CHAPTER VI.

THE TRIAL.

Much alarm was created, through the county of Limerick, by the attack upon Mr. Shelton of Rossmore. The neighbouring gentry argued from it, and not without cause, that if a gentleman whose advanced years and bodily ailments had kept him aloof from the actual exercise of his magisterial functions, were thus singled out, there was little hope for escape for those who had made themselves marked men, by determined and acknowledged resistance to and denunciation of the Whiteboys Accordingly, zeal being now quickened by fear for personal safety, it was resolved that neither trouble nor expense be spared to discover the persons implicated in this last affair. Many circumstances tended to establish a conviction that the leader of the Whiteboys must be some one greatly superior to those whom he commanded. The brief conversation which had been held with the officer at Churchtown, and Miss Shelton at Rossmore, almost proved that one and the same person had commanded on both occasions,--that he was a man of education and gentle bearing,--and that it was necessary, above all, if the insurrectionary conspiracy was to be put down, to strike at him, its life and soul.

Weeks passed by, and though many were suspected, and several taken into custody by the police, no clue to the discovery of the veritable Captain Rock was yet discovered. At last, one of the persons apprehended on suspicion--faint-hearted as a weak woman, and far less faithful--let fall some words which first excited suspicion against John Cussen. No notice appeared to be taken of them at the time, but the prisoner, who was kept in solitary confinement for some time, was gradually worked upon by promises of large payment in the event of the conviction of the actual leader of the Whiteboys. He vacillated between cupidity and fear of his own personal safety. At last, he _stagged_--that is, he gave some information, on the solemn promise that his having done so should never transpire, that he should not be required to give any evidence in public, and that he should immediately be conveyed out of the country for safety.

At first, the magistrates hesitated to believe that John Cussen could be concerned in the outrages which had spread alarm far and near, and directed particular inquiries to be made respecting his habits, way of living, haunts, occupation, and companions. They ascertained, from this scrutiny and espial, the fact of his frequent absences from home at night; they obtained proof of his having been seen, within the prohibited hours, in remote places where outrages had been committed; and the conviction came upon their minds that Cussen, and none other, was the much-dreaded and long-concealed Captain Rock.

Orders were given to arrest him, and also to search his house. Among his papers were found some documents which could scarcely have been in possession of any but a leader of the disaffected. They were insufficient of themselves, however, to fix him as such.

The police and the military, charged with the warrant to arrest Cussen, received strict injunctions to avoid unnecessary violence. It was anticipated, from his determined character and great personal strength, that he would resist any attempt to make him a prisoner. Contrary to expectation, he surrendered himself without struggle or hesitation. He was found sitting tête-à-tête with old Frank Drew, at Drew's Court,--the same to whom he had spoken so freely about the particulars of the attack on Churchtown Barracks,--and when he heard the measured tread of the military, as they came up the avenue, he paused in his conversation, and exclaimed, "They have come for me."

In custody his deportment, equally devoid of effrontery and fear, was apparently that of an innocent man, and impressed very many with the idea that he was unjustly suspected. The magistrates, who knew better, but were compelled to conceal the source of their information, even incurred some blame, from public opinion, for having apprehended and detained him.

The difficulty was--how to prove that John Cussen was identical with Captain Rock. In accordance with his compact with the authorities, the craven who had given the clue had been quietly shipped off to England. The most liberal offers were secretly made, on the part of the Government, to induce some of the other prisoners to turn king's evidence, but without avail. They knew, one and all, what share Cussen's had been in the Whiteboy movements; but they were fully aware, also, that to appear in evidence against him would, in effect, be equivalent to the signing of their own death-warrant. They continued faithful to him--and from higher motives, perhaps, than that of personal fear. For he was a man who possessed the power of winning hearts, and there were many--very many of his followers, who had become so warmly attached to him that they would have laid down their own lives to protect his from harm.

It was believed that Miss Shelton, if she was so minded, could have recognized his figure, his features, and the very tone of his voice. She was strongly urged to do so, in order "to promote the ends of justice;" but, grateful for the service which he had rendered to her brother, and remembering his personal courtesy to herself, she invariably declined doing so, and, to avoid all compulsion or persuasion in the matter, was secretly preparing to pay a visit to her elder sister, who had married an English gentleman, and resided at Bath. On her repeated refusal to assist the Crown, it was determined that, by means of a stratagem, she should be trepanned into identifying him.

Accordingly, Major Eeles, Captain Johnstone, and another officer of the Rifle Brigade, made a morning-call at Rossmore, and, as if by accident, asked Miss Shelton and her sister whether they would not like to see the barrack at Ballingarry, which they had repeatedly promised to visit. A party of six or seven was made up on the instant. The horses were ordered out, and very soon the party reached the barrack, in which Cussen was detained until his final removal to the county-prison of Limerick. That such a person was there, was unknown to all the visitors. Accompanied by some of the officers' wives, whom they knew, the ladies from Rossmore entered the room occupied by Cussen, heavily ironed and closely guarded. As they were passing through it, Cussen was purposely provoked, by one of his guards, to speak loudly--angrily, indeed--to some taunting remark. Alicia Shelton, recognizing the peculiar and unforgotten tone, seized her sister's arm, with a sudden impulse, and exclaimed--"It is the very man!" and would have fallen, but for support immediately rendered.

Cussen started at her exclamation, looked at her, "more in sorrow than in anger," rose from his chair, raised his hat, and courteously saluted the party. Miss Shelton, who avoided a second glance at him, restrained her feelings, and did not again open her lips; but what she had involuntarily said, slight as it was, sealed his fate--and he knew it. So did the officers who had planned the trick.

Government had directed that Cussen's trial should immediately take place. This was before Alicia Shelton had been betrayed into a recognition of the prisoner. She considered herself bound in honour not to give evidence to the detriment of one who had conferred a signal favour on herself. But, on the night of the attack, Cussen had also been seen and heard by her younger sister, whose bed-room window overlooked the back-yard, and who had witnessed the occurrence between them. Not considering herself bound by any personal ties of gratitude, and somewhat selfishly recollecting her own alarm rather than her brother's secured safety, Susanna Shelton declared that, for her part, she had no scruples in performing what she believed to be an act of justice to society. In addition, two of Cussen's followers, to save their own necks from the halter, promised, almost at the last moment, to turn king's evidence--but as there was no certainty of their remaining in the same mind, when put into the witness-box (or, rather, as it actually was, upon the table in the Court), not much reliance was placed upon _them_.

* * * * *

The Assizes being several months distant, it was resolved not to wait, and a special Commission was sent down for the immediate trial of all persons in custody under the Insurrection Act. At the same time, a messenger from the Castle of Dublin arrived at Rossmore with a _subp[oe]na_ to enforce the attendance of Miss Shelton and her sister, as witnesses on Cussen's trial, and they were taken away to Limerick, in a post-chaise, escorted by a troop of dragoons. Apartments and all suitable accommodation had been provided for them at Swinburne's--then the principal hotel in "the fair city of the Violated Treaty."

The trial is not forgotten by those who were present. The court-house of Limerick was crowded to the very roof. I am proud to say, as an Irishman, that among that large audience, there was not even one female. Irish propriety, by a conventional arrangement rather understood than expressed, very properly prohibits the appearance of any of the fair sex in a Court of Justice, except where necessarily present as a party, or called upon as a witness. I write of what was the rule some thirty years ago--matters may have changed since. On arraignment, Cussen pleaded "Not Guilty." After a long, fatiguing, and nearly inaudible speech--from Mr. Sergeant Goold--who had been eloquent, but, in his old age, had become the greatest proser, for a small man, at the Irish Bar--the evidence was gone into. The case had been skilfully got up, but, though no moral doubt could exist as to the prisoner's participation, if not leadership, in many Whiteboy offences, it may be doubted whether the proofs would have sufficed for a conviction in ordinary times. The two informers, on whose evidence much reliance had been placed, told their story volubly enough, but when the usher's wand was handed to them, that they might point at the prisoner in identification, each shook his head and affected never before to have seen him.

Cussen's equanimity was undisturbed throughout the early part of the trial. When Mr. Sergeant Goold, in stating the case, alluded to the attack on Churchtown, the prisoner said that, in the copy of the indictment with which he had been served, there was no charge against him save for certain transactions alleged to have taken place at Rossmore, and he desired to know whether it was purposed, or indeed whether it was legal, to state a case or give evidence out of the record? There was considerable sensation at this inquiry. The Judge replied that Counsel ought to confine himself to the charge in the indictment, and admitted that the prisoner had exercised no more than his undoubted right in checking the introduction of irrelevant matter. The Crown Counsel had only to bow and submit to the opinion and reproof of the Judge. The prisoner appearing disposed to speak again, the Judge asked whether he had any more to say? "Only this, my lord," said he, "that if it be my _right_, as prisoner, to check the introduction of irrelevant topics, having a tendency to prejudice me with the jury, it surely was _your duty_, as Judge, to have done so--particularly as mine is a case of life and death."

This was a well-merited reproof, given with a certain degree of dignity, and (for the Judge was a man of enlarged mind) did no injury to Cussen.

When Miss Shelton appeared on the table, Cussen appeared startled, for he had been given to understand that she had positively refused to appear against him--indeed, it had been reported that she had even gone to England to avoid it. Compelled to give her testimony, she detailed, in the plain and forcible language of truth, under what circumstances she had seen Cussen at Rossmore--what peril her brother had been threatened with--what supplications she had made in his behalf--how promptly the favour she had solicited had been granted--how kind the prisoner's words and demeanour to herself had been. She took occasion to add that her appearance as a witness was against her own desire. She was then asked to turn round and say whether she then saw the person who had acted as she had described. Not without great delay and hesitation--urged, indeed, by an intimation of the personal consequences of her contumacy--did she obey, but, at last, she did identify the prisoner, saying, "That is the man who saved my brother's life, at my entreaty, and stood between myself and outrage worse than death." Cussen respectfully acknowledged her evident feeling in his favour by making her a low bow as she went down.

Her sister, who was cast in a coarser mould of mind and body, exhibited no scruples, but gave her evidence with an undisguised antipathy towards the accused. The missing links, supplied by her testimony, made up a strong chain of evidence which, every one felt, it would be difficult for Cussen to beat down, in any manner. It was expected, almost as a matter of course, that he would trust to proving, by an _alibi_, the impossibility of his having been the person who was present on the occasion referred to by the witness. Every one who saw him in the dock, where his bearing was equally free from bravado and fear, anticipated some very ingenious, if not successful defence. He very slightly cross-examined the witnesses for the prosecution, and then only on points which bore on his personal conduct. He declined availing himself of the open assistance of counsel--though he had consulted eminent legal authorities on various technical points, while in prison. But for the place in which he stood, fenced in with iron spikes, and surrounded by the police, one might have thought him merely interested, as a spectator, in the circumstances evoked by the evidence, rather than one whose life depended on the issue. Cool, deliberate, and self-possessed, he entered on his defence.

It was of the briefest;--only a simple negation of the charge--a denial that, even with all probability of its being true, there was legal evidence of such a breach of the law as involved conviction and punishment--a regret that his identity should have been mistaken by the younger Miss Shelton, who, had he really been the person at Rossmore, had never, even on her own showing, been so close to him as for her to distinguish his features--an expression of gratitude to Alicia Shelton for her evident disinclination to injure one who she believed had treated her with kindness--a strong disclaimer of imputing wilful error to _her_, though he considered her sister not free from censure for her undisguised avidity in seizing upon every circumstance to convict him--a reckless assertion that, come what might, he had outlived the desire of existence, and was prepared for any fortune. Such was the substance of his address, delivered in a manner equally free from bravado and dread. He concluded by declaring that, already prejudged by public opinion (the newspapers, from the first, having roundly proclaimed that he, and none other, was or could be the true Captain Rock), and with the undue weight given to slight and evidently prejudiced evidence, he felt that his prospect of acquittal was small.

Mr. Sergeant Goold then arose to speak to the evidence for the Crown, and was interrupted by Cussen, who asked the Judge whether, when no evidence was called for the defence, the prisoner was not entitled, by himself or counsel, to the last word to the jury? Mr. Sergeant Goold answered that the Crown, in all cases, was entitled to the last speech, and appealed to the Judge for confirmation of the assertion. Cussen again addressed the Judge, and said that, in civil suits, the practice was certainly not to allow the plaintiff the last speech when the defendant did not call witnesses, for he had himself been a juryman, in the other court, when such a circumstance had occurred. The Judge's decision was that, if he pleased to insist upon it, the counsel for the Crown might desire and exercise the right of speaking to the evidence, even when, as in the present instance, the accused had called no witnesses, nor even made a defence. But, his Lordship added, perhaps under the circumstances, Mr. Sergeant Goold would not exercise the right. Goold grumbled, and fidgeted, and muttered unintelligible sentences about his duty, and finally, gathering up his papers, quitted the Court in a huff, with the air of a person mightily offended.

The Judge then summed up the evidence, and charged the jury very minutely--dwelling, more than was anticipated, on the remote probability that the younger Miss Shelton might have been mistaken as to the identity of the accused. But, said he, even if she were so situated that recognition of his person were even impossible, there is the evidence of her sister, given with a reluctance which was creditable to _her_ humanity, gratitude, and womanly feeling, which undoubtedly declared that the prisoner in the dock, and none but he, was the leader in the attack upon her father's house on the night named in the indictment.

The jury retired, and after a long deliberation, returned a verdict of "Guilty." Perhaps, of all persons in the court, the prisoner was apparently the least moved by this announcement. His cheek did not blench, his lips quiver, nor his limbs tremble. He was called upon to declare whether he had anything to say why the sentence of the law should not be passed?

Cussen, drawing himself up to his full height, declared, in a sonorous voice, which filled the Court, and in the same collected manner which had characterized him during the whole trial, that nothing which he could say was likely to mitigate the sharp sentence of the law. "I have had a fair trial," said he, "as from the excited state of the country, and the fears and feelings of the jury, I could reasonably expect. It is evident, from the time they have spent in deliberating on their verdict, that some of the jury, at least, had doubts in my favour. But," he added, "I make no calculation upon that, for I am aware that you, my lord, even while you comply with the formula of asking me whether I have anything to say against my sentence, have no alternative but to pronounce it. For my own part, I have faced death on the battle-field, too often and too boldly, to dread it in any shape. And for the ignominy, I hold with the French philosopher, whose writings your lordship is familiar with, that it is the crime, and not the punishment, which makes the shame. My lord, I stand, as it were, on the threshold of another world. My path is already darkened by the fast-advancing shadows of the grave. Hear me declare, then, that even if I were the Captain Rock whom your jury declare me to be, my death, nor the death of hundreds such as I am, cannot and will not put an end to disaffection arising from laws oppressive in themselves, and rendered even more so by being harshly and partially administered. The spirit of the people is all but broken by long-continued and strong oppression. Between middlemen and proctors they have been driven almost into despair. Exactions, for rent and tithes, press increasingly upon them. Whatever little property they may have possessed has gradually melted away. Their cattle, under distraint for rent, crowd the pounds. Their miserable cabins are destitute of fuel and food. They feel their wrongs, and have united with the energy of despair to avenge them. Cease to oppress these men, and the King will have no better subjects. So much for them. A concluding word for myself. My lord, I have not called evidence, which I might have done, to show that my general character is that of a man indisposed towards bloodshed and cruelty. It may be too late to hear them now--but for the sake of others I would stand before the world as one who is not the blood-stained ruffian which the learned counsel for the Crown has proclaimed me to be. I would tell _him_, were he here, that whatever else I have done, I have never been publicly branded by the Legislature as a liar. My lord, I have done."

This bold attack on Mr. Sergeant Goold, who, three years before, had been publicly reprimanded by the House of Commons for having prevaricated, when giving evidence before the Limerick Election Committee, was received with applause.

The Judge intimated that he was ready to hear evidence as to Cussen's character, on which several gentlemen of high standing in the county came forward and bore testimony greatly in his favour. The sentence of death was then pronounced, with the usual formalities.

But Cussen's hour was not at hand. A memorial to the Government, from Alicia Shelton, strongly setting forth the humanity which the convict had manifested towards herself, was immediately forwarded. With it went a petition, signed by several who had been interested with Cussen's conduct on the trial, and believed that to execute their leader was the least likely way of conciliating the Whiteboys. In due course, the Judge who had presided at the trial was called upon to state his opinion. It was said that, viewing the case as it came out in the evidence, and without touching on the suspicion or presumption that Cussen had been guilty of other breaches of the law, the report of the Judge was strongly in his favour. At all events, the Government complied with the urgent solicitations in Cussen's behalf, and commuted the sentence of death into transportation for life.

As Cussen had heard his death-doom without any apparent emotion, his reception of the mitigation of punishment was wholly devoid of exultation. He requested that the prison authorities would convey his thanks to Alicia Shelton and the others who had interested themselves in his favour.

It was said that an intimation was made to him, on the part of the Executive, promising him a full pardon if he would give them a clue to the Whiteboy organization, which they greatly desired to put down. It was reported, also, that, in his reply, he declared himself incapable of betraying any confidence which had been reposed in him,--that family circumstances must prevent his desiring to remain in Ireland, on any terms,--and he trusted there was a Future for every man who desired to atone for the Past. This was the nearest approach he ever made to an admission that he had been involved in the Whiteboy movements. The "family circumstances" to which he alluded consisted of his having been privately married to a Miss Fitzgibbon, with whom he lived so unhappily, that even an enforced residence in New South Wales appeared a lesser evil than to remain with her in Ireland.[7]

[7] The friend who has given me this information respecting Mrs. Cussen, says that when she lived in Limerick, not long ago, her means appeared ample. Her father, who had been a rich cattle-dealer, grazier and farmer, near ----, had probably left her in easy circumstances. He was a Mr. Fitzgibbon, and very little indebted to education. He sent his daughter to a first-rate boarding-school, and permitted her, when grown to womanhood, to invite her former preceptor and a few more "genteels" to an evening party--the first ever given in his house. The young lady was somewhat affected, and, to show her education, used big words. Her father, who heard her say to the servant "Biddy, when the company depart, be sure and extinguish the candles," inquired what was the meaning of the word "extinguish." It means _to put out a thing_, said she. In the course of the evening the pigs got upon the lawn, which was overlooked by the drawing-room window, and made a terrible noise. Old Fitzgibbon, determined to be genteel among his daughter's fine guests, went to the head of the stairs, and loudly called out, "Biddy, go at once and extinguish the pigs from the front of the house!"

This, however, did not transpire until some time after he had quitted the country.

He was transmitted to the convict-ship at Cove, on board of which the narrator of this story, then a lad, had the curiosity to visit him. Of course, no conversation arose as to the question of his guilt or innocence. When Cussen learned that his youthful visitor was related to Miss Shelton, he manifested some interest, inquired after her health, begged she would accept his thanks for the favourable manner in which she had given her evidence, and said that she had strongly reminded him of a lady whom he had formerly known, and whose death had led to the circumstances which had brought him to his present position.

The impression which remains on my mind, after the lapse of so many years, is very much in favour both of Cussen's appearance and manners. He was neatly dressed, and looked very unlike what might have been anticipated--considering that he was the veritable Captain Rock. His voice was low--"an excellent thing" in man as well as in woman. There was no appearance of bravado in his manner. The two turnkeys from Limerick jail, who were in charge of him, spoke very highly of his gentle disposition and uniform civility. They declared, such was their conviction of his truth, that if, at any time, he had desired to leave them for a week, with a promise to return by a particular day and hour, they were certain he would not break his parole.

On reaching Spike Island, he was attired in the convict costume,--and the humiliating livery of crime appeared a great annoyance to him for a day or two. After that, he showed no feeling upon the matter. The "authorities" at Spike Island, who were much prejudiced against him, at first, speedily came to treat him with as much kindness as their rough nature and scanty opportunities permitted them to show.

Within three weeks of his conviction, John Cussen was _en route_ for Botany Bay. During the voyage, a dangerous epidemic broke out among the convicts and the crew. The surgeon of the ship was one of the first victims. The commander, who had heard the report of the trial at Limerick, recollected that one of the witnesses had stated how gallantly Cussen had fought at Waterloo, when an army-surgeon, and asked his prisoner whether he thought himself capable, in the existing emergency, of taking medical charge of the ship. Cussen replied in the affirmative, but positively declined doing anything so long as he wore the convict-dress. His desire being complied with, he was released from his irons, intrusted with the care of the sick, and succeeded in mitigating their sufferings by the remedies he applied. The disease was checked, so that the mortality was much less than was expected, and this favourable result was mainly attributable to Cussen's skill. On arriving in New South Wales, this was so favourably represented to the authorities, that a ticket of leave was immediately given to him. Proceeding up the country, he took a small sheepwalk, and was getting on prosperously, when a party of bush-rangers attacked and devastated his little place. He immediately devoted himself to a contest with this predatory band--long the terror of the colony--and did not rest until he had so completely routed them, that the leaders were apprehended and executed, while the rest, one by one, came in and delivered themselves up to justice.

The result was that, for this public service, Cussen received a pardon (the only condition being that he must not return to Ireland), within two years after his arrival in the Colony. He practiced for some time, as a surgeon, at Sydney, and having realized about five thousand pounds, proceeded to the United States. One of his first acts, after arriving in New York, was to send to Ireland for the son of John Sheehan (the man who had been shot on suspicion of Whiteboyism), now doubly orphaned by his mother's death. He adopted him, in fulfilment of his promise at the Wake, as related in the first chapter. His own wife and daughter, whom he had liberally supplied with funds from New South Wales, declined rejoining him there or in America, and were actually residing in Limerick a few years ago. Cussen eventually settled in one of the Western States, where his capital at once enabled him to purchase and cultivate a large tract of land. He has been heard of, more than once, by those who knew his identity, as a thriving and influential citizen, under a slightly changed name.

The fact that Cussen had led the attack upon Churchtown Barracks was not _positively_ ascertained for several years after his departure from Ireland. In a death-bed confession, one of the party avowed it. To this day, however, very many of the people in the County of Limerick, who were well acquainted with Cussen, will not believe that he ever could have participated in such a cold-blooded massacre. They appeal, in proof of the gentleness of his nature, to the kind feelings which he exhibited during the attack on Rossmore.

It is clear, at all events, that by the conviction of Cussen, the Whiteboys lost a leader. The confederation was speedily broken up, for want of its CAPTAIN ROCK. Nor, since that time, have the disaffected in Ireland been able to obtain the assistance of any one so competent for command as was JOHN CUSSEN. His successors, from time to time, have been bold, ignorant men, at the highest not more than one degree above the peasantry whom they contrived to band together as United Irishmen, Ribbonmen, or Whiteboys. The peasantry were taught, too, that the redress of grievances is not likely to be brought about by illegal confederations--that agitation _within_ the law, may virtually place them _above_ the law,--and that he who commits a crime gives an advantage to the antagonist. This was the great principle which O'Connell always endeavoured to enforce. We have seen the last of the Whiteboys, and I have told the story of the undoubted CAPTAIN ROCK, the will-o'-the-wisp of Irish agrarian disturbances.

A NIGHT WITH THE WHITEBOYS.

In connection with the leadership of John Cussen, an incident occurred which may be related here, as a sort of appendix to his own adventures. It is only a trifle in its way, but illustrates the manner in which, even after he had quitted the country, he was regarded by his former adherents.

About twelve months after the conviction and transportation of Captain Rock, which eventually led to the breaking up of the Whiteboy organization--though, here and there, a few branch Ribbon lodges remained--I was on a visit to my uncle, the self-same owner of Rossmore, mentioned in the previous story, and father of its heroine. Rossmore House is situated within a short distance of Castletown Conyers, and, by taking a short cut across the fields, this distance might be reduced to a mile. Having spent the day at Castletown, I was returning to Rossmore by the short cut, late in the evening--too late, indeed, as I had been warned, from the chance of meeting some of the prowlers who haunted the by-roads towards the small town. I had no fear, however, and though it was after twelve o'clock, there was a beautiful full moon, which, as the old song says, "did shine as bright as day." I had got on a narrow by-road which ran between two bogs, and was speeding home with as little delay as possible. All at once, I heard the dull heavy tramp of feet, in a measured tread, and thought that it probably was the police-patrol taking its rounds. As some of the police were quartered at my uncle's, I entertained no apprehension on account of being found out of doors at an untimely hour, as my person was known to these peace-preservers. I walked on, therefore, at my ease, loitering a little to allow myself to be overtaken, in order that I might have an escort home.

The party came up, and when I turned round to recognize and speak to them, I was considerably alarmed to find that I was in the midst of a large assemblage of rough-and-ready countrymen, wrapped up in large blue _coateens_, every man of them with a huge bludgeon in his hand. Knowing that the best plan was to put as bold a front on it as I could, I accosted them with the usual "Good evening, boys." They did not condescend to return the greeting, but gathered together in groups, conversing in Irish, which I did not understand--the acquisition of that ancient and sonorous language having been a neglected branch of my education. From their vehement action, their constant references to myself by gesture, and the repetition of my name, I perceived that they knew who I was, and were speaking about me. Under such circumstances, I thought, with Falstaff, that the better part of valour was discretion, and I prepared to effect my escape from such unpleasant companionship, by slipping off as quietly as I could.

The intention, however excellent, was not to be borne out in execution. Before I had taken fifty steps, I felt two or three large, rough, hairy, sinewy hands on the collar of my coat, and the cold muzzle of a pistol under my left ear, with a threat, strengthened by a tremendous oath, that, if I dared move one inch farther, the contents of the pistol should be lodged in my brain. I did not move, having a strong idea that the threat would be carried into execution,--not a remarkably pleasant anticipation for any one, far less for a lad of fourteen.

After some delay, a man, who appeared to be a kind of leader, asked me my name, and whether I was not a nephew of "the old fellow at Rossmore." I said that I was. "Then," said he, "you are the cousin of that fine young lady whose swearing was the means of our Captain being sent across the sea?" I answered that he was quite correct, and that I certainly was the lady's cousin. "Then," said he, "as we cannot lay hands on _her_, for she cut away to England when the trial was over, for fear of our just revenge, I think we must have _your_ blood instead." As I had a very strong objection to suffering, vicariously, even for a woman and a cousin, I remonstrated against the design, alleging, truly enough, that it was hard I should answer for any one's sins but my own; that the lady, as was well known, had given evidence against Captain Rock, under compulsion; and that, after he was sentenced to death, she never rested until she had obtained a remission of the sentence of death passed upon him.

What I said evidently made an impression on my audience--on such, at least, as knew English. To the rest it was duly interpreted; after which, still leaving me in charge of the hirsute giant with the great pistol, the party retired a little way to hold consultation respecting me. This I knew, because the rough gentleman, who held the pistol to my ear, grew a little communicative, telling me that they had all been to the fair of Bruree, where they had indulged pretty freely in strong liquors, and that he thought it likely, as they had made up their mind to take my life, that they were then only deliberating in what manner to carry out their intention. "It is an easy death enough," said this Job's comforter, "to be strangled by a handkerchief, squeezed round the throat to a proper tightness; it is as good a way as any other to put a man into a deep bog-hole like that on the side of the road there; but," he added, "for doing the thing genteelly, and making sure of quick work and little pain, I certainly would prefer a pistol like this, with a decent charge of canister powder, and a brace of bullets or a couple of slugs at the top to make all right."

The conference by the way-side lasted so long, that I grew heart-sick with anxiety. I could see, by their unrestrained movements, that some of the party were disposed to wreak upon my person their revenge against my cousin, and that some were recommending a milder process. Presently, the decision appeared to be made--whatever it might be. The same man who had already spoken to me, came up again, and with him the rest of that precious conclave. "My lad," said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, "Do you know what we have made up our minds to do?" I answered, that I did not know. "Some of us," said he, "think that, as you have met us to night, and may know some of us again, the best thing we could do would be to put you out of the way at once. And some of us thinks that if we took your word, (though you're only a bit of a boy,) not to mention that you have seen us, we might do worse than let you go home, though that home is the nest which _she_ came out of."

I fancied, from his manner, that I had not much cause to apprehend the more deadly alternative; and, therefore, I answered, as boldly as I could, that I was quite willing to give my word not to mention that I had seen any of them, nor, at any time or place, attempt to recognize them. "While you are deciding," I added, "recollect that this suspense between life and death is not the most pleasant thing in the world. And, for God's sake," said I, "rather put this hairy gentleman's brace of bullets through my head at once, than leave me shivering another half an hour in the cold." There was a laugh at what I said; those who did not speak English eagerly required it to be translated for them, and then the laugh grew louder, for _all_ enjoyed it. "Faith," said the leader, "You're a bold lad to jest in that way, with the muzzle of a pistol against your ear. Make your mind easy; we would not hurt a hair of your head now. Go your way, and keep your promise. No matter when you meet any of us, don't let on that you have ever seen us before. And if you should ever fall in with bad company, in a by-way, on a night like this, just whisper '_Barry More_' into the ear of any of the party, and you may pass through them as safely as if you were walking in a drawing-room." This said, I had to shake hands, one by one, with each of the party; and they further insisted, with a pertinacity which would not brook denial, that half-a-dozen of them should escort me within a stone's throw of my uncle's house.

A few weeks after this rencontre, I saw a man at work in one of my uncle's fields, who seemed not quite a stranger to me. I took care that the recognition, if any, should come from him. Accordingly, though I made the usual remark that it was a fine day, and asked some questions as to the prospects of the crops, I did not seem as if I had ever seen him before. However, he had less discretion, for he said, "That was a narrow escape you had, down by the bog, that night, sir." I asked what he meant? "Oh!" said he, "I do not mind talking to you about it now, for we have your word not to tell on us, and I know very well--for we have friends in every house, who tell us what passes--that not even to your uncle did you say a word about what happened that night. We tried to frighten you a bit, sir, but you stood up better than we expected. I had made up my mind, from the first, that not a hair of your head should be touched; but it was not quite so easy to get the rest of the boys to my way of thinking. They had not the cause that I had for wishing you well."

I told him, what was the plain truth, that I had no recollection of any particular cause why _he_, more than any of the rest, should have protected me. "Ah, sir," said he, "people who do a kindness forget it, if the true vein be in them, sooner than those they do the kindness to. You may remember, sir, that about ten years ago, when you were a child, the Master here was very angry with me for having neglected my work, by which the Mistress's garden was quite spoilt, and turned me off, when I had not the chance of getting work anywhere else, and owed a quarter's rent for the little cabin and potatoe garden, and was entirely broke, hand and foot,--aye, and almost heart, too. At that time, sir, you were to the fore, with the kind word, which you ever had, to turn away the Master's anger, and you got the Mistress to interfere; and when the Master took me on to work again, it was yourself, sir, that ran down to my little cabin and told me the good news, and sat down at the table, with the children, without any pride, and eat the roasted potato and the salt, and drank the butter-milk out of the same piggin with them. From that hour, sir, if laying down the lives of me and mine would prevent injury to one hair of your head, we would have done it. And that's the reason why your life was safe the other night, and they all granted it when I told them the ins and outs of the story."

I saw little more of my champion, for I left that part of the country soon after, and have not been there since.

BUCK ENGLISH.

Some eighty years ago, there appeared, in that city of Ireland which is called "the beautiful,"[8] a remarkable character, generally known as Buck English. This name--to which he answered--had been given him, it was said, on account of his fashionable appearance, manners and pursuits, and because his accent clearly indicated that he came from England. At all events, in the year 1770, Buck English was a principal in the fashionable society of Cork--its observed of all observers, its glass of fashion, if not its very mould of form.

[8] "The beautiful city called Cork."--_Irish Song._

Buck English had abundance of money, that great test and framer of respectability, and spent it freely. No man knew whence it came. Inquiries had been cautiously ventured upon by inquisitive people, but the only result arrived at was that rarely, if ever, did any remittance reach him through a banker. He frequently performed actions which might be called generous; but the real objects for benevolence, he used to say, were those who struggled to maintain appearances--who bore the arrow in their breast, and did not complain--who would rather die than ask for help; for, as there is no energy like that of despair, there is no pride like that of poverty. Gratitude sometimes _would_ speak out; for parties whom his timely, unsought aid had rescued from ruin, meeting him accidentally in public, could not be restrained from breathing blessings on the benefactor whose name they knew not; and the occasional occurrence of such things--which really were _not_ got up for display--seemed to authorize the conjecture that Buck English was bountiful in many other instances which were not known. This belief, generally received, operated so much in his favour, that many who would have probably disdained intimacy with one whose personal history was unknown, and who, therefore, might be an adventurer, did not hesitate to receive him at their houses--a concession which others, of more unquestioned station and means, vainly endeavoured to obtain. When stamped "sterling" by the select, no fear of his readily passing into currency with all the rest.

