Mountains stretch’d around,

Gloomy was their tinting,

And the horse’s hoofs

Made a dismal clinting;

Wind upon the heath

Howling was and piping,

On the heath and bog,

Black with many a snipe in:

‘Mid the bogs of black,

Silver pools were flashing,

Crows upon their sides

Picking were and splashing.

Cockney on the car

Closer folds his plaidy,

Grumbling at the road

Leads to Limavaddy.

Through the crashing woods

Autumn brawl’d and bluster’d,

Tossing round about

Leaves the hue of mustard;

Yonder lay Lough Foyle,

Which a storm was whipping,

Covering with mist

Lake, and shores, and shipping.

Up and down the hill

(Nothing could be bolder),

Horse went with a raw,

Bleeding on his shoulder.

‘Where are horses changed?’

Said I to the laddy

Driving on the box:

‘Sir, at Limavaddy.’

Limavaddy inn’s

But a humble baithouse,

Where you may procure

Whisky and potatoes;

Landlord at the door

Gives a smiling welcome

To the shivering wights

Who to his hotel come.

Landlady within

Sits and knits a stocking,

With a wary foot

Baby’s cradle rocking.

To the chimney nook,

Having found admittance,

There I watch a pup

Playing with two kittens;

(Playing round the fire,

Which of blazing turf is,

Roaring to the pot

Which bubbles with the murphies);

And the cradled babe

Fond the mother nursed it,

Singing it a song

As she twists the worsted!

Up and down the stair

Two more young ones patter

(Twins were never seen

Dirtier nor fatter);

Both have mottled legs,

Both have snubby noses,

Both have--Here the host

Kindly interposes:

‘Sure you must be froze

With the sleet and hail, sir,

So will you have some punch,

Or will you have some ale, sir?’

Presently a maid

Enters with the liquor,

(Half a pint of ale

Frothing in a beaker).

Gods! I didn’t know

What my beating heart meant,

Hebe’s self I thought

Enter’d the apartment.

As she came she smiled,

And the smile bewitching,

On my word and honour,

Lighted all the kitchen!

With a curtsey neat

Greeting the new-comer,

Lovely, smiling Peg

Offers me the rummer;

But my trembling hand

Up the beaker tilted,

And the glass of ale

Every drop I spilt it;

Spilt it every drop

(Dames, who read my volumes,

Pardon such a word)

On my whatd’yecall’ems!

Such a silver peal!

In the meadows listening,

You who’ve heard the bells

Ringing to a christening;

You who ever heard

Caradori pretty,

Smiling like an angel

Singing ‘Giovinetti,’

Fancy Peggy’s laugh,

Sweet, and clear, and cheerful,

At my pantaloons

With half-a-pint of beer full!

[Illustration]

Witnessing the sight

Of that dire disaster,

Out began to laugh

Missis, maid, and master;

Such a merry peal,

‘Specially Miss Peg’s was

(As the glass of ale

Trickling down my legs was),

That the joyful sound

Of that ringing laughter

Echoed in my ears

Many a long day after.

When the laugh was done.

Peg, the pretty hussy,

Moved about the room

Wonderfully busy;

Now she looks to see

If the kettle keep hot,

Now she rubs the spoons,

Now she cleans the teapot:

Now she sets the cups

Trimly and secure,

Now she scours a pot,

And so it was I drew her.

Thus it was I drew her

Scouring of a kettle,[33]

(Faith! her blushing cheeks

Redden’d on the metal!)

Ah! but ‘tis in vain

That I try to sketch it;

The pot perhaps is like,

But Peggy’s face is wretched.

No: the best of lead,

And of Indian rubber,

Never could depict

That sweet kettle-scrubber!

See her as she moves!

Scarce the ground she touches,

Airy as a fay,

Graceful as a duchess;

Bare her rounded arm,

Bare her little leg is,

Vestris never show’d

Ankles like to Peggy’s;

Braided is her hair,

Soft her look and modest,

Slim her little waist

Comfortably boddiced.

This I do declare,

Happy is the laddy

Who the heart can share

Of Peg of Limavaddy;

Married if she were,

Blest would be the daddy

Of the children fair

Of Peg of Limavaddy;

Beauty is not rare

In the land of Paddy,

Fair beyond compare

Is Peg of Limavaddy.

Citizen or squire,

Tory, Whig, or Radical

would all desire

Peg of Limavaddy.

Had I Homer’s fire,

Or that of Sergeant Taddy,

Meetly I’d admire

Peg of Limavaddy.

And till I expire,

Or till I grow mad, I

Will sing unto my lyre

Peg of Limavaddy!

CHAPTER XXXI

TEMPLEMOYLE--DERRY

From Newtown Limavaddy to Derry, the traveller has many wild and noble

prospects of Lough Foyle and the plains and mountains round it, and of

scenes which may possibly in this country be still more agreeable to

him--of smiling cultivation, and comfortable well-built villages, such

as are only too rare in Ireland. Of a great part of this district, the

London Companies are landlords--the best of landlords, too, according to

the report I could gather; and their good stewardship shows itself

especially in the neat villages of Muff and Ballikelly, through both of

which I passed. In Ballikelly, besides numerous simple, stout,

brick-built dwellings for the peasantry, with their shining windows and

trim garden-plots, is a Presbyterian meeting-house, so well-built,

substantial and handsome, so different from the lean, pretentious,

sham-Gothic ecclesiastical edifices which have been erected of late

years in Ireland, that it can’t fail to strike the tourist who has made

architecture his study or his pleasure. The gentlemen’s seats in the

district are numerous and handsome; and the whole movement along the

road betokened cheerfulness and prosperous activity.

As the carman had no other passengers but myself, he made no objection

to carry me a couple of miles out of his way, through the village of

Muff, belonging to the Grocers of London (and so handsomely and

comfortably built by them as to cause all cockneys to exclaim, ‘Well

done our side!’), and thence to a very interesting institution, which

was established some fifteen years since in the neighbourhood--the

Agricultural Seminary of Templemoyle. It lies on a hill in a pretty

wooded country, and is most curiously secluded from the world by the

tortuousness of the road which approaches it.

Of course it is not my business to report upon the agricultural system

practised there, or to discourse on the state of the land or the crops;

the best testimony on this subject is the fact, that the Institution

hired, at a small rental, a tract of land, which was reclaimed and

farmed, and that of this farm the landlord has now taken possession,

leaving the young farmers to labour on a new tract of land, for which

they pay five times as much rent as for their former holding. But though

a person versed in agriculture could give a far more satisfactory

account of the place than one to whom such pursuits are quite

unfamiliar, there is a great deal about the establishment which any

citizen can remark on; and he must be a very difficult cockney indeed

who won’t be pleased here.

