'I found in Innisfail the fair,
In Ireland, while in exile there,
Women of worth, both grave and gay men,
Many clerics, and many laymen.'
James Clarence Mangan.
Mrs. Delany, writing from Dublin in 1731, says: 'As for the generality
of people that I meet with here, they are much the same as in England--a
mixture of good and bad. All that I have met with behave themselves very
decently according to their rank; now and then an oddity breaks out, but
never so extraordinary but that I can match it in England. There is a
heartiness among them that is more like Cornwall than any I have known,
and great sociableness.' This picturesque figure in the life of her day
gives charming pictures in her memoirs of the Irish society of the time,
descriptions which are confirmed by contemporary writers. She was the
wife of Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, the companion of duchesses and queens,
and the friend of Swift. Hannah More, in a poem called 'Sensibility,'
published in 1778, gives this quaint and stilted picture of her:--
'Delany shines, in worth serenely bright,
Wisdom's strong ray, and virtue's milder light.
And she who blessed the friend and graced the page of Swift,
still lends her lustre to our age.
Long, long protract thy light, O star benign,
Whose setting beams with added brightness shine!'
The Irish ladies of Delany's day, who scarcely ever appeared on foot in
the streets, were famous for their grace in dancing, it seems, as the
men were for their skill in swimming. The hospitality of the upper
classes was profuse, and by no means lacking in brilliancy or in grace.
The humorous and satirical poetry found in the fugitive literature of
the period shows conclusively that there were plenty of bright
spirits and keen wits at the banquets, routs, and balls. The curse of
absenteeism was little felt in Dublin, where the Parliament secured the
presence of most of the aristocracy and of much of the talent of the
country, and during the residence of the viceroy there was the influence
of the court to contribute to the sparkling character of Dublin society.
How they managed to sparkle when discussing some of the heavy dinner
menus of the time I cannot think. Here is one of the Dean of Down's
bills of fare:--
Turkeys endove
Boyled leg of mutton
Greens, etc.
Soup
Plum Pudding
Roast loin of veal
Venison pasty
Partridge
Sweetbreads
Collared Pig
Creamed apple tart
Crabs
Fricassee of eggs
Pigeons
No dessert to be had.
Although there is no mention of beverages we may be sure that this
array of viands was not eaten dry, but was washed down with a plentiful
variety of wines and liquors.
The hosts, either in Dublin or London, who numbered among their dinner
guests such Irishmen as Sheridan or Lysaght, Mangan or Lever, Curran
or Lover, Father Prout or Dean Swift, had as great a feast of wit and
repartee as one will be apt soon to hear again; although it must have
been Lever or Lover who furnished the cream of Irish humour, and Father
Prout and Swift the curds.
If you are fortunate enough to be bidden to the right houses in Ireland
to-day, you will have as much good talk as you are likely to listen to
anywhere else in this degenerate age, which has mostly forgotten how to
converse in learning to chat; and any one who goes to the Spring Show
at Ball's Bridge, or to the Punchestown or Leopardstown races, or to the
Dublin horse show, will have to confess that the Irishwomen can dispute
the palm with any nation.
'Light on their feet now they passed me and sped,
Give you me word, give you me word,
Every girl wid a turn o' the head
Just like a bird, just like a bird;
And the lashes so thick round their beautiful eyes
Shinin' to tell you it's fair time o' day wid them,
Back in me heart wid a kind of surprise,
I think how the Irish girls has the way wid them!'
Their charm is made up of beautiful eyes and lashes, lustre of hair,
poise of head, shapeliness of form, vivacity and coquetry; and there
is a matchless grace in the way they wear the 'whatever,' be it the
chiffons of the fashionable dame, or the shawl of the country colleen,
who can draw the two corners of that faded article of apparel shyly over
her lips and look out from under it with a pair of luminous grey eyes in
a manner that is fairly 'disthractin'.'
