Part 2

Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s contest for County Wexford, omitted by all his pseudo-biographers—Duel of Mr. Alcock and Mr. Colclough (candidates), on a question respecting Mr. Sheridan’s poll—Colclough killed—A lamentable incident—Mr. Alcock’s trial—He afterward goes mad and dies—His sister, Miss Alcock, also dies lunatic in consequence—Marquess of Ely tried for an outrage at Wexford, and fined 302

WEDDED LIFE.

Lord Clonmel, chief justice of the Irish Court of King’s Bench—His character—Lady Tyrawly’s false charge against him—Consequent duel between him and Lord Tyrawly—Eclaircissement—Lord Tyrawly and Miss Wewitzer—Lord Clonmel’s hints “How to rule a wife”—Subsequent conversation with his lordship at Sir John Tydd’s 313

DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY.

My first acquaintance with the Duke of Wellington and the late Marquess of Londonderry, at a dinner at my own house—Some memoirs and anecdotes of the former as a public man—My close connexion with government—Lord Clare’s animosity to me suspended—Extraordinary conference between Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Cooke, and me, in August 1798—Singular communication—Offers made to me for succession as solicitor-general—I decline the terms proposed—Lord Castlereagh’s letter to me—Character of Mr. Pelham, now Earl of Chichester 323

LORD NORBURY.

Quarrel between Lord Norbury and the author in the House of Commons—Curran’s bon-mot—Dinner at Lord Redesdale’s, who attempts being agreeable, but is annoyed by Lord Norbury (then Mr. Toler)—Counsellor O’Farrell—Mr. (now Lord) Plunkett and Lord Redesdale—Lord Norbury and young Burke—His lordship presides at Carlow assizes in the character of _Hawthorn_ 337

HENRY GRATTAN.

Mr. Grattan in his sedan-chair—The “point of honour”—Mr. Egan’s gift of second-sight—The guillotine and executioner—Colonel Burr, vice-president of the United States, and Mr. Randolph—Mr. Grattan in masquerade—Death of that illustrious patriot, and strictures on his interment in Westminster Abbey—Letter from the author to his son, Henry Grattan, Esq. 349

HIGH LIFE IN NEWGATE.

Lord Aldborough quizzes the Lord Chancellor—Voted a libeller by the House of Peers—His spirited conduct—Sentenced to imprisonment in Newgate by the Court of King’s Bench—Memoirs of Mr. Knaresborough—His extraordinary trial—Sentenced to death, but transported—Escapes from Botany Bay, returns to England, and is committed to Newgate, where he seduces Lady Aldborough’s attendant—Prizes in the lottery—Miss Barton dies in misery 362

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN.

Sketch of his character—Personal description—Lodgings at Carlow—Mr. Curran and Mr. Godwin—Scenes in the “Cannon” coffee-house—_Liberality_ of mine host—Miss H * * * in heroics—Precipitate retreat—Lord Clancarty—Mr. Curran’s notion of his own prowess—The disqualifications of a wig—Lord and Lady Carleton—Curran in 1812—An attorney turned cobbler—Curran’s audience of the present king of France—Strictures on his biographers 375

THE LAW OF LIBEL.

Observations on the law of libel, particularly in Ireland—“Hoy’s Mercury”—Messrs. Van Trump and Epaphroditus Dodridge—Former leniency regarding cases of libel contrasted with recent severity—Lord Clonmel and the Irish bar—Mr. Magee, of the “Dublin Evening Post”—Festivities on “Fiat Hill”—Theophilus Swift and his two sons—His duel with the Duke of Richmond—The “Monster!”—Swift libels the Fellows of Dublin University—His curious trial—Contrast between the English and Irish bars—Mr. James Fitzgerald—Swift is found guilty, and sentenced to Newgate—Dr. Burrows, one of the Fellows, afterward libels Mr. Swift, and is convicted—Both confined in the same apartment at Newgate 398

PULPIT, BAR, AND PARLIAMENTARY ELOQUENCE.

Biographical and characteristic sketch of Dean Kirwan—His extraordinary eloquence—The peculiar powers of Sheridan, Curran, and Grattan contrasted—Observations on pulpit, bar, and parliamentary oratory 423

QUEEN CAROLINE.

