as fast as they could to this steep 
 place, and with one leap she bounced over, with Shemus 
 stuck fast to her horns. They made only one splash in the 
 lough, when the waters closed over ’em, and they sunk to 
 the bottom. Just as Shemus-a-sneidh thought that all was 
 over with him, he found himself before a most elegant 
 palace built with jewels, and all manner of fine stones. 
 Though his eyes were dazzled with the splendor of the 
 place, faith he had gomsh ^ enough not to let go his holt, 
 but in spite of all they could do, he held his little cow by 
 the horns. He was axed into the palace, but wouldn’t go. 
 
 The hubbub at last grew so great that the door flew open, 
 and out walked a hundred ladies and gentlemen, as fine as 
 any in the land. 
 
 What does this boy want?” axed one o’ them, who 
 seemed to be the masther. 
 
 ‘‘ I want my mother’s cow,” said Shemus. 
 
 That ’s not your mother’s cow,” said the gentleman. 
 
 Bethershin ! ” ^ cried Shemus-a-sneidh ; don’t I know 
 her as well as I know my right hand? ” 
 
 Where did you lose her? ” axed the gentleman. And 
 so Shemus up and told him all about it: how he was on 
 
 1 Oomsh, otherwise “gumption” — i.e., sense, cuteness. 
 
 2 B'edir sin, “ that is possible.” 
 
 i6— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1146 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 the mountain — how he saw the good people hurlen — how 
 the ball was knocked in his eye, and his cow was lost. 
 
 I believe you are right,” said the gentleman, pulling 
 out his purse, and here is the price of twenty cows for 
 you.” 
 
 No, no,” said Shemus, you ^11 not catch ould birds 
 wid chaff. I ^11 have my cow and nothen else.” 
 
 You Ye a funny fellow,” said the gentleman ; stop 
 here and live in a palace.” 
 
 I ’d rather live with my mother.” 
 
 Foolish boy ! ” said the gentleman ; stop here and 
 live in a palace.” 
 
 I ^d rather live in my mother Y cabin.” 
 
 Here you can walk through gardens loaded with fruit 
 and flowers.” 
 
 “ I ’d rather,” said Shemus, be cutting heath on the 
 mountains.” 
 
 Here you can eat and drink of the best.” 
 
 Since I Ye got my cow, I can have milk once more with 
 the praties.” 
 
 Oh ! ” cried the ladies, gathering round him, sure you 
 wouldnY take away the cow that gives us milk for our 
 tea? ” 
 
 Oh ! ” said Shemus, my mother wants milk as bad as 
 any one, and she must have it; so there is no use in your 
 palaver — I must have my cow.” 
 
 At this they all gathered about him and offered him 
 bushels of gould, but he wouldnY have anything but his 
 cow. Seeing him as obstinate as a mule, they began to 
 thump and beat him; but still he held fast by the horns, 
 till at length a great blast of wind blew him out of the 
 place, and in a moment he found himself and the cow 
 standing on the side of the lake, the water of which looked 
 as if it liadnY been disturbed since Adam was a boy — and 
 that Y a long time since. 
 
 Well, Shemus-a-sneidh drove home his cow, and right 
 glad his mother was to see her; but the moment she said 
 God bless the beast,” she sunk down like the hreesha ^ of 
 a turf rick. That was the end of Shemus-a-sneidhY dun 
 cow. 
 
 And, sure,” continued my companion, standing up, it 
 
 ^ Briseadh, breaking. 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALES, 
 
 1147 
 
 is now time for me to look after my brown cow, and God 
 send the ganconers haven’t taken her ! ” 
 
 Of this I assured him there could be no fear; and so 
 iwe parted. 
 
 DONALD AND HIS NEIGHBORS. 
 
 From ‘ Hibernian Tales,’ a Chap-book. 
 
 Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Nery were near 
 neighbors in the barony of Balinconlig, and plowed with 
 three bullocks; but the two former, envying the present 
 prosperity of the latter, determined to kill his bullock, to 
 prevent his farm being properly cultivated and labored, 
 that going back in the world he might be induced to sell 
 his lands, which they meant to get possession of. Poor 
 Donald, finding his bullock killed, immediately skinned it, 
 and throwing the skin over his shoulder, with the fieshy 
 side out, set off to the next town with it, to dispose of it to 
 the best of his advantage. Going along the road a magpie 
 flew on the top of the hide and began picking it, chattering 
 all the time. The bird had been taught to speak and imi- 
 tate the human voice, and Donald, thinking he understood 
 some words it was saying, put round his hand and caught 
 hold of it. Having got possession of it, he put it under his 
 great-coat, and so went on to the town. 
 
 Having sold the hide, he went into an inn to take a dram, 
 and following the landlady into the cellar, he gave the 
 bird a squeeze which made it chatter some broken accents 
 that surprised her very much. “ What is that I hear? ” 
 said she to Donald ; I think it is talk, and yet I do not 
 understand.” Indeed,” said Donald, it is a bird I have 
 that tells me everything, and I alwa^^s carry it with me to 
 know when there is smy danger. Faith,” says he, it 
 says you have far better liquor than you are giving me.” 
 
 That is strange,” said she, going to another cask of 
 better quality, and asking him if he would sell the bird. 
 ‘‘ I will,” said Donald, if I get enough for it.” I will 
 fill your hat with silver if you leave it with me.” Donald 
 was glad to hear the news, and taking the silver, set off, 
 rejoicing at his good luck. 
 
1148 
 
 IRISH LITERATVRE, 
 
 He had not been long at home until he met with Hudden 
 and Dudden. Mister/’ said he, you thought you did me 
 a bad turn, but you could not have done me a better, for 
 look here what I have got for the hide,” showing them the 
 hatful of silver ; you never saw such a demand for hides 
 in your life as there is at present.” Hudden and Dudden 
 that very night killed their bullocks, and set out the next 
 morning to sell their hides. On coming to the place they 
 went through all the merchants, but could only get a trifle 
 for them. At last they had to take what they could get, 
 and came home in a great rage, and vowing revenge on poor 
 Donald. He had a pretty good guess how matters would 
 turn out, and he being under the kitchen window, he was 
 afraid they would rob him, or perhaps kill him when asleep, 
 and on that account, when he was going to bed he left his 
 old mother in his place and lay down in her bed, which was 
 on the other side of the house; and taking the old woman 
 for Donald, they choked her in her bed, but he making 
 some noise they had to retreat and leave the money be- 
 hind them, which grieved them very much. 
 
 However, by daybreak Donald got his mother on his 
 back and carried her to town. Stopping at a well, he fixed 
 his mother with her staff, as if she was stooping for a 
 drink, and then went into a public-house convenient and 
 called for a dram. “ I wish,” said he to a woman that 
 stood near him, you would tell my mother to come in ; 
 she is at yon well trying to get a drink, and she is hard of 
 hearing. If she does not observe you, give her a little shake 
 and tell her that I want her.” The woman called her 
 several times, but she seemed to take no notice; at length 
 she went to her and shook her by the arm, but when she 
 let her go again, she tumbled on her head into the well, 
 and, as the woman thought, was drowned. She, in great 
 surprise and fear at the accident, told Donald what had 
 happened. “ Oh, mercy,” said he, what is this? ” He 
 ran and pulled her out of the well, w^eeping and lamenting 
 all the time, and acting in such a manner that you wmuld 
 imagine he had lost his senses. The woman, on the other 
 hand, was far worse than Donald, for his grief was only 
 feigned, but she imagined herself to be the cause of the old 
 w^oman’s death. 
 
 The inhabitants of the town, hearing what had happened, 
 
FAIRY AlYD FOLK TALES, 
 
 1149 
 
 agreed to make Donald up a good sum for his loss, as the 
 accident happened in their place; and Donald brought a 
 greater sum home with him than he got for the magpie. 
 They buried Donald^s mother, and as soon as he saw 
 Hudden and Dudden he showed them the last purse of 
 money he had got. You thought to kill me last night,’^ 
 said he, but it was good for me it happened on my mother, 
 for I got all that purse for her to make gunpowder.^’ 
 
 That very night Hudden and Dudden killed their moth- 
 ers, and the next morning set off with them to town. 
 On coming to the town with their burthen on their backs, 
 they went up and down crying, Who will buy old wives 
 for gunpowder?’’ so that every one laughed at them, and 
 the boys at last clodded them out of the place. They then 
 saw the cheat, and vowing revenge on Donald, buried the 
 old women, and set off in pursuit of him. Coming to his 
 house, they found him sitting at his breakfast, and seizing 
 him, put him in a sack, and went down to drown him in a 
 river at some distance. 
 
 As they were going along the highway they raised a 
 hare, which they saw had but three feet, and throwing off 
 the sack, ran after her, thinking by appearance she would 
 be easily taken. In their absence there came a drover that 
 way, and hearing Donald singing in the sack, wondered 
 greatly what could be the matter. What is the reason,” 
 said he, that you are singing, and you confined? ” Oh, 
 I am going to heaven,” said Donald, and in a short time 
 I expect to be free from trouble.” Oh, dear,” said the 
 drover, what will I give you if you let me to your place? ” 
 “ Indeed, I do not know,” said he;. it would take a good 
 sum.” I have not much money,” said the drover, but 
 I have twenty head of fine cattle, which I will give you to 
 exchange places with me.” Well,” says Donald, I do 
 not care if I should ; loose the sack, and I will come out.” 
 In a moment the drover liberated him and went into the 
 sack himself, and Donald drove home the fine heifers, and 
 left them in his pasture. 
 
 Hudden and Dudden having caught the hare, returned, 
 and getting the sack on one of their backs, carried Donald, 
 as they thought, to the river, and threw him in, where he 
 immediately sank. Tliey then marched home, intending 
 to take immediate possession of Donald’s property; but 
 
1150 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 how great was their surprise when they found him safe at 
 home before them, with such a fine herd of cattle, whereas 
 they knew he had none before. Donald,’’ said they, 
 “ what is all this? We thought you were drowned, and yet 
 you are here before us.” Ah,” said he, ‘‘ if I had but help 
 along with me when you threw me in, it would have been 
 the best job ever I met with, for of all the sight of cattle 
 and gold that ever was seen is there, and no one to own 
 them; but I was not able to manage more than what you 
 see, and I could show you the spot where you might get 
 hundreds.” They both swore they would be his friend, and 
 Donald accordingly led them to a very deep part of the 
 river, and lifted up a stone. Now,” said he, “ watch 
 this,” throwing it into the stream ; there is the very place, 
 and go in one of you first, and if you want help you have 
 nothing to do but call.” Hudden, jumping in and sinking 
 to the bottom, rose up again, and making a bubbling noise, 
 as those do that are drowning, attempted to speak, but 
 could not. What is that. he is saying now? ” says Dudden. 
 
 Faith,” says Donald, he is calling for help ; don’t you 
 hear him? Stand about,” said he, running back, ‘‘till I 
 leap in. I know how to do better than any of you.” Dud- 
 den, to have the advantage of him, jumped, in off the 
 bank, and was drowned along with Hudden. And this 
 was the end of Hudden and Dudden. 
 
 A QUEEN’S COUNTY WITCH. 
 
 From the ‘ Dublin University Review,’ 1839. 
 
 It was about eighty years ago, in the month of May, that 
 a Roman Catholic clergyman, near Rathdowney, in the 
 Queen’s County, was awakened at midnight to attend a 
 dying man in a distant part of the parish. The priest 
 obeyed without a murmur, and having performed his duty 
 to the expiring sinner, saw him depart this world before he 
 left the cabin. As it was yet dark, the man who had called 
 on the priest offered to accompany him home, but he re- 
 fused, and set forward on his journey alone. The gray 
 dawn began to appear over the hills. The good priest was 
 highly enraptured with the beauty of the scene, and rode 
 
FAIRY AYD FOLK TALES. 
 
 1151 
 
 on, now gazing intently at every surrounding object, and 
 again cutting with his whip at the bats and big beautiful 
 night-flies which flitted ever and anon from hedge to hedge 
 across his lonely way. Thus engaged, he journeyed on 
 slowly, until the nearer approach of sunrise began to render 
 objects completely discernible, when he dismounted from 
 his horse, and slipping his arm out of the rein, and draw- 
 ing forth his Breviary ’’ from his pocket, he commenced 
 reading his “ morning office ’’ as he walked leisurely along. 
 
 He had not proceeded very far, when he observed his 
 horse, a very spirited animal, endeavoring to stop on the 
 road, and gazing intently into a fleld on one side of the 
 way where there were three or four cows grazing. How- 
 ever, he did not pay any particular attention to this cir- 
 cumstance, but went on a little farther, when the horse 
 suddenly plunged with great violence, and endeavored to 
 break away by force. The priest with great difficulty suc- 
 ceeded in restraining him, and, looking at him more closely, 
 observed him shaking from head to foot, and sweating pro- 
 fusely. He now stood calmly, and refused to move from 
 where he was, nor could threats or entreaty induce him to 
 proceed. The father was greatly astonished, but recollect- 
 ing to have often heard of horses laboring under affright 
 being induced to go by blindfolding them, he took out his 
 handkerchief and tied it across his eyes. He then mounted, 
 and, striking him gently, he went forward without reluc- 
 tance, but still sw^eating and trembling violently. They 
 had not gone far, when they arrived opposite a narrow 
 path or bridle-wmy, flanked at either side by a tall, thick 
 hedge, which led from the high road to the fleld where the 
 cows were grazing. The priest happened by chance to 
 look into the lane, and saw a spectacle which made the 
 blood curdle in his veins. It w^as the legs of a man from 
 the hips downwards, without head or body, trotting up 
 the avenue at a smart pace. The good father was very 
 much alarmed, but, being a man of strong nerve, he re- 
 solved, come what might, to stand, and be further ac- 
 quainted with this singular specter. He accordingly stood, 
 and so did the headless apparition, as if afraid to approach 
 him. 
 
 The priest, observing this, pulled back a little from the 
 entrance of the avenue, and the phantom again resumed 
 
1152 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 its progress. It soon arrived on the road, and the priest 
 now had sufficient opportunity to view it minutely. It 
 wore yellow buckskin breeches, tightly fastened at the 
 knees with green ribbon; it had neither shoes nor stock- 
 ings on, and its legs were covered with long, red hairs, and 
 all full of wet, blood, and clay, apparently contracted in 
 its progress through the thorny hedges. The priest, al- 
 though very much alarmed, felt eager to examine the phan- 
 tom, and for this purpose summoned all his philosophy to 
 enable him to speak to it. The ghost was now a little 
 ahead, pursuing its march at its usual brisk trot, and the 
 priest urged on his horse speedily until he came up with 
 it, and thus addressed it — 
 
 Hilloa, friend ! who art thou, or whither art thou going 
 so early? ’’ 
 
 The hideous specter made no reply, but uttered a fierce 
 and superhuman growl, or Umph.^^ 
 
 A fine morning for ghosts to wander abroad,^^ again 
 said the priest. 
 
 Another Umph was the reply. 
 
 “ Why don’t you speak? ” 
 
 Umph.” 
 
 You don’t seem disposed to be very loquacious this 
 morning.” 
 
 Umph,” again. 
 
 The good man began to feel irritated at the obstinate 
 silence of his unearthly visitor, and said, with some 
 warmth — 
 
 In the name of all that ’s sacred, I command you to 
 answer me. Who art thou, or where art thou traveling? ” 
 
 Another Umph,” more loud and more angry than be- 
 fore, was the only reply. 
 
 Perhaps,” said the father, taste of whipcord might 
 render you a little more communicative ; ” and so saying, 
 he struck the apparition a heavy blow with his whip on the 
 breech. 
 
 The phantom uttered a wild and unearthly yell, and fell 
 forward on the road, and what was the priest’s astonish- 
 ment when he perceived the whole place running over with 
 milk. He was struck dumb with amazement ; the prostrate 
 phantom still continued to eject vast quantities of milk 
 from every part ; the priest’s head swam, his eyes got dizzy ; 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 
 
 115a 
 
 a stupor came all over him for some minutes, and on his 
 recovering, the frightful specter had vanished, and in its 
 stead he found stretched on the road, and half drowned in 
 milk, the form of Sarah Kennedy, an old woman of the 
 neighborhood, who had been long notorious in that dis- 
 trict for her witchcraft and superstitious practices, and it 
 was now discovered that she had, by infernal aid, assumed 
 that monstrous shape, and was employed that morning in 
 sucking the cows of the village. Had a volcano burst forth 
 at his feet, he could not be more astonished; he gazed 
 awhile in silent amazement — the old woman groaning, and 
 writhing convulsively. 
 
 Sarah,’’ said he, at length, “ I have long admonished 
 you to repent of your evil ways, but you were deaf to my 
 entreaties ; and now, wretched woman, you are surprised in 
 the midst of your crimes.” 
 
 Oh, father, father,” shouted the unfortunate woman, 
 can you do nothing to save me? I am lost; hell is open 
 for me, and legions of devils surround me this moment, 
 waiting to carry my soul to perdition.” 
 
 The priest had not power to reply ; the old wretch’s pains 
 increased; her body swelled to an immense size; her eyes 
 flashed as if on fire, her face was black as night, her entire 
 form writhed in a thousand different contortions ; her out- 
 cries were appalling, her face sunk, her eyes closed, and in 
 a few minutes she expired in the most exquisite tortures. 
 
 The priest departed homewards, and called at the next 
 cabin to give notice of the strange circumstances. The 
 remains of Sarah Kennedy were removed to her cabin, 
 situate at the edge of a small wood at a little distance. 
 She had long been a resident in that neighborhood, but 
 still she was a stranger, and came there no one knew from 
 whence. She had no relation in that country but one 
 daughter, now advanced in years, who resided with her. 
 She kept one cow, but sold more butter, it was said, than 
 any farmer in the parish, and it was generally suspected 
 that she acquired it by devilish agency, as she never made 
 a secret of being intimately acquainted with sorcery and 
 fairyism. She professed the Roman Catholic religion, but 
 never complied with the practices enjoined by that church, 
 and her remains were denied Christian sepulture, and were 
 buried in a sand-pit near her own cabin. 
 
1154 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 On the evening of her burial, the villagers assembled and 
 burned her cabin to the earth. Her daughter made her 
 escape, and never after returned. 
 
 THE FAIRY GREYHOUND. 
 
 Paddy M’Dermid was one of the most rollicking boys in 
 the whole county of Kildare. Fair or pattern ^ wouldnT 
 be held barring he was in the midst of it. He was in every 
 place, like bad luck, and .his poor little farm was seldom 
 sowed in season ; and where he expected barley, there grew 
 nothing but weeds. Money became scarce in poor Paddy^s 
 pocket ; and the cow went after the pig, until nearly all he 
 had was gone. Lucky however for him, if he had gomch 
 (sense) enough to mind it, he had a most beautiful dream 
 one night as he lay tossicated (drunk) in the Rath^ of 
 Monogue, because he wasn^t able to come home. He dreamt 
 that, under the place where he lay, a pot of money was 
 buried since long before the memory of man. Paddy kept 
 the dream to himself until the next night, when, taking a 
 spade and pickaxe, with a bottle of holy water, he went 
 to the Rath, and, having made a circle round the place, 
 commenced diggin^ sure enough, for the bare life and sowl 
 of him, thinkin^ that he was made for ever and ever. He 
 had sunk about twice the depth of his knees, when whack 
 the pickaxe struck against a flag, and at the same time 
 Paddy heard something breathe quite near him. He looked 
 up, and just foment him there sat on his haunches a 
 comely looking greyhound. 
 
 “ God save you,” said Paddy, every hair in his head 
 standing up as straight as a sally twig. 
 
 Save you kindly,” answered the greyhound — ^leaving 
 out God, the beast, bekase he was the divil. Christ defend 
 us from ever seeing the likes o’ him. 
 
 Musha, Paddy M’Dermid,” said he, what would you 
 be looking after in that grave of a hole you Ye diggin’ 
 there? ” 
 
 1 Pattern, a merry-making in the honor of some patron saint. 
 
 2 Paths, little fields enclosed by circular ditches. They are thought 
 to have been the sheep-folds and dwellings of an ancient people. 
 
FAIRY AlYD FOLK TALES. 
 
 1155 
 
 Faith, nothing at all, at all,’’ answered Paddy ; bekase 
 you see he didn’t like the stranger. 
 
 “ Arrah, be easy now, Paddy M’Dermid,” said the grey- 
 hound ; don’t I know very well what you are looking 
 for? ” 
 
 Why then in truth, if you do, I may as well tell you 
 at wonst, particularly as you seem a civil-looking gentle- 
 man, that ’s not above speaking to a poor gossoon like my- 
 self.” (Paddy wanted to butter him up a bit.) 
 
 Well then,” said the greyhound, come out here and sit 
 down on this bank,” and Paddy, like a gomulagh (fool), 
 did as he was desired, but had hardly put his brogue out- 
 side of the circle made by the holy water, when the beast 
 of a hound set upon him, and drove him out of the Rath; 
 for Paddy was frightened, as well he might, at the fire that 
 fiamed from his mouth. But next night he returned, full 
 sure the money was there. As before, he made a circle, 
 and touched the flag, when my gentleman, the greyhound, 
 appeared in the ould place. 
 
 Oh ho,” said Paddy, ^^you are there, are you? but it 
 will be a long day, I promise you, before you trick me 
 again ; ” and he made another stroke at the flag. 
 
 Well, Paddy M’Dermid,” said the hound, since you 
 will have money, you must; but say, how much will satisfy 
 you? ” 
 
 Paddy scratched his coulaan,^ and after a while said — 
 
 How much will your honor give me? ” for he thought it' 
 better to be civil. 
 
 “ Just as much as you consider reasonable, Paddy M’Der- 
 mid.” 
 
 “ Egad,” says Paddy to himself, there ’s nothing like 
 axin’ enough.” 
 
 Say fifty thousand pounds,” said he. (He might as 
 well have said a hundred thousand, for I ’ll be bail the 
 beast had money gulloure.) 
 
 You shall have it,” said the hound ; and then, after 
 trotting away a little bit, he came back with a crock full 
 of guineas between his paws. 
 
 Come here and reckon them,” said he ; but Paddy was 
 up to him, and refused to stir, so the crock was shoved 
 alongside the blessed and holy circle, and Paddy pulled it 
 * Coulaan^ head of hair, wig. 
 
1156 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 in, right glad to have it in his clutches, and never stood 
 still until he reached his own home, where his guineas 
 turned into little bones, and his ould mother laughed at 
 him. Paddy now swore vengeance against the deceitful 
 beast of a greyhound, and went next night to the Rath 
 again, where, as before, he met Mr. Hound. 
 
 So you are here again, Paddy? ’’ said he. 
 
 Yes, you big blaggard,^^ said Paddy, and I ’ll never 
 leave this place until I pull out the pot of money that ’s 
 buried here.” 
 
