LETTER IX
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
I have already given two lessons to my pupil, in an art in which, with all due
deference to the judgment of her quondam tutor, she was never destined to excel.
Not, however, that she is deficient in talent very far from it; but it is too
progressive, too tame a pursuit for the vivacity of her genius. It is not sufficiently
connected with those lively and vehement emotions of the soul she is so calculated to feel
and to awaken. She was created for a musician there she is borne away by the magic of
the art in which she excels, and the natural enthusiasm of her impassioned character: she
can sigh, she can weep, she can smile, over her harp. The sensibility of her soul trembles
in her song, and the expression of her rapt countenance harmonizes with her voice. But
at her drawing-desk, her features lose their animated character the smile of rapture
ceases to play, and the glance of inspiration to beam. And with the transient extinction of
those feelings from which each touching charm is derived, fades that all-pervading
interest, that energy of admiration which she usually excites.
Notwithstanding, however, the pencil is never out of her hand; her harp lies silent,
and her drawing-book is scarcely ever closed. Yet she limits my attendance to the first
hour after breakfast, and then I generally lose sight of her the whole day, until we all
meet en-famille in the evening. Her improvement is rapid her father delighted,
and she quite fascinated by the novelty of her avocation; the priest congratulates me, and
I alone am dissatisfied.
But, from the natural impatience and volatility of her character (both very obvious),
this, thank heaven! will soon be over. Besides, even in the hour of tuition, from which I
promised myself so much, I do not enjoy her society the priest always devotes that time
to reading out to her; and this too at her own request: not that I think her innocent and
unsuspicious nature cherishes the least reserve at her being left tκte-ΰ- tκte with
her less venerable preceptor; but that her ever active mind requires incessant exercise;
and in fact, while I am hanging over her in uncontrouled emotion, she is drawing as if her
livelihood depended on the exertions of her pencil, or commenting on the subject of the
priest's perusal, with as much ease as judgment; while she minds me no more than if I
was a well-organized piece of mechanism, but whose motions her pencil was to be
guided.
What if, with all her mind, all her genius, this creature had no heart! And what were
it to me, though she had?* * * * *
The Prince fancies his domestic government to be purely patriarchal, and that he is at
once the 'Law and the Prophet' to his family; never suspecting that he is all the time
governed by a girl of nineteen, whose soul, notwithstanding the playful softness of her
manner, contains a latent ambition, which sometimes breathing in the grandeur of her
sentiments, and sometimes sparkling in the haughtiness of her eye, seems to say, 'I was
born for empire!'
It is evident that the tone of her mind is naturally stronger than her father's, though to
a common observer, he would appear a man of nervous and masculine
understanding; but the difference between them is this his energies are the energies of
the passions hers of the mind!
Like most other Princes, mine is governed much by favouritism; and
it is evident that I already rank high on the list of partiality.
I perceive, however, that much of her predilection in my favour, arises from the
coincidence of my present curiosity and taste with his favourite pursuits and national
prejudices. Newly awakened (perhaps by mere force of novelty) to a lively interest for
every thing that concerns a country I once thought so little worthy of consideration; in
short, convinced by the analogy of existing habits, with recorded customs, of the truth of
those circumstances so generally ranked in the apocryphal tales of the history of this
vilified country; I have determined to resort to the witness of time, the light of truth, and
the corroboration of living testimony, in the study of a country which I am beginning to
think, would afford to the mind of philosophy a rich subject of analysis, and to the
powers of poetic fancy a splendid series of romantic detail.
'Sir William Temple,' says Dr Johnson, 'complains that Ireland is less known than
any other country, as to its ancient state, because the natives have little leisure, and less
encouragement for inquiry; and that a stranger, not knowing its language, has no
ability.'
This impediment, however, shall not stand in the way of one stranger, who is
willing to offer up his national prejudices at the Altar of Truth, and expiate the crime of
an unfounded but habitual antipathy, by an impartial examination, and an unbiased
inquiry. In short, I have actually began to study the Irish language; and though I recollect
to have read the opinion of Temple, 'that the Celtic dialect used by the native Irish is the
purest and most original language that yet remains;' yet I never suspected that a language
spoken par routine, and chiefly by the lower classes of society, could be acquired
upon principle, until the other day, when I observed in the Prince's truly national
library some philological works, which were shewn me by Father John, who has offered
to be my preceptor in this wreck of ancient dialect, and who assures me he will render me
master of it in a short time provided I study con amore.
'And I will assist you,' said Glorvina.
'We will all assist him,' said the Prince.
'Then I shall study con amore! indeed,' returned I.
Behold me then, buried amidst the monuments of past ages! deep in the study of
the language, history, and antiquities of this ancient nation talking of the invasion of
Henry II as a recent circumstance of the Phoenician migration hither from Spain, as
though my grandfather had been delegated by Firbalgs to receive the Milesians on their
landing and of those transactions passed through
'The dark posterns of time long
elapsed,'
as though their existence was but freshly registered in the annals of recollection.
In short, infected by my antiquarian conversation with the Prince, and having fallen
in with some of those monkish histories which, on the strength of Druidical tradition,
trace a series of wise and learned Irish monarchs before the Flood, I am beginning to
have as much faith in antediluvian records as Dr Parsons himself, who accuses
Adam of authorship, or Thomas Banguis, who almost gives facsimiles of
the hand-writing of Noah's progenitors.
Seriously, however, I enter on my new studies with avidity, and read from the
morning's first dawn till the usual hour of breakfast, which is become to me as much the
banquet of the heart, as the Roman supper was to the Augustan wits 'the feast of reason
and the flow of soul,' for it is the only meal at which Glorvina presides.
Two hours each day does the kind priest devote to my philological pursuits, while
Glorvina, who is frequently present on these occasions, makes me repeat some short
poem or song after her, that I may catch the pronunciation (which is almost unattainable),
then translates them into English, which I word for word write down. Here then is a
specimen of Irish poetry, which is almost always the effusion of some blind itinerant
bard, or some rustic minstrel, into whose breast the genius of his country has breathed
inspiration, as he patiently drove the plough, or laboriously worked in the bog.*
[*Miss Brooks, in her elegant version of the works of some of the Irish
bards, says, ''Tis scarcely possible that any language can be more adapted to lyric poetry
than the Irish; so great is the smoothness and harmony of its numbers: it is also possessed
of a refined delicacy, a descriptive power, and an exquisite tender simplicity of
expression: two or three little artless words, or perhaps a single epithet, will sometimes
covey such an image of sentiment or suffering, to the mind, that one lays down the book
to look at the picture.']
'CATHBEIN NOLAN
I
'My love, when she floats on the mountain's brow, is like the dewy cloud of the
summer's loveliest evening. Her forehead is as a pearl; her spiral locks are of gold; and I
grieve that I cannot banish her from my memory.
II
'When she enters the forest like the bounding doe, dispersing the dew with her airy
steps, her mantle on her arm, the axe in hand, to cut the branches of flame; I know not
which is the most noble the King of the Saxons*, or Cathbein Nolan.'
[*The King of England is still called by the common Irish, Riagh
Sasseanach.]
This little song is of so ancient a date, that Glorvina assures me, neither the name of
the composer (for the melody is exquisitely beautiful) nor the poet, have escaped the
oblivion of time. But if we may judge of the rank of the poet by that of his mistress, it
must have been of a very humble degree; for it is evident that the fair Cathbein, whose
form is compared, in splendour, to that of the Saxon Monarch, is represented as cutting
wood for the fire.
The following songs, however, are by the most celebrated of all the modern Irish
bards, Turloch Carolan*, and the airs to which he has composed them, possess the
arioso elegance of Italian music, untied to the heart-felt pathos of Irish
melody.
[*He was born in the village of Nobber, county Westmeath, in 1670,
and died in 1739. He never regretted the loss of sight, but used gayly to say, 'my eyes are
only transplanted into my ears.' Of his poetry, the reader may form some judgment from
these examples: of his music, it has been said by O'Connor, the celebrated historian (who
knew him intimately), 'so happy, so elevated was he in some of his compositions, that he
excited the wonder, and obtained the approbation, of a great master who never saw him, I
mean Geminiani.' And his execution on the harp was rapid and impressive far beyond
that of all the professional competitors of the age in which he lived. The charms of
women, the pleasures of conviviality, and the power of poesy and music, were at once his
theme and inspiration; and his life was an illustration of his theory: for until its last ardour
was chilled by death, he loved, drank, and sung. He was the welcome guest of every
house, from the peasant to the prince; but, in the true wandering spirit of his profession,
he never stayed to exhaust that welcome. He lived and died poor. While in the fervor of
composition, he was constantly heard to pass sentence on his own effusions, as they arose
from his harp, or breathed on his lips; blaming and praising with equal vehemence, the
unsuccessful effort and felicitous attempt.]
I
'I must sing of the youthful plant of gentlest mien Fanny, the beautiful and warm-
soul'd the maid of the amber-twisted ringlets; the air-lifted and light-footed virgin the
elegant pearl and heart's treasure of Erin; then waste not the fleeting hour let us enjoy it
in drinking to the health of Fanny, the daughter of David.
II
'It is the maid of the magic lock I sing, the fair swan of the shore for whose love a
multitude expires: Fanny, the beautiful, whose tresses are like the evening sun-beam;
whose voice is like the black-bird's morning song: O, may I never leave the world until
dancing in the air (this expression in the Irish is beyond the power of translation)
at her wedding, I shall send away the hours in drinking to Fanny, the daughter of
David.'*
[*She was daughter to David Power, Esq. of the county of Galway, and
mother to the late Lord Cloncarty. The epithet bestowed on her, of swan of the
shore, arose from her father's mansion being situated on the edge of Lough Leah,
or the grey lake, of which many curious legends are told. When Carolan, alone, and
in the act of composing the music and words of the above song, hung over his harp, wrapt
in the golden visions of his art, the theme of his effusions suddenly entered the room
where he sat, and, by the noise which the rustling of her silks made, disturbed the poetic
reveries of the bard, who, enraged at the interruption, which probably put to flight some
happy inspiration of genius, flung at the unknown intruder a large sapling stick which he
always carried with him. Miss Power, however, fortunately escaped the frenzied
intention of the passionate minstrel, which, had it been realized, would have turned his
panegyric trains to elegies of woe. This anecdote the Author had from her father, who
had the honour of hearing it from the lips of the lady herself, and who, though at that
period in an advanced era of life, retained strong traces of that exquisite beauty for which
she was so justly celebrated in the strains of her native bard.]
'GRACY NUGENT
I
'I delight to talk of thee! Blossom of fairness! Gracy, the most frolic of the young
and lovely who from the fairest of the province bore away the palm of excellence
happy is he who is near her, for morning nor evening grief, nor fatigue, cannot come near
him: her mien is like the mildness of a beautiful dawn; and her tresses flow in twisted
folds she is the daughter of the branches. Her neck has the whiteness of alabaster
the softness of the cygnet's bosom is hers; and the glow of the summer's sun-beam is on
her countenance. Oh! blessed is he who shall obtain thee, fair daughter of the blossoms
maid of the spiry locks!
II
'Sweet is the word of her lip, and sparkling the beam of her blue rolling eye; and
close round her neck cling the golden tresses of her head; and her teeth are arranged in
beautiful order. I say to the maid of youthful mildness, thy voice is sweeter than the
song of the birds; every grace, every charm play round thee; and though my soul delights
to sing thy praise, yet I must quit the theme to drink with a sincere heart to thy health,
Gracy of the soft waving ringlets.'*
[*She was the daughter of John Nugent, Esp. of Cast Nugent,
Culambre, at whose hospitable mansion the bard was frequently entertained. In the
summer of 1791, the Author conversed with an old peasant in Westmeath, who had
frequently listened to the tones of Carolan's harp in his boyish days.]
Does not this poetical effusion awakened by the charms of the fair Gracy, recall to
your memory the description of Helen by Theocritus, in his beautiful epithalamium on
her marriage?
'She is like the rising of the golden morning, when the night departeth, and when the
winter is over and gone she resembleth the cypress in the garden, the horse in the
chariot of Thessaly.'
While the invocation to the enjoyment of convivial pleasure which breathes over the
termination of every verse, glows with the festive spirit of the Tean bard.