Hence, the conclusion may be arrived at, that Buck English was what a facetious friend calls a "populous character." He might have turned the sharp corner of five-and-thirty, and did not look older, even at his worst. Now, whatever five-and-thirty may be for a lady,--forcing on her, I fear, the brevet-rank of "a certain age," with Byron's interpretation,--it is the very prime of manhood. Thus, in this respect, Buck English was as fortunate as others. There was a drawback, it must be confessed--for who can be perfection? This was the circumstance of his possessing features which, except under particular excitement, might be pronounced very ordinary. One might have excused the compressed lips, the sallow cheek, and the sharp face; but the expression of the eyes was not always favourable. It appeared as if they were almost always anxiously on the watch. At times, when strongly excited, while the cheeks remained colourless, and no word breathed from the lips, the passion which created a heart-quake in the man did not allow its presence to be seen, except that it made the eyes flash--conveying the impression that their possessor must be rather dangerous under the influence of strong and deep emotions. It was not often that such manifestations were allowed to become apparent, for Buck English had powerful self-command.

Notwithstanding the absence of what is called "good looks," he had succeeded in gaining the favourable opinion of Mary Penrose, a young lady who had recently succeeded to a very considerable property in the vicinity of Cork. Indeed, it was somewhat more than merely her favourable opinion. I will even admit--on the understanding, of course, that it remain an inviolable secret--that Buck English had made a strong impression on the young lady's mind; so much so, that, at the especial period at which this narrative introduces her, she was deliberating whether she should frankly admit to him, or deny for a little time longer, that he was master of the heart which fluttered--ah, how anxiously--within the soft citadel of her bosom.

She had met him that evening at a _rout_ (so they called their fashionable parties in those days), and he had ventured to insinuate, rather more boldly than on any previous occasion, how much his happiness depended upon her. On the point of making a very gentle confession, (have you any idea how admirably blushes can convey what language dare not breathe?) a movement towards the retired part of the saloon in which they sat, apart from the dancers, startled the lady, while the exclamation, "Mary Penrose!--where _can_ she be?" informed her that inquiries were being made for her. So, withdrawing her hand from that of her suitor, and making an effort to appear calm and unembarrassed, she awaited the advent of the lady who had spoken. Presently came up her _chaperon_, a woman of high birth and scanty means, who _condescended_ to reside with her. This personage--a mixture of black velvet and bugles, pearl-powder and pretence--gravely regarding Buck English, whom she did not like (because she thought it probable that he might succeed with Miss Penrose, and thereby make her own occupation "gone," like Othello's), said, with a low courtesy, "I am sure, sir, that, had you known what a pleasure you have been depriving Miss Penrose of, you would scarcely have detained her here. Mary, my dear, only think who has arrived!--who but your cousin Frank! He has been in the rooms half an hour, and has been anxiously looking for you everywhere."

Before a reply was made the cousin made his appearance, and was received rather formally by Mary. However, Frank Penrose was an Irishman and a lawyer, and therefore not very likely to be put down or taken aback by a cold reception. He was introduced to Buck English, but the greeting between the gentlemen was by no means cordial. Buck English saw a rival; one, too, whom it was said Mary Penrose's father had been desirous to have as a husband for his only child; while cousin Frank, to whom the _chaperon_ had previously communicated the intimacy between the young lady and the dashing stranger, saw at a glance that it would have been quite as well, perhaps, if he had not left her so much in the way of becoming heart-stricken.

"Shall I lead you down to supper?" he said. "You know, Mary, that you and I have a hundred things to talk about."

"I am sorry, Frank," she answered, "that I cannot take the arm which you offer me gallantly. I had promised my partner, before you came, to avail myself of the advantage of his escort. Madame, I have no doubt, will be happy under your protection, and you can unburthen your mind to her."

Thus it happened that Mary Penrose retained the arm of Buck English, while Frank was handed over to the dowager.

"Confound the fellow!" said he, _sotto voce_, glancing at his rival. "On what a very familiar footing he has established himself with Mary. Can it be that she, who used to be so hard to please, is smitten with such a face?"

"Very likely," said the _chaperon_. "It was not the countenance, but the mind of Othello, that the bright Venetian was enamoured of. When the manners are agreeable and the intellect quick, the accident of a homely face speedily becomes of no importance. Perhaps it may even help to throw a woman off her guard."

"It is a pity," continued Frank, "that I have delayed my return so long. I thought that your letters had exaggerated, if not invented, the danger. Assist me in deposing this gentleman, and my gratitude shall be more than a name. I have always made so certain that Mary was to be my wife, that this over-security had led me to neglect her. At all events, I can tell you that this Mr. English shall not snatch such a prize from me without a struggle. I confess I do not like him."

"Naturally enough. He is a rival, and apparently on the way to become a successful one."

By this time they had reached the supper-table. Frank Penrose behaved with distant politeness to Buck English, who, as usual, was the centre of conversation. As the hour advanced, Mary said to her cousin, "Can you tell me what o'clock it is, Frank? I have been so careless as to let my watch run down."

Frank, with a smile, answered, "Two months ago I could have done so; but one of the knights of the road met me in a lonely part of Kilworth Mountain, when last I was going from Cork to Dublin, and relieved me of all care of purse or watch."

There was a smile at the cool manner in which the young lawyer related his loss, and then followed inquiry into the circumstances.

"A very commonplace highway robbery, I do assure you," said Frank. " All I have to say is, that I was encountered, as I rode on a lonely part of the road, by a gentleman who, taking me quite unprepared, put a pistol to my heart, demanding my cash and other portable property. As I had a foolish desire not to part with it quite so easily, I threw myself off my horse, and closed with my antagonist. His pistol went off in the struggle, without doing me any injury, and I drew my sword. My enemy, who proved himself a better master of that weapon than I was, succeeded in disarming me; forced me to surrender money, watch, and a few rings; mounted on my horse, and rode off, but speedily returned, with the polite assurance that as he never saw a gentleman in distress without wishing to relieve him, he trusted I would accept a few pieces from him, as he presumed I did not intend remaining on the bleak mountain all night, and he knew, from experience, how disagreeable it was to be in a strange inn without money. He handed me five guineas, kindly adding that, if I wanted more, _his_ purse--alas! it had been _mine_--was entirely at my service."

"Would you know the man again?"

"No. His face was partly covered with crape."

Supper ended, Miss Penrose and the rest of the ladies retired, escorted to their carriages by the gentlemen, who then returned (it was the evil fashion of the time) to drink their healths in a brimming bumper. One glass led to another, with the usual result--the libations were not to the Goddess of Concord. By accident, the name of Mary Penrose was mentioned, with a congratulatory allusion to the good terms on which Buck English evidently was with her. Frank Penrose started from his chair, and angrily declared that his cousin's name should not be bandied about at a public table, and in conjunction, too, with that of a person of whom no one knew anything, and who, he could assert, was not acceptable to her family. He was about speaking further, when he was pulled down by his friends, who strenuously urged him to keep silent.

Buck English remained so quiet under the intentionally offensive allusion to himself, that some of the company began to think him deficient in courage. The Irish way of answering an insult, in those days, was to throw a glass full of wine in the offender's face, and follow that up by flinging the decanter at his head. After a pause, Frank Penrose, whom nobody could restrain, repeated the insult in other and harsher words. This broke up the party. As they were leaving the table, Buck English leant across, and said, very quietly, "Mr. Penrose, for the lady's sake, I would not mix up her name with a midnight brawl in a tavern, but you are aware that your words must be withdrawn or atoned for?"

"Take them as you please," said Penrose. "I stand by them."

"Then," answered the other, "I name Captain Cooper as my friend. Whom shall he meet on your part, and where?"

Pausing for a minute, during which he considered his course of action, Penrose said that in two days he expected a friend whose services he could command on such a business, and hoped the delay would not be inconvenient. His antagonist intimated his assent by a distant bow, and thus, in far less time than I have been writing about it, was appointed a meeting for life or death. The outward show of civility was maintained during the short time that they remained in the room, though feelings of deadliest enmity rankled beneath that smooth surface.

As they were retiring, Penrose and English again were together, and the latter took advantage of this contiguity to ask at what time his friend should call upon Mr. Penrose's second?

"At ten on Thursday morning, at Daly's club-house."

"Very well, and for whom shall he inquire?"

"Let him ask for Mr. D'Arcy Mahon, the barrister."

At that name, English shrunk or swerved as from a blow.

"D'Arcy Mahon!" he repeated.

"Yes," said Penrose. "Have you any objection to the gentleman?"

"None."

On that they separated.

* * * * *

That evening, on returning home, Mary Penrose applied herself, in the solitude of her chamber--the young heart's confessional--to serious thought upon that beleaguered and endangered Sebastopol, the state of her affections. It was evident that her cousin was piqued at the idea of her having a preference for English, and that his arrival was likely to bring the affair to an issue. Mary paused for some time in doubt as to the course she should pursue. She had a regard for her cousin Frank; but she confessed to herself, with conscious blush and sigh, that she had other and more cherished feelings for English. It is proverbial how a woman's deliberations, in an affair of the heart, invariably end; and so, having made up her mind in favour of Buck English, by far the most delightful companion--although not quite the handsomest--fate had thrown in her way, she retired to rest.

As she was unloosing the golden beauty of her luxuriant tresses, glancing now and then at a flower given to her by _him_, and carefully put into a watervase on her dressing-room table, Mary Penrose heard a faint tap at the window. Withdrawing the curtain, she saw, in the pale moonlight, the face of him who, even then, was occupying her thoughts. He held up a note in his hand, which he placed upon the window-sill, and disappeared as suddenly as he had come before her.

Opening the casement, she took the _billet_, and eagerly read it. In the strongest and most beseeching words, it urged her to speak with the writer for a few minutes;--hinted that this would be the last time they would ever meet;--and plainly declared that it related to an affair of life-and-death emergency. The urgency of this appeal, as well as her natural desire to see one in whom, now more than ever, she felt a deep interest, prevailed, and Mary Penrose, throwing a large shawl over her hastily-adjusted attire, quitted her chamber, silently proceeded down stairs, and opened the hall-door, at which she found English waiting. Light of body and active of limb, he had found little difficulty in ascending to Mary's window, by means of the thick ivy which luxuriantly covered the front of the house, and his descent had been yet more easily accomplished.

When alone with Mary in one of the apartments in which she had frequently received him as a visitor, Buck English appeared overwhelmed by emotion. Quickly recovering himself, he addressed her in this manner:--"I have to thank your kindness, Miss Penrose, for thus giving me the opportunity of taking leave of you. I am a dishonoured man, or shall be, and most publicly, too, if to-morrow sees me near this place. After you had retired this evening, your cousin Frank fixed a personal quarrel upon me, which I endeavoured to avoid by acting and speaking with the greatest forbearance. I named the friend who would act for me in a matter so unpleasant, and your cousin asked for a slight delay until the arrival of the gentleman who would perform the like offices for him. The person whom he named is D'Arcy Mahon,--one of the few men in this country, under existing circumstances, who must not see me, because I have the very strongest motives for avoiding him. Our meeting was fixed for Thursday, but I have just heard of Mr. Mahon's arrival, not an hour ago, which is two days earlier than Frank expected him."

"I need not assure you," said Mary, "how very much grieved I am that there should be any difference between two persons whom I esteem so much--between yourself and Frank. But I know that Mr. Mahon is a most honourable man, and more likely to pacify than irritate any parties who are placed in his hands with hostile feelings to each other."

"There lives not the man," replied English, somewhat haughtily, "who can say that I have at any time shrunk from giving or seeking the satisfaction which, in our strangely-constituted state of society, gentlemen must sometimes require or grant. But it is impossible that I can meet D'Arcy Mahon--whose high character I appreciate and esteem--on any terms, or under any circumstances, without his instantly and fatally recognizing me as one whom he has met before, under a darker and different aspect of affairs."

"You astonish and alarm me!" said Mary. "Will you not remove the veil from this mystery?"

"Yes," said he, after some deliberation. "It is a sad confidence, but _you_ are entitled to it. You have heard of a person who is generally known as Captain Spranger?"

Mary said that she certainly had heard of the terror of travellers, the head of a band of highwaymen, who had infested the South of Ireland for the previous two years.

"The same. That man, outlawed as he is, with a price upon his head, I have reason to know is the younger son of one of the first commoners in England. Evil example and youthful impatience of control alienated him from his friends early in life, and sent him abroad upon the world, in different countries and among many grades of society, but not always in companionship with those by whom he could profit, in mind, body, or estate. At the close of many wanderings he found himself in Ireland, and accidentally became the companion or guest of a party of smugglers, who were banded together in the county of Waterford, and who, by their audacity and success, had challenged the notice of the Executive. Unfortunately, at the very period when the Englishman's love of wild adventure had thrown him into the society of these smugglers--as it had often led him to spend a night in a gipsy encampment--at that very time treachery had betrayed the band, who were surrounded by a strong military force before they knew they were in danger. To fight their way through this armed array, was what the smugglers determined on at the moment. Unwilling to remain and be captured, the chance-visitor of the night joined in the sortie, and made a dash for freedom. Some effected their escape without hurt, a few were wounded, some were captured. The Englishman was among the prisoners. The Assizes were at hand, and as it was thought fit to make an example, as it is called, the trial of the smugglers was hurried on. The evidence against the Englishman was conclusive. He was found in armed array against the military, and in company with notorious law-breakers. What could he do? Pride made him conceal his name, he was indicted under that of Spranger (which he had never borne), was tried and convicted. When brought up to receive sentence in the assize court of Clonmel (where, for some reason, the trial took place), he thought he saw the opportunity for a bold effort. Light, active and strong, he vaulted out of the dock. The crowd instantly opened to conceal him, for there is a strong sympathy for persons accused of such breaches against the revenue law as he was believed to have committed. Even while he was crouching down in the midst of the crowd, a great-coat, such as the peasantry wear, was thrown around him by one; another bestowed upon him a cap made of fox-skin; and a third whispered him to keep quiet, as, if he did not betray himself, his disguise was sufficient to defy suspicion and detection.[9]

[9] Such an escape as this was actually made from the dock, during the Clonmel assizes, by the bold and notorious Buck English, who afterwards found his way into the first society in Cork city and county. Indeed, the actual life of this man was parallel in many of its leading points to that of "Paul Clifford," the hero of Bulwer's brilliant fiction. The term "Buck" was usually bestowed on any fashionable bravo, in Ireland, who wore dashing attire, and indulged in all sorts of extravagances of expenditure and excess. There was "Buck Sheehy" of Dublin, as well as our own, "Buck English" of Cork. Indeed, there were sufficient of the _genus_ in Dublin to form the majority of the "Hell-fire Club," who once set fire to their club-room, and remained in it until the flames actually burned the hair from their heads and the clothes from their bodies. This was done to decide the punishments of a future state! Most of the "Bucks" were men of family, education, and wealth. Several peers were members of the community. At one time (the author of "Ireland sixty years ago," relates) there were three noblemen, brothers, so notorious for their outrages, that they acquired singular names, as indicative of their characters. The first was the terror of every one who met him in public places--the second was seldom out of prison--the third was lame, yet no whit disabled from his Buckish achievements. They were universally known by the names of "Hell-gate," "Newgate," and "Cripplegate." There were two brothers, one of whom had shot his friend, and the other stabbed his coachman. They were distinguished as "Kill-Kelly" and "Kill-coachy." This reminds one of the Irish traveller, who said he had been to _Kill-many_ and was going to _Kill-more_.

"Incredible as it may appear--but I perceive that you have already heard something of this affair--Spranger remained in the court-house during the whole day, while a strict out-of-doors' search was made for him, and finally walked into the street, unchallenged, with the rest of the crowd, when the trials ended. He was literally alone, unfriended, penniless, in a strange country. The men who had supplied him, on the impulse of the moment, with the means of baffling detection, kept their eyes upon, and speedily came in his way, giving him the further aid of shelter and food. What need I more say than that those men, who lived against the law, succeeded in enrolling their guest among them. Recklessness and utter want, in the first instance, and the fear of being given up to the Government in the other, were his motives. Coupled with this, too, was a strong sense of injury at having been convicted, without crime, upon appearances. Not then, but many times afterwards, did he feel convinced that the Executive had brought him to trial only upon obvious and palpable facts. But, long before he came to take this view of the question, he had become leader of the band--now avowedly associated for plunder, smuggling having been broken up, and the name and the daring of Captain Spranger are sufficiently notorious throughout the country now.

"When he had completely identified himself with them, so as to obtain their unquestioning obedience, Spranger availed himself of the privilege of sometimes leaving them for a short time--continuing, however, to regulate their movements, and participate in their gains--one of them always remaining with him to act as his servant, but actually as an unsuspected channel of communication with the band. Thus this captain of men beyond the pale of the law, has resided, at different times, in the principal cities in the South of Ireland. His last resting-place was here in Cork, where, under a name rather given to him by common consent than assumed by him, and with ample pecuniary means at his command, he contrived to be received into the best society. But he had tired, long since, of the ruffianly association which he headed. One hope remained--that of offering his sword to one of the foreign States with whom he had formerly performed military service, and thus resuming the condition to which he was born. But, while taking measures to do this, he met, and became deeply enamoured of the loveliest and most engaging of her sex, and delayed his departure--his exile--from a reluctance to quit the heaven of her smiles. Perhaps he even presumed to hope--to trust--that, under better circumstances, he might even have ventured to hope that his suit would not have failed."

Here he paused, to mark how Mary had borne this relation. Her face was covered with her hands--but he could hear that she was sobbing. He continued:--

"You know, Mary, I perceive, that he who relates this story is the same Spranger whose name has made many a cheek pale, many a bold heart tremble. D'Arcy Mahon was one of the counsel employed against me at Clonmel, and he knows every feature of mine so well that he could not fail to recognize me. He would identify me, also, as Captain Spranger. If I remain, he meets me to-morrow. Shame, disgrace, perhaps even death would follow. 'Tis true that circumstances have made me what I am, but there is a Future, in action, for all who are willing to atone for past misconduct. I go forth to try and regain the position I have forfeited. Not in this country, nor yet in my own, can I hope to do this. But there other lands where Reputation and Fortune may be won, and in one of them I shall make the effort. To have known _you_--to find this wasted heart capable, even yet, of appreciating the beauty and purity of your mind, will console me in my long and distant exile. Farewell!"

He bent on his knee to take and kiss that delicate hand. Did it really linger in his? He looked upon that face of beauty. Did those violet eyes smile upon him through the dew which diamonded their long, dark fringes? He heard a low, earnest whisper. Did it tell him to retrieve the past, nor doubt, while doing so, of the due reward a loving heart will bestow? Did it softly say that he, and none but he, should hold that hand in marriage? Did it entreat him to write often--always hopingly? A long, long kiss on those ripe lips, on that damasked cheek, on that fair brow, and Buck English was away, as suddenly as he had come.

* * * * *

How improbable! How unfeminine! How utterly at variance with all the conventionalities of society! No doubt. But it is _true_.

As for Mary's avowed love for such a person as--even on his own showing--English was, why seek to put it to the test of every-day thought?

"Why did she love him! Curious fool, be still; Is human love the growth of human will?"

* * * * *

The morning after the interview between Mary and her lover, considerable anxiety was caused in the minds of his acquaintance by the fact of his disappearance, and the report that he had met with some fatal accident. His horse had returned home riderless, and a hat and glove, known to have been worn by him, were found on the banks of the Lee, about two miles from Cork, a place where he was fond of riding at all hours. It was believed that he had been drowned. The authorities took possession of and examined his effects, which were never claimed. There was not one line of writing among them, giving the slightest clue to his station in life, family, or identity. In a short time, he passed out of the memory of most of those who had known him.

It was noticed that Mary Penrose appeared very much unconcerned at the loss of one for whom she was believed to have felt some partiality. She was abused, of course, by her own sex, (and the more so, as she was very handsome,) for being "a heartless coquette." A few months later, when she had attained her legal majority, and with it full possession of her property, she unequivocally astonished her cousin Frank, by declining his proffered hand. Ere the year was ended, her estates were in the market, and their purchase-money invested in foreign securities. This done, Mary bade a long farewell to the land of her nativity and the friends of her youth. Nor did any definite account of her subsequent life ever reach Ireland.

In the fulness of time, there came rumours (which were credited) that somebody very like Buck English had obtained rank and reputation in the German service, and that, eventually retiring to a distant province of the Empire, he had turned his sword into a ploughshare, and cultivated, with much success, a large estate which he had purchased there. It was added that a lady, whose personal description tallied with Mary Penrose's appearance, was the wife of this person; that they lived very happily with their numerous children around them; that their retainers and dependents almost adored them for their constant and considerate kindness; and that, though they ever condemned crime, they united in questioning whether he who committed it might not have been led into it by Circumstance rather than Desire.

ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS

THE BARD O'KELLY.

For many years, an individual, calling himself "The Bard O'Kelly," wandered through the South of Ireland, subsisting on the exacted hospitality and the enforced contributions of such as happened to be so weak as to dread being put by him into a couplet of satirical doggerel, and thus held up to public scorn as wanting in liberality. An Irishman, be it known, will not submit to an imputation upon his generosity; rather than have _that_ questioned, he will give away his last sixpence, though the gift leave him without food. O'Kelly was shrewd enough to know this, and like the ale which Boniface so much praises in Farquhar's comedy, he "fed purely upon it"--in fact, it was meat, drink, clothing and lodging to him.

Until he published his "poems," no one knew on what very slight grounds his Bardship rested. His book--a thin, ill-printed octavo, called "The Hippocrene,"--appeared, with a dedication, by permission, to "the most noble and warlike Marquis of Anglesea," and underneath the inscription is the quatrain,

"_O dulce decus_! thou art mine, What can I more or less say? _Presidium_! pillar of the NINE, Illustrious chief ANGLESEA!!"

In order, also, that the world might know what manner of man his bardling was, he had put his portrait as a frontispiece, and, with that characteristic modesty which indicated that _he_ certainly had kissed the Blarney Stone, had engraved beneath it,--

"Sweet bard! sweet lake! congenial shall your fame The rays of genius and of beauty claim; Nor vainly claim: for who can read and view, And not confess O'KELLY'S pencil true?"

The lake here alluded to, is that of Killarney. In the year 1791, O'Kelly wrote what he called "a Poem" on the romantic scenery of Killarney. It was written, but not published--recited by the bard, as the Iliad and Odyssey are said to have been by "the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle,"--handed about in manuscript among friends, like much of the verse of the present day, when (because every third man is an author) hard-hearted booksellers refuse to purchase valueless copyrights, or even to publish them, save at the sole expense and risk of the writers.

So, in 1791, was written, not published, the Bard's "Killarney,"--a poem which (as _he_ was wont to speak of it) "has all the depth of the lake it immortalizes, with the clearness, freshness, and sparkling flow of its waters!" It may be thought a little egotistical for O'Kelly thus to praise his own writings--but, surely, a man is the best judge of his own merit, and best acquainted with his own talents. I put it to every man of sense--that is, to every person who completely coincides with my opinion,--whether, if a man does not think and speak well of himself, it can possibly be expected that any one else will? No; O'Kelly's self-praise was only a flourish to remind people what a genius they had among them--a Laputan flap to make the Irish world quite aware of the fact of his immeasurable merit.

There was a rumour--but I hate scandal--that the Bard (being a poet, and lame to boot, like the Grecian) had an ambition to be the new Tyrtæus of the Irish Rebels, in 1798. He has been seen to smile, rather assentingly, at "the soft impeachment," although, no doubt, while the insurgents were liable to punishment, he had very _capital_ reasons for denying it. While the Civil War was raging, he went to the north-east of Ireland, and, his enemies say, with rebellious designs. But his own assertion,

("And truths divine came mended from _his_ lips,") was, that the sole object of his tour was to compose a poem on the sublimities of the Giant's Causeway. Such a composition was written--for I have read it. But the greatest and best of men--from Socrates down to O'Kelly--have been subjected to suspicion and persecution, and it happened that when the Bard showed himslf in the north, he was taken up by the King's forces, and summarily committed to prison on suspicion that his visit was occasioned by a desire to discover a snug landing-place, on the Antrim coast, for the French--who, at that time, were about invading Ireland.

Bad news travels very quickly. It soon was noised about Kerry, that the Bard had been taken up. As a story, like a snow-ball, increases as it travels, it was even added that the Bard had been--_hanged_!

On this, a wretch named Michael M'Carthy--a Macroom man was this Bathyllus to the Hibernian Maro--constituted himself heir-at-law and residuary legatee to the Bard's poetical effects, and, not having the fear of Apollo's vengeance before his eyes, had the barefaced audacity to publish eight hundred and forty lines of "Killarney," mixed up with certain versicles of his own, under the imposing name of "Lacus Delectabilis."

The Bard O'Kelly heard of this audacious appropriation at the very hour when his trial was coming on, and it took such effect upon his spirits that, to use his own figurative language, he "did not know at the time, whether he was standing on his head or his heels."

Brought for trial before a military tribunal, quick in decision and sharp in execution, there was so much presumptive evidence against him, that he was convicted without much delay, (his judges were in a hurry to dine,) and sentenced to be hanged early the next day.

The emergency of the case restrung his shattered energies. Recovering the use of his tongue, he made a heart-rending appeal to the Court Martial; narrated the vile plagiarism which had been committed on his beautiful and beloved Killarney; recited a hundred lines of that sonorous composition, and concluded a very energetic harangue, by requesting "leave of absence," for a few weeks, in order that he might proceed to Kerry, there to punish M'Carthy, for his dire offence against all the recognized rules of authorship. He even tendered his own bail for his reappearance to be hanged, as soon as, by performing an act of signal justice towards the plagiarist, he had vindicated that fame which, he said, was of more value to him than life.

The manner and matter of this extraordinary address--such as never, before nor since, was spoken in a Court of Justice--were so extraordinary that the execution of the sentence was postponed. When the Civil War was over, the Bard was liberated. "It was a great triumph for my eloquence," was his usual self-complacent expression, in after life, when speaking of this hair-breadth escape. To this day, however, there are some who hint that the Court considered him _non compos mentis_--too much of a fool to be a traitor and conspirator--and were merciful accordingly.

When O'Kelly returned home, he did not annihilate M'Carthy in the body--he did so in spirit: he lampooned him. Finally, the plagiarist made a public apology; and an armistice was effected by the aid of copious libations of the "mountain-dew," the favourite Hippocrene of Irishmen.

The Bard's trip to the Giant's Causeway gave him a wonderful inclination for travelling. As itinerary rhyme-spinner, he continued to keep body and soul together ever since, in a manner which nothing but the brilliant invention of a verse-making Milesian could have dreamed of. Under the face of the sun no people so keenly appreciate, and so undeniably dread, satire as the Irish do. Few, it may be added, have greater powers in that line--and this without being imbued with less good-nature or more malice than other people. They particularly shrink from any imputation on their open-handed and open-hearted hospitality. The Bard O'Kelly knew that this sensitive feeling was the blot which he was to hit. And on the results of this knowledge, he contrived to live well--to obtain raiment, money, lodging, food, and drink, during the vicissitudes of about forty years.

He committed himself to a pilgrimage from place to place, through Ireland, always fixing his headquarters at the residence of some country gentleman. Here he would abide for a week--a fortnight--or even a month, if he liked his quarters, and thought his intrusion would be tolerated so long. During his stay, his two horses, his son (for, being Irish, he had got married very soon), and himself, always lived "in clover." His valedictory acknowledgment, by which he considered that he repaid the hospitality extended to him, was a laudatory couplet! If there were, or if there seemed to be, the slightest want of cordiality in his reception or entertainment, he would immediately depart, giving the delinquent to immortal infamy in a stinging couplet. When he had written a few score of these rhymes he used to get them printed (ballad-wise) on octavo slips of whity-brown paper, and each new page was added to its predecessor, by being pasted into a sort of scrap-book. This collection he called his "Poetic Tour," and he had only a single copy of it; and to this, which he promised to have printed in a regular book, at some future period, every one who entertained him was expected to subscribe from a crown to a guinea--_subscriptions payable in advance_. To this rule he had permitted only one exception. This was early in the present century, when the Chevalier Ruspini, (a tooth and corn extractor,) who travelled in Ireland as "Dentist to the Prince of Wales," subscribed, in the name of his Royal master, for fifty copies of the work; and, on the strength of this, managed to dine, on three several occasions, with O'Kelly--being the only instance on record of his Bardship having ever played the host.

I knew O'Kelly personally, when I was a lad, having met him, for the first time, at Drewscourt, in the county of Limerick, whither he came, purposely, to remain one day _en passant_, but did us the honour of staying for a fortnight. He made his first appearance at dinner-time, and his knife and fork were wielded as effectively as if he had not used them during the preceding month. Until I saw O'Kelly feed, I had never realized the description of Major Dalgetty's laying in "provend" not only to make good the dinner he should have eaten yesterday, but to provide for the wants of to-day and to-morrow. In the course of the evening he exhibited other manifestations of industry and genius. He complained of labouring under a cold, which he undertook to cure by a peculiar process. This was no less than by imbibing about a dozen tumblers of hot and strong whiskey-punch, without moving from his seat. This, he assured us, was "a famous remedy for all distempers; good," added he, "for a cure, and magnificent as a preventive." He condescended to inform us that, well or sick, this quantity was his regular allowance after dinner--when he could get it.

He was loquacious in his cups. The subject of the Royal visit to Ireland, in 1821, having been broached, O'Kelly produced a printed account of his own interview with the monarch. This, he told us, had appeared in a newspaper called the Roscommon Gazette, and it was not difficult to guess at whose instance it had gained publicity. The account which he read for us was rather an improved edition, he said, as his friend, the Roscommon editor, had ruthlessly cut out some of the adjectives and superlatives. What he read was to this effect, accompanied with his own running commentary of explanation and remark:--

"'THE BARD O'KELLY AND THE KING.'"

"You see, gentlemen, that I put myself first. Genius (he pronounced it _janius_) before greatness any day!

"When his Most Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth--whom God and Saint Patrick preserve!--paid his loving subjects a visit in August, 1821, the most eminent men of Ireland resorted to the metropolis to do him honour. Among them, was our distinguished and illustrious countryman, the Bard O'Kelly. Without _his_ presence, where would have been the crowning rose of the wreath of Erin's glory? And it is very creditable to His Majesty's taste, that his very first inquiry, on entering the Vice-regal lodge, in Ph[oe]nix Park, was after that honour to our country, our renowned Bard, to whose beautiful productions he had subscribed, for fifty copies, many years ago.

"Yes, gentlemen, he knew all about me. As he had inquired for _me_, I thought I could not do less, in course of common civility, than indulge _him_ with the pleasure of a visit. But you shall hear:--

"When the Bard reached Dublin, and heard of His Majesty's most kind and friendly inquiries, he sent a most polite autograph note, written with his own hand, to Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, announcing his own arrival, wishing His Majesty joy on _his_, and requesting Sir Benjamin to appoint a day, mutually convenient to the many important engagements of the Poet and the Monarch, when an interview between these distinguished personages should take place. With that true politeness and chivalrous courtesy which adorn and distinguish the Bard, he notified that, the King being a stranger, the Bard was willing to waive ceremony, and wait upon him, to present a copy of his highly poetical poems, for fifty copies of which the Chevalier Ruspini had subscribed, on behalf of His Majesty, when Prince of Wales.

"Indeed, they were to have been dedicated to him, but, as yet, I have not had but the one copy, which I have made up from the slips which have been separately printed, from time to time. Kind gentlemen, reading always makes me drouthy;--may-be, one of ye will mix a tumbler for me?--not too strong of the water;--christen the spirit, but don't drown it. Ah, that will do! What a flavor it has!

"An answer was immediately sent by three servants in royal livery, requesting, if perfectly agreeable to O'Kelly, that he would do His Majesty the favour of a friendly visit, the next day at four o'clock.

"So I sent word to say that I'd be with him punctual. The next day I dressed myself very neat, put on my other shirt, gave my coat a brushing (a thing I don't often do, as it takes the nap off the cloth), brightened the brass buttons with a bit of chamois leather, went over the seams with a little vinegar and ink, polished my boots, so that you'd see your likeness in them like a looking-glass, had myself elegantly shaved, and to the King I went. But you shall hear:

"To this proposition the Bard politely assented, and went to the Castle of Dublin, at the appointed hour, the next day. There he sent his card to the King, with his compliments; and Sir Benjamin Bloomfield immediately came down the Grand Staircase, and, with a most gracious message from His Majesty, handed him a fifty-pound bank-note, as the royal subscription to his admirable poems.