Reception of the late Queen Caroline (then Princess of Wales) at the drawing-room held after the “delicate investigation”—Her depression and subsequent levity—Queen Charlotte and the Princess compared and contrasted—Reflections on the incidents of that day and evening—The Thames on a Vauxhall night 433

LORD YELVERTON AND THE BAR.

Characteristic and personal sketches of three Irish barristers: Mr. William Fletcher (afterward chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas), Mr. James Egan (afterward judge of Dublin county), and Mr. Bartholomew Hoare, king’s counsel—Lord Yelverton’s dinner party—The author’s parody—Mr. Egan right by _mistake_! 440

MR. NORCOT’S ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE.

The hollowness of interested popularity illustrated in the example of Mr. Norcot—The dilemma of a gamester—The last resource—The “faithful” valet—Mr. Norcot turns Mahometan—His equivocal destiny 445

ANECDOTES OF IRISH JUDGES.

Baron Monckton—Judge Boyd—Judge Henn—Legal blunder of a judge, and Curran’s bon-mot thereon—Baron Power—His suicide—Crosby Morgal’s spirit of emulation—Judge William Johnson—Curious anecdote between him and the author—Judge Kelly—His character and bon-mots—Lord Kilwarden—His character—Murder of him and his nephew the Rev. Mr. Wolfe—Mr. Emmet executed—Memoir of that person—Judge Robert Johnson—Arrested in Ireland, and tried in London, for a libel written on Lord Redesdale in Ireland and published by Cobbett—Doubts of the legality of his lordship’s trial—He is found guilty 452

PERSONAL SKETCHES.

MY FAMILY CONNEXIONS.

Family mansion described—Library—Garden—Anecdotes of my family—State of landlord and tenant in 1760—The gout—Ignorance of the peasantry; extraordinary anomaly in the loyalty and disloyalty of the Irish country gentlemen as to James I., Charles I., Charles II., James II., and William—Ancient toasts—My great-grandfather, Colonel John Barrington, hanged on his own gate; but saved by Edward Doran, trooper of King James—Irish customs, anecdotes, &c.

I was born at Knapton, near Abbeyleix, in the Queen’s County,—at that time the seat of my father, but now of Sir George Pigott. I am the third son and fourth child of John Barrington, who had himself neither brother nor sister; and at the period of my birth, my immediate connexions were thus circumstanced.

My family, by ancient patents, by marriages, and by inheritance from their ancestors, possessed very extensive landed estates in Queen’s County, and had almost unlimited influence over its population, returning two members to the Irish Parliament for Ballynakill, counties of Kilkenny and Galway.

Cullenaghmore, the mansion where my ancestors had resided from the reign of James the First, was then occupied by my grandfather, Colonel Jonah Barrington. He had adopted me as soon as I was born, brought me to Cullenaghmore, and with him I resided until his death.

That old mansion (the Great House as it was called) exhibited altogether an uncouth mass, warring with every rule of symmetry in architecture. The original castle had been demolished, and its materials converted to a much worse purpose: the edifice which succeeded it was particularly ungraceful; a Saracen’s head (our crest) in coloured brick-work being its only ornament. Some of the rooms inside were wainscoted with brown oak, others with red deal, and some not at all. The walls of the large hall were decked (as was customary) with fishing-rods, fire-arms, stags’ horns, foxes’ brushes, powder-flasks, shot-pouches, nets, and dog-collars; here and there relieved by the extended skin of a kite or a king-fisher, nailed up in the vanity of their destroyers: that of a monstrous eagle, (which impressed itself indelibly on my mind,) surmounted the chimney-piece, accompanied by a card announcing the name of its assassin—“Alexander Barrington;”—who, not being a _rich_ relation, was subsequently entertained in the Great House two years, as a compliment for his present. A large parlour on each side of the hall, the only embellishments of which were some old portraits, and a multiplicity of hunting, shooting, and racing prints, with red tape nailed round them by way of frames, completed the reception-rooms; and as I was the only child in the house, and a most inquisitive brat, every different print was explained to me.

