Curious fatality in the Hartpole family—Characteristic sketch of the
last of the name—Description of Shrewl Castle—The chapel and
cemetery—Strictures on epitaph-writing—Eccentricities of the
Earl of Aldborough—His Lordship proposes his sister, Lady
Hannah Stratford, as _returning-officer_ for the borough of
Baltinglass—Consequent disturbances—The North-Briton put on his
mettle, but out-manœuvred—“Lending to _the Lord_”—Successful
conspiracy to marry Hartpole to the daughter of a village
inn-keeper—He is stabbed by his wife, and deserts her in
consequence—He forms an attachment to Miss Maria Otway, whom he
marries, under the plea of his previous connexion being
illegal—Unfortunate nature of this union—Separation of the
parties—Hartpole’s voyage to Portugal, his return, and death—Sundry
other anecdotes of the Stratford family.
In the year 1791, George Hartpole, of Shrewl Castle, Queen’s County,
Ireland, had just come of age. He was the last surviving male of that
name, which belonged to a popular family, highly respectable, and long
established in the county. Few private gentlemen commenced life with
better promise, and none better merited esteem and happiness. He was my
relative by blood; and though considerably younger, the most intimate
and dearest friend I had.
His father, Robert, had married a sister of the late and present Earls
of Aldborough. She was the mother of George; and through this connexion
originated my intercourse with that eccentric nobleman and his family.
A singular fatality had attended the Hartpole family from time
immemorial. The fathers seldom survived the attainment of the age of 23
years by their elder sons, which circumstance gave rise to numerous
traditionary tales of sprites and warnings.[12]
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Footnote 12:
The country authorities were very wise, very grave, and very grim on
this subject; but, after all, I suspect the most natural way of
accounting for the fatality alluded to is, that the old gentlemen were
commonly among the _hardest livers_ in the country, and consequently,
the gout was certain to be their companion, and generally their
executioner.
If wood be kept _alternately_ in and out of moisture, it rots soon:—if
it is _always_ in water, it never decays. A man’s constitution and
rum-punch may to a degree resemble wood and water in this respect. The
hardest _incessant_ drinkers I ever recollect lived to a great age,
were generally healthy, and usually made their exit, at last, by
apoplexy, without troubling either doctor, parson, or apothecary:
while, on the contrary, most of those who were only _intermitting_
boozers, died much earlier; their _finisher_ being, nine times out of
ten, gout in the head or stomach: a cause, however, occasionally
varied by a broken neck by a fall from a horse, when riding home from
a housewarming, or drowning in a ditch, whilst watering their horses
after the _dogh à dourish_. A few were smothered in shaking bogs,
whilst attending the turf-cutters, &c. &c.
It required at least three days and nights incessant _hard going_ to
kill a drinker of the first class. It cost Squire Luke Flood of
Roundwood, a place situated in Queen’s County, _five_ days and nights
hard working at port before he could _finish_ either himself or the
piper. Old Squire Lewis Moor of Cremorgan died, by way of _variety_,
at seventy-six, of a violent _passion_, because his wife became
jealous of his proceedings with the kitchen-maid. A few died of
Drogheda usquebaugh, and several of _sore ancles_. I recollect, in
fact, many of the most curious deaths and burials in Ireland that ever
took place in any country under heaven. None of them were considered
as being _melancholy events_, since every _hard going_ squire then
generally took his full turn in this world, and died by some _coup de
grace_, as stated: however, he was commonly regretted by all his
acquaintance and family, except his _eldest son_.
-----
Robert, as usual with the gentlemen of his day, was the dupe of agents,
and the victim of indolence and hospitality. He had deposited his
consort in the tomb of her fathers, and had continued merrily enjoying
the convivialities of the world (principally in the night-time) till his
son George had passed his 22nd year, and then punctually made way for
_the succession_, leaving George inheritor of a large territory, a
moderate income, a tattered mansion, an embarrassed rent-roll, and a
profound ignorance (without the consciousness of it) of business in all
departments.