After winding in and out, and up and down, and round about the eminence

on which the house stands, we at last found an entrance to it, by a

courtyard, neat, well-built, and spacious, where are the stables and

numerous offices of the farm. The scholars were at dinner off a

comfortable meal of boiled beef, potatoes, and cabbages, when I arrived;

a master was reading a book of history to them; and silence, it appears,

is preserved during the dinner. Seventy scholars were here assembled,

some young, and some expanded into six feet and whiskers--all, however,

are made to maintain exactly the same discipline, whether whiskered or

not.

The ‘head farmer’ of the school, Mr. Campbell, a very intelligent Scotch

gentleman, was good enough to conduct me over the place and the farm,

and to give a history of the establishment and the course pursued

there. The Seminary was founded in 1827, by the North-West of Ireland

Society, by members of which and others about three thousand pounds were

subscribed, and the buildings of the school erected. These are spacious,

simple, and comfortable; there is a good stone house, with airy

dormitories, schoolrooms, etc., and large and convenient offices. The

establishment had, at first, some difficulties to contend with, and for

some time did not number more than thirty pupils. At present, there are

seventy scholars, paying _ten pounds_ a year, with which sum, and the

labour of the pupils on the farm, and the produce of it, the school is

entirely supported. The reader will, perhaps, like to see an extract

from the Report of the school, which contains mere details regarding it.

‘TEMPLEMOYLE WORK AND SCHOOL TABLE

_‘From 20th March to 23rd September_

‘Boys divided into two classes, A and B

Hours. At work. At school.

5-1/2 All rise.

6-8 ....................... A ................... B

8-9 Breakfast.

9-1 ....................... A ................... B

1-2 Dinner and recreation.

2-6 ....................... B ................... A

6-7 Recreation.

7-9 Prepare lessons for next day.

9 To bed.

‘On Tuesday B commences work in the morning and A at school, and so on

alternate days.

‘Each class is again subdivided into three divisions, over each of which

is placed a monitor, selected from the steadiest and best-informed boys;

he receives the Head Farmer’s directions as to the work to be done, and

superintends his party while performing it.

‘In winter the time of labour is shortened according to the length of

the day, and the hours at school increased.

‘In wet days, when the boys cannot work out, all are required to attend

school.

‘DIETARY

‘_Breakfast._--Eleven ounces of oatmeal made in stirabout, one pint of

sweet milk.

‘_Dinner._--Sunday--Three-quarters of a pound of beef stewed with pepper

and onions, or one-half pound of corned beef with cabbage, and three and

one-half pounds of potatoes.

‘Monday--One-half pound of pickled beef, three and a half pounds of

potatoes, one pint of buttermilk.

‘Tuesday--Broth made of one-half pound of beef, with leeks, cabbage, and

parsley, and three and a half pounds of potatoes.

‘Wednesday--Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of oatmeal made into

bread, three and one-half pounds of potatoes, and one pint of sweet

milk.

‘Thursday--Half a pound of pickled pork, with cabbage or turnips, and

three and a half pounds of potatoes.

‘Friday--Two ounces of butter, eight ounces wheat meal made into bread,

one pint of sweet milk or fresh buttermilk, three and a half pounds of

potatoes.

‘Saturday--Two ounces of butter, one pound of potatoes mashed, eight

ounces of wheat meal made into bread, two and a half pounds of potatoes,

one pint of buttermilk.

‘_Supper._--In summer, flummery made of one pound of oatmeal seeds, and

one pint of sweet milk. In winter, three and a half pounds of potatoes,

and one pint of buttermilk or sweet milk.

‘RULES FOR THE TEMPLEMOYLE SCHOOL

‘1. The pupils are required to say their prayers in the morning, before

leaving the dormitory, and at night, before retiring to rest, each

separately, and after the manner to which he has been habituated.

‘2. The pupils are required to wash their hands and faces before the

commencement of business in the morning, on returning from agricultural

labour, and after dinner.

‘3. The pupils are required to pay the strictest attention to their

instructors, both during the hours of agricultural and literary

occupation.

‘4. Strife, disobedience, inattention, or any description of riotous or

disorderly conduct, is punishable by extra labour or confinement, as

directed by the Committee, according to circumstances.

‘5. Diligent and respectful behaviour, continued for a considerable

time, will be rewarded by occasional permission for the pupil so

distinguished to visit his home.

‘6. No pupil, on obtaining leave of absence, shall presume to continue

it for a longer period than that prescribed to him on leaving the

Seminary.

‘7. During their rural labour, the pupils are to consider themselves

amenable to the authority of their Agricultural Instructor alone, and

during their attendance in the schoolroom, to that of their Literary

Instructor alone.

‘8. Non-attendance during any part of the time allotted either for

literary or agricultural employment, will be punished as a serious

offence.

‘9. During the hours of recreation the pupils are to be under the

superintendence of their Instructors, and not suffered to pass beyond

the limits of the farm, except under their guidance, or with a written

permission from one of them.

‘10. The pupils are required to make up their beds, and keep those

clothes not in immediate use neatly folded up in their trunks, and to be

particular in never suffering any garment, book, implement, or other

article belonging to or used by them, to lie about in a slovenly or

disorderly manner.

‘11. Respect to superiors, and gentleness of demeanour, both among the

pupils themselves and towards the servants and labourers of the

establishment, are particularly insisted upon, and will be considered a

prominent ground of approbation and reward.

‘12. On Sundays the pupils are required to attend their respective

places of worship, accompanied by their Instructors or Monitors; and it

is earnestly recommended to them to employ a part of the remainder of

the day in sincerely reading the Word of God, and in such other

devotional exercises as their respective ministers may point out.’

* * * * *

At certain periods of the year, when all hands are required, such as

harvest, etc., the literary labours of the scholars are stopped, and

they are all in the field. On the present occasion we followed them into

a potato-field, where an army of them were employed digging out the

potatoes; while another regiment were trenching-in elsewhere for the

winter: the boys were leading the carts to and fro. To reach the

potatoes we had to pass a field, part of which was newly ploughed: the

ploughing was the work of the boys, too; one of them being left with an

experienced ploughman for a fortnight at a time, in which space the lad

can acquire some practice in the art. Amongst the potatoes and the boys

digging them, I observed a number of girls taking them up as dug and

removing the soil from the roots. Such a society for seventy young men

would, in any other country in the world, be not a little dangerous: but

Mr. Campbell said that no instance of harm had ever occurred in

consequence, and I believe his statement may be fully relied on: the

whole country bears testimony to this noble purity of morals. Is there

any other in Europe which in this point can compare with it?

In winter the farm-works do not occupy the pupils so much, and they give

more time to their literary studies. They get a good English education;

they are grounded in arithmetic and mathematics; and I saw a good map of

an adjacent farm, made from actual survey by one of the pupils. Some of

them are good draughtsmen likewise, but of their performances I could

see no specimen, the artists being abroad, occupied wisely in digging

the potatoes.

And here, _à propos_, not of the school but of potatoes, let me tell a

potato story, which is, I think, to the purpose, wherever it is told. In

the county of Mayo a gentleman by the name of Crofton is a landed

proprietor, in whose neighbourhood great distress prevailed among the

peasantry during the spring and summer, when the potatoes of the last

year were consumed, and before those of the present season were up; Mr.