I remained here till I was near nine years old; I had no play-fellows to take off my attention from whatever I observed or was taught; and so strongly do those early impressions remain engraven on my memory, (naturally most retentive,) that even at this long distance of time I fancy I can see the entire place as it stood then, with its old inhabitants moving before me:—their faces I most clearly recollect.

The library was a gloomy closet, and rather scantily furnished with every thing but dust and cobwebs: there were neither chairs nor tables; but I cannot avoid recollecting many of the principal books, because I read such of them as I could comprehend, or as were amusing; and looked over all the prints in them a hundred times. While trying to copy these prints, they made an indelible impression upon me; and hence I feel confident of the utility of embellishments in any book intended for the instruction of children. I possessed many of the books long after my grandfather’s death, and have some of them still. I had an insatiable passion for general reading from my earliest days, and it has occupied the greater proportion of my later life. Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Fairy Tales, and The History of the Bible, all with numerous plates, were my favourite authors and constant amusement: I believed every word of them except the fairies, and was not entirely sceptical as to those “good people” neither.

I fancy there was then but little variety in the libraries of most country gentlemen; and I mention as a curiosity, the following volumes, several of which, as already stated, I retained many years after my grandfather and grandmother died:—The Journals of the House of Commons; Clarendon’s History; The Spectator and Guardian; Killing no Murder; The Patriot King; Bailey’s Dictionary; some of Swift’s Works; George Falkner’s Newspapers; Quintus Curtius in English; Bishop Burnet; A Treatise on Tar-water, by some other bishop; Robinson Crusoe; Hudibras; History of the Bible, in folio; Nelson’s Fasts and Feasts; Fairy Tales; The History of Peter Wilkins; Glums and Gouries; somebody’s Justice of Peace; and a multiplicity of Farriery, Sporting, and Gardening Books, &c. which I lost piecemeal, when making room for law-books—probably not half so good, but at least much more experimental.

Very few mirrors in those days adorned the houses of the country gentlemen:—a couple or three shaving-glasses for the gentlemen, and a couple of pretty large dressing-glasses, in black frames, for the ladies’ use, composed, I believe, nearly the entire stock of reflectors at my grandfather’s, except tubs of spring water, which answered for the maid-servants.

A very large and productive, but not dressed-up garden, adjoined the house. The white-washed stone images; the broad flights of steps up and down; the terraces, with the round fish-pond,—rivetted my attention, and gave an impressive variety to this garden, which I shall ever remember, as well as many curious incidents which I witnessed therein.

At the Great House, where the Courts Leet and Baron were duly held, all disputes among the tenants were then settled,—quarrels reconciled,—old debts arbitrated: a kind Irish landlord then reigned despotic in the ardent affections of the tenantry, their pride and pleasure being to obey and to support him.

But there existed a happy reciprocity of interests. The landlord of _that_ period protected the tenant by his influence—any wanton injury to a tenant being considered as an insult to the lord; and if the landlord’s sons were grown up, no time was lost by them in demanding satisfaction from any gentleman for maltreating even their father’s blacksmith.

No gentleman of this degree ever distrained a tenant for rent: indeed the parties appeared to be quite united and knit together. The greatest abhorrence, however, prevailed as to tithe proctors, coupled with no great predilection for the clergy who employed them. These certainly were, in principle and practice, the real country tyrants of that day, and first caused the assembling of the White Boys.

I have heard it often said that, at the time I speak of, every estated gentleman in the Queen’s County was _honoured_ by the gout. I have since considered that its extraordinary prevalence was not difficult to be accounted for, by the disproportionate quantity of acid contained in their seductive beverage, called rum-shrub—which was then universally drunk in quantities nearly incredible, generally from supper-time till morning, by all country gentlemen—as they said, to keep _down their claret_.

My grandfather could not refrain, and therefore he suffered well:—he piqued himself on procuring, through the interest of Batty Lodge, (a follower of the family who had married a Dublin grocer’s widow,) the very first importation of oranges and lemons to the Irish capital every season. Horse-loads of these, packed in boxes, were immediately sent to the Great House of Cullenaghmore; and no sooner did they arrive, than the good news of _fresh fruit_ was communicated to the Colonel’s neighbouring friends, accompanied by the usual invitation for a fortnight.