When I remarked the coincidence of style which existed between the early Greek
writers and the bards of Erin, Glorvina replied, with a smile,
'In drawing this analogy, you think, perhaps, to flatter my national vanity; but the
truth is, we trace the spirit of Milesian poetry to a higher source than the spring of
Grecian genius; for many figures in Irish song are of oriental origin; and the bards who
ennobled the train of our Milesian founders, and who awakened the soul of song here,
seem, in common with the Greek poets, "to have kindled their poetic fires at those
unextinguished lamps which burn within the tomb of oriental genius." Let me, however,
assure you, that no adequate version of an Irish poem can be given; for the peculiar
construction of the Irish language, the felicity of its epithets, and force of its expressions,
bid defiance to all translation.'
'But while your days and nights are thus devoted to Milesian literature,' you will say,
'what becomes of Blackstone and Coke?'
Faith, e'en what may for me the mind, the mind, like the heart, is not to be forced
in its pursuits; and, I believe, in an intellectual as in a physical sense, there are certain
antipathies which reason may condemn, but cannot vanquish. Coke is to me a dose of
ipecacuhana; and my present studies, like those poignant incentives which stimulate the
appetite without causing repletion. It is in vain to force me to a profession, against which
my taste, my habits, my very nature, revolts; and if my father persists in his
determination, why, as a dernier resort, I must turn historiographer to the
Prince of Inismore.
* * * * *
Like the spirit of Milton, I feel myself, in this new world, 'vital in every part:'
'All heart I live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense.'
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER X
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
The more I know of this singular girl, the more the happy discordia concors
of her character awakens my curiosity and surprize. I never beheld such an union of
intelligence and simplicity, infantine playfulness and profound reflexion, as her character
exhibits. Sometimes when I think I am trifling with a child, I find I am conversing with a
philosopher; and sometimes in the midst of the most serious and interesting conversation,
some impulse of the moment seizes on her imagination, and a vein of frolic humour and
playful sarcasm is indulged at the expence of my most sagacious arguments or
philosophic gravity. Her reserve (unknown to herself) is gradually giving way to the
most bewitching familiarity.
When the priest is engaged, I am suffered to tread with her the 'pathless grass,' climb
the mountain's steep, or ramble along the seabeat coast, sometimes followed by her
nurse, and sometimes by a favourite little dog only.
Of nothing which concerns her country is she ignorant; and when a more interesting,
a more soul-felt conversation, cannot be obtained, I love to draw her into a little national
chit-chat.
Yesterday, as we were walking along the base of that mountain from which I first
beheld her dear residence (and sure I may say with Petrarch, 'Benedetto sia il giorno e'l
Mese e'lanno'), several groups of peasants (mostly females) passed us, with their usual
courteous salutations, and apparently dressed in their holiday garbs.
'Poor souls!' said Glorvina 'this is a day of jubilee to them, for a great annual fair
is held in the neighbourhoods.'
'But from whence,' said I, 'do they draw the brightness of those tints which adorn
their coarse garments; those gowns and ribbons, that rival the gay colouring of that heath
hedge; those bright blue and scarlet mantles? Are they, too, vestiges of ancient modes
and ancient taste?'
'Certainly they are,' she replied, 'and the colours which the Irish were celebrated for
wearing and dying a thousand years back, are now most prevalent. In short, the ancient
Irish, like the Israelites, were so attached to this many-coloured costume, that it
became the mark by which the different classes of the people were distinguished. Kings
were limited to seven colours in their roal robes; and six were allowed the bards. What
an idea does this give of the reverence paid to superior talent in other times by our
forefathers! But that bright yellow you now behold so universally worn, has been in all
ages their favourite hue. Spenser think this customs came from the East; and Lord Bacon
accounts for the propensity of the Irish to it, by supposing it contributes to
longevity.'
'But where,' said I, ' do these poor people procure so expensive an article as saffron,
to gratify their prevailing taste?'*
[*'A Portuguese physician attempts to account for their use of this
yellow dye, by alledging that it was worn as a vermifuge. He should first demonstrate
that all the people were infected with worms.' Dr Patterson's Observations on the
Climate of Ireland.]
'I have heard Father John say,' she returned, 'that saffron, as an article of
importation, could never have been at any time cheap enough for general use. And I
believe formerly, as now, they communicated this bright yellow tinge with
indigenous plants, with which this country abounds.
'See,' she added, springing lightly forward, and culling a plant which grew from the
mountain's side 'see this little blossom, which they call here, "yellow lady's bed-
straw," and which you, as a botanist, will better recognize as the Galicens borum;
it communicates a beautiful yellow; as does the Lichen juniperinus, or "cypress
moss," which you brought me yesterday; and I think the resida Luteola, or
"yellow weed," surpasses them all.*
[*Purple, blue and green dyes, were introduces by Tighumas
the Great, in the year of the world 2815. The Irish also possessed the art of dyeing a fine
scarlet; so early as the day of St Bennia, a disciple of St Patrick, scarlet clothes and robes
highly embroidered, are mentioned in the book of Glandelogh.]
'In short, the botanical treasures of our country, though I dare say little known, are
inexhaustible.
'Nay,' she continued, observing, I believe, the admiration that sparkled in my eyes,
'give me no credit, I beseech you, for this local information, for there is not a peasant girl
in the neighbourhood, but will tell you more on the subject.'
While she was thus dispensing knowledge with the most unaffected simplicity of
look and manner, a group of boys advanced towards us, with a car laden with stones, and
fastened to the back of an unfortunate dog, which they were endeavouring to train to this
new species of canine avocation, by such unmerciful treatment as must have procured the
wretched animal a speedy release from all his sufferings.
Glorvina no sooner perceived this, than she flew to the dog, and while the boys
looked all amaze, effected his liberation, and by her caresses endeavoured to soothe him
into forgetfulness of his late sufferings; then turning to the ringleader, she said:
'Dermot, I have so often heard you praised for your humanity to animals, that I can
scarcely believe it possible that you have been accessory to the sufferings of this useful
and affectionate animal; he is just as serviceable to society in his way, as you are in
your's, and you are just as well able to drag a loaded cart as he is to draw that little car.
Come now, I am not so heavy as the load you have destined him to bear, and you are
much stronger than your dog, and now you shall draw me home to the castle; and then
give me your opinion on the subject.'
In one moment his companions, laughing vociferously at the idea, had the stones
flung out of the little vehicle, and fastened its harness on the broad shoulders of the half-
pouting, half-smiling Dermot; and the next moment this little agile sylph was seated in
the car.
Away went Dermot, dragged on by the rest of the boys, while Glorvina, delighted as
a child, with her new mode of conveyance, laughed with all her heart, and kissed her
hand to me as she flew along; while I, trembling for her safety, endeavoured to keep pace
with her triumphal chariot, till her wearied, breathless Phaeton, unable to run any further
with his lovely, laughing burthen, begged a respite.
'How!' said she, 'weary of this amusement, and yet you have not at every step been
cruelly lashed, like your poor dog.'
The panting Dermot hug his head, and said in Irish, 'the like should not happen
again.'
'It is enough,' said Glorvina, in the same language 'we are all liable to commit a
fault, but let us never forget it is in our power to correct it. And now go to the castle,
where you shall have a good dinner, in return for the good and pleasant exercise you have
procured me.'
The boys were as happy as kings. Dermot was unyoked, and the poor dog, wagging
his tail in token of his felicity, accompanied the gratified group to the castle.
When Glorvina had translated to me the subject of her short dialogue with Dermot,
she added, laughing,
'Oh! how I should like to be dragged about this way for two or three hours every day:
never do I enter into any little folly of this kind, that I do not sigh for those sweet hours of
my childhood when I could play the fool with impunity.'
'Play the fool!' said I 'and do you call this playing the fool? this dispensation of
humanity, this culture of benevolence in the youthful mind, these lessons of truth and
goodness, so sweetly, simply given.'
'Nay,' she returned, 'you always seem inclined to flatter me into approbation of
myself! but the truth is, I was glad to seize on the opportunity of lecturing that urchin
Dermot, who, though I praised his humanity, is the very beadle to all the unfortunate
animals in the neighbourhood. But I have often had occasion to remark, that by giving a
virtue to those neglected children, which they do not possess, I have awakened their
emulation to attain it.'
'To say that you are an angel,' said I, 'is to say a very commonplace thing, which
every man says to the woman he either does, or affects to admire; and yet'
'Nay,' interrupted she, laying her hand on my arm, and looking up full in my face
with that arch glance I have so often caught revelling in her eloquent eye 'I am not
emulous of a place in the angelic choir; canonization is more consonant to my
papistical ambition; then let me be your saint your tutelar saint, and'
'And let me,' interrupted I, impassionately 'let me, like the members of the Greek
church, adore my saint, not by prostration, but by a kiss;' and, for the first time in my
life, I pressed my lips to the beautiful hand which still rested on my arm, and from which
I first drew a glove that has not since left my bosom, nor been redemanded by its
charming owner.
This little freedom (which, to another, would have appeared nothing), was received
with a degree of blushing confusion, that assured me it was the first of the kind ever
offered; even the fair hand blushed its sense of my boldness, and enhanced the pleasure
of the theft by the difficulty it promised of again obtaining a similar favour.
By Heaven there is an infection in the sensitive delicacy of this creature, which even
my hardened confidence cannot resist!
No prieux Chevalier, on being permitted to kiss the tip of his liege lady's
finger, after a seven years' siege, could feel more pleasantly embarrassed than I did, as
we walked on in silence, until we were happily relieved by the presence of the old
garrulous nurse, who came out in search of her young lady for, like the princesses in the
Greek tragedies, my Princess seldom appears without the attendance of this
faithful representative of fond maternity.
For the rest of the walk she talked mostly to the nurse in Irish, and at the castle-gate
we parted she to attend a patient, and I to retire to my own apartment, to ruminate on
my morning's ramble with this fascinating lusus naturζ.
Adieu!
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XI
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
The drawing which I made of the castle is finished the Prince is charmed with it,
and Glorvina insisted on copying it. This was as I expected as I wished; and I took care
to finish it so minutely, that her patience (of which she has no great store), should soon be
exhausted in the imitation, and I should have something more of her attention that she
generally affords me at the drawing-desk.
Yesterday, in the absence of the priest, I read to her as she drew. After a thousand
little symptoms of impatience and weariness 'here,' said she, yawning 'here is a
straight line I can make nothing of do you know, Mr Mortimer, I never could draw a
perpendicular line in my life. See now my pencil will go into a curve or an angle;
so you must guide my hand, or I shall draw it all zig-zag.'
(I 'guide her hand to draw a straight line!')
'Nay then,' said I, with the ostentatious gravity of a pedagogue master, 'I may as
well do the drawing myself.'
'Well then,' said she playfully, 'do it yourself.'
Away she flew to her harp; while I, half lamenting, half triumphing, in my
forbearance, took her pencil and her seat. I perceived, however, that she had not even
drawn a single line of the picture, and yet her paper was not a mere carte-blanche
for close to the margin was written in a fairy hand, 'Henry Mortimer, April 2d,
10 o'clock,' the very day and hour of my entrance into the castle; and in several places,
the half-defaced features of a face evidently a copy of my own, were still visible.
If any thing could have rendered this little circumstance more deliciously gratifying
to my heart, it was, that I had been just reading to her the anecdote of 'the Maid of
Corinth.'
I raised my eyes from the paper to her with a look that must have spoken my
feelings; but she, unconscious of my observation, began a favourite air of her favourite
Carolan's, and supposed me to be busy at the perpendicular line.
Wrapt in her charming avocation, she seemed borne away by the magic of her own
numbers, and thus inspired and inspiring as she appeared, faithful, as the picture it
formed was interesting, I took her likeness. Conceive for a moment a form full of
character, and full of grace, bending over an instrument singularly picturesque a
profusion of auburn hair fastened up to the top of the finest formed head I ever beheld,
with a golden bodkin an armlet of curious workmanship glittering above a finely turned
elbow, and the loose sleeves of a flowing robe drawn up unusually high, to prevent this
drapery from sweeping the chords of the instrument. The expression of the divinely
touching countenance breathed all the fervour of genius under the influence of
inspiration, and the contours of the face, from the peculiar uplifted position of the head,
were precisely such, as lends to painting the happiest line of feature, and shade of
colouring. Before I had near finished the lovely picture, her song ceased; and turning
towards me, who sat opposite her, she blushed to observe how intensely my eyes were
fixed on her.
'I am admiring,' said I, carelessly, 'the singular elegance of your costume: it is
indeed to me a never-failing source of wonder and admiration.'