Crofton, by liberal donations on his own part, and by a subscription

which was set on foot among his friends in England as well as in

Ireland, was enabled to collect a sum of money sufficient to purchase

meal for the people, which was given to them, or sold at very low

prices, until the pressure of want was withdrawn, and the blessed

potato-crop came in. Some time in October, a smart night’s frost made

Mr. Crofton think that it was time to take in and pit his own potatoes,

and he told his steward to get labourers accordingly.

Next day, on going to the potato-grounds, he found the whole fields

swarming with people; the whole crop was out of the ground, and again

under it, pitted and covered, and the people gone, in a few hours. It

was as if the fairies that we read of in the Irish legends, as coming to

the aid of good people and helping them in their labours, had taken a

liking to this good landlord, and taken in his harvest for him. Mr.

Crofton, who knew who his helpers had been, sent the steward to pay them

their day’s wages, and to thank them at the same time for having come to

help him at a time when their labour was so useful to him. One and all

refused a penny; and their spokesman said, ‘They wished they could do

more for the likes of him or his family.’ I have heard of many

conspiracies in this country; is not this one as worthy to be told as

any of them?

Round the house of Templemoyle is a pretty garden, which the pupils take

pleasure in cultivating, filled not with fruit (for this, though there

are seventy gardeners, the superintendent said somehow seldom reached a

ripe state), but with kitchen herbs, and a few beds of pretty flowers,

such as are best suited to cottage horticulture. Such simple carpenters’

and masons’ work as the young men can do is likewise confided to them;

and though the dietary may appear to the Englishman as rather a scanty

one, and though the English lads certainly make at first very wry faces

at the stirabout porridge (as they naturally will when first put in the

presence of that abominable mixture), yet after a time, strange to say,

they begin to find it actually palatable; and the best proof of the

excellence of the diet is, that nobody is ever ill in the institution:

colds and fevers, the ailments of lazy gluttonous gentility, are

unknown; and the doctor’s bill for the last year, for seventy pupils,

amounted to thirty-five shillings. _O beati agricoliculæ!_ You do not

know what it is to feel a little uneasy after half a crown’s worth of

raspberry-tarts, as lads do at the best public schools; you don’t know

in what majestic polished hexameters the Roman poet has described your

pursuits; you are not fagged and flogged into Latin and Greek at the

cost of two hundred pounds a year. Let these be the privileges of your

youthful betters; meanwhile content yourselves with thinking that you

_are_ preparing for a profession, while they are _not_; that you are

learning something useful, while they, for the most part, are not; for

after all, as a man grows old in the world, old and fat, cricket is

discovered not to be any longer very advantageous to him--even to have

pulled in the Trinity boat does not in old age amount to a substantial

advantage; and though to read a Greek play be an immense pleasure, yet

it must be confessed few enjoy it. In the first place, of the race of

Etonians, and Harrovians, and Carthusians that one meets in the world,

very few _can_ read the Greek; of those few--there are not, as I

believe, any considerable majority of poets. Stout men in the

bow-windows of clubs (for such young Etonians by time become) are not

generally remarkable for a taste for Æschylus.[34] You do not hear much

poetry in Westminster Hall, or I believe at the bar-tables afterwards;

and if occasionally, in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel lets off a

quotation--a pocket-pistol wadded with a leaf torn out of Horace--depend

on it, it is only to astonish the country gentlemen who don’t understand

him: and it is my firm conviction that Sir Robert no more cares for

poetry than you or I do.

Such thoughts will suggest themselves to a man who has had the benefit

of what is called an education at a public school in England, when he

sees seventy lads from all parts of the empire learning what his Latin

poets and philosophers have informed him is the best of all

pursuits,--finds them educated at one-twentieth part of the cost which

has been bestowed on his own precious person; orderly without the

necessity of submitting to degrading personal punishment; young, and

full of health and blood, though vice is unknown among them; and brought

up decently and honestly to know the things which it is good for them in

their profession to know. So it is, however: all the world is improving

except the gentleman. There are at this present writing five hundred

boys at Eton, kicked, and licked, and bullied by another

hundred--scrubbing shoes, running errands, making false concords, and

(as if that were a natural consequence!) putting their posteriors on a

block for Dr. Hawtrey to lash at; and still calling it education. They

are proud of it--good heavens!--absolutely vain of it; as what dull

barbarians are not proud of their dulness and barbarism? They call it

the good old English system: nothing like classics, says Sir John, to

give a boy a taste, you know, and a habit of reading--(Sir John, who

reads the _Racing Calendar_, and belongs to a race of men of all the

world the least given to reading!)--it’s the good old English system;

every boy fights for himself--hardens ‘em, eh, Jack? Jack grins, and

helps himself to another glass of claret, and presently tells you how

Tibs and Miller fought for an hour and twenty minutes ‘like good uns.’

... Let us come to an end, however, of this moralising; the car-driver

has brought the old raw-shouldered horse out of the stable, and says it

is time to be off again.

Before quitting Templemoyle, one thing more may be said in its favour.

It is one of the very few public establishments in Ireland where pupils

of the two religious denominations are received, and where no religious

disputes have taken place. The pupils are called upon, morning and

evening, to say their prayers privately. On Sunday each division,

Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Episcopalian, is marched to its proper

place of worship. The pastors of each sect may visit their young flock

when so inclined; and the lads devote the Sabbath evening to reading the

books pointed out to them by their clergymen.

Would not the Agricultural Society of Ireland, the success of whose

peaceful labours for the national prosperity every Irish newspaper I

read brings some new indication, do well to show some mark of its

sympathy for this excellent institution of Templemoyle? A silver medal

given by the Society to the most deserving pupil of the year, would be a

great object of emulation amongst the young men educated at the place,

and would be almost a certain passport for the winner in seeking for a

situation in after life. I do not know if similar seminaries exist in

England. Other seminaries of a like nature have been tried in this

country, and have failed: but English country gentlemen cannot, I should

think, find a better object of their attention than this school; and our

farmers would surely find such establishments of great benefit to them:

where their children might procure a sound literary education at a small

charge, and at the same time be made acquainted with the latest

improvements in their profession. I can’t help saying here, once more,

what I have said _à propos_ of the excellent school at Dundalk, and

begging the English middle classes to think of the subject. If

Government will not act (upon what never can be effectual, perhaps,

until it become a national measure), let small communities act for

themselves, and tradesmen and the middle classes set up CHEAP

PROPRIETARY SCHOOLS. Will country newspaper editors, into whose hands

this book may fall, be kind enough to speak upon this hint, and extract

the tables of the Templemoyle and Dundalk establishments, to show how,

and with what small means, boys may be well, soundly, and humanely

educated--not brutally, as some of us have been, under the bitter

fagging and the shameful rod? It is no plea for the barbarity that use

has made us accustomed to it; and in seeing these institutions for

humble lads, where the system taught is at once useful, manly, and

kindly, and thought of what I had undergone in my own youth,--of the

frivolous monkish trifling in which it was wasted, of the brutal tyranny

to which it was subjected,--I could not look at the lads but with a sort

of envy: please God, their lot will be shared by thousands of their

equals and their betters before long!