Night after night the revel afforded uninterrupted pleasure to the joyous gentry; the festivity being subsequently renewed at some other mansion, till the gout thought proper to put the whole party _hors de combat_; having the satisfaction of making cripples for a few months such as he did not kill.

Whilst the convivials bellowed with only toe or finger agonies, it was a mere bagatelle; but when _Mr. Gout_ marched up the country, and invaded the head or the stomach, it was then called _no joke_; and Drogheda usquebaugh, the hottest-distilled drinkable liquor ever invented, was applied to for aid, and generally drove the tormentor in a few minutes to his former quarters. It was, indeed, counted a specific; and I allude to it the more particularly, as my poor grandfather was finished by over-doses thereof.

It was his custom to sit under a very large branching bay-tree in his arm-chair, placed in a fine sunny aspect at the entrance of the garden. I particularly remember his cloak, for I kept it twelve years after his death: it was called a _cartouche_ cloak, from a famous French robber who, it was said, invented it for his gang for the purposes of evasion. It was made of very fine broad-cloth; of a bright blue colour on one side, and a bright scarlet on the other: so that on being turned, it might deceive even a vigilant pursuer.

There my grandfather used to sit of a hot sunny day, receive any rents he could collect, and settle any accounts which his indifference on that head permitted him to think of.

At one time he suspected a young rogue of having slipped some money off his table when paying rent; afterward, when the tenants began to count out their money, he threw the focus of his large reading-glass upon their hands:—the smart, without any visible cause, astonished the ignorant creatures!—they shook their hands, and thought it must be the _devil_ who was scorching them. The priest was let into the secret: he seriously told them all it _was_ the devil sure enough, who had mistaken them for the boy that stole the money from the Colonel; but that if he (the priest) was _properly considered_, he would say as many masses as would _bother fifty devils_, were it necessary. The priest got his fee; and another farthing never was taken from my grandfather.

My grandfather was rather a short man, with a large red nose—strong made; and wore an immense white wig, such as the portraits give to Dr. Johnson. He died at eighty-six years of age, of shrub-gout and usquebaugh, beloved and respected. I cried heartily for him; and then became the favourite of my grandmother, the best woman in the world, who went to reside in Dublin, and prepare me for college.

Colonel John Barrington, my great-grandfather, for some time before his death, and after I was born, resided at Ballyroan. My grandfather having married Margaret, the daughter of Sir John Byrne, Bart., had taken the estates and mansion, and given an annuity to my great-grandfather, who died, one hundred and four years old, of a fever, having never shown any of the usual decrepitudes or defects of age: he was the most respectable man by tradition of my family, and for more than seventy years a parliament man.

Sir Daniel Byrne, Bart. my great grandfather, lived at his old castle of Timogrie, almost adjoining my grandfather Barrington: his domains, close to Stradbally, were nearly the most beautiful in the Queen’s County. On his decease, his widow, Lady Dorothea Byrne, an Englishwoman, whose name had been Warren, (I believe a grand-aunt to the late Lady Bulkley,) resided there till her death; having previously seen her son give one of the first and most deeply to be regretted instances of what is called forming _English connexions_. Sir John Byrne, my grand-uncle, having gone to England, married the heiress of the Leycester family:—the very name of Ireland was then odious to the English gentry; and previous terms were made with him, that his children should take the cognomen of Leycester, and drop that of Byrne; that he should quit Ireland, sell all his paternal estates there, and become an _Englishman_. He assented; and the last Lord Shelburne purchased, for less than half their value, all his fine estates, of which the Marquis of Lansdown is now proprietor.

After the father’s death, his son, Sir Peter Leycester, succeeded, and the family of Byrne, descended from a long line of Irish princes and chieftains, condescended to become little amongst the rank of English Commoners; and so ended the connexion between the Byrnes and Barringtons.