'I am not sorry,' she replied, 'to avail myself of my father's prejudices in favour of
our ancient national costume, which, with the exception of the drapery being made of
modern materials (on the antique model), is absolutely drawn from the wardrobes of my
great grandames. This armlet, I have heard my father say, is near four hundred years old,
and many of the ornaments and jewels you have seen me wear, are of a date no less
ancient.'
'But how,' said I, while she continued to tune her harp, and I to play the pencil, 'how
comes it that in so remote a period, we find the riches of Peru and Golconda contributing
their splendour to the magnificence of Irish dress?'
'O!' she replied, smiling, 'we too had our Peru and Golconda in the bosom of our
country for it was once thought rich not only in gold and silver mines, but abounded in
pearls,* amethysts, and other precious stones: even a few years back, Father John saw
some fine pearl taken out of the river Ban;** and Mr O'Halloran, the celebrated Irish
historian, declares that within his memory, amethysts of immense value were found in
Ireland.***
[* 'It should seem,' says Mr Walker, in his ingenious and elegant essay
on Ancient Irish Dress 'that Ireland teemed with gold and silver, for as well as in the
laws recited, we find an act ordained 35th Henry VIII that merchant strangers should pay
40 pence custom for every pound of silver they carried out of Ireland; and Lord Stafford,
in one of his letters from Dublin, to his royal master, says, "with this I land you an ingot
of silver of 300 oz."']
[**Pearls abounded, and still are found in this country; and were in such repute in the
11th Century, that a present of them was sent to the famous Bishop Anselm, by a Bishop
of Limerick.]
[***The Author is indebted to Knox, Esq., barister at law, Dublin, for the sight of
some beautiful amethysts, which belonged to his female ancestors, and which many of
the lapidaries of London, after a diligent search, found it impossible to
match.]
'I remember reading in the life of St Bridget, that the King of Leinster presented to
her father, a sword set with precious stones, which the pious saint, more charitable than
honest, devoutly stole, and sold for the benefit of the poor; but it should seem that the
sources of our national treasures are now shut up, like the gold mines of La Valais, for
the public weal, I suppose; for we now hear not of amethysts found, pearls discovered, or
gold mines worked; and it is to the caskets of my female ancestors that I stand indebted
that my dress or hair is not fastened or adorned like those of my humbler countrywomen,
with a wooden bodkin.'
'That, indeed,' said I, 'is a species of ornament I have observed very prevalent with
your fair paysannes; and of whatever materials it is made, when employed in
such an happy service as I now behold it, has an air of simple useful elegance,
which in my opinion constitutes the great art of female dress.'
'It is at least,' replied she, 'the most ancient ornament we know here for we are told
that the celebrated palace of Emania,* erected previous to the Christian era, was sketched
by the famous Irish Empress Macha, with her bodkin.
[*The resident palace of the Kings of Ulster, of which Colgan speaks
as 'dolens splendorem.']
'I remember a passage from a curious and ancient romance in the Irish language, that
fastened wonderfully upon my imagination when I read it to my father in my childhood,
and which gives to the bodkin a very early origin: it ran thus, and is called the
"Interview between Fionn M'Cumhal and Cannan."
'"Cannan, when he said this, was seated at table; on his right hand was seated his
wife, and upon his left his beautiful daughter, so exceedingly fair, that the snow driven by
the winter storms surpassed not her in fairness, and her cheeks wore the blood of a young
calf; her hair hung in curling ringlets, and her teeth were like pearl a spacious veil hung
from her lovely head down her delicate form, and the veil was fastened by a golden
bodkin."
'The bodkin, you know, is also an ancient Greek ornament, and mentioned by
Vulcan, as among the trinkets her was obliged to forge.'*
[*See Iliad, 13, 17.]
By the time she had finished this curious quotation in favour of the antiquity of her
dress, her harp was tuned, and she began another exquisite old Irish air, called the 'Dream
of the Young Man,' which she accompanied rather by a plaintive murmur, than
with her voice's full melodious powers. It is thus this creature winds round the heart,
while she enlightens the mind, and entrances the senses.
I had finished the sketch in the meantime, and just beneath the figure, and above her
flattering inscription of my name, I wrote with my pencil,
'Twas thus Apelles bask'd in beauty's blaze,
Nor felt the danger of the stedfast gaze;'
while she, a few minutes after, with that restlessness that seemed to govern all her
actions to-day, arose, put her harp aside, and approached me with
'Well, Mr Mortimer, you are very indulgent to my insufferable indolence let me
see what you have done for me,' and looking over my shoulder, she beheld not the ruins
of her castle, but a striking likeness of her blooming self; and bending her head close to
the paper, read the lines, and that name honoured by the inscription of her own fair
hand.
For the world I would not have looked her full in the face; but from beneath my
downcast eye I stole a transient glance: the colour did not rush to her cheek (as it usually
does under the influence of any powerful emotion), but rather deserted its beautiful
standard, and she stood with her eyes riveted on the picture, as though she dreaded by
their removal she should encounter those of the artist.
After about three minutes endurance of this mutual confusion, (could you believe me
such a blockhead!) the priest, to our great relief, entered the room.
Glorvina ran and shook hands with him, as though she had not seen him for an age,
and flew out of the room; while I, effacing the quotation, but not the honoured
inscription, asked Father John's opinion of my effort at portrait painting. He
acknowledged it was a most striking resemblance, and added,
'Now you will indeed give a coup de grace to the partiality of the Prince in
your favour, and you will rank so much the higher in his estimation, in proportion as his
daughter is dearer to him than his ruins.'
Thus encouraged, I devoted the rest of the day to copying out this sketch; and I have
finished the picture in that light tinting, so effective in these kind of characteristic
drawings. That beautifully pensive expression which touches the countenance of
Glorvina, when breathing her native strains, I have most happily caught; and her costume,
attitude, and harp, form as happy a combination of traits, as a single portrait perhaps ever
presented.
When it was shewn to the Prince, he gazed on it in silence, till tears obscured his
glance; then laying it down, he embraced me, but said nothing. Had he detailed the
merits and demerits of the picture in all the technical farrago of cognoscenti
phrase, his comments would not have been half so eloquent as this simple action, and the
silence which accompanied it.
Adieu!
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XII
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
Here is a bonne bouche for your antiquarian taste, and Ossianic
palate! Almost every evening after vespers, we all assemble in a spacious hall,* which
had been shut up for near a century, and first opened by the present prince when he was
driven for shelter to his paternal ruins.
[*'Amidst the ruins of Buan Ratha, near Limerick, is a princely hall
and spacious chambers; the fine stucco in many of which is yet visible, though
uninhabitable for near a century.' O'Halloran's Introduction to the Study of the
Hist. and Antiq. of Ireland, p. 8.
There are very few, if any, of these venerable mansion houses, such as in England bear
the stamp of that style of architecture so prevalent about two hundred years back, to be
found in Ireland. But in town, every village, every considerable tract of land, the
spacious ruins of princely residence or religious edifices, the palace, the castle, or the
abbey, are to be seen.]
This Vengolf, this Valk-halla, where the very spirit of Woden seems
to preside, runs the full length of the castle as it now stands (for the centre of the building
only, has escaped the dilapidations of time), and its beautifully arched roof is enriched
with numerous devices, which mark the spirit of that day in which it was erected. This
very curious roof is supported by two rows of pillars of that elegant spiral lightness which
characterizes the Gothic order in a certain stage of its progress. The floor is a finely
tesselated pavement; and the ample but ungrated hearths which terminate it at either end
blaze every evening with the cheering contributions of a neighbouring bog. The
windows, which are high, narrow, and arched, command on one side a noble view of the
ocean, on the other they are closed up.
When I inquired of Father John the cause of this singular exclusion of a very
beautiful land view, he replied, 'that from those windows were to be seen the greater part
of that rich tract of land which once formed the territory of the Princes of Inismore;* and
since,' said he, 'the possessions of the present Prince are limited to a few hereditary
acres, and a few rented farms, he cannot bear to look on the domains of his ancestors, nor
ever goes beyond the confines of this little peninsula.'
[*I understand that it is only a few years back, since the present
respectable representative of the M'Dermot family opened these windows, which the
Prince of Coolavin closed up, upon a principle similar to that by which the Prince of
Inismore was actuated.]
This very curious apartment is still called the banquetting-hall where
'Stately the feast and high the cheer,
Girt with many a valiant Peer,'
was once celebrated in all the boundless extravagance and convivial spirit of ancient
Irish hospitality. But it now serves as an armory, a museum, a cabinet of national
antiquities, and national curiosities. In short, it is the receptacle of all those precious
relics, which the Prince has been able to rescue from the wreck of his family
splendour.
Here, when he is seated by a blazing hearth in an immense armchair, made, as he
assured me, of the famous wood of Shilelah, his daughter by his side, his harper
behind him, and his domestic altar not destitute of that national libation which is
no disparagement to princely taste, since it has received the sanction of imperial
approbation;* his gratified eye wandering over the scattered insignia of the former
prowess of his family; his gratified heart expanding to the reception of life's sweetest ties
domestic joys and social endearments; he forgets the derangement of his
circumstances he forgets that he is the ruined possessor of a visionary title; he feels
only that he is a man and an Irishman! While the transient happiness that lights up the
vehement feelings of his benevolent breast, effuses its warmth o'er all who come within
its sphere.
[*Peter the Great of Russia, was remarkably fond of whiskey, and used
to say, 'Of all wine, Irish wine is the best.']
Nothing can be more delightful than the evenings passed in this vengolf
this hall of Woden; where my sweet Glorvina hovers round us, like one of the beautiful
valkyries of the Gothic paradise, who bestow on the spirit of the departed warrior
that heaven he eagerly rushes on death to obtain. Sometimes she accompanies the old
bard on her harp, or with her voice; and frequently as she sits at her wheel (for she is
often engaged in this simple and primitive avocation), endeavours to lure her father to
speak on those subjects most interesting to him or to me; or, joining the general
conversation, by the playfulness of her humour, or the original whimsicality of her
sallies, materially contributes to the 'molle atque facetum' of the moment.
On the evening of the day of the picture scene, the absence of Glorvina (for she was
attending a sick servant) threw a gloom over our little circle. The Prince, for the first
time, dismissed the harper, and, taking me by the arm, walked up and down the hall in
silence, while the priest yawned over a book.
I have already told you, that this curious hall is the emporium of the
antiquities of Inismore, which are arranged along its walls, and suspended from its pillars.
As much to draw the Prince from the gloomy reverie into which he seemed plunged, as
to satisfy m own curiosity and yours, I requested his Highness to explain some characters
on a collar which hung from a pillar, and appeared to be plated with gold.
Having explained the motto, he told me that this collar had belonged to an order of
knighthood hereditary in his family of an institution more ancient than any in England,
by some centuries.
'How!' said I, 'was chivalry so early known in Ireland? and rather, did it ever exist
here?'
'Did it!' said the Prince, impatiently, 'I believe, young gentleman, the origin of
knighthood may be traced in Ireland upon surer ground than in any other country
whatever.* Long before the birth of Christ, we had an hereditary order of knighthood in
Ulster, called the Knights of the Red Branch. They possessed, near the royal
palace of Ulster, a seat, called the Academy of the Red Branch; and an adjoining
hospital, expressively termed the House of the Sorrowful Soldier.
[*Mr O'Halloran, with a great deal of spirit and ingenuity, endeavours
to prove, that the German knighthood (the earliest we read of in chivalry) was of Irish
origin: with what success, we leave it to the impartial reader to judge. It is, however,
certain, that the German Ritter, or knight, bears a very close analogy to the Irish
riddaire. In 1395, Richard II in his tour through Ireland, offered to knight the
four provincial Kings who came to receive him in Dublin. But they excused themselves,
as having received that honour from their parents at seven years old that being the age
in which the Kings of Ireland knighted their eldest sons. See
Froissart.]
'There was also an order of chivalry hereditary in the royal families of Munster,
named the Sons of Deagha, from a celebrated hero of that name, probably their
founder. The Connaught Knights were called the Guardians of Jorus, and those
of Leinster, the Clan of Boisgna. So famous, indeed, were the knights of Ireland,
for the elegance, strength, and beauty of their forms, that they were distinguished, by way
of pre-eminence, by the name of the Heroes of the Western Isles.
'Our annals teem with instances of this romantic bravery and scrupulous honour. My
memory, though much impaired, is still faithful to some anecdotes of both. During a war
between the Connaught and Munster Monarchs, in 192, both parties met in the plains of
Lena, in this province; and it was proposed to Goll M'Morni, chief of the Connaught
Knights, to attack the Munster army at midnight, which would have secured him victory.