It was a proud day for Dundalk, Mr. Thackeray well said, when, at the

end of one of the vacations there, fourteen English boys, and an

Englishman with his little son in his hand, landed from the Liverpool

packet, and, walking through the streets of the town, went into the

schoolhouse quite happy. That _was_ a proud day in truth for a distant

Irish town, and I can’t help saying that I grudge them the cause of

their pride somewhat. Why should there not be schools in England as

good, and as cheap, and as happy?

With this, shaking Mr. Campbell gratefully by the hand, and begging all

English tourists to go and visit his establishment, we trotted off for

Londonderry, leaving at about a mile’s distance from the town, and at

the pretty lodge of St. Columb’s, a letter, which was the cause of much

delightful hospitality.

St. Columb’s Chapel, the walls of which still stand picturesquely in Sir

George Hill’s park, and from which that gentleman’s seat takes its

name, was here since the sixth century. It is but fair to give

precedence to the mention of the old abbey, which was the father, as it

would seem, of the town. The approach to the latter from three quarters,

certainly, by which various avenues I had occasion to see it, is always

noble. We had seen the spire of the cathedral peering over the hills for

four miles on our way: it stands, a stalwart and handsome building, upon

an eminence, round which the old-fashioned stout red houses of the town

cluster, girt in with the ramparts and walls that kept out James’s

soldiers of old. Quays, factories, huge red warehouses, have grown round

this famous old barrier, and now stretch along the river. A couple of

large steamers and other craft lay within the bridge; and, as we passed

over that stout wooden edifice, stretching eleven hundred feet across

the noble expanse of the Foyle, we heard along the quays a great

thundering and clattering of iron-work in an enormous steam frigate

which has been built in Derry, and seems to lie alongside a whole street

of houses. The suburb, too, through which we passed was bustling and

comfortable; and the view was not only pleasing from its natural

beauties, but has a manly, thriving, honest air of prosperity, which is

no bad feature, surely, for a landscape.

Nor does the town itself, as one enters it, belie, as many other Irish

towns do, its first flourishing look. It is not splendid, but

comfortable; a brisk movement in the streets; good downright shops,

without particularly grand titles; few beggars. Nor have the common

people, as they address you, that eager smile,--that manner of compound

fawning and swaggering, which an Englishman finds in the townspeople of

the west and south. As in the North of England, too, when compared with

other districts, the people are greatly more familiar, though by no

means disrespectful to the stranger.

On the other hand, after such a commerce as a traveller has with the

race of waiters, postboys, porters, and the like (and it may be that the

vast race of postboys, etc., whom I did not see in the north, are quite

unlike those unlucky specimens with whom I came in contact), I was

struck by their excessive greediness after the traveller’s gratuities,

and their fierce dissatisfaction if not sufficiently rewarded. To the

gentleman who brushed my clothes at the comfortable hotel at Belfast,

and carried my bags to the coach, I tendered the sum of two shillings,

which seemed to me quite a sufficient reward for his services: he

battled and bawled with me for more, and got it too; for a

street-dispute with a porter calls together a number of delighted

bystanders, whose remarks and company are by no means agreeable to a

solitary gentleman. Then, again, was the famous case of Boots of

Ballycastle, which, being upon the subject, I may as well mention here:

Boots of Ballycastle, that romantic little village near the Giant’s

Causeway, had cleaned a pair of shoes for me certainly, but declined

either to brush my clothes, or to carry down my two carpet-bags to the

car; leaving me to perform those offices for myself, which I did: and

indeed they were not very difficult. But immediately I was seated on the

car, Mr. Boots stepped forward, and wrapped a mackintosh very

considerately round me, and begged me at the same time to ‘remember

him.’

There was an old beggar-woman standing by, to whom I had a desire to

present a penny: and having no coin of that value, I begged Mr. Boots,

out of sixpence which I tendered to him, to subtract a penny, and

present it to the old lady in question. Mr. Boots took the money, looked

at me, and his countenance, not naturally good-humoured, assumed an

expression of the most indignant contempt and hatred as he said, ‘I’m

thinking I’ve no call to give my money away. Sixpence is my right for

what I’ve done.’

‘Sir,’ says I, ‘you must remember that you did but black one pair of

shoes, and that you blacked them very badly too.’

‘Sixpence is my right,’ says Boots; ‘a _gentleman_ would give me

sixpence!’ and, though I represented to him that a pair of shoes might

be blacked in a minute--that fivepence a minute was not usual wages in

the country--that many gentlemen, half-pay officers, briefless

barristers, unfortunate literary gentlemen, would gladly black twelve

pairs of shoes per diem if rewarded with five shillings for so doing,

there was no means of convincing Mr. Boots. I then demanded back the

sixpence, which proposal, however, he declined, saying, after a

struggle, he would give the money, but a gentleman would have given

sixpence; and so left me with furious rage and contempt.

As for the city of Derry, a carman who drove me one mile out to dinner

at a gentleman’s house, where he himself was provided with a comfortable

meal, was dissatisfied with eighteenpence, vowing that a ‘dinner job’

was always paid half-a-crown, and not only asserted this, but continued

to assert it for a quarter of an hour with the most noble though

unsuccessful perseverance. A second car-boy, to whom I gave a shilling

for a drive of two miles altogether, attacked me because I gave the

other boy eighteenpence; and the porter who brought my bags fifty yards

from the coach, entertained me with a dialogue that lasted at least a

couple of minutes, and said, ‘I should have had sixpence for carrying

one of ‘em.’

For the car which carried me two miles the landlord of the inn made me

pay the sum of five shillings. He is a godly landlord, has Bibles in the

coffee-room, the drawing-room, and every bedroom in the house, with this

inscription--

UT MIGRATURUS HABITA

THE TRAVELLER’S TRUE REFUGE

Jones’s Hotel, Londonderry

This pious double or triple entendre, the reader will, no doubt,

admire--the first simile establishing the resemblance between this life

and an inn; the second allegory showing that the inn and the Bible are

both the traveller’s refuge.

In life we are in death--the hotel in question is about as gay as a

family vault: a severe figure of a landlord, in seedy black, is

occasionally seen in the dark passages or on the creaking old stairs of

the black inn. He does not bow to you--very few landlords in Ireland

condescend to acknowledge their guests--he only warns you--a silent

solemn gentleman who looks to be something between a clergyman and a

sexton--‘ut migraturus habita!’--the ‘migraturus’ was a vast comfort in

the clause.