George, though not at all handsome, had completely the mien and manners
of a gentleman. His features accorded well with his address, bespeaking
the cordiality of a friend and the ardour of an Irishman. His
disposition was mild—his nature brave, generous, and sincere: on some
occasions he was obstinate and peevish; on others, somewhat sullen and
suspicious; but in his friendships, George Hartpole was immutable.
His stature was of the middle height, and his figure exhibited no
appearance either of personal strength or constitutional vigour: his
slender form and the languid fire of his eye indicated excitation
without energy; yet his spirits were moderately good, and the most
careless observer might feel convinced that he had sprung from no
ordinary parentage—a circumstance which then had due influence in
Ireland, where agents, artisans, and attorneys had not as yet supplanted
the ancient nobility and gentry of the country.
Shrewl Castle, the hereditary residence of the Hartpoles, was in no way
distinguishable from the numerous other castellated edifices now in a
state of dilapidation throughout the whole island—ruins which invariably
excite a retrospect of happier times, when the resident landlord,
reverenced and beloved, and the cheerful tenant, fostered and protected,
felt the natural advantages of their reciprocal attachment; a reflection
which leads us to a sad comparison with modern usages, when the absent
lord and the mercenary agent have no consideration but the rents, no
solicitude but for their collection; when the deserted tenantry keep
pace in decline with the deserted mansion; when the ragged cottager has
no master to employ, no guardian to protect him!—pining, and sunk in the
lowest state of want and wretchedness,—_sans_ work, _sans_ food, _sans_
covering, _sans_ every thing,—he rushes forlorn and desperate into the
arms of destruction, which in all its various shapes stands ready to
receive him. The reflection is miserable, but true:—such is Ireland
since the year 1800.
Hartpole’s family residence, picturesquely seated on a verdant bank of
the smooth and beautiful Barrow, had, during the revolutions of time,
entirely lost the character of a fortress: patched and pieced after all
the numberless orders of village architecture, it had long resigned the
dignity of a castle without acquiring the comforts of a mansion: yet its
gradual descent, from the stronghold of powerful chieftains to the rude
dwelling of an embarrassed gentleman, could be traced even by a
superficial observer. Its half-levelled battlements, its solitary and
decrepit tower, and its rough, dingy walls, (giving it the appearance of
a sort of habitable _buttress_,) combined to portray the downfall of an
ancient family.
Close bounding the site of this ambiguous heritage was situate the
ancient burial-place of the Hartpole family and its followers for ages.
Scattered graves, some green—some russet—denoted the recentness or
remoteness of the different interments; and a few broad flag-stones
indented with defaced or illegible inscriptions, and covering the
remains of the early masters of the domain, just uplifted their
mouldering sides from among weeds and briars, and half disclosed the
only objects which could render that cemetery interesting.
One melancholy yew-tree, spreading wide its straggling branches over the
tombs of its former lords and the nave of an ancient chapel, (its own
hollow trunk proclaiming that it could not long survive,) seemed to
await, in awful augury, the honour of expiring with the last scion of
its hereditary chieftains.
To me the view of this melancholy tree always communicated a low
feverish sensation, which I could not well account for. It is true, I
ever disliked to contemplate the residence of the dead:[13] but that of
the Hartpole race, bounding their hall of revelry, seemed to me a check
upon all hilarity; and I never could raise my spirits in any room, or
sleep soundly in any chamber, which overlooked that sanctuary.
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Footnote 13:
I never could get over certain disagreeable sensations and awe at the
interment of _any_ person. So strongly, indeed, have I been impressed
in this way, that I formed a resolution, which (with one exception) I
have strictly adhered to these forty years,—namely, never to attend
the funeral even of a relative. I have now and then indulged a whim of
strolling over a country church-yard, occasionally to kill time when
travelling, in other instances for statistical purposes: but, in
general, the intelligible and serious inscriptions on the tomb-stones
are so mingled and mixed with others too ridiculous even for the brain
of a stone-cutter to have devised, that the rational and preposterous,
alternately counteracting each other, made a sort of equipoise; and I
generally left an ordinary church-yard pretty much in the same mood in
which I entered it.