"I won't deny that the sight and touch of the money were mighty pleasant; but I said nothing. It was a larger sum than ever I had at any one time before, for _my_ riches have always been of the head, rather than of the purse. I put the bank-note into my waistcoat-pocket, fastened it safely there with a pin I took out of my cuff, and then--mind, not until _then_--I told Sir Benjamin----But I'll read it:

"O'Kelly (with that noble disregard for lucre which always distinguished our eminently patriotic, poetic, high-minded, much accomplished, and generous-hearted countryman) immediately told Sir Benjamin, that he would rather relinquish the money than abandon the anticipated pleasure of a personal interview with his Sovereign.

"Mind--I had the fifty pounds snug in my pocket all the while. You may be certain that I wouldn't have spoken that way _before_ fingering the cash.

"On this most disinterested and loyal determination having been mentioned to His Majesty, he was so delighted with it, that he desired the Bard to be ushered instantly into the Grand Hall of Audience. This was done, and there the Most Noble the Marquis of Congynham had the honour of introducing His Majesty to the Poet.

"Wasn't it a grand sight! There was the King on his throne, and all the great officers of State standing around him. In one hand the King held a sceptre of pure gold, and the other was stretched out to receive my book. On his head he wore a crown of gold, studded all over with jewels, and weighing half a hundred weight, at the very least. On his breast, in the place where a diamond star is usually represented in the portraits, His Majesty wore a bunch of shamrock, the size of a cauliflower. Now you'll hear what occurred:--

"Compliments being exchanged, the King descended from his throne, and had the pleasure of introducing the Marchioness of Conyngham, and all the other Ladies of the Bedchamber, to the Bard. His Majesty, then--returning to his throne, and insisting that the Bard should occupy an arm-chair by his right side--said, "Mr. O'Kelly"----"O'KELLY, without the _Mister_, if you please," said the Bard, "Your Majesty would not say Mr. Shakspeare or Mr. Milton." "True enough," said the King, "I sit corrected: I beg your pardon, O'Kelly. I should have known better. Well, then, O'Kelly, I am quite sure that I shall be delighted with your beautiful poems, when I've time to read them." To this the Bard replied, "Your Majesty never spoke a truer word. I believe they'd delight and instruct any one." At this intelligent, and most correct observation, his Majesty was pleased to smile. He then added, "I'm sorry to see, by your iron leg, that you are lame." O'Kelly, with that ready wit for which he is as remarkable as he is for his modesty, instantly replied, "If I halt in my leg, I don't in my verses, for

"If God one member has oppressed, He's made more perfect all the rest."

It is impossible for words to describe the thunders of applause by which this beautiful extempore impromptu was followed.

"I knew, well enough, that something smart would be expected from a man like me; so I went prepared with several impromptus, to be introduced when the occasion would allow.

"His Majesty then said, "It is really remarkable that you, and my friend Walter Scott, should both be lame." The Bard replied, "And Lord Byron also." His Majesty then observed, "It is a wonderful coincidence--the three great poets of the three kingdoms." At the request of the Marquis of Conyngham, the Bard then made the following extemporaneous epigram on the spot, off hand, on this interesting subject:

'Three poets for three sister kingdoms born,

"That's England, Ireland, and Scotland:--

'One for the rose, another for the thorn,

"You know that the rose and thistle are the national emblems of England and Scotland:

'One for the shamrock,

"That's poor old Ireland,--

'which shall ne'er decay, While rose and thorn must yearly die away.'

"His Majesty was quite electrified at the ready wit displayed in this beautiful impromptu, and took leave of the Bard in the most affectionate and gracious manner. It is whispered among the fashionable circles, that O'Kelly has declined the offer of a Baronetcy, made to him by command of the Sovereign."

"Indeed," said the Bard, in conclusion, "the King and me were mutually pleased with each other. I'd have had myself made a Baronet, like Scott, but I have not the dirty acres to keep up the dignity. 'Tis my private notion, if the King had seen me first, I'd have had ten times the money he sent me. Well, he's every inch a King, and here's his health."

* * * * *

You may judge, from what he printed and what he spoke, whether the modesty of the Bard was not equal to his genius. It is a fact, I understand, that he actually made his way to an audience with George the Fourth; he must have rather astonished his Majesty. In his later years the Bard fluctuated between Cork and Limerick (in the last-named city of "beautiful lasses," he had a daughter very well married),[10] and, wherever he might be, was open to algebraic donations of strong drink--that is, "any _given_ quantity."

[10] The saying in Ireland, when the locality of good-looking people is to be indicated, is--"Cork lads and Limerick lasses." In Lancashire, there is something like this in the familiar manner in which the natives speak of "Wigan _chaps_, Bolton _fellows_, Manchester _men_, and Liverpool _gentlemen_."

Such a fungus as the Bard O'Kelly could only have been produced in and tolerated by a very peculiar state of society. Out of Ireland he would have starved--unless he followed a different vocation. He was partly laughed at, partly feared. Satire was his weapon. His manners, attire, and conversation, would scarcely be endured now in the servants' hall; yet, even as lately as twenty years ago, he forced his way into the company of respectable people--aye, and got not only hospitality from them, but _douceurs_ of wearing apparel and money. One comfort is, such a person would have little chance in Ireland now.

The Bard O'Kelly died about fifteen years ago, having lived in clover for more than forty years, by the fears of those whom he made his tributaries. Until he published, in 1831, the world took it for granted, that even as _he_ said, he had some poetic talent. The list of subscribers to his volume had between seven and eight hundred names, including ladies, peers of the realm, and members of Parliament. The "Bard's" want of ability was companioned by want of principle--for two, at least, of the poems which he published as his own, were written by others. One, commencing, "My life is like the summer rose," is the composition of R. H. Wilde, a distinguished American man of letters; and another, beginning "On beds of snow the moonbeams slept," has been _conveyed_ from the early poems of a writer named--Thomas Moore. There is cool intrepidity in pilfering from a poet so universally known as Moore. When Scott visited Ireland, he was waited on by O'Kelly with the same "extempore impromptu" he had inflicted on George IV., years before, and (Lockhart relates) compelled the Ariosto of the North to pay the usual tribute--by subscribing to his poems.

There are scores of Irishmen now in New York, who were personally acquainted with O'Kelly, and can testify to the accuracy--I might even say the moderation, of my description of him.

FATHER PROUT.

Those who have perused that polyglot of wisdom and wit, learning and fun, wild eccentricity and plain sense, 'yclept "THE PROUT PAPERS," which originally appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_, during the editorship of Dr. Maginn, may feel some curiosity respecting the individual whose name has thus been preserved (not unlike the fly in amber) through all literary time. They would naturally think, after admiring the rare facility of versification, the playfulness, the fancy, the wit, the impetuous frolic, the deep erudition which distinguishes the said "Papers," that Father Prout must have been a wonderful man, gifted in an extraordinary manner.

What is there in the language more spirited than the Prout translations from Béranger? As was said of Goethe's Faust, translated by Anster, the fact was _transfused_ into our vernacular. What wondrous flexibility is given to the old Latin tongue, by the versions of Moore into that language! What charming mastery of learning, as exhibited in the translations of "The Groves of Blarney" into a variety of tongues! What grave humour in treating that original song as if it were only a translation! Two wits--who not only belonged to Cork, but had seen a great many _drawings_ of it in their time--were the perpetrators of this literary mystification. Frank Mahony and Frank Murphy--a priest and a lawyer. On their own hook, to use a common phrase, they have done nothing worth particular mention; but some plants, we know, produce flowers, while others yield fruit.

For a long time, in England, the full credit of the Fraserian articles was given to Father Prout. Then set in a spring-tide of disbelief, and the very existence of such a man was doubted. Erroneous doubt! for I have seen him--spoken to him--dined with him. The Father Prout, however, of real life was very different from him of the Prout Papers. He was parish-priest of Watergrass-hill, midway between the city of Cork and the town of Fermoy--a locality known as the highest arable land in Ireland. Prout was one of the old priests who, when it was penal for a Catholic clergyman to exist in Ireland, picked up the elements of his education how he could, completed it at a foreign university, and came back to Ireland, a priest, to administer the consolations of religion to the peasantry of his native land. Sometimes, the Catholic priest evidenced to the last, in conduct and manners, that his youth had been passed in countries in which social civilization had extended further than in Ireland. Sometimes, the learning and the polish which had been acquired abroad were forgotten at home--as the sword loses its brightness from disuse--and, living much among the peasantry, the priest lost a part of the finer courtesy of the gentleman, and assumed the roughness of the bulk of his parishioners. Wherever there was a resident Protestant landowner, the Priest of the olden time instinctively formed friendly relations with him--for, at that time, the priestly order was not invariably supplied from the peasantry, and tolerance was more declared and practiced by members of all persuasions, in Ireland, at that time than it is now. Prout was literally a "round, fat, oily man of God." He had a hand small as a woman's, and was very proud of it. He had an unconquerable spirit of good-humour, and it was utterly impossible for any one to be in his company for ten minutes without feeling and basking in the sunshine of his buoyant and genial good-nature. Of learning he had very little. I do not know what his share might have been half a century before, when he was fresh from Douay or the Sorbonne, but few traces were left in his latter years. In the society of his equals or his superiors, Prout could keep up the shuttlecock of conversation as well as any one, and in the fashion of the place and class, but he was equally at home amid the festivities of a country wedding, or the genialities of the hospitable entertainment which followed the holding of a country Station at a rich farmer's domicile.

What the world has received as "The Reliques of Father Prout," owes nothing to the little _padrone_. He had a strong sense of the humourous, and, when the fancy seized him, was not very particular how or where he indulged it.

Prout, residing only nine miles from Cork, frequently visited that city, where he had a great many acquaintances, at all times glad to see him. In one Protestant family with which he was intimate, there were several very handsome daughters, full of life and high spirits, who especially delighted in drawing out the rotund priest. He had repeatedly urged them to "drop in" upon him, some day; and when the spirit of fun was strong, early on a Sunday morning in June, they ordered out the carriage, and directed their Jehu to drive them to Watergrass-hill.

Now, though that terminus was only nine (Irish[11]) miles distant, the greater part of the way--certainly all from Glanmire--was terribly up-hill. The result was that, instead of reaching Father Prout's about ten o'clock, as they had anticipated, they did not draw up at his door until an hour and a half later, and were there informed that "his Reverence had be off to last mass." They determined to follow him, partly from curiosity to see in what manner divine worship was performed in a Catholic chapel.

[11] Irish miles are longer than English, in the proportion of 11 to 14. A traveller complained to the chaise-driver of the narrowness of the way. "Oh, then," said the man, "why need you be angry with the roads? Sure, we make up in the length for the scanty measure we get in the width."

The chapel in which Father Prout officiated was by no means a building of pretension. At that time the roof was out of repair, and, in wet weather, acted as a gigantic shower-bath. The floor, then, consisted of beaten earth, which was somewhat of a puddle whenever the rains descended and the winds blew. The Cork ladies soon found the chapel, entered it, and (accustomed to the rich churches of their own persuasion) gazed in wonder on the humble, unadorned place of worship in which they stood. It may literally be said "in which they stood," for there were no pews, no chairs, not even a solitary stool.

Presently the chapel began to fill, and "the pressure from without" gradually drove the ladies nearer and yet nearer to the altar. At length Father Prout entered in his clerical attire, and commenced the service. In Catholic churches the priest officiates, during the early part of the service, with his face to the altar, and his back to the congregation. Thus, it happened that Prout never saw his Cork friends until the time when he turned round to the congregation. Then he beheld them, handsomely and fashionably attired, standing up (for the floor was too puddled to allow them to soil their vesture by kneeling, as every one else did), the gazed-at by all beholders, looking and feeling the reverse of comfortable.

Father Prout immediately looked at his clerk, Pat Murphy,--an original in his way,--caught his eye and his attention, and gently inclining towards him, whispered, "send for three chairs for the ladies." Pat, who was a little deaf, imperfectly caught his master's words, and turned round to the congregation and roared out, "Boys! his Reverence says, 'Three cheers for the ladies.'" The congregation, obedient and gallant, gave three tremendous shouts, to the surprise of the ladies and the horror of the priest. There was a good deal of merriment when the mistake was explained, but to his dying day Father Prout was reminded, whenever he visited Cork, of the "Three cheers for the ladies."

Pat Murphy, his clerk, was quite a character. He affected big words, and was mortally offended whenever any one called him _clerk_ or _sexton_. "I pity the weakness of your intellectual organization," he would contemptuously exclaim. "If you had only brains enough to distinguish B from a bull's foot, you would appreciate my peculiar and appropriate official designation. The words 'clerk' and 'sexton' are appellations which distinctify the menial avocations of persons employed in heretical places of worship. My situation is that of Sacristan and my responsible duty is to act as custodian of the sacred utensils and vestments of the chapel."

Murphy had an exaggerated idea of the abilities of his principal, and stoutly maintained that if the Pope knew what was good for the Church, he would long since have elevated Father Prout to the episcopal dignity. His chief regret, when dying, was, that he did not survive to see _this_ consummation.

Sometimes Pat Murphy would condescend to enter into a _vivâ voce_ controversy with one of the "heretics," (as he invariably designated the Protestants,) on the comparative merits of the rival churches. His invariable wind-up, delivered gravely and authoritatively, as a clincher, to which he would permit no reply, was as follows:--"I commiserate your condition, which is the result of your miserable ignorance. Unfortunate individual! out of the New Testament itself I can prove that your religion is but a thing of yesterday. With you Protestants the Apostle Paul had not the most distant acquaintance, whereas he corresponded with us of the Holy Roman Church. You doubt it? Know you not that, from Corinth, he wrote an Epistle to the _Romans_, and if the Protestants were in existence then, and known to him, why did he not as well send an Epistle unto _them_?"

Father Prout was short and rotund. His Sacristan was tall and thin. Immemorial usage permits the clerical cast-off garments to descend, like heirlooms, to the parish clerk. Pat Murphy, in the threadbare garments which erst had clothed the rotundity of Father Prout, was a ludicrous looking object. The doctrine of compensation used to be carried out, on such occasions, with more truth than beauty. The waist of the priest's coat would find itself under Murphy's arms, the wristbands would barely cover his elbows, and the pantaloons, sharing the fate of the other garments, would end at his knees, leaving a wide interval of calf visible to public gaze. On the other hand, by way of equivalent, the garments would voluminously wrap around him, in folds, as if they were intended to envelope not one Pat Murphy, but three such examples of the mathematical definition, "length without breadth." On one occasion I had the double satisfaction of seeing Father Prout, like Solomon, in all his glory, with Pat Murphy in full costume. It happened in this wise:

There was pretty good shooting about Watergrass-hill, and the officers of an infantry regiment, who were quartered at Fermoy, at the period to which I refer, had made Prout's acquaintance, while peppering away at the birds, and had partaken of a capital impromptu luncheon which he got up on the moment. Prout, it may be added, was in the habit of receiving presents of game, fish and poultry from his friends in Cork, (the mail-coaches and other public conveyances passing his door several times every day,) and as long as Dan Meagher, of Patrick-street, was in the wine-trade, be sure that his friend, Father Prout, did not want good samples of the generous juice of the grape. Of course, he also had a supply of real _potheen_. Cellar and larder thus provided for, Prout was fond of playing the host.

A great intimacy speedily sprung up between Prout and his military friends, and he partook of numerous dinners at their mess in Fermoy Barracks. At last, determined to return the compliment, he invited them all to dine with him at Watergrass-hill. One of my own cousins, who happened to be one of the guests, took me with him--on the Roman plan, I presume, which permitted an invited guest to bring _his shade_. I was a youngster at the time, but remember the affair as if it were of yesterday.

If there was any anticipation of a spoiled dinner, it was vain. Prout, who was on intimate terms with all his neighbours for half a dozen miles round, had been wise enough to invoke the aid of the Protestant rector of Watergrass-hill, who not only lent him plate, china, and all other table necessaries, but--what was of more importance--also spared him the excellent cook who, it was said, could compose a dinner, in full variety, out of any one article of food. Each of the officers was attended at table by his own servant, and Pat Murphy, in full dress, officiated as servitor, at the particular disposal of Father Prout himself.

The dinner was excellent,--well-cooked, well-served, and worthy of praise for the abundance, variety, and excellence of the viands. There was everything to be pleased with--nothing to smile at.

I beg to withdraw the last four words. There was Pat Murphy, in an ex-suit of Prout's, looking such a figure of fun, that, on recalling the scene now, I wonder how, one and all, we did not burst into a shout of laughter when he first was presented to view. He looked taller, and scraggier, and leaner than usual--his clothes appearing greater misfits than ever! Prout, who kept his countenance remarkably well, evidently saw and enjoyed the ludicrous appearance of his man. On the other hand, the man, taking on himself the duties of Major Domo, ordered the other attendants about in all directions, muttering curses between his teeth whenever they did not do exactly as he commanded. But everything went off gaily, and Prout's rubicund face became redder and more radiant under the influence of this success.

In the course of the entertainment, Father Prout, addressing his attendant, said, "Pat, a glass of porter, if you please." The liquor was poured, and, as it frothed in the glass, Prout raised it to his lips with the words, "Thank you, Pat." Waiting until he had completed the draught, Pat, in a tone of earnest remonstrance, said, "Ah, then, your Reverence, why should _you_ thank me for what's your own? It would be decent for these genteels who are dining here, to thank me for the good drink, but you've no right to do anything of the sort, seeing that the liquor is your own. It is my supplication that you will not do so again; there is an incongruity in it which I disrelish." We had some difficulty in not laughing, but contrived to keep serious faces during this colloquy.

The liberality of the little Padre had provided us with three courses, and just as Pat Murphy was in the act of relieving a noble roasted haunch of mutton, before his master, by a dish of snipe, he happened to look out of the window and see one of his own familiar associates passing along the street. Hastily flinging down the dish, he threw up the window, and, kneeling down, with his long arms resting on the sill, loudly hailed his friend, "Where are ye going, Tom?" The answer was that a dance was expected in the neighbourhood, and at which, of course, Pat would be "to the fore." Now, the said Pat, very much like Ichabod Crane in figure, had a sort of sneaking desire, like him, to be wherever pretty women were to be seen. "No," said Pat, "I do not anticipate to be relieved in any thing like proper time from attendance here this evening. His Reverence, who has been ating and drinking, with remarkable avidity, on the military officers down in Fermoy, is hospitable to-day, and entertains the whole squad of them at dinner. To see them _ate_, you'd think they had just got out of a hard Lent. 'Tisn't often, I dare say, that they get such a feast. There's the mutton sent by Chetwood of Glanmire; and the poultry by Cooper Penrose of Wood-hill; and the lashings of game by Devonshire of Kilshanneck; and the fruit by Lord Riversdale of Lisnegar--that is, by his steward, for 'tis little his Lordship sees of the place that gives him a good six thousand a year;--and the barrel of porter from Tommy Walker of Fermoy; and the wine from red-faced Dan Meagher of Cork; and everything of the best. Depend on it, the officers won't stir until they have made fools of all the provender. By-and-bye, that the poor mightn't have a chance of the leavings, they will be calling for grilled bones, and devilled legs and gizzards. No, Tom, my mind misgives me that I can't go to the dance this evening. Here's the officers, bad 'cess to them, that are sedentary fixtures until midnight."

This oration delivered,--and every one had been silent while Pat Murphy was thus unburthening his mind,--he arose from his knees, closed the window, and resumed his place behind Father Prout, with "a countenance more of sorrow than of anger," calm and unconcerned as if nothing had occurred out of the ordinary routine. At that moment, Prout threw himself back on his chair, and laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks, and thus encouraged, the company followed his example, and laughed also. When the mirth had subsided, it was almost renewed by the solemn countenance of Pat Murphy, grave rather than severe--a sort of domestic Marius sitting, in sad contemplation, amid the ruins of Carthage.

Father Prout had rather a rough set of parishioners to deal with. He could be, and was, very much of the gentleman, but it pleased him to appear plain and unpolished to those among whom his lot was cast. At times, when nothing else would do, he would address them, in an exhortation, very much in the spirit of Swift's "if you like the conditions, down with the dust!" At such times, Rabelais, "in his easy chair," would have smiled, and Swift himself would have hailed Prout as a congenial spirit.

I have a memorandum of one of these sermons. The object was to collect some arrears of "dues" from certain non-paying parishioners, (constituting rather a large portion of his congregation,) and I have been told that the discourse was much to this effect:

FATHER PROUT'S SERMON.

Somewhere in the Scriptures it is written, that whoever gives to the poor lends to the Lord. There are three reasons why I don't tell you exactly where this may be found. In the first place, poor creatures that you are, few of you happen to have the authorized Douay edition, printed and published by Richard Coyne of Dublin, and certified as correct by Archbishop Troy, and the other heads of the Church in Ireland--few among you, I say, have _that_, though I know that there is not a house in the parish without a loose song-book, or the History of the Irish Rogues. In the second place, if ye had it, 'tis few of ye could read it, ignorant haythens that ye are. And in the third place, if every man-jack of ye did possess it, and could read it, (for the Church still admits the possibility of miracles,) it would not much matter at this present moment, because it happens that I don't quite remember in what part of it the text is to be found;--for the wickedness of my flock has affected my memory, and driven many things clean out of my head, which it took me a deal of trouble to put into it when I was studying in foreign parts, years ago. But it don't matter. The fault is not mine, but yours, ye unnatural crew, and may-be ye won't find it out, to your cost, before ye have been five minutes quit of this life. Amen.

"He who gives to the poor."--Ye are not skilled in logic, nor indeed in anything that I know except playing hurley in the fields, scheming at cards in public-houses for half gallons of porter, and defrauding your clergy of their lawful dues. What is worse, there's no use in trying to drive logic into your heads, for indeed that would be the fulfilment of another text that speaks of throwing pearls before pigs. But if ye _did_ know logic--which ye don't--ye would perceive at once that the passage I have just quoted naturally divides itself into two branches. The first involves the _giving_; that is, rationally and syllogistically considered, what ye ought to do. And the second involves the _poor_; that is, the receivers of the gifts, or the persons for whom ye ought to do it.

First, then, as to the giving. Now it stands to reason that, as the Scripture says in some other place, the blind can't lead the blind, because maybe they'd fall into the bog-holes, poor things, and get drowned. And so, though there really is wonderful kindness to each other among them, it is not to be expected that the poor can give to the poor. No, the givers must be people who have something to give, which the poor have not. Some of ye will try and get off on this head, and say that 'tis gladly enough ye'd give, but that really ye can't afford it. Can't ye? If you make up your minds, any one of you, to give up only a single glass of spirits, every day of your lives, see what it will come to in the course of a year, and devote _that_ to the Church--that is to the Clergy--and it will be more than some of the well-to-do farmers, whom I have in my eye at this blessed moment, have had the heart to give me during the last twelve months. Why, as little as a penny a day comes to more than thirty shillings in the year, and even that insignificant trifle I have not had from some of you that have the means and ought to know better. I don't want to mention names, but, Tom Murphy of the Glen, I am afraid I shall be compelled to name you before the whole congregation, some day before long, if you don't pay up your lawful dues. I won't say more now on that subject, for, as St. Augustine says, "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."

Now, the moral of the first part being clearly shown, that all who _can_ give _ought_ to give, the next branch is _to whom_ should it be given? The blessed text essentially states and declares "to the poor." Then follows the inquiry, who's "the _poor_." The whole matter depends on _that_.

I dare say, ignorant as ye are, some of you will think that it's the beggars, and the cripples, and the blind travellers who contrive to get through the length and breadth of the country, guided by Providence and a little dog tied to their fingers by a bit of string. No, I don't want to say one mortal word against that sort of cattle, or injure them in their honest calling. God help them. It's their trade, their estate, their occupation, their business to beg--just as much as 'tis Pat Mulcahy's business to tailor, or Jerry Smith's to make carts, or Tom Shine's to shoe horses, or Din Cotter's to make potheen, and my business to preach sermons, and save your souls, ye heathens. But these ain't "the poor" meant in the text. They're used to begging, and they like to beg, and they thrive on begging, and I, for one, wouldn't be the man to disturb them in the practice of their profession, and long may it be a provision to them and to their heirs for ever. Amen.

May-be, ye mean-spirited creatures, some among you will say that it's yourselves is "the poor." Indeed, then, it isn't. Poor enough and niggardly ye are, but you ain't the poor contemplated by holy Moses in the text. Sure 'tis your nature to toil and to slave--sure 'tis what ye're used to. Therefore, if any one were to give anything to _you_, he would not be lending to the Lord in the slightest degree, but throwing away his money as completely as if he lent it upon the security of the land that's covered by the lakes of Killarney. Don't flatter yourselves, any of you, for a moment, that you are "the poor." I can tell you that you're nothing of the sort.

Now, then, we have found out who should be the givers. There's no mistake about _that_--reason and logic unite in declaring that every one of you, man, woman and child--should give, and strain a point to do it liberally. Next, we have ascertained that it's "the poor" who should receive what you give. Thirdly, we have determined who are _not_ "the poor." Lastly, we must discover who _are_.

Let each of you put on his considering cap and think.--Well, I have paused that you might do so. Din Cotter is a knowledgeable man compared with the bulk of you. I wonder whether he has discovered who _are_ "the poor." He shakes his head--but there is not much in _that_. Well, then, you give it up. You leave it to me to enlighten you all. Learn, then, to your shame, that it's the Clergy who are "the poor."

Ah! you perceive it now, do you? The light comes in through your thick heads, does it? Yes, it's I and my brethren is "the poor." We get our bread--coarse enough and dry enough it usually is--by filling you with spiritual food, and, judging by the congregation now before me, its ugly mouths you have to receive it. We toil not, neither do we spin, but if Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed better than we are, instead of being clothed in vermin and fine linen, 'tis many a time he'd be wearing a thread-bare black coat, white on the seams, and out at the elbows. It's the opinion of the most learned scholars and Doctors in Divinity, as laid down before the Council of Trent, that the translation is not sufficiently exact in regard of this text. And they recommend that for the words "the poor," we should substitute "the clergy." Thus corrected, then, the text would read "he who gives to the Clergy, lends to the Lord," which, no doubt, is the proper and undiluted Scripture.

The words of the text are thus settled, and you have heard my explanation of it all. Now for the application. Last Thursday was a week since the fair of Bartlemy, and I went down there to buy a horse, for this is a large parish, and mortification and fretting has puffed me up so, that, God help me, 'tis little able I am to walk about to answer all the sick calls, to say nothing of stations, weddings, and christenings. Well, I bought the horse, and it cost me more than I expected, so that there I stood without a copper in my pocket after I had paid the dealer. It rained cats and dogs, and as I am so poor that I can't afford to buy a great coat, I got wet to the skin, in less than no time. There you were, scores of you, in the public houses, with the windows up, that all the world might see you eating and drinking as if it was for a wager. And there was not one of you who had the grace to ask, "Father Prout, have you got a mouth in your face?" And there I might have stood in the rain until this blessed hour (that is, supposing it had continued raining until now), if I had not been picked up by Mr. 'Mun Roche, of Kildinan, an honest gentleman, and a hospitable man I must say, though he is a Protestant.[12] He took me home with him, and there, to your eternal disgrace, you villains, I got as full as a tick, and 'Mun had to send me home in his own carriage--which is an everlasting shame to all of you, who belong to the true Church.

[12] Created Lord Fermoy in 1855.

Now, I ask which has carried out the text? You who did not give me even a poor tumbler of punch, when I was like a drowned rat at Bartlemy, or 'Mun Roche, who took me home, and filled me with the best of eating and drinking, and sent me to my own house, after that, in his own elegant carriage? Who best fulfilled the Scripture? Who lent to the Lord, by giving to his poor Clergy? Remember, a time will come when I must give a true account of you:--what can I say then? Won't I have to hang down my head in shame, on your account? 'Pon my conscience, it would not much surprise me, unless you greatly mend your ways, if 'Mun Roche and you won't have to change places on that occasion: _he_ to sit alongside of me, as a friend who had treated the poor Clergy well in this world, and _you_ in a certain place, which I won't particularly mention now, except to hint that 'tis little frost or cold you'll have in it, but quite the contrary. However, 'tis never too late to mend, and I hope that by this day week, it's quite another story I'll have to tell of you all.--Amen.

IRISH DANCING-MASTERS.

Five-and-twenty years ago, when I left Ireland, the original or aboriginal race of country dancing-masters was nearly extinct. By this time, I presume, it has almost died out. Here and there a few may be seen,

"Rari nantes in gurgite vasto,"

but the light-heeled, light-hearted, jovial, genial fellows who were actual Masters of the Revels in the district to which they respectively belonged, are nowhere.

There used to be as much pride (and property) in a village dancing-master as in a village schoolmaster, in my young days, and I have heard of "many accidents by flood and field," caused by attempts to remove a dancing-master or a pedagogue, of high reputation, from one district to another. In such cases, the very abduction being the strongest possible compliment to his renown, the person who was "enticed away by force," always made a point of offering no resistance, and would passively and proudly await the result. Indeed, care was always taken that such removal should be actual preferment, as, to ameliorate his condition, the residence provided for him in the new village, township, or barony, was always better than that from which he was removed.

As a general rule, the abduction, of schoolmasters was a favorite practice in Kerry--where every man and boy is supposed to speak Latin[13]--while stolen dancing-masters did not abound in the neighbouring counties of Cork and Limerick. The natural inference is that the County Kerry-men preferred the culture of the head, while the others rather cared for the education of the heels.

[13] There are full grounds for this assertion. Classical learning has flourished in Kerry (under a hedge) from time immemorial. I recollect an illustrative anecdote. Two poor scholars who were travelling through Kerry, came to a farm-house, when faint with hunger, and foot-sore with walking; they went in, and modestly wanted "a drink of water," which was given them. On leaving the house, where they had expected something better than this scant hospitality, one of them exclaimed, "Ah, Pat, that's not the way that a farmer's wife would trate a poor scholar in our part of the world. 'Tis the good bowl of milk she'd give him, and not the piggin of cold water. She's a _malus mulier_." The other responded, "Say _mala_--it must be so to agree with the feminine _mulier_. Don't you know that _malus mulier_ is bad Latin?" "Hold your tongue," was the answer: "whatever it is, it is only too good for a niggard like _her_."

To have a first-rate hedge-schoolmaster was a credit to any parish. To have engrossed the services of an eminent _maître de danse_ was almost a matter of considerable pride and boasting, but to possess _both_ of these treasures was indeed a triumph.

There was more pride, perhaps, in having a schoolmaster of great repute--more pleasure in owning a dancer of high renown. The book-man was never known to dance, and the village Vestris was rarely able to write his name. Thus they never clashed. One ruled by day, and the other had unquestioned sovereignty in the hours between dusk and dawn.

Such a being as a youthful dancing-master I never saw--never heard of. They were invariably middle-aged men, at the youngest; but professors of "the poetry of motion," who were about seventy, appeared the greatest favourites. It was dreaded, perhaps, that the attraction of youth and good dancing combined would be too much for the village beauties to resist. On the same system, in all probability, it was a _sine quâ non_ that the dancing-master should be married.

The Irish peasantry used to have a sort of passion for dancing. Hence the necessity for a teacher. On stated evenings during the winter, no matter what obstacles wet weather or dirty roads might present, a large company of pupils, from the age of ten to forty years, would assemble, in some roomy barn, possessing a smooth and hard floor of closely-pounded clay, to receive instructions in the saltatory art. Sometimes, when the teacher was ambitious, he would flourishingly open the proceedings with what was called "a bit of a noration,"--the oratory principally consisting of sesquipedalian words and mythological allusions, being composed by the schoolmaster--utterly unintelligible, but sounding largely, and delivered in an _ore rotundo_ manner and with "a laudable voice," as if the dancing-master really understood the words he uttered. Not taking particular pains to follow "copy," and frequently putting in words of his own when those written down for him had slipped out of his memory, these orations were amusingly absurd. They invariably commenced with an allusion to Miriam dancing before Moses, after the passage of the Red Sea, (on which occasion, no doubt, was first heard "the piper who played before Moses," familiarly named in Irish colloquy,) and, passing down, through Homer and the classics, always ended with a warm eulogy on the antiquity of the dance.