My mother was the only daughter of Patrick French, of Peterwell, county Galway, wherein he had large estates: my grandmother (his wife) was one of the last remaining to the first house of the ancient O’Briens. Her brother, my great-uncle, Donatus, also emigrated to England, and died fifteen or sixteen years since, at his mansion, Blatherwick, in Cheshire, in a species of voluntary obscurity, inconsistent with his birth and large fortune. He left great hereditary estates in both countries to the enjoyment of his mistress and natural children, excluding the legitimate branches of his family from all claims upon the manors or demesnes of their ancestors. The law enabled him to do what a due sense of justice and pride would have interdicted.

The anomaly of political principles among the country gentlemen of Ireland at that period was very extraordinary. They professed what they called “_unshaken loyalty_;” and yet they were unqualified partisans of Cromwell and William, two decided usurpers—one of them having dethroned his father-in-law, and the other decapitated his king.

The fifth of November was always celebrated in Dublin for the preservation of James, a Scottish king, (after Queen Elizabeth had cut his mother’s head off) from Guy Fawkes and a barrel of gunpowder in London; then the thirtieth of January was highly approved of by a great number of Irish, as the anniversary of making Charles the First, the son and heir of the said James, shorter by his head. Then the very same Irish celebrated the restoration of Charles the Second, the son of the _shortened_ king, and who was twice as bad as his father; and whilst they rejoiced in putting a crown upon the head of the son of the king who could not keep his own head on, they never failed to drink bumpers to the memory of _Old Noll_, who had cut that king’s head off; and in order to commemorate the whole story, and make their children remember it, they dressed up a fat _calf’s-head_, whole and white, on every anniversary of King Charles’s _throat being cut_, and with a red-smoked ham, which they called “Bradshaw,” placed by the side of it, all parties partook thereof most happily; washing down the emblem and its accompaniment with as much claret as they could hold, in honour of _Noll the regicide_!

Having thus proved their loyalty to James the First, and their attachment to his son’s murderer, and then their loyalty to the eldest of his grandsons, they next proceeded to celebrate the birth-day of William of Orange, a Dutchman, who had kicked their king, (his father-in-law) the second grandson, out of the country, and who in all probability would have given the Irish another _calf’s head_ for their celebration, if the said king, his father-in-law, had not got out of the way with the utmost expedition, and gone to live upon charity in France, the _then_ mortal enemy of the British nation; and as they dressed a calf’s head for the son’s murder, so they dressed _sheeps’ trotters_ every first of July, to commemorate the grandson’s running away at the Boyne Water, in the year 1690.

One part of the Irish people then invented a toast, called, “_The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of William, the Dutchman_;” whilst another raised a counter-toast, called “_The memory of the chesnut horse_,” _that broke the neck of the same King William_.[4] But in my mind, (if I am to judge of past times by the corporation of Dublin) it was only to coin an excuse for getting loyally drunk as often as possible, that they were so enthusiastically fond of _making sentiments_, as they called them.[5]

Footnote 4:

King William’s _neck_ was not broken, only his _collar-bone_; his fall from a chesnut horse, however, hastened his dissolution.

Footnote 5:

Could his majesty, King William, learn in the other world that he has been the cause of more broken heads and drunken men, since his departure, than all his predecessors, he must be the proudest ghost and most conceited skeleton that ever entered the gardens of Elysium.

As to the politics of my family, we had (no doubt) some very substantial reasons for being both Cromwellians and Williamites; the one confirmed our grants, and the other preserved them for us; my family, indeed, had certainly not only those, but other very especial reasons to be pleased with King William; and though he gave them nothing, they kept what they had, which might have been lost but for his usurpation.

During the short reign of James the Second in Ireland, those who were not _for_ him were considered to be _against_ him, and of course were subjected to the severities and confiscations usual in all civil wars. Amongst the rest, my great-grandfather, Colonel John Barrington, being a Protestant, and having no predilection for King James, was ousted from his mansion and estates at Cullenaghmore by one O’Fagan, a Jacobite wig-maker and violent partizan, from Ballynakill. He was, notwithstanding, rather respectfully treated, and was allowed forty pounds a year by his said wig-maker, so long as he behaved himself.

However, he only behaved well for a couple of months; at the end of which time, with a party of his faithful tenants, he surprised the wig-maker, drove him out of possession in his turn, and repossessed himself of his mansion and estates.