-----
The incidents which marked the life of the last owner of Shrewl Castle
were singular and affecting, and on many points may tend to exhibit an
instructive example. Nothing, in fact, is better calculated to influence
the conduct of society, than the biography of those whose career has
been conspicuously marked either by eminent virtues or peculiar events.
The instance of George Hartpole may serve to prove, were proof wanting,
that matrimony, as it is the most irrevocable, so is it the most
precarious step in the life of mortals; and that sensations of
presentiment and foreboding (as I have already more than once
maintained) are not always visionary.
I was the most valued friend of this ill-fated young man. To me his
whole heart was laid open;—nor was there one important circumstance of
his life, one feeling of his mind, concealed from me. It is now many
years since he paid his debt to nature; and, by her course, I shall not
much longer tarry to regret his departure; but, whilst my pilgrimage
continues, that regret cannot be extinguished.
George had received but a moderate education, far inadequate to his rank
and expectations; and the country life of his careless father had
afforded him too few conveniences for cultivating his capacity. His near
alliance, however, and intercourse with the Aldborough family, gave him
considerable opportunities to counteract, in a better class of society,
that tendency to rustic dissipation to which his situation had exposed
him, and which, at first seductive, soon becomes habitual, and ruinous
in every way to youthful morals.
Whatever were the other eccentricities or failings of Robert, Earl of
Aldborough (the uncle of Hartpole), the hyperbolical ideas of importance
and dignity which he had imbibed, though in many practical instances
they rendered him ridiculous, still furnished him with a certain address
and air of fashion which put rustic vulgarity out of his society, and,
combined with a portion of classic learning and modern belles-lettres,
never failed to give him an entire ascendancy over his ruder neighbours.
This curious character exhibited a pretty equal proportion of
ostentation and meanness.[14]
-----
Footnote 14:
Hartpole, though he despised the empty arrogance of his uncle, yet saw
that his Lordship knew the world well and profited by that
knowledge:—he therefore occasionally paid much attention to some of my
Lord’s _worldly_ lectures; and had he observed the _best_ of them,
though he might possibly have appeared less amiable, he would
doubtless have been far more fortunate. But Hartpole could not draw
the due distinction between the folly of his uncle’s ostentation and
the utility of his address; disgusted with the one, he did not
sufficiently practise the other; and despised the idea of acting as if
he knew the world, lest he should be considered as affecting to know
too much of it.
-----
The most remarkable act of his Lordship’s life was an experiment
regarding his sister, Lady Hannah Stratford. The borough of Baltinglass
was in the patronage of the Stratford family; and on that subject, his
brothers, John and Benjamin, never gave him a peaceable moment: they
always opposed him, and generally succeeded. He was determined, however,
to make a new kind of burgomaster or returning-officer, whose adherence
he might religiously depend on. He therefore took his _sister_, Lady
Hannah, down to the corporation, and recommended _her_ as a fit and
proper returning-officer for the borough of Baltinglass! Many highly
approved of her Ladyship, by way of a _change_, and a double return
ensued—a man acting for the brothers, and the lady for the nobleman.
This created a great battle. The honourable ladies of the family all got
into the thick of it: some of them were well trounced—others gave as
good as they received: the affair made a great uproar in Dublin, and
informations were moved for and granted against some of the ladies.
However, the brothers, as was just, kept the borough, and his Lordship
never could make any farther hand of it.