 Oh, you won’t,” said he. Well, Paddy M’Dermid, 
 since I see you are such a brave venturesome fellow I ’ll be 
 after making you up if you walk downstairs with me out of 
 the could ” ; and sure enough it was snowing like murder. 
 
 Oh may I never see Athy if I do,” returned Paddy, for 
 you only want to be loading me with ould bones, or per- 
 haps breaking my own, which would be just as bad.” 
 
 “ ’Pon honor,” said the hound, I am your friend ; and 
 so don’t stand in your own light; come with me and your 
 fortune is made. Remain where you are and you ’ll die a 
 beggar-man.” So bedad, with one palaver and another, 
 Paddy consented ; and in the middle of the Rath opened up 
 a beautiful staircase, down which they walked; and after 
 winding and turning they came to a house much finer than 
 the Duke of Leinster’s, in which all the tables and chairs 
 were solid gold. Paddy was delighted; and after sitting 
 down, a fine lady handed him a glass of something to 
 drink; but he had hardly swallowed a spoonful when all 
 around set up a horrid yell, and those who before appeared 
 beautiful now looked like what they were — enraged good 
 people” (fairies). 
 
 Before Paddy could bless himself, they seized him, legs 
 and arms, carried him out to a great high hill that stood 
 like a wall over a river, and fiung him down. Murder ! ” 
 cried Paddy; but it was no use, no use; he fell upon a 
 rock, and lay there as dead until next morning, where some 
 people found him in the trench that surrounds the mote of 
 Coulhall, the good people” having carried him there; 
 and from that hour to the day of his death he was the 
 greatest object in the world. He walked double, and had 
 his mouth (God bless us!) where his ear should be. 
 
FAIRY AlID FOLK TALES. 
 
 1157 
 
 THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN O^SHEA. 
 
 From a London-Irish newspaper. 
 
 A very long time ago, there suddenly appeared in old 
 Ireland two unknown merchants of whom nobody had ever 
 heard, and who nevertheless spoke the language of the 
 country with the greatest perfection. Their locks were 
 black, and bound round with gold, and their garments were 
 of rare magnificence. 
 
 Both seemed of like age ; they appeared to be men of fifty, 
 for their foreheads were wrinkled and their beards tinged 
 with gray. 
 
 In the hostelry where the pompous traders alighted it 
 was sought to penetrate their designs; but in vain — they 
 led a silent and retired life. And whilst they stopped 
 there, they did nothing but count over and over again out 
 of their money-bags pieces of gold, whose yellow brightness 
 could be seen through the windows of their lodging. 
 
 Gentlemen,^’ said the landlady one day, how^ is it that 
 you are so rich, and that, being able to succor the public 
 misery, you do no good works? 
 
 Fair hostess,^’ replied one of them, we didn^t like to 
 present alms to the honest poor, in dread we might be de- 
 ceived by make-believe paupers. Let want knock at our 
 door, we shall open it.’^ 
 
 The following day, when the rumor spread that two rich 
 strangers had come, ready to lavish their gold, a crowd be- 
 sieged their dwelling; but the figures of those who came 
 out were widely different. Some carried pride in their 
 mien ; others were shame-faced. 
 
 The two chapmen traded in souls for the demon. The 
 soul of the aged was worth twenty pieces of gold, not a 
 penny more ; for Satan had had time to make his valuation. 
 The soul of a matron was valued at fifty, when she was 
 handsome, and a hundred when she was ugly. The soul of 
 a young maiden fetched an extravagant sum ; the freshest 
 and purest flowers are the dearest. 
 
 At that time there lived in the city an angel of beauty, 
 the Countess Kathleen O’Shea. She was the idol of the 
 people and the providence of the indigent. As soon as 
 she learned that these miscreants profited by the public 
 
1158 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 misery to steal away hearts from God, she called to her 
 butler. 
 
 Patrick,^’ said she to him, how many pieces of gold in 
 my coffers? ’’ 
 
 A hundred thousand.” 
 
 How many jewels? ” 
 
 The money’s worth of the gold.” 
 
 How much property in castles, forests, and lands? ” 
 Double the rest.” 
 
 Very well, Patrick ; sell all that is not gold ; and bring 
 me the account. I only wish to keep this mansion and the 
 demesne that surrounds it.” 
 
 Two days afterwards the orders of the pious Kathleen 
 were executed, and the treasure was distributed to the poor 
 in proportion to their wants. This, says the tradition, did 
 not suit the purposes of the Evil Spirit, who found no more 
 souls to purchase. Aided by an infamous servant, they 
 penetrated into the retreat of the noble dame, and pur- 
 loined from her the rest of her treasure. In vain she strug- 
 gled with all her strength to save the contents of her cof- 
 fers ; the diabolical thieves were the stronger. If Kathleen 
 had been able to make the sign of the Cross, adds the 
 legend, she would have put them to flight, but her hands 
 were captive. The larceny was effected. 
 
 Then the poor called for aid to the plundered Kathleen, 
 alas, to no good: she was able to succor their misery no 
 longer ; she had to abandon them to the temptation. 
 
 Meanwhile, but eight days had to pass before the grain 
 and provender would arrive in abundance from the western 
 lands. Eight such days were an age. Eight days required 
 an immense sum to relieve the exigencies of the dearth, and 
 the poor should either perish in the agonies of hunger, or, 
 denying the holy maxims of the Gospel, vend, for base 
 lucre, their souls, the richest gift from the bounteous hand 
 of the Almighty. And Kathleen hadn’t anything, for she 
 had given up her mansion to the unhappy. She passed 
 twelve hours in tears and mourning, rending her sun-tinted 
 hair, and bruising her breast, of the whiteness of the lily; 
 afterwards she stood up, resolute, animated by a vivid sen- 
 timent of despair. 
 
 She went to the traders in souls. 
 
 What do you want? ” they said. 
 
 You buy souls? ” 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALE^. 
 
 1169 
 
 Yes, a few still, in spite of you. Isn’t that so, saint, 
 with the eyes of sapphire? ” 
 
 To-day I am come to offer you a bargain,” replied she. 
 What? ” 
 
 I have a soul to sell, but it is costly.” 
 
 “ What does that signify if it is precious? The soul, like 
 the diamond, is appraised by its transparency.” 
 
 It is mine.” 
 
 The two emissaries of Satan started. Their claws were 
 clutched under their gloves of leather; their gray eyes 
 sparkled; the soul, pure, spotless, virginal of Kathleen — it 
 was a priceless acquisition ! 
 
 Beauteous lady, how much do you ask? ” 
 
 “ A hundred and fifty thousand pieces of gold.” 
 
 It ’s at your service,” replied the traders, and they 
 tendered Kathleen a parchment sealed with black, which 
 she signed with a shudder. 
 
 The sum was counted out to her. 
 
 As soon as she got home she said to the butler, Here^ 
 distribute this: with this money that I give you the poor 
 can tide over the eight days that remain, and not one ot 
 their souls will be delivered to the demon.” 
 
 Afterwards she shut herself up in her room, and gave 
 orders that none should disturb her. 
 
 Three days passed ; she called nobody, she did not come 
 out. 
 
 When the door was opened, they found her cold and 
 stiff ; she was dead of grief. 
 
 But the sale of this soul, so adorable in its charity, was 
 declared null by the Lord; for she had saved her fellow- 
 citizens from eternal death. 
 
 After the eight days had passed, numerous vessels 
 brought into famished Ireland immense provisions in 
 grain. Hunger was no longer possible. As to the traders, 
 they disappeared from their hotel without any one knowing 
 what became of them. But the fishermen of the Black- 
 water pretend that they are enchained in a subterranean 
 prison by order of Lucifer, until they shall be able to ren- 
 der up the soul of Kathleen, which escaped from them. 
 
1160 - 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 EENT-DAY. 
 
 “ Oh, ullagone ! ullagone ! this is a wide world, but what 
 will we do in it, or where will we go? ’’ muttered Bill 
 Doody, as he sat on a rock by the Lake of Killarney. 
 “What will we do? To-morrow ^s rent-day, and Tim the 
 Driver swears if we don’t pay our rent, he ’ll cant every 
 Jia^pertli we have; and then, sure enough, there ’s Judy and 
 myself, and the poor graicJs^ will be turned out to starve 
 on the high-road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I ! 
 — Oh hone, that ever I should live to see this day ! ” 
 
 Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his 
 sorrows to the reckless waves of the most beautiful of 
 lakes, which seemed to mock his misery as they rejoiced 
 beneath the cloudless sky of a May morning. That lake, 
 glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles of rock 
 and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying 
 hues, might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but 
 despair; for alas, 
 
 ‘ ‘ How ill the scene that offers rest 
 
 And heart that cannot rest agree ! ” 
 
 Yet Bill Doody wms not so desolate as he supposed ; there 
 was one listening to him he little thought of, and help was 
 at hand from a quarter he could not have expected. 
 
 “What’s the matter with you, my poor man?” said a 
 tall, portly-looking gentleman, at the same time stepping 
 out of a furze-brake. Now Bill was seated on a rock that 
 commanded the view of a large field. Nothing in the field 
 could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake, which 
 grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, 
 therefore, not a little surprised at the gentleman’s sudden 
 appearance, and began to question whether the personage 
 before him belonged to this world or not. He, however, 
 soon mustered courage sufficient to tell him how his crops 
 had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his 
 butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out 
 of the farm if he didn’t pay up every penny of the rent by 
 twelve o’clock next day. 
 
 “ A sad story, indeed,” said the stranger; “ but surely, if 
 
 1 Grawls, children. 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALES, 
 
 1161 
 
 you represented the case to your landlord's agent, he won’t 
 have the heart to turn you out.” 
 
 Heart, your honor ; where would an agent get a heart ! ” 
 exclaimed Bill. I see your honor does not know him ; 
 besides, he has an eye on the farm this long time for a 
 fosterer of his own ; so I expect no mercy at all at all, only 
 to be turned out.” 
 
 Take this, my poor fellow, take this,” said the stranger, 
 pouring a purse full of gold into Bill’s old hat, which in 
 his grief he had flung on the ground. Pay the fellow 
 your rent, but I ’ll take care it shall do him no good. I 
 remember the time when things went otherwise in this 
 country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the 
 twinkling of an eye ! ” 
 
 These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to 
 everything but the sight of the gold, and before he could 
 unfix his gaze, and lift up his head to pour out his hundred 
 thousand blessings, the stranger was gone. The bewildered 
 peasant looked around in search of his benefactor, and at 
 last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse a long 
 way off on the lake. 
 
 O’Donoghue, O’Donoghue ! ” shouted Bill ; the good, 
 the blessed O’Donoghue ! ” and he ran capering like a 
 madman to show Judy the gold, and to rejoice her heart 
 with the prospect of wealth and happiness. 
 
 The next day Bill proceeded to the agent’s; not sneak- 
 ingly, with his hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, 
 and his knees bending under him; but bold and upright, 
 like a man conscious of his independence. 
 
 Why don’t you take off your hat, fellow? don’t you 
 know you are speaking to a magistrate? ” said the agent. 
 
 I know I ’m not speaking to the king, sir,” said Bill ; 
 and I never takes off my hat but to them I can respect 
 and love. The Eye that sees all knows I ’ve no right either 
 to respect or love an agent ! ” 
 
 You scoundrel ! ” retorted the man in office, biting his 
 lips with rage at such an unusual and unexpected opposi- 
 tion, I ’ll teach you how to be insolent again ; I have the 
 power, remember.” 
 
 “ To the cost of the country, I know you have,” said Bill, 
 who still remained with his head as firmly covered as if he 
 was thf^ Lord Kingsale himself. 
 
1162 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE. 
 
 But, come,’’ said the magistrate; “have you got the 
 money for me? this is rent-day. If there ’s one penny of it 
 Avanting, or the running gale that ’s due, prepare to turn 
 out before night, for you shall not remain another hour in 
 possession.” 
 
 “ There is your rent,” said Bill, with an unmoved ex- 
 pression of tone and countenance; “you’d better count 
 it, and give me a receipt in full for the running gale and 
 all.” 
 
 The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it 
 , was gold — real guineas ! and not bits of dirty ragged small 
 notes, that are only fit to light one’s pipe with. However 
 willing the agent may have been to ruin, as he thought, the 
 unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and handed the 
 receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat of 
 her whiskers. 
 
 The agent, going to his desk shortly after, was con- 
 founded at beholding a heap of gingerbread cakes instead 
 of the money he had deposited there. He raved and swore, 
 but all to no purpose; the gold had become gingerbread 
 rakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king’s head; 
 and Bill had the receipt in his pocket ; so he saw there was 
 no use in saying anything about the affair, as he would 
 only get laughed at for his pains. 
 
 From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his under- 
 takings prospered; and he often blesses the day that he met 
 with O’Donoghue, the great prince that lives down under 
 the lake of Killarney. 
 
 CONVERSION OF KING LAOGHAIRE’S 
 DAUGHTERS. 
 
 Once when Patrick and his clericks were sitting beside a 
 well in the Rath of Croghan, with books open on their 
 knees, they saw coming towards them the two young 
 daughters of the King of Connaught. ’T was early morn- 
 ing, and they were going to the well to bathe. 
 
 The young girls said to Patrick, “ Whence are ye, and 
 whence come }^e? ” and Patrick answered, “ It were better 
 for you to confess to the true God than to inquire concern- 
 ing our race.” 
 
FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 
 
 1163 
 
 Who is God? ’’ said the young girls, and where is 
 God, and of what nature is God, and where is His dwelling- 
 place? Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver? 
 Is he everlasting? Is he beautiful? Did Mary foster her 
 son? Are His daughters dear and beauteous to men of 
 the world? Is He in heaven, or on earth, in the sea, in 
 rivers, in mountainous places, in valleys? ’’ 
 
 Patrick answered them, and made known who God was, 
 and they believed and were baptized, and a white garment 
 put upon their heads ; and Patrick asked them would they 
 live on, or would they die and behold the face of Christ? 
 They chose death, and died immediately, and were buried 
 near the well Clebach. 
 
GEORGE FARQUHAR. 
 ( 1678 — 1707 .) 
 
 George Farquhar, the actor-author, was born in Londonderry in 
 1678, and there he received the rudiments of education. In 1694 he 
 entered at Trinity College in Dublin, but was not graduated. He 
 became intimate with the actor Wilks, and went on the stage in 
 1695. His appearance was successful, and he would doubtless have 
 remained an actor all his life, but he accidentally wounded a brother 
 actor in a fencing-scene. He then left the stage and secured a com- 
 mission in the army through the Earl of Orrery. 
 
 He afterward went to London, renewed his acquaintance with 
 Wilks, and wrote his first comedy, ‘Love and a Bottle.’ This ap- 
 peared in 1698 and was well received. In 1700, the year of jubilee 
 at Rome, he produced his ‘ Constant Couple; or. Trip to the Jubi- 
 lee,’ in which Wilks made a great hit as Sir Harry Wildair. 
 
 In 1702 he published his ‘ Miscellanies ; or. Collections of Poems, 
 Letters, and Essays,’ in which may be found many humorous and 
 pleasant sallies of fancy; and in 1703 he produced ‘ The Inconstant,’ 
 a play which has ever since kept the stage. 
 
 ‘ The Stage Coach,’ a farce, was produced in 1704 and was well 
 received. In 1705 his comedy ‘ The Twin Rivals’ appeared, and 
 in 1706 the comedy called ‘The Recruiting Officer.’ His last and 
 perhaps his best known work was ‘The Beaux’ Stratagem,’ which 
 he did not live to see produced. Financial troubles broke him down 
 completely, and in April, 1707, while ‘ The Beaux’ Stratagem ’ was 
 being rehearsed at Drury Lane, he sank into his last sleep. 
 
 After his death the following letter to Wilks was found among 
 his papers : “ Dear Bob, I have not anything to leave thee to perpet- 
 uate my memory but two helpless girls ; look upon them sometimes, 
 and think of him that was to the last moment of his life, thine, 
 George Farquhar.” 
 
 Farquhar has been called “one in the shining list of geniuses 
 that adorn the biographical page of Ireland, his style is pure and 
 unaffected, his wit natural and flowing, his plots generally well con- 
 trived.” His works were so successful in book form, as well as on 
 the stage, that within fifty years of his death they had gone through 
 more than eight editions. “ Farquhar’s gentlemen are Irish gentle- 
 men,” says Cowden Clarke, “frank, generous, eloquent, witty, and 
 with a cordial word of gallantry always at command.” Hazlitt liad 
 a high opinion of Farquhar, who, he says, “has humor, character, 
 and invention. . . . His incidents succeed one another with rapidity, 
 but without premeditation ; his wit is easy and spontaneous ; his 
 style animated, unembarrassed and flowing ; his characters full of 
 life and spirit.” 
 
 1164 
 
GEORGE FARQUHAR. 
 
 1165 
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FOOTMAN. 
 
 From ‘ The Beaux’ Stratagem.’ 
 
 Scrub, a Footman, and Archer, a Supposed Footman, 
 Enter Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda. 
 
 {They walk to the opposite side. Mrs. Sullen drops 
 her fan; Archer runs, takes it up, and gives it to 
 her.) 
 
 Archer. Madam, your ladyship’s fan. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. Oh, sir, I thank you. What a handsome 
 bow the fellow made ! 
 
 Dorinda. Bow ! Why, I have known several footmen 
 come down from London, set up here as dancing-masters, 
 and carry off the best fortunes in the country. 
 
 Archer. {Aside.) That project, for aught I know, had 
 been better than ours. Brother Scrub, why don’t you in- 
 troduce me? 
 
 Scrub. Ladies, this is the strange gentleman’s servant, 
 that you saw at church to-day ; I understand he came from 
 London, and so I invited him to the cellar, that he might 
 show me the newest flourish in whetting my knives. 
 
 Dorinda. And I hope you have made much of him. 
 
 Archer. Oh, yes, madam ; but the strength of your lady- 
 ship’s liquor is a little too potent for the constitution of 
 your humble servant. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. What! then you don’t usually drink ale? 
 
 Archer. No, madam ; my constant drink is tea, or a little 
 wine and water : ’t is prescribed me by the physicians, for 
 a remedy against the spleen. 
 
 Scrub. Oh, la! Oh, la! A footman have the spleen! 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. I thought that distemper had been only 
 proper to people of quality. 
 
 Archer. Madam, like all other fashions it wears out, and 
 so descends to their servants; though, in a great many of 
 us, I believe, it proceeds from some melancholy particles 
 in the blood, occasioned by the stagnation of wages. 
 
 Dorinda, How affectedly the fellow talks! How long, 
 pray, have you served your present master? 
 
 Archer. Not long; my life has been mostly spent in the 
 service of the ladies. 
 
116 () 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. And, pray, which service do you like best? 
 
 Archer. Madam, the ladies pay best; the honor of serv- 
 ing them is sufficient wages ; there is a charm in their looks 
 that delivers a pleasure with their commands, and gives 
 our duty the wings of inclination. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. That flight was above the pitch of a livery: 
 and, sir, would you not be satisfled to serve a lady again? 
 
 Archer. As groom of the chamber, madam, but not as a 
 footman. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. I suppose you served as footman before? 
 
 Archer. For that reason, I would not serve in that post 
 again ; for my memory is too weak for the load of messages 
 that the ladies lay upon their servants in London. My 
 Lady Howd’ye, the last mistress I served, called me up one 
 morning, and told me, Martin, go to my Lady Allnight^ 
 with my humble service; tell her I was to wait on her lady- 
 ship yesterday, and left word with Mrs. Rebecca, that the 
 preliminaries of the affair she knows of are stopped, till 
 we know the concurrence of the person I know of, for 
 which there are circumstances wanting, which we shall 
 accommodate at the old place; but that, in the meantime, 
 there is a person about her ladyship, that, from several 
 hints and surmises, was accessory at a certain time to the 
 disappointments that naturally attend things, that to her 
 knowledge are of more importance — 
 
 Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda. Ha, ha! Where are you go- 
 ing, sir? 
 
 Archer. Why, I havenff half done. 
 
 Scruh. I should not remember a quarter of it. 
 
 Archer. The whole howd’ye was about half an hour 
 long ; I happened to misplace two syllables, and was turned 
 off, and rendered incapable — 
 
 Dorinda. The pleasantest fellow, sister, I ever saw. 
 But, friend, if your master be married, I presume you still 
 serve a lady? 
 
 Archer. No, madam; I take care never to come into a 
 married family; the commands of the master and mistress 
 are always so contrary that T is impossible to please both. 
 
 Dorinda. There ’s a main point gained. My lord is not 
 married, I find. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. But I wonder, friend, that in so many good 
 services you had not a better provision made for you. 
 
GEORGE FARQVHAR. 1167 
 
 Archer. I don’t know how, madam ; I am very well as I 
 am. 
 
 Mrs. Sullen. Something for a pair of gloves. 
 
 {Offering him money.) 
 
 Archer. I humbly beg leave to be excused. My master, 
 madam, pays me; nor dare I take money from any other 
 hand without injuring his honor and disobeying his com- 
 mands. 
 
 Scrub. Brother Martin ! brother Martin ! 
 
 Archer. What do you say, brother Scrub? 
 
 Scrub. Take the money and give it to me. 
 
 {Exeunt Archer and Scrub.) 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. 
 
 (1810—1886.) 
 
 “ Sir Samuel Ferguson, poet and antiquary, the third son of John 
 Ferguson of Collon House, County Antrim, was born in Belfast, 
 March 10, 1810. He was educated at the chief public school of Bel- 
 fast, the Academical Institution, and thence proceeded to Trinity 
 College, Dublin, where he was graduated B.A. 1826 and M.A. 1832, 
 and was created LL.D. honoris causa in 1864. In 1838 he was 
 called to the Irish bar, and obtained some practice on the northeast 
 circuit of Ireland. In 1859 he was made a Queen’s counsel, but in 
 1867 he retired from practice on his appointment as a deputy keeper 
 of the public records of Ireland. He was the first holder of the 
 office, which entailed much investigation and arrangement of docu- 
 ments. 
 
 “ Just before Ferguson’s appointment one of the chief officials in 
 charge of the records had publicly stated that the Irish statutes 
 to the reign of Queen Anne were in Norman French, a language 
 never used in Ireland after 1495, so little were the keepers acquainted 
 with the records they kept. He thoroughly organized the depart- 
 ment, and on March 17, 1878, Avas knighted in recognition of his 
 services. 
 