It must, however, be said, for the consolation of future travellers,

that when at evening, in the old lonely parlour of the inn, the great

gaunt fireplace is filled with coals, two dreary funereal candles and

sticks glimmering upon the old-fashioned round table, the rain pattering

fiercely without, the wind roaring and thumping in the streets, this

worthy gentleman can produce a pint of port wine for the use of his

migratory guest, which causes the latter to be almost reconciled to the

cemetery in which he is resting himself, and he finds himself, to his

surprise, almost cheerful. There is a mouldy-looking old kitchen, too,

which, strange to say, sends out an excellent comfortable dinner, so

that the sensation of fear gradually wears off.

As in Chester, the ramparts of the town form a pleasant promenade; and

the batteries, with a few of the cannon, are preserved, with which the

stout ‘prentice boys of Derry beat off King James in ‘88. The guns bear

the names of the London Companies--venerable cockney titles! It is

pleasant for a Londoner to read them, and see how, at a pinch, the

sturdy citizens can do their work.

The public buildings of Derry are, I think, among the best I have seen

in Ireland; and the Lunatic Asylum, especially, is to be pointed out as

a model of neatness and comfort. When will the middle classes be allowed

to send their own afflicted relatives to public institutions of this

excellent kind, where violence is never practised--where it is never to

the interest of the keeper of the asylum to exaggerate his patient’s

malady, or to retain him in durance, for the sake of the enormous sums

which the sufferer’s relatives are made to pay? The gentry of three

counties which contribute to the Asylum have no such resource for

members of their own body, should any be so afflicted--the condition of

entering this admirable Asylum is, that the patient must be a pauper,

and on this account he is supplied with every comfort and the best

curative means, and his relations are in perfect security. Are the rich

in any way so lucky?--and if not, why not?

The rest of the occurrences at Derry belong, unhappily, to the domain of

private life, and though very pleasant to recall, are not honestly to be

printed. Otherwise, what popular descriptions might be written of the

hospitalities of St. Columb’s, of the jovialities of the mess of the--th

Regiment, of the speeches made and the songs sung, and the devilled

turkey at twelve o’clock, and the headache afterwards; all which events

could be described in an exceedingly facetious manner. But these

amusements are to be met with in every other part of her Majesty’s

dominions; and the only point which may be mentioned here as peculiar to

this part of Ireland, is the difference of the manner of the gentry to

that in the South. The Northern manner is far more _English_ than that

of the other provinces of Ireland--whether it is _better_ for being

English is a question of taste, of which an Englishman can scarcely be a

fair judge.

CHAPTER XXXII

DUBLIN AT LAST

A wedding-party that went across Derry Bridge to the sound of bell and

cannon, had to flounder through a thick coat of frozen snow, that

covered the slippery planks, and the hills round about were whitened

over by the same inclement material. Nor was the weather, implacable

towards young lovers and unhappy buck-skinned postillions shivering in

white favours, at all more polite towards the passengers of her

Majesty’s mail that runs from Derry to Ballyshannon.

Hence the aspect of the country between those two places can only be

described at the rate of nine miles an hour, and from such points of

observation as may be had through a coach window, starred with ice and

mud. While horses were changed we saw a very dirty town called Strabane;

and had to visit the old house of the O’Donnels in Donegal during a

quarter of an hour’s pause that the coach made there--and with an

umbrella overhead. The pursuit of the picturesque under umbrellas let us

leave to more venturesome souls: the fine weather of the finest season

known for many long years in Ireland was over, and I thought with a

great deal of yearning of Pat the waiter, at the Shelbourne Hotel,

Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and the gas-lamps, and the covered cars, and

the good dinners to which they take you.

Farewell, then, O wild Donegal! and ye stern passes through which the

astonished traveller windeth! Farewell, Ballyshannon, and thy

salmon-leap, and thy bar of sand, over which the white head of the

troubled Atlantic was peeping! Likewise, adieu to Lough Erne, and its

numberless green islands, and winding river-lake, and wavy fir-clad

hills! Good-bye, moreover, neat Enniskillen, over the bridge and

churches whereof the sun peepeth as the coach starteth from the inn!

See, how he shines now on Lord Belmore’s stately palace and park, with

gleaming porticoes and brilliant grassy chases: now, behold he is yet

higher in the heavens, as the twanging horn proclaims the approach to

beggarly Cavan, where a beggarly breakfast awaits the hungry voyager.

Snatching up a roll wherewith to satisfy the pangs of hunger, sharpened

by the mockery of breakfast, the tourist now hastens in his arduous

course, through Virginia, Kells, Navan, by Tara’s threadbare mountain,

and Skreen’s green hill; day darkens, and a hundred thousand lamps

twinkle in the grey horizon--see above the darkling trees a stumpy

column rise, see on its base the name of Wellington (though this,

because ‘tis night, thou canst not see), and cry, ‘It is the

_Phaynix_!’--On and on, across the iron bridge, and through the streets

(dear streets, though dirty, to the citizen’s heart how dear you be!),

and, lo, now with a bump, the dirty coach stops at the seedy inn, six

ragged porters battle for the bags, six wheedling carmen recommend their

cars, and (giving first the coachman eighteenpence) the cockney says,

‘Drive, car-boy, to the Shelbourne.’

And so having reached Dublin--and seeing the ominous 565 which figures

upon the last page, it becomes necessary to curtail the observations

which were to be made upon that city: which surely ought to have a

volume to itself--the humours of Dublin at least require so much space.

For instance, there was the dinner at the Kildare Street Club, or the

Hotel opposite,--the dinner in Trinity College Hall,--that at Mr.----,

the publisher’s, where a dozen of the literary men of Ireland were

assembled,--and those (say fifty) with Harry Lorrequer himself, at his

mansion of Templeogue. What a favourable opportunity to discourse upon

the peculiarities of Irish character! to describe men of letters, of

fashion, and university dons! Sketches of these personages may be

prepared, and sent over, perhaps, in confidence to Mrs. Sigourney in

America (who will of course not print them)--but the English habit does

not allow of these happy communications between writers and the public;

and the author who wishes to dine again at his friend’s cost, must needs

have a care how he puts him in print.

Suffice it to say, that at Kildare Street we had white neckcloths, black

waiters, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in Europe; at Mr.----,

the publisher’s, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in Europe; at

Mr. Lever’s, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in Europe; at

Trinity College--but there is no need to mention what took place at

Trinity College; for on returning to London, and recounting the

circumstances of the repast, my friend B----, a Master of Arts of that

University, solemnly declared the thing was impossible:--no stranger

_could_ dine at Trinity College; it was too great a privilege--in a

word, he would not believe the story, nor will he to this day; and why,

therefore, tell it in vain? I am sure if the Fellows of Colleges in

Oxford and Cambridge were told that the Fellows of T. C. D. only drink

beer at dinner, they would not believe _that_. Such, however, was the

fact: or may be it was a dream, which was followed by another dream of

about four-and-twenty gentlemen seated round a common-room table after

dinner; and, by a subsequent vision of a tray of oysters in the

apartments of a tutor of the University, some time before midnight. Did

we swallow them or not?--the oysters are an open question.