He nobly and indignantly replied: "On the day the arms of a knight were put into my
hands, I swore never to attack my enemy at night, by surprize, or under any kind of
disadvantage; nor shall that vow now be broken."
'Besides those orders of knighthood with I have already named, there are several
others* still hereditary in noble families, and the honourable titles of which are still
preserved: such as the White Knights of Kerry, and the Knights of Glynn:
that hereditary in my family was the knights of the Valley; and this collar**, an
ornament never dispensed with, was found about fifty years back in a neighbouring bog,
and worn by my father till his death.
[*The respectable families of the Fitzgeralds still bear the title of their
ancestors, and are never named but as the Knights of Kerry, and of
Glynn.]
[**One of these collars was in the possession of Mr
O'Halloran.]
'This gorget,' he continued, taking down one which hung on the wall, and apparently
gratified by the obvious pleasure evinced in the countenance of his auditor, 'This gorget
was found some years after in the same bog.'*
[*In the Bog of Cullen, in the county of Tipperary, some golden
gorgets were discovered, as were also some corselets of pure gold in the lands of
Clonties, county of Kerry. See Smith's History of Kerry.]
'And this helmet?' said I
'It is called in Irish,' he replied, 'salet, and belonged, with this coat of mail,
to my ancestor who was murdered in this castle.'
I coloured at this observation, as though I had been myself the murderer.
'As you refer, Sir,' said the priest, who had flung by his book and joined us, 'to the
ancient Irish for the origin of knighthood,* you will perhaps send us to the Irish
Mala, for the derivation of the word mail.'
[*At a time when the footstep of an English invader had not been
impressed upon the Irish coast, the celebrity of the Irish Knights was sung by the British
minstrels. Thus in the old romantic tale of Sir Cauline:
In Ireland, ferr over the sea,
There dwelleth a bonnye kinge,
And with him a yong and comlye knight,
Men call him Syr Cauline.
Sir Cauline's antagonist, the Eldridge knight, is described as being 'a foul
paynim, which places the events the romantic tale delineates, in the earliest ζra of
Christianity in Ireland.]
'Undoubtedly,' said the national Prince, 'I should; but pray, Mr Mortimer, observe
this shield. It is of great antiquity. You perceive it is made of wicker, as were the Irish
shields in general; although I have also heard they were formed of silver, and one was
found near Slimore, in the county of Cork, plated with gold, which sold for seventy
guineas.'
'But here,' said I, 'is a sword of curious workmanship, the hilt of which seems of
gold.'
'It is in fact so,' said the priest 'Golden hilted swords have been in great abundance
through Ireland; and it is a circumstance singularly curious, that a sword found in the Bog
of Cullen should be of the exact construction and form as those found upon the plains of
Canae. You may suppose that the advocates for our Milesian origin gladly seize on this
circumstance, as affording new arms against the skeptics to the antiquity of our
nation.'
'Here too is a very curious hauberjeon, once perhaps impregnable! And this curious
battle-axe,' said I
'Was originally called,' returned the Prince, 'Tuath Catha, or axe of war, and
was put into the hands of our Galloglasses, or second rank of military.'
'But how much more elegant,' I continued, 'the form of this beautiful spear; it is of
course of a more modern date.'
'On the contrary,' said the Prince, 'this is the exact form of the cranuil of lance, with
which Oscar is described to have struck Art to the earth.'
'Oscar!' I repeated, almost starting but added 'O, true, Mr Macpherson tells us
the Irish have some wild improbable tales of Fingal's heroes among them, on which they
found some claim to their being natives of this country.'
'Some claims!' repeated the Prince, and by one of those motions which speak more
than volumes, he let go my arm, and took his usual station by the fire-side, repeating
some claims!
While I was thinking how I should repair my involuntary fault, the good-natured
priest said with a smile,
'You know, my dear Sir, that by one half of his English readers, Ossian is supposed
to be a Scottish bard of ancient days; by the other he is esteemed the legitimate offspring
of Macpherson's own muse. But here,' he added, turning to me, 'We are certain of his
Irish origin, from the testimony of tradition, from proofs of historic fact, and above all,
from the internal evidences of the poems themselves, even as they are given us by Mr
Macpherson.
'We who are from our infancy taught to recite them,* who bear the appellations of
their heroes to this day, and who reside amidst those very scenes of which the poems,
even according to their ingenious, but not always ingenuous translator,
are descriptive we know, believe, and assert them to be translated from the fragments of
the Irish bards, or seanachies, whose surviving works were almost equally diffused
through the Highlands as through this country. Mr Macpherson combined them in such
forms as his judgment (too classically correct in this instance) most approved; retaining
the old names and events, and altering the dates of his originals as well as their matter
and form, in order to give them an higher antiquity than they really possess; suppressing
many proofs which they contain of their Irish origin, and studiously avoiding all mention
of St Patrick, whose name frequently occurs in the original poems; only occasionally
alluding to him under the character of a Culdee; conscious that any mention of
the Saint would introduce a suspicion that these poems were not the true
compositions of Ossian, but of those Fileas who, in an after day, committed to
verse the traditional details of one equally renowned in song and arms.'**
[*The Irish, like the Greeks, are passionately fond of traditional
fictions, fables and romances. Nothing can be more relevant to this asserted analogy,
than a passage translated from the works of Monsieur de Guys. Speaking of fables and
romance, he says, 'The modern Greeks are excessively attached to them, and much
delighted with those received from the Arabians, and other eastern nations; they are
particularly pleased with the marvellous, and have, like the Greeks, their Milesian fables.'
Lettres sur la Grece.]
[**Samuir, daughter of Fingal, having married Cormac Cas,
their son (says Keating) Modh Corb, retained as his friend and confident his
uncle, Ossian, contrary to the orders of Cairbre Liffeachair, the then monarch, against
whom the Irish militia had taken up arms. Ossian was consequently among the number
of rebellious chiefs.]
Here, you will allow, was a blow furiously aimed at all my opinions respecting these
poems, so long the objects of my enthusiastic admiration: you may well suppose I was for
a moment quite stunned. However, when I had a little recovered, I went over the
arguments used by Macpherson, Blair, etc. etc. etc. to prove that Ossian was an Highland
bard, whose works were handed down to us by oral tradition, through a lapse of
fifteen hundred years.
'And yet,' said the priest, having patiently heard me out 'Mr Macpherson confesses
that the ancient language and traditional history of the Scottish nation became confined to
the natives of the Highlands, who falling, from several concurring circumstances, into the
last degree of ignorance and barbarism, left the Scots so destitute of historic facts, that
they were reduced to the necessity of sending John Fordun to Ireland for their history,
from whence he took the entire first part of his book. For Ireland, owing to its being
colonized from Phnicia, and consequent early introduction of letters there, was at that
period esteemed the most enlightened country in Europe: and indeed Mr Macpherson
himself avers, that the Irish, for ages antecedent to the Conquest, possessed a competent
share of that kind of learning which prevailed in Europe; and from their superiority over
the Scots, found no difficulty in imposing on the ignorant Highland seanachies, and
established that historic system which afterwards, for want of any other, was universally
received.
'Now, my dear friend, if historic fact and tradition did not attest the poems of Ossian
to be Irish, probability would establish it. For if the Scotch were obliged to Ireland,
according to Mr Macpherson's own account, not only for their history, but their tradition,
so remote a one as Ossian must have come from the Irish; for Scotland, as Dr Johnson
asserts, when he called on Mr Macpherson to shew his originals, had not an Erse
manuscript two hundred years old. And Sir George M'Kenzie, though himself a
Scotchman, declares, 'that he had in his possession, an Irish manuscript written by
Cairbre Liffeachair,* monarch of Ireland, who flourished before St Patrick's
mission.'
[*Mr O'Halloran, in his introduction to the study of Irish History etc.
quotes some lines from a poem still extant, composed by Torna Ligis, chief poet to Nial
the Great, who flourished in the fourth century.]
'But,' said I, 'even granting these beautiful poems to be effusions of Irish genius, it is
strange that the feats of your own heroes could not supply your bards with subjects for
their epic verse.'
'Strange indeed it would have been,' said the priest, 'and therefore they have chosen
the most renowned chiefs in their annals of national heroism, as their Achilleses, their
Hectors, and Agamemnons.'
'How!' exclaimed I, 'is not Fingal a Caldonian chief? Is he not expressly called
King of Morven?'
'Allowing he were, in the originals, which he is not,' returned the priest, 'give me
leave to ask you where Morven lies?'
'Why, I suppose of course in Scotland,' said I, a little unprepared for the
question.
'Mr Macpherson supposes so too,' replied he, smiling, 'though he certainly is at no
little pains to discover where in Scotland. The fact is, however, that the epithet of
Riagh Mτr Fhionne, which Mr Macpherson translates King of Morven, is literally
King or Chief of the Fhians, or Fians, a body of men of whom Mr Macpherson makes no
mention, and which, indeed, either in the annals of Scottish history of Scottish poetry,
would be vainly sought. Take then their history, as extracted from the book of Howth
into the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy in 1786.*
[*Fionn, the son of Cumhal (from whom, says Keating, the
established militia of the kingdom were called Fion Erinne), was first married to
Graine, daughter to Cormac, King of Ireland, and afterwards to her sister, and descended
in a sixth degree from Nuagadh Neacht, King of Leinster. The history, laws, requisites,
etc. etc of the Fionna-Erin, are to be found in Keating's History of Ireland, page 269:
Cormac, at the head of the Fion, and attended by Fingal, sailed to that part of
Scotland opposite Ireland, where he planted a colony as an establishment for Carbry
Riada, his cousin-german. This colony was often protected from the power of the
Romans by the Fion, under the command of Fingal, occasionally stationed in the
circumjacent country. 'Hence,' says Mr Walker, 'the claim of the Scots to Fin.' In
process of time this colony gave monarchs to Scotland, and their posterity at this day
reign over the British empire. Fingal fell in an engagement at Rathbree, on the banks of
the Boyne, A.D. 294; from whence the name of Rathbree was changed into that of
Killeen, or Cill-Fhin, the tomb of Fin.]
'"In Ireland there were soldiers called Fynne Erin, appointed to keep the sea
coast, fearing foreign invasion, or foreign princes to enter the realm; the names of these
soliders were, Fin M'Cuil, Coloilon, Keilt, Oscar, M'Ossyn, Dermot, O Doyne,
Collemagh, Morna, and divers others. These soldiers waxed bold, as shall appear
hereafter, and so strong, that they did contrary to the orders and institutions of the kings
of Ireland, their chiefs and governors, and became very strong, and stout, and at length
would do things without licence of the King of Ireland, etc. etc." It is added, that one of
these heroes was alive till the coming of St Patrick, who recited the actions of his
compeers to the Saint. This hero was Ossian, or, as we pronounce it, Ossyn;
whose dialogues with the Christian missionary is in the mouth of every peasant, and
several of them preserved in old Irish manuscripts. Now the Fingal of Mr Macpherson
(for it is thus he translates Fin M'Cuil, sometimes pronounces and spelled Fionne
M'Cumhal, or Fionn the son of Cumhal) and his followers, appear like the earth-
born myrmidons of Deucalion, for they certainly have no human origin; bear no
connexion with the history of their country; are neither to be found in the poetic legend or
historic record* of Scotland, and are even furnished with appellations which the
Caledonians neither previously possessed nor have since adopted. They are therefore
introduced to our knowledge, as living in a barbarous age, yet endowed with every
perfection that renders them the most refined, heroic, and virtuous of men. So that while
we grant to the interesting poet and his heroes our boundless admiration, we cannot help
considering them as solecisms in the theory of human nature.
[*I know but of one instance that contradicts the assertion of Father
John, and that I borrow from the allegorical Palace of Honour of Gawin Douglas,
Bishop of Dunkeld, who places Gaul, son of Morni and Fingal, among the distinguished
character in the annals of legendary romance; yet even he mentions them not as
the heroes of Scottish celebrity, but as the almost fabled demi-gods of Ireland.
'And now the wran cam out of Ailsay,
And Piers Plowman, that made his workmen few,
Great Gow MacMorne and Fyn M'Cowl, and how
They suld be goddis in Ireland, as they say.'