 “ From its first appearance in 1833 he was a contributor to The 
 Dublin University Magazine. In it he published in 1834 an English 
 metrical version of the ‘ Address of O’Byrne’s Bard to the Clans of 
 Wicklow,’ ‘ The Lament over the Ruins of Timoleague Abbey,’ 
 ‘The Fair Hills of Ireland,’ and ‘Forester’s Complaint,’ 1836, ‘The 
 Fairy Thorn,’ and ‘Willy Gilliland.’ At the same period he pub- 
 lished a series of tales in which verse is sometimes mingled with 
 prose, called ‘ Hibernian Nights’ Entertainments.’ These stories have 
 been edited by Lady Ferguson since their author’s death, and were 
 published in London in 1887, together with a reprint of his first 
 volume of collected ‘Poems’ and the ‘Remains of St. Patrick,’ a 
 translation into English blank verse of the ‘ Confessio ’ and ‘ Epistle 
 to Coroticcus,’ with a dissertation on the life of the saint. He wrote 
 two political satires, ‘ Inheritor and Economist ’ and ‘ Dublin.’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Other poems were published by him in Blackwood's Magazine.^ 
 of which the best known is ‘The Forging of the Anchor.’ ‘The 
 Wet Wooing’ was published in the same magazine in 1832, and in 
 May, 1838, his amusing satirical dialogue, illustrative of the Irish 
 educational schemes then prominent, ‘ Father Tom and the Pope.’ 
 This has been reprinted with other contributions of his in ‘ Tales 
 from Blackwood.’ In 1865 he published a volume of collected poems, 
 ‘ Lays of the Western Gael in 1872 ‘ Congal,’ an epic poem in five 
 books ; in 1880 a third volume of ‘ Poems,’ chiefiy on subjects taken 
 from Irish literature. Besides the contents of these three volumes 
 a few separate poems of Ferguson’s are in print. ‘ The Elegy on 
 the Death of Thomas Davis ’ appeared in the ‘ Ballad Poetry of 
 Ireland,’ while the witty song of ‘ The Loyal Orangemen’ was 
 
 1168 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON, 
 
 1169 
 
 never published, though privately circulated and often recited in 
 Dublin. Besides these numerous contributions to literature, he 
 wrote many essays on Irish antiquities, and carried on lengthy in- 
 vestigations in several parts of Ireland. In 1882 he was unani- 
 mously elected President of the Eoyal Irish Academy. 
 
 “He married, Aug. 16, 1848, Mary Catharine Guinness, and for 
 many years he and his wife practiced an open, generous, delightful 
 hospitality toward every one in Dublin who cared for literature, 
 music, or art, at their house in North Great George’s Street. He 
 died, after an illness of some months, at Strand Lodge, Howth, in 
 the county of Dublin, on Aug. 9, 1886. After a public funeral 
 service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, his body was conveyed to his 
 family burying-place at Donegore, County Antrim. 
 
 “ As an antiquarian Ferguson’s most important work was his col- 
 lection of all the known Ogham inscriptions of Ireland and their 
 publication (‘ Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland,’ 
 edited by Lady Ferguson, Edinburgh, 1887). He was laborious and 
 accurate, and nearly all he wrote on antiquarian subjects deserves 
 careful study. 
 
 “ As a poet he deserves recollection in Ireland, for he strove hard 
 to create modern poetry from the old Irish tales of heroes and saints, 
 and history of places. Another Irish poet has maintained that the 
 epic poem ‘ Congal ’ entitles Ferguson to live in Ireland as the 
 national poet, and his long metrical versions of Irish sagas are 
 praised by Miss M. Stokes and by Judge O’Hagan. 
 
 “He was not perfectly acquainted with the Irish language, and 
 perhaps this accounts for the fact that, while sometimes giving the 
 stories more beauties than he takes away, he misses something of 
 the reality of ancient life, and seems to talk of a shadowy scene and 
 not of the real deeds of men and women. Several of the poems of 
 his own experiences are admirable, and will probably have a per- 
 manent popularity in Ireland. ‘The Elegy on Thomas Davis,’ 
 ‘Willy Gilliland,’ and the ‘ Lines on the Liffey in Mesgedra,’ are not 
 faultless, but they are beautiful poems with a true Irish air. His 
 antiquarian knowledge, his literary ability and attainments, made 
 Ferguson’s conversation delightful, while his high character and 
 generous disposition endeared him to a large circle of friends.” 
 
 Thus far we quote from Mr. Norman Moore, in ‘ The Dictionary 
 of National Biography.’ 
 
 Mr. Alfred P. Graves, in ‘A Treasury of Irish Poetry,’ says: 
 “Omitting living writers, of whom it is too early to speak with 
 confidence, Ferguson was unquestionably the Irish poet of the past 
 century who has most powerfully influenced the literary history of 
 his country. It was in his writings that the great work of restor- 
 ing to Ireland the spiritual treasure it had lost in parting with the 
 Gaelic tongue was decisively begun.” 
 
 Mr. Aubrey de Vere observes: “ Its qualities are those character- 
 istic of the noble, not the ignoble poetry — viz., passion, imagination, 
 vigor, an epic largeness of conception, wide human sj^mpathies, 
 vivid and truthful description — while with them it unites none of the 
 vulgar stimulants for exhausted or morbid poetic appetite, whether 
 the epicurean seasoning, the skeptical, or the revolutionary.” 
 
 17— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1170 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Professor Dowden, writing to Ferguson on the subject of his ‘ Con- 
 gal,' says: “ What seems to me most noteworthy in your poems is 
 the union of culture with simplicity and strength. Their refinement 
 is large and strong, not curious and diseased ; and they have spaces 
 and movements which give one a feeling like the sea or the air on a 
 headland. I had not meant to say anything of ‘ Congal,’ but some- 
 how this came and said itself.” And Mr. W. B. Yeats wrote: “ The 
 author of these poems is the greatest poet Ireland has produced, 
 because the most central and most Celtic. Whatever the future 
 may bring forth in the way of a truly great and national literature — 
 and now that the race is so large, so widely spread, and so conscious 
 of its unity, the years are ripe — will find its morning in these three 
 volumes of one who was made by the purifying fiame of national 
 sentiment the one man of his time who wrote heroic poetry — one 
 who, among the somewhat sybaritic singers of his day, was like 
 some aged sea-king sitting among the inland wheat and poppies — 
 the savor of the sea about him and its strength.” 
 
 FERGUSON^S SPEECH ON ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 From ‘ Mr. Samuel Ferguson — Ireland of His Day.’ 
 
 My Lord Mayor, Mr. Parker, and gentlemen, in calling 
 upon me, on this occasion, you do me an honor, which I 
 prize the more because I am hardly worthy of it ; yet I may, 
 without vanity, acknowledge that on this occasion, when 
 you celebrate the memory of the great Scottish poet in the 
 metropolis of Ireland, there is a certain propriety in your 
 devolving that honorable task on one like me, who, al- 
 though by the nativity of many generations an Irishman, 
 am yet by lineage and descent a Scot. Six generations 
 and more have passed since the district of Antrim, in which 
 my infant ears first became familiar with the accents of 
 Galloway, was peopled from that region which has since be- 
 come famous as the land of Burns. Time has but slightly 
 altered the Scottish accent on our lips; and saving our 
 duty to our own country, our hearts still turn with pride 
 and affection to that noble land, whose sons to-day through- 
 out the civilized world offer tribute of a national homage 
 to the great poet of Scotland. Such a homage has not been 
 paid to any man of letters of modern times. Yet it is not 
 in the extent merely of these demonstrations — although 
 they embrace the whole circle of the globe, wherever 
 Scotchmen have penetrated in the pursuit of duty, of fame„ 
 or of fortune — that we find the magnitude and the marvel 
 
SIR SAMVEL FERGUSON. 
 
 1171 
 
 of the praise that jou bestow upon him. It is in the char- 
 acter of the nation that bestows it, and that of the man to 
 whose memory the tribute is offered, that we discern the 
 greatness and the worthiness of your praise. A nation, 
 eager, and eminently successful in the pursuit of practical 
 objects, proverbially prudent, habituated to a rigorous self- 
 control, selects for the object of its reverence — not a man 
 like Bentham, or like Franklin, — not a divine, a philoso- 
 pher, or an economist, but a child of impulse and of pas- 
 sion — a proud, an improvident, an unworldly man. 
 
 How comes this? By what spell is it that you are thus 
 drawn together in hundreds and thousands, from rising to 
 the setting of the sun, to swell the tribute of honor to the 
 memory of this man with a contagious fervor which draws 
 into the vortex of your own enthusiasm the sister capi- 
 tals, and all the provincial towns in the United Kingdom? 
 Whence comes it, asks the unobservant and thoughtless 
 mind, that you should select for your highest honors a man 
 apparently so dissimilar to yourselves? The answer to the 
 inquiry — the spell that brings you together — lies in the 
 depth of your own character. It is the old poetic fervor of 
 your race, that faculty which lies at the basis of all enter- 
 prise and all fortune, although not discerned by those who 
 merely view the surface of the Scottish character, which 
 recognizes in the poet — in the man of fervid soul — the 
 true representative of the character of the Scot in its high- 
 est and best aspect. Therefore it is that you have well and 
 wisely chosen a poet as the representative of your race and 
 of your nation, a poet who commands the admiration of 
 mankind, a poet who has given utterance to the best sen- 
 timents of love, of tenderness, of generosity, of patriotism, 
 and of piety — to the most charming humor and the bright- 
 est wit, in numbers perfectly melodious, and in language 
 which, notwithstanding its dialectic peculiarities, is pre- 
 eminently manly, direct, and intelligible. The sentiments 
 belong to the world. The dialect and the poet are your 
 own. 
 
 When it pleased God to ordain that the languages of 
 mankind should be different. He left the hearts the same; 
 and that speech which most directly stirs in the breast of 
 man the common sympathies of our nature is the truest 
 classic : and when we find that those sympathies are evoked 
 
1172 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 by language harmonious in its composition and melodious 
 in its rhythmical arrangement, where rhyme reinforces 
 time, and sense falls in with both, and emotion culminates 
 at every turning-point of the composition, then, by the com- 
 mon consent of mankind, we acknowledge ourselves in the 
 presence and the power of the poet, whether he speaks the 
 language of Attica or of Ayrshire. This is the true test 
 of poetic power, that it stirs the hearts of men deeply and 
 widely by the direct agency of simple and intelligible lan- 
 guage. Tried by this test, the poetry of Burns justifies the 
 unexampled honors that to-day are paid to his memory. 
 His poems have the breadth, the simplicity, the ease, and 
 the force of operations of nature. And this is the charac- 
 teristic of the poetry of the Augustan age of every school 
 of literature, and these demonstrations of yours to-day will 
 do more than all the criticisms of the reviews and maga- 
 zines to recall our writers from that profitless search after 
 recondite thought and curious felicities of expressions 
 which of late in our literature have become too much the 
 fashion, and in which the careful observers of the progress 
 of the literature of older, nations might well apprehend the 
 approaching decay of letters in our own, if the tendency of 
 our favorite writers to abandon the ancient models of sim- 
 plicity and manliness be not arrested by such demonstra- 
 tions as ours to-day. 
 
 If these meetings have no other effect than to warn our 
 men of letters that the lasting praises of the generations 
 are not to be obtained by intricate, conceited, and curious 
 compositions, they would confer a boon on literature, and 
 aid in maintaining the standard of taste. But, gentlemen, 
 they have a wider, deeper significance. Men will not forget 
 their nationalities — men will not lay down the ties of birth 
 and of kindred at the chair of any science or of any quasi- 
 science. We must be Scotchmen, we must be Irishmen, and 
 we will honor the memories of the men whose genius has 
 asserted and won for us our own places for ourselves in the 
 temple of British fame. Honor, then, in full measure, 
 heaped and overflowing, to the heaven-born peasant who 
 has borne the harp of his country so high in that temple, 
 that if it be placed a little below the lyre of Shakespeare, 
 it is still so near that if you make the chords of one vi- 
 brate, those of the other will thrill in harmony, and who, 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON, 
 
 1173 
 
 haying achieved that position for the lyrical genius of his 
 country, could say with the modest nobility of a truly 
 manly nature, I have been bred to the plow, and I am 
 independent.’’ Well was it for Burns that he was bred to 
 the plow — that he spent the days of his dawning genius 
 in familiarity with nature, and not amongst the fine ladies 
 and fine gentlemen whose neglect of him has been deplored 
 as a misfortune, but truly was a happy escape for him and 
 for us all. Burns was not ashamed that he was born a 
 son of toil. Why should he? All the pursuits of industry 
 are honorable, especially those of the tiller of the soil. 
 The hands of heroes have been familiar with the plow. 
 Ulysses, the wisest of Homeric worthies, did not blush to 
 confess his prowess in the fields. When reproached with 
 idleness by one of the proud suitors of Penelope, you may 
 remember the noble spirit in which, associating the toils 
 of the husbandman with the glories of the soldier, he re- 
 plied — 
 
 “ Forbear, Eurymachus; for were we matched 
 In work against each other, thou and I 
 Mowing in spring-time, when the days are long ; 
 
 Or if again it were our task to drive 
 
 Yoked oxen in the plow ; and were the field 
 
 In size four acres ; with a glebe through which 
 
 The share might smoothly glide: then should st thou se« 
 
 How straight my furrow should be cut and true. 
 
 Or if Saturnian Jove should now excite 
 Here battle, or elsewhere ; and were I armed 
 With two bright spears, and with a shield, and bore 
 A brazen casque well fitted to my brows : 
 
 Me then thou shouldst behold mingling in fight 
 Among the foremost chiefs, nor with the crime 
 Of idle beggary shouldst reproach me more.” 
 
 Ulysses, gentlemen, did not conceive that skill in the 
 manual labors of the field detracted in aught from his 
 position as a prince and chieftain ; nor in the case of Burns 
 has it detracted one tittle from his pre-eminence as a leader 
 among the intellects of his country. Let no regrets mingle 
 with your festive offerings to his memory. No one with 
 truth can say his life was unhappy. As toil is incident to 
 the eating of daily bread, despondency is incident to the 
 poetic temperament; and he could not have had that keen 
 enjoyment of existence had he not sometimes suffered those 
 
1174 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 fits of despondency which are inseparable from the poetic 
 temperament. He who enjoyed in a measure so exalted the 
 raptures of love, the delights of friendship, the enchant- 
 ment of the fancy — no one can affirm that such a man was 
 unhappy. Neither let the libation you pour to his memory 
 be dashed by any bitter thought of supposed neglect or in- 
 gratitude in his country. Gentlemen, that is not so. Much 
 as Burns has done for Scotland, Scotland, before Burns 
 was born, had done more for him. 
 
 He was born the child of a proud, of a renowned and 
 glorious country. For him, as for all the genius of future 
 time, Wallace had made the banks of Irvine holy ground — 
 for him Bruce shook his Garrick spear — for him, as for 
 every child of genius that the soil of Scotland should pro- 
 duce to the end of time, the genius of Scottish music had 
 made the hills and valleys of his country vocal with melo- 
 dies soliciting to song — for him courageous-hearted ances- 
 tors, brave and pious men, had fought and bled — had 
 watched and pra^^ed on mountain and on moor — had 
 offered up the sacrifice of their blood for Scotland’s reli- 
 gious freedom, — that the cottier on his Saturday even 
 might be free to open his big hall Bible by his own hearth- 
 stone, and that amid scenes of patriarchal simplicity, 
 piety, and virtue, of manly self-reliance, and bold self-asser- 
 tion, the young germ of genius might unfold itself in 
 safety. Let no man, therefore, say that Scotland had not 
 done her part. No, she has not been wanting. She is no 
 unworthy mother of her noble son. In honoring him you 
 honor her and yourselves. With full hearts, then, and with 
 consciences discharged of all feeling of breach of duty to- 
 wards the man whose memory we are met to celebrate, let 
 us drain this bumper toast to the memory of Eobert Burns. 
 
 THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. 
 
 Come, see the Dolphin^s anchor forged; ’t is at a white heat 
 now : 
 
 The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; tho’ on the forge’s 
 brow 
 
 The little flames still fitfully play thro’ the sable mound ; 
 
 And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, 
 
SIR SAMVEL FERGUSON, 
 
 1175 
 
 All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare ; 
 
 Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass 
 there. 
 
 The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves 
 below; * 
 
 And red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe : 
 
 It rises, roars, rends all outright — O, Vulcan, what a glow! 
 
 ’T is blinding white, T is blasting bright; the high sun shines 
 not so ! 
 
 The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show ; 
 
 The roof ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row 
 
 Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the 
 foe; 
 
 As, quivering thro’ his fleece of flame, the sailing monster, 
 slow 
 
 Sinks on the anvil — all about, the faces fiery glow — 
 
 Hurrah ! ” they shout, leap out — leap out ; ” bang, bang, the 
 sledges go: 
 
 Hurrah ! the Jetted lightnings are hissing high and low ; 
 
 A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow ; 
 
 The leathern mail rebounds the hail ; the rattling cinders strow 
 
 The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains 
 flow. 
 
 And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant 
 a ho ! ” 
 
 Leap out, leap out, my masters ; leap out and lay on load ! 
 
 Let ’s forge a goodly anchor — a bower thick and broad ; 
 
 For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode; 
 
 And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road — 
 
 The low reef roaring on her lee — the roll of ocean poured 
 
 From stem to stern, sea after sea ; the mainmast by the board ; 
 
 The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the 
 chains! 
 
 But courage still, brave mariners — the Bower yet remains. 
 
 And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky 
 high. 
 
 Then moves his head, as tho’ he said, Fear nothing — here am 
 I!” 
 
 Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time ; 
 Your blows mtike music sweeter far than any steeple’s chime; 
 llut, while ye sling your sledges, sing — and let the burden be. 
 The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we ! 
 
 Strike in, strike in — the sparks begin to dull their rustling red ; 
 
1176 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be 
 sped; 
 
 Our anchor soon must change its bed of fiery rich array, 
 
 For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay ; 
 Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here. 
 For the yeo-heave-o’, and the heave-away, and the sighing sea- 
 man’s cheer ; 
 
 .When, weighing slow at eve they go — far, far from love and 
 home ; 
 
 And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o’er the ocean foam. 
 
 In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last ; 
 
 A shapely one he is, and strong, as e’er from cat was cast. — 
 
 O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me. 
 What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green 
 sea ! 
 
 O deep-sea Diver, who might then behold such sights as thou ? 
 The hoary-monster’s palaces! methinks what joy ’twere now 
 To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the whales. 
 And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging 
 tails ! 
 
 Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fieT^ce sea unicorn. 
 
 And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; 
 To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn; 
 
 And for the ghastly grinning shark to laugh his jaws to 
 scorn : — 
 
 To leap down on the kraken’s back, where ’mid Norwegian 
 isles 
 
 He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles. 
 
 Till, snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; 
 Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals 
 Of his back-browsing ocean-calves ; or, haply in a cove, 
 Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some Undine love, 
 
 To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard-by icy lands, 
 
 To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands. 
 
 O broad-armed Fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal 
 thine? 
 
 The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line; 
 And night by night ’t is thy delight, thy glory day by day. 
 Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play — 
 But shamer of our little sports ! forgive the name I gave — 
 
 A fisher’s joy is to destroy — thine office is to save. 
 
 O lodger in the sea-king’s halls, couldst thou but understand 
 Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping 
 band, 
 
SIR SAMVEL FERGUSON, 
 
 1177 
 
 Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, 
 With sounds like breakers in a dream blessing their ancient 
 friend — 
 
 Oh, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps 
 round thee. 
 
 Thine iron side would swell with pride ; thou Mst leap within 
 the sea! 
 
 Give honor to their memories who left the pleasant strand. 
 
 To shed their blood so freely for the love of Fatherland — 
 
 Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard 
 grave, 
 
 So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave — 
 
 Oh, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, 
 Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among! 
 
 LAMENT OVER THE RUINS OP THE ABBEY 
 OF TIMOLEAGUE. 
 
 Lone and weary as I wandered 
 By the bleak shore of the sea. 
 
 Meditating and reflecting 
 On the world’s hard destiny ; 
 
 Forth the moon and stars ’gan glimmer 
 In the quiet tide beneath, — 
 
 For on slumbering spray and blossom 
 Breathed not out of heaven a breath. 
 
 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 leper, 
 
 Alms and hospitality. 
 
 Still the ancient seat was standing 
 Built against the buttress gray 
 Where the clergy used to welcome 
 Weary travelers on their way. 
 
1178 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 There I sat me down in sadness, 
 
 ’Neath my cheek I placed my hand, 
 Till the tears fell hot and briny 
 Down upon the grassy land. 
 
 There, I said in woful sorrow. 
 
 Weeping bitterly the while. 
 
 Was a time when joy and gladness 
 Reigned within this ruined pile:— 
 
 Was a time when bells were tinkling, 
 Clergy preaching peace abroad. 
 
 Psalms a-singing, music ringing 
 Praises to the mighty God. 
 
 Empty aisle, deserted chancel. 
 
 Tower tottering to your fall, 
 
 Many a storm since then has beaten 
 On the gray head of your wall ! 
 
 Many a bitter storm and tempest 
 Has your roof -tree turned away. 
 
 Since you first were formed a temple 
 To the Lord of night and day. 
 
 Holy house of ivied gables. 
 
 That wert once the country’s pride. 
 Houseless now in weary wandering 
 Roam your inmates far and wide. 
 
 Lone you are to-day, and dismal, — 
 Joyful psalms no more are heard 
 Where, within your choir, her vesper 
 Screeches the cat-headed bird. 
 
 Ivy from your eaves is growing. 
 
 Nettles round your green hearth-stone, 
 Foxes howl, where, in your corners. 
 Dropping waters make their moan. 
 
 Where the lark to early matins 
 Used your clergy forth to call. 
 
 There! alas no tongue is stirring. 
 
 Save the daws’ upon the wall. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON, 
 
 1179 
 
 Refectory cold and empty, 
 
 Dormitory bleak and bare, 
 
 Where are now your pious uses, 
 Simple bed and frugal fare? 
 
 Gone your abbot, rule, and order, 
 Broken down your altar stones; 
 
 Naught see I beneath your shelter 
 Save a heap of clayey bones. 
 
 Oh! the hardship, oh! the hatred. 
 Tyranny, and cruel war. 
 
 Persecution and oppression. 
 
 That have left you as you are! 
 
 I myself once also prospered ; — 
 
 Mine is, too, an altered plight. 
 
 Trouble, care, and age have left me 
 Good for naught but grief to-night. 
 
 Gone, my motion and my vigor, — 
 Gone, the use of eye and ear ; 
 
 At my feet lie friends and children, 
 Powerless and corrupting here. 
 
 Woe is written on my visage 
 In a nut my heart would lie — 
 
 Death’s deliverance were welcome — 
 Father, let the old man die. 
 
 OWEN BAWN. 
 
 This refers to the rigid prohibition of the intermarriage with the 
 native Irish by William de Burghs, Earl of Ulster, in A.D. 1333, 
 which led to the Irish return from beyond the river Bawn and the 
 expulsion of the English from all Ulster. 
 