Yesterday was a red-letter day, for I dined in the evening at Dublin
Castle, and Francesca was bidden to the concert in the Throne Room
afterwards. It was a brilliant scene when the assembled guests awaited
their host and hostess, the shaded lights bringing out the satins and
velvets, pearls and diamonds, uniforms, orders, and medals. Suddenly
the hum of voices ceased as one of the aides-de-camp who preceded the
vice-regal party announced 'their Excellencies.' We made a sort of
passage as these dignitaries advanced to shake hands with a few of those
they knew best. The Lord Lieutenant then gave his arm to the lady of
highest rank (alas, it was not I!); her Excellency chose her proper
squire, and we passed through the beautifully decorated rooms to St.
Patrick's Hall in a nicely graded procession, magnificence at the head,
humility at the tail. A string band was discoursing sweet music the
while, and I fitted to its measures certain well-known lines descriptive
of the entrance of the beasts into the ark.
'The animals went in two by two,
The elephant and the kangaroo.'
As my escort was a certain brilliant lord justice, and as the wittiest
dean in Leinster was my other neighbour, I almost forgot to eat in my
pleasure and excitement. I told the dean that we had chosen Scottish
ancestors before going to our first great dinner in Edinburgh, feeling
that we should be more in sympathy with the festivities and more
acceptable to our hostess, but that I had forgotten to provide myself
for this occasion, my first function in Dublin; whereupon the good dean
promptly remembered that there was a Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the
King of Connaught. I could not quite give up Tam o' the Cowgate (Thomas
Hamilton) or Jenny Geddes of fauld-stule fame, also a Hamilton, but I
added the King of Connaught to the list of my chosen forebears with much
delight, in spite of the polite protests of the Rev. Father O'Hogan, who
sat opposite, and who remarked that
'Man for his glory
To ancestry flies,
But woman's bright story
Is told in her eyes.
While the monarch but traces
Through mortal his line,
Beauty born of the Graces
Ranks next to divine.'
I asked the Reverend Father if he were descended from Galloping O'Hogan,
who helped Patrick Sarsfield to spike the guns of the Williamites at
Limerick.
“By me sowl, ma'am, it's not discinded at all I am; I am one o' the
common sort, just,” he answered, broadening his brogue to make me smile.
A delightful man he was, exactly such an one as might have sprung full
grown from a Lever novel; one who could talk equally well with his flock
about pigs or penances, purgatory or potatoes, and quote Tom Moore and
Lover when occasion demanded.
Story after story fell from his genial lips, and at last he said
apologetically, “One more, and I have done,” when a pretty woman,
sitting near him, interpolated slyly, “We might say to you, your
reverence, what the old woman said to the eloquent priest who finished
his sermon with 'One word, and I have done'”.
“An' what is that, ma'am?” asked Father O'Hogan.
“'Och! me darlin' pracher, may ye niver be done!'”
We all agreed that we should like to reconstruct the scene for a moment
and look at a drawing-room of two hundred years ago, when the Lady
Lieutenant after the minuets at eleven o'clock went to her basset table,
while her pages attended behind her chair, and when on ball nights
the ladies scrambled for sweetmeats on the dancing-floor. As to their
probable toilets, one could not give purer pleasure than by quoting Mrs.
Delany's description of one of them:--
'The Duchess's dress was of white satin embroidered, the bottom of the
petticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of weeds, and every
breadth had an old stump of a tree, that ran up almost to the top of
the petticoat, broken and ragged, and worked with brown chenille, round
which twined nasturtiums, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, and all sorts
of running flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat.... The
robings and facings were little green banks covered with all sorts of
weeds, and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose twining branches
of the same sort as those on the petticoat. Many of the leaves were
finished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the
gilding of the sun. I never saw a piece of work so prettily fancied.'
She adds a few other details for the instruction of her sister Anne:--
'Heads are variously adorned; pompons with some accompaniment of
feathers, ribbons, or flowers; lappets in all sorts of curli-murlis;
long hoods are worn close under the chin; the ear-rings go round the
neck(!), and tie with bows and ends behind. Night-gowns are worn without
hoops.'
Part Second--Munster.