It is remarkable, that the genius of the Ossianic style still prevails over the wild
effusions of the modern and unlettered bards of Ireland; while even the remotest lay of
Scottish minstrelsy respires nothing of that soul which breathes in 'the voice of Cona;'
and the metrical flippancy which betrays its existence, seems neither to rival, or cope
with that touching sublimity of measure through whose impressive medium the genius of
Ossian effuses its inspiration, and which, had it been known to the early bards of
Scotland, had probably been imitated and adopted. In Ireland, it has ever been and is still
the measure in which the Sons of Song breathe 'their wood-notes wild.']
'But with us, Fingal and his chiefs are beings of real existence, their names,
professions, rank, characters, and feats, attested by historic fact as well as by poetic
eulogium. Fingal is indeed romantically brave; benevolent and generous; but he is
turbulent, restless, and ambitious: he is a man as well as a hero; and both his virtues and
his vices bear the stamp of the age and country in which he lived. His name and feats, as
well as those of his chief officers, bear an intimate connexion with our national
history.
'Fionne, or Finnius, was the grandsire of Milesius; and it is not only a name to be met
with through every period of our history, but there are few old families even at this day in
Ireland, who have not the appellative of Finnius in some one or other of its branches; and
a large tract of the province of Leinster is called Fingal: a title in possession of
one of our most noble and ancient families.
'Nay, if you please, you shall hear our old nurse run through the whole genealogy of
Macpherson's hero, which is frequently given as a theme to exercise the memory of the
peasant children.'*
[*They run it over thus: 'Oscar Mac Ossyn, Mac Fionn, Mac Cuil, Mac
Cormic, Mac Arte, Mac Fiervin, etc. etc.' That is, Oscar the son of Ossian, the son of
Fionn, etc. etc.]
'Nay,' said I, nearly overpowered, 'Macpherson assures us that Highlanders also
repeat many of Ossian's poems in the original Erse: nay, that even in the Isle of Sky, they
still shew a stone which bears the form and name of Cuchullin's dog.'*
[*There is an old tradition current in Connaught, of which
Bran, the favourite dog of Ossian, is the hero. In a war between the King of
Lochlin and the Fians, a battle continued to be fought on equal terms for so long a period,
that it was at last mutually agreed that it should be decided in a combat between Ossian's
Bran and the famous Cu dubh, or dark greyhound, of the Danish
Monarch. This greyhound had already performed incredible feats, and was never to be
conquered until his name was found out. The warrior dogs fought in a space between the
two armies, and with such fury, says the legend, in a language absolutely untranslatable,
that they tore up the stony bosom of the earth, until they rendered it perfectly soft, and
again trampled on it with such force, that they made it of a rocky substance. The Cu
dubh had nearly gained the victory, when the bald-headed Conal, turning his
face to the east, and biting his thumb, a ceremony difficult to induce him to
perform, and which always endowed him with the gift of divination, made a sudden
exclamation of encouragement to Bran, the first word of which found the name of
the greyhound, who lost at once his prowess and the victory. The chief Order of
Denmark was instituted in memory of the fidelity of a dog, 'though it is injuriously called
the Order of Elephant,' says Pope.]
'This is the most flagrant error of all,' exclaimed the Prince, abruptly breaking his
sullen silence 'for he had synchronized heroes who flourished in two distant periods;
both Cuchullin and Conal Cearneath are historical characters with us; they were Knights
of the Red Branch, and flourished about the birth of Christ. Whereas Fingal, with
whom he has united them, did not flourish till near three centuries after. It is indeed
Macpherson's pleasure to inform us, that by the Isle of Mist is meant the Isle of Sky, and
on that circumstance alone to rest his claim on Cuchullin's being a Caledonian;
although, through the whole poems of Fingal and Temora, he is not once mentioned as
such: it is by the translator's notes only we are informed of it.'
'It is certain,' said the priest 'that in first mention made of Cuchullin in the
poem of Fingal, he is simply denominated "the Son of Semo," "the Ruler of High
Temora," "Mossy Tura's Chief."* So called, says Macpherson, from his castle on the
coast of Ulster, where he dwelt before he took the management of the affairs of Ireland
into his hands, though the singular cause which could induce the lord of the Isle of Sky to
reside in Ireland previous to his political engagements in the Irish state, he does not
mention.
[*The groves of Tura, or Tuar, are often noticed in Irish song.
Emunh Acnuic, or Ned of the Hill, has mentioned it in one of his happiest and
most popular poems. It was supposed to be in the county of Armagh, province of
Ulster.]
'In the same manner we are told, that his three nephews came from Streamy Etha,
one of whom married and Irish lady; but there is no mention made of the real name of the
palce of their nativity, although the translator assures us, in another note, that they also
were Caledonians. But in fact, it is from the internal evidences of the poems themselves,
not from the notes of Mr Macpherson, nor indeed altogether from his beautiful but
unfaithful translation, that we are to decide on the nation to which these poems belong.
In Fingal, the first and most perfect of the collection, that hero is first mentioned by
Cuchullin as Fingal, King of Desarts in the original Inis na
bfhiodhuide, or Woody Island; without any allusion whatever to his being a
Caledonian. And afterwards he is called King of Selma, by Swaran, a name, with little
variation, given to several castles in Ireland. Darthulla's castle is named Selma; and
another, whose owner I do not remember, is termed Selemath. Slimora, to whose
fir the spear of Foldath is compared, is a mountain in the province of Munster, and
throughout the whole even of Mr Macpherson's translation, the characters, names,
allusions, incidents, and scenery are all Irish. And in fact, our Irish spurious
ballads, as Mr Macpherson calls them, are the very originals out of which he has
spun the materials for his version of Ossian.*
[* 'Some of the remaining footsteps of these old warriors are known by
their first names at this time (says Keating), as for instance, Suidhe Finn, or the
Palace of Fin, at Sliabh na Mann, etc. etc. etc.' There is a mountain in Donegal
still called Alt Ossoin, surrounded by all that wild sublimity of scenery so
exquisitely delineated through the elegant medium of Mr Macpherson's translation of
Ossian; and in its environs many Ossianic tales are still extant.
In an extract given by Camden from an account of the manners of the native Irish in
the sixteenth century 'they think (says the author) the souls of the deceased are in
communion with the famous men of those places, of whom they retain many stories and
sonnets as of the giants Fin, Mac Huyle, Osker, Mac Osshin, etc. etc. and they say,
through illusion, they often see them.']
'Dr Johnson, who strenuously opposed the idea of Ossian being the work of a
Scotch bard of the third century, asserts that the "Erse never was a written language, and
that there is not in the world a written Erse manuscript an hundred years old." He adds,
"The Welsh and Irish are cultivated tongues, and two hundred years back insulted their
English neighbours for the instability of their orthography. Even the ancient Irish
letter was unknown in the Highlands in 1690, for an Irish version of the Bible
being given there by Mr Kirk, was printed in the Roman character."
'When Dr Young,* led by tasteful enterprize, visited the Highlands (on an Ossianic
research) in 1784, he collected a number of Gaelic poems respecting the race of the
Fiens, so renowned in the annals of Irish heroism,** and found, that the orthography was
less pure than that among us; for he says, "the Erse being only a written language within
these few years, no means were yet afforded of forming a decided orthographic
standard." But he augurs, from the improvement which had lately taken place, that we
soon may expect to see the Erse restored to the original purity which it possesses in the
mother country. And those very poems, whence Mr Macpherson has chiefly
constructed his Ossian, bear such strong internal proof of their Irish origin, as to contain
in themselves the best arguments that can be adduced against the Scottish claimants on
the poems of the bard. But in their translation,*** many passages are perverted, in order
to deprive Ireland of being the residence of Fingal's heroes.'
[*Dr Young, late Bishop of Clonfert, who united in his character the
extremes of human perfection the most unblemished virtue to the most exalted
genius.]
[**See Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 1786.]
[***'From the remotest antiquity we have seen the military order distinguished in
Ireland, codes of military laws and discipline established, and their dress, and rank in the
state, ascertained. The learned Keating, and others, tell us, that these militia were
called Fine, from Fion Mac Cumhal; but it is certainly a great error; the
word Fine strictly implying a military corps. Many places in the island
retain, to this day, the names of some of the leaders of this famous body of men, and
whole volumes of poetical fictions have been grafted upon their exploits. The manuscript
which I have, after giving a particular account of Finn's descent, his inheritance,
his acquisitions from the King of Leinster, and his great military command, immediately
adds "but the reader must not expect to meet here with such stories of him and his
heroes as the vulgar Irish have."' Warner.]
'I remember,' said the Prince, 'when you read to me a description of a sea-fight
between Fingal and Swaran, in Macpherson's translation, that I repeated to you, in Irish,
the very poem whence it was taken, and which is still very current here, under the title of
Laoid Mhanuis M'hoir.'
'True,' returned the priest, 'a copy of which is deposited in the University of Dublin,
with another Irish MS entitled, "Oran eadas Ailte agus do Maronnan," whence
the Battle of Lora is taken.'
The Prince then, desiring Father John to give him down a bundle of old manuscripts
which lay on a shelf in the hall, dedicated to national tracts, after some trouble, produced
a copy of a poem, called 'The Conversation of Ossian and St Patrick,' the original of
which, Father John assured me, was deposited in the library of the Irish University.
It is to this poem that Mr Macpherson alludes, when he speaks of the dispute reported
to have taken place between Ossian and a Culdee.
At my request, he translated this curious controversial tract.* The dispute was
managed on both sides with a great deal of polemic ardour. St Patrick, with apostolic
zeal, shuts the gates of Mercy on all whose faith differs from his own, and, with an
unsaintly vehemence, extends the exclusion, in a pointed manner, to the ancestors of
Ossian, who, he declares, are suffering in the limbo of tortured spirits.
[*Notwithstanding the sceptical obstinacy that Ossian here displays,
there is a current tradition of his having been present at a baptismal ceremony performed
by the Saint, who accidentally struck the sharp point of his crozier through the bard's
foot, who, supposing it part of the ceremony, remained transfixed to the earth without a
murmur.]
The bard tenderly replies, 'It is hard to believe thy tale, O man of the white book!
that Fian, or one so generous, should be in captivity with God or man.'
When, however, the Saint persists in the assurance, that not even the generosity of
the departed hero could save him from the house of torture, the failing spirit of 'the King
of Harps' suddenly sends forth a lingering flash of its wonted fire; and he indignantly
declares, 'that if the Clan of Boisgna were still in being, they would liberate their beloved
general from this threatened hell.'
The Saint, however, growing warm in the argument, expatiates on the great difficulty
of any soul entering the court of God: to which the infidel bard beautifully
replies: 'Then he is not like Fionn M'Cuil, our chief of the Fians; for every man
upon the face of the earth might enter his court, without asking his
permission.'
Thus, as you perceive, fairly routed, I however artfully proposed terms of
capitulation, as though my defeat was yet dubious.
'Were I a Scotchman,' said I, 'I should be furnished with more effectual arms against
you; but as an Englishman, I claim an armed neutrality, which I shall endeavour to
preserve between the two nations. At the same time that I feel the highest satisfaction in
witnessing the just pretension of that country (which now ranks in my estimation next to
my own) to a work which would do honour to any country so fortunate as to
claim its author as her son.'
The Prince, who seemed highly gratified by this avowal, shook me heartily by the
hand, apparently flattered by his triumph; and at that moment Glorvina entered.
'O, my dear!' said the Prince, 'you are just come in time to witness an amnesty
between Mr Mortimer and me.'
'I should rather witness the amnesty than the breach,' returned she, smiling.
'We have been battling about the country of Ossian,' said the priest, ' with as much
vehemence as the claimants on the birth-place of Homer.'
'O! I know of old,' cried Glorvina, 'that you and my father are natural allies on that
point of contention; and I must confess, it was ungenerous in both, to oppose your united
strength against Mr Mortimer's single force.'
'What, then,' said the Prince, good humouredly, 'I supposed you would have
deserted your national standard, and have joined Mr Mortimer, merely from motives of
compassion.'
'Not so, my dear Sir,' said Glorvina, faintly blushing, 'but I should have endeavoured
to have compromised between you. To you I would have accorded that Ossian was an
Irishman, of which I am as well convinced as of any other self-evident truth whatever,
and to Mr Mortimer I would have acknowledged the superior merits of Mr Macpherson's
poems, as compositions, over those wild effusions of our Irish bards whence he compiled
them.
'Long before I could read, I learned on the bosom of my nurse, and in my father's
arms, to recite the songs of our national bards, and almost since I could read, the Ossian
of Macpherson has been the object of my enthusiastic admiration.