 My Owen Bawn’s hair is of thread of gold spun ; 
 
 Of gold in the shadow, of light in the sun ; 
 
 All curled in a coolun the bright tresses are — 
 
 They make his head radiant with beams like a star! 
 
 My Owen Bawn’s mantle is long and is wide. 
 
 To wrap me up safe from the storm by his side: 
 
1180 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And I M rather face snowdrift, and winter-wind there, 
 
 Than lie among daisies and sunshine elsewhere. 
 
 My Owen Bawn Quinn is a bold fisherman, 
 
 He tracks the dun quarry with arrow and spear — 
 
 Where wild woods are waving, and deep waters flow, 
 
 Oh, there goes my love with the dun-dappled roe. 
 
 My Owen Bawn Quinn is a bard of the best. 
 
 He spears the strong salmon in midst of the Bann; 
 
 And rocked in the tempest on stormy Lough Neagh, 
 
 Draws up the red trout through the bursting of spray. 
 
 My Owen Bawn Quinn is a hunter of deer. 
 
 He wakes me with singing, he sings me to rest ; 
 
 And the emit ^ ^neath his fingers rings up with a sound, 
 
 As though angels harped o’er us, and fays underground. 
 
 They tell me the stranger has given command. 
 
 That crommeal 2 and coolun shall cease in the land. 
 
 That all our youths’ tresses of yellow be shorn. 
 
 And bonnets, instead, of a new fashion worn. 
 
 That mantles like Owen Bawn’s shield us no more. 
 
 That hunting and fishing henceforth we give o’er. 
 
 That the net and the arrow aside must be laid. 
 
 For hammer and trowel, and mattock and spade. 
 
 That the echoes of music must sleep in their caves. 
 
 That the slave must forget his own tongue for a slave’s. 
 
 That the sound of our lips must be strange in our ears. 
 
 And our bleeding hands toil in the dew of our tears. 
 
 Oh sweetheart and comfort ! with thee by my side, 
 
 I could love and live happy, whatever betide; 
 
 But thou, in such bondage, wouldst die ere a day — 
 
 Away to Tir-oen, then, Owen, away ! 
 
 There are wild woods and mountains, and streams deep and 
 clear. 
 
 There are loughs in Tir-oen as lovely as here ; 
 
 There are silver harps ringing in Yellow Hugh’s hall. 
 
 And a bower by the forest side, sweetest of all ! 
 
 1 Cruit, a small harp. ^ Crommeal, mustache. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. 
 
 1181 
 
 We will dwell by the sunshiny skirts of the brake, 
 
 Where the sycamore shadow^s glow deep in the lake ; 
 
 And the snowy swan stirring the green shadows there, 
 
 Afloat on the water, seems floating in air. 
 
 Away to Tir-oen, then, Owen, aw^ay ! 
 
 We will leave them the dust from our feet for a prey. 
 
 And our dwelling in ashes and flames for a spoil— 
 
 will be long ere they quench them with streams of the Foyle ! 
 
 CASHEL OF MUNSTER. 
 
 IRISH RUSTIC BALLAD. 
 
 I ^d wed you without herds, without money, or rich array , 
 
 And I ’d wed you on a dewy morning at day-dawn gray ; 
 
 My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far awmy 
 In Cashel town, though the bare deal boards were our marriage- 
 bed this day. 
 
 Oh, fair maid, remember the green hillside; 
 
 Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide; 
 
 Time now has worn me; my locks are turned to gray. 
 
 The year ^s scarce and I am poor, but send me not, love, away. 
 
 Oh, deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl. 
 
 Oh, deem not my birth was as the birth of the churl ; 
 
 Marry me, and prove me, and say soon you will. 
 
 That noble blood is written on my right side still. 
 
 My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white; 
 
 No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight ! 
 
 But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare though I be, 
 and lone. 
 
 Oh, I M take her with me kindly to the County Tyrone. 
 
 Oh, my girl, I can see ’t is in trouble you are, 
 
 And, oh, my girl, I see ’t is your people’s reproach you bear; 
 
 I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly, 
 
 And, oh, may no other maiden know such reproach as I ! 
 
1182 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 MOLLY ASTHORE. 
 
 O Mary dear, O Mary fair, 
 
 0 branch of generous stem, 
 
 White blossom of the banks of Nair, 
 
 Though lilies grow on them; 
 
 You Ve left me sick at heart for love, 
 
 So faint I cannot see. 
 
 The candle swims the board above, 
 
 1 ^m drunk for love of th^e. 
 
 0 stately stem of maiden pride. 
 
 My woe it is and pain. 
 
 That I still severed from thy side 
 The long night must remain. 
 
 Through all the towns of Inisfail 
 I wandered far and wide ; 
 
 But from Downpatrick to Kinsale, 
 
 From Carlow to Kilbride, 
 
 ^Mong lords and dames of high degree, 
 Wherever my feet have gone. 
 
 My Mary, one to equal thee 
 I Ve never looked upon ; 
 
 1 live in darkness and in doubt 
 Whene’er my love ’s away, 
 
 But were the blessed sun put out. 
 
 Her shadow would make day. 
 
 ’T is she indeed, young bud of bliss. 
 
 And gentle as she ’s fair. 
 
 Though lily-white her bosom is. 
 
 And sunny-bright her hair. 
 
 And dewy-azure her blue eye. 
 
 And rosy-red her cheek. 
 
 Yet brighter she in modesty. 
 
 More beautifully meek; 
 
 The world’s wise men from north to south 
 Can never cure my pain, 
 
 But one kiss from her honey mouth. 
 
 Would make me whole again. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. 
 
 1183 
 
 CEAN DUBH DEELISH.i 
 
 Put your head, darling, darling, darling. 
 
 Your darling black head my heart above; 
 
 O mouth of honey with the thyme for fragrance, 
 Who with heart in breast could deny you love? 
 
 O many and many a young girl for me is pining, 
 Letting her locks of gold to the cold winds free. 
 
 For me, the foremost of the gay young fellows. 
 
 But I ’d leave a hundred, pure love, for thee. 
 
 Then put your head, darling, darling, darling, 
 
 Your darling black head my heart above; 
 
 O mouth of honey with the thyme for fragrance. 
 Who with heart in breast could deny you love? 
 
 THE LAPFUL OF NUTS. 
 
 Whene’er I see soft hazel eyes. 
 
 And nut-brown curls, 
 
 I think of those bright days I spent 
 Among the Limerick girls; 
 
 When up through Gratia woods I went 
 Nutting with thee; 
 
 And we plucked the glossy, clustering fruit 
 From many a bending tree. 
 
 Beneath the hazel boughs we sat. 
 
 Thou, love, and I, 
 
 And the gathered nuts lay in thy lap. 
 
 Below thy downcast eye. 
 
 But little we thought of the store we ’d won, 
 
 I, love, or thou. 
 
 For our hearts were full, and we dare not own 
 The love that ’s spoken now. 
 
 O there ’s wars for willing hearts in Spain, 
 And high Germanie! 
 
 And T ’ll come back, if I ever come back, 
 With knightly fame and fee, 
 
 1 Cean duhh deelish, dear black head. 
 
1184 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 And I come back, if I ever come back, 
 Faithful to thee, 
 
 That sat, with thy white lap full of nuts, 
 Beneath the hazel-tree. 
 
 PASTHEEN FION. 
 
 From the Irish. 
 
 Oh, my fair Pastheen is my heart’s delight ; 
 
 Her gay heart laughs in her blue eye bright ; 
 
 Like the apple blossom her bosom white. 
 
 And her neck like the swan’s on a March morn bright ! 
 Then, Oro, come with me ! come with me ! come with me ! 
 Oro, come with me ! brown girl, sweet ! 
 
 And oh ! I would go through snow and sleet 
 If you would come with me, my brown girl, sweet ! 
 
 Love of my heart, my fair Pastheen ! 
 
 Her cheeks are as red as the rose’s sheen. 
 
 But my lips have tasted no more, I ween. 
 
 Than the glass I drank to the health of my queen ! 
 
 Then, Oro, come with me ! come with me ! etc. 
 
 Were I in the town, where ’s mirth and glee, 
 
 Or ’twixt two barrels of barley bree. 
 
 With my fair Pastheen upon my knee, 
 
 ’T is I would drink to her pleasantly ! 
 
 Then, Oro, come with me ! come with me I etc. 
 
 Nine nights*! lay in longing and pain, 
 
 Betwixt two bushes, beneath the rain. 
 
 Thinking to see you, love, once again ; 
 
 But whistle and call were all in vain ! 
 
 Then, Oro, come with me ! come with me ! etc. 
 
 I ’ll leave my people, both friend and foe ; 
 
 From all the girls in the world I ’ll go; 
 
 But from you, sweetheart, oh, never ! oh, no ! 
 
 Till I lie in the coflSn stretched, cold and low ! 
 
 Then, Oro, come with me! come with me! etc. 
 
SIR 8A3IUEL FERGUSON. 
 
 1185 
 
 THE FAIR HILLS OF IRELAND. 
 
 From the Irish. 
 
 A very close translation, in the original meter, of an Irish song 
 of unknown authorship dating from the end of the seventeenth 
 century. The refrain means “ O sad lament.” 
 
 A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer, 
 
 Uileacdn duhh 0! 
 
 Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley 
 ear, Uileacdn diibh 0! 
 
 There is honey in the trees where her misty vales expand. 
 And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fanned ; 
 There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i^ the yellow 
 sand 
 
 On the fair hills of holy Ireland. 
 
 Curled he is and ringleted, and plaited to the knee, 
 
 Uileacdn duhh 0! 
 
 Each captain who comes sailing across the Irish Sea, 
 
 Uileacdn duhh 0! 
 
 And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand, 
 
 Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand. 
 And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high com- 
 mand. 
 
 For the fair hills of holy Ireland. 
 
 Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground, 
 Uileacdn duhh 0! 
 
 The butter and the cream do wondrously abound, 
 
 Uileacdn duhh 0! 
 
 The cresses on the water and the sorrels are at hand. 
 
 And the cuckoo ^s calling daily his note of music bland. 
 
 And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song i^ the forests 
 grand 
 
 On the fair hills of holy Ireland. 
 
 LOOKING SEAWARD. 
 
 From ‘ Congal.’ 
 
 He looking landward from the brow of some great sea-cape’s 
 head, 
 
 Bray or Ben-Edar — sees beneath, in silent pageant grand, 
 
 Slow fields of sunshine spread o’er fields of rich, corn-bearing 
 land ; 
 
1186 
 
 IRmH LITERATURE. 
 
 Red glebe and meadow margin green commingling to the view 
 
 With yellow stubble, browning woods, and upland tracts of 
 blue; 
 
 Then, sated with the pomp of fields, turns seaward, to the 
 verge 
 
 Where, mingling with the murmuring wash made by the far- 
 down surge. 
 
 Comes up the clangorous song of birds unseen, that, low be- 
 neath. 
 
 Poised off the rock, ply underfoot; and, ’mid the blossoming 
 heath. 
 
 And mint, sweet herb that loves the ledge rare-aired, at ease 
 reclined. 
 
 Surveys the wide pale-heaving floor crisped by a curling wind ; 
 
 With all its shifting, shadowy belts, and chasing scopes of 
 green, 
 
 Sun-strown, foam-freckled, sail-embossed, and blackening 
 squalls between. 
 
 And slant, cerulean-skirted showers that with a drowsy sound. 
 
 Heard inward, of ebullient waves, stalk all the horizon round; 
 
 And — haply, being a citizen just ’scaped from some disease 
 
 That long has held him sick indoors, now, in the brine-fresh 
 breeze. 
 
 Health-salted, bathes; and says, the while he breathes reviving 
 bliss, 
 
 I am not good enough, O God, nor pure enough for this ! ” 
 
 GRACE NUGENT. 
 
 From the Irish of O’Carolan. 
 
 Brightest blossom of the spring 
 Grace the sprightly girl I sing ; 
 
 Grace who bore the palm of mind 
 From all the rest of womankind. 
 Whomsoe’er the fates decree. 
 
 Happy fate for life to be, 
 
 Day and night my coolun near. 
 
 Ache or pain need never fear. 
 
 Her neck outdoes the stately swan. 
 Her radiant face the summer dawn; 
 Happy thrice the youth for whom 
 The fates design that branch of bloom. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. 
 
 1187 
 
 Pleasant are thy words benign, 
 
 Rich those azure eyes of thine; 
 
 Ye who see my queen beware 
 Those twisted links of golden hair. 
 
 This is what I fain would say 
 To the bird-voiced lady gay — 
 
 Never yet conceived the heart, 
 
 Joy that grace could not impart, 
 Fold of jewels, case of pearls, 
 Coolun of the circling curls ! 
 
 More I say not, but no less. 
 
 Drink your health and happiness. 
 
 MILD MABEL KELLY. 
 
 From the Irish of O’Carolan. 
 
 Whoever the youth who by Heaven’s decree 
 
 Has his happy right hand ’neath that bright head of thine, 
 ’T is certain that he 
 From all sorrow is free. 
 
 Till the day of his death, if a life so divine 
 Should not raise him in bliss above mortal degree. 
 
 Mild Mabel Ni Kelly, bright coolun of curls! 
 
 All stately and pure as the swan on the lake. 
 
 Her mouth of white teeth is a palace of pearls. 
 
 And the youth of the land are love-sick for her sake. 
 
 No strain of the sweetest e’er heard in the land 
 
 That she knows not to sing, in a voice so enchanting. 
 
 That the cranes on the sand 
 Fall asleep where they stand. 
 
 Oh, for her blooms the rose, and the lily ne’er waiting 
 To shed its mild luster on bosom or hand. 
 
 The dewy blue blossom that hangs on the spray 
 More blue than her eyes human eye never saw. 
 
 Deceit never lurked in its beautiful ray. 
 
 Dear lady, I drink to you, slainte go bragh ! i 
 
 To gaze on her beauty the young hunter lies 
 ’Mong the branches that shadow her path in the grove. 
 
 But alas, if her eyes 
 The rash gazer surprise, 
 
 * Slainte go bragh, your health for ever. 
 
1188 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 All eyesight departs from the victim of love, 
 
 And the blind youth steals home with his heart full of sighs. 
 O, pride of the Gael of the lily-white palm ! 
 
 O coolun of curls to the grass at your feet ! 
 
 At the goal of delight and of honor I am 
 To boast such a theme for a song so unmeet. 
 
 THE COOLUN.i 
 
 Translated from the Irish of Maurice Dugan or O’Dugan. 
 
 O had you seen the Coolun, 
 
 Walking down by the cuckoo’s street. 
 
 With the dew of the meadow shining 
 On her milk-white twinkling feet. 
 
 O my love she is, and my cailin 6g,^ 
 
 And she dwells in Bal’nagar; 
 
 And she bears the palm of beauty bright, 
 
 From the fairest that in Erin are. 
 
 In Bal’nagar is the Coolun, 
 
 Like the berry on the bough her cheek; 
 
 Bright beauty dwells for ever 
 On her fair neck and ringlets sleek; 
 
 O sweeter is her mouth’s soft music 
 Than the lark or thrush at dawn, 
 
 Or the blackbird in the greenwood singing 
 Farewell to the setting sun. 
 
 Rise up, my boy ! make ready 
 My horse, for I forth would ride. 
 
 To follow the modest damsel. 
 
 Where she walks on the green hillside: 
 
 For e’er since our youth were we plighted. 
 
 In faith, troth, and wedlock true — 
 
 O she ’s sweeter to me nine times over. 
 
 Than organ or cuckoo! 
 
 O ever since my childhood 
 
 I loved the fair and darling child; 
 
 But our people came between us, 
 
 xind with lucre our pure love defiled: 
 
 I Anchidl-fhionn, maiden of fair flowing locks. ^ Cailin 6g, young girl. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. 
 
 1189 
 
 0 my woe it is, and my bitter pain, 
 
 And I weep it night and day, 
 
 That the cailin Ian of my early love 
 Is torn from my heart away. 
 
 Sweetheart and faithful treasure, 
 
 Be constant still, and true ; 
 
 Nor for want of herds and houses 
 Leave one who would ne’er leave you. 
 
 1 ’ll pledge you the blessM Bible, 
 
 Without and eke within, 
 
 That the faithful God will provide for us, 
 Without thanks to kith or kin. 
 
 O love, do you remember 
 When we lay all night alone, 
 
 Beneath the ash in the winter storm. 
 When the oak wood round did groan? 
 
 No shelter then from the blast had we. 
 The bitter blast or sleet. 
 
 But your gown to wrap about our heads, 
 And my coat around our feet. 
 
PERCY HETHERINGTON FITZGERALD. 
 
 (1834 ) 
 
 Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, M.A., F.S.A., was born in 
 Fane Valley, County Louth, in 1834. He was educated at Stony- 
 hurst College, Lancashire, and Trinity College, Dublin, after which 
 he was called to the Irish bar and appointed Crown Prosecutor. 
 
 He is the author of many works of fiction, most of which origi- 
 nally appeared in All the Year Round and Once a Week. 
 
 Mr. Fitzgerald is a most industrious literary worker, and has pub- 
 lished, besides ‘The Lives of the Sheridans,’ ‘Charles Lamb, his 
 Friends, his Haunts, and his Books,’ ‘ Life of David Garrick,’ ‘ The 
 Kembles,’ ‘The Life of George IV.,’ ‘The Royal Dukes and Prin- 
 cesses of the Family of George III.,’ ‘Life and Times of William 
 IV.,’ and ‘ Fifty Years of Catholic Life and Social Progress.’ 
 
 SHERIDAN AS ORATOR. 
 
 From ‘ The Lives of the Sheridans.’ 
 
 Sheridan^s oratorical reputation is mainly founded on 
 those set ’’ and prepared speeches delivered on stirring 
 occasions, which are to be read in collections. But these 
 carefully studied efforts give little idea of his general 
 powers. It is only by going very carefully through the 
 series of reports furnished so dramatically and accurately 
 by Memory Wood fall that we see what a conspicuous 
 figure he was in the ordinary routine discussions of the 
 House. Having carefully followed him through some of 
 these conspicuous years, I find how industrious, versatile, 
 and combative he showed himself. It was, in fact, as a 
 
 debater ’’ that he here exhibited those gifts, being always 
 ready with some brilliant, if not theatrical, attack on, or 
 reply to Pitt — or to Burke, when the latter began to sit on 
 the Treasury benches. 
 
 Wraxall has left a really admirable picture of him, with 
 an acute analysis of the arts, gifts, and devices by which 
 he gained his influence over the House : Sheridan exposed 
 
 an angry antagonist by sallies of wit, or attacked him with 
 classic elegance of satire; performing this arduous task in 
 the face of a crowded assembly, without losing for an in- 
 stant either his presence of mind, his facility of expression, 
 or his good humor. He wounded deepest, indeed, when he 
 
 1190 
 
'PERCY HETEERINGTON FITZGERALD, 1191 
 
 smiled ; and convulsed his hearers with laughter, while the 
 object of his ridicule or animadversion was twisting under 
 the lash. Nor did he, while thus chastising his adversary, 
 alter a muscle of his own countenance; which, as well as 
 his gestures, seemed to participate and display the unalter- 
 able serenity of his intellectual formation.’’ 
 
 It will be noted what a happy and subtle art of descrip- 
 tion is here shown by this observer, who goes on : 
 
 Earely did he elevate his voice, and never except in sub- 
 servience to the dictates of his judgment, with the view 
 to produce a corresponding effect on his audience. Yet he 
 was always heard, generally listened to with eagerness, 
 and could obtain a hearing at almost any hour. Burke, 
 who wanted Sheridan’s nice tact and his amenity of man- 
 ner, was continually coughed down; and on those occasions 
 he lost his temper. Even Fox often tired the House by the 
 repetitions which he introduced into his speeches. Sheri- 
 dan never abused their patience. 
 
 At this period of his life, when he was not more than 
 thkty-three years of age, his countenance and features had 
 in them something peculiarly pleasing; indicative at once 
 of intellect, humor, and gayety. All these characteristics 
 played about his lips when speaking, and operated with in- 
 conceivable attraction ; for they anticipated, as it were, to 
 the eye, the effect produced by his oratory on the ear; thus 
 opening for him a sure way to the heart or the under- 
 standing. Even the tones of his voice, which were singu- 
 larly mellifluous, aided the general effect of his eloquence ; 
 nor was it accompanied by Burke’s unpleasant accent. 
 Pitt’s enunciation was unquestionably more imposing, dig- 
 nified, and sonorous; Fox displayed more argument, as 
 well as vehemence; Burke possessed more fancy and en- 
 thusiasm ; but Sheridan won his way by a sort of fascina- 
 tion. At thirty-three it might be said of his aspect, as 
 Milton does of the fallen angel’s form, 
 
 “ ‘ His face had not yet lost 
 All her original brightness.’ ” 
 
 Lord Brougham, who had heard him speak, justly says: 
 His worst efforts were those which he preferred himself, 
 full of imagery often far fetched, oftener gorgeous and 
 loaded with point that drew the attention of the hearer 
 
1192 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 away from the thoughts to the words; and his best by far 
 were those where he declaimed with his deep, clear voice, 
 though somewhat thick utterance, with a fierce defiance of 
 some adversary, or an unappeasable vengeance against 
 some act; or reasoned rapidly, in a like tone, upon some 
 plain matter of fact, and exposed as plainly to homely 
 ridicule some puerile sophism. In all this his admirable 
 manner was aided by an eye singularly piercing (and he 
 adds in a note that it had the singularity of never wink- 
 ing and a countenance which, though coarse and even 
 in some features gross, was animated and expressive, and 
 could easily assume the figure of both rage and menace 
 and scorn. With all his ingenious tropes and far-fetched 
 similes (such as the picture of Napoleon having Hhrones 
 for his watch-towers, and for the palisades of his castle 
 scepters tipped or stuck with crowns^) — for he experi- 
 mented in various forms of the image — there came some 
 natural burst, like that on the liberty of the Press, when 
 he pictured both Houses as venal and corrupt. Court and 
 Prince bad : ^ Give me but an unfettered Press, and I will 
 defy them to encroach a hair’s-breadth upon the liberties 
 of England ! ’ ’’ But it would take a volume to deal with 
 the subject of this remarkable man^s oratory. 
 
 On the other hand, from perpetual exhibition, we find 
 much that is artificial and mechanical in his various 
 methods; as, in contriving an apparently spontaneous re- 
 ply to an adversary, if the latter used a quotation, he 
 would hurry out to consult the book, and discover some- 
 thing preceding or following the quoted passage which 
 would give it a new turn. 
 