The _high_-ways of Lord Aldborough, and the _by_-ways with which he
intersected them, are well exhibited by an incident that occurred to him
when the country was rather disturbed in 1797. He proceeded in great
state, with his carriage, outriders, &c. to visit the commanding officer
of a regiment of cavalry which had just arrived in that part of the
country. On entering the room, he immediately began by informing the
officer “that he was the Earl of Aldborough, of Belan Castle; that he
had the finest mansion, demesne, park and fish-ponds in that county, and
frequently did the military gentlemen the _honour_ of inviting them to
his dinners;”—adding, with what he thought a dignified politeness, “I
have come from my castle of Belan, where I have all the conveniences and
luxuries of life, for the especial purpose of saying, Major, I am glad
to see the military in my county, and have made up my mind to give
_you_, Major, my countenance and protection.” The Major, who happened to
be rather a rough soldier and of a country not famed for the softness of
its manners, could scarcely repress his indignation at his Lordship’s
arrogant politeness: but when the last sentence was pronounced, he could
restrain himself no longer:—“Coontenance and proteection!” repeated he
contemptuously, two or three times: “as for your _proteection_, Mister
my Lord, Major M‘Pherson is always able to proteect himsel; and as for
your _coontenance_, by heeven I would not tak it for your eerldom!”
His Lordship withdrew, and the Major related the incident as a singular
piece of assurance. My Lord, however, knew the world too well to let the
soldier’s answer stick against himself:—next day he invited _every_
officer of the regiment to dinner, and so civilly, that the Major lost
all credit with his brother officers for his surly reply to so
hospitable a nobleman! Nay, it was even whispered among them at mess,
that the Major had actually _invented_ the story, to show off his own
wit and independence;—and thus Lord Aldborough obtained complete
revenge.
On another occasion, his Lordship got off better still:—being
churchwarden of Baltinglass parish, he did not please the rector, Bob
Carter, as to his mode of accounting for the money in the poor-boxes.
The peer treated Bob (who was as hard-going, good-hearted,
devil-may-care a parson as any in Ireland) with the greatest contempt.
The parson, who felt no sort of personal respect for my Lord, renewed
his insinuations of his Lordship’s _false arithmetic_, until the latter,
highly indignant, grew wroth, and would give Bob no further satisfaction
on the matter: upon which, the rector took the only revenge then in his
power, by giving out a _second_ charity sermon, inasmuch as the proceeds
of the first had not been productive. The hint went abroad, the church
was crowded, and to the infinite amusement of the congregation, Bob put
forth as his text—“Whosoever _giveth_ to the _poor, lendeth_ to the
_Lord_.” The application was so clear, that the laugh was irresistible.
Bob followed up his blow all through the sermon, and “the Lord” was
considered to be completely blown; but skilfully enough, he contrived to
give the matter a turn that disconcerted even the Rev. Bob himself.
After the sermon was concluded, his Lordship stood up, publicly thanked
Bob for his most _excellent text_ and charity sermon, and declared that
he had no doubt the Lord Lieutenant or the bishop would very soon
promote him, according to his extraordinary merits, which he was ready
to vouch, in common with the rest of the parishioners; finally begging
of him to have the sermon _printed_!
Hartpole’s fortune on the death of his father was not large; but its
increase would be great and _certain_, and this rendered his adoption of
any money-making profession or employment unnecessary. He accordingly
purchased a commission in the army, and commenced his _entré_ into a
military life and general society with all the advantages of birth,
property, manners, and character.
A cursory observation of the world must convince us of one painful and
inexplicable truth;—that there are some men (and frequently the best)
who, even from their earliest youth, appear born to be the victims of
undeviating misfortune; whom Providence seems to have gifted with
free-agency only to lead them to unhappiness and ruin. Ever disappointed
in his most ardent hopes—frustrated in his dearest objects—his best
intentions overthrown—his purest motives calumniated and abused,—no rank
or station suffices to shelter such an unfortunate:—_ennui_ creeps upon
his hopeless mind, communicates a listless languor to a sinking
constitution, and at length he almost joyfully surrenders an existence
which he finds too burdensome to be supported.[15]
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Footnote 15:
I cannot better illustrate the state of a person so chased by misery,
than by quoting a few unpublished lines, the composition of a very
young lady, Miss M. T., with whom, and with whose amiable family, I
have the pleasure of being intimate.
I am aware that I do her great injustice by quoting these particular
verses—some of the most _inferior_ of her writings; but they seem so
much to the point, that I venture to risk her displeasure. She is not,
indeed, irritable; and I promise to atone for my error by a few
further quotations from her superior compositions.