'In the original Irish poems, if my fancy is sometimes dazzled by the brilliant flashes
of native genius, if my heart is touched by strokes of nature, or my soul elevated by
sublimity of sentiment, yet my interest is often destroyed, and my admiration often
checked, by relations so wildly improbably, by details so ridiculously grotesque, that
though these stand forth as the most undeniable proofs of their authenticity and the
remoteness of the day in which they were composed, yet I reluctantly suffer my mind to
be convinced at the expence of my feeling and my taste. But in the soul-stealing strains
of "the Voice of Cona," as breathed through the refined medium of Macpherson's genius,
no incongruity of style, character, or manner, disturbs the profound interest they awaken.
For my own part, when my heart is coldly void, when my spirits are sunk and drooping, I
fly to my English Ossian, and then my sufferings are soothed, and every desponding
spirit into a sweet melancholy, more delicious than joy itself; while I experience in its
perusal a similar sensation as when, in the stillness of an autumnal evening, I expose my
harp to the influence of the passing breeze, which faintly breathing on the chords, seems
to call forth its own requiem as it expires.'
'Oh, Macpherson!' I exclaimed, 'be thy spirit appeased, for thou hast received that
apotheosis thy talents have nearly deserved, in the eulogium of beauty and genius, and
from the lip of an Irishwoman.'
This involuntary and impassioned exclamation extorted from the Prince a smile of
gratified parental pride, and overwhelmed Glorvina with confusion. She could, I believe,
have spared it before her father, and received it with a bow and a blush. Shortly after she
left the room.
Adieu! I thought to have returned to M house, but I know not how it is
'Mais un invincible contraint
Malgrθ moi fixe ici mes pas,
Et tu sais que pour aller ΰ Cornith,
Le desir seul ne suffit pas.'
Adieu!
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XIII
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
The conduct of this girl is inexplicable. Since the unfortunate picture scene three
days back, she has excused herself twice from the drawing-desk; and to-day appeared at
it with the priest by her side. Her playful familiarity is vanished, and a chill reserve,
uncongenial to the native ardour of her manner, has succeeded. Surely she cannot be so
vain, so weak, as to mistake my attentions to her as a young and lovely woman; my
admiration of her talents, and my surprize at the originality of her character, for a serious
passion. And supposing me to be a wanderer and an hireling, affect to reprove my
temerity by haughtiness and disdain.
Would you credit it! By Heavens, I am sometimes weak enough to be on the very
point of telling her who and what I am, when she plays off her little airs of Milesian pride
and female superciliousness. You perceive, therefore, by the conduct of this little Irish
recluse, that on the subject of love and vanity, woman is every where, and in all
situations, the same. For what coquet reared in the purlieus of St James, could be more
a portιe to those effects which denote the passion, or more apt to suspect she had
awakened it into existence, than this inexperienced, unsophisticated being? who I
suppose never spoke to ten men in her life, save the superannuated inhabitants of her
paternal ruins. Perhaps, however, she only means to check the growing familiarity of my
manner, and to teach me the disparity of rank which exists between us; for, with all her
native strength of mind, the influence of invariable example and frequent precept has
been too strong for her, and she has unconsciously imbibed many of her father's
prejudices respecting antiquity of descent and nobility of birth. She will frequently say,
'O! such a one is a true Milesian!' or, 'he is a descendant of the English Irish;'
or, 'they are new people we hear nothing of them till the wars of Cromwell,' and so
on. Yet at other times, when reason lords it over prejudice, she will laugh at that
weakness in others, she sometimes betrays in herself.
The other day, as we stood chatting at a window together, pointing to an elderly man
who passed by, she said, 'there goes a poor Connaught gentleman, who would rather
starve than work he is a follower of the family, and has been just entertaining
my father with an account of our ancient splendour. We have too many instances of this
species of mania among us.
'The celebrated Bishop of Cloyne relates an anecdote of a kitchenmaid, who refused
to carry out cinders, because she was of Milesian descent. And Father John tells a story
of a young gentleman in Limerick, who being received under the patronage of a
nobleman going out as Governor-General of India, sacrificed his interest to his
national pride; for having accompanied his Lordship on board the vessel which
was to convey them to the East, and finding himself placed at the foot of the dining-table,
he instantly arose, and went on shore, declaring that "as a true Milesian," he
would not submit to any indignity, to purchase the riches of the East India
Company.*
[*Not long since, the Author met a person in the capacity of a writing
master in a gentleman's family, who assured her that he was a Prince by lineal
descent, and that the name of his Principality was Sliabh-Ban. This Principality
of Sliabh-Ban, however, is simply a small and rugged mountain, whose rigid soil
bids defiance to culture.]
'All this,' continued Glorvina, 'is ridiculous, nay it is worse, for it is highly
dangerous and fatal to the community at large. It is the source of innumerable disorders,
by promoting idleness, and consequently vice. It frequently checks the industry of the
poor, and limits the exertions of the rich, and perhaps is not among the least of those
sources whence our national miseries flow. At the same time I must own, I have a very
high idea of the virtues which exalted birth does or ought to bring with it. Marmontel
elegantly observes, "nobility of birth is a letter of credit given us on our country, upon the
security of our ancestors, in the conviction that at a proper period of life we shall acquit
ourselves with honour to those who stand engaged for us."'
Observe, that this passage was quoted in the first person, and not, as in the original,
in the second, and with an air of dignity that elevated her pretty little head some
inches.
'Since,' she continued, 'we are all the beings of education, and that its most material
branch, example, lies vested in our parents, it is natural to suppose that those superior
talents or virtues which in early stages of society are the purchase of worldly elevation,
become hereditary, and that the noble principles of our ancestors should descend to us
with their titles and estates.'
'Ah,' said I, smiling, 'these are the ideas of an Irish Princess, reared in the palace of
her ancestors on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.'
'They may be,' she returned, 'the ideas of an inexperienced recluse, but I think they
are not less the result of rational supposition, strengthened by the evidence of internal
feeling; for though I possessed not that innate dignity of mind which instinctively
spurned at the low suggestion of vicious dictates, yet the consciousness of the virtues of
those from whom I am descended, would prevent me from sullying by an unworthy
action of mine, the unpolluted name I had the honour to bear.'
She then repeated several anecdotes of the heroism, rectitude, and virtue of her
ancestors of both sexes, adding 'this was once the business of our Bards, Fileas, and
Seanachies, but we are now obliged to have recourse to our own memories, in order to
support our own dignity.
'But do not suppose I am so weak as to be dazzled by a sound, or to consider
mere title in any other light than as a golden toy judiciously worn to secure the respect of
the vulgar, who are incapable of appreciating that "which passeth show,"* which, as my
father says, is sometimes given to him who saves, and sometimes bestowed on him who
betrays, his country. O! no; for I would rather possess one beam of that genius
which elevates your mind above all worldly distinction, and those principles of
integrity which breathe in your sentiments and ennoble your soul, than'
[* 'He feels no ennobling principles in his own heart, who wishes to
level all the artificial institutes which have been adopted for giving body to opinion, and
permanence to future esteem.' Burke.]
Thus hurried away by the usual impetuosity of her feelings, she abruptly stopped,
fearful, perhaps, that she had gone too far. And then, after a moment added 'but who
will dare to bring the souls of nobility in competition with the short-lived elevation which
man bestows on man!'
This was the first direct compliment she ever paid me; and I received it with a silent
bow, and throbbing heart, and a colouring cheek.
Is she not an extraordinary creature! I meant to have given you an unfavourable
opinion of her prejudices; and in transcribing my documents of accusation, I have
actually confirmed myself in a better opinion of her heart and understanding than I ever
before indulged in. For to think well of her, is a positive indulgence to my
philanthropy, after having through so ill of all her sex.
But all her virtues and her genius have nothing to do with the ice which crystallizes
round her heart; and which renders her as coldly indifferent to the talents and virtues with
which her fancy has invested me, as though they were in possession of an hermit of four
score. Yet God knows, nothing less than cold does her character appear. That mutability
of complexion which seems to flow perpetually to the influence of her evident feelings
and vivid imagination, that ethereal warmth which animates her manners; the force and
energy of her expressions, the enthusiasm of her disposition, the uncontroulable smile,
the involuntary tear, the spontaneous sigh! Are these indications of an icy heart? And
yet, shut up as we are together, thus closely associated, the sympathy of our tastes, our
pursuits! But the fact is, I begin to fear that I have imported into the shades of Inismore
some of my London presumption; and that after all, I know as little of this charming
sport of Nature, as when I first beheld her possibly my perceptions have
become as sophisticated as the objects to whom they have hitherto been directed; and
want refinement and subtilty to enter into all the delicate minutiζ of her superior
and original character, which is at once both natural and national.
Adieu!
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XIV
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
To day I was presented at an interview granted by the Prince to two contending
parties, who came to ask law of him, as they term it. This, I am told, the Irish
peasantry are ready to do upon every slight difference; so that they are the most litigious,
or have the nicest sense of right and justice, of any people in the
world.
Although the language held by this little judicial meeting was Irish, it was by no
means necessary it should be understood, to comprehend, in some degree, the subject of
the discussion; for the gestures and countenances both of the judge and the clients, were
expressive beyond all conception; and I plainly understood, that almost every other word
on both sides was accompanied by a species of local oath, sworn on the first
object that presented itself to their hands, and strongly marked the vehemence of the
national character.
When I took notice of this to Father John, he replied,
'It is certain, that the habit of confirming every assertion with an oath, is as prevalent
among the Irish as it was among the ancient, and is among the modern,
Greeks. And it is remarkable, that even at this day, in both countries, the nature and form
of their adjurations and oaths are perfectly similar: a Greek will still swear by his parents,
or his children; and Irishman frequently swears, "by my father, who is no more!" "by my
mother in the grave!" Virgil makes his pious Ζneas swear by his head. The Irish
constantly swear, "by my hand," "by this hand," or, "by the hand of my gossip!"*
There is one who has just sworn by the Cross; another, by the blessed stick he
holds in his hand. In short, no intercourse passes between them where confidence is
required, in which oaths are not called in to confirm the transaction.'
[*The mention of this oath recalls to my mind an anecdote of the bard
Carolan, as related by Mr Walker, in his inimitable Memoir of the Irish Bards. 'He
(Carolan) went once on a pilgrimage to St Patrick's Purgatory, a cave in an island
in Louh Dergh (county of Donegal), of which more wonders are told than even of the
Cave of Triphonius. On his return to shore, he found several pilgrims waiting the arrival
of the boat which had conveyed him to the object of his devotion. In assisting some of
those devout travellers to get on board, he chanced to take a lady's hand, and instantly
exclaimed, "dar lamh mo Chairdais Croist (i.e. by the hand of my gossip)
this is the hand of Bridget Cruise" His sense of feeling did not deceive him it
was the hand of her whom he once adored.']
* * * * *
I am this moment returned from my Vengolf, after having declared the
necessity of my absence for some time, leaving the term, however, indefinite; so that in
this instance, I can be governed by my inclination and convenience, without any violation
of promise. The good old Prince looked as much amazed at my determination, as though
he expected I were never to depart; and I really believe, in the old-fashioned hospitality
of his Irish heart, he would be better satisfied I never should. He said many kind and
cordial things in own curious way; and concluded by pressing my speedy return, and
declaring that my presence had created a little jubilee among them.
The priest was absent; and Glorvina, who sat at her little wheel by her father's side,
snapped her thread, and drooped her head close to her work, until I casually observed,
that I had already passed above three weeks at the castle then she shook back the
golden tresses from her brow, and raised her eyes to mine with a look that seemed to say,
'can that be possible!' Not even by a glance did I reply to the flattering questions; but I
felt it not the less.
When we arose to retire to our respective apartments, I mentioned that I should be off
at dawn, the Prince shook me cordially by the hand, and bid me farewell with an almost
paternal kindness.
Glorvina, on whose arm he was leaning, did not follow his example she simply
wished me 'a pleasant journey.'
'But where,' said the Prince, 'do you sojourn to?'
'To the town of Bally,' said I, 'which has been hitherto my head-quarters, and
where I have left my clothes, books, and drawing utensils. I have also some friends in the
neighbourhood, procured me by letters of introductions with which I was furnished in
England.'
You know that a great part of this neighbourhood is now my father's property, and
once belonged to the ancestors of the Prince. He changed colour as I spoke, and hurried
on in silence.