 If a friend made a sally or used an original metaphor 
 capable of political application, he would take it as his 
 own on the first opportunity. He had also many pleasant 
 thoughts carefully cut and dried,^’ as it is called, ready 
 for application to certain characters. For some of his 
 most telling replies his habit was to retire to a neighbor- 
 ing coffee-house and wufite the most lively, stinging pas- 
 sages, w^hich he w^ould fit in here and there among more 
 level portions. All this sort of wwkmanship must have 
 been soon found out, and no doubt impaired the w^eight and 
 infiuence of his utterances. Latterly he must have been 
 listened to with much the same feeling as have been cer- 
 
SCENE IN COUNTY WICKLOW, SHOWING PART OF LOUGH DAN 
 

 
 )\ 
 
 -■i 
 
PERCY HETEERINGTON FITZGERALD. 
 
 1193 
 
 tain licensed jesters and entertainers of the House in our 
 own day. 
 
 In following him through those varied contests, we are 
 struck by his airy pleasantry; though he is not to be com- 
 pared with Burke, who showed a higher sincerity and more 
 classical versatility, and who was terribly in earnest 
 about principle, and utterly uncompromising in the small- 
 est things. Sheridan, on the contrary, we find ready 
 enough to make some light and airy retort, without much 
 regard as to where he picked up the weapons; he varied 
 the monotony of the contest by many a pleasant stroke, 
 which must have been amusing to the House. 
 
 Another remarkable feature in most of his speeches was 
 that he seemed to speak with effect only when making at- 
 tacks on the special objects of his enmity. One of these 
 .was almost invariably Mr. Pitt, to whom he showed the 
 rancor that men of loose life often have against purists 
 whose character and success are a rebuke. Another was 
 Mr. Dundas — until he came to defend himself as roughly 
 as he was attacked — an object of dislike whom Sheridan 
 assailed with a genuine vigor and venom. Windham, too, 
 he did not spare. Indeed, it came at lavSt to this — that 
 some of his most telling efforts were directed against his 
 own former friends, with whom he had completely broken. 
 
 It will be entertaining to note, as in the case of Burke, 
 the scenes, the disputes he so often had with Mr. Pitt, and 
 which were continued through a long course of years. 
 These were trifiing, and certainly unworthy of both, the 
 time of the House being taken up with their frivolous al- 
 tercations. Thus, when Pitt had once taunted him with 
 his theatrical pursuits, Sheridan retorted by a very un- 
 becoming form of jest, which was then in the height of 
 popularity — viz., sneering at his well-known regularity and 
 strictness of life. These insinuations were taken from the 
 satires of the ‘ Kolliad,^ of which they were the regular 
 stock-in-trade. As in a debate that arose in May, 1787, 
 Sheridan bitterly inveighed against Pitt, who, he said, 
 was the real culprit, dealing in professions, not acts, Pitt 
 scornfully replied that he believed that he (Sheridan) was 
 sincere in this case — i.e., in making a charge against him; 
 and when it was thought what a field for ingenuity there 
 vWas in spreading calumnies and reports against him, it was 
 
 i8— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1194 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 no wonder he seized on this matter as an excuse. I am 
 glad he admits/^ said Sheridan, “ that I generally speak 
 with sincerity.’’ No,” said Mr. Pitt, across the table; 
 
 not so ; but merely in what you have said to-day against 
 me.” On which Sheridan went off into a rather rambling 
 series of charges as to Pitt’s inconsistency, his waste of 
 public money, his bestowing titles and honors corruptly. 
 
 On the whole,” he said, using the favorite sneer, Mr. 
 Pitt had always professed purity , but had acted with self- 
 attention and neglect of others.” 
 
 Again, in March, 1788, Pitt glanced at Sheridan, saying 
 that in most of his speeches there was much fancy, in 
 many shining wit, in others very ingenious argument, in 
 all great eloquence, and in some few truth and justice!’ 
 Sheridan said he rejected such compliments with scorn. 
 He insinuated that Pitt was fond of shiftiness. He was, 
 he said, one of the dark, concealed, and secret band skulk- 
 ing behind the throne. 
 
 Next, on Pitt’s announcing that he intended to reduce 
 the duties on brandies, Sheridan taunted him with his old 
 boastings, that he would put down smuggling,” and said 
 that all his measures had failed. Pitt replied that he 
 wondered which he ought to admire most — his display of 
 confidence or his ignorance. The other retorted that he 
 was now convinced he was right, from Pitt’s showing him- 
 self so very angry. His behavior was not decent. 
 
 All through these squabbles we find Sheridan boldly 
 criticising Bank Acts, loans, bullion, and topics of the 
 kind. In reference to which Mr. Tierney told Moore that 
 Sheridan was generally wrong about financial matters. 
 It was certainly a fine holiday-time for Mr. Pitt when he 
 had no abler critic of his financial schemes than Sheridan. 
 Pitt, however, had a very high idea of him, and thought 
 him,” Tierney added, a far greater man than Mr. Fox.” 
 In the same spirit his friend Windham said of him that 
 he was ignorant of almost every subject he had to handle, 
 and manfully confessed it.” 
 
 In May, 1794, there was another scene, when Sheridan 
 declared that those seditious conspiracies had no existence 
 save in the foul hnaginations of Ministers.” On which 
 Pitt answered scornfully, that this sort of abuse of him had 
 been too often repeated to have any novelty for him, or to 
 
PERCY HETHERINGTON FITZGERALD, 1195 
 
 be entitled to any degree of importance either with him or 
 his friends. Pitt was called on to make an apology, which 
 he did, where alone it is due, — to you, sir, and to the 
 House.’’ On which Sheridan angrily said this apology was 
 disorderly, and a breach in itself of order, as it seemed to 
 except him. Still, it was no matter; for he had received 
 his apology with the same contempt with which he had the 
 provocation. As to the foul imaginations ” of the Min- 
 isters, etc., he repeated the words, for the Speaker had not 
 called him to order at the proper time. As to Pitt, he left 
 the House to judge of the manliness of the person who 
 sheltered himself in the shade of his situation, and who 
 dealt in insinuations which, but for his situation, he durst 
 not make. On such conduct he would utter no comment, 
 because he knew there were expressions of scorn and dis- 
 dain which the House would not permit him to use. He 
 would now ask an apology from Pitt for the provocation 
 given inside the House to all, and he was convinced no 
 provocation tvould he given outside.^^ This was certainly 
 blustering. 
 
 In January, 1794, there was yet another of these alter- 
 cations on pensions, jobbing,” etc., in which Sheridan 
 put himself forward to assail certain allowances — among 
 others, some to his own friends. He declared, however, it 
 was only the system, not individuals, he was aiming at. 
 Burke indignantly commented on this distinction be- 
 tween the jobber and the jobbed ” ; and after the matter had 
 been shown to be wholly trivial, Mr. Pitt asked scornfully, 
 “ Would he now persevere in saying that he was only in- 
 fluenced by good will to the persons he incriminated? Or 
 if he did, could he imagine that any one in the House 
 would credit him?” Sheridan was eagerly rising, when 
 Fox interfered, and said that, in his opinion, founded on 
 experience, Sheridan had as much credit as Mr. Pitt.” 
 Sheridan then said he was glad he had been prevented 
 answering, as he might have said something unpalatable. 
 As to the opinion of the House of his credit, he would not 
 venture to say anjdhing; hut it loas only in the House 
 that Pitt would venture to tell him so. On which Mr. 
 Stanley protested against these personalities; and Mr. 
 Yorke, with excellent good sense, said it was hard for 
 members, sent up from the country to mind their constit- 
 
1196 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 uents’ business, to have to listen to such nonsense.” 
 Sheridan, therefore, who, in the common Irish phrase, had 
 blazed,’’ it was clear, was eager to provoke the Minister 
 to combat, as we find from his taunts on two or three oc- 
 casions. 
 
 This hostility, however, was alternated with exercises 
 of an agreeable pleasantry. Thus, when Pitt gravely pro- 
 posed to levy a tax of a guinea on every horse starting for 
 a race, this recognition of sport was too tempting to be 
 passed by. Lord Surrey,” says Wraxall, who possessed 
 much racing knowledge, advised him to alter his tax, and 
 to substitute in its place five pounds on the winning horse 
 of any plate of fifty pounds’ value. The Minister instantly 
 adopted, with many acknowledgments, the Earl’s sugges- 
 tion. Sheridan, who sat close by Lord Surrey, then ris- 
 ing, after having paid some compliments to the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer on his dexterity and jockeyshipj observed 
 that whenever Lord Surrey should next visit Newmarket 
 his sporting companions, who would be sweated by this 
 new tax of his fabrication, instead of commending his in- 
 genuity, would probably exclaim. Jockey of Norfolk, be not 
 so bold! This convulsed the House; and even Pitt, whose 
 features did not always relax on hearing Sheridan’s jests, 
 however brilliant or apposite they might be, joined in the 
 laugh.” 
 
 This was a specimen of that spontaneous gayety which 
 made him so welcome to the House. He was not always so 
 One of his stock devices was to make some farci- 
 cal pleasantry on names of statesmen; as on Mr. Bragge: 
 “ Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better ; ” or when 
 pressed to name ” some one to whom he was making allu- 
 sion, he said he could do it as soon as you could say “ Jack 
 Robinson.” Or he would tell of one Paterson,” who kept 
 a shop at Manchester, and, having a tilted cart in use 
 for his business, had the names of Pitt and Paterson ” 
 painted on the front of it. This man, who was known to 
 have no partner in his trade, was asked what he meant by 
 the name of Pitt on his cart, as he had no share in the 
 business. ‘‘Ah!” replied he, “he has indeed no share in 
 the business; but a very large share in the profits of it.” 
 This seems a poor sort of wit. One who is ever looking out 
 
PERCY HETHERINGTON FITZGERALD, 1197 
 
 for some superficial allusion of this kind to win a laugh 
 ,:will rarely enjoy respect. 
 
 Mr. Moore has laid open for us Sheridan’s private labora- 
 tory where he compounded his oratory — the images, meta- 
 phors, prepared bursts — the accurately marked places 
 where Good God, sir ! ” was to come in. These fire- 
 , works ” kept by him for use do not belong to oratory, whose 
 legitimate imagery is inspired by the emotion of the 
 moment and belongs to the occasion. It is extraordinary 
 the difference of feeling found when comparing his images 
 .with those of Burke, so genuine, so apropos, so forcible. 
 
 Burke,” said Sir Gilbert Elliot, abounds with these fine 
 passages; but no man could ever perceive in him the least 
 trace of preparation, and he never appears more incon- 
 testably inspired by the moment, and transported with the 
 fury of the god within him, than in those finished passages 
 which it would cost even Shakespeare long study and labor 
 to produce.” 
 
 On a superficial view, it is often customary to class Sheri- 
 dan with the statesmen of his period. Fox, Burke, Sheri- 
 dan,” etc., are named together, as though he had any 
 equally important influence on the political events of his 
 time. 
 
 But the truth, as we have before observed, is that 
 Sheridan cannot be counted a serious jwUtician.^^ It 
 would almost seem that he had few convictions. In all the 
 abundant political memoirs of the time, of which there are 
 scores, we rarely find his name mentioned as being of ac- 
 count at any crisis; though he figures largely in schemes, 
 and in tortuous intrigues, or as a supposed adviser of an 
 illustrious personage.” Mr. Croker truly says : How 
 
 many, after all, are the events in the public history of Eng- 
 land with which posterity will, in any manner whatever, 
 connect the name of Sheridan? In fact, the history of 
 England might be written without a single introduction 
 of his name, and in all probability hereafter it will be so 
 written.” Industrious, indeed, he was as a debater, and 
 took part in discussing all manner of subjects; but having 
 read all these efforts carefully, they seem generally con- 
 ceived in a labored petty spirit, merely for the embarrass- 
 ment of some Minister; or that he had got up ” his facts 
 without having any particular interest in the question. 
 
1198 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE, 
 
 And in this estimate of Sheridan as a politician we must 
 not overlook the fact that in those times of strict party 
 spirit we always find him somehow estranged from mem- 
 bers of his party, following the guide of his own interest 
 and fighting for his own hand. The reason seems to be that 
 unhappily he was ever pressed with debts and difficulties, 
 now surmounting them, now overpowered by them ; a strug- 
 gle which is certain to lend a shifting tone to political 
 views. It is difficult indeed for a man thus harassed to 
 take up Spartan or heroic principles. This end, with so 
 impulsive a character, seemed more likely to be gained by 
 devotion to a person of such infiuence as was the Prince 
 of Wales and Kegent, than in barren service to the abstract 
 principles of a party whose coming to power seemed hope- 
 less; nor was it likely that a man pressed and straitened 
 by debt, and notorious for the shifts and devices by which 
 he strove to release himself from embarrassments, would 
 be likely to be over scrupulous in matters of party. 
 
WILLIAM JOHN FITZPATRICK. 
 
 (1830—1895.) 
 
 “The modern Suetonius,” as the lively writer of ‘Recollections 
 of Dublin Castle,’ calls W. J. Fitzpatrick, “ was,” he says, “ perpet- 
 ually groping among old papers, letters, and the like, and discover- 
 ing awkward secrets. He would tell you in a cozy way, and in his 
 high treble : ‘ I have just purchased a number of curious docu- 
 ments, in one of which there is a curious transaction relating to 
 your grandfather. Did you ever know that he had a salary from 
 the Government to act as spy, etc. ? I have all the documents.’ ” 
 
 He certainly was an industrious student of his day of the careers 
 of illustrious Irishmen, and one of the best authorities on the social 
 life of the past in Ireland. 
 
 He was born Aug. 31, 1830, and was educated at Clongowes 
 Wood College. His first work of any importance was ‘ The Life, 
 Times, and Correspondence of Dr. Doyle’ G861). This was fol- 
 lowed by a biography of Lord Cloncurry, and a work in defense 
 of Lady Morgan entitled ‘ The Friends, Foes, and Adventures of 
 Lady Morgan,’ to which there came a sequel, ‘Lady Morgan, her 
 Career, Literary and Personal.’ ‘Anecdotal Memoirs of Archbishop 
 Whately ’ next appeared; and this was followed by ‘Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald and his Betrayers’ (1869). ‘ Ireland before the Union’ 
 
 appeared in 1870, and was succeeded by a volume of even greater 
 historical value, entitled ‘ The Sham Squire and the Informers of 
 1798.’ The description of this remarkable figure in the history of 
 Ireland is brought out clearly, and the whole story is a striking pic- 
 ture of the state of society at the troubled period immediately before 
 and after the Act of Union. In 1873 a volume of pleasant gossip 
 under the title of ‘ Irish Wits and Worthies, including Dr. Lanigan,’ 
 was published; a life of Lever also came from his pen. He 
 wrote ‘ Historical Discoveries of the Days of Tone and Emmet,’ and 
 was a frequent contributor to periodical literature. His books make 
 a long list, but one of the most important was ‘ The Secret Service 
 under Pitt,’ and the most curious perhaps was a pamphlet claiming 
 for Thomas Scott, the brother of Sir Walter Scott, the chief credit 
 for a large part of the Waverley Novels. He was a member of the 
 Royal Irish Academy and of the Dublin Royal Society. He died in 
 1895. 
 
 ANECDOTES OF KEOGH, THE IRISH MASSILLON. 
 
 From ‘ Irish Wits and Worthies.’ 
 
 That love of hospitable and convivial pleasure character- 
 istic of the old school of Irish priesthood, and which our 
 historian sought to vindicate against the aspersions of 
 
 1199 
 
1200 
 
 IRI^H LITERATURE, 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, was not only illustrated in Lanigan’s 
 own idiosyncracy, but in that of his friend, the Kev. M. B. 
 Keogh, as well. The latter was hospitable 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, w’ere invariably left unpaid. A merchant to wiiom 
 Mr. Keogh was indebted, knowing that he w^ould have no 
 chance of settlement if directly applied for, appealed to 
 him with the representation that, as he was in great dif- 
 ficulties a pecuniary loan w^ould be specially acceptable. 
 The preacher replied that he could not give it just then, 
 but if the applicant w^ould come and dine with him on the 
 following Sunday he w^ould try meanwhile to make out the 
 loan for him somehow or another. The money wms duly 
 produced, and the merchant, full of expressions of grati- 
 tude, reminding him of his old claim, returned the over- 
 plus to Father Keogh, w^ho henceforth regarded him with 
 feelings not altogether paternal. 
 
 As a natural consequence of the perverse principle w^hich 
 he cultivated, Father Keogh w^as constantly in debt and 
 difficulties. One day, wffien disrobing after delivering a 
 charity sermon in Whitefriar Street Chapel, where a vast 
 crowM had congregated to hear him surpass himself, two 
 bailiffs stalked into the sacristy, and placing him in a cov- 
 ered 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, I know your popularity, and in case you appeal to 
 the mob, I draw the trigger.” The idol of the people sub- 
 mitted to his fate wuth the desperate resignation he 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 docu- 
 ment proved futile; it turned out that Mr. Keogh wms ar~ 
 rested at the suit of an utterly different creditor, and the 
 glee of the coach-maker, who never expected to be paid, w^as 
 only equaled by Mr. Keogh’s dismay. 
 
 The late Rev. J. Lalor, P.P. of Athy, the former coad- 
 jutor of Father Keogh at Baldoyle, used to tell that his 
 
WILLIAM ^JOEH FITZPATRICK. 
 
 1201 
 
 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 re- 
 sembled 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 argu- 
 ment waited upon the pastor and claimed the price of a 
 new one. “ My dear fellow,” was the reply, I have not 
 a farthing in the wwld; 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 flavor. 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 
 cannot carry more than a certain amount of whisky with- 
 out 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 Father Keogh’s forte, after pulpit oratory, was rare 
 powders of histrionic mimicry. He was once invited by the 
 late good though eccentric pastor of Duleek to preach a 
 charity sermon. After delivering a pow’^erful appeal, which 
 melted many of the audience to tears. Father Keogh pro- 
 ceeded to read aloud some papers, containing parochial 
 announcements, wdiich 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, w^as mimicking the peculiarities of 
 their primitive pastor. The latter w^as not slow in recog- 
 nizing his own portrait, and starting up from a seat of 
 
1202 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 honor 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 de- 
 livering a divine message seemed not unsuited for the 
 miter, 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 neighbor, but was utterly blind to his 
 own. In hearing these anecdotes of this remarkable Irish- 
 man — 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 Kir- 
 wan 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 Kev. Mortimer O’Sulli- 
 van 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 supe- 
 rior, but you owe me £2 for ten years, and I had no other 
 means of getting paid.” Those wlio know me,” observed 
 Dr. Willis, in a communication 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 ser- 
 mons in Church Street, Keogh had every one of the congre- 
 gation in tears, including myself, whom he had so often 
 previously, in private, convulsed with laughter.” 
 
 The old magazine from which an extract has been al- 
 ready 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 calculated 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 
 excitement, carried beyond himself by a species of inspira- 
 
WILLIAM JOHN FITZPATRICK, 
 
 1203 
 
 tion. To tie down such a man to his notes would be to ex- 
 tinguish half his enthusiasm; it would be a sort of intel- 
 lectual sacrilege — an insult to the majesty of genius.’’ Mr. 
 Keogh’s success as a preacher 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, without 
 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, impas- 
 sioned, spirit-stirring diction, and then say, if you can, 
 that you feel the absence of flne 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 flrst 
 sight be supposed. As in the case of Dean Kirwan — whose 
 printed sermons 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 re- 
 ported, presented him with the proof-sheets for correction ; 
 but, although accurately taken down, Mr. Keogh would not 
 believe that he had delivered it in that form, and, fllled with 
 di,!>gust, tore up the sheets and irrevocably canceled the 
 sermon. 
 
 Mr. Keogh, during his hours of relaxation, exhibited all 
 the exuberance of a liberated school-boy on the playground. 
 A gentleman, who we fear played cards rather for profit 
 than pleasure, having one evening at Raheny pocketed 
 pool after pool with complacent rapacity, at last, having 
 secured an unusually large haul,” suddenly stood up and 
 declared it was time to leave. Keogh, with the utmost 
 good humor, 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 pleas- 
 ant banter, extricated himself from the playful collar- 
 
1204 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ing ’’ of his friends; and just as he had reached the hali, 
 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 deviPs workshop,^’ was an apo- 
 thegm of his own concoction, which his audience heard him 
 utter more than once. Two other favorite expressions of 
 his were, tinseled vanity and feathered foppery,^^ and 
 he declared inextinguishable war against both. Like Cur- 
 ran, 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 
 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 attempt- 
 ing 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 in- 
 sert 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 
 
 1 Mr. Keogli worked at the trade for a time himself. He used to say 
 that when people faulted coffins, because of unsightly knots in 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 con- 
 siderably abridged in his favor. 
 
WILLIAM JOHN FITZPATRICK. 
 
 1205 
 
 addressed to Dr. Spratt, begging bis prayers. But . . . 
 Keogh also had his joke at that solemn hour. A priest, fa- 
 mous 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 Septem- 
 ber, 1831, aged forty-three years. A tablet to his memory, 
 inscribed with a very eulogistic epitaph, is erected in the 
 Roman Catholic Church, Baldojde; but his remains repose 
 in the vaults of SS. Michael and John, Exchange Street, 
 Dublin. 
 
ELLEN FITZSIMON. 
 
 (1805—1883.) 
 
 Ellen O’Connell, the eldest of the daughters of Daniel O’Connell, 
 all remarkable both for beauty and for accomplishments, was born 
 in Dublin Nov. 12, 1805. She married the late Christopher Fitzsi- 
 mon, M.P., of Clencullen, County Dublin. In 1863 she published 
 ‘ Derrynane Abbey,’ and about 1876 she began to write ‘ Recollec- 
 tions of my Father and his Times,’ but she did not live to finish it. 
 She contributed poems to The Citizen^ The Nation^ Duffy's Fireside 
 Magazine^ etc., over the signature “ L. N. F.” 
 
 THE SONG OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT IN 
 AMERICA. 
 
 OR THE WOODS OF CAILLINO. 
 
 My heart is heavy in my breast, my ears are full of tears, 
 
 My memory is wandering back to long departed years, — 
 
 To those bright days long, long ago. 
 
 When naught I dreamed of sordid care or worldly woe. 
 
 But roamed, a gay, light-hearted boy, the woods of Caillino. 
 
 There, in the spring-time of my life and spring-time of the year, 
 I ’ve watched the snowdrop start from earth, the first young 
 buds appear. 
 
 The sparkling stream o’er pebbles flow. 
 
 The modest violet and golden primrose grow. 
 
 Within thy deep and mossy dells, beloved Caillino. 
 
 ’T was there I wooed my Mary Dhuv and won her for my bride. 
 Who bore me three fair daughters and four sons, my age’s 
 pride ; 
 
 Though cruel fortune was our foe. 
 
 And steeped us to the lips in bitter want and woe. 
 
 Yet cling our hearts to those sad days we passed near Caillino. 
 
 At length, by misery bowed to earth, we left our native strand. 
 And crossed the wide Atlantic to this free and happy land ; 
 Though toils we had to undergo, 
 
 Yet soon content and happy peace ’t was ours te know. 
 