Of the Catholic College of Maynooth, I must likewise speak briefly, for

the reason that an accurate description of that establishment would be

of necessity so disagreeable, that it is best to pass it over in a few

words. An Irish union-house is a palace to it. Ruin so needless, filth

so disgusting, such a look of lazy squalor, no Englishman who has not

seen can conceive. Lecture-room and dining-hall, kitchen and students’

room, were all the same. I shall never forget the sight of scores of

shoulders of mutton lying on the filthy floor in the former, or the view

of a bed and dressing-table that I saw in the other. Let the next

Maynooth grant include a few shillings’-worth of whitewash and a few

hundred-weights of soap; and if to this be added a half-score of

drill-sergeants, to see that the students appear clean at lecture, and

to teach them to keep their heads up and to look people in the face,

Parliament will introduce some cheap reforms into the seminary, which

were never needed more than here. Why should the place be so shamefully

ruinous and foully dirty? Lime is cheap, and water plenty at the canal

hard by. Why should a stranger, after a week’s stay in the country, be

able to discover a priest by the scowl on his face, and his doubtful

downcast manner? Is it a point of discipline that his reverence should

be made to look as ill-humoured as possible? And I hope these words will

not be taken hostilely. It would have been quite as easy, and more

pleasant, to say the contrary, had the contrary seemed to me to have

been the fact; and to have declared that the priests were remarkable for

their expression of candour, and their college for its extreme neatness

and cleanliness.

This complaint of neglect applies to other public institutions besides

Maynooth. The Mansion-house, when I saw it, was a very dingy abode for

the Right Honourable Lord Mayor, and that Lord Mayor Mr. O’Connell. I

saw him in full council, in a brilliant robe of crimson velvet,

ornamented with white satin bows and sable collar, in an enormous

cocked-hat, like a slice of an eclipsed moon--in the following costume

in fact.

The Aldermen and Common Council, in a black oak parlour and at a dingy

green table, were assembled around him, and a debate of thrilling

interest to the town ensued. It related, I think, to water-pipes. The

great man did not speak publicly, but was occupied chiefly at the end of

the table, giving audiences to at least a score of clients and

petitioners.

The next day I saw him in the famous Corn Exchange. The building without

has a substantial look, but the hall within is rude, dirty, and ill

kept. Hundreds of persons were assembled in the black, steaming place;

no inconsiderable share of frieze-coats were among them; and many small

Repealers, who could but lately have assumed their breeches, ragged as

they were. These kept up a great chorus of shouting, and ‘hear, hear!’

at every pause in the great Repealer’s address. Mr. O’Connell was

reading a report from his Repeal-wardens; which proved that when Repeal

took place, commerce and prosperity would instantly flow into the

country; its innumerable harbours would be filled with countless ships,

its immense water-power would be directed to the turning of myriads of

mills: its vast energies and resources brought into full action. At the

end of the report three cheers were given for Repeal, and in the midst

of a great shouting Mr. O’Connell leaves the room.

‘Mr. Quiglan! Mr. Quiglan!’ roars an active _aide-de-camp_ to the

doorkeeper, ‘a covered kyar for the Lard Mayre.’ The covered car came; I

saw his Lordship get into it. Next day he was Lord Mayor no longer; but

Alderman O’Connell in his state-coach, with the handsome greys whose

manes were tied up with green ribbon, following the new Lord Mayor to

the right honourable inauguration. Javelin-men, city-marshals (looking

like military undertakers), private carriages, glass coaches, cars,

covered and uncovered, and thousands of yelling ragamuffins, formed the

civic procession of that faded, worn-out, insolvent old Dublin

Corporation.

[Illustration]

The walls of this city had been placarded with huge notices to the

public, that O’Connell’s rent-day was at hand; and I went round to all

the chapels in town on that Sunday (not a little to the scandal of some

Protestant friends), to see the popular behaviour. Every door was

barred, of course, with plate-holders; and heaps of pence at the humble

entrances, and bank-notes at the front gates, told the willingness of

the people to reward their champion. The car-boy who drove me had paid

his little tribute of fourpence at morning mass; the waiter who brings

my breakfast had added to the national subscription with his humble

shilling; and the Catholic gentleman with whom I dined, and between

whom and Mr. O’Connell there is no great love lost, pays his annual

donation, out of gratitude for old services, and to the man who won

Catholic Emancipation for Ireland. The piety of the people at the

chapels is a sight, too, always well worthy to behold. Nor indeed is

this religious fervour less in the Protestant places of worship: the

warmth and attention of the congregation, the enthusiasm with which

hymns are sung and responses uttered, contrast curiously with the cool

formality of worshippers at home.

The service at St. Patrick’s is finely sung; and the shameless English

custom of retreating after the anthem, is properly prevented by locking

the gates, and having the music after the sermon. The interior of the

cathedral itself, however, to an Englishman who has seen the neat and

beautiful edifices of his own country, will be anything but an object of

admiration. The greater part of the huge old building is suffered to

remain in gaunt decay, and with its stalls of sham Gothic, and the

tawdry old rags and gimcracks of the ‘most illustrious order of St.

Patrick’ (whose pasteboard helmets, and calico banners, and lath swords,

well characterise the humbug of chivalry which they are made to

represent), looks like a theatre behind the scenes. ‘Paddy’s Opera,’

however, is a noble performance; and the Englishman may here listen to a

half-hour sermon, and in the anthem to a bass singer whose voice is one

of the finest ever heard.

The Drama does not flourish much more in Dublin than in any other part

of the country. Operatic stars make their appearance occasionally, and

managers lose money. I was at a fine concert, at which Lablache and

others performed, where there were not a hundred people in the pit of

the pretty theatre, and where the only encore given was to a young woman

in ringlets and yellow satin, who stepped forward and sung ‘Coming

through the rye,’ or some other scientific composition, in an

exceedingly small voice. On the nights when the regular drama was

enacted, the audience was still smaller. The theatre of Fishamble Street

was given up to the performances of the Rev. Mr. Greg and his Protestant

company, whose soirées I did not attend; and, at the Abbey Street

Theatre, whither I went in order to see, if possible, some specimens of

the national humour, I found a company of English people ranting through

a melodrama, the tragedy whereof was the only laughable thing to be

witnessed.

Humbler popular recreations may be seen by the curious. One night I paid

twopence to see a puppet-show--such an entertainment as may have been

popular a hundred and thirty years ago, and is described in the

_Spectator_. But the company here assembled were not, it scarcely need

be said, of the genteel sort. There were a score of boys, however, and a

dozen of labouring men, who were quite happy and contented with the

piece performed, and loudly applauded. Then in passing homewards of a

night, you hear, at the humble public-houses, the sound of many a

fiddle, and the stamp of feet dancing the good old jig, which is still

maintaining a struggle with Teetotalism, and, though vanquished now, may

rally some day and overcome the enemy. At Kingstown, especially, the old

‘fire-worshippers’ yet seem to muster pretty strongly; loud is the music

to be heard in the taverns there, and the cries of encouragement to the

dancers.