In those days, the favourite exhibitions were the jig, the reel, the hornpipe, and the country-dance. The last-named was considered dreadfully genteel--too aristocratic, in fact, for the multitude--and was learned and practiced (as courting and kissing often are) on the sly! The reel was countenanced--and no more. It was rather Scotch than Irish. Every one was expected to be able to go that laborious piece of amusement called "The Sailor's Hornpipe,"--faint vestiges of which are extant, to this hour, in nautical scenes,--as represented on the stage. Words cannot describe the evolutions of this remarkable dance, when exhibited with all the scientific varieties of which it was capable. The shuffles, cross-shuffles, jumps, hops, leaps, cuttings, slides, and so on, which were introduced, I am unable to describe. The manner in which "heel-and-toe" was employed and varied, some abler historian may record.

That the hours passed away on swift pinions at these dancing academies, may well be imagined. There was any quantity of flirtation at all times, and about half the marriages in the country owed their origin to these _réunions_. It is creditable to the proverbial good conduct of my countrywomen, that loss of character rarely, if ever, resulted from these free-and-easy meetings.

The real glory of the evening, however, was when the dancing-master, after a world of solicitation, would "take the flure," in order to give his admiring pupils a touch of his quality. On such an occasion, the door of the house would be lifted off its hinges, and placed in the centre of the floor. Abandoning the little _kit_ (a small-sized violin) which was his companion at all other exhibitions, he would allow a blind piper to "discourse most excellent music," and, on the door, would commence that wondrous display of agility, known, in my time, as "cover the buckle;"--a name probably derived from the circumstance that the dancing-master, while teaching, always wore large buckles in his shoes, and by the rapidity of motion with which he would make his "many twinkling feet" perpetually cross, would seem to "cover" the appendages in question. The great effort was to exhibit all varieties of steps and dances, without once quitting the prostrate door on which the exhibitor took his stand. The jumps, the "cuttings" in the air, the bends, the dives, the wrigglings, the hops--these were all critically regarded by his audience, and sometimes rewarded with such exclamations as "That's the way,"--"now for a double cut,"--"cover-the-buckle, ye divel,"--"Oh, then, 'tis he that handles his feet nately." At the conclusion, when he literally had danced himself almost off his legs, he would bow to the company, and--if he were very much a favourite, or had eclipsed all former displays--one of the prettiest girls in the room would go round, plate in hand, and make a collection for him. How the ten-penny and five-penny bits would tumble in, on those occasions--particularly if the fair collector could be induced to announce, with a blush and a smile, that she would take an extra donation on the usual terms, which meant that, for five shillings into the plate, any gallant swain might brush the dew from her own coral lips, on that occasion only and by particular desire. Can you doubt, for a moment, that the likely "boy" who had been sitting by her side all the evening, making babies on her eyes (as the saying is), and with his arm round her waist, just to steady her in her seat, would jump up and fling his crown-piece into the treasury--though the pecuniary sacrifice would probably involve his being obliged to dispense, for a few weeks more, with "the new Carline hat" on which his dandyism had set its mind, for his Sunday adorning!

It was difficult for "an outsider" to become a spectator of the peculiar modes of teaching adopted and practiced by these masters. At a small extra rate, they would undertake to give instructions in that "deportment," of which the late Mr. Turvey-drop was such an illustrious exemplar. I never witnessed anything of this sort, but have conversed on the subject with some who did. From what I could learn, the whole course of tuition in this particular branch must have been ludicrous in the extreme. Besides lessons in standing, walking, sitting, and even leaning with grace and ease, more recondite points were considered. Such were "how to slide out of a room backwards" (on the chance, no doubt, of some of the rustics having to appear at Court, before Royalty)--"how to accept a tumbler of punch from a gentleman," touching the liquid with her lips, so as to leave a kiss within the cup, as Ben Jonson advises,--"how to refuse a kiss," and yet not destroy the hope of its being accepted, a little later in the evening,--and, above all, "how to take a kiss," in the most genteel and approved manner of politeness! These instructions, super-added to a lesson that was called "the Grecian bend" (which was nothing less than a coquettish way of leaning forward, with the eyes cast down, while listening to soft nonsense from a favoured swain), were peculiar and private. The only way in which the male sex could obtain a glimpse at such Eleusinian mysteries was by taking a recumbent position on the roof of the house, carefully removing a small portion of the thatch, and using eyes and ears in that situation to the best advantage. If detected by the irate maidens, the spy would run a fair chance of a scratched face and well-boxed ears.

As might be expected, the country dancing-master sometimes had stupid and refractory pupils. There was a common method of giving them instruction, which, for its practical simplicity, may be worth relating. When the pupil would persist in _not_ recollecting which foot was to be used, at particular periods, the dancing-master would take a rope made of twisted hay, called a _suggaun_, and fasten it around one of the delinquent's ankles. He would then take a similar bracelet of twisted willow, denominated a _gad_, and put this on the other. Then, instead of directing the pupil to the particular use or motion of the right leg or the left, he would exclaim, "Rise upon _suggaun_," or "Sink upon _gad_," and in this manner convey his instructions beyond a possibility of mistake by even the most stupid!

Of course, where there was large company of young people, full of life and spirit, under pupilage to a not young instructor, a variety of practical jokes would be perpetrated, at his expense, every now and then. They were almost invariably of a good-natured kind. One, which might be considered as to "be repeated every night until farther notice," generally came off towards the end of the evening. A joyous, light-hearted damsel would suddenly start up, while the music was playing, and, placing herself before the dancing-master, with that particular description of curtsy called "a bob," silently challenge him to dance with her. Now, under all circumstances, except actual inability to move, the gentleman so challenged has nothing to do but pick up the gauntlet, and "take the flure." Then, challenger and challenged would commence an Irish jig--a dance so violent that, writing in the dog-days as I do, the very recollection of it makes me feel as if the barometer was some two hundred in the shade. When the damsel had pretty well tired herself, one of her fair friends would take her place, and so on until a round dozen or so had had their turn. All this time, the doomed victim of a man had to continue dancing--and the point of honour was to do so, without giving in, as long as strength and wind lasted. The company would gather round, forming a ring for the performers, and the word would be, "On with the dance" (as it was, at Brussels, on the eve of Waterloo), until, at last, some male spectator would pityingly dash into the circle, take the tired man's place, and permit the breathless and exhausted victim to totter to a seat, gasping out a protest, as he did, that he could have held out for half an hour longer, and wondered why any gentleman should interfere with another gentleman's _divarshun_.

In the preceding story of "The Petrified Piper," mention is made of a dancing-master commonly known as "Ould Lynch." He was an original, in many respects, and, like many of his profession, was in a constant flutter of faded finery and actual poverty. He was so much a character that my father took rather a fancy to him, and had him often at the house, as a teacher of dancing, in the well populated town of Fermoy. He had small chance of earning what would keep life and soul together. But he was a quiet, unassuming man, better educated than most of his class, and full of anecdote. One social virtue he eminently possessed:--he was one of the best backgammon players I ever saw, and (I speak it modestly,) was very fond of me as a pupil.

Lynch was a County Limerick man, on the confines of "the Kingdom of Kerry," and informed me that, in the parish where he was brought up, the natives had a passion for backgammon, and were wont, on high-days and holidays, to hold tournaments (on their favourite game) with the inhabitants of the next parish, in Kerry. Unfortunately, one day when a great trial of skill was appointed to come off, it turned out that no backgammon box was forthcoming. Both parties had contrived to forget it. To send for the necessary implements would have been a waste of time, when the combatants had "their souls in arms," and were "eager for the fray." In this dilemma, a lad who had a decided genius for expedients suggested a plan by which, without delay, their mutual wishes could be realized. Under his advice, one of the meadows was fixed upon as the scene of action. The turf was removed at intervals, so as to make the place present the semblance of a backgammon board, and substitutes for men were readily found in the flat stones and slates with which the ground abounded. The great difficulty was--the dice! They could extemporize board and men, but how to raise the bits of ivory? The lad was not to be baffled. He proposed that two men, one selected from each party, should sit on the ditch opposite each other, with "the board in the centre, with their respective backs turned _from_ the combatants, and, in turn, should call out the numbers, as if they had been actually thrown by dice! This brilliant idea was acted upon. A halfpenny was thrown up to decide who should have first play, and the men on the ditch alternately called out, at will, any of the throws which might have been actually cast had the dice themselves been "to the fore."

Such primitive practice, I venture to say, had never before been applied to the noble _science_ of backgammon. I use the word advisedly, because, with skill and judgment, what is called bad luck does not very materially affect the game. The art is to conquer, despite bad throwing.

Lynch succeeded a worthy named Hearne--a _nom de guerre_, his enemies averred, for the less euphonious one of Herring. Whatever his name, the man was quite a character. He fancied himself a poet, and was particularly fond of taking his favourite pupils aside to communicate to them in a confidential manner, _sotto voce_, the latest productions of his muse,--it being expected that, a little later in the evening, the favoured individuals should delicately draw him out and solicit him to a public recital of his verses. After a good deal of pressing on their part, and a show of resistance on his, (which every one understood,) the little dancing-master would mount on a table, deliver a flourishing preface in prose, and then go through the recitation, in a manner which set description at defiance. At the conclusion of this feat, which was duly encored, Hearne was wont to distribute copies of his composition printed on whity-brown paper, and the tribute of a five-penny bit was expected in acknowledgment of the same--simply, as he said, "to pay for the printing." He had such a peculiar system of orthography--spelling the words by the sound--that I venture, with all due diffidence, to put forward his claim to take precedence of the interesting and worthy founders of the newspaper-nondescript, _The Fonetic Nuz_, at which the Londoners laughed heartily a dozen years ago. By some accident, I have preserved a copy of one of Hearne's poetical compositions, in which his own mode of spelling is carefully preserved, and I subjoin it as a curiosity,--a specimen of what emanated, some thirty years ago, from one who belonged to the peculiar class (of which Grant Thorburn is the head) worthy of being called The Illiterate Literati!

"_A few lions addressed in prease of Mr. Jon Anderson, Esquire, by his humble servant, and votary of the Muses, Wm. Ahearne, profesor of dancing._

"Who lives in this Eaden wich lyes to the easte Of Fermoy ould bridge and its pallasades; He is the best man on the Blackwater's breast, As thousans from povirty he has razed.

"There's no grand Pear in all Urop this day, With him can compare most certinly, In bilding a town of buty and sweay As Fermoy and its gay sweet liberty.

"Now, weagh well the case betwin him and those Who travel the globe and fair Itly, After skroozhing their tinnants hard when at home, And spinding their store most foulishly."

The most original idea in these "few lions," is the geographical information that Italy is _not_ a part of the globe. In the pen-ultimate line, the poet may have hinted a little sly satire at the "at home" in high life, where the crushing of hundreds into a space where tens can scarcely sit in comfort is esteemed a great feat.

A wealthy attorney, named Henley, who had been kind to Hearne, was the object of an eulogistic "pome." It ran somewhat thus:

There is a barrister of great fame In Fermoy, I do declare, Who administers strict justas Without bribery or dessate. May God prolong your days, Your Court to reglate, And force sly roges and villines To pay their dews and rates.

CHARLEY CROFTS.

In the immortal "Maxims of O'Doherty," written by the late Dr. Maginn, mention is made of a dinner at the late Lord Doneraile's, in the South of Ireland, in which a reproof was administered to his Lordship's meanness in the article of--tippling. He says, "My friend, Charley Crofts, was also of the party. The claret went lazily round the table, and his Lordship's toad-eaters hinted that they preferred punch, and called for hot water. My Lord gave in, after a humbug show of resistance, and whiskey-punch was in a few minutes the order of the night. Charley, however, to the annoyance of the host, kept swilling away at the claret, on which Lord Doneraile lost all patience, and said to him, 'Charley, you are missing quite a treat; this punch is so excellent.' 'Thank ye, my Lord,' said Charley, 'I am a plain man, who does not want trates; I am no epicure, so I stick to the claret.'"

This free-and-easy gentleman, of whom I have some personal recollection, belonged to a class of which, I suspect, he was the very latest specimen. Charley Crofts, who had acquired no book-learning, because he was born to a large landed property, was of a respectable family in the west of the county Cork, and, even in his decline, was highly honoured by the multitude, as coming from "the good ould stock." Brought up, but not educated, by his mother, Charley entered the world with very flattering prospects. He had a good property, good looks, good temper, and (what he most prized) good horses. Cursed with an easy disposition, he had never learned how to utter the monosyllable "No," but had unfortunately learned how to sign his name--his friends kindly giving him very frequent opportunities of practicing that autograph, by obtaining it, across narrow slips of stamped paper, ('yclept "bills" and "promissory notes") underneath the words "_Accepted, payable at the Bank of James Delacour, Mallow_." In the long run, these autographs ruined him--as, bit-by-bit, all his property went to meet the sums to which they pledged him, and Charley Crofts found himself, at the age of thirty, without home or money. He had preserved one thing, however--his personal character. He had committed a great many of the frailties of his sex and youth, but the shadow of a disreputable or doubtful action never rested on his name. He could proudly say, like Francis the First, after the battle of Pavia, "All lost, except honour."

The result was that, in his poverty, he was as highly thought of as in his affluence, and was ever a welcome guest in the first houses of his native county.

Like the rest of his class, (I mean the estated Irish gentlemen of the last century,) Charley Crofts had learned to drink deeply. He used to narrate, with great glee, an incident connected with his entrance into vivacious habits. His mother, having occasion to leave their country residence, in order to transact some business in Cork, left her hopeful son in full possession of the house and full command of the servants, for the fortnight she intended being absent. Charley, who was then in his sixteenth year, determined that he would hold no powerless sceptre of vice-royalty, and invited sundry acquaintances to visit him, which they did. As a hogshead of fine claret was always on tap, there was no difficulty in obtaining an adequate supply of drink. One day, however, a guest happened to express a desire to vary the post-prandial proceedings by the introduction of a few bottles of port. Now, it happened that Mrs. Crofts possessed (and was known to possess) some remarkably fine port wine, which she carefully kept locked up, reserving it for "State days and holidays." Charley had been left the key of the cellar, and, considering that his hospitality was especially appealed to, by the hint about the port, went down and had a supply brought up. That afternoon's performance went rather hard against the port. Indeed, so much of it was drank that Charley Crofts was puzzled how to account for it, without making full confession. A few days after his mother's return, she asked him to accompany her to the cellar, to provide a suitable location for a supply of sherry which she expected from Cork. The first thing which attracted her notice was the remarkable diminution in the stock of her valued and nearly unique port wine. Catching her eye, Charley anticipated her inquiry, by remarking that, in her absence, a remarkable thunder-storm had penetrated to the cellar and broken a quantity of the bottled wine. Taking up two or three of the bottles, and fully aware that it would be useless to repine or get angry over the mischief done, she drew her hopeful son's attention to them, and only said, "A dreadful storm, indeed! It has actually drawn the corks out of the necks of the bottles, instead of bursting them in the usual way!"

For the last five-and-thirty years of his life, Charley Crofts may be said to have literally _lived all around_. He had a number of tried friends, who were glad to have him as their guest and boon companion, for a month at a time. He could tell a good story, knew the private history of every family in the county, was undoubted authority on horseflesh and every subject connected with the sports of the field, and could take any quantity of wine without its apparently affecting him. Nature had endowed him with great muscular power, immense physical strength, a temper which nothing could cloud, and a mode of expression so terse as sometimes to be almost epigrammatic. He was exactly qualified for the shifting sort of life upon which he had fallen.

When I met him, the brighter portion of his career had passed. He was but the wreck of what he once had been, I was assured by every one; but one may judge, from the ruin, what the structure had been in its pride. Numerous anecdotes were afloat as to his sayings and doings, but it is difficult to realize their effect in our days, unless you could imagine the person on whom they were affiliated. Though I fear that I shall fail in the attempt, I shall endeavour to record two or three.

As a four-bottle man, who could drink every one else under the table, Charley Crofts was not so much of a favourite with wives as with their husbands. They knew, by experience, that with Charley Crofts in the van, a wet evening might be looked for--in the dining-room.

Mr. Wrixon, of Ballygiblin, near Mallow, (father of Sir W. Wrixon-Becher, who married Miss O'Neill, the eminent actress,) had only a small hereditary property when he succeeded to vast estates, on condition that he superadded the name of "Becher" to his own patronymic. As plain Mr. Wrixon, with a small property, he had lived unnoticed, but his circle of friends immensely increased when he became Mr. Wrixon-Becher, and a man of "Ten Thousand a Year." Soon after, he married an English lady, with some fortune, much pride, a fair share of beauty, and a decided abhorrence of the drinking habits of her husband's friends. She had heard of, and had been cautioned against, the vivacious enormities of Charley Crofts, and had actually declared to her husband (in private, of course) that whenever Mr. Crofts took a seat at her table, she would immediately relinquish hers.

One day, when Wrixon had been out with the Duhallow hounds, and the run had been quick and long, the only man who was in with him "at the death," was Charley Crofts, and under the circumstances--the rain beginning to fall heavily, Crofts' place of sojourn being at least ten miles distant, and Ballygiblin at hand,--Wrixon felt that he _must_ invite Charley home, or rest under the imputation of behaving in an unsportsmanlike and inhospitable manner.

So, he told Charley that half a dozen other good fellows were to take "pot-luck" with him that day, and that he must insist on Charley's joining them. Without any pressing or denial, the invitation was accepted.

Now, Charley Crofts knew, just as well as if he had been present when the affair was discussed, how and why it was that, of all the houses in the barony of Duhallow, the mansion of Ballygiblin was the only one to which he had not a general invitation. Wrixon, the moment he reached home, turning over his companion to the friendly custody of a mutual acquaintance, who was to form one of the party that day, hastened to "his lady's chamber," where he found his wife dressed for dinner, and (as her glass told her) looking remarkably well. A few well-expressed and well-timed compliments on her appearance, a congratulation or two on her exquisite taste in dress, a half-hint and half-promise as to the killing effect of a set of pearl in contrast with her ebon looks, and more "blarney" of the same sort, made the lady so very gracious that the husband ventured to communicate under what circumstances he had been compelled to invite Charley Crofts to her table. The lady took them, as they sometimes do in French courts of justice, as "extenuating circumstances," and consented to receive the dreaded Charley. This done, she found her way into the drawing-room, where the guests waited upon her--the most subdued and quiet of them being Charley Crofts. At first, with his grave air and grave attire, she thought that he might have been a clergyman.

As the only stranger in the party, Charley had to escort Mrs. Wrixon to the dining-room, to sit next her, to perform the duties of carving for her, to supply her with a little of the small change of conversation. Nobody could behave more decorously, more unlike the lady's fearful anticipations of the dreaded guest. Now and then, when addressed by his friends, a quaint remark or a satiric witticism would make her smile, and convince her that the dangerously seductive companionable character of her guest had not been undeservedly obtained. On the whole, she had every reason to think him very much of a gentleman, and graciously smiled on him when she quitted the table.

"You have conquered her, by Jove," exclaimed Wrixon. "Not yet," said Charley, "but in a fair way for it." The wine went round. The conversation branched off into its usual channels, and settled, at last, upon a meet of the hounds which was to take place on Mr. Wrixon's property, at which all the company present would attend.

In the middle of the discussion, one of the footmen duly announced that his lady was waiting for them, with tea and coffee, in the drawing-room. Heretofore, in that house, such an announcement had always been a mere matter of form. Not so now. Charley Crofts started up and proceeded to obey the summons. "Nonsense!" they all exclaimed. "Don't turn milksop. No one ever goes to tea or coffee in this house." "Say what you may," said Charley, "the lady shall not have to complain of my want of politeness."

In the drawing-room, sooth to say, no gentleman had been expected, and Mrs. Wrixon was taking a solitary cup of tea. She was an admirable musician, and was playing "Gramachree" (that saddest of all Irish airs) just as Charley reached the door. Now, music was among the things which he thoroughly understood and appreciated, and the moment that he heard her exquisite execution on the harp he paused, spell-bound, listening with rapt attention and delight, while the pathos of the air drew tears from eyes all unaccustomed to the melting mood. When she had concluded, she turned round, saw the effect which she had produced, and (need I say it) was flattered at that proof of her skill.

Quickly recovering himself, Charley Crofts informed her that he had the pleasure of accepting the invitation she had sent into the dining-room. Tea was accordingly provided, and the conversation naturally fell upon music. Charley happened to be a first rate flutist, and having mentioned in what a delightful manner the flute and harp went together, either to accompany the voice or without, Mrs. Wrixon sent for her husband's flute, and allowed him to show her how correctly he had spoken. Presently, she even sang to the double accompaniment, and her husband and his friends, curious to know how Crofts was getting on, having now adjourned from their wine, found him thus engaged.

Meanwhile, in intervals of from three to five minutes, Charley Crofts had gulphed down successive, and almost countless, cups of tea. Again and again had the tea-pot been replenished--and emptied. At last, quite tired out, Mrs. Wrixon said, half in sport, half in earnest, "I am sure, Mr. Crofts, that I never gave you credit for being such a determined tea-drinker. As my hand is rather tired, may I beg that you will help yourself?"

"Madam," said Charley, with imposing gravity, "I am a plain man. I do not prefer tea to other liquids. You were so good as to send for us to tea. I always obey a lady's summons when I can, and came hither. I am accustomed, for years past, to take a certain quantity of fluid after dinner. I care not what that fluid may be, so that I have my _quantum_. Ale, punch, wine, or, as now, even this tea. I can help myself to the other liquids, but tea has no flavor unless it be poured out by a lady's fair hand!"

Mrs. Wrixon, perceiving that she was fairly caught, exclaimed, "Well, Mr. Crofts, I think that I must leave you to take what you please in the dining-room, but whenever you want a little music you can have it here, and I only hope my husband will treat you so well that you will frequently give me the pleasure of seeing you under this roof."

This was the manner in which Charley Crofts conquered Madam Wrixon, the proud, high-bred lady. Good friends they continued unto her dying day, and Charley would rather hear her play the harp, as she only could play it, (he fancied,) than assist at the broaching of the finest pipe of claret that ever was smuggled over from Bordeaux.

Mr. Wrixon, albeit a man of unbounded generosity, had one _leetle_ drawback. He would give sumptuous entertainments; he paid the chief expenses of the Duhallow Hunt; he indulged his wife in all luxuries of attire and adornment; he had a passion for beautiful horses and costly equipages; he was liberal in his charities; he acted as banker for many of his poorer friends who were of the lackland genus; he seemed to fling money away, though, indeed, he was by no means a spendthrift; but the one little "blot" in his tables (I mean, in his character) was a feverish anxiety to economize on such mere trifles as _cream and butter_!

So it was, however. His friends were at once amused and rendered uncomfortable by it. It interfered with the perfection of their tea and coffee, and always prevented their taking a desired quantity of bread-and-butter. To allude to this matter, to show the slightest consciousness of Mr. Wrixon's peculiar idiosyncrasy, in this respect, was what his friends never ventured upon. They were not the less anxious to have it removed.

They determined that Charley Crofts should be the amputator. The next day, at a very early breakfast, preparatory to their taking the field with the fox-hounds, a lively party assembled at Mr. Wrixon's table, in unexceptionable red coats, enviable buckskins, irreproachable top-boots, and the ordinary skull-caps covered with black velvet, which, from time immemorial, formed the costume of the members of the Duhallow Hunt; "the most sportingest set of gentlemen," I once heard a peasant say "that mortial eyes did ever look upon."

The breakfast included all that should constitute the matutinal meal of a party of keen sportsmen about to cross the country at break-neck speed--all, except cream and butter, of which, as usual, there was a _minimum_ supply, very much short of what might be expected from a dairy of over twenty milch cows. Charley Crofts, as this was his first visit, might be supposed to be in ignorance of his host's feelings upon that point. At all events, he acted as if he were.

The cream and butter were placed close by Mr. Wrixon--the supply for a party of nine or ten consisting of a very small ewer-full of the former, and two or three _pats_ of the latter, each about the size of a penny-piece. As if it were a matter of course, Charley, having put the needful quantities of tea into his cup, filled it up with the entire contents of the cream-ewer, and, at the same time, put all the butter upon his plate. Mr. Wrixon, startled by such invasion of his favourites, feebly desired one of the servants to bring "a _little_ more cream and a _little_ more butter."

By the time the fresh supply was on the table, Charley Crofts had emptied his cup and eaten his toast. He lost no time in appropriating the prized articles, as before, chatting away with his usual _nonchalance_, as if he had done nothing uncommon. Mr. Wrixon, sitting like one astonied, watched the disappearance of the second supply, and ordered a third replenishment, which went the way of the preceding. Rising in his chair, he addressed the butler and exclaimed, "John, desire that _all_ the cream and butter in the dairy be brought up, I think we shall have need of the whole of it." Turning to Crofts, he emphatically said, "I have heard of eating bread-and-butter, but Charley, _you eat butter and bread_." By this time the laugh which arose gave him the pleasant information that he was _sold_. From that hour he was as liberal with his cream and butter, as he previously had been with every other article in his mansion. He never was able to ascertain whether Charley Crofts had been put up to the trick, or had simply hit the nail by accident.

Charley Crofts did not confine his visits to the gentry in his native county of Cork. In the decline of his fortunes--indeed, as long as he was able to do anything--he always was possessor of a gem or two in the way of horseflesh. For many years, his income was almost wholly derived from the sale of horses, out of which he obtained a large profit, and it was known that any animal which he sold or vouched for might be depended on. In the way of business, having disposed of a fine hunter to one of the family, who was sportingly inclined, he had to pass a few days at the house of Mr. Lyons, of Croom, in the county of Limerick. This old man had acquired a vast fortune by following the business of a grazier, and had invested large sums in the purchase of landed estates. His sons, determined to cut a figure in the county, indulged in all manner of excess and extravagance. At the time of Charley Crofts' visit, they issued cards for a splendid _déjeuner à la fourchette_, to which the leading people of the district were invited. As Charley Crofts was on intimate terms with everybody who had pretensions to notice, the Lyons family, in solemn conclave assembled, determined that it would be a sagacious and politic move to get him to officiate as a something between Major Domo and Master of the Ceremonies at the intended festival. Desiring no better fun, he cheerfully consented.

The attendance on the gala day was what the newspapers would describe as "full and fashionable." Many went from curiosity, to see in what manner the _parvenu_ would attempt "to ape his betters"--_i.e._, themselves. Several attended, because they owed money to old Lyons (who did a little in _bills_ after abandoning _beef_), and did not like to affront him by not accepting his invitation. A good many went, because they had heard that "all the world and his wife" would be present, and a jovial day might be anticipated.

Thanks to Charley Crofts' _surveillance_, the entertainment, well got up, went off admirably.

Among the more aristocratic guests was the Lady Isabella Fitzgibbon, sister to that Earl of Clare who was the schoolfellow and friend most tenderly and lastingly loved by Byron. At that time she was a fine young woman. She is now a stern old maid--like the odd half of a pair of scissors, of no use to herself or any body else. Lady Isabella affected to look down, with some degree of superciliousness, upon the millionaire's hospitality. Having probably laid in a good supply of mutton chops or beef steaks before she went out, she pointedly neglected the delicacies of the season, which were abundantly supplied, and merely trifled with a lobster-salad. Old Lyons, who had a great respect for good feeding, and particularly for substantials, turned round to her, as she sat by his side, the image of aristocratical don't-care-a-pin-for-all-the-world-ativeness, and kindly said, "Ah, then, my lady, why don't you take some of the good beef and mutton, the capons and the turkeys, and don't be after filling your stomach with that cowld cabbage!"

The high-born _dama_ nearly fainted at what she considered the vulgar good-nature of her host. Soon after, when she had recovered from the shock, she said that she thought she would have a little bread and butter. Immediately opposite her, and within reach of Old Lyons, was a crystal bowl in which floated sundry little _pats_ of that delicious butter for which the county Limerick is famed. Lyons made several vain efforts to spear one of these with a fork, at last, finding that it was impossible to make the capture in that manner, he raised up his coat-sleeve, tucked up the wrist-band of his shirt, and plunging his hand into the bowl, with the exclamation, 'Ha, you little jumping Jennies, I am determined to have you now," secured two pieces of the butter, which he triumphantly deposited on his noble guest's plate, with the words, "There, my lady, when I took the matter _in hand_, I knew I must succeed."

Charley Crofts departed this life some twenty years ago. The close of his career was passed in Cove, where he lived upon an annuity provided by the liberality of some of his former friends. His health had failed him, suddenly, a few years before, and he who had been wont "to set the table in a roar," for nearly forty years, subsided into a querulous valetudinarian. He published his Autobiography, shortly before his death, and it deserves mention as one of the dullest of its class, as far as I recollect, (it is a long time since I yawned over it,) the subject matter chiefly consisted of fierce personalities directed against sundry relatives who, he said, had cheated him out of his property.

To the very last, Charley Crofts could give graphic narratives of his former career and companions, but the moment he attempted to _write_ them down, their spirit wholly evaporated.

IRISH PUBLICISTS.

HENRY GRATTAN.

The history of Ireland's independence, from the rise of the Volunteers until the treacherous sacrifice of nationality by the passing of the Act of Union--an interval of twenty years, yet crowded with events and eminent characters--can best be read in the lives of the illustrious men who asserted, vindicated, and carried that independence. Looking back at the brief but brilliant period in which they shone, truly did Curran speak of them, to Lord Avonmore, as men "over whose ashes the most precious tears of Ireland have been shed."

Among this noble and gallant array of public virtue and genius HENRY GRATTAN stands conspicuous and pre-eminent. To condense a memoir of him into the space which I have here reserved would be a vain attempt. Let me sketch him in his youth. The child, Wordsworth said, is father of the man, and this was particularly true as regards Grattan.

Henry Grattan, stated by most of his biographers to have been born in 1750 (the year in which Curran entered into earthly existence), was four years older, his baptismal register in Dublin bearing date the 3d of July, 1746. His father, a man of character and ability, was Recorder of Dublin for many years, and one of the metropolitan parliamentary representatives from 1761 to his death in 1766. The well-known patriot, Dr. Lucas, was senatorial colleague and opponent of the elder Grattan, who, although nominally a Whig, was actually a Tory,--was the law officer of the Corporation, which Lucas undauntedly opposed,--and on all essential, political, and legislative points, sided with the Government of the day.

The Grattan family were of considerable and respectable standing in Ireland, and Henry Grattan's grandfather and grand-uncles had enjoyed familiar intimacy with Dean Swift and Dr. Sheridan. Henry Grattan's mother was a daughter of Thomas Marlay, Chief Justice of Ireland, who almost as a matter of course in those days, was to be found on the side of the Government, but administered justice fairly, and on some few occasions showed a love for and pride in his native Ireland. Grattan's mother was a clear-headed, well-informed woman. On both sides, therefore, he had a claim to hereditary talent.

At ordinary day-schools, in Dublin, Henry Grattan received his education. John Fitzgibbon, afterwards the unscrupulous tool of the Government and the scourge of Ireland (as Lord Chancellor Clare), was his class-mate at one of these seminaries. Grattan rapidly acquired the necessary amount of Greek and Latin, and in 1763, being then 17 years old, entered Trinity College. Here, among his friends and competitors, were Foster (afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons), Robert Day, who subsequently adorned the Bench. In the University there was particular rivalry between Fitzgibbon and Grattan; the first was well grounded in classics and science, but almost wholly ignorant of modern literature. Both obtained the highest prizes in the University,--Grattan getting premium, certificate, or medal at every examination.

Before he had completed his twentieth year, Grattan had declared his political opinions. They were patriotic--they were Irish--they were opposed to the principles and practice of his father, and strongly identical with those of Dr. Lucas, his father's constant and bitter opponent. Lucas was a remarkable man. He it was who, immediately after the accession of George III., introduced a bill for limiting the duration of the Irish Parliament to seven years--the custom being, at the time, that a new Parliament should be chosen when a new monarch ascended the throne, and last during his lifetime. It took seven years' perseverance to effect this change--upon which the English Cabinet thrice put a veto. A fourth and final effort succeeded, the limitation being eight years. It was Lucas who, following in the steps of Swift, boldly attacked bad men and bad measures in the newspapers, and thus asserted the Liberty of the Press--that which Curran so earnestly desired to be preserved when, addressing his countrymen, he said, "Guard it, I beseech you, for when it sinks, there sink with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the subject and the security of the Crown." It was Lucas who strenuously denied the right of a British Parliament to govern Ireland, who asserted his country's right to legislative independence, who insisted on her claim for self-government. For this, the law was strained against him,--for this, Dublin grand juries ordered his writings to be publicly burned by the hands of the common hangman--for this, a venal House of Commons voted that he wrote sedition and was an enemy of his country--for this, the Speaker was ordered to issue a warrant for his arrest and imprisonment in gaol--for this, the Lord Lieutenant was solicited to denounce him by Proclamation--for this, the Corporation of Dublin disfranchised him--for this, he had to fly his country and secure life and comparative liberty by eleven years of enforced exile. On his return, in 1760, that very city of Dublin from which he had fled for his life elected him for one of its representatives, Grattan's father being his colleague. As such, the elder Grattan, who was a courtier, opposed the Septennial Bill.