 And plenty such as never blessed our hearts, near Caillino, 
 
 1206 
 
ELLEN FITZSIMON. 
 
 1207 
 
 And Heaven a blessing has bestowed more precious far than 
 wealth, 
 
 Has spared us to each other, full of years, yet strong in health ; 
 Across the threshold when we go. 
 
 We see our children's children round us grow. 
 
 Like sapling oaks within thy woods, far distant Caillino. 
 
 Yet sadness clouds our hearts to think that, when we are no 
 more. 
 
 Our bones must find a resting place far, far from Erin^s shore; 
 For us, no funeral, sad and slow. 
 
 Within the ancient abbey^s burial mound will go, — 
 
 No, we must slumber far from home, far, far from Caillino. 
 
 Yet, O, if spirits e’er can leave the appointed place of rest, 
 Once more will I revisit thee, dear Isle that T love best! 
 
 O’er thy green vales will hover slow, 
 
 And many a tearful parting blessing will bestow 
 On all, — but most of all, on thee^ beloved Oailliao! 
 
RICHARD FLECKNOE. 
 
 ( 1678.) 
 
 Richard Flecknoe, poet and dramatic writer, lived in the reign 
 of Charles II. He was an Irishman by birth, and was originally a 
 priest of the Order of Jesus. Flecknoe owes the rescue of his name 
 from oblivion to the satirical genius of Dry den. The satirist availed 
 himself of Flecknoe’s name as a stalking-horse from behind which 
 to assail the poetaster Shadwell, who had been appointed to replace 
 him in the laureateship. The opening lines of this satire may be 
 quoted as a specimen of the whole: — 
 
 “ All human things are subject to decay ; 
 
 And when fate summons, monarchs must obey. 
 
 This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young 
 Was called to empire, and had governed long ; 
 
 In prose and verse was owned without dispute 
 Throughout the realms of nonsense absolute.” 
 
 It is but fair, however, to remark that, clever and effective as 
 this poem is, it is in its application to Flecknoe utterly unjust. 
 Flecknoe was a considerable traveler. He went to Lisbon about 
 1643, where he remained some time. From Lisbon, in 1646, he 
 made a voyage to Brazil, and on his return in 1650 he wrote his 
 * Travels of Ten Years in Europe, Asia, Afrique, and America.’ 
 Flecknoe was the author of several plays, only one of which, 
 ‘Love’s Dominion,’ printed in 1654, was acted. This piece was 
 republished in 1674 as ‘ Love’s Kingdom,’ a pastoral tragi-comedy. 
 This was not the play as acted, but as rewritten and corrected. 
 His minor pieces contain many happy turns of thought and felici- 
 ties of expression. His ‘ Damoiselles a la Mode,’ printed in 1677 and 
 addressed to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, and ‘ Sir W. 
 Davenant’s Voyage to the Other World’ are witty exposures of the 
 literary and dramatic foibles of the day. His unpopularity among 
 the players, and the satire of Dryden, upon whom, nevertheless, 
 Flecknoe composed a witty and graceful epigram, must have been 
 in a great measure owing to his attacks on the immorality and gen- 
 eral worthlessness of the English stage. An interesting but almost 
 unknown production of Flecknoe’s is ‘ The Idea of His Highness 
 Oliver, late Lord Protector,’ etc., London, 1659 — an appreciative 
 estimate of Cromwell’s character, as evidenced in his Parliamentary 
 career and his achievements as soldier and statesman. He also 
 wrote ‘ Ermina, or the Chaste Lady,’ ‘ The Marriage of Oceanus 
 and Britannia,’ ‘Epigrams and Enigmatical Characters,’ 1670, in 
 8vo ; ‘ Miscellanea,’ or poems of all sorts, with divers other pieces, 
 1653, in 12mo; ‘Diarium, or the Journal,’ divided into twelve 
 Jornadas, in burlesque verse, London, 1656, in 12mo ; and ‘ Dis- 
 course of the English Stage.’ Flecknoe died in 1678. 
 
 1208 
 
RICHARD FLECKNOE. 
 
 1209 
 
 OF DRINKING. 
 
 The fountains drink caves subterren, 
 
 The rivulets drink the fountains dry; 
 Brooks drink those rivulets again, 
 
 And them some river gliding by; 
 
 Until some gulping sea drink them, 
 
 And ocean drinks up that again. 
 
 Of ocean then does drink the sky; 
 
 When having brewed it into rain. 
 
 The earth with drink it does supply. 
 
 And plants do drink up that again. 
 When turned to liquor in the vine, 
 
 ’T is our turn next to drink the wine. 
 
 By this who does not plainly see. 
 
 How into our throats at once is hurled — 
 Whilst merrily we drinking be — 
 
 The quintessence of all the world? 
 Whilst all drink then in land, air, sea, 
 Let us too drink as wdl as they. 
 
 ON TRAVEL. 
 
 It is not travel makes the man, ’t is true. 
 
 Unless a man could travel, sir, like you. 
 
 By putting off the worst and putting on 
 The best of every country where they come; 
 
 Their language, manners, fashions, and their use. 
 Purged from the dross, and stript from the abuse. 
 Until at last in manners they become 
 New men and creatures at their coming home; 
 W^hilst your pied traveler, who nothing knows 
 Of other countries^ fashions but their clothes. 
 And speaks their language but as parrots do. 
 
 Only at best a broken word or two. 
 
 Goes and returns the same he went again. 
 
 By carrying England still along with him; 
 
 Or else returns far worse by bringing home 
 The worst of every land where he does come. 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 
 
 ( 1732 — 1791 .) 
 
 Henry Flood, one of the bright stars in the constellation of 
 Irish orators which shone in the eighteenth century, was born 
 in 1732, in the family mansion near Kilkenny. He was the son of 
 the Right Hon. Warden Flood, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s 
 Bench in Ireland. He was early sent to school, on leaving which 
 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he stayed but a short time, 
 and about 1749 was sent to Oxford. 
 
 In 1760 he returned to Ireland and took his seat in the Irish 
 House of Commons as member for Kilkenny, his native county, a 
 seat which he exchanged for that of Callan, in the same county, in 
 the new Parliament of 1761. At the time of his entrance on 
 political life bribery and corruption were rife, and the House was 
 so much under the control of the British Government that its in- 
 dependence was only in name. Flood took a bold stand against this 
 state of affairs, and formed a party which advocated the freedom 
 of the Irish Parliament and sought to overthrow the prevailing sys- 
 tem of bribery. He became eminently distinguished for his elo- 
 quence, and for the zeal and perseverance with which he advocated 
 every measure that he regarded as beneficial to his country. 
 
 He endeavored to obtain the repeal of a law dating from the 
 time of Henry VII., called Poynings’ law, by which the British 
 Government had the power of altering or rejecting all the bills of 
 the Irish legislature. He succeeded in carrying the Octennial bill, 
 by which the duration of any Parliament was limited to eight years, 
 a reform which was considered of great political advantage to Ire- 
 land ; and he strenuously advocated the establishment of a native 
 militia in Ireland as a balance against the presence of a standing 
 army. After leading the Opposition for some years. Flood changed 
 his tactics, alternately supporting or opposing the measures brought 
 forward by successive administrations up to 1780, as he considered 
 them beneficial or otherwise ; and this line of conduct no doubt 
 frequently drew upon him the charge of political inconsistency. In 
 1774 he had accepted the lucrative post of one of the Vice-Treasurers 
 of Ireland, but it was only on condition of maintaining his principles, 
 and when he found this no longer possible he resigned in 1781, and 
 appeared once more as the opponent of the Government. But the old 
 fervor of his eloquence, so long dormant, seemed slow to rouse, and 
 he is said never to have spoken again with the power he had shown 
 in earlier days. 
 
 There were now two leaders of the opposition in the Irish House of 
 Commons, and the natural result ensued. Flood and Grattan quar- 
 reled ; the more violent of the party sided with Flood, the more 
 moderate with Grattan, and several passages of arms took place in 
 the House. One of these occurred in 1783, and was carried to a de- 
 gree of animosity seldom equaled. Grattan, fixing his eyes upon 
 Flood, exclaimed : “You have great talents, but you have infa- 
 
 1210 
 
HENRY FLOOD, 
 
 121 ! 
 
 mously sold them ! for years you have kept silence that you might 
 make gain ! I declare before your country, before the whole world, 
 before yourself, that you are a dishonest man ! ” Flood replied, but 
 such was the strain of his invective that the Speaker interfered, and 
 only allowed his justification to be made several days later. 
 
 The party adhering to Grattan gradually gained ascendency, and 
 Flood turned his thoughts to England. Through the infiuence of 
 the Duke of Chandos he became Member for Winchester, and took 
 his seat in the British House of Commons in December, 1783. Owing 
 to the reputation which he had acquired in Ireland, great things 
 were expected from him. But his first appearance proved a failure 
 which ever after crippled him. Entering the House toward the end 
 of an important debate on Mr. Fox’s East India bill, and when tired 
 by a long journey, he was imprudent enough to attempt to speak 
 on a subject of which at the very outset he confessed himself ignorant. 
 His vigor failed him ; his speech was tedious and awkward in de- 
 livery, though correct enough in diction ; his eloquence seemed 
 utterly to have left him, and he could only produce dry, worn-out ar- 
 guments, based on general principles, and noton warm, living facts. 
 
 Before he had time to recover his reputation, a dissolution of 
 Parliament took place, and, the Duke of Chandos refusing his sup- 
 port, Flood betook himself to the borough of Seaford. In the new 
 Parliament he made several weighty and successful speeches, and 
 was fast acquiring a good position in the House, when in 1790 he 
 made the false move of introducing a reform bill. The time was 
 most inopportune, as revolution and not reform was what was hoped 
 for on one side and feared on the other. As a consequence the two 
 great parties combined against him at the next election, and he was 
 left without a seat. Stung to the quick, and suffering at the same 
 time from an attack of gout, he retired to his estate of Farmley near 
 Elilkenny. At this place a fire broke out, and, though still suffering 
 from illness, in the excitement he exposed himself and was attacked 
 by pleurisy, which carried him off on the 2d of December, 1791. 
 
 He had married Lady Frances Beresford in 1763, a lady who 
 brought him fortune as well as a wide and influential connection. 
 In 1769, while Member for Callan, he had an unfortunate dispute 
 with his colleague, Mr. Agar, and in a duel which ensued the latter 
 was killed. For this Flood was tried and acquitted at the spring 
 assizes of 1770 in Kilkenny. By his will he bequeathed property 
 to the value of £5,000 ($25,000) to the University of Dublin, but 
 this bequest was ultimately set aside by an appeal to the law of mort- 
 main. 
 
 As an orator Flood has been highly praised by his friends as he 
 has been fiercely blamed by his enemies ; but there must have been 
 no small charm in his eloquence when it made his audience forget 
 his rasping voice and irritating habit of lowering it at the end of his 
 sentences. However famous h^e was in his native Parliament, there 
 can be no doubt that he was there soon overshadowed by the tower- 
 ing figure of Grattan, between whom and Flood there were few things 
 in common. Grattan’s moving power was an enthusiastic love of 
 country and a poetic nature, while Flood’s was to a great extent 
 vanity, although it must be admitted that he was a warm and un- 
 
1212 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 deviating lover of truth and honesty. While at Oxford he wrote a 
 poem on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, one stanza of which 
 was afterward echoed by Gray in his ‘ Elegy.’ His ‘ Pindaric Ode 
 to Fame ’ is nervous and vigorous, and his poem on the discovery of 
 America contains several good passages. In addition to original 
 work, he translated two speeches of ^schines and the Crown 
 Oration of Demosthenes, after whom he tried to model his own style. 
 
 Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, in his ‘ Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,’ 
 says of Flood : “ There is something inexpressibly melancholy in 
 the life of this man. . . . Though he attained to a position which, 
 before him, had been unknown in Ireland ; though the unanimous 
 verdict of his contemporaries pronounced him to be one of the 
 greatest intellects that ever adorned the Irish Parliament ; and 
 though there is not a single act of his life which may not be con- 
 strued in a sense perfectly in harmony with honor and with patriot- 
 ism, yet his career presents one long series of disappointments and 
 reverses. At an age when most statesmen are in the zenith of their 
 influence he sank into political impotence. The party he had formed 
 discarded him as its leader. The reputation he so dearly prized was 
 clouded and assailed ; the principles he had sown germinated and 
 fructified indeed, but others reaped their fruit ; and he is now 
 scarcely remembered except as an object of a powerful invective in 
 Ireland and as an example of a deplorable failure in England. A 
 few pages of oratory, which probably at best only represent the 
 substance of his speeches, a few youthful poems, a few labored let- 
 ters, and a biography so meager and unsatisfactory that it scarcely 
 gives us any insight into his character, are all that remain of Henry 
 Flood.” 
 
 FLOOD^S REPLY TO GRATTAN’S INVECTIVE. 
 
 From a Speech delivered in the Irish Parliament in 1783. 
 
 I rise, sir, in defense of an injured character; and when 
 I recall the aspersions of that night, — while I despise them, 
 they shall be recalled only to be disproved. As I have en- 
 deavored to defend the rights of this country for four-and- 
 twenty years, I hope the house will permit me to defend my 
 reputation. My public life, sir, has been divided into three 
 parts — and it has been dispatched by three epithets. The 
 first part, that which preceded Lord Harcourt’s adminis- 
 tration; the next, which passed between Lord Harcourt’s 
 and Lord Carlisle’s; and the third, which is subsequent. 
 The first has a summary justice done it by being said to be 
 intemperate,” — the second is treated in like manner by 
 being said to be venal,” — and the conduct of the third is 
 said to be that of an incendiary.” . . . 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 
 
 1213 
 
 With respect to that period of my life which is 
 dispatched by the word intemperate,” I beg the house 
 would consider the difficult situation of public men if such 
 is to be their treatment. That period takes in a number of 
 administrations, in which the public were pleased to give 
 me the sentence of their approbation. Sir, it includes, for 
 I wish to speak to facts, not to take it up on epithets, the 
 administrations of the Duke of Bedford, Lord Halifax, the 
 Duke of Northumberland, Lord Hertford, and Lord Town- 
 shend. Now, sir, as to the fact of intemperate,” *I wish to 
 state to you how that stands, and let the honorable mem- 
 bers see how plain a tale will put him down. Of those five 
 administrations there were three to which I was so far 
 from giving an intemperate ” opposition, that I could not 
 be said in any sense of the word to oppose them at all — I 
 mean the three first. I certainly voted against the secre- 
 tary (Mr. Hamilton) of the day, but oftener voted with 
 him. In Lord Hertford’s administration I had attained 
 a certain view, and a decided opinion of what was fit in 
 my mind to be done for Ireland. I had fixed on three great 
 objects of public utility. I endeavored to attain them with 
 that spirit and energy with which it is my character and 
 nature to act and to speak, — as I must take the disadvan- 
 tages of my nature, I will take the advantages of it too, — 
 they were resisted by that administration. What was the 
 consequence? A conflict arose between that administration 
 and me : but that conflict ought not to be called opposition 
 on my part; no, it ought rather to be called opposition on 
 theirs. I was the propounder — they resisted my proposi- 
 tions. This may be called a conflict with, not an opposi- 
 tion to that administration. What were those three great 
 objects? One was to prove that the constitution of parlia- 
 ment in this kingdom did still exist; that it had not been 
 taken away by the law of Poynings, but that it was by an 
 infamous perversion of that statute by which the constitu- 
 tion had suffered. The second was the establishment of a 
 constitutional military force in superaddition to that of 
 a standing army, — the only idea that ever occurred in 
 England, or in any free country in Europe, was that of a 
 constitutional militia. The third great object I took up, 
 as necessary for Ireland, was a law for limiting the dura- 
 tion of parliaments in this country. These were three 
 
1214 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 great, salutary, and noble projects, worthy of an enlarged 
 mind. I pursued them with ardor, I do not deny it, but I 
 did not pursue them with intemperance. I am sure I did 
 not appear to the public to do so, since they gave my exer- 
 tions many flattering testimonies of their approbation; 
 there is another proof, however, that I was not intemper- 
 ate ’’ — I was successful. Intemperance and miscarriage 
 are apt to go together, but temperance and success are as- 
 sociated by nature. This is my plain history with regard 
 to that period. The clumsiness or virulence of invective 
 may require to be sheathed in a brilliancy of figures, but 
 plain truth and plain sense are best delivered in simple 
 language. 
 
 I now come to that period in which Lord Harcourt gov- 
 erned, and which is stigmatized by the word venal.’’ If 
 every man who accepts an office is venal ” and an apos- 
 tate,” I certainly cannot acquit myself of the charge, nor 
 is it necessary. If it be a crime universally, let it be uni- 
 versally ascribed; but it is not fair that one set of men 
 should be treated by that honorable member as great 
 friends and lovers of their country, notwithstanding they 
 are in office, and another set of men should be treated as 
 enemies and apostates. What is the truth? Everything of 
 this sort depends on the principles on which office is taken, 
 and on which it is retained. With regard to myself let 
 no man imagine I am preaching up a doctrine for my own 
 convenience; there is no man in this house less concerned 
 in the propagation of it. ... I beg leave to state briefly 
 the manner in which I accepted the vice-treasureship : — 
 
 It was offered me in the most honorable manner, with 
 an assurance not only of being a placeman for my own 
 profit, but a misister for the benefit of my country. My 
 answer was that I thought in a constitution such as the 
 British an intercourse between the prince and the subject 
 ought to be honorable. The circumstance of being a min- 
 ister ought to redound to a man’s credit, though I lament 
 to say it often happens otherwise ; men in office frequently 
 forget those principles which they maintained before. I 
 mentioned the public principles which I held, and added, 
 if consistently with them, from an atom of which I could 
 not depart, I could be of service to his majesty’s govern- 
 ment, I was ready to render it. I now speak in the pres- 
 
HENRY. FLOOD. 
 
 1215 
 
 ence of men who know what I say. After the appointment 
 had come over to this kingdom, I sent in writing to the 
 chief governor that I could not accept it unless on my own 
 stipulations. Thus, sir, I took office. . . . 
 
 In Lord Harcourt’s administration what did I do? I 
 had the board of commissioners reduced to one, by which 
 a saving of twenty thousand pounds a year was effected. I 
 went further, I insisted on having every altered money bill 
 thrown out, and privy-council bills not defended by the 
 crown. Thus, instead of giving sanction to the measures 
 I had opposed, my conduct was in fact to register my prin- 
 ciples in the records of the court — to make the privy coun- 
 cil witness the privileges of a parliament and give final 
 energy to the tenets with which I commenced my public 
 life. The right honorable member who has censured me, 
 in order to depreciate that economy, said that we had 
 swept with the feather of economy the pens and paper off 
 our table : ” a pointed and brilliant expression which is far 
 from a just argument. This country had no reason to be 
 ashamed of that species of economy, when the great nation 
 of Britain had been obliged to descend to a system as mi- 
 nute; it was not my fault if infinitely more was not done. 
 If administrations were wrong on the absentee tax, they 
 were wrong with the prejudices of half a century — they 
 were wrong with every great writer than has treated of 
 Irish affairs. ... To show that I was not under any undue 
 influence of office, when the disposition of the house was 
 made to alter on the absentee tax, and when the adminis- 
 tration yielded to the violence of parliament, I appeal to 
 the consciousness and public testimony of many present 
 whether I did veer and turn icitli the secretary, or whether 
 I did not make a manly stand in its favor. After having 
 pledged myself to the x>ublic I would rather break with a 
 million of administrations than retract ; I not only adhered 
 to that principle, but, by a singular instance of exertion, 
 found it a second time under the consideration of this 
 house. . . . 
 
 The third, commencing with Lord Carlisle’s administra- 
 tion, in which my conduct has been slandered as incen- 
 diary.” There was not a single instance in which the hon- 
 orable gentleman (Mr. Grattan) did not co-operate. If I 
 am an incendiary, I will gladly accept of the society of 
 
1216 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 that right honorable member, under the same appellation. 
 If I was an incendiary it was for moving what the parlia- 
 ments of both kingdoms have since given their sanction 
 to. If that is to be an incendiary, God grant that I may 
 continue so. Now, sir, I do not know that my dismission 
 from office was thought any disgrace to me; I do not think 
 this house or the nation thought me dishonored. The first 
 day I declared those sentiments for which I was dismissed 
 I thought it was my honor. Many very honorable and 
 worthy gentlemen, one of whom is since dead, except in the 
 grateful memory of his country — one who thought me so 
 little the character of an incendiary,’^ that he crossed the 
 house, together with others, to congratulate me on the 
 honor of my conduct, and to embrace me in open parlia- 
 ment. At that moment I surely stood free of the imputa- 
 tion of an incendiary I ” But this beloved character (Mr. 
 Burgh), over whose life nor over whose grave envy never 
 hovered — he was a man wishing ardently to serve his coun- 
 try, but not to monopolize tlie service — wishing to partake 
 and to communicate the glory of what passed! — He gave 
 me in his motion for “ free-trade,” a full participation of 
 the honor. On a subsequent occasion he said, — I remem- 
 ber the words well, they are traced with a pencil of grati- 
 tude on my heart, — “ that I was a man whom the most 
 lucrative office of the land had never warped in point of 
 integrity.” The words were marked, and I am sure I 
 repeat them fairly; they are words I should be proud to 
 have inscribed on my tomb. Consider the man from whom 
 they came ; consider the situation of the persons concerned, 
 and it adds and multiplies the honor. My noble friend — I 
 beg pardon, he did not live to be ennobled by patent, but 
 he was ennobled by nature — was thus situated: he had 
 found himself obliged to surrender his office and enter into 
 active opposition to that government from whom he had 
 obtained it; at the same time I remained in office, though 
 under the circumstance of having sent in my resignation. 
 That he did not know, but, careless to everything save 
 honor and justice, he gave way to those sentiments of his 
 heart, and he approved. 
 
 I have received this ddy from the united delegates of the 
 province of Connaught an approbation, with one voice,” 
 as they emphatically express it, of that conduct that has 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 
 
 1217 
 
 been slandered by the epithet of incendiary/^ An assem- 
 blage not one of whom I have ever seen, not one of whom 
 I have even a chance of doing a service for, and, therefore, 
 could have nothing in contemplation but the doing an act 
 of justice. Sir, I had a similar expression of approbation 
 from another province — Ulster. Therefore, if I am an in- 
 cendiary, all Connaught are incendiaries — all Ulster are 
 incendiaries! With two provinces at my back, and the 
 parliament of England in my favor (by the act of re- 
 muneration), I think I need not fear this solitary accusa- 
 tion. ... 
 