Of the numberless amusements that take place in the _Phaynix_, it is not

very necessary to speak. Here you may behold garrison races, and

reviews; lord-lieutenants in brown greatcoats; _aides-de-camp_

scampering about like mad in blue; fat colonels roaring ‘charge’ to

immense heavy dragoons; dark riflemen lining woods and firing; galloping

cannoneers banging and blazing right and left. Here comes his Excellency

the Commander-in-Chief, with his huge feathers, and white hair, and

hooked nose; and yonder sits his Excellency the Ambassador from the

republic of Topinambo in a glass coach, smoking a cigar. The honest

Dublinites make a great deal of such small dignitaries as his Excellency

of the glass coach; you hear everybody talking of him, and asking which

is he; and when presently one of Sir Robert Peel’s sons makes his

appearance on the course, the public rush delighted to look at him.

They love great folks, those honest Emerald Islanders, more intensely

than any people I ever heard of, except the Americans. They still

cherish the memory of the sacred George IV. They chronicle genteel small

beer with never-failing assiduity. They go in long trains to a sham

court--simpering in tights and bags, with swords between their legs. O

heaven and earth, what joy! Why are the Irish noblemen absentees? If

their lordships like respect, where would they get it so well as in

their own country?

The Irish noblemen are very likely going through the same delightful

routine of duty before their real sovereign--in _real_ tights and

bagwigs, as it were, performing their graceful and lofty duties, and

celebrating the august service of the throne. These, of course, the

truly loyal heart can only respect; and I think a drawing-room at St.

James’s the grandest spectacle that ever feasted the eye or exercised

the intellect. The crown, surrounded by its knights and nobles, its

priests, its sages, and their respective ladies; illustrious foreigners,

men learned in the law, heroes of land and sea, beef-eaters,

gold-sticks, gentlemen-at-arms, rallying round the throne and defending

it with those swords which never knew defeat (and would surely, if

tried, secure victory): these are sights and characters which every man

must look upon with a thrill of respectful awe, and count amongst the

glories of his country. What lady that sees this will not confess that

she reads every one of the drawing-room costumes, from Majesty down to

Miss Anna Maria Smith; and all the names of the presentations, from

Prince Baccabocksky (by the Russian Ambassador) to Ensign Stubbs on his

appointment?

We are bound to read these accounts. It is our pride, our duty as

Britons. But though one may honour the respect of the aristocracy of the

land for the sovereign, yet there is no reason why those who are not of

the aristocracy should be aping their betters; and the Dublin Castle

business has, I cannot but think, a very high-life-below-stairs look.

There is no aristocracy in Dublin. Its magnates are tradesmen--Sir Fiat

Haustus, Sir Blacker Dosy, Mr. Serjeant Bluebag, or Mr. Counsellor

O’Fee. Brass plates are their titles of honour, and they live by their

boluses or their briefs. What call have these worthy people to be

dangling and grinning at lord-lieutenants’ levees, and playing sham

aristocracy before a sham sovereign? Oh that old humbug of a Castle! It

is the greatest sham of all the shams in Ireland.

Although the season may be said to have begun, for the courts are

opened, and the _noblesse de la robe_ have assembled, I do not think the

genteel quarters of the town look much more cheerful. They still, for

the most part, wear their faded appearance and lean half-pay look. There

is the beggar still dawdling here and there. Sound of carriages or

footmen do not deaden the clink of the burly policeman’s boot-heels. You

may see, possibly, a smutty-faced nursemaid leading out her little

charges to walk; or the observer may catch a glimpse of Mick the footman

lolling at the door, and grinning as he talks to some dubious tradesman.

MICK and JOHN are very different characters externally and

inwardly;--profound essays (involving the history of the two countries

for a thousand years) might be written regarding Mick and John, and the

moral and political influences which have developed the flunkeys of the

two nations. The friend, too, with whom Mick talks at the door is a

puzzle to a Londoner. I have hardly ever entered a Dublin house without

meeting with some such character on my way in or out. He looks too

shabby for a dun, and not exactly ragged enough for a beggar--a

doubtful, lazy, dirty family vassal--a guerilla footman. I think it is

he who makes a great noise, and whispering, and clattering, handing in

the dishes to Mick from outside of the dining-room door. When an

Irishman comes to London he brings Erin with him; and ten to one you

will find one of these queer retainers about his place.

London one can only take leave of by degrees: the great town melts away

into suburbs, which soften, as it were, the parting between the cockney

and his darling birthplace. But you pass from some of the stately fine

Dublin streets straight into the country. After No. 46 Eccles Street,

for instance, potatoes begin at once. You are on a wide green plain,

diversified by occasional cabbage-plots, by drying-grounds white with

chemises, in the midst of which the chartered wind is revelling; and

though in the map some fanciful engineer has laid down streets and

squares, they exist but on paper; nor, indeed, can there be any need of

them at present, in a quarter where houses are not wanted so much as

people to dwell in the same.

If the genteel portions of the town look to the full as melancholy as

they did, the downright poverty ceases, I fear, to make so strong an

impression as it made four months ago. Going over the same ground again,

places appear to have quite a different aspect; and, with their

strangeness, poverty and misery have lost much of their terror. The

people, though dirtier and more ragged, seem certainly happier than

those in London.

Near to the King’s Court, for instance (a noble building, as are almost

all the public edifices of the city), is a straggling green suburb,

containing numberless little shabby, patched, broken-windowed huts, with

rickety gardens dotted with rags that have been washed, and children

that have not; and thronged with all sorts of ragged inhabitants. Near

to the suburb, in the town, is a dingy, old, mysterious district, called

Stoneybatter, where some houses have been allowed to reach an old age,

extraordinary in this country of premature ruin, and look as if they had

been built some six score years since. In these and the neighbouring

tenements, not so old, but equally ruinous and mouldy, there is a sort

of vermin swarm of humanity: dirty faces at all the dirty windows;

children on all the broken steps; smutty slipshod women clacking and

bustling about, and old men dawdling. Well, only paint and prop the

tumbling gates and huts in the suburb, and fancy the Stoneybatterites

clean, and you would have rather a gay and agreeable picture of human

life--of workpeople and their families reposing after their labours.

They are all happy, and sober, and kind-hearted,--they seem kind, and

playing with the children--the young women having a gay good-natured

joke for the passer-by; the old seemingly contented, and buzzing to one

another. It is only the costume, as it were, that has frightened the

stranger, and made him fancy that people so ragged must be unhappy.

Observation grows used to the rags as much as the people do, and my

impression of the walk through this district, on a sunshiny, clear

autumn evening, is that of a fête. I am almost ashamed it should be so.