Adieu! the castle clock strikes twelve! What creatures we are! when the tinkling of a
bit of metal can affect our spirits. Mine, however (though why, I know not), were
prepared for the reception of somber images. This night may be, in all human
probability; the last I shall sleep in the castle of Inismore; and what then it were perhaps
as well I had never entered it. A generous mind can never reconcile itself to the practices
of deception; yet to prejudices so inveterate, I had nothing but deception to oppose. And
yet, when in some happy moment of parental favour, when all my past sins are forgotten,
and my present state of regeneration only remembered I shall find courage to disclose
my romantic adventure to my father, and through the medium of that strong partiality the
son has awakened in the heart of the Prince, unite in bonds of friendship these two
worthy men, but unknown enemies then I shall triumph in my impositions, and,
for the first time, adopt the maxim, that good consequences may be effected by means not
strictly conformable to the rigid laws of truth.
I have just been at my window, and never beheld so gloomy a night not a star
twinkles through the massy clouds that are driven impetuously along by the sudden gusts
of a rising storm not a ray of light partially dissipates the profound obscurity, save what
halls on a fragment of an opposite tower, and seems to issue from the window of a closet
with joins the apartment of Glorvina. She has not yet then retired to rest, and yet 'tis
unusual for her to sit up so late. For I have often watched that little casement its
position exactly corresponds with the angle of the castle where I am lodged.
If I should have any share in the vigils of Glorvina!!!
I know not whether to be most gratified or hurt at the manner in which she took leave
of me. Was it indifference, or resentment, that marked her manner? She certainly was
surprized, and her surprize was not of the most pleasing nature for where was the magic
smile, the sensient blush, that ever ushers in and betray every emotion of her ardent soul?
Sweet being! whatever may be the sentiments which the departure of the supposed
unfortunate wanderer awakens in thy bosom, may that bosom still continue the hallowed
asylum of the dove of peace! May the pure heart it enshrines still throb to the best
impulses of the happiest nature, and beat with the soft palpitation of innocent pleasure
and guileless transport, veiled from the rude intercourse of that world to which thy
elevated and sublime nature is so eminently superior: long amidst the shade of the
venerable ruins of they forefathers mayest thou bloom and flourish in undisturbed
felicity! the ministering angel of thy poor compatriots, who look up to thee for example
and support thy country's muse, and the bright model of the genuine character of her
daughters, when unvitiated by erroneous education, and by those fatal prejudices which
lead them to seek in foreign refinement for those talents, those graces, those virtues,
which are no where to be found more flourishing, more attractive, than in their native
land.
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XV
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
M House
It certainly requires less nicety of perception to distinguish differences in kind than
differences in degree; but though my present, like my past situation, is solitudinous in the
extreme, it demands no very great discernment to discover, that my late life was a life of
solitude my present, of desolation.
In the castle of Inismore I was estranged from the world: here I am estranged from
myself. Yet so much more sequestered did that sweet interesting spot appear to me, that I
felt, on arriving at this vast and solitary place (after having passed by a few gentlemen's
seats, and caught a distant view of the little town of Bally), as though I were returning
to the world but felt as if that world had no longer any attraction for me.
What a dream was the last three weeks of my life! But it was a dream from which I
wished not to be awakened. It seemed to me as if I had lived in an age of primeval
simplicity and primeval virtue. My senses at rest, my passions soothed to philosophic
repose, my prejudices vanquished, all the powers of my mind gently breathed into
motion, yet calm and unagitated all the faculties of my taste called into exertion, yet
unsated even by boundless gratification. My fancy restored to its pristine warmth, my
heart to its native sensibility. The past given to oblivion, the future unanticipated, and the
present enjoyed, with the full consciousness of its pleasurable existence. Wearied,
exhausted, satiated by a boundless indulgence of hackneyed pleasures, hackneyed
occupations, hackneyed pursuits, at a moment when I was sinking beneath the lethargic
influence of apathy, or hovering on the brink of despair, a new light broke upon my
clouded mind, and discovered to my inquiring heart, something yet worth living for.
What that mystic something is, I can scarcely yet define myself; but a magic spell now
irresistibly binds me to that life which but lately,
'Like a foul and ugly witch, did limp
So tediously away.'
The reserved tints of grey dawn had not yet received the illuminating beams of the
east, when I departed from the castle of Inismore. None of the family were risen, but the
hind who prepared my rosinante, and the nurse, who made my breakfast.
I rode twice round that wing of the castle where Glorvina sleeps: the curtain of her
bed-room casement was closely drawn; but as I passed by it the second time, I thought I
perceived a shadowy form at the window of the adjoining casement. As I approached it
seemed to retreat; the whole, however, might have only been the vision of my wishes
my wishes!!! But this girl piques me into something of interest for her.
About three miles from the castle, on the summit of a wild and desolate heath, I met
the good Father Director of Inismore. He appeared quite amazed at the recontre. He
expressed great regret at my absence from the castle, insisting that he should accompany
me a mile or two of my journey, though he was only then returning after having passed
the night in ministering temporal as well as spiritual comfort to an unfortunate family at
some miles distance.
'These poor people,' said he, 'were tenants on the skirts of Lord M.'s estate, who,
though by all accounts a most excellent and benevolent man, employs a steward of a very
opposite character. This unworthy delegate having considerably raised the rent on a little
farm held by these unfortunate people, they soon became deeply in arrears, were ejected,
and obliged to take shelter in an almost roofless hut, where the inclemency of the season,
and the hardships they endured, brought on disorders by which the mother and two
children are now nearly reduced to the point of death;* and yesterday, in their last
extremity, they sent for me.'
[*The lower orders of Irish are very subject to dreadful fevers, which
are generally the result of colds caught by the exposed state of their damp and roofless
hovels.]
While I commiserated the sufferings of these unfortunates (and cursed the villain
Clendinning in my heart), I could not avoid adverting to the humanity of this benevolent
priest.
'These offices of true charity, which you so frequently perform,' said I, 'are purely
the result of your benevolence, rather than a mere observance of your duty.'
'It is true,' he replied, 'I have no parish; but the incumbent of that in which these
poor people reside is so old and infirm, as to be totally incapacitated from performing
such duties of his calling as require the least exertion. The duty of one who professes
himself the minister of religion, whose essence is charity, should not be confined within
the narrow limitation of prescribed rules; and I should consider myself as unworthy of the
sacred habit I wear, should my exertions be confined to the suggestions of my interest
and my duty only.'
'The faith of the lower order of Catholics here in their priest,' he continued, 'is
astonishing: even his presence they conceive an antidote to every evil. When he appears
at the door of their huts, and blends his cordial salutation with a blessing, the spirit of
consolation seems to hover at its threshold pain is alleviated, sorrow soothed, and hope,
rising from the bosom of strengthening faith, triumphs over the ruins of despair. To the
wicked he prescribes penitence and confession, and the sinner is forgiven; to the
wretched he asserts, that suffering here, is the purchase of felicity hereafter, and he is
resigned; and to the sick he gives a consecrated charm, and by the force of faith and
imagination he is made well. Guess then the influence which this order of men hold over
the aggregate of the people; for while the Irish peasant, degraded, neglected, and
despised,* vainly seeks one beam of conciliation in the eye of overbearing superiority;
condescension, familiarity and kindness win his gratitude to him whose spiritual
elevation is in his mind above all temporal rank.'
[*The common people of Ireland have no rank in society they
may be treated with contempt, and consequently are with inhumanity.' 'An
Inquiry into the Causes,' etc. etc.]
'You shed,' said I, 'a patriarchal interest over the character of priesthood among you
here; which gives that order to my view in a very different aspect from that in which I
have hitherto considered it. To what an excellent purpose might this boundless influence
be turned!'
'If,' interrupted he, 'priests were not men - men too, generally speaking,
without education (which is in fact character, principle, every thing), except such as tends
rather to narrow than enlarge the mind - men in a certain degree shut out from society,
except of the lower class; and men who, from their very mode of existence (which forces
them to depend on the eleemosynary contributions of their flock), must eventually in
many instances imbibe a degradation of spirit which is certainly not the parent of the
liberal virtues.'
'Good God!' said I, surprized, 'and this from one of their own order!'
'These are sentiments I should never have hazarded,' returned the priest, 'could I not
have opposed to those natural conclusions, drawn from well known facts, innumerable
instances of benevolence, piety, and learning, among the order. While to the whole body
let it be allowed as priests, whatever may be their failings as men, that the
activity of their lives,* the punctilious discharge of their duty, and their ever ready
attention to their flock, under every moral and even under every physical suffering,
renders them deserving of that reverence and affection which, above the ministers of any
other religion, they receive from those over whom they are placed.'
[* 'A Roman Catholic clergyman is the minister of a very ritual
religion; and by his profession, subject to many restraints; his life is full of strict
observances, and his duties are of a laborious nature towards himself, and of the highest
possible trust towards others.' Letter on the Penal Laws against the Irish Catholics,
by the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.]
'And which,' said I, 'if opposed to the languid performance of periodical duties,
neglect of the moral functions of their calling, and the habitual indolence of the ministers
of other sects, they may certainly be deemed zealots in the cause of the faith they profess,
and the charity they inculcate!'
While I spoke, a young lad, almost in a state of nudity, approached us, yet in the
crown of his leafless hat were stuck a few pens, and over his shoulder hung a leathern
satchel full of books.
'This is an apposite recontre,' said the priest - 'behold the first stage of one
class of Catholic priesthood among us; a class however no longer very prevalent.'
The boy approached, and, to my amazement, addressed us in Latin, begging with all
the vehement eloquence of an Irish mendicant, for some money to buy ink and paper.
We gave him a trifle, and the priest desired him to go on to the castle, where he would get
his breakfast, and that on his return he would give him some books into the bargain.
The boy, who had solicited in Latin, expressed his gratitude in Irish; and we trotted
on.
'Such,' said Father John, 'formerly was the frequent origin of our Roman Catholic
priests. This is a character unknown to you in England, and is called here, "a poor
scholar." If a boy is too indolent to work, and his parents too poor to support him, or,
which is more frequently the case, if he discovers some natural talents, or, as they call it
takes to his learning, and that they have not the means to forward his
improvement, he then becomes by profession a poor scholar, and continues to
receive both his mental and bodily food at the expence of the community at large.
'With a leathern satchel on his back, containing his portable library, he sometimes
travels not only through his own province, but frequently over the greater part of the
kingdom.* No door is shut against the poor scholar, who, it is supposed, at a future day
may be invested with the apostolic key of Heaven. The priest or schoolmaster of every
parish through which he passes, receives him for a few days into his bare-footed
seminary, and teaches him bad Latin and worse English; while the most opulent of his
school-fellows eagerly seize on the young peripatetic philosopher, and provides him with
maintenance and lodging; and if he is a boy of talent or humour (a gift always
prized by the naturally laughter-loving Milesians), they will struggle for the pleasure of
his society.
[*It has been justly said, that 'Nature is invariable in her operations;
and that the principles of a polished people will influence even their latest posterity.' And
the ancient state of letters in Ireland, may be traced in the love of learning and talent even
still existing among the inferior class of the Irish to this day. On this point it is observed
by Mr Smith, in his History of Kerry, 'that it is well known that classical reading
extends itself even to a fault, among the lower and poorer kind of people in this country
(Munster), many of whom have greater knowledge in this way than some of the better
sort in other places.' He elsewhere observes, that Greek is taught in the mountainous
parts of the province. And Mr O'Halloran asserts, that classical reading has most
adherents in those retired parts of the kingdom where strangers had least access, and that
as good classical scholars were found in most parts of Connaught, as in any part of
Europe.]
'Having thus had the seeds of dependence sown irradically in his mind, and
finished his peripatetic studies, he returns to his native home, and with an empty satchel
on his back, goes about raising contributions on the pious charity of his poor compatriots:
each contributes some necessary article of dress, and assists to fill a little purse, until
completely equipped; and for the first time in his life, covered from head to foot, the
divine in embryo sets out for some sea-port, where he embarks for the colleges of Douay
or St Omers; and having begged himself in forma pauperis, through all the
necessary rules and discipline of the seminary, he returns to his own country, and
becomes the minister of salvation to those whose generous contributions enabled him to
assume the sacred profession.*
[*The French Revolution, and the foundation of the Catholic college at
Maynooth, in Leinster, has put a stop to these pious emigrations.]