Henry Grattan, a patriot from his childhood, ardently adopted Dr. Lucas' views in favour of Ireland's independence. The result was that, in 1765-6, Henry Grattan was at variance with his father. The death of the elder Grattan took place in 1766, and it was then discovered how much he resented his son's assertion of liberal politics. He could not deprive him of a small landed estate, secured to him by marriage settlement, but bequeathed from him the paternal residence of the family for nearly a century. Thus Henry Grattan had to enter the world, not rich in worldly wealth, and with his soul saddened by the marked and public posthumous condemnation by his father. No wonder that, as he declared in one of his letters at the time, he was "melancholy and contemplative, but not studious." No wonder that, solitary in the old home, he should sadly say, "I employ myself writing, reading, courting the muse, and taking leave of that place where I am a _guest_, not an _owner_, and of which I shall now cease to be a _spectator_." His household Gods were shattered on his hearth, and he sat, cold and lonely, among their ruins. Yet, even then, he dreamed that fortune, smiling upon him, would enable his old age to resign his breath where he first received it. Never was that dream fulfilled. Not even did he die

"'Midst the trees which a nation had given, and which bowed, As if each brought a new civic crown for his head;"

but his spirit departed, fifty-four years later, in the metropolis of the haughty land which had crushed the independence and broken the nationality of

"His own loved island of sorrow."

At the age of twenty-one, Henry Grattan went to London to study the law. At that period, as at present, it is indispensable for every one who desires to be admitted to the Irish bar, that he shall have "studied" for two years at one of the Inns of Court in London. Perhaps this, as much as anything else, shows how completely the English habit has been, and is, to treat Ireland as a mere _province_. Candidates for admission to the Scottish bar are not required to pursue this _nominal_ course of study in another country. Nominal it is, for the requirement does not involve the acquisition, in the most infinitesimal degree, of any knowledge of the principles or practice of the law. All that is necessary is that the future barrister shall have eaten twenty-four dinners in the Hall of his London Inn of Court (three at each term) during two years, and a certificate of this knife-and-fork practice--which is facetiously called "keeping his Terms"--is received by the Benchers of the Queen's Inn in Dublin, as proof that the candidate has duly qualified himself by study! There is no examination as to his knowledge of law--two years in London, and a somewhat lesser amount of legal feeding in Dublin, being the sole qualification for the Irish Bar!

In Michaelmas Term, 1767, being two months past his majority, Henry Grattan entered his name, as student, on the books of the Middle Temple in London. Although he intended to live by the practice of the law, he devoted little attention to its study. Black-letter, precedents, and technicalities he cared little for. The broad principles of jurisprudence attracted his attention; but he mastered them, not as an advocate, but as a future law-maker. In fact, nature had intended him for a politician and statesman, and his mind, from the first, followed the bias which "the mighty mother" gave. As late as August, 1771, when he had been four years in the Temple, he wrote thus to a friend: "I am now becoming a lawyer, fond of cases, frivolous, and illiberal; instead of Pope's and Milton's numbers, I repeat in solitude Coke's instructions, the nature of fee-tail, and the various constructions of perplexing statutes. This duty has been taken up too late; not time enough to make me a lawyer, but sufficiently early to make me a dunce." In the same letter he said, "Your life, like mine, is devoted to professions which we both detest; the vulgar honours of the law are as terrible to me as the restless uniformity of the military is to you."

During the four years of his English residence, varied by occasional visits to Ireland, Mr. Grattan's heart certainly never warmed to the profession which he had chosen. The confession which I have just quoted was made only a few months before he was called to the Irish bar in Hilary Term, 1772. Yet he was a hard reader, a close student, an early riser, and a moderate liver. To afford the means of enlarging his library, he avoided expensive amusements and practiced a very close economy. In November, 1768, these saving habits became matter of necessity rather than of choice, when his mother died so suddenly that she had not time to make, as she had purposed, a formal disposition of her reversion to a landed property which she had meant to leave her son. It passed, therefore, to another branch of the family, leaving Grattan such limited resources that it now was necessary for him to follow a profession.

How, then, did Grattan employ his time in England? We have his own regretful confession, that it was not, for the first four years, in the study of the law. Shortly after his first visit to London, he lost one of his sisters; and deep sorrow for her death, and a distaste for society, drove him from the bustle of the metropolis to the retirement of the country. He withdrew to Sunning Hill, near Windsor Forest, amid whose mighty oaks he loved to wander, meditating upon the political questions of the day, and making speeches as if he already were in parliament. Mrs. Sawyer, his landlady, a simple-minded woman, knew not what to make of the odd-looking, strange-mannered young man, and hesitated between the doubt whether he was insane or merely eccentric. When one of his friends came to see him, she complained that her lodger used to walk up and down in her garden throughout the summer nights, speaking to himself, and addressing an imaginary "Mr. Speaker," with the earnestness of an inspired orator. She was afraid that his derangement might take a dangerous character, and, in her apprehension, offered to forgive the rent which was due, if his friends would only remove her eccentric lodger.

Seventy years after this (in 1838) Judge Day, who lived to almost a patriarchal age, and had been intimate with Grattan in London, wrote a letter, in which, describing him at college, "where he soon distinguished himself by a brilliant elocution, a tenacious memory, and abundance of classical acquirements," he proceeds to state that Grattan "always took great delight in frequenting the galleries, first of the Irish, and then of the English House of Commons, and the bars of the Lords." His biographer records that this amateur Parliamentary attendance had greater attractions for him than the pleasures of the metropolis, and that he devoted his evenings in listening, his nights in recollecting, and his days in copying the great orators of the time. Judge Day also has remembered that Grattan would spend whole moonlight nights in rambling and losing himself in the thickest plantations of Windsor Forest, and "would sometimes pause and address a tree in soliloquy, thus preparing himself early for that assembly which he was destined in later life to adorn."

Such was Grattan's self-training. So did he prepare himself for that career of brilliant utility and patriotism which has made his name immortal.

Events of great moment took place in England during Grattan's sojourn there. The contest between John Wilkes and the Government was then in full course, leading to important results, and encouraging, if it did not create, the publication of the fearless and able letters of Junius. At that time, great men were in the British Senate, and Grattan had the good fortune to hear their eloquence, to watch the deeds in which they participated. The elder Pitt, who had then withdrawn from the Commons, and exercised great power in the Upper House, as Earl of Chatham, still took part in public business. There, too, was Lord North--shrewd, obese, good-tempered, and familiar. There was Charles James Fox, just commencing public life, alternately coquetting with politics and the faro-table--his great rival, Pitt, had not then arisen, nor his eminent friend Sheridan, but Edmund Burke had already made his mark, Barrè was in full force, as well as Grenville, and the great lawyers Loughborough and Thurlow had already appeared above the horizon, while Lords Camden and Mansfield were in the maturity of fame. Then, also, flourished Charles Townshend, who would have deserved the name of a great statesman but for his mistake in trying to obtain revenue for England by taxation of America. There was the remarkable man called "Singlespeech" Hamilton, from one brilliant oration which was declared by Walpole to have eclipsed the most successful efforts even of the elder Pitt. In the Irish Parliament, too, which he always visited when in Dublin during the Session, were men of great eminence and ability, with some of whom--Flood, Hutchinson, and Hussey Burgh--not long after, Grattan was himself to come into intellectual gladiatorship. In both countries, therefore, he became familiar with politics and politicians. What marvel if he deviated from the technicalities of the law into the wider field of law-making and statesmanship?

How closely he observed the eminent persons who thus came before his notice, may be judged from the character of Lord Chatham, which was introduced in a note to "Barataria,"(a satirical _brochure_ by Sir Hercules Langrishe), as if from a new edition of Robertson's History of America. Many persons, at the time, who looked for it in Robertson, were disappointed at not finding it there. _Apropos_ of Langrishe; it may be added that he it was who said--that the best History of Ireland was to be found "in the continuation of _Rapin_," and excused the swampy state of the Ph[oe]nix Park demesne by supposing that the Government neglected it, being so much occupied _in draining the rest of the kingdom_.

Greatly admiring the nervous eloquence of Lord Chatham, it is evident that Grattan's own style was influenced, if not formed by it. He could not have had a better model. Grattan, out of pure admiration of the man, reported several of his speeches for his own subsequent use. Writing about him many years later, he said, "He was a man of great genius--great flight of mind. His imagination was astonishing. He was very great, and very odd.[14] He never came with a prepared harangue; his style was not regular oratory, like Cicero or Demosthenes, but it was very fine, and very elevated, and above the ordinary subjects of discourse. He appeared more like a pure character advising, than mixing in the debate. It was something superior to that--_it was teaching the lords, and lecturing the King_. He appeared the next greatest thing to the King, though infinitely superior. What Cicero says in his 'CLARIS ORATORIBUS' exactly applies: '_Formæ dignitas, corporis motus plenus et artis el venustatis, vocis et suavitas et magnitudo._' 'Great subjects, great empires, great characters, effulgent ideas, and classical illustrations formed the material of his speeches.'"[15]

[14] This refers more particularly to the year 1770.

[15] Grattan used to say that nothing ever was finer, in delivery and effect, than Chatham's appeal, on the American question, to the bishops, the judges, and the peers:--"You talk of driving the Americans: _I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch_."

Until he permanently and finally took up his residence in Dublin, Grattan was greatly prejudiced in favour of England. In August, 1771, he wrote to a friend that he would return to Ireland that Christmas, "to live or die with you," and added, "It is painful to renounce England, and my departure is to me the loss of youth. I submit to it on the same principle, and am resigned." At that time he was twenty-five years old.

In his letters to his friends at this time, he commented on Irish politics so forcibly as to show that he was a close observer. Alluding to the means used by the Viceroy (Lord Townshend) to corrupt the legislature, he said, "So total an overthrow has Freedom received, that its voice is heard only in the accents of despair." This sentence very probably suggested the concluding part of Moore's beautiful lyric, "The harp that once through Tara's halls,"

"Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still she lives."

Early in 1772, Grattan was called to the Irish bar--not from any predilection for the profession, but from the necessity of eking out his limited means by the exercise of his talents. It is recorded that having gone the circuit, and failed to gain a verdict in an important case where he was specially retained, he actually returned to his client half the amount of his fee--fifty guineas. A man who could act thus, was clearly not fitted for the profession, nor destined to arrive at wealth by its means.

At that time the rising talent of Ireland was decidedly liberal, and in favor of progress. Grattan was thrown into familiar intimacy with this society, and his own opinions were influenced, if not determined, by the Catholic spirit of their avowed principles. Lord Charlemont, Hussey Burgh, Robert Day, (afterwards the Judge,) Dennis Daly, and Barry Yelverton--men whose names are familiar to all who have read the history of Ireland's later years of nationality--were his familiar friends.

Grattan wished for the lettered ease of literary retirement, but his narrow means did not permit him to live without labour. He said, "What can a mind do without the exercise of business, or the relaxation of pleasure?" He took to politics as a relief from the demon of _ennui_. He attended the debates in Parliament. He said "they were insipid; every one was speaking; nobody was eloquent." He had become a lawyer, as he sadly confessed, "without knowledge or ambition in his profession." He would fain have gone into retirement, but complained that, in his too hospitable country, "wherever you fly, wherever you secrete yourself, the sociable disposition of the Irish will follow you, and in every barren spot of that kingdom you must submit to a state of dissipation or hostility." He said that his passion was retreat, for "there is certainly repose, and may be a defence, in insignificance."

He was destined for better things. He had married Henrietta Fitzgerald, who claimed descent from the Desmond family, (actually from that branch of which that Countess of Desmond, who died at the age of 162, was the foundress,) but had, as her own dowry, the far greater wealth of youth, beauty, virtue, talent, and devoted affection. The union was eminently happy. Mrs. Grattan became the mother of thirteen children, and it is known that on many occasions, but especially in the troublous times of 1798 and 1800, (the rebellion and the betrayal of Ireland by her parliament,) Grattan frequently consulted and acted on the advice of his wife, which invariably was to do what was right, regardless of personal consequences. After his marriage, he went to reside in the county Wicklow, where, almost from early youth, he had been enamoured of the beautiful scenery, and even then spoke of Tinnahinch, which he subsequently purchased, as a place which might be "the recreation of an active life, or the retreat of an obscure one, or the romantic residence of philosophical friendship." "Here," said his son, "he mused in when melancholy, he rejoiced in when gay; here he often trod, meditating on his country's wrongs--her long, dreary night of oppression; and here he first beheld the bright transient light of her redemption and her glory." Here, too, in the moments of grief he wept over her divisions and her downfall. The place continues a family possession, and, identified as it is with the name of Grattan, should never be allowed to pass into the possession of any others.

Grattan's wife, highly gifted by nature, and with her mind cultivated and enlarged by education, urgently pressed him to embark in political life. She knew, even better than himself, what his mental resources were, how patriotic were his impulses, how great his integrity, how undaunted his courage. She interested his friends in his behalf, and, at last, on the death of Mr. Caulfield (Lord Charlemont's brother), Grattan was returned to Parliament for the borough of Charlemont, and on the 11th of December, 1775, in his thirtieth year, Henry Grattan took his seat as member for Charlemont. On the fourth day after he made a speech--a spontaneous, unstudied, and eloquent reply--and it was at once seen and admitted that his proper place was in Parliament. From that day the life of Grattan can be read in the history of Ireland.

What he did may be briefly summed up. He established the Independence of Ireland, by procuring the repeal of the statute by which it had been declared that Ireland was inseparably annexed to the Crown of Great Britain, and bound by British acts of Parliament, if named in them--that the Irish House of Lords had no jurisdiction in matters of appeal--and that the _dernier resort_, in all cases of law and equity, was to the peers of Great Britain.

For his great services in thus establishing Ireland's rights, the Parliament voted him £50,000. He considered that this was a retainer for the future as well as a mark of gratitude for the past, and henceforth devoted the remainder of his life--a period of nearly forty years--to the service of his country.

Grattan's last act, as an Irish legislator, was to oppose the Union, which destroyed the nationality _he_ had made--his last act, as a public man, was to hurry to London, in his seventy-fifth year, under the infliction of a mortal disease, to present the petition in favour of the Irish Catholics, and support it, at the risk of life, in Parliament.

Grattan's great achievements were all accomplished in early life, while the "_purpurea juventus_" was in its bloom, while the heart was in its spring. Great men, of all shades of political and party passion have been eager and eloquent in his praise. Byron, speaking of Ireland, ranked him first among those

"Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war, And redeemed, if they have not retarded, her fall."

Moore, who knew him well, said,

"What an union of all the affections and powers, By which life is exalted, embellished, refined, Was embraced in that spirit--whose centre was ours, While its mighty circumference circled mankind."

Faithfully too, as well as poetically, did he describe his speeches as exhibiting

"An eloquence rich, wherever its wave Wandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone through, As clear as the brook's 'stone of lustre,' and gave, With the flash of the gem, its solidity too."

Lord Brougham said that it was "not possible to name any one, the purity of whose reputation has been stained by so few faults, and the lustre of whose renown is dimmed by so few imperfections." After describing the characteristics of his eloquence, he added, "It may be truly said that Dante himself never conjured up a striking image in fewer words than Mr. Grattan employed to describe his relation towards Irish independence, when, alluding to its rise in 1782, and its fall, twenty years later, he said, 'I sat by its cradle--I followed its hearse.'"

Sydney Smith, in an article in the _Edinburgh Review_, shortly after Grattan's death, thus bore testimony to his worth:--"Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of Grattan? who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not remember him in the days of its burnings, wastings and murders? No government ever dismayed him--the world could not bribe him--he thought only of Ireland: lived for no other object: dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born, so gifted, that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the highest attainments of human genius, were within his reach; but he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free; and in that straight line he kept for fifty years, without one side-look, one yielding thought, one motive in his heart which he might not have laid open to the view of God or man."

The man to whom tributes such as these were voluntarily paid, must have been a mortal of no ordinary character and merit.

DANIEL O'CONNELL.

Daniel O'Connell, at one period called "the member for all Ireland," was born, not at, but near Derrynane Abbey, in Kerry, on the 6th of August, 1775, and died at Genoa on the 15th of May, 1847. He had nearly completed his seventy-second year. For nearly forty years of that extended period he had been a public man--perhaps the most public man in Ireland. For at least a quarter of a century his reputation was not merely Irish--nor British--nor European--but unquestionably cosmopolitan.

Fallen as we are upon the evil days of Mediocrity, it may not be useless to dwell upon the conduct and the character, the aims and the actions, of one who, think of him as we may, candour must admit to be one of the great men of the age,--one of the very few great men of Ireland's later years.

"Some men are born to greatness--some achieve greatness--and some have greatness thrust upon them." Daniel O'Connell stands in a predicament between the two latter postulates. He certainly was the artificer of his own fame and power, but, as certainly, much of it arose out of the force of circumstances. When he launched his bark upon the ocean of politics, he may have anticipated something--much of success and eminence, but he never could have dreamed of wielding such complete and magnificent power as was long at his command. Strong determination, great ability, natural facility of expression, the art of using strong words without committing himself, and a most elastic temperament, ("prepared for either fortune," as Eugene Aram said of himself)--all these formed an extraordinary combination, and yet all these, even in their unity, might have been of little worth, but for the admitted fact that circumstances happily occurred which allowed these qualities a fair scope for development. Many poets, I dare swear, have lived and died unknown--either not writing at all, or writing but to destroy what they had written. Noble orators have lived and died, "mute and inglorious," because the opportunity for display had never been given. In truth, we may say, with Philip Van Artevelde,

"The world knows nothing of its greatest men."

It is the curse of Authorship that until the grave fully closes upon his ashes, the fame of the writer is scarcely or slightly acknowledged. When the turf presses upon his remains, we yield tardy justice to his merits, and translate him, as a star, into the "heaven of heavens" of renown. But the Orator, on the other hand, has _his_ claims admitted from the commencement--he may make his fame by one bold effort--he may win admiration at one bound, and each successive trial, while it matures his powers, increases his reputation. He lives in the midst of his fame--it surrounds him, like a halo: he is the observed of all observers,--he has constant motive for exertion--he breathes the very atmosphere of popularity, and has perpetual excitement to keep up his exertions. Of this there scarcely ever was a more palpable example than O'Connell. Originally gifted with all the attributes of a popular if not a great orator, he advanced, by repeated efforts, to the foremost rank, because the public voice cheered him--the public opinion fostered him. Had he, for three or four years, spoken to dull or cold audiences, the world would probably have lost him as an orator. He might, indeed, have been a great forensic speaker, but of that eloquence which placed seven millions of Irish Catholics in a situation where, without being branded as rebels, they might openly demand "justice for Ireland," the chance is, the world have known nothing. What man, before this man, had ever succeeded in awakening at once the sympathy of the old and of the new world? Few men so well out-argued the sophistry of tyranny. Far above the crowd must he be, who, at one and the same time, affrighted the Russian autocrat by his bold invectives, and was appealed to as the common enemy of misrule, by the unhappy victims of the "Citizen-King"--who not only asserted the rights of his fellow slaves in Ireland, but hesitated not, at all times and in all places, to express his

"Utter detestation Of every tyranny in every nation!"

O'Connell was often denounced as a "Dictator." What made him one? The exclusive laws which kept him humiliated in his native land. The wrongs of Ireland made him what he was, and Misrule carefully maintained the laws which made those wrongs. Had Ireland been justly governed, there would not have been occasion for such "agitation" as Mr. O'Connell kept up. If the "agitator" was indeed the monster which he was represented to be, Misrule is the Frankenstein which made him so. The wrongs of Ireland and the tyranny of evil government goaded him into action, and gave him power. Misrule sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind.

It has been strongly asserted, and as strongly denied, that a long line of ancestry gave O'Connell an hereditary right to take part in the public affairs of his native land, as if he, and all of us, did not inherit that right as an heir-loom derived from the first principles of nature. The tradition of his house was that the O'Connell family were entitled to rank among the most ancient in Ireland, antiquarians having avowed that his surname was derived from Conal Gabhra, a prince of the royal line of Milesius--that they originally possessed immense estates in the county of Limerick, and removed to the barony of Iveragh, in the western extremity of Kerry, where they enjoyed the almost regal office of Toparchs;--that, in the time of Elizabeth, their then chief, Richard O'Connell, made submission of his lands to the British crown;--that the rebellion of 1641 removed the sept O'Connell to the County Clare, by forfeiture (a certain Maurice O'Connell it was who forfeited his property in the Civil Wars of 1641, and received the estates in Clare as a partial indemnity; his uncle, Daniel O'Connell of Aghgore, in Iveragh, took no share in the Civil War, and thus preserved his estate);--that the Clare branch of the family supported James II., and, on the triumphs of the Orange party, had to seek in foreign lands the distinctions from which the Penal Laws excluded it in its own.

One of these, a certain Daniel O'Connell, who subsequently was created Count of "the Holy Roman Empire," disqualified, by his religion, from holding military or civil rank in his own country, entered the French service in 1757--when he was only fourteen years of age. He served in the seven years' war--at the capture of Port Mahon, in 1779, and was severely wounded at the grand sortie on Gibraltar in 1782--remained faithful to Louis XVI., until fidelity was of no further use--emigrated to England--was there appointed, in 1793, Colonel of the 6th Irish Brigade--retained that command until the corps was disbanded--returned to France, at the Restoration, in 1814--was there and then restored to his rank of General and Colonel-Commandant of the regiment of Salm, and named Grand Cross of the Order of St. Louis--refused to take rank under Louis Philippe--and died in 1834, aged ninety-one, a military patriarch, full of years and honours, holding the rank of General in the French, and being oldest Colonel in the English service. Count O'Connell was grand-uncle to "the Liberator."

It may not be generally known that the military tactics of Europe at the present day have emanated from Count O'Connell. The French Government resolved, in 1787, that the art of war should be thoroughly revised, and a military board, consisting of four general officers and one colonel, was formed for that purpose. Count O'Connell, who then commanded the Royal Suedois (or Swedish) regiment, was justly accounted one of the most scientific officers in the service, and was named as the junior member of that board. The other members soon discovered how correct and original were the views of their colleague, and unanimously confided to him the _redaction_ of the whole military code of France. So well did he execute this important commission, that his tactics were followed in the early campaigns of revolutionized France, by Napoleon--and finally adopted by Prussia, Austria, Russia and England.

To Morgan O'Connell, father of "the Liberator," descended none of the property originally held by the family. His elder brother, Maurice, succeeded to a large portion, (that which eventually was bequeathed to Daniel,) and it had the peculiarity of being free from all chiefry, imposts, or Crown charge--an unusual thing, and occurring only in the instance of very remote tenure. This portion was held under what was called Shelburne leases--renewable for ever, and first granted _before_ the enactment of the Penal laws, and therefore not "discoverable;" that is, not liable to be claimed from a Catholic holder by any Protestant who chose to claim them.

Daniel O'Connell's father became a petty farmer and a small shop-keeper at Cahirciveen. At that time he was simply known as "Morgan Connell,"--there being some to this day who wholly deny the right of the family to the prefix of "O." The Irish proverb says:

By Mac and O, You'll always know True Irishmen, they say; For if they lack The O or Mac, No Irishmen are they.

The same doubters have contended that the independence realized by Morgan O'Connell was gained, not by farming nor by shop-keeping, but by extensive smuggling. But it was gained in some manner, and with it was purchased a small estate at Carhen, within a mile of Cahirciveen, where his years of industry had been passed, and not far from Derrynane. It was at Carhen that Daniel O'Connell was born, on the 6th August, 1775--the very day (he used to say) on which were commenced hostilities between Great Britain and her American colonies.

Daniel O'Connell's grandfather was the third son of twenty-two children. He died in 1770, leaving as his successor his second son, Maurice (John, the eldest, having predeceased him). This gentleman was never married, and it was on his death, in 1825, that the "Agitator" succeeded him as owner of the Derrynane estate. Morgan O'Connell (father to the "Liberator") died in 1809, and left two other sons, who are also handsomely provided for--John, as owner of Grena, and James of Lakeview, both places near Killarney.

I trust that I have not travelled out of my way to give this sketch of the descent of the family connexions of O'Connell. It shows that, at any rate, _he_ is not the _novus homo_--the mere upstart, without the advantages of birth and fortune, which he was often represented to be. At the same time, no O'Connell need be ashamed of what honest industry accomplished--that much of the landed property which O'Connell's father inherited, held by John O'Connell of Grena, was purchased from the profits of his business as a farmer and general shop-keeper.

From the first, Maurice O'Connell, of Derrynane, attached himself to his nephew Daniel, whom he educated. The earliest instructions in any branch of learning which the future "Liberator" received, were communicated to him by a poor hedge-schoolmaster, of a class ever abounding in Kerry, where every man is said to speak Latin. David Mahony happened to call at Carhen when little Daniel was only four years old, took him in his lap, and taught him the alphabet in an hour and a half. Some years later, he was regularly taught by Mr. Harrington--one of the first priests who set up a school after the repeal of the laws which made it penal for a Roman Catholic clergyman even to live in Ireland. At the age of fourteen he went abroad with his brother Maurice to obtain a good education.

Seventy years ago, the policy, or rather the impolicy of English domination actually prohibited the education of the Catholics within Great Britain and Ireland. They were, therefore, either compelled to put up with very limited education, or forced to go abroad for instruction,--rather a curious mode of predisposing their minds in favour of the English laws. Mr. O'Connell was originally intended for the priesthood, and was educated at the Catholic seminary of Louvain, next at St. Omer, and, finally, at the English college of Douay, in France. But, at that time, there were fully as many lay as clerical pupils at that college.

At St. Omer, Daniel O'Connell rose to the first place in all the classes, and the President of the College wrote to his uncle, in Ireland--"I have but one sentence to write about him, and that is, that I never was so mistaken in all my life as I shall be, unless he be destined to make a remarkable figure in society."

The two brothers commenced their homeward journey on the 21st of December, 1793--the very day on which Louis XVI. was guillotined at Paris. During their journey from Douay to Calais, they were obliged to wear the revolutionary cockade, for safety. But, as good Catholics, they were bound to abhor the atrocities perpetrated, at that time, by the Jacobins, in the sacred name of liberty, and when they stood on the deck of the English packet-boat, indignantly tore the tri-colour from their hats, and flung them, with all contempt, into the water. Some French fishermen, who saw the act, rescued the cockades, and flung imprecations against the "aristocrats" who had rejected them. At the same time, when an enthusiastic Irish republican, who had "assisted" at the execution of Louis, exhibited a handkerchief stained with his blood, the young students turned away and shunned him, in disgust and abhorrence. Not then, nor at any period of his career, was O'Connell an anti-monarchist. It is said that, during the trial of Thomas Hardy, at London, (October, 1794,) for high treason, he was so much shocked at the unfair means used by the Crown lawyers to convict the accused--means foiled by eloquent Erskine and an honest jury--that he resolved to place himself as a champion of Right against Might, and identify himself with the cause of the people. While he was on the Continent, that relaxation of the Penal laws took place which allowed the Catholic to become a barrister. It is probable that _this_ was the immediate cause of his becoming a lawyer. A young man of his sanguine temperament was likely to prefer the bar, with its temporal advantages,--its scope for ambition,--its excitement,--its fame, to the more secluded life of an ecclesiastic. Accordingly, I find that he entered as a law-student at Lincoln's Inn, in January, 1794--eat the requisite number of term-dinners there, for two years--pursued the same qualifying course of "study" at King's Inn, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar, in Easter term, 1798, in the 23d year of his age.

The Rebellion was in full fling at the time, and (in order, no doubt, to show his "loyalty" as a Catholic) he joined what was called "the lawyers' corps," associated to assist the Government in putting down revolt.

The period of his admission was singularly favourable. Catholics had just been admitted to the Irish bar--to the minor honours of the profession; although it was hoped, and not extravagantly, that, in time, all its privileges would be thrown open to them. It was impossible to say what was Mr. O'Connell's ambition at the time; however high, he could not have had a dream of the elevation which he subsequently reached. He must have felt, however, that he had a wide field for the exercise of his abilities. His ostensible ambition, for many years, was to become a good lawyer. During what is called "the long vacation," and at other periods when he could spare time, he resided a good deal with his uncle in Kerry, where he pursued the athletic sports in which, almost to the close of his career, he delighted to participate. On one occasion, while out upon a hunting expedition, he put up at a peasant's cabin, sat for some hours in his wet clothes, and contracted a typhus fever. In his delirium he often repeated the lines from Home's tragedy of Douglas:

"Unknown I die--no tongue shall speak of me. Some noble spirits, judging by themselves, May yet conjecture what I might have proved, And think life only wanting to my fame."

His son has preserved a letter, written in December, 1795, when he was in his twenty-first year, in which he communicates his views to his uncle Maurice, of Derrynane. A passage or two may be worth quoting, to show with what earnestness he devoted himself to the career upon which he was then preparing to enter. He says, "I have now two objects to pursue--the one, the attainment of knowledge; the other, the acquisition of all those qualities which constitute the polite gentleman. I am convinced that the former, besides the immediate pleasure which it yields, _is calculated to raise me to honour, rank, and fortune_ [how prophetic were the young man's aspirations!]; and I know that the latter serves as a general passport or first recommendation; and, as for the motives of ambition which you suggest, I assure you that no man can possess more of it than I do. I have, indeed, a glowing, and--if I may use the expression--an enthusiastic ambition, _which converts every toil into a pleasure, and every study into an amusement_."

He adds, in the same honourable spirit, "Though nature may have given me subordinate talents, I never will be satisfied with a subordinate situation in my profession. No man is able, I am aware, to supply the total deficiency of abilities, but every body is capable of improving and enlarging a stock, however small, and, in its beginning, contemptible. It is this reflection that affords me most consolation. If I do not rise at the bar, I will not have to meet the reproaches of my own conscience. * * * Indeed, as for my knowledge in the professional line, that cannot be discovered for some years to come; but I have time in the interim to prepare myself to appear with greater _éclat_ on the grand theatre of the world."

As a barrister, he naturally took the Munster circuit, and here his family connexion operated very much in his favour. In the counties of Clare, Limerick, Kerry and Cork, he had relatives in abundance, and being, I believe, the first Catholic who had gone that circuit, he naturally engrossed a considerable portion of the business which the Catholics had previously, _ex necessitate_, distributed among the barristers of a contrary persuasion. He succeeded, moreover, in establishing the reputation of being a shrewd, clever, hard-working lawyer, and briefs flowed in so abundantly, that he may be cited as one instance, amid the ten thousand difficulties of the bar, of great success being immediately acquired. There was nothing precarious in this success: he was evidently a shrewd, clever, long-headed lawyer, and while the Catholics gave him briefs, because of his family and religion, the Protestants, not less wise, were not backward in engaging his assistance--not that they much loved the man, but that his assistance was worth having, as that of a man with a clear head, a well-filled mind, strong natural eloquence, and, from the very first, a mastery over the art of cross-examining witnesses.

O'Connell's friends scarcely anticipated, from what his youth had been, the success which met him on his first step into active manhood. He held his first brief at the Kerry Assizes, in Tralee. Between a country gentleman named Brusker Segerson and the O'Connells there long had been a family feud. Brusker accused one of the O'Connell tenants at Iveragh, of sundry crimes and misdemeanors, which judge and jury had "well and truly to try and determine." Young O'Connell had his maiden brief in this case. Brusker, knowing the young lawyer's inexperience, anticipated a triumph over him, and invited a party of friends to witness the "fatal facility" with which the accused would be worsted. But it happened not only that the accused was the acquitted, but there was a general opinion, from the facts on the trial, that Brusker Segerson's conduct had been oppressive, if not illegal. Brusker turned round to his friends and soundly swore that "Morgan O'Connell's _fool_ was a great lawyer, and would be a great man." Henceforth he always employed O'Connell--but with the distinct and truly Irish understanding that the hereditary and personal feud between them should in no wise be diminished!