 It has been said by the right honorable member (Mr. 
 Grattan) that I am an outcast of government and of my 
 prince;^’ it was certainly, sir, an extraordinary transac- 
 tion, but it likewise happened to Mr. Pultney and the Duke 
 of Devonshire; therefore it is not a decisive proof of a 
 reprobated or factious character, and it is the first time 
 it has been mentioned to disadvantage. . . . Sir, you have 
 heard the accusation of the right honorable member. I ap- 
 peal to you if I am that supposititious character he has 
 drawn, if I am that character in any degree. I do not 
 deprecate your justice, but I demand it. I exhort you for 
 the honor of this house, I exhort }mu for the honor of your 
 country, to rid yourselves of a member who would be un- 
 worthy to sit among you. 
 
 A DEFENSE OP THE VOLUNTEERS. 
 
 From a Speech delivered in the Irish Parliament in 1783. 
 
 Sir, I have not mentioned the bill as being the measure of 
 any set of men or body of men whomsoever. I am as free 
 to enter into the discussion of the bill as any gentleman in 
 this house, and with as little prepossession of what I shall 
 propose. I prefer it to the house as the bill of my right 
 honorable friend who seconded me, — will you receive it 
 from us? 
 
 (After a short pause Mr. Flood continued) : In the last 
 parliament it was ordered That leave be given for the 
 more equal representation of the people in parliament ; 
 
 19— Irish Lit. Vol. 3 
 
1218 
 
 IRISH LITERATVRE. 
 
 this was in the Duke of Portland’s administration, an ad- 
 ministration the right honorable gentleman (Mr. Yelver- 
 ton) professes to admire, and which he will not suspect of 
 overturning the constitution. 
 
 I own, from the turn which has been given to this queS' 
 tion, I enter on it with the deepest anxiety ; armed with the 
 authority of a precedent I did not think any one would be 
 so desperate as to give such violent opposition to the sim- 
 ple introduction of a bill. I now rise for the first time to 
 speak to the subject, and I call on every man, auditor or 
 spectator, in the house or in the galleries, to remember 
 this truth, — that if the volunteers are introduced in this 
 debate, it is not I who do so. The right honorable gentle- 
 man says, If the volunteers have approved it he will op- 
 pose it; ” but I say I bring it in as a member of this house 
 supported by the powerful aid of my right honorable friend 
 (Mr. Brownlow) who sits behind me. We bring it in as 
 members of parliament, never mentioning the volunteers. 
 I ask you, will you receive it from us — from us, your mem- 
 bers, neither intending by anything within doors or with- 
 out to intimidate or overawe you? I ask, will you — will 
 you receive it as our bill, or will you conjure up a military 
 phantom of interposition to affright yourselves? 
 
 I have not introduced the volunteers, but if they are 
 aspersed I will defend their character against all the 
 world. By whom were the commerce and the constitution 
 of this country recovered? — By the volunteers! 
 
 Why did not the right honorable gentleman make a 
 declaration against them when they lined our streets — ■ 
 when parliament passed through the ranks of those vir- 
 tuous armed men to demand the rights of an insulted na- 
 tion? Are they different men at this day, or is the right 
 honorable gentleman different? He was then one of their 
 body, he is now their accuser! He who saw the streets 
 lined, who rejoiced, who partook in their glory, is now their 
 accuser ! Are they less wise, less brave, less ardent in their 
 country’s cause, or has their admirable conduct made him 
 their enemy? May they not say. We have not changed, 
 but you have changed? The right honorable gentleman 
 cannot bear to hear of jolunteers; but I will ask him, and 
 I will have a starling taught to halloo in his ear — Who 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 
 
 1219 
 
 gave you the free-trade? who got you the free constitution? 
 who made you a nation? The volunteers ! 
 
 If they were the men you now describe them, why did 
 you accept of their service? why did you not then accuse 
 them? If they were so dangerous, why did you pass 
 through their ranks with your speaker at your head to 
 demand a constitution? why did you not then fear the ills 
 you now apprehend? 
 
 ON A COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. 
 
 From a Speech delivered in the British Parliament (1787) in reply 
 to Mr. Pitt, whose commercial system Flood combated. 
 
 One thing at least I think is clear, that France is one 
 of the last countries in Europe with which you ought to 
 have engaged; yet by this treaty you will make her the 
 first, though she has taken care not to make you so. What 
 is the consequence? She can now do against you what 
 you cannot retaliate against her. She can use her in- 
 fluence with Spain — Is she not doing it? — With America — 
 Is she not doing it? — and in every other country with 
 which she communicates, to prevent them from entering 
 into engagements with you. How easily can she prevail 
 on them to insist upon preliminaries to which you cannot 
 accede, and yet to which, if you do not accede, they will 
 not negotiate. What follows? A decline of communica- 
 tion between you and those powers. And what follows 
 from that? That what those powers must import from 
 you they will choose to import indirectly through France 
 rather than directly from you. Thus for so much she 
 would become the medium and carrier of your trade, a cir- 
 cumstance in my mind devoutly to be deprecated. What 
 is at present your confidence as to America? Is it not that 
 she must return to you for the sake of that long credit 
 which France cannot afford to her. But what will be the 
 operation of this treaty? It will give English credit to 
 France in the first instance, and in the second France can 
 give it to America. Thus it will deprive you of your only 
 advantage as to America, and transfer it to your rival, 
 wlio has every other advantage. • Thus it will cement the 
 connection between France and America, and perpetuate 
 
1220 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the disconnection between those states and Great Britain, 
 whilst in Europe it will rivet the confederacy between 
 France and Spain, and unrivet that between Great Britain 
 and Portugal, if it does not even add it as a link to the 
 chain of the house of Bourbon. As to Ireland, what is its 
 policy? It shows more favor to France than was shown 
 the other day to Ireland. And what does it do next? It 
 sends France into Ireland to colonize in her towns, to line 
 her western coast and the Atlantic, to become the medium 
 between certain classes of her people and America, to en- 
 courage emigration in peace and separation in war. 
 
 Now turn your eyes to the East. What did France do in 
 1748? She made the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the day 
 after she fortified in America. The day after this treaty 
 she will fortify in Asia. What will follow? If she cannot 
 rival your cotton manufacture in Europe, she will undo it 
 in Asia. She will admit Asiatic cottons free from duty. 
 She can do it without even an infraction of this treaty, for 
 even that has not been guarded against by your negotia- 
 tor. But she cannot do it without the ruin of your Euro- 
 pean manufactures. Would not this be an acceptable 
 measure in Asia, I ask? If she were to contend with you 
 for Bengal (which one day she will), could she do it upon 
 a better foundation? With her intrigues among the Asi- 
 atic powers; with the connivance or co-operation of the 
 Dutch, recruited and fortified as she then would be, might 
 not your Asiatic Empire tremble? Is it so secure in its 
 nature as to bid defiance to assault? Or is any man so 
 credulous as to believe that to the glory of having stripped 
 you of America, she would not wish to accumulate the re- 
 nown of depriving you of Asia too? I am no reviler of 
 France. I honor her genius, I honor her activity; but 
 whilst I honor France I am devoted to Great Britain. 
 Time and circumstances have made us rivals; let us be as 
 generous rivals as you will; but let us not be counterfeiting 
 friends. ... 
 
 No man glories more than I do in the mighty exertions 
 of this great nation in the last war, whilst no man more 
 regrets the principle and the event of it. But I am not so 
 credulous as to believe that our failure has rendered us 
 more formidable to France. On the other hand, I see no 
 reason to despond. For if Queen Elizabeth, - amidst all 
 her distresses, could place this country at the head of 
 
HENRY FLOOD, 
 
 1221 
 
 Europe, as the common friend to justice and as the common 
 enemy to oppression; if Oliver Cromwell, with the stain 
 of usurper on his head, could continue this kingdom in the 
 situation in which it had been placed by Elizabeth; and 
 if both of them could do this without the aid of America, 
 I do not see why we should despond now. 
 
 With these glories before my eyes, and remembering how 
 nobly they have been augmented within these hundred 
 years, I stand in astonishment at the preamble of this 
 treaty, which calls on us, in a tone of triumph, to reverse 
 the system of that century. I cannot help asking myself 
 who these men are who thus summon a mighty nation to 
 renounce its honors and to abdicate its superiority. But 
 be they who they may, if they ask me to depose Great Bri- 
 tain, and to put France into the throne of Europe, I an- 
 swer, No. If they ask me to repeal the revolution, I 
 answer. No. Or the liberty that came with it, or the glory 
 that followed it, or the maxims of government that have 
 cherished and adorned them both, I continue to answer by 
 a reiterated negative. I confide that you will do the same, 
 and I conclude. 
 
ELLEN FORRESTEE. 
 
 ( 1828 — 1883 .) 
 
 Miss Magennis was born in Clones, County Monaghan about 
 1828. Her father was a schoolmaster, and her brother wa<^ also a 
 writer of verse. When a girl she settled in England, where she 
 married Mr. Forrester, a stone mason, and three of her children 
 became poets. She wrote for The Nation and for several English 
 newspapers, and published two volumes of verse, ‘ Simple Strains ’ 
 and ‘Songs of the Rising Nation.’ She died at Salford, England, 
 Jan. 6, 1883. 
 
 THE WIDOW’S MESSAGE TO HER SON. 
 
 Remember, Denis, all I bade you say ; 
 
 Tell him we ’re well and happy, thank the Lord ; 
 
 But of our troubles, since he went away, 
 
 You ’ll mind, avick, and never say a word! 
 
 Of cares and troubles, sure, we’ve all our share; 
 
 The finest summer isn’t always fair. 
 
 Tell him the spotted heifer calved in May ; 
 
 She died, poor thing; but that you needn’t mind; 
 
 Nor how the constant rain destroyed the hay; 
 
 But tell him God to us was ever kind ; 
 
 And when the fever spread the country o’er, 
 
 His mercy kept the ^ sickness ’ from our door. 
 
 Be sure you tell him how the neighbors came 
 And cut the corn ; and stored it in the barn ; 
 
 ’T would be as well to mention them by name — ■ 
 
 Pat Murphy, Ned M’Cabe, and James M’Carn, 
 
 And big Tim Daly from behind the hill ; 
 
 But say agra ^ — O mj I miss him still ! 
 
 They came with ready hands our toil to share — 
 
 ’T was then I missed him most — my own right hand ; 
 
 I felt, although kind hearts were round me there. 
 
 The kindest heart beat in a foreign land. 
 
 Strong hand ! brave heart ! O severed far from me 
 By many a weary league of shore and sea ! 
 
 And tell him she was with us — he ’ll know who : 
 Mavourneen,^ hasn’t she the winsome eyes? 
 
 1 Agradh, O love ! 2 Mo-mhidrnin, my darling. 
 
 1222 
 
'ELLEN FORRESTER. 
 
 1223 
 
 The darkest, deepest, brightest, bonniest blue, 
 
 I ever saw except in summer skies. 
 
 And such black hair! it is the blackest hair 
 That ever rippled over neck so fair. 
 
 Tell him old Pincher fretted many a day 
 And moped, poor dog, T was well he didn’t die ; 
 Crouched by the roadside, how he watched the way. 
 And sniffed the travelers as they passed him by — 
 Hail, rain, or sunshine, sure ’t was all the same, 
 He listened for the foot that never came. 
 
 Tell him the house is lonesome-like, and cold. 
 
 The fire itself seems robbed of half its light; 
 
 But maybe ’t is my eyes are growing old. 
 
 And things look dim before my failing sight: 
 
 For all that, tell him ’t was myself that spun 
 The shirts you bring, and stitched them every one. 
 
 Give him my blessing, morning, noon, and night; 
 Tell him my prayers are offered for his good. 
 
 That he may keep his Maker still in sight. 
 
 And firmly stand, as his brave father stood. 
 
 True to his name, his country, and his God, 
 Faithful at home, and steadfast still abroad.’’ 
 
GEORGE FOX. 
 
 Very little is known about the life of George Fox beyond the fact 
 that he was born in Belfast ; was • graduated from Trinity College, 
 Dublin, B.A. 1842, M.A. 1847, and came to America in 1848. 
 
 He is well known, however, as the translator of ‘ The County of 
 Mayo ’ from the Irish. His translation first appeared in a review 
 of Hardiman’s ‘ Irish Minstrelsy ’ in The Dublin University Maga- 
 zine. The original is printed in the first named. Hardiman says 
 that it was known sometimes as ‘ The Lament of Thomas Flavell,’ 
 having been composed by a seventeenth-century bard of that name. 
 It is one of the most popular songs of the peasantry of the West of 
 Ireland, and was, he says, combined with one of the sweetest of 
 Irish melodies — the very soul of plaintive Irish music. 
 
 THE COUNTY OF MAYO. 
 
 From the Irish of Thomas Flavell. 
 
 On the deck of Patrick Lynch’s boat I sat in woful plight. 
 
 Through my sighing all the weary day and weeping all the 
 night. 
 
 Were it not that full of sorrow from my people forth I go, 
 
 By the blessM sun, ’t is royally I ’d sing thy praise, Mayo. 
 
 When I dwelt at home in plenty, and my gold did much 
 abound. 
 
 In the company of fair young maids the Spanish ale went 
 round. 
 
 ’T is a bitter change from those gay days that now I ’m forced 
 to go. 
 
 And must leave my bones in Santa Cruz, far from my own 
 Mayo. 
 
 They are altered girls in Irrul now ; ’t is proud they ’re grown 
 and high. 
 
 With their hair-bags and their top-knots — for I pass their 
 buckles by. 
 
 But it ’s little now I heed their airs, for God will have it so. 
 
 That I must depart for foreign lands, and leave my sweet 
 Mayo. 
 
 1224 
 
GEORGE FOX. 
 
 1225 
 
 'i is my grief that Patrick Loughlin is not Earl in Irrul 
 still, 
 
 And that Brian Duff no longer rules as Lord upon the Hill ; 
 And that Colonel Hugh MacGrady should be lying dead and 
 low, 
 
 And I sailing, sailing swiftly from the county of Mayo. 
 
SIR PHILIP FRANCIS. 
 
 (1740—1818.) 
 
 “Whether ‘Junius ’or not, Sir Philip Francis was,” says Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen, “ a man of great ability and of unflagging industry.” 
 He was born in Dublin in 1740. He was the son of Dr. Francis, the 
 translator of Horace. When his father removed to England he was 
 ten years old and he received his education at the Academy under his 
 father and at St. Paul’s School, London. Here he had for a school- 
 fellow, Henry S. Woodfall, afterward* the printer of the ‘ Letters 
 of Junius.’ In 1756 Francis became a clerk in the Secretary of 
 State’s office. His ability attracted the notice of Mr. Pitt, who 
 succeeded Lord Holland, and in 1758 he was on Pitt’s recommendation 
 appointed secretary to General Bligh, and was present at the capture 
 of Cherbourg. 
 
 In 1760, through the same patronage, he became secretary to the 
 Earl of Kinnoul, and accompanied that nobleman on his embassy to 
 Lisbon. In 1763 he obtained a considerable post in the War office, 
 which he resigned in 1772 in consequence of a difference with Lord 
 Barrington. The greater part of this year was spent by Francis in 
 a visit to the Continent, during which he had a long audience with 
 the Pope, a curious account of which in his own handwriting is 
 among the manuscripts in possession of his grandson. On his re- 
 turn he was appointed by Lord North one of the civil members of 
 Council for the government of Bengal, and sailed for India in June, 
 1773. His conduct at the Council-board was marked by a constant 
 and violent opposition to the policy of the Governor-General, War- 
 ren Hastings, which resulted in a duel with the latter, in which Fran- 
 cis was dangerously wounded. The resignation of his post, worth 
 £10,000 ($50,000) a year, naturally followed. 
 
 He returned to England in 1781, and shortly after was elected 
 Member of Parliament for Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. In the 
 House he supported Whig principles, joining the Opposition, then led 
 by Fox. He actively promoted the proceedings which ended in the 
 impeachment of Hastings, and afforded valuable information and 
 advice to Burke and the other managers of the great trial. In 1807 
 he finally retired from Parliament. His speech^es while a Member, 
 notwithstanding a defect of utterance caused by an over-sensibility of 
 temperament, are said to have been remarkable for refinement, simpli- 
 city, energy, and point. In 1806 he was created a Knight of the Bath, 
 and in 1816, when the public curiosity on the subject of the ‘ Letters 
 of Junius ’ had greatly subsided, attention was directed toward Sir 
 Philip Francis, in consequence of the appearance of a pamphlet by 
 Mr. John Taylor, in which strong evidence was adduced as to his being 
 their author. Francis denied the authorship in a somewhat equivo- 
 cal way, and in 1818, while the question was still hotly discussed, 
 he died in his seventy-ninth year. He published a number of politi- 
 cal speeches, ‘ Remarks on the Defense of Warren Hastings,’ ‘ Letters 
 
 1226 
 
SIR PHILIP FBAHGIS. 
 
 1227 
 
 on the East India Company,’ ‘ Eeflections on the Currency,’ etc., 
 which were only of temporary interest and are now forgotten. 
 
 The secret of the authorship of the ‘ Letters of Junius,’ like that 
 of the personality of the ‘ Man in the Iron Mask,’ has never really been 
 penetrated. Although more than a century has elapsed since their 
 publication ; although volumes have been written on the subject, and 
 the most prying curiosity and industrious ingenuity have been at 
 work to collect evidence on the point, we have as yet no positive 
 proof to decide the question who was their real author. More than 
 fifty names of eminent men living at the period have been brought 
 forward and advocated at various times, including those of Lord 
 Chatham, Burke, Gibbon, Grattan, Pownall, Rich, Horne Tooke, 
 Wilkes, and more especially Lord George Sackville, buti^ere can 
 be little doubt that the claim of authorship for Sir Philip Francis 
 still remains the strongest. The arguments for this view may be 
 brie'fly stated as : his absence on a journey to the Continent coincides 
 with an interruption in the letters ; his departure for India with a 
 high appointment, with their cessation ; his receiving that appoint- 
 ment without any apparent cause, just after leaving the War office ; 
 his station in the War office, with all details of which “Junius ” is so 
 familiar ; his knowledge of speeches not reported ; coincidences of 
 thought and expression between passages of the letters and of speeches 
 of Lord Chatham, reports of which had been furnished by Francis, 
 and with his own speeches made after his return from India ; his 
 being known to be an able pamphleteenr; and, finally, peculiar 
 modes of spelling and of correcting the press, and resemblance of 
 handwriting. 
 
 Macaulay deals with the authorship of these letters in his essay 
 on Warren Hastings in his usually interesting manner. If, as he 
 supposes. Sir Philip Francis was the author, he certainly had ample 
 opportunity to realize abroad the meaning of the corruption he had 
 denounced at home, for, as we have seen, he was in India from 1774 
 to 1780 as a member of the Council appointed to check Warren 
 Hastings. 
 
 They first appeared in Woodf all’s Public Advertiser at a time of 
 great political excitement, and were directed against the principal 
 men of the day connected with the Government, not sparing even 
 royalty itself. Forty-four bear the signature of “Junius,” the 
 earliest of which is dated Jan. 21, 1769, the last Jan. 21, 177^ In 
 the latter year they were collected (the collection including also 
 fifteen letters signed “ Philo- Junius,” really written by the same 
 person), revised by “ Junius,” who added notes, and published by 
 Woodf all, with a Dedication to the English Nation and a Preface 
 by the author. Another edition was afterward issued, containing 
 not only the letters of “Junius ” proper, but also his private letters to 
 Mr. Woodfall, his correspondence with Wilkes, and other com- 
 munications to the Advertiser by the same author under different 
 signatures and relating to different subjects, but all marked with 
 the same boldness, severity, and passion which characterize the 
 ‘ Letters ’ themselves. 
 
 Numerous editions have since appeared, among others an enlarged 
 and improved edition in 1850 in two volumes, edited by Mr. J ohn 
 
1228 
 
 IRI^E LITERATURE, 
 
 Wade, who in an essay prefixed makes out a strong case in favor 
 of the authorship of Sir Philip Francis. A more recent work which 
 supports the same view is ‘ The Handwriting of Junius Professionally 
 Investigated by Mr. Charles Chabot, Expert,’ with preface and col- 
 lateral evidence by the Hon. Edward Twistleton (London, 1871). 
 
 TO THE DUKE OP GKAFTON. 
 
 July 8, 1769. 
 
 My Lord: 
 
 If nature had given you an understanding qualified to 
 keep pace with the wishes and principles of your heart, 
 she would have made you perhaps the most formidable 
 minister that ever was employed under a limited monarch 
 to accomplish the ruin of a free people. When neither the 
 feelings of shame, the reproaches of conscience, nor the 
 dread of punishment, form any bar to the designs of a min- 
 ister, the people would have too much reason to lament 
 their condition if they did not find some resource in the 
 weakness of his understanding. We owe it to the bounty 
 of Providence, that the completest depravity of the heart 
 is sometimes strangely united with a confusion of the mind 
 which counteracts the most favorite principles, and makes 
 the same man treacherous without art and a hypocrite 
 without deceiving. The measures, for instance, in which 
 your Grace^s activity has been chiefly exerted, as they were 
 adopted without skill, should have been conducted with 
 more than common dexterity. 
 
 But truly, my lord, the execution has been as gross as 
 the design. By one decisive step you have defeated all the 
 arts of writing. You have fairly confounded the intrigues 
 of opposition and silenced the clamor of faction. A dark, 
 ambiguous system might require and furnish the materials 
 of ingenious illustration; and, in doubtful measures, the 
 virulent exaggeration of party must be employed to rouse 
 and engage the passions of the people. You have now 
 brought the merits of your administration to an issue on 
 which every Englishman of the narrowest capacity may 
 determine for himself. It is not an alarm to the passions, 
 but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people upon their 
 own most essential interests. A more experienced minis- 
 ter would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the flrst 
 principles of the constitution before he had made some 
 
SIR PHILIP FRANCIS. 
 
 1229 
 
 progress in subduing the spirit of the people. With such 
 a cause as yours, my lord, it is not sufficient that you have 
 the court at your devotion, unless you can find means to 
 corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body of the 
 people form that jury, and from their decision there is but 
 one appeal. 
 
 Whether you have talents to support you at a crisis of 
 such difficulty and danger should long since have been 
 considered. Judging truly of your disposition, you have 
 perhaps mistaken the extent of your capacity. Good faith 
 and folly have so long been received as synonymous terms 
 that the reverse of the proposition has grown into credit, 
 and every villain fancies himself a man of abilities. It is 
 the apprehension of your friends, my lord, that you have 
 drawn some hasty conclusion of this sort, and that a 
 partial reliance upon your moral character has betrayed 
 you beyond the depth of your understanding. You have 
 now carried things too far to retreat. You have plainly 
 declared to the people what they are to expect from the 
 continuance of your administration. It is time for your 
 Grace to consider what you also may expect in return from 
 their spirit and their resentment. 
 