'Such is the man by whom the minds, opinions, and even actions of the people are
often influenced; and if man is but the creature of education and habit, I leave you to
draw the inference. But this is but one class of priesthood, and its description
rather applicable to twenty or thirty years back than to the present day. The other two
may be divided into the sons of tradesmen and farmers, and the younger sons of Catholic
gentry.
'Of the latter order I am; and the interest of my friends on my return from the
Continent procured me what was deemed the best parish in the diocese. But the good and
the evil attendant on every situation in life, is rather to be estimated by the feelings and
sensibility of the objects whom they affect, than by their own intrinsic nature. It was in
vain, I endeavored to accommodate my mind to the mode of life into which I had been
forced by my friends. It was in vain I endeavoured to assimilate my spirit to that species
of exertion necessary to be made for my livelihood.
'To owe my substinence to the precarious generosity of those wretches, whose every
gift to me must be the result of a sensible deprivation to themselves; to be obliged to
extort (even from the alter where I presided as the minister of the Most High) the trivial
contributions for my support, in a language which, however appropriate to the
understandings of my auditors, sunk me in my own esteem to the last degree of self-
degradation; or to receive from the religious affection of my flock such voluntary
benefactions as, under all the pressure of scarcity and want, their rigid economy to
themselves enabled them to make the pastor whom they revered.* In a word, after three
years miserable dependence on those for whose poverty and wretchedness my heart bled,
I threw up my situation, and became chaplain to the Prince of Inismore, on a stipend
sufficient for my little wants, and have lived with him for thirty years, on such terms as
you have witnessed for these three weeks back.
[*'Are these men supposed to have no sense of justice, that, in addition
to the burthen of supporting their own establishment exclusively, they should be called on
to pay ours; that, where they pay sixpence to their own priest, they should pay a pound to
our clergyman; that, while they can scarce afford their own horse, they should place ours
in his carriage; and that when they cannot build a mass-house to cover their multitudes,
they should be forced to pray under a shed!' Inquiry into the Causes of Popular
Discontents, etc. etc. page 27.]
'While my heart-felt compassion, my tenderest sympathy, is given to those of my
brethren who are by birth and education divested of that low scale of thought, and
obtruseness of feeling, which distinguish those of the order, who, reared from the lowest
origin upon principles the most servilising, are callous to the innumerable humiliations of
their dependent state -'
Here an old man mounted on a mule, rode up to the priest, and with tears in his eyes
informed him that he was just going to the castle to humbly entreat his Reverence would
visit a poor child of his, who had been looked on with 'an evil eye' a few days
back,* and who had ever since been pining away.
[*It is supposed among the lower order of Irish, as among the Greeks,
that some people are born with an evil eye, which injures every object on which it
falls, and they will frequently go many miles out of their direct road, rather than pass by
the house of one who has an evil eye. To frustrate its effects, the priest hangs a
consecrated charm around the necks of their children, called a gospel; and the
fears of the parents are quieted by their faith.]
'It was our misfortune,' said he, 'never to have tied a gospel about her neck, as we did
round the other children's, or this heavy sorrow would never have befallen us. But we
know if your Reverence would only be pleased to say a prayer over her, all would go well
enough!'
The priest gave me a significant look, and shaking me cordially by the hand, and
pressing my speedy return to Inismore, rode off with the suppliant.
Thus, in his duty, 'prompt at every call,' after having passed the night in acts of
religious benevolence, his humanity willingly obeyed the voice of superstitious prejudice
which endowed him with the fancied power of alleviating fancied evils.
As I rode along reflecting on the wondrous influence of superstition, and the nature
of its effects, I could not help dwelling on the strong analogy which in so many instances
appears between the vulgar errors of this country and that of the ancient as well as
modern Greeks.
St Crysostom* relating the bigotry of his own times, particularly mentions the
superstitious horror which the Greeks entertained against 'the evil eye.' And an
elegant modern traveller assures us, that even in the present day, they 'combine cloves of
garlic, talismans, and other charms, which they hang about the neck of their infants, with
the same intention of keeping away the evil eye.'
[*'Some write on the hand the names of several rivers; while other
make use of ashes, tallow, and salt, for the like purpose - all this being to divert the
evil eye.']
Adieu!
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XVI
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
I wish you were to have seen the look with which the worthy Mr Clendinning met
me, as I rode up the avenue to M House.
To put an end at once to his impertinent surmises, curiosity, and suspicion, which I
evidently saw lurking in his keen eye, I made a display of my fractured arm, which I still
wore in a sling; and naturally enough accounted for my absence, by alleging that a fall
from my horse, and a fractured limb, had obliged me to accept the humane attentions of a
gentleman, near whose house the accident had happened, and whose guest and patient I
had since been. Mr Clendinning affected the tone of regret and condolence, with some
appropriate suppositions of what his Lord would feel when he learnt the unfortunate
circumstance.
'In a word, Mr Clendinning,' said I, 'I do not choose my father's feelings should be
called in question on a matter which is now of no ill consequence; and as there is not the
least occasion to render him unhappy to no purpose, I must insist that you neither write or
mention the circumstance to him on any account.'
Mr Clendinning bowed obedience, and I contrived to ratify his promise by certain
innuendoes; for as he is well aware many of his villanies have reached by ears, he hates
and fears me with all his soul.
My first inquiry was for letters. I found two from my father and one, only one, from
you.
My father writes in his usual style. His first is merely an epistle admonitory; full of
prudent axioms, and fatherly solicitudes. The second informs me, that his journey to
Ireland is deferred for a month or six weeks, on account of my brother's marriage with
the heiress of the richest banker in the city. It is written in his best style, and a brilliant
flow of spirit pervades every line. In the plentitude of his joy, all my sins are
forgiven: he even talks of terminating my exile sooner than I had any reason to expect:
and he playfully adds, 'of changing my banishment into slavery,' 'knowing, from
experience, that provided my shackles are woven by the rosy fingers of beauty, I can
wear them patiently and pleasurably enough. In short,' he adds, 'I have a connexion in
my eye for you, not less brilliant in point of fortune than that your brother has made; and
which will enable you to forswear your Coke, and burn your Blackstone.'
In fact, the spirit of matrimonial establishment seems to have taken such complete
possession of my good speculating dad, that it would by no means surprize me
though he were on the point of sacrificing at the Hymeneal altar himself. You know he
has more than once, in a frolic, passed for my elder brother; and certainly has more
sensibility than should belong to forty-five. Nor should I at all wonder if some
insinuating coquette should one day or other sentimentalize him into a Platonic
passion, which would terminate in the old way. I have, however, indulged in a
little triumph at his expence; and have answered him in a strain of apathetic content that
habit and reason have perfectly reconciled me to my present mode of life, which leaves
me without a wish to change it.
Now for your letter. With respect to the advice you demand, I have only to repeat the
opinion already advanced, that * * * * *
But with respect to that you give me
'Go big physician preach our veins to health,
And with an argument new set a pulse.'
And as for your prediction of this be certain, that I am too hackneyed in les
affaires du cur, ever to fall in love beyond all redemption with any woman in
existence. And even this little Irish girl, with all her witcheries, is to me a subject of
philosophical analysis, rather than amatory discussion.
You ask me if I am not disgusted with her brogue? If she had one, I doubt not but I
should; but the accent to which we English apply that term, is here generally confined to
the lower orders of society; and I certainly believe, that purer and more grammatical
English is spoken generally through Ireland, than in any part of England whatever; for
here you are never shocked by the barbarous and unintelligible dialect peculiar to each
shire in England. As to Glorvina, an aptitude to learn languages is, you know, peculiar to
her country; but in her it is a decided and striking talent: even her Italian is, 'la langua
Toscana, nel' bocca Romana; and her English, grammatically correct, and elegantly
pure, is spoken with an accent that could never denote her country. But it is certain that
in that accent there is a species of languor very distinct from the brevity of ours.
Yet (to me at least) it only renders the lovely speaker more interesting. A simple
question from her lip seems rather tenderly to solicit, than abruptly to demand. Her every
request is a soft supplication; and when she stoops to entreaty, there is in her voice and
manner such an energy of supplication, that while she places your power to grant
in the most ostensible light to yourself, you are insensibly vanquished by that soft
persuasion whose melting meekness bestows your fancied exaltation. Her sweet-toned
mellifluous voice, is always sighed forth rather below than above its natural pitch, and
her mellowed softened mode of articulation is but imperfectly expressed by the susaro
susingando, or coaxy murmurs, of Italian persuasion.
To Father John, who is the first and most general linguist I ever met, she stands
highly indebted; but to Nature, and her own ambition to excell, still more.
I am now but six hours in this solitary and deserted mansion, where I feel as though I
reigned the very king of desolation. Let me hear from you by return.
Adieu!
H.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER XVII
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
I forgot to mention to you in my last, that to my utter joy and surprize, our
premier here has been recalled. On the day of my return, he received a letter
from his Lord, desiring his immediate attendance in London, with all the rents he could
collect; for I suppose the necessary expenditures requisite for my brother's matrimonial
establishment, will draw pretty largely on our family treasury.
This change of things in our domestic politics has changed all my plans of operation.
This arch spy being removed, obviates the necessity of my retreat to the Lodge. My
establishment here consists only of two females, who scarcely speak a word of English;
an old gardener, who possesses not one entire sense; and a groom, who, having
nothing to do, I shall discharge: so that if I should find it my pleasure to return, and
remain any time at the castle of Inismore, I shall have no one here to watch my actions, or
report them to my father.
There is something Botian in this air. I can neither read, write, or think. Does not
Locke assert, that the soul sometimes dozes? I frequently think I have been bit by a
torpedo, or that I partake in some degree of the nature of the seven sleepers, and suffer a
transient suspension of existence. What if this Glorvina has an evil eye, and has
overlooked me? The witch haunts me, not only in my dreams, but when I fancy
myself, at least, awake. A thousand times I think I hear the tones of her voice and
harp. Does she feel my absence at the accustomed hour of tuition, the fire-side circle in
the Vengolf, the twilight conversation, the noon-tide ramble? Has my presence
become a want to her? Am I missed, and missed with regret? It is scarcely vanity to say,
I am I must be. In a life of so much sameness, the most trivial incident, the
most inconsequent character, obtains an interest in a certain degree.
One day I caught her weeping over a pet robin, which died on her bosom. She
smiled, and endeavoured to hide her tears. 'This is very silly, I know,' said she, 'but one
must feel even the loss of a bird, that has been the companion of one's
solitude!'
To day I flung by my book, in down-right deficiency of comprehension to understand
a word in it, though it was a simple case in the Report of ; and so in the most
nonchalante mood possible, I mounted my rosinante, and throwing the
bridle over her neck, said 'please thyself;' and it was her pious pleasure to tread on
consecrated ground: in short, after a ride of half an hour, I found myself within a few
paces of the parish mass-house, and recollected that it was the Sabbath day; so that you
see my mare reproved me, though in an oblique manner, with little less gravity than the
ass of Balaam did his obstinate rider.
The mass-house was of the same order of architecture as the generality of Irish
cabins; with no other visible mark to ascertain its sacred designation than a stone cross,
roughly hewn, over its entrance. I will not say that it was merely a sentiment of piety
which induced me to enter it; but it certainly required, at first, an effort of energy to
obtain admittance, as for several yards round this simple tabernacle, a crowd of
devotees were prostrated on the earth, praying over their beads with as much
fervour as though they were offering up their orisons in the golden-roofed temple of
Solyman.
When I had fastened my horse's bridle to a branch of an hawthorn, I endeavoured to
make my way through the pious crowd, who all arose the moment I appeared for the
last mass, I learnt, was over; and those who had prayed par hazard,
without hearing a word the priest said within, departed. While I pressed my way into the
body of the chapel, it was so crowded that with great difficulty I found means to fix
myself by a large triangular stone vessel filled with holy water, where I fortunately
remained (during the sermon) unnoticed.
This sermon was delivered by a little old mendicant, in the Irish language. Beside
him stood the parish priest in pontificalibus, and with as much self-invested dignity as the
dalai lama of Little Thibet could assume before his votarists. When the shriveled
little mendicant had harangued them some time on the subject of Christian charity, for so
his countenance and action indicated, a general secula seculorum concluded his
discourse; and while he meekly retreated a few paces, the priest mounted the steps of the
little altar, and after preparing his lungs, he delivered an oration, to which it would be
impossible to do any justice. It was partly in Irish, partly in English; and intended to
inculcate the necessity of contributing to the relief of the mendicant preacher, if they
hoped to have the benefit of his prayers; addressing each of his flock by their name and
profess |