One of O'Connell's earliest displays of acuteness was at Tralee, in the year 1799, shortly after he had been called to the bar. In an intricate case, where he was junior counsel (having got the brief more as a family compliment than from any other cause), the question in dispute was as to the validity of a will, which had been made almost in _articulo mortis_. The instrument was drawn up with proper form: the witnesses were examined, and gave ample confirmation that the deed had been legally executed. One of them was an old servant, possessed of a strong passion for loquacity. It fell to O'Connell to cross-examine him, and the young barrister allowed him to speak on, in the hope that he might say too much. Nor was this hope disappointed. The witness had already sworn that he saw the deceased sign the will. "Yes," continued he, with all the garrulousness of old age, "I saw him sign it, and surely _there was life in him at the time_." The expression, frequently repeated, led O'Connell to conjecture that it had a peculiar meaning. Fixing his eye upon the old man he said,--"You have taken a solemn oath before God and man to speak the truth and the _whole_ truth: the eye of God is upon you; the eyes of your neighbours are fixed upon you also. Answer me, by the virtue of that sacred and solemn oath which has passed your lips, _was the testator alive when he signed the will_?" The witness was struck with the solemn manner in which he was addressed, his colour changed--his lips quivered--his limbs trembled, and he faltered out the reply--"_there was life in him_." The question was repeated in a yet more impressive manner, and the result was that O'Connell half compelled, half cajoled him to admit that, after life was extinct, a pen had been put into the testator's hand,--that one of the party guided it to sign his name, while, as a salvo, for the consciences of all concerned, a living fly was put into the dead man's mouth, to qualify the witnesses to bear testimony that "there was life in him" when he signed that will. This fact, thus extorted from the witness, preserved a large property in a respectable and worthy family, and was one of the first occurrences in O'Connell's legal career worth mentioning. Miss Edgeworth, in her "Patronage," has an incident not much different from this; perhaps suggested by it. The plaintiffs in this case were two sisters named Langton, both of whom still enjoy the property miraculously preserved to them by the ingenuity of O'Connell; they were connexions of my own (Sarah Langton, the youngest, was married to my cousin, Frank Drew, of Drewscourt), and I have often heard them relate the manner in which he had contrived to elicit the truth.

It is no common skill which can protect innocence from shame, or rescue guilt from punishment. Nothing less than an intimate knowledge of the feelings of the jury, and the habits and characteristics of the witnesses, can enable an advocate to throw himself into the confidence of a jury composed of the most incongruous elements, and to confuse, baffle, or detect the witnesses. There is no power so strong as that of good cross-examination; and I never knew any man possess that power in a more eminent degree than O'Connell. The difficulty is to avoid asking too many questions. Sometimes a single query will weaken evidence, while a word more may make the witness confirm it. Some witnesses require to be pressed, before they bring out the truth--others, if too much pressed, will turn at bay, and fatally corroborate every thing to which they already have sworn. It is no common skill which, intuitively as it were, enables the advocate to perceive when he may go to the end of his tether,--when he _must_ restrain. The fault of a young barrister is that _he asks too many questions_. It is a curious fact, that, from the first moment he was called to the bar, O'Connell distinguished himself by his cross-examinations. If he was eminent in a criminal trial, he was no less so in civil cases. Here he brought all his legal learning to bear upon the case, and here, too, he had the additional aid of that eloquence which usually drew a jury with him.

John O'Connell gives an anecdote which illustrates his father's success in the defence of his prisoners. It had fallen to his lot, at the Assizes in Cork, to be retained for a man on a trial for an aggravated case of highway robbery. By an able cross-examination, O'Connell was enabled to procure the man's acquittal. The following year, at the Assizes for the same town, he found himself again retained for the same individual, then on trial for a burglary, committed with great violence, very little short of a deliberate attempt to murder. On this occasion, the result of Mr. O'Connell's efforts rose a disagreement of the jury; and, therefore, no verdict. The Government witnesses having been entirely discredited during the cross-examination, the case was pursued no farther, and the prisoner was discharged. Again, the succeeding year, he was found in the criminal dock; this time on a charge of piracy! He had run away with a collier brig, and having found means for disposing of a portion of her cargo, and afterwards of supplying himself with some arms, he had actually commenced cruising on his own account, levying contributions from such vessels as he chanced to fall in with. Having "caught a tartar," whilst engaged in this profitable occupation, he was brought into Cove, and thence sent up to Cork to stand his trial for "piracy on the high seas." Again Mr. O'Connell saved him, by demurring to the jurisdiction of the Court--the offence having been committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, and, therefore, cognizable only before an Admiralty Court. When the fellow saw his successful counsel facing the dock, he stretched over to speak to him, and, raising his eyes and hands most piously and fervently to heaven, he cried out--"Oh, Mr. O'Connell, may the Lord spare you--_to me_!"

Here let me give my opinion, that the disqualification of his religious tenets, which kept him in a stuff gown while his juniors in standing, and inferiors in talent, were strutting about with all professional honour, was _not_ much detriment to O'Connell's advancement. Here was a man, confessedly at the head of his profession, yet excluded from its honours by unjust and intolerant laws--it became, therefore, a practice to consider him a martyr for the sake of his religion, and he got many and many a brief because such was the feeling. His disqualification as a Catholic gained him business as a Barrister.

The Union failed to make Ireland happy--because the chains of the Catholics were still allowed to gall them, instead, as Mr. Pitt contemplated, of being removed with the least possible delay. George III. threw himself between Ireland and justice. Relief was expected from Mr. Fox, and might, perhaps, have been granted, but the death of that statesman, almost immediately succeeded by an Anti-Catholic Ministry, sounded the knell to the hopes of the people of Ireland. It was at this time that Mr. O'Connell came forward as a politician; he had personal reasons for doing so, because, now being in the enjoyment of a very excellent practice at the bar, he found numerous vexations arising from the privileges enjoyed by men less talented, less qualified than himself, but who enjoyed the advantages which religious and political "ascendency" gave them.

The Catholics at last threw themselves into an attitude of defence. O'Connell's first decided step[16] was the taking part in the proceedings of a meeting of Catholics, held in Dublin in May, 1809. Then, for the first time for over a hundred years, Catholics literally "spoke out." Their daring appeared to draw strength for their despair. What was called "the Catholic Committee" was formed, and this, strongly against O'Connell's advice, violated the law by assuming a _representative_ character. Lord Killeen (eldest son of the Earl of Fingal, a Catholic peer), and some others of the leaders, were prosecuted by the Government. They were defended by O'Connell, and Ireland then witnessed the almost unprecedented circumstance of Catholic agitators being acquitted by a Protestant jury in Dublin.

[16] O'Connell's first public speech was against the Union. It was made on January 13, 1800, at a Catholic meeting in Dublin, in unequivocal condemnation of that measure. The resolutions that day adopted were drawn up by O'Connell, and assumed an antagonistic position.

The Catholic Committee, however, became alarmed, and broke up. Then was formed the Catholic Board, at which it was a matter of dispute whether Emancipation might not be purchased by allowing the Crown to pay the Catholic clergy, and giving the head of the Church of England a veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops in Ireland. Feeble and vacillating, the greater portion of the Catholic nobility held aloof from the struggle, in which O'Connell took the popular side. Later in the day,

The late Duke of Richmond (Viceroy of Ireland) put down the Catholic Board by means of his Attorney-General Saurin. The members of that Board, as some small acknowledgment for the services of their colleague, voted Mr. O'Connell a piece of plate, of the value of 1000_l._ The Board being put down, the Catholic cause would have fallen but for the intrepidity of O'Connell, who assumed the leadership at once, and published a letter, continued annually for a long time, in which he stated the wrongs of Ireland, with her claims for relief, and suggested the mode of action. This annual message had the motto, from Childe Harold,

"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."

Mr. Saurin is said to have seriously contemplated prosecuting O'Connell for sedition because of this motto from "Childe Harold."

The Catholic Board was suppressed, it is true, but there remained a thousand modes of action by which the spirit of patriotism might be kept alive in Ireland. Aggregate and other public meetings were instantly held, and at one of these Mr. O'Connell, in 1815, designated the Corporation of Dublin as a "beggarly corporation." A member of that "beggarly" and bankrupt body took upon himself to play the bravo in its defence. This man was a Mr. D'Esterre, and is understood to have had a promise of patronage from the Corporation (in the shape of a good berth), if he humbled the pride of O'Connell. It is more charitable than reasonable to hope that the Corporation were not so ruffianly as to hold out this hope to D'Esterre, because he was notoriously the best shot in Dublin; and yet, such "honourable" assassination is exactly what such a body would reward, if they did not suggest it.

D'Esterre paraded the streets of Dublin with a horse-whip in his hand, and vowed vengeance against O'Connell. He did not meet him; but he afterwards challenged him. O'Connell refused to apologize--met the challenger, and mortally wounded him. D'Esterre, as I have said, was a crack shot, and O'Connell was not; but it sometimes happens that the practiced duellist suffers the penalty which he has inflicted upon others.

D'Esterre had been an officer of marines, and it has been stated, and always believed, that he constituted himself the Champion of the Corporation, not only in the hope, but with a direct promise of obtaining a lucrative appointment, provided that he "silenced" O'Connell. The odds were five to one in his favour--for he was cool and determined, and could snuff a candle with a pistol shot at twelve paces. His skill, his coolness, availed not. At the first shot he fell, and his death speedily followed.

Soon after, Sir Robert Peel (the then Irish Secretary) fastened a quarrel upon Mr. O'Connell, who again placed himself in the hands of his friends. A hostile meeting was appointed--the authorities in Dublin interfered--the parties were bound over to keep the peace--they agreed to meet on the Continent, but the duel was ultimately prevented by the arrest of Mr. O'Connell, in London, on his way to Calais. He was held to bail before the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, not to fight Mr. Peel; and since that time declined any further meetings of the sort.[17] It would have been well if, when he determined to avoid duels, O'Connell had also resolved to abstain from language offensive to men of honour and men of feeling. His chief fault, during his last thirty years, was the application of epithets towards his political opponents, which appear to have been culled rather in the market of Billingsgate, than in the flowery garden of Academe!

[17] It was the late Dr. England, Catholic Bishop of Charleston, S. C., who then resided near Cork, who pointed out to O'Connell the conjoint sin and folly of duelling, and induced him to promise that he would never again appeal to arms. It was reported, at the time, that O'Connell had lingered in London, when Peel expected him at Calais, awaiting news of his wife's health (he had left her ill in Dublin), and that another public character had declined a challenge on the plea of his daughter's illness. The late Chief Justice Burke thus commemorated the double event:

"Two heroes of Erin, abhorrent of slaughter, Improved on the Hebrew command; One honored his wife, and the other his daughter, That 'their days might be long on the land.'"

For several years after the duel with D'Esterre, O'Connell was almost alone in the struggle for Emancipation. His practice steadily increased, and his legal knowledge, ability and tact, united with wondrous art in the examination of witnesses, and great influence with juries (by the union of a species of rhetoric consisting of common sense, humour, and rough eloquence, cemented together by a good share of "Blarney"), soon made him a very successful barrister. Whenever a Catholic victim was to be defended or rescued, whether an Orange oppressor was to be assailed and punished, O'Connell was in the van. The Catholics readily took him as their champion, and he won their gratitude by his services, and gained their personal attachment by a good humour which nothing could daunt, and a plain, straightforward, affectionate manner of eloquence which went directly home to their hearts. To this hour it is a moot point whether the Irish had greater admiration for his talents, gratitude for his services, confidence in his fidelity, or attachment for his person.

He continued increasing in influence for many years. From 1815, until he relinquished most of his practice in 1831, the annual income from his professional pursuits cannot have averaged less than from £6000 to £8000--an immense sum for a lawyer to make in Ireland. No man could make such an income, except one who was at once an excellent Nisi Prius pleader, as well as a good Crown lawyer. He united the highest qualifications of both. He could wield at will immense power over a jury, and argue with a success rarely equalled, so as to reach the understanding of a judge. Hence, he had the most extraordinary versatility. You would see him at one o'clock joking a jury out of a verdict in the Nisi Prius court, or familiarly laying down cases for the information of the judge; and, the next hour, you might behold him in the Crown court, defending an unhappy man accused of murder, and exercising a caution and prudence in his unparalleled cross-examination of witnesses which would alike surprise and please. No man could more readily get the truth from a witness, or make him say only just as much as suits the particular point he had in view.

In 1821, when George the Fourth visited Ireland, Mr. O'Connell made "his first appearance, by particular desire," in the part of a courtier. He presented a laurel crown to the monarch on his departure, and eulogized him to the seventh heaven as "a real friend of old Ireland," anxious to see her

"Great, glorious, and free, First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."

He did more than this. He sacrificed his feelings, as a Catholic, in order to conciliate the Ascendency party. Intent on conciliation, he even dined with the Dublin Corporation, and drank their charter toast of intolerance,[18] "The pious, glorious and immortal memory." Concession was vain. The leopard would not change his spots; and, throwing away the scabbard, O'Connell drew the sword, and threw himself, body and soul, into the stormy battle of Agitation.

[18] This celebrated toast, the drinking or refusal of which, for many years, was the great test of (political) Protestantism in Ireland, was drank on the knee, and ran thus: "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William, Prince of Orange, who saved us from Pope and Popery, brass money and wooden shoes. He that don't drink this toast, may the north wind blow him to the south, and a west wind blow him to the east; may he have a dark night, a lee shore, a rank storm, and a leaky vessel to carry him over the ferry to hell; may the devil jump down his throat with a red-hot harrow, that every pin may tear out his inside; may he be rammed, jammed, and damned into the great gun of Athlone, and fired off into the kitchen of hell, where the Pope is roasted on a spit, and basted with the fat of Charles James Fox, while the Devil stands by pelting him with Cardinals!"

In 1823, O'Connell, finding how little was to be anticipated from George IV. (who, as king, forgot the promises he made when Prince of Wales), organized a great plan for uniting his Catholic countrymen into an array against the laws which excluded them from the enjoyment of their civil and rights. He had great difficulty in arousing the languid energies of the Irish people, so hopeless had they been for a long time. At last, the Catholic Association assumed a "local habitation and a name." The subscription to the somewhat aristocratical Catholic Board had been five pounds a year--one fifth of that amount was the payment to the Association; and, at last, the Catholic Rent was instituted on the basis of admitting contributions of a shilling a-year. Every subscriber to this small amount thereby became a member of the Association, and crowds eagerly joined it, on these terms, from all parts of Ireland. Here were agitation and combination. Here was money, the very sinews of war. Here was a fund, large in amount, annually augmenting, applicable to a variety of purposes connected with the assertion of the Catholic claims and the defence of Catholics, who thought themselves individually wronged or injured by their Orange masters. Here, with O'Connell at their head, was a band of leaders, most of them in the practice of the law, who had station, influence, audacity, courage, integrity, and the art of moving the multitude by voice or pen. The Government speedily feared, and felt, it to be an _imperium in imperio_.

Armed with a vast numerical combination, strong in the possession of large funds, headed by able and fearless men, the Association assumed the duty of standing between the people and the mal-administration of the law. Every local act of tyranny, intolerance and oppression was exposed, if it were not visited with exemplary punishment. The complaints of the people were heard, through the influence of the leaders, within the very walls of the Imperial Parliament. A brilliant arena was opened for Catholic talent, for the Association held its discussions like a regular legislative assembly, and its debates were spread abroad, all over the kingdom, on the wings of the press. Of the whole system O'Connell was the motive power--the head--the heart. His influence was immense.

Such an array could not be beheld by any government with indifference. It was determined to put down the Association by act of Parliament. In 1825, O'Connell formed one of a deputation to England, to make arrangements for an adjustment of the Catholic claims--committed the error of consenting to take Emancipation clogged with "the wings" (that is, to State payment for the Catholic clergy, and confiscation of the 40s. elective franchise), but finally admitted his mistake, and his error of judgment was forgiven by his countrymen. The Association was suppressed. O'Connell, whose policy was to baffle rather than to contest, and whose boast ever was that he agitated "within the law," allowed the Catholic Association to dissolve itself, but continued the agitation by "aggregate meetings" in nearly every county of Ireland, and by the establishment of a new Catholic Association, formed ostensibly for purposes of charity alone. The Government could do nothing against this.

In 1826, when a general election took place, O'Connell brought into unexpected operation the forces which he commanded. He started popular candidates in several Irish counties, and defeated the former members, who had always voted against the Catholics. The lesson was a striking one, but the Executive in Downing-street heeded it not, and declared unmitigated and perpetual enmity against the Catholics. On the other hand, the Association pledged itself to oppose every candidate connected with the government. In 1828, a vacancy occurred, by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald (who himself had always voted for Catholic Emancipation) having accepted a seat in the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet, and then O'Connell ventured the bold experiment of contesting the representation of Clare. He was returned after a most severe contest--forced Wellington, by that election to concede Emancipation--claimed his seat under that concession--was refused by Manners Sutton, the Speaker--was re-elected for Clare[19]--since sat for Waterford, Kerry, Dublin, Kilkenny, and Cork--made the best speech upon the Reform Bill--supported the Melbourne ministry when the contest between them and Peel came on--invariably maintained the most liberal principles, and supported the most liberal measures--diminished, if he did not conquer, the dislike which England and Scotland felt towards him as a Catholic and Irish agitator--and had a parliamentary influence greater than any man ever before possessed, being able to count on the votes of _forty_ members, who formed what is called the joints of his "tail."

[19] Mr. Grattan says, at an expense of £20,000--an amount which seems incredible, as there was only a brief shadow of opposition.

Had O'Connell's labors as an agitator ceased when they achieved Emancipation, no reputation could have stood higher. But, from 1829, he attempted to make "Repeal" his party-cry. In April, 1834, he moved for the Repeal of the Union. Thirty-eight members voted _with_, and five hundred and twenty-three _against_ him. Only _one_ English member supported him--Mr. James Kennedy, who sat for the small borough of Tiverton.

The influence of O'Connell continued great, with the Government, as well as in Ireland, while the Whigs were in office. But the Melbourne ministry broke up in the autumn of 1841, and "Othello's occupation" was gone when they went over to the opposition benches. In 1843, it is true, he made renewed, important and remarkable attempts to excite Ireland--to agitate (within the law) against the government of which Sir Robert Peel was the head, but he was prosecuted, and the Monster Trials, lasting twenty-five days, and ending in his conviction and imprisonment, first taught his countrymen that he was not infallible nor invulnerable. His conviction was subsequently annulled by the House of Lords, on appeal, but the iron had entered into his soul, and when he resumed his seat in Parliament he evidently was breaking. Then followed the revolt against his supremacy by the vigorous and more decided "Young Ireland" party, and, with failing health and defeated aims, he went to the Continent--his desire being to visit that imperial and Papal Rome of which he had long been the energetic and obedient servant. He died before he accomplished his pilgrimage; but his heart rests in the Eternal City.

Here it can scarcely be out of place to glance at O'Connell's success as a Parliamentary orator.

In the British Parliament, where oratorical success is usually very difficult, Irishmen have generally shown themselves not merely good, but even eloquent speakers. Edmund Burke may challenge mention alongside of the great Chatham--and will have a more permanent place of honour, because his speeches, admirable even as compositions, now belong to the standard classics of the Anglo-Saxon race. Sir Philip Francis (the reputed author of "The Letters of Junius") was not inferior, in power and effect, to the younger Pitt. Richard Brinsley Sheridan and George Canning nobly maintained the national credit, as transcendently eloquent men. Lord Wellesley and Henry Grattan occupy a first position as great orators. In later days, assuredly Daniel O'Connell and Richard Lalor Sheil have not been surpassed by any of their rivals. Whenever Irish parliamentary eloquence is spoken of, William Conyngham Plunket cannot be overlooked. He was, perhaps, the very best speaker in the British Parliament at any time. He had few of the ordinary characteristics of Irish eloquence. Wit he possessed in a high degree, but was chary in its use. Pathos he rarely ventured upon--though there are some incidental touches at once tearful and tender. He relied on clear arrangement of facts, logical closeness of reasoning, strong earnestness, remarkable sagacity, and the exercise of tact and common sense which a spirit at once strong and ardent had disciplined and exercised. His manner, also, grave and almost austere, added weight to his words of power. He succeeded Grattan in the leadership of the Catholic party in Parliament, and his speech (in 1821) converted nine votes from hostility to justice. It was on this occasion, alluding to the great departed who had joined in the discussions relative to Ireland's claims for civil and religious liberty, that he said--"Walking before the sacred images of the illustrious dead, as in a public and solemn procession, shall we not dismiss all party feelings, all angry passions, all unworthy prejudices? I will not talk of past disputes; I will not mingle in this act of national justice anything that can awaken personal animosity."

It was not, however, in the English legislature, but during the last twenty years of the Irish Parliament, that Irish eloquence was in its zenith. On one hand were Fitzgibbon and Scott (afterwards Lords Clare and Clonmel), Connolly, Cavendish, and Arthur Wolfe. On the other side was such an array of talent, patriotism, and eloquence as, in the same period of time, has never been surpassed--never equalled. There were Hussey Burgh and James Fitzgerald, Flood and Grattan, Curran and Barry Yelverton, Plunket and Saurin, Parnell and Denis Daly, Brownlow and Saxton Perry, Foster and Ponsonby, Goold and Peter Burrowes, silvery-tongued Bushe and honest Robert Holmes. Most of these were lawyers, and made an exception to the general rule that the eloquence of the Bar and of the Senate are so different in character as to seem almost incompatible in practice. In Ireland, during her last days of nationality, the great cause for which they were contending, appeared to have animated the members of the bar with a spirit which disdained all narrow limits of conventionality, and elevated them above the ordinary routine of common life. We read, in Holy Writ, how one of the seraphim touched Isaiah's lips with fire, and, with little effort of the imagination, we may well believe that Patriotism, in like manner, touched the lips of Irishmen, during that hard struggle for the very existence of their nation, at once hallowing and purifying the words which fell from them. But such eloquence was only a flash amid darkness, too brilliant to stay, and force and fraud were evil spirits superior, at that time, to Truth, Virtue, and Eloquence. The day may come when Ireland shall once again be a nation,--may the Past then and forever be a lesson and a warning.

It is singular that, in the Irish Parliament, nearly all the great speakers have been lawyers. With few exceptions, men of law have not succeeded in the English Parliament. Lords Mansfield, Lyndhurst and Brougham, with Romilly and Follett, are the chief exceptions. Camden, Thurlow, Eldon, Gifford, Cottenham, Truro, St. Leonards, Erskine, Scarlett, Stowell, Tenterden, Best, and a great many more did not maintain, in Parliament, the reputation they had won at the bar. Three Irishmen, however, albeit members of the legal profession, have taken the lead in the British Senate, even in our own time. These were Plunket, O'Connell, and Sheil.

Of Plunket and Sheil there may be another occasion and opportunity of speaking. It is of O'Connell that I would record a few impressions now. It must be remembered that when he entered Parliament, in 1829, he had entered into his fifty-fifth year. Plunket was at least ten years younger when he too entered the British House of Commons. Sheil was little more than thirty-six when he took his seat. It was feared by his friends and hoped by his enemies that, like Erskine and other great advocates, O'Connell would fail in Parliament. True it was that Grattan was fifty-nine before he first spoke in the English House of Commons--but Grattan was one in ten thousand. Besides, he was all his life a parliamentary speaker, which is very different from being a lawyer in full practice also--the essentials for success at the bar and in the Senate being far apart. Grattan himself, speaking of his great rival, Flood, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Irish, and as greatly failed, in the English Parliament, said "he forgot that he was a tree of the forest, too old and too great to be transplanted at fifty."

O'Connell's opponents confidently anticipated his failure. He is too much of a mob-orator, was the cry of one set. He will never please so refined an assembly as the British House of Commons; he is too much of a lawyer, said another section of ill-wishers, and we know how perpetually lawyers fail in the House. His accent is dead against him, lisped a few others, and will be laughed at as vulgar. One of his most violent antagonists was Lord Eldon, before whom he had appeared, in an appeal case before the Lords, when he visited London in 1825 (on the memorable occasion of "the Wings"); but this Chancellor, inimical as he was, turned round to Lord Wynford (then Sir W. D. Best), when the speech was ended, and said, "What a knowledge of law!--how condensed, yet how clear his argument!--how extremely gentlemanly, and even courtierly is his manner. Let him only be in the House once, and he will carry every thing before him." Many even of O'Connell's own friends doubted whether he could accommodate himself to the manners, fashion, habits, and restrictions of that very artificial assemblage, presumed to contain "the collective wisdom of the nation," but the slightest doubt on the subject does not appear to have cast its shadow into his own mind. To him, as to Lady Macbeth, there was no such word as--fail! Like Nelson, he did not know what fear was.

His putting up for Clare Election, in 1828, was one of the boldest measures ever ventured on--short of raising the banner of revolt against the government. It compelled Wellington and Peel to concede Catholic Emancipation--a concession ungracious and ungrateful, since it was clogged with a clause, the result of personal spite, prohibiting O'Connell, because he had been elected in 1828, from taking the oaths contained in the Relief Bill of 1829. That prohibition sent him back to Clare for re-election, and he entered Parliament with his mind not unnaturally angry at the injustice for which _he_ had been singled out as a victim.

He took his seat, and, almost immediately, it was perceived that he was not to be trifled with. Nature had been bountiful to him. In stature tall, and so strongly built that it was only by seeing, when a man of ordinary height was by his side, how much he over-topped him. Physical vigour and mental strength were well combined in him. Then, his voice--a miraculous organ, full of power, but not deficient, either, in mellow sweetness. His glance told little--but his lips were singularly expressive, as much so as the eyes are to ordinary mortals. Add to this, a full consciousness of power--a conviction that he had been the main agent for opening Parliament to his hitherto prohibited co-religionists--that Ireland looked to him, and not without cause, for a great deal more--that he virtually represented, not the men of Clare only, but was "Member for all Ireland,"--that he was a tactician, trained by thirty years of public life,--that he had also the practiced skill in handling all the available points of an argument which his professional career had given him,--and that he then looked upon Emancipation only as an instalment. Put all these together, and it will be seen, at once, that the man in whom they were embodied could scarcely fail to make himself felt, dreaded, and much observed.

In the first twelvemonth--that is, from his re-election in 1829, until the meeting of the new Parliament in November 1830--O'Connell disappointed a great many by playing what may be called a waiting game. It was expected that he would be perpetually speaking, upon all occasions, and, in that case, attempts would have been made to laugh, or cough, or clamor him down. He voted regularly, and always on the right side. In 1831, when the Grey ministry were in power, O'Connell, now strengthened by a strong and compact body of Irish members pledged to work with and under him (their return was the result of the General Election), took the station in the Legislature which he maintained for nearly fifteen years. During the prolonged struggle for Parliamentary Reform, one of the most impressive speeches in advocacy of the measure was O'Connell's. On all great occasions his voice was heard and his vote given. It cannot be asserted that he invariably spoke and voted as now, when we read the events of those days as history, it may dispassionately be thought he should have done; but he was undoubtedly an indefatigable, earnest, eloquent member of Parliament, through whose pertinacity and tact many concessions were made to Ireland which were calculated to serve her. The geniality of his nature was as unchecked in the Senate as it had been at the Bar, or in the Catholic Association. He was eminently a good-tempered man, and this availed him much in the House of Commons, where, if it so please him, a man can readily make himself and others uncomfortable by the exhibition of even a small portion of ill-temper. Sometimes he laughed at his opponents, but so good-naturedly that they also enjoyed the jest. Such was his cut at John Walter, proprietor of the _Times_, who had remained on the ministerial benches after his Tory friends had quitted them. He removed, speedily enough, when O'Connell pointed to him as--

"The last rose of summer, left blooming alone."

So, when Lord Stanley (now Earl of Derby) separating from the Whigs, started a party of his own, which was lamentably small, O'Connell quoted against him a couplet from a familiar poet--

"Thus down thy side, romantic Ashbourne, glides The Derby dilly, carrying six insides."

And so, pre-eminent over all was his parody on Dryden's celebrated comparison. Three Colonels (Perceval, Verner, and Sibthorpe) represented Sligo, Armagh, and Lincoln. The two first were smooth-faced and whiskerless as a maiden. Sibthorpe is "bearded like a bard." O'Connell, alluding to them in the House, thus hit them off, amid a general roar, in which the victimized trio could not refrain from joining--

"Three Colonels in three distant counties born, Sligo, Armagh, and Lincoln did adorn. The first in matchless impudence surpassed, The next in bigotry--in both the last. The force of nature could no further go, To beard the third she shaved the other two."

Like other politicians, O'Connell did not escape without occasional personal passages at arms. In one of these, with Mr. Doherty, then Irish Solicitor-General, in May, 1830, O'Connell may be said to have come off second-best. He had attacked Doherty for his conduct as Crown lawyer in what was called the Doneraile conspiracy. The whole of the Tory party sided with Doherty, who made a forcible defence, attacking his assailant in turn, and the Whigs did not very warmly support O'Connell, who had then only been a few months in Parliament. This _rencontre_, which took place while "The Duke" was Premier, raised Doherty to the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas in Ireland--and led to Peel's offering him a seat in the Cabinet in 1834, and a Peerage in 1840. O'Connell used to say, and with truth, that _he_ had placed Doherty on the Bench.

On another occasion O'Connell was far more successful. This was the celebrated Breach of Privilege case.

Victoria ascended the throne in June, 1837. Shortly after there was a General Election, and a great many of the members returned were petitioned against. The Tories had raised a large fund to defray the cost of these proceedings, and it was called "The Spottiswoode Subscription," as Spottiswoode, the Queen's printer (a patent life-office of much emolument), acted as its treasurer. Angry debates arose in the House of Commons on this subject, and personalities were so much and so tumultuously bandied to and fro, that Mr. Abercrombie, the Speaker, threatened to resign if they were repeated,--as if, grasping Scotchman as he was, he _could_ ever have brought himself to resign the £6,000 a-year attached to the office!

The controverted elections were duly referred to the usual Election Committees, ballotted for out of the members then in the House. These committees were duly sworn, as juries are, to do justice between man and man. But it was unhappily notorious that when the majority were Whigs, they almost invariably decided against Tory members, and _vice versâ_. As ill luck would have it, the majority of the decisions went to unseat Liberal members. As parties were nearly balanced in Parliament, at that time--indeed the Whigs remained in office merely because there was a new and inexperienced sovereign who would have been puzzled how to act on a change of ministry--the Liberals complained of the decisions of the Election Committees.

On February 23, 1838, Lord Maidstone, who had been elected for Northamptonshire, and was the eldest son of the intolerant Earl of Winchelsea, who fought a duel on the Catholic Relief Bill, with Wellington, in 1829, drew the attention of the House of Commons to a Breach of Privilege. He complained that, two days before, at a public dinner given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Mr. O'Connell had declared that in the Election Committees "Corruption of the worst description existed, and above all there was the perjury of the Tory politicians." Also, that he "was ready to be a martyr to justice and truth; but not to false swearing, and therefore, he repeated, that there was foul perjury in the Tory Committees of the House of Commons."

What followed I saw, and can never forget. O'Connell, who had been reading (or appearing to read) a newspaper while Lord Maidstone was accusing him, keenly arose, sternly looked around the House, folded his arms, and, in his deepest tones and most impressive manner, said, "Sir, I did say every word of that--every word of that; and I do repeat that I believe it to be perfectly true. Is there a man who will put his hand on his heart and say that it is not true? Such a man would be laughed to scorn."

Maidstone then gave notice of a motion condemnatory of O'Connell, and the discussion was adjourned until the following Monday. Maidstone moved that O'Connell's speech was an imputation on the whole House, and that he be censured for it as a breach of privilege. O'Connell replied in a speech of great power, in the midst of which he was self-designated "The pensioned servant of Ireland," and plainly declared that whenever an Election Committee was appointed, it was known that the decision would be exactly according to the political majority of its members; and repeating that he had spoken only the truth, and would stand by his words. The Agitator then retired.

A great many members spoke,--the Whigs making a lukewarm defence for O'Connell, instead of admitting and lamenting the truth of his remarks. The Tories clamoured for a heavy censure. In a House of 517 members, out of 658, a majority of _nine_ were for the censure. Next Daniel Callaghan, member for Cork city, Edmund Burke Roche, member for Cork county, W. D. Gillon for Falkirk, and J. P. Somers for Sligo, severally and seriously declared that, each and all, they adopted Mr. O'Connell's words and sentiments! It was then carried by 298 to 85 (Lord John Russell voting in the majority) that the words were "a false and scandalous imputation on the House."

Next, on the motion that O'Connell be reprimanded in his place, an exciting debate ensued. Mr. Callaghan repeated his endorsement of O'Connell's imputation, and his words were taken down by the Clerk of the House, on the motion of Mr. Hume, who called on the Speaker to notice his contumacy. But the Speaker was mute. Next day, Mr. Roche also repeated his full adherence to O'Connell's charge. The vote of censure was carried by a majority of twenty-nine.