 Since the accession of our most gracious sovereign to 
 the throne, we have seen a system of government which 
 may well be called a reign of experiments. Parties of all 
 denominations have been employed and dismissed. The 
 advice of the ablest men in this country has been re- 
 peatedly called for and rejected; and when the royal dis- 
 pleasure has been signified to a minister, the marks of it 
 have usually been proportioned to his abilities and in- 
 tegrity. The spirit of the favorite had some apparent in- 
 fluence upon every administration ; and every set of minis- 
 ters preserved an appearance of duration as long as they 
 submitted to that influence. But there were certain ser- 
 vices to be performed for the favorite’s security, or to 
 gratify his , resentments, which your predecessors in office 
 had the wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. The mo- 
 ment this refractory spirit was discovered, their disgrace 
 was determined. Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord 
 Rockingham have successively had the honor to be dis- 
 missed for preferring their duty as servants of the public 
 to those compliances which were expected from their sta- 
 
1230 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 tion. A submissive administration was at last gradually 
 collected from the deserters of all parties, interests, and 
 connections; and nothing remained but to find a leader 
 for these gallant, well-disciplined troops. Stand forth, my 
 lord ; for thou art the man. Lord Bute found no resource 
 of dependence or security in the proud, imposing, superi- 
 ority of Lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, inflexible . 
 judgment of Mr. Grenville, nor in the mild but determined 
 integrity of Lord Rockingham. His views and situation 
 required a creature void of all these properties; and he 
 was forced to go through every division, resolution, compo- 
 sition, and refinement of political chemistry before he hap- 
 pily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. 
 Flat and insipid in your retired state; but, brought into 
 action, you become vitriol again. Such are the extremes 
 of alternate indolence or fury which governed your whole 
 administration. Your circumstances with regard to the 
 people soon becoming desperate, like other honest servants, 
 you determined to involve the best of masters in the same 
 difficulties with yourself. We owe it to your Grace’s well- 
 directed labors that your sovereign has been persuaded to 
 doubt of the affections of his subjects, and the people to 
 suspect the virtues of their sovereign at a time when both 
 were unquestionable. 
 
 You have degraded the royal dignity into a base, dishon- 
 orable competition with Mr. Wilkes; nor had you abilities 
 to carry even this last contemptible triumph over a private 
 man without the grossest violation of the fundamental 
 laws of the constitution and rights of the people. But 
 these are rights, my lord, which you can no more annihilate 
 than you can the soil to which they are annexed. The 
 question no longer turns upon points of national honor and 
 security abroad, or on the degrees of expedience and pro- 
 priety of measures at home. It was not inconsistent that 
 you should abandon the cause of liberty in another coun- 
 try, which you had persecuted in your own; and, in the 
 common arts of domestic corruption, we miss no part of Sir 
 Robert Walpole’s system except his abilities. In this hum- 
 ble imitative line you might long have proceeded safe and 
 contemptible. You might probably never have risen to the 
 dignity of being hated, and even have been despised with 
 moderation. But it seems you meant to be distinguished; 
 
SIR PHILIP FRANCIS. 
 
 1231 
 
 and to a mind like yours there .was no other road to fame 
 but by the destruction of a noble fabric, which you thought 
 had been too long the admiration of mankind. The use 
 you have made of the military force introduced an alarm- 
 ing change in the mode of executing the laws. The arbi- 
 trary appointment of Mr. Luttrell invades the foundation 
 of the laws themselves, as it manifestly transfers the right 
 of legislation from those whom the people have chosen to 
 those whom they have rejected. With a succession of such 
 appointment we may soon see a House of Commons col- 
 lected, in the choice of which the other towns and counties 
 of England will have as little share as the devoted county 
 of Middlesex. 
 
 Yet I trust your Grace will find that the people of this 
 country are neither to be intimidated by violent measures 
 nor deceived b.y refinements. W^hen they see Mr. Luttrell 
 seated in the House of Commons by mere dint of power, 
 and in direct opposition to the choice of a whole county, 
 they will not listen to those subtleties by which every ar- 
 bitrary exertion of authority is explained into the law and 
 privilege of Parliament. It requires no persuasion of argu- 
 ment, but simply the evidence of the senses to convince 
 them that to transfer the right of election from the col- 
 lective to the representative body of the people contradicts 
 all those ideas of a House of Commons which they have re- 
 ceived from their forefathers, and which they have already, 
 though vainly perhaps, delivered to their children. The 
 principles on which this violent measure has been defended 
 have added scorn to injury, and forced us to feel that we 
 are not only oppressed, but insulted. 
 
 With what force, my lord, with what protection are you 
 prepared to meet the united detestation of the people of 
 England? The city of London has given a generous ex- 
 ample to the kingdom in what manner a king of this coun- 
 try ought to be addressed ; and I fancy, my lord, it is not 
 yet in your courage to stand between your sovereign and 
 the addresses of his subjects. The injuries you have done 
 this country are such as demand not only redress, but ven- 
 geance. In vain shall you look for protection to that 
 venal vote which you have already paid for : another must 
 be purchased; and, to save a minister, the House of Com- 
 mons must declare themselves not only independent of 
 
1232 
 
 IRim LITERATURE. 
 
 their constituents, but the determined enemies of the con- 
 stitution. Consider, my lord, whether this be an extremity 
 to which their fears will permit them to advance; or, if 
 their protection should fail you, how far you are authorized 
 to rely upon the sincerity of those smiles which a pious 
 court lavishes without reluctance upon a libertine by pro- 
 fession. It is not, indeed, the least of the thousand con- 
 tradictions which attend 3"ou, that a man marked to the 
 world by the grossest violation of all ceremony and de- 
 corum should be the first servant of a court in which pray- 
 ers are morality and kneeling is religion. 
 
 Trust not too far to appearances, by which your prede- 
 cessors have been deceived, though they have not been 
 injured. Even the best of princes may at last discover that 
 this is a contention in which everything may be lost, but 
 nothing can be gained ; and as you became minister by acci- 
 dent, were adopted without choice, trusted without confi- 
 dence, and continued without favor, be assured that when- 
 ever an occasion presses you will be discarded without even 
 the forms of regret. You will then have reason to be 
 thankful if you are permitted to retire to that seat of 
 learning which in contemplation of the system of your life, 
 the comparative purity of your manners, with those of 
 their high-steward, and a thousand other recommending 
 circumstances, has chosen you to encourage the growing 
 virtue of their youth, and to preside over their education. 
 
 Whenever the spirit of distributing prebends and bish- 
 oprics shall have departed from you, you will find that 
 learned seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium 
 of an installation, and, what in truth it ought to be, once 
 more a peaceful scene of slumber and thoughtless medita- 
 tion. The venerable tutors of the university will no longer 
 distress your modesty by proposing you for a pattern to 
 their pupils. The learned dullness of declamation will be 
 silent ; and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, 
 will forget your virtues. Yet for the benefit of the succeed- 
 ing age I could wish that your retreat might be deferred 
 until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity 
 of corruption at which the worst examples cease to be con- 
 tagious, Junius. 
 
WILLIAM PERCY FRENCH. 
 
 (1854 ) 
 
 William Percy French was born at Clooniquin, County Ros- 
 common, May 1, 1854, and was graduated at Dublin University. 
 Before becoming an author he was a civil engineer. He is one of 
 the cleverest of living Irish humorists, and is the author of many 
 verses, stories, etc., most of which appeared in a small Dublin comic 
 paper called The Jarvey (now defunct), edited by himself. Some 
 of his songs have become very popular, and he is also the author of 
 the libretti of one or two operas. 
 
 THE FIRST LORD LIFTINANT. 
 
 AS RELATED BY ANDREW GERAGHTY, PHILOMATH. 
 
 Essex/^ said Queen Elizabeth, as the two of them sat 
 at breakwhist in the back parlor of Buckingham Palace, 
 Essex, me haro, I ^^e got a job that I think would suit 
 you. Do you know where Ireland is? 
 
 I hn no great fist at jografy,’’ says his lordship, but 
 I know the place you mane. Population, three millions ; ex- 
 ports, emigrants.’^ 
 
 “ Well,’^ says the Queen, I ^^e been reading the Dublin 
 Eiwning Mail and the Telegraft for some time back, and 
 sorra one o’ me can get at the trooth o’ how things is goin’, 
 for the leadin’ articles is as conthradictory as if they wor 
 husband and wife.” 
 
 That ’s the way wid papers all the world over,” says 
 Essex ; Columbus told me it was the same in Amerikay, 
 when he was there, abusin’ and conthradictin’ each other 
 at every turn— it ’s the way they make their livin’. 
 Thrubble you for an egg-spoon.” 
 
 “ It ’s addled they have me betune them,” says the 
 Queen. “Not a know I know what ’s goin’ on. So now, 
 what I want you to do is to run over to Ireland, like a good 
 fella, and bring me word how matters stand.” 
 
 “ Is it me? ” says Essex, leppin’ up off his chair. “ It ’s 
 not in airnest ye are, ould lady. Sure it ’s the height of 
 the London saison. Every one ’s in town, and Shake’s new 
 
 1233 
 
1234 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 fairy piece, ^ The Midsummer’s Night Mare,’ billed for nex? 
 week.” 
 
 You ’ll go when ye ’re tould,” says the Queen, fixin’ him 
 with her eye, if you know which side yer bread ’s buttered 
 on. See here, now,” says she, seein’ him chokin’ wid 
 vexation and a slice o’ corned beef, you ought to be 
 as pleased as Punch about it, for you ’ll be at the top o’ 
 the walk over there as vice-regent representin’ me.” 
 
 I ought to have a title or two,” says Essex, pluckin’ up 
 a bit. His Gloriosity the Great Panjandhrum, or the like 
 o’ that.” 
 
 How would His Excellency the Lord Liftinant of Ire- 
 land sthrike you?” says Elizabeth. 
 
 First class,” cries Essex. Couldn’t be betther ; it 
 doesn’t mean much, but it ’s allitherative, and will look 
 well below the number on me hall door.” 
 
 Well, boys, it didn’t take him long to pack his clothes 
 and start away for the Island o’ Saints. It took him a good 
 while to get there, though, through not knowin’ the road; 
 but by means of a pocket compass and a tip to the steward, 
 he was landed at last contagious to Dalkey Island. Goin’ 
 up to an ould man who was sittin’ on a rock, he took off 
 his hat, and says he — 
 
 That ’s great weather we ’re havin’? ” 
 
 Good enough for the times that ’s in it,” says the ould 
 man, cockin’ one eye at him. 
 
 Any divarshun goin’ on? ” says Essex. 
 
 “ You ’re a sthranger in these parts, I ’m thinkin’,” says 
 the ould man, or you ’d know this was a ^ band night ’ in 
 Dalkey.” 
 
 I Avasn’t aware of it,” says Essex ; “ the fact is,” says 
 he, I only landed from England just this minute.” 
 
 Ay,” says the ould man bitterly, it ’s little they know 
 about us over there. I ’ll hould you,” says he, with a slight 
 thrimble in his voice, that the Queen herself doesn’t know 
 there is to be fireworks in the Sorrento Gardens this night.” 
 Well, when Essex heard that, he disremembered entirely 
 he was sent over to Ireland to put doAvn rows and ructions, 
 and away wid him to see the fun and flirt wid all the pretty 
 girls he could find. And he found plenty of them — thick 
 as bees they wor, and each one as beautiful as the day and 
 the morra. He wrote two letters home next day — one to 
 
WILLIAM PERCY FRENCH. 
 
 1235 
 
 Queen Elizabeth and the other to Lord Montaigle, a play- 
 boy like himself. I ’ll read you the one to the Queen 
 first : — 
 
 “ Dame Sthreet, April 16th, 1599. 
 
 “ Fair Enchantress, — I wish I was back in London, baskin’ in 
 your sweet smiles and listenin’ to your melodious voice once more. 
 I got the consignment of men and the post-office order all right. I 
 was out all the mornin’ lookin’ for the inimy, but sorra a taste of 
 Hugh O’Neil or his men can I find. A policemin at the corner o’ 
 Nassau Street told me they wor hidin’ in Wicklow. So I am makin’ 
 up a party to explore the Dargle on Easter Monda’. Th girls here 
 are as ugly as sin, and every minute o’ the day I do be wishin’ it 
 was your good-lookin’-self I was gazin’ at instead o’ these ignorant 
 scarecrows. Hopin’ soon to be back at ould England, I remain your 
 lovin’ subjec’, Essex. 
 
 “P.S. — I hear Hugh 0’Neil was seen on the top of the Donny- 
 brook tram yesterday mornin’. If I have any luck the head ’ll be 
 off him before you get this. E.” 
 
 The other letter read this way — 
 
 “ Dear Monty — This is a great place all out. Come over here if 
 you want fun. Divil such play-boys ever I seen, and the girls — 
 oh ! don’t be talkin’ — ’pon me secret honor you ’ll see more love- 
 liness at a tay and supper ball in Rathmines than there is in the 
 whole of England. Tell Ned Spenser to send me a love-song to sing 
 to a young girl who seems taken wid my appearance. Her name ’s 
 Mary, and she lives in Dunlary, so he oughtent to find it hard. I 
 hear Hugh O’Neil ’s a terror, and hits a powerful welt, especially 
 when you ’re not lookin’. If he tries any of his games on wid me, 
 I ’ll give him in charge. No brawlin’ for yours truly, 
 
 “ Essex.” 
 
 Well, me bould Essex stopped for odds of six months in 
 Dublin, piirtendin’ to be very busy subjugatin^ the country, 
 but all the time only losin’ his time and money widout doin’ 
 a hand’s turn, and doin’ his best to avoid a ruction with 
 “ Fighting Hugh.” If a messenger came to tell him that 
 O’Neil was campin’ out on the North Bull, Essex would up 
 stick and away for Sandycove, where, after draggin’ the 
 forty-foot hole, he ’d write off to Elizabeth, saying that 
 
 owing to their suparior knowledge of the country, the 
 dastard foe had once more eluded him.” 
 
 The Queen got mighty tired of these letters, especially 
 as they always ended with a request to send stamps by 
 return, and told Essex to finish up his business and not be 
 makin’ a fool of himself. 
 
1236 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Oh, that the talk, is it,’’ says Essex; very well, me 
 ould sauce-box” (that was the name he had for her ever 
 since she gev him the clip on the ear for turnin’ his back 
 on her), ‘Wery well, me ould sauce-box,” says he, ‘‘I’ll 
 write off to O’Neil this very minute, and tell him to send 
 in his lowest terms for peace at ruling prices.” 
 
 Well, the threaty was a bit of a one-sided one — the terms 
 being — 
 
 1. Hugh O’Neil to be King of Great Britain. 
 
 2. Lord Essex to return to London and remain there as 
 iViceroy of England. 
 
 3. The O’Neil family to be supported by Government, 
 with free passes to all theaters and places of entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 4. The London markets to buy only from Irish dealers. 
 
 5. All taxes to be sent in stamped envelope, directed to 
 H. O’Neil, and marked “private.” Checks crossed and 
 made payable to H. O’Neil. Terms cash. 
 
 Well, if Essex had had the sense to read through this 
 threaty he ’d have seen it was of too graspin’ a nature 
 to pass with any sort of a respectable sovereign, but he 
 was that mad he just stuck the document in the pocket 
 of his pot-metal overcoat, and away wid him hot foot for 
 England. 
 
 “Is the Queen widin?” says he to the butler, when he 
 opened the door o’ the palace. His clothes were that dirty 
 and disorthered wid travelin’ all night, and his boots that 
 muddy, that the butler was for not littin’ him in at the first 
 go off, so says he very grand : “ Her Meejesty is abow stairs 
 and can’t be seen till she ’s had her breakwhist.” 
 
 “ Tell her the Lord Liftinant of Ireland desires an enter- 
 view,” sa^'s Essex. 
 
 “ Oh, beg pardon, me lord,” says the butler, steppin’ to 
 one side, “I didn’t know ’t was yourself was in it; come 
 inside, sir; the Queen ’s in the dhrawin’-room.” 
 
 Well, Essex leps up the stairs and into the dhrawin’- 
 room wid him, muddy boots and all; but not a sight of 
 Elizabeth was to be seen. 
 
 “ Where ’s your missis? ” says he to one of the maids-of- 
 honor that was dustin’ the chimbley-piece. 
 
 “ She ’s not out of her bed yet,” says the maid with a toss 
 of her head ; “ but if you write your message on the slate 
 
WILLIAM PERCY FRENCH, 
 
 1237 
 
 beyant, I ’ll see ” — but before she had finished, Essex was 
 up the second fiight and knockin’ at the Queen’s bedroom 
 door. 
 
 Is that the hot wather? ” says the Queen. 
 
 No, it ’s me, — Essex. Can you see me? ” 
 
 Faith, I can’t,” says the Queen. Hould on till I draw 
 the bed-curtains. Come in now,” says she, and say your 
 say, for I can’t have you stoppin’ long — you young Lu- 
 tharian.” 
 
 Bedad, yer Majesty,” says Essex, droppin’ on his knees 
 before her (the delutherer he was), small blame to me if 
 I am a Lutharian, for you have a face on you that would 
 charm a bird off a bush.” 
 
 Hould your tongue, you young reprobate,” says the 
 Queen, blushin’ up to her curl-papers wid delight, and 
 tell me what improvements you med in Ireland.” 
 
 ' Faith, I taught manners to O’Neil,” cries Essex. 
 
 He had a bad masther then,” says Elizabeth, lookin’ 
 at his dirty boots ; couldn’t you wipe yer feet before ye 
 desthroyed me carpets, young man? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Oh, now,” says Essex, is it wastin’ me time shufflin’ 
 about on a mat you ’d have me, when I might be gazin’ on 
 the loveliest faymale the world ever saw? ” 
 
 Well,” says the Queen, I ’ll forgive you this time, as 
 you ’ve been so long away, but remimber in future that 
 Kidderminster isn’t oilcloth. Tell me,” says she, is West- 
 land Row Station finished yet? ” 
 
 There ’s a side wall or two wanted yet, I believe,” says 
 Essex. 
 
 What about the Loop Line? ” says she. 
 
 Oh, they ’re gettin’ on with that,” saj^s he, only some 
 people think the girders a disfigurement to the city.” 
 
 Is there any talk about that esplanade from Sandycove 
 to Dunlary? ” 
 
 ^‘There’s talk about it, but that’s all,” says Essex; 
 ’t would be an odious fine improvement to house property, 
 and I hope they ’ll see to it soon.” 
 
 Sorra mucli you seem to have done, beyant spendin’ me 
 men and me money. Let ’s have a look at that threaty I see 
 stickin’ out o’ your pocket.” 
 
 Well, when the Queen read the terms of Hugh O’Neil 
 she just gev him one look, an’ jumpin’ from off the bed. 
 
1238 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE. 
 
 put her head out of the window, and called out to the 
 policeman on duty — 
 
 “ Is the Head below? 
 
 I dl tell him you want him, ma’am,^^ says the police- 
 man. 
 
 Do,’’ says the Queen. Hello,” says she, as a slip o’ 
 paper dhropped out o’ the dispatches. Wdiat ’s this? 
 ‘ Lines to Marj^’ Ho ! ho ! me gay fella, that ’s what 
 you ’ve been up to, is it? ” 
 
 “ Mrs. Brady ’s 
 A widow lady, 
 
 And she has a charmin’ daughter I adore, 
 
 I went to court her, 
 
 Across the water. 
 
 And her mother keeps a little candy-store. 
 
 She ’s such a darlin’ 
 
 She ’s like a starlin’ 
 
 And in love with her I’m gettin’ more and more, 
 
 Her name is Mary, 
 
 She ’s from Dunlary ; 
 
 And her mother keeps a little candy-store.” 
 
 That settles it,” says the Queen. It ’s the jailer 
 you ’ll serenade next.” 
 
 When Essex heard that, he thrimbled so much that the 
 button of his cuirass shook off and rowled under the 
 dhressin’-table. 
 
 Arrest that man,” says the Queen, when the Head- 
 Constable came to the door; arrest that thrater,” says 
 she, and never let me set eyes on him again.” 
 
 And indeed she never did, and soon after that he met 
 with his death from the skelp of an axe he got when he was 
 standin’ on Tower Hill. 
 
ALICE FURLONG. 
 
 (1875 
 
 Alice Furlong was born about 1875 in County Dublin. She is 
 a sister of Mary Furlong (q. v.). Alice began writing poetry in 
 1893. Her first poem appeared in The Irish Monthly^ the editor of 
 ’vvhich has been her constant friend. She has contributed poems to 
 many magazines and newspapers, and her first volume of poems, 
 
 ‘ Roses and Rue,’ was published by Mr. Elkin Matthews in 1898. 
 It has attracted much attention from the leading critical reviews, 
 and her work has been much praised for its delicacy, pathos, and 
 music. She is the author of three novels and many short stories. 
 
 THE TREES. 
 
 These be God’s fair high palaces, 
 
 Walled with fine leafen trellises, 
 
 Interstarred with the warm and luminous azure; 
 
 Sunlights run laughing through. 
 
 And rains and honey-dew 
 
 Scatter pale pearls at every green embrasure. 
 
 The tangled twist and twine 
 Of His soaring staircases have mosses fine 
 For emerald pavement, and each leafy chamber 
 Is atmosphered with amber. 
 
 Athwart the mellow air 
 The twinkling threads of gossamer 
 Shimmer and shine 
 In many a rainbow line. 
 
 The chaffinch is God’s little page. 
 
 O joyant vassalage! 
 
 You will ! You will ! ” he saith the whole day long. 
 
 In sweet monotonous song: 
 
 Poised on the window-sills of outmost leaves 
 He watches where the tremulous sunlight weaves 
 Its golden webbing over the palpitant grass, 
 
 While the Summer butterfly, winged of the blue-veined snow, 
 Floats by on aerial tides as clear as glass ; 
 
 Like a fairy ship with its delicate sails ablow. 
 
 From the break of morn, 
 
 Herein the blackbird is God’s courtier, 
 
 With gold tongue ever astir. 
 
 1239 
 
1240 
 
 IRISH LITERATURE, 
 
 Piping and praising 
 On his beaked horn. 
 
 To do his Seigneur duty 
 
 In mellow fluency and dulcet phrasing, 
 
 In pjeans of passing beauty; 
 
 As a chanting priest, 
 
 Chanting his matins in the wane o’ the night, 
 
 While slow great winds of vibrant light 
 Sweep up the lilied East. 
 
 The dumb thing is God’s guest, 
 
 And ever tired creature seeking rest ; 
 
 The sheep, grown weary browsing. 
 
 The cattle, drouthy with heat. 
 
 One after one, lagging on listless feet. 
 
 Seek the green shadow of God’s pleasant housing; 
 While the thousand winged wights of bough and air 
 Do find God’s palace fair! 
 
BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 Books may be kept for two weeks and may 
 be renewed for the same period, unless re- 
 served. 
 
 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. 
 
 The borrower is responsible for books drawn 
 on his card and for all fines accruing on the 
 same.