O'Connell duly attended in his place, was gravely reprimanded by the Speaker (his own particular friend!), and said, when the farce was over, "Galileo remarked 'the world does move, after all.' And so, despite the censure of this House, I repeat all I said before. The system I condemn reminds one of the Judge in Rabelais who decided cases by throwing three dice for the plaintiff and two for the defendant. I had rather take the dice-box and say 'seven's the main,' than take my chance on an Election Committee of this House. I express no regret for what I have said. I have retracted nothing. I will retract nothing. I have told the truth."

So saying, having bearded the House by strongly repeating his accusation, he sat down. It was considered that he had gained a victory, and the conclusion of all was a total change and reform in the system of Parliamentary election committees.

But it was in Ireland--whether in the Catholic Association, at an Aggregate Meeting, at a public dinner, or in a court of law--that O'Connell was to be seen "in all his glory." In Ireland his influence was extraordinary--not only for its vast extent, but for its continuance. No other public man, no matter what the country or the age, has maintained his popularity, as O'Connell did, for nearly forty years. I think that this may be partly attributed to the belief, long and widely entertained by his followers, almost unbroken to the last, encouraged by himself, and generally borne out by circumstances, that he was above the law, that the law could not reach _him_, that he "could drive a coach and six through any Act of Parliament."

In February, 1831, he was indicted and tried (with Tom Steele and Barrett, of _The Pilot_ newspaper) for holding political meetings which the Viceroy's proclamation had forbidden. They pleaded guilty, but as the law under which they were tried was allowed to expire before they were brought up for judgment, his prophecy, that the law could not reach him, was fulfilled. In 1843 he was less fortunate. Three months in prison!--_that_ destroyed the _prestige_.

This man was eminently endowed by nature with the bodily and mental qualifications for a Tribune of the People. In stature he was lofty, in figure large. His bold, good-natured face was an advantage--as were his manly appearance and bearing. His voice was deep, musical, sonorous and manageable. Its transitions from the higher to the lower notes was wondrously effective. No man had a clearer or more distinct pronunciation--at times, it even went to the extent of almost syllabizing long words. How lingeringly, as if he loved to utter the words, would he speak of "Cawtholic E-man-cee-pa-tion!" He rather affected a full Irish accent, on which was slightly grafted something of the Foigardism which, in his youth, had attached itself to him when he studied in France. No one who noticed his capacious chest could wonder that O'Connell was able to speak longer than most men without pausing to take breath. When making a speech, his mouth was very expressive; and this has been noticed as the characteristic of that feature, in Irish faces. In his eyes (of a cold, clear blue) there was little speculation, but the true Irish expression of feeling, passion and intellect played about his lips. Looking at him, as he spoke, a close observer might almost note the sentiment about to come from those lips, before the words had utterance--just as we see the lightning-flash before we hear the thunder-peal.

His eloquence was eminently characteristic. Irishmen, in general, have "the gift of the gab,"--that is, the power of expressing their sentiments in public with ease to themselves and to their hearers. It gives them little trouble to make a speech; and this faculty and this facility arise, very probably, from the political circumstances of their country as much as from anything else. In England there is no necessity why a man should have decided political opinions. In Ireland no man dare be neutral. Persons may disagree, and do; but they unite in despising and condemning the unhappy wight who does not belong to any party. An Irishman, in Ireland, _must_ be a partisan. Being so, there is no earthly reason why, attending any public meeting, he should not be induced to take part in the proceedings, and make a speech. Oratory is a very catching thing,--listening begets the desire to be listened to, in turn; and, once that a man has heard his own voice in public, depend on it, he will be anxious to hear it again.

Self-possession, which is "half the battle" in public life, is an essential in public speaking. However, it is not _the_ essential. There must be a copious flow of words--a happy and rapid selection of language--an earnestness of manner--a knowledge of human character--and, above all, a considerable degree of information, with a certain portion of the "imagination all compact," which breathes fervour and poetry into the spoken speech. Great is the orator's power. He can touch the human heart--he can move the secret springs of action--he can sway the popular will as he pleases--he can comfort the afflicted, infuse hope into the oppressed, alarm the oppressor, and make ill-directed Power and Might tremble on their lofty thrones.

Ireland has been particularly profuse in her contribution of eminent orators. Burke, Canning, Plunket, Grattan, Sheil, Wellesley and Curran, stand pre-eminent on the roll; but I doubt whether O'Connell, when the length of his reign is considered, as well as the great extent of his influence, derived chiefly from his power as a speaker, was not greater than any of these great orators. He had less wit than Canning--less imagination than Curran--less philosophy than Burke--less rhetoric than Sheil--less pure eloquence than Plunket--less classical expression than Wellesley--less pathos than Grattan; but he had more power than any of them. There was wonderful force in his language. And when addressing an Irish audience, there was such an alternation of style--now rising to the loftiest, and now subsiding to the most familiar--that he carried all hearts with him, and those who listened seemed as if under the spell of an enchanter, so completely did he move them as he pleased. Judging by their _effect_, O'Connell's speeches must be considered as among the best, if not the very best, of the time and country.

O'Connell's versatility as a speaker was wonderful. He was "all things to all men." In a Court of Law he would often joke a jury into his view of the case, and when this did not succeed, would convince them by subtle argument, bold declamation, and a natural eloquence. At a political meeting, where he had to address a multitude, they would alternately smile or get enraged, as he jested with or excited their feelings. In Parliament, which he did not enter until he was fifty-four years old, he generally was more calm, more careful, more sudued, more solicitous in his choice of words, and more vigilant in restraining the manner of delivering them.

The great secret of his power, as a speaker, was his earnestness. He ever had a great object in view, and he always applied himself, with a strong and earnest mind, to achieve that object. Whenever he pleased, he could rise to the greatest height of eloquence; but he preferred, when speaking to the people, to use language which each of them could understand. He varied his speeches, too, with badinage and jokes, which, though merely humourous, made his audience smile, and keep them in good temper with each other, with themselves, and with him. The Irish, who thronged to listen to him, went to be amused as well as to be harangued. Nor did he disappoint them. I may illustrate what I mean by giving an example of one of his familiar illustrations.

In 1827, during the time of what was called "The New Reformation," in Ireland, O'Connell made a speech at the South Chapel, in Cork. It contained the following passage, after a very elaborate denial of the assumed conversions which the "New Reformation" gentry had boasted of:--"They remind me, gentlemen, of a Frenchman who waited on Lord Kenmare, and offered to drain the lakes of Killarney, which would restore a great quantity of arable land. Lord Kenmare happened to think that he had land enough, and civilly declined having his property deprived of the beautiful lakes, its proudest ornament. The Frenchman, however, being one of those who

'Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame,'

persisted in his fancy, and accordingly rose at break of day to drain the lake. And, boys, how do you think he was doing it? Why, he was baling it out with his hat! (Great laughter.) Now, there are seven millions of Catholics in Ireland--the New Reformation folk do not boast of more than six or seven conversions, or perversions, in the week--so that, allowing (which is impossible, where there are bright eyes and warm hearts such as flash and throb around me, in this large assembly) that the Catholics of Ireland will not increase in the meantime, there must, at this rate, be a million of weeks elapse before all of them are drained out by conversion. (Cheers.) Boys, these Reformation gentry remind me mightily of the Frenchman baling out the Lake of Killarney with his hat!"

It was with pleasant, homely jokes like this--yet each having a tendency to work out the argument--that O'Connell was wont to amuse the Irish. In point of wit, I doubt whether O'Connell's little Frenchman be not as original a character as Sydney Smith's far-famed Mrs. Partington.

O'Connell's friends lamented, and with ample cause, at his aptness to abuse the license of public speech. He was very fond of bestowing nicknames on his opponents, and of applying offensive epithets to them.[20] As early as July, 1808, at a meeting of the famous Catholic Board, he had commenced that sort of speaking--which lowers him who adopts it rather than those against whom it is levelled. He then said "the present administration are the personal enemies of the Catholic cause; yet if the Catholics continue loyal, firm, and undivided, they have little to fear from the barren petulence of the ex-advocate, Percival, or the frothy declamations of the poetaster, Canning--they might with equal contempt despise the upstart pride of the Jenkinsons, and with more than contempt the pompous inanity of that Lord Castlereagh, who might well be permitted to hate the country that gave him birth, to her own annihilation." In the same vulgar spirit he spoke of Cobbett as "a comical miscreant," and declared that the Duke of Wellington was "a stunted corporal," and maintained that Disraeli, whose Jewish descent is well known, must be a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief who was crucified, when the great sacrifice of Salvation was consummated at Calvary.

[20] O'Connell had high judicial authority for the use of bad language. Sir Archibald Macdonald (who was Chief Baron of the English Court of Exchequer, from 1793 to 1813) once told Mr. Fletcher Norton, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, that he was a "lazy, indolent, evasive, shuffling, plausible, artful, mean, confident, cowardly, poor, pitiful, sneaking, and abject creature."

Once only, as far as my memory serves, O'Connell gave a nickname, with point and wit in the application. He was denouncing the present Earl of Derby, who was then a member of the House of Commons, and filled the office of Chief Secretary of Ireland. In some way Stanley had taken official notice of the "sayings and doings" of O'Connell, whereupon the Agitator declared that, from that time, he must be called "Shave-beggar Stanley." Amid roars of laughter (for this was at a public meeting in Dublin), O'Connell proceeded to justify the _nom de guerre_. It was the custom, he said, that barbers' apprentices should learn their business by shaving beggars, who, as the job was done for nothing, could scarcely complain if a blunt razor gave them pain, or an unskilful hand cut the skin, as well as the beard. So, he added, with British statesmen. They were first sent over to Ireland, to get their hand in, and when that was accomplished they were considered to have sufficient dexterity to be placed in office in England. He argued, by analogy, that the political, like the actual "shave-beggar," gave a good deal of pain, and inflicted many cuts, which the Irish, like the pauper shavelings, were compelled to submit to, without complaint. From that day until the day he left Ireland, Lord Stanley was always spoken of, by the Irish Liberals, with the prefix of "shave-beggar" to his surname!

Two things, through life, O'Connell strenuously affirmed and inculcated. First, that the man who committed outrage supplied the enemy with a weapon to be used against the country. Second, that Ireland would never be prosperous until the Union was repealed.

He did not join the United Irishmen in 1798,--not because he, like them, had not an aspiration for the political independence of his country, but because he disapproved of _their_ mode of striving for it, by force. From first to last he was opposed to violence. The "Young Ireland" schism, at Conciliation Hall, which so much annoyed him, during the last eighteen months of his career, was caused by his resistance to the doctrine of "physical force."

As to the Union--it is only just to say, that O'Connell's first public effort was against that measure. His maiden speech, delivered on January 13th, 1800, at a Catholic meeting, in Dublin, unequivocally condemned the Union. The Resolutions adopted by the meeting, drawn up by O'Connell, declared the proposed incorporate Union to be, "in fact, an extinction of the liberty of Ireland, which would be reduced to the abject condition of a province, surrendered to the mercy of the Minister and Legislature of another country, to be bound by their absolute will, and taxed at their pleasure by laws, in the making of which Ireland would have no efficient participation whatever!" During the struggle for Emancipation, as well as from that era until his death, O'Connell always declared that he would not be satisfied with less than "the Repeal." He never cushioned, never concealed that such was his object. I mention this, because it has been said that, "having got Emancipation, he ought not to have gone for Repeal." As a matter of _policy_, perhaps, Ireland would now be better off if the Repeal agitation had not taken place; but it is indisputable that from 1800 to 1846, O'Connell declared that he would not be satisfied with less than "the Repeal."

Here it may be well to notice the _questio vexata_ of the famous "O'Connell Rent." The amount has not been exactly ascertained, but it is believed to have varied from 10,000_l._ to 20,000._l_ a year. It commenced after Emancipation was granted, and was continued until 1846, when, from the pressing wants of the Irish, it was announced that Mr. O'Connell wished it to be discontinued until they could better afford to pay it. Here it may be best to give Mr. O'Connell's own apology, in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury, in 1842. He said, "I will not consent that my claim to 'the Rent' should be misunderstood. That claim may be rejected, but it is understood in Ireland. My claim is this:--For more than twenty years before Emancipation, the burthen of the cause was thrown upon me. I had to arrange the meetings--to prepare the resolutions--to furnish replies to the correspondence--to examine the case of each person complaining of practical grievances--to rouse the torpid--to animate the lukewarm--to control the violent and inflammatory--to avoid the shoals and breakers of the law--to guard against multiplied treachery--and at all times to oppose, at every peril, the powerful and multitudinous enemies of the cause. To descend to particulars: At a period when my minutes counted by the guinea--when my emoluments were limited only by the extent of my physical and waking powers--when my meals were shortened to the narrowest space, and my sleep restricted to the earliest hours before dawn; at that period, and for more than twenty years, there was no day that I did not devote from one to two hours (often more) to the working out of the Catholic cause; and _that_ without receiving, or allowing the offer of any remuneration, even for the personal expenditure incurred in the agitation of the cause itself. For years I bore the entire expenses of a Catholic agitation, without receiving the contributions of others to a greater amount than seventy-four pounds in the whole. Who shall repay me for the years of my buoyant youth and cheerful manhood? Who shall repay me for the lost opportunities of acquiring professional celebrity; or for the wealth which such distinction would ensure?"

There is considerable force in this. But O'Connell's character, out of Ireland, would have stood higher, had he not received "the Rent." It was often alleged, by his adherents, as a set-off, that Grattan had also been remunerated by his countrymen. But the cases were not parallel. In 1782, Grattan, almost single-handed, had achieved the Independence of Ireland, by obtaining the recognition of the principle that "the Crown of England is an Imperial Crown, but that Ireland is a distinct Kingdom, with a Parliament of her own, the sole Legislature thereof." He had accomplished a bloodless Revolution. He had thrown himself into political life, abandoning the profession on which rested nearly his whole worldly dependence. A grant of £100,000 was proposed to him in the Irish Parliament, "to purchase an estate, and build a suitable mansion, as the reward of gratitude by the Irish nation, for his eminent services to his country." It was intended as a mark of national gratitude to a nation's Liberator. So unanimous was the feeling that, on the part of the Viceroy, a member of the Government offered "as part of the intended grant to Mr. Grattan, the Viceregal Palace in the Ph[oe]nix Park [Dublin], to be settled on Mr. Grattan and his heirs for ever, as a suitable residence for so meritorious a person." Grattan's own impulse was to refuse the grant. His services had been rendered without expectation or desire of reward. But his private fortune was so inadequate to his public position that he must retire from politics or become a placeman under the Crown. The grant would give him an independent position. He consented to accept half of the proffered amount (£50,000), and determined under no circumstances to take office. He was, ever after, the retained servant of the nation. Yet, high as he stood, he did not escape contumely. Even Henry Flood, his rival, publicly said, in a Parliamentary controversy, "I am not a mendicant patriot, who was bought by my country for a sum of money, and then sold my country to the Minister for prompt payment."

O'Connell's "Rent" was estimated as yielding from £10,000 to £20,000 a year--thrice the amount, probably, that he could have realized at the bar, had he not devoted his time to politics. It was duly paid for nearly twenty years. Thus O'Connell received, in this annuity from his party, about five times as much as the Irish Parliament had given to Grattan. Besides, since 1825, when Derrynane became his by the death of his uncle, O'Connell's landed property was not less than £4,000 a year. The most potent objection to "the Rent" was that, collected year after year, it rendered its recipient liable to the imputation of keeping up Agitation in order to collect the Rent.

When O'Connell's uncle died, in 1825, at a very advanced age, (he was several years past ninety,) the news reached O'Connell when he was on circuit, at Limerick. He hastened to Kerry, to attend the funeral, and did not again appear in court until the trials were proceeding in Cork. I had taken my seat, as a reporter, on the very day he made his appearance, attired in full mourning. Setting immediately under him, I heard one of the counsel congratulate him on his accession to his uncle's large estate. "I had to wait for it a long time," said O'Connell. "If this had happened twenty years ago, what would I now have been? A hard-living, sporting, country gentleman, content with my lot. As it is, I have had to struggle. I have succeeded; and look how bright are now the prospects of Ireland! I thank God that I had to struggle, since it has placed them as they are now."

To sum up the character of O'Connell's _political_, essentially different from his _forensic_, eloquence, I need not say more than that he put strong words into fitting places. No man had a greater or more felicitous command of language; no man cared less how his words were marshalled. Many of his speeches are models of the truest eloquence, and perhaps he was the first Irishman, of modern days, who made a decided hit in the Commons, as a sound and eloquent speaker, entering that House at the mature age of fifty. Powers such as his commanded attention;--but, in general, he spoke better in Ireland, among his own people, than in England. Yet who can forget his magnificent oration in favour of the Reform Bill? Who can forget the later, and briefer, but not less stirring speech, which he delivered, as a member of the Anti-Corn-law League, on his first visit to London, after the reversal of the Monster-Meetings' sentence of imprisonment.

In sarcasm O'Connell was unequalled. I shall give an instance of quiet sarcasm which I think inimitable. In his domestic relations O'Connell was peculiarly happy. His marriage with his cousin Mary, was one of pure affection on both sides, and their love continued to the last, as warm as it had commenced in their youthful days.[21] John O'Connell, in 1846, writing of his mother, who was not long dead, said, with as much beauty as truth, "We can say no more than that doubting, she confirmed him--desponding, she cheered him on--drooping, she sustained him--her pure spirit may have often trembled, indeed, as she beheld him exposed to a thousand assaults, and affronting a thousand dangers; but she quailed not, she called him not back. She rejoiced not more in his victories over them, than she would have heartily and devotedly shared with and soothed him in the sufferings, in the ruin, that might have come upon him had he failed and been overthrown." On the other hand, the Marquis of Anglesey, in 1831, as Viceroy of Ireland, had O'Connell prosecuted for an imputed breach of the law. The Marquis had seduced the first wife of the late Lord Cowley, and married her after he was divorced from his wife, and Lady Cowley (then Mrs. Henry Wellesley) from her husband. O'Connell, commenting, at a public meeting in Dublin, on Lord Anglesey's conduct to him said, "This prosecution has cost my wife what none of _my_ transactions ever cost her--a tear for me. Does Lord Anglesey know the value of a _virtuous_ woman's tear?"

[21] In 1802, O'Connell married his cousin, the daughter of Dr. O'Connell, of Tralee. By this lady he had four sons and three daughters. Two of the sons are now [1855] in Parliament. Maurice, the eldest, was a barrister, but never distinguished himself either as a lawyer or a politician. Morgan was for some time in the Austrian service, and distinguished himself as a gallant officer. His "affair of honour" with Lord Alvanley showed cool determination and honourable feeling. Mr. John O'Connell, who tried to take his father's place in Conciliation Hall, as Repeal Leader, has displayed little of the talent and tact which distinguished the Liberator. The youngest son, Daniel, is a very commonplace person. It is usually said, that the children of a great man rarely arrive at eminence, and the limited talents of O'Connell's sons keep up the proverb in full force, as far as he and they are concerned:

'Few men achieve the praise of their great sires, But most their sires disgrace.'

O'Connell's attempts at authorship were not very successful. His letters to the "Hereditary bondsmen" were diffuse and declamatory. They were full of repetitions, putting the points of a case in a variety of phases, but they were by no means equal to the force, power, and nervous eloquence of his speeches. He was eminently an extemporaneous speaker, and, like Fox, appeared to more advantage as an orator than a writer. Yet many of his letters contain true eloquence. He hit hard, and could be terse when he pleased. Who can forget the alliterative satire of the three words "base, bloody, and brutal," as applied to the Whigs?

His only substantive and independent work was Vol. I. of "A Memoir on Ireland, Native and Saxon," published early in 1843. This book was dedicated to the Queen, in order, as the Preface stated, "that the Sovereign of these realms should understand the real nature of Irish history; should be aware of how much the Irish have suffered from English misrule; should comprehend the secret springs of Irish discontent; should be acquainted with the eminent virtues which the Irish have exhibited in every phasis of their singular fate; and, above all, should be intimately acquainted with the confiscations, the plunder, the robbery, the domestic treachery, the violation of all public faith, and of the servility of treaties, the ordinary wholesale slaughters, the planned murders, the concerted massacres, which have been inflicted upon the Irish people by the English Government." This one sentence will sufficiently indicate the character of the work. O'Connell further stated, in his preface, that "there cannot happen a more heavy misfortune to Ireland than the prosperity and power of Great Britain." He endeavoured to justify this assertion, by adding that "justice to Ireland" had never been granted except when Great Britain was in difficulties. The work brought the "proofs and illustrations" of British misrule in Ireland down to the Restoration. A second volume was to have carried them down to the present period, but it never was published. Nor has Literature nor History sustained any loss,--unless it was much superior to the first volume. The seven opening chapters, rapidly sketching the history of English dominion in Ireland from 1172 to 1840, are not devoid of a certain degree of eloquence, but is anti-English to a degree. The historical "proofs and illustrations," are simply statements from partisan writers, with connecting comments by O'Connell.

It was as a lawyer that O'Connell achieved his first distinctions. His success at the bar was assurance to his countrymen of his general ability. But, of late years, Mr. O'Connell was so exclusively before the public as a legislator, that he was forgotten as a barrister. Yet, in the opinion of many, (among whom are those who have known him long and well,) it was in the latter character that the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the man was fully developed--that his very rare and peculiar talents were fully displayed.

Many men have obtained eminence at the Irish bar, but it has been for some one peculiar merit. Thus, Harry Deane Grady was remarkable for the knowing manner in which he conducted a cross-examination. By that he alternately wheedled and frightened a witness into admissions which were as opposite to his evidence in chief as light is from darkness. Thus, Chief Justice Bushe, while at the bar, was distinguished for that classic eloquence by which admiring juries were seduced, and admiring judges were delighted. Pity that his elevation to the bench should have extinguished this noble oratory. Thus, Curran was renowned for "that sarcastic levity of tongue" which solicited a contest with those elevated in rank above himself. Thus, Shiel was remarkable for introducing a style of speaking--full of antithetical brilliancies--which reminds us of the flashing speeches of the most distinguished advocates of France. Thus, Serjeant (now Judge) Perrin was almost unrivalled in threading through the intricacies of an excise case. Thus, George Bennett won fame by his clear and plausible method of stating a case. Thus, Devonshire Jackson (now a Judge) was excellent in taking exceptions to the form of an indictment. Thus, the late Recorder Waggett (of Cork) put that seeming of right into a case, by which trusting jurymen are so often deceived. But there was only one man at the Irish bar who, more or less, united the excellencies of all whom I have named. He was as good at cross-examination as Harry Grady--he could rise with the occasion, and be eloquent as Bushe--he could sport the biting sarcasm of Curran--he even ventured on the antitheses of Shiel (though he seldom meddled with such sharp-edged weapons)--he was a match for Perrin in the excise courts--he could state a case plainly and plausibly as Bennett--he was as good a lawyer as Jackson, and could appeal to "the reports" with as much success--and, like Waggett (against whom, in the Munster Courts, he was often pitted), he could show his case to be one of the utmost _seeming_ right, his client, like the late Queen, of virtuous memory, to be clear as "unsunned snow." The man who combined all these apparently dissimilar qualifications--the man whom universal consent named as the best general lawyer in Ireland--the man to whom Orange clients invariably ran with their briefs (a confidence equally honourable to clients and lawyer), was O'Connell.

By far the best account of O'Connell, in his different phases as a lawyer, is that in the "Sketches of the Irish Bar." Its essence is contained in the little sentence--"Every requisite for a barrister of all work is combined in him; some in perfection, all in sufficiency."

An anonymous writer in an English paper has given this reminiscence of O'Connell: "I recollect at the spring assizes of I think it was '27, walking into the county court-house of Limerick. O'Connell was retained in a record then being heard, and with him on the same side was his son Maurice, who was bred to his father's profession, though he has since ceased to follow it. It was a cold day, and both wore huge cloth cloaks: the Agitator's right arm was thrown very affectionately round his son's neck, who, seemingly used to these public exhibitions of paternal fondness, took it very composedly. There was a rough-and-ready looking peasant at the moment under examination: in lieu of the ordinary box used in most English courts, he was seated in a chair in the centre of the table between the fires of the counsel on either side; his shaggy hair and unshorn beard, his shirt collar open, the knees of his small clothes in the same free and easy state, and one stocking fallen so as to leave a portion of his embrowned and hirsute leg bare; he had the chair partially turned round, so as to present a three-quarter front to O'Connell, who was _raking_ him with a cross-examination, which elicited laughter from every person in the court, including the witness himself, who, with his native freedom, impudence, and humour, was almost a match for the Agitator. The Agitator's face was beaming with fun, and he seemed very well disposed to show off, as if conscious that his auditors expected something from him. The country fellow, too, appeared to think there were laurels to be earned in the encounter, for he played away with all his might, and though he failed repeatedly in his attempts to be witty, he was always sure to be impudent. He waxed gradually more familiar, until at length he called the learned counsel nothing but 'Dan;' it was, 'Yes, Dan,' or 'No, Dan,' or 'Arrah, you're not going to come over me so easily, Dan.' Dan, to do him justice, enjoyed the joke, and humoured the witness in such a manner as at length to throw the fellow off his guard, and lead him into a maze of contradictions notwithstanding his shrewdness. O'Connell showed the utmost adroitness, and a thorough knowledge of the Irish peasant character, which is perhaps in no place so well acquired as in a provincial court. I cannot this moment recollect any single repartee which is worth repeating, but it was the manner, the brogue, the laughing eye, the general and humourous tone of the whole examination, and perhaps the very spectacle of O'Connell himself trying legally to entrap and upset the veracity of one of his own "fine peasantry," which gave that peculiar interest and pleasantry to the scene. Nothing could surpass the seeming enjoyment which the country people took in the examination; and as the Agitator would throw off now and again one of his broad flashes of humour in the "keen encounter of their wits," and the witness would fire back some jocular effort at equivocation, you'd hear buzzed around, 'Bravo, Dan,' 'Dan's the boy,' or some such phrase of approbation, which it was out of the question to suppress. Blackburn,[22] then, I think, the Attorney-General, was on the bench, having taken the circuit for some judge who was unwell; and though a dark and stern man, he was compelled to give way to the general fit of pleasantry in which the whole court indulged."

[22] Afterwards Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench, whence, in 1852, he was raised to the Chancellorship of Ireland, which he retained during the nine months of the Derby Administration.

O'Connell's business, on circuit as well as in the Dublin, was very great. On circuit, it was so overpowering that, except on very important cases, he could not read his briefs, when employed to defend prisoners. The attorney for the defence used to condense the leading facts, and set them down on a single sheet of foolscap; and O'Connell would peruse and master this abstract during the speech of the counsel for the prosecution, relying on his own skill in cross-examination of witnesses, and his own power with the jury. Like Belial, he "could make the worse appear the better reason," as many an acquitted culprit had cause to know and thank him for.

Let me close this sketch with a glance of O'Connell, as I have often seen him, in an Irish Court of Law. _There_ he was to be met "in all his glory." As I write, the shadows of long years roll away, and every thing appears as vivid and life-like as it was at that time.

To have seen O'Connell in the Law Courts of Dublin, was to have seen him not exactly as himself. Before the judges, and in the capital of the kingdom, a certain _etiquette_ is preserved, very decorous and proper, no doubt, but very chilling also. It is on circuit that you best can see the Irish bar, as they really are, and it is on circuit, also, that an observer may advantageously study the character of the Irish people. Leave the chilling atmosphere of the Four Courts, give the reins to imagination, and sit, with me, in the Crown Courts of Cork, as I have sat in bygone years. To give something like reality to my sketch, I shall write as if I still were in the year 1827, when O'Connell and the rest whom I have to name were alive and flourishing.

What a difference between this court and that of a circuit court in England! Look around you:--there stands not a single female in the Irish court. To attend there, with the chance of having it ever hinted that delicacy requires their absence, would ill suit the modest precision of the fair dames of Ireland. Nor do I think that the course of justice suffers from the absence of the fair sex. What business have ladies in a court of justice? Do they want information as to the trials?--they can see them reported in "those best possible instructors," the newspapers. Do they want to see the manner in which justice is administered?--if they _will_ be so curious, and if that curiosity must be gratified, let them come once and no more. As it is, the English courts have female stagers, who attend day after day, and listen to arguments which they cannot comprehend. I suspect that their chief design is to show off; they come to see, but they also come "to be seen." The only preventive would be to enforce their attendance; when, if they be true women, the spirit of opposition will make them remain at home!

Whatever be the cause, there is a non-attendance of females at the Irish courts of law. The galleries are filled with rough-coated and rough-faced folks; some, who have not visited the city since the last assizes--some, who have relatives to be tried--some, out on bail, and honourably come to take their own trial--all, even to the mere looker-on, deeply interested in the proceedings; for the Irish, from the highest to the lowest degree, are fond of the _forms_ of justice. Of the _reality_ they have hitherto got but little; but they like to see that little administered with the due formalities of the law.

The judge enters the court, and takes his seat on the bench. You ask, with astonishment, "When will the barristers come?" Why, _there_, do you not see his lordship rise, and make an obeisance to the gentlemen who sit in the box above us? These are the barristers. You may seem as unbelieving as you choose, but such is the case. The fact is, and I should have mentioned it before, when Irish barristers go on the circuit[23] they do not burthen themselves with wigs or gowns--forensic paraphernalia, to which their legal brethren on the English side of the Channel attach such infinite importance, that you might fancy they thought all wit and wisdom[24] to be attached to _them_. You can scarcely imagine a more unformal or unceremonious court than that to which I have introduced you. The attorneys sit round the table, mingled with the "gentlemen of the press," the barristers are in the boxes immediately over the attornies, and the audience sit or stand where and how they can.

[23] I write of 1827. I know not what may be the practice now.

[24] "The wisdom's in the wig."--_Old Song._

There is a pause--for a great murder trial is to come on--O'Connell has just been engaged for the defence--is occupied in the other court, and the judge must wait until he can make his appearance. During this pause you see a familiarity between the bench and the bar which seems strange to your English eyes. Yet, after all, what is it? Will the laws be a whit less honestly administered or advocated because the judge and one of the lawyers (Chief Baron O'Grady and Recorder Waggett) are laughing together? Depend on it, that, if the opportunity comes, the judge will fling out one of his bitter sarcasms against the barrister, and I know little of the barrister if he does not retort--if he can!

A bustle in the court. Does O'Connell come? No; but a message from him, with the intimation that the trial may go on, and he will "drop in" in half an hour. The clerk of the peace reads the indictment--the murderer pleads "Not Guilty," stands in the dock with compressed lips, and bursting veins, and withering frown, and scowling eyes--a fit subject for the savage pencil of Spagnaletto.

While the indictment is reading, a very dandified "middle-aged young gentleman," attired in a blue coat, with enormous brass buttons, a crimson silk neckcloth, and a most glaring pair of buckskins, jumps on the table, makes way across it with a "hop, step and jump," and locates himself in a box directly under the judge. You inquire, who is that neophyte?--the answer is, Carew Standish O'Grady, the registrar[25] of the circuit, barrister-at-law, and nephew to the judge. You turn up your eyes in wonder--the prothonotary of an English court would scarcely sport such a fox-hunter's garb.

[25] It may be noticed that, in New York, the Registrar is called the _Register_--the name of the _book_ being applied to the man who has the _office_ of keeping it.

The trial commences. Serjeant Goold states the case--advantageously for the prisoner, for the learned Serjeant has so defective an utterance that he is scarcely audible even to the reporters below him. But his serjeantcy gives him that precedence at the bar, on account of which the chief conduct of Crown prosecutions devolves to him. Meanwhile the Chief Baron turns to the High Sheriff, and cracks jokes; his hopeful nephew, less ambitious, produces a bag and some salt, and merely--cracks nuts.

The opening is over--the chief witness (probably an approver or King's evidence) is brought on the table--he is sworn, and attempts to baffle justice by kissing his thumb instead of the book. There is a dead silence in the court; for it is felt that the moment is awful with the fate of a fellow-creature.

He has just been successful _for_ an Orangeman _against_ a Catholic; but what does that matter? The people do justice to his merit; so _he_ succeeds, what care they against whom?

Another pause--a buzz in the court--"quite a sensation," as a dandy might exquisitely exclaim--the prisoner's eyes brightens up with the gleam of hope--he sees O'Connell, at last, seated among the barristers. What! is that O'Connell? that stalwart, smiling, honest-looking man? The same. Never did a public man assume less pretension to personal appearance. Yet, if you look closely, you may observe that he does anything but neglect the graces. His clothes are remarkably well made, the tie of his cravat is elaborate, his handsome eye-glass is so disposed that it can be seen as well as used, and his "Brutus" (for 'twould be heinous to utter the word "wig") gives an air of juvenility which his hilarious manners fully confirm.

Until this moment of his entering the court, he knows nothing of the case--he has not yet received a brief. Mr. Daltera (you will remember that the scene is in Cork--the time 1827), the lame attorney, hands him a bulky brief, (which he puts, unread, into the bag,) and an abstract of the case, written on one sheet of paper. His blue eyes calmly glance over this case--he takes in, at that glance, all its bearings, and he quietly listens to the evidence of the accomplice. The cross-examination commences. Every eye is watchful--every ear on the _qui vive_--every man in court stretches forward to see the battle between "the Counsellor" and "the witness." You may see the prisoner with an eager glance of expectation--the witness with an evident sense of the coming crisis. The battle commences with anything but seriousness; O'Connell surprises the witness by his good humour, and instantly sets him at ease. He coaxes out of him a full confession of his own unworthiness,--he tempts him, by a series of facetious questions, into an admission of his "whole course of life,"--in a word, he draws from his lips an autobiography, in which the direst crimes are mingled with an occasional relief of feeling or of fun. The witness seems to exult in the "bad eminence" on which his admissions exalt him. He joins in the laugh at the quaintness of his language,--he scarcely shrinks from the universal shudders at the enormity of his crimes. By degrees he is led to the subject of the evidence he has just given, as an accomplice,--the coil is wound round him imperceptibly; fact after fact is weakened, until, finally, such doubt is thrown upon _all_ that he has said,--from the evident exaggeration of _part_,--that a less ingenious advocate than O'Connell might rescue the prisoner from conviction on _such_ evidence. The main witness having "broken down," (as much from the natural doubt and disgust excited in the minds of an Irish jury, by the circumstance of a _particeps criminis_ being evidence against one who may have been more sinned against than sinning,--who may have been seduced into the paths of error by the very man who now bears testimony against him,) the result of the trial is not very difficult to be foreseen. If there is any doubt, the matter is soon made clear by a few _alibi_ witnesses--practiced rogues with the most innocent aspects, who swear anything or everything to "get a friend out of trouble." The chances are ten to one that O'Connell brings off the prisoner. If he is not acquitted, he may, at least, be only found guilty on the minor plea of "manslaughter."

But the chances are that he will be acquitted, for few juries ever resisted the influence of O'Connell's persuasive eloquence.

Such is the scene exhibited by one glance backward:--such, five-and-twenty years ago, was constantly occurring in the Irish courts of law when O'Connell practiced at the bar.

Even at the risk of being accounted tedious, I cannot conclude this sketch without mentioning another anecdote, which, even better than a lengthened disquisition, may show that I do not overrate the extraordinary ingenuity and quickness for which I give O'Connell such ample credit. One of the most remarkable personages in Cork, for a series of years, was a sharp-witted little fellow named John Boyle,[26] who published a periodical called _The Freeholder_. As Boyle did not see that any peculiar dignity hedged the corrupt Corporation of Cork, his _Freeholder_ was remarkable for severe and satirical remarks upon its members, collectively and personally. Owing to the very great precautions as to the mode of publication, it was next to impossible for the Corporation to proceed against him for libel;--if they could have done so, his punishment was certain, for in those days there were none but "Corporation juries," and the fact that Boyle was hostile to the municipal _clique_, was quite enough for these worthy administrators of justice. It happened, on the occasion of a crowded benefit at the theatre, that Boyle and one of the Sheriffs were coming out of the pit at the same moment. A sudden crush drove the scribe against the Sheriff, and the concussion was so great that the latter had two of his ribs broken. There could be no doubt that the whole was accidental; but it was too lucky not to be taken advantage of. Mr. Boyle was prosecuted for assault. O'Connell was retained for the defence. The trial came on before a Corporation jury. The evidence was extremely slight; but it was an understood thing that on _any_ evidence, or _no_ evidence, the jury would convict Boyle. Mr. O'Connell (who was personally inimical to the Corporation) scarcely cross-examined a witness and called none in defence.

[26] Boyle died at Limerick, in 1833, of cholera.

He proceeded to reply. After some hyperbolical compliments on the "well-known impartiality, independence, and justice of a Cork jury," he proceeded to address them thus:--"I had no notion that the case is what it is; therefore I call no witnesses. As I have received a brief, and its accompaniment--a fee--I must address you. I am not in the vein for making a speech, so, gentlemen, I shall tell you a story. Some years ago I went, specially, to Clonmel assizes, and accidentally witnessed a trial which I never shall forget. A wretched man, a native of the county of Tipperary, was charged with the murder of his neighbour. It seemed that an ancient feud existed between them. They had met at a fair and exchanged blows: again, that evening, they met at a low pot-house, and the bodily interference of friends alone prevented a fight between them. The prisoner was heard to vow vengeance against his rival. The wretched victim left the house, followed soon after by the prisoner, and was found next day on the roadside--murdered, and his face so barbarously beaten in by a stone, that he could only be identified by his dress. The facts were strong against the prisoner--in fact it was the strongest case of circumstantial evidence I ever met with. As a matter of form--for of his guilt there could be no doubt--the prisoner was called on for his defence. He called, to the surprise of every one,--_the murdered man_. And the murdered man came forward. It seemed that another man had been murdered,--that the identification by dress was vague, for all the peasantry of Tipperary wear the same description of clothes,--that the presumed victim had got a hint that he would be arrested under the Whiteboy Act,--had fled,--and only returned, with a noble and Irish feeling of justice, when he found that his ancient foe was in jeopardy on his account. The case was clear: the prisoner was innocent. The judge told the jury that it was unnecessary to charge them. But they requested permission to retire. They returned in about two hours, when the foreman, with a long face, handed in the verdict 'Guilty.' Every one was astonished. 'Good God!' said the judge, 'of what is he guilty? Not of murder, surely?'--'No, my lord,' said the foreman; 'but, _if he did not murder that man, sure he stole my gray mare three years ago_!'"[27]

[27] Mr. Love has "conveyed" this incident into his romance of "Rory O'More."

The Cork jurors laughed heartily at this anecdote, but, ere their mirth had time to cool, O'Connell continued, with marked emphasis, "So, gentlemen of the jury, _though Mr. Boyle did not wilfully assault the Sheriff, he has libelled the Corporation,--find him guilty, by all means_!" The application was so severe, that the jury, shamed into justice, instantly acquitted Mr. Boyle.

It is time to hurry this sketch to a conclusion.

Some words about the man. In person, Mr. O'Connell was well made, muscular, and tall. He looked the man to be the leader of a people. He was fond of field sports, and while at Derrynane Abbey, for four months in the year, lived like a country gentleman, surrounded by his numerous relatives, and exercising the wonted hospitality of Ireland. His features were strongly marked--the mouth being much more expressive than the eyes. His voice was deep, sonorous, and somewhat touched with the true Kerry _patois_.

He was seen to much advantage in the bosom of his family, to whom he was greatly attached, a feeling which was reciprocated with veneration as well as love. His conversation was delightful, embracing a vast range of subjects. He was a great reader--and, even in the most busy and exciting periods of his political life, found (or made) time to peruse the periodicals and novels of the day.

He was well acquainted with modern poetry, and was fond of repeating long passages from Byron, Moore, Scott, Crabbe, Tennyson, and others. He was a good classical scholar, though I have heard him say that he doubted whether, after the age of twenty-one, he had ever opened a Latin or Greek book from choice. French he spoke and wrote extremely well. Many of his classical hits, in Court, were good--but few are remembered. I shall give one as a sample. In a political trial he charged Saurin, the Attorney-General, with some official unfairness, and Burke, his colleague, chivalrously assumed the responsibility. "If there is blame in it," said Burke, "I alone must bear it.

'Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum.'"

"Finish the sentence, Mr. Solicitor," said O'Connell; "add

'Mea _fraus_ omnis.'"

When at home, he lived in the good old Irish style. He kept a well-spread table, and was idolized by the peasantry. His residence, Derrynane Abbey, is built on a bold situation, next the Atlantic, and commands a view of the Skelligs. The "Abbey," as it is called, is a comparatively modern edifice, which has received various additions from successive residents. It is irregularly built; so much so, indeed, as to be any thing but a model of architecture. It is convenient, and, in the wilds of Kerry, that should suffice; for who expects a Grecian dome in such a place? The real Derrynane Abbey (or rather its ruins) stands on a little island in the Atlantic.

There is little statute-law about Derrynane, and nearly all the disputes in the neighbourhood were allowed to rest until O'Connell could decide on them. He used to sit, like a patriarch, upon a huge rock, in view and hearing of the tumultuous throbbing of the Atlantic, and there give judgment, against which no one presumed to appeal. Already that rugged seat is called "O'Connell's Chair."

On the 15th day of May, 1847, having nearly completed his seventy-second year, Daniel O'Connell departed this life. He had quitted the land of his birth to seek for renewal of health beneath more clement skies,--so, before him, had Sir Walter Scott. But the great novelist was happier than the illustrious orator; and died, at least, in his own country, and in his own house. From the first, it seems that O'Connell entertained no hope of completing his pilgrimage. He feared, and I think he felt, that he was not destined to reach Rome, the Eternal City.

The account of his last days, as given, at the time, by _Galignani's Messenger_ (the English journal published in Paris), is full of deep interest. It is from the pen of Dr. Duff, the English physician who attended him at Genoa. This gentleman first saw him on the 10th May--just five days before he died. On the first visit, he found that the patient had chronic bronchitis, of some years' standing. The next day it was found that congestion of the brain had commenced. On the 12th, the illness increased; for the patient, like Byron, had almost an insuperable objection to take medicine. Then, for the first time, the mind began to waver. On the 13th he became worse, slept heavily during the night, breathed with difficulty, fancied himself among his friends in London, and spoke as if among them. On the 14th the words fell, half-formed, from his lips. Thus he lingered until the next night, unable to move or speak, but conscious of the presence of those around him. At half-past nine on that night he died. Had he taken nourishment and medicine, he might have lived a few days longer. But not all of him is dead--his memory remains, and will long be kept green in the hearts of his countrymen.

Had O'Connell lived until the 6th of August, he would have completed his seventy-second year. He enjoyed excellent health through the greater part of his life, and had every chance of living to extended old age. His family are proverbially long-lived; his uncle Maurice, from whom he inherited Derrynane Abbey, was 97 when he died; and O'Connell repeatedly said that he intended to live quite as long, _if he could_, nor was it unlikely that he also might approach the patriarchal age of one hundred years.

His last words to his physician conveyed a request that, as he was sure he would present the appearance of death before he actually breathed his last, they would not suffer the grave to be closed too promptly over his remains. His strong hope was to die in Rome, his last moments soothed and sanctified by the blessing of Pope Pius IX. He repeatedly expressed a desire that his heart should rest (as it does) in one of the Churches of the Eternal City. This wish was suggested, it has been said, by the recollection that Robert Bruce had desired his heart to be conveyed to the Holy Land and deposited in the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. He died without pain, gently as an infant sinks into repose, calmed by the consolations of religion; and, it seemed to his attendants, not only content to quit mortality, but even anxious to be released. His body was embalmed, and is deposited in the Cemetery of Glasnevin near Dublin.

As to the ability, the mental resources, the vast power of O'Connell, there can be no dispute. Unquestionably he was the greatest Irishman of his time. In estimating the conduct and character of public men, two things, it appears to me, should be considered: the value of their labours and their motive. O'Connell, on starting into life, found that his religion debarred him from many privileges and advantages enjoyed by persons of another creed, and he applied himself, earnestly, to remove these disabilities. He succeeded, and in the long and persevering struggle which he headed, acquired vast influence, and a popularity which helped, with the aid of his own legal knowledge and skill, to place him in the foremost rank of his profession. At the age of fifty-four--in spite of the saying that an oak of the forest rarely bears transplanting--he entered the British Parliament, where he soon took a prominent position. Thenceforth his constant aim was to coax or frighten the Government into the concessions which were included in the demand for "Justice for Ireland." The threat of Repeal was used for this purpose.

The question whether he really desired to carry Repeal is difficult to be answered. That Ireland should have laws made for herself, by her own legislature, may or may not have been a desire with O'Connell. But that, when agitating for the Repeal of the parchment union between Ireland and Great Britain, he had the remotest intention or wish to effect the _separation_ of the two countries, no thoughtful observer can imagine. Separation, in O'Connell's eyes, meant a Republic, and O'Connell was essentially a Monarchist. He had an antipathy, also, to the exercise of physical force to procure the restitution of a people's rights. In all probability, had he lived during the struggle of the American colonies, O'Connell would have sided with those who condemned the Americans as "rebels to their King." Truth to say, he was rather an ultra-loyalist. This appeared, in 1821, when, kneeling on the shore, at Dunleary, he presented a crown of laurel to George IV.,--in 1832, when he glorified William IV. as the "patriot King"--in 1837, when he appealed (at the elections) in favor of Victoria as "a Virgin-Queen," forgetful that this distinctive epithet, belonging to all unmarried girls of eighteen, would be forfeited, of course, _when she became a wife_!

It may be conceded, however, that though O'Connell would have shrunk from seeing Ireland actually separated from England, he was sincere in his exertions to obtain Emancipation, and, subsequently, to wrest other rights and privileges from successive administrations. "Ireland for the Irish" was his favourite cry; but it meant little when uttered by a man who feverishly feared all _real_ agitation, tending to assert and secure the actual independence of the country. With him, "Repeal," if it meant anything, meant continuance under the rule of the British Sovereign. "Repeal" was a capital party cry, but he dreaded it when it was taken up by men not less patriotic, though a little less "loyal" than himself, who thought that boldness, courage, union, and talent could raise Ireland from a provincial obscurity into a national independence.

Great good was undoubtedly performed by O'Connell. His course was often eccentric, capricious, inexplicable. His abilities were great. He made much of opportunities. He wielded all but sovereign power over his countrymen for years. He naturally became impatient of contradiction, and very impracticable. But, with all his faults, O'Connell was essentially a great man.

THE END.

NEW, POPULAR, AND STANDARD WORKS,

PUBLISHED BY

J. S. REDFIELD,

110 AND 112 NASSAU STREET, NEW-YORK.

POETRY.

THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE--reprinted from the newly-discovered copy of the folio of 1632, in the possession of J. Payne Collier, 1 vol. imperial 8vo, cloth, $4 00

THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. Same as the above, 8 vols. 16mo, cloth, 6 00

NOTES AND EMENDATIONS to the text of Shakespeare's Plays, from the Early Manuscript Corrections in a copy of the Folio of 1632, in the possession of John Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. 1 vol. 12mo, new edition, 1 50

THE POETICAL WORKS OF FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. Only complete edition, 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

SIMMS' POEMS. Poems--Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary, and Contemplative. By William Gilmore Simms. With a Portrait on steel. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, 2 50

THE POETICAL WORKS OF W. H. C. HOSMER. Now first collected. With a Portrait on steel. 2 vols. 12mo, 2 00

POETICAL WORKS OF WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, second edition, enlarged, 1 00

THE LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS. By William E. Aytoun, Editor of Blackwood's Magazine, etc., 1 vol. 12mo, 1 00

FIRMILIAN, THE STUDENT OF BADAJOZ; A "Spasmodic" Tragedy. By T. Percy Jones, (Professor Aytoun.) 12mo, cloth, 0 50

THE BOOK OF BALLADS. Edited by Bon Gaultier. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 0 75

LYRA, AND OTHER POEMS. By Alice Carey. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 0 75

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &c.

ANCIENT EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS. By John Kenrick, M.A. 2 vols. 12mo, plates, second edition, 2 50

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. By Joseph François Michaud. Translated by W. Robson. 3 vols. 12mo, maps, 3 75

THE HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE PENINSULA. By W. F. P. Napier. 8vo, cloth, eighth edition, 2 50

HISTORY OF LOUISIANA. FRENCH DOMINATION. By Charles Gayarré, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth, 3 50

HISTORY OF LOUISIANA. SPANISH DOMINATION. By Charles Gayarré, Esq. 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, 2 50

LAS CASAS' NAPOLEON. Memoirs of the Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon. By the Count Las Casas. With Portraits on steel, woodcuts, etc. 4 vols. 12mo, cloth, 5 00

NAPOLEON IN EXILE; or, A VOICE FROM ST. HELENA. By Barry E. O'Meara, his late Surgeon. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 2 00

JOMINI'S WATERLOO. The Political and Military History of the Campaign of Waterloo. From the French of General Baron Jomini. By Lieut. Benet, U.S.A Map. 12mo, cloth, 0 75

THE RUSSO-TURKISH CAMPAIGNS OF 1828 AND 1829: with a View of the present State of Affairs in the East. By Col. Chesney, R.A., D.C.L. 12mo, cloth, maps, 1 00

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. By John Gilmary Shea. With a fac-simile of the newly-discovered Map of Marquette. 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, antique second edition, 2 00

REGAL ROME; an Introduction to Roman History. By Francis W. Newman. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, $0 68

MEN OF THE TIME: or, Sketches of Living Notables. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 50

YOU HAVE HEARD OF THEM; being Sketches of Distinguished Artists, Composers, Actors, Singers, &c. By Q. With Portraits on steel of Horace Vernet and Julia Grisi. 12mo, cloth, 1 08

LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Memoirs of distinguished Scottish Females, embracing the period of the Covenant and Persecution. By Rev. James Anderson. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 1 25

MEMOIRS OF A DISTINGUISHED FINANCIER.--VINCENT NOLTE'S FIFTY YEARS IN BOTH HEMISPHERES; or, Reminiscences of a Merchant's Life. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

MEN AND WOMEN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By Arsène Houssaye. 2 vols. 12mo, on extra superfine paper, 450 pages each, cloth, second edition, 2 50

PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES. By Arsène Houssaye, author of "Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century." 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 2 50

SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR. By the Right Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil, M.P. With a Memoir and Notes by Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, portrait and autograph letter, 2 00

BARRINGTON'S SKETCHES. Personal Sketches and Memoirs of his own Time. By Sir Jonah Barrington. With Illustrations by Darley, 1 25

MOORE'S LIFE OF SHERIDAN. Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. By Thomas Moore. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, 2 00

LORENZO BENONI; or, Passages in the Life of an Italian. Edited by a Friend. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

THE WORKING-MAN'S WAY IN THE WORLD; being the Autobiography of a Journeyman Printer, 12mo, cloth, 1 00

CLASSIC AND HISTORIC PORTRAITS. By James Bruce. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

NARRATIVES OF SORCERY AND MAGIC. From the most authentic sources. By Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., &c. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

ART AND INDUSTRY, as represented in the Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, New-York, 1853-54. Revised and edited by Horace Greeley. 12mo, paper covers, 50 cents; cloth, fine paper, 1 00

MINNESOTA AND ITS RESOURCES. By J. Wesley Bond. With a new Map of the Territory, a View of St. Paul's, and one of the Falls of St. Anthony. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

THE GRAFTED BUD; a Memoir of Angelica Irene Hawes. By Mrs. A. H. Hawes. 1 vol. 16mo, cloth, portrait, 0 38

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

A TENNESSEAN ABROAD; or, Letters from Europe, Africa, and Asia. By Randal W. MacGavock. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

THE RUSSIAN SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA. By Laurence Oliphant. Fourth edition, 12mo, cloth, 0 75

A YEAR WITH THE TURKS; or, Sketches of Travel in the European and Asiatic Dominions of the Sultan. By Warington W. Smyth. With a colored Ethnological Map of the Turkish Empire. Third edition, 12mo, cloth, 0 75

NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO THE NORTH-WEST COAST OF AMERICA, in the years 1811, '12, '13 and '14; or the First Settlement on the Pacific. By Gabriel Franchère. Translated and edited by J. V. Huntington. 12mo, cloth, plates, 1 00

A MONTH IN ENGLAND. By Henry T. Tuckerman. Second edition, 12mo, cloth, 0 75

LIFE IN THE MISSION, THE CAMP, AND THE ZENANA; or, Six Years in India. By Mrs. Colin Mackenzie. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, 2 00

WHITE, RED AND BLACK; Sketches of American Society during the Visit of their Guests. By Francis and Theresa Pulszky. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, 2 00

THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE; a Narrative of an Expedition into the Land of Canaan, in Randolph County, Virginia. By "The Clerke of Oxenforde." With numerous Illustrations by Strother. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

=BELLES-LETTRES.=

CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S GREAT WORK. THE NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ. By Professor Wilson, J. G. Lockhart, James Hogg, and Dr. Maginn. Edited, with Memoirs and Notes, by Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie. In 5 vols. $5 00

THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. 3 vols. 12mo, cloth, portrait on steel, 3 50

=Simms' Revolutionary Tales.= _Uniform Series, with Illustrations by Darley._

THE PARTISAN; a Romance of the Revolution. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

MELLICHAMPE; a Legend of the Santee. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

KATHARINE WALTON or, The Rebel of Dorchester. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

THE SCOUT; or, The Black Riders of the Congaree. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

WOODCRAFT; or, the Hawks about the Dovecote. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

THE YEMASSEE; a Romance of South Carolina. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

=Simms' New Work.=

SOUTHWARD HO! A Spell of Sunshine. By William Gilmore Simms. 1 vol. 12mo, 1 25

(=Dr. R. Montgomery Bird.=)

CALAVAR; the Knight of the Conquest. By the late Robert Montgomery Bird. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

NICK OF THE WOODS; or, The Jibbenainosay: a Tale of Kentucky. By Robert M. Bird, M.D. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

(=William Henry Herbert.=)

THE CAVALIERS OF ENGLAND; or, The Times of the Revolutions of 1642 and 1688. By Henry W. Herbert. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 1 25

THE KNIGHTS OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND FRANCE. By Henry W. Herbert. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

THE CHEVALIERS OF FRANCE; from the Crusaders to the Mareschals of Louis XIV. By H. W. Herbert, author of the "Cavaliers of England," &c., &c. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

MARMADUKE WYVIL; an Historical Romance of 1651. By H. W. Herbert. New and Revised Edition. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

(=J. V. Huntington.=)

THE FOREST. By J. V. Huntington, author of "Lady Alice," "Alban," &c. 1 vol. 12mo, second edition, 1 25

ALBAN. By J. V. Huntington, author of "Lady Alice," "The Forest," &c. A new and completely altered edition. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, 2 00

=Lee's Tales of Labor.=

THE MASTER BUILDER; or, Life at a Trade. By Day Kellogg Lee, author of "Summerfield; or, Life on a Farm." 12mo, cloth, second edition, 1 00

MERRIMACK; or, Life at the Loom. By Day Kellogg Lee, author of "The Master Builder; or, Life at a Trade," &c. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

SUMMERFIELD; or, Life on a Farm. By Day Kellogg Lee. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

(=Alice Carey.=)

CLOVERNOOK; or, Recollections of our Home in the West. By Alice Carey. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, seventh edition, 1 00

CLOVERNOOK, SECOND SERIES; or, Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West. By Alice Carey, author of "Hagar," &c., &c. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

HAGAR; a Story of To-day. By Alice Carey, author of "Clovernook," "Lyra," &c. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 1 00

(=Caroline Chesebro'.=)

DREAM-LAND BY DAYLIGHT; a Panorama of Romance. By Caroline Chesebro'. 12mo, second edition, 1 25

ISA; a Pilgrimage. By Caroline Chesebro', author of "Dream-Land by Daylight," &c., &c. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 1 00

THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT; a Theme for the Time. By Caroline Chesebro'. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 1 00

THE YOUTH OF JEFFERSON; a Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, Virginia, A.D. 1764. 12mo, cloth, second edition, $0 75

WESTERN CHARACTERS; being Types of Border Life in the Western States. By J. L. McConnell. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

BASY WARREN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. Sketches for Home Circles. By William T. Coggeshall. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

A STRAY YANKEE IN TEXAS. By Philip Paxton. With Illustrations by Darley. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

VASCONSELOS; a Romance of the New World. By Frank Cooper. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

TALES AND TRADITIONS OF HUNGARY. By Theresa Pulszky. With a portrait of the Author. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 25

CAP-SHEAF; a Fresh Bundle. By Louis Myrtle. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

THE LION'S SKIN AND LOVER HUNT. By Charles de Bernard. 1 vol. 12mo, 1 00

CHANTICLEER; a Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family. By Cornelius Mathews 0 75

THE PRETTY PLATE; a Christmas Juvenile. By John Vincent, Esq. With Illustrations by Darley. 1 vol. 18mo, cloth gilt, 0 50

=MISCELLANEOUS.=

THE WORKS OF THE HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, with a Memoir, Portrait, and other engravings on steel.

3 vols. 8 vo, cloth, per volume, 2 50 Do. do. do. half calf, 3 75 Do. do. do. full calf, extra, 4 50

MACAULAY'S SPEECHES. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, second edition, 2 00

MEAGHER'S speeches. Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland, with Introductory Notes. By Thomas Francis Meagher. 12mo, portrait, 1 00

THE SUPPRESSED LETTERS OF THOMAS MOORE. Edited, with an Introductory Letter, by T. Crofton Croker, F.S.A.; four engravings on steel. 12mo, cloth, 1 50

EPISODES OF INSECT LIFE. By Acheta Domestica. Three series: Insects of Spring, Summer, and Autumn. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth gilt, beautifully illustrated. Each, 2 00

The same Work, in sets of Three Volumes, _exquisitely colored after Nature_. Extra gilt, gilt edges, 12 00

OUTLINES OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOGNOMY; or, Resemblances between Men and Animals. By J. W. Redfield, M.D. With 330 Illustrations. 8vo, 2 00

(=R. C. Trench, B. D.=)

SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Richard Chenevix Trench, B.D. 12mo, cloth, 0 75

ON THE STUDY OF WORDS. By Richard Chenevix Trench, B.D. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, fifth edition. From the second London edition, 0 75

ON THE LESSONS IN PROVERBS. By Richard Chenevix Trench, B.D., author of "The Study of Words." 12mo, cloth, 0 50

CHARACTERS IN THE GOSPELS; illustrating Phases of Character at the Present Day. By Rev. E. H. Chapin. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 0 50

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME, as Illustrating the Church of the First Three Centuries. By the Right Rev. William Ingraham Kip, D.D., Missionary Bishop of California. With over 100 Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, 0 75

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. By Frederick Denison Maurice. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

THE DIVINE CHARACTER VINDICATED; being a Review of Dr. Beecher's "Conflict of Ages." By Rev. Moses Ballou. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE; or, Ghosts and Ghost Seers. By Catharine Crowe. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

BRONCHITIS AND KINDRED DISEASES, in language adapted to the common reader. By W. W. Hall, M.D. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth, 1 00

GRISCOM ON VENTILATION. The Uses and Abuses of Air. 12mo, cloth, third edition, 0 75

CHAPMAN'S AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK. Three Parts published. Each 0 50

CHAPMAN'S DRAWING COPY-BOOKS. Per dozen 1 50

=THE NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ;=

WITH PORTRAITS OF WILSON, LOCKHART, MAGINN, HOGG, AND FAC-SIMILES.

EDITED, WITH MEMOIRS, NOTES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS, BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, EDITOR OF SHEIL'S "SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR."

5 _Vols._, 12_mo._, _cloth_. _Price_ $5.00.

The Noctes were commenced in 1822, and closed in 1835. Even in England, the lapse of years has obscured many circumstances which were well known thirty years ago.

DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, already favorably known as editor of Sheil's "Sketches of the Irish Bar," has undertaken the editorship of THE NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ, for which a familiar acquaintance, during the last twenty-five years, with the persons, events, and places therein noticed may be assumed to qualify him. He has been on terms of intimacy with most of the eminent political and literary characters treated of in the "NOCTES," and his annotation of the text will include personal recollections of them.

Besides this, Dr. Mackenzie has written for this edition a "History of the Rise and Progress of Blackwood's Magazine," with original memoirs of the principal accredited authors of the "NOCTES," viz:--Professor Wilson, The Ettrick Shepherd, J. G. Lockhart, and Dr. Maginn.

He will also give the celebrated "Chaldee Manuscript," published in 1817, instantly suppressed, and so scarce that the only copy which the editor has ever seen is that from which he makes the present reprint. There will also be given the three articles, entitled "CHRISTOPHER IN THE TENT," (in August and September, 1819), never before printed, in any shape, in this country. The interlocutors in "THE TENT," include the greater number of those afterwards introduced in the "NOCTES."

The "Metricum Symphosium Ambrosianum,"--an addendum to No. III. of "THE NOCTES," (and which notices every living author of note, in the year 1822), will be incorporated in this edition. This has never before been reprinted here.

* * * * *

_Nearly Ready, in Two Volumes._

THE ODOHERTY PAPERS, FORMING THE FIRST PORTION OF THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF THE LATE DR. MAGINN. WITH AN ORIGINAL MEMOIR AND COPIOUS NOTES, BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE.

* * * * *

For more than a quarter of a century, the most remarkable magazine writer of his time, was the late William Maginn, LL.D., well-known as the Sir Morgan Odoherty of _Blackwood's Magazine_, and as the principal contributor, for many years, to _Fraser's_ and other periodicals. The combined learning, wit, eloquence, eccentricity, and humor of Maginn, had obtained for him, long before his death, (in 1843), the title of THE MODERN RABELAIS. His magazine articles possess extraordinary merit. He had the art of putting a vast quantity of animal spirits upon paper, but his graver articles--which contain sound and serious principles of criticism--are earnest and well-reasoned.

The collection now in hand will contain his Facetiæ (in a variety of languages), Translations, Travesties, and Original Poetry, also his prose Tales, which are eminently beautiful, the best of his critical articles, (including his celebrated Shakspeare Papers), and his Homeric Ballads. The periodicals in which he wrote have been ransacked, from "Blackwood" to "Punch," and the result will be a series of great interest.

DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, who has undertaken the editorship of these writings of his distinguished countryman, will spare neither labor nor attention in the work. The first volume will contain an original Memoir of Dr. Maginn, written by Dr Mackenzie and a characteristic Portrait, with fac-simile.

_Published by_ J. S. REDFIELD,

110 & 112 _Nassau-street, New York_

_PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION._

THE CONCLUDING VOLUMES OF

DR. MAGINN'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS,

CONTAINING

THE SHAKSPERE PAPERS--HOMERIC BALLADS--FRASERIAN PAPERS, ETC.

ANNOTATED BY

DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE

EDITOR OF "SHEIL'S SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR"--"THE NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ," ETC.

* * * * *

_Nearly ready, in Two Volumes_,

THE LIFE

OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN,

MASTER OF THE ROLLS, IRELAND,

BY HIS SON.

Edited, with Notes, Illustrations, &c.

BY SHELTON MACKENZIE, D.C.L.

The Life of Curran is identified with the latest years of Ireland's nationality. He was known, tried, and trusted as a true Patriot. During the Reign of Terror, in 1798, got up by the Government of that day in order to betray the Irish Parliament into a parchment Union with Great Britain--sinking the country from a Kingdom to a Province--Curran manifested an independence and fearlessness, as advocate for the accused, during the State Trials, which endeared him to the people from whose ranks he sprung. To use the words of Thomas Davis (who resembled him in many things) he was "a companion unrivalled in sympathy and wit; an orator, whose thoughts went forth like ministers of nature, with robes of light and swords in their hands; a patriot, who battled best when the flag was trampled down; and a genuine earnest man, breathing of his climate, his country, and his time."

He was the centre of the flashing wits, the renowned orators, the brilliant advocates, and the true patriots of Ireland's last days of independence. The Biography by his Son, rich as it is in personal details, is capable of great improvement by the addition of numerous facts, anecdotes, and traits of character, relating to Curran and his contemporaries, which have transpired since its publication in 1819. Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, who has long been preparing for this task, undertakes to enrich the present edition by collecting and introducing these desirable illustrations. The work, thus completed, will in truth be a record not only of Curran and his eminent associates, but of the stirring and troublous times in which they lived. It will thus combine Biography and History, with Anecdote, unusually copious and "racy of the soil."

Transcriber's Notes:

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error:

"...making a cave look as insignificant as a rabbit-(burrrow -->) burrow."

"...but his feelings might thus be (embod ed -->) embodied in words:"

"...he was so very plausible in (manmer -->) manner,..."

"...when the Bard showed (himslf -->) himself in the north,..."

"...Marquis of (Congynham -->) Conyngham..."

"...more careful, more (sudued -->) subdued..."

Bold printed text has been formatted as =text=.

The oe ligature is represented with [oe] in this text.