Near to Stoneybatter lies a group of huge gloomy edifices--an hospital,

a penitentiary, a madhouse, and a poorhouse. I visited the latter of

these, the North Dublin Union-house, an enormous establishment, which

accommodates two thousand beggars. Like all the public institutions of

the country, it seems to be well conducted, and is a vast, orderly, and

cleanly place, wherein the prisoners are better clothed, better fed, and

better housed than they can hope to be when at liberty. We were taken

into all the wards in due order--the schools and nursery for the

children; the dining-rooms, day-rooms, etc., of the men and women. Each

division is so accommodated, as also with a large court or ground to

walk and exercise in.

Among the men, there are very few able-bodied; the most of them, the

keeper said, having gone out for the harvest-time, or as soon as the

potatoes came in. If they go out, they cannot return before the

expiration of a month: the guardians have been obliged to establish this

prohibition, lest the persons requiring relief should go in and out too

frequently. The old men were assembled in considerable numbers in a long

day-room that is comfortable and warm. Some of them were picking oakum

by way of employment, but most of them were past work; all such inmates

of the house as are able-bodied being occupied upon the premises. Their

hall was airy and as clean as brush and water could make it: the men

equally clean, and their grey jackets and Scotch caps stout and warm.

Thence we were led, with a sort of satisfaction, by the guardian, to the

kitchen--a large room, at the end of which might be seen certain

coppers, emitting, it must be owned, a very faint inhospitable smell. It

was Friday, and rice-milk is the food on that day, each man being served

with a pint-canful, of which cans a great number stood smoking upon

stretchers--the platters were laid, each with its portion of salt, in

the large clean dining-room hard by. ‘Look at that rice,’ said the

keeper, taking up a bit; ‘try it, sir, it’s delicious.’ I’m sure I hope

it is.

The old women’s room was crowded with, I should think, at least four

hundred old ladies--neat and nice, in white clothes and caps--sitting

demurely on benches, doing nothing for the most part; but some employed,

like the old men, in fiddling with the oakum. ‘There’s tobacco here,’

says the guardian, in a loud voice; ‘who’s smoking tobacco?’ ‘Fait, and

I wish dere _was_ some tabacky here,’ says one old lady, ‘and my service

to you, Mr. Leary, and I hope one of the gentlemen has a snuff-box, and

a pinch for a poor old woman.’ But we had no boxes; and if any person

who reads this visit, goes to a poorhouse or lunatic asylum, let him

carry a box, if for that day only--a pinch is like Dives’s drop of water

to those poor limboed souls. Some of the poor old creatures began to

stand up as we came in--I can’t say how painful such an honour seemed to

me.

There was a separate room for the able-bodied females; and the place and

courts were full of stout, red-cheeked, bouncing women. If the old

ladies looked respectable, I cannot say the young ones were particularly

good-looking; there were some Hogarthian faces amongst them--sly,

leering, and hideous. I fancied I could see only too well what these

girls had been. Is it charitable or not to hope that such bad faces

could only belong to bad women?

‘Here, sir, is the nursery,’ said the guide, flinging open the door of a

long room. There may have been eighty babies in it, with as many nurses

and mothers. Close to the door sat one with as beautiful a face as I

almost ever saw: she had at her breast a very sickly and puny child, and

looked up, as we entered, with a pair of angelical eyes, and a face that

Mr. Eastlake could paint--a face that _had_ been angelical that is; for

there was the snow still, as it were, but with the footmark on it. I

asked her how old she was--she did not know. She could not have been

more than fifteen years, the poor child. She said she had been a

servant--and there was no need of asking anything more about her story.

I saw her grinning at one of her comrades as we went out of the room;

her face did not look angelical then. Ah, young master or old, young or

old villain, who did this!--have you not enough wickedness of your own

to answer for, that you must take another’s sins upon your shoulders;

and be this wretched child’s sponsor in crime?...

But this chapter must be made as short as possible; and so I will not

say how much prouder Mr. Leary, the keeper, was of his fat pigs than of

his paupers--how he pointed us out the burial-ground of the family of

the poor--their coffins were quite visible through the niggardly

mould; and the children might peep at their fathers over the

burial-ground-playground wall--nor how we went to see the Linen Hall of

Dublin--that huge, useless, lonely, decayed place, in the vast windy

solitudes of which stands the simpering statue of George IV., pointing

to some bales of shirting, over which he is supposed to extend his

august protection.

The cheers of the rabble hailing the new Lord Mayor were the last

sounds that I heard in Dublin: and I quitted the kind friends I had made

there with the sincerest regret. As for forming ‘an opinion of Ireland,’

such as is occasionally asked from a traveller on his return--that is as

difficult an opinion to form as to express; and the puzzle which has

perplexed the gravest and wisest, may be confessed by a humble writer of

light literature, whose aim it only was to look at the manners and the

scenery of the country, and who does not venture to meddle with

questions of more serious import.

To have ‘an opinion about Ireland,’ one must begin by getting the truth;

and where is it to be had in the country? Or rather, there are two

truths, the Catholic truth and the Protestant truth. The two parties do

not see things with the same eyes. I recollect, for instance, a Catholic

gentleman telling me that the Primate had forty-three thousand _five

hundred_ a year; a Protestant clergyman gave me, chapter and verse, the

history of a shameful perjury and malversation of money on the part of a

Catholic priest; nor was one tale more true than the other. But belief

is made a party business; and the receiving of the archbishop’s income

would probably not convince the Catholic, any more than the clearest

evidence to the contrary altered the Protestant’s opinion. Ask about an

estate, you may be sure almost that people will make misstatements, or

volunteer them if not asked. Ask a cottager about his rent, or his

landlord: you cannot trust him. I shall never forget the glee with which

a gentleman in Munster told me how he had sent off MM. Tocqueville and

Beaumont ‘with _such_ a set of stories.’ Inglis was seized, as I am

told, and mystified in the same way. In the midst of all these truths,

attested with ‘I give ye my sacred honour and word,’ which is the

stranger to select? And how are we to trust philosophers who make

theories upon such data?

Meanwhile it is satisfactory to know, upon testimony so general as to be

equivalent almost to fact, that, wretched as it is, the country is

steadily advancing, nor nearly so wretched now as it was a score of

years since; and let us hope that the _middle class_, which this

increase of prosperity must generate (and of which our laws have

hitherto forbidden the existence in Ireland, making there a population

of Protestant aristocracy and Catholic peasantry), will exercise the

greatest and most beneficial influence over the country. Too independent

to be bullied by priest or squire--having their interest in quiet, and

alike indisposed to servility or to rebellion; may not as much be hoped

from the gradual formation of such a class, as from any legislative

meddling? It is the want of the middle class that has rendered the

squire so arrogant, and the clerical or political demagogue so

powerful; and I think Mr. O’Connell himself would say that the existence

of such a body would do more for the steady acquirement of orderly

freedom, than the occasional outbreak of any crowd, influenced by any

eloquence from altar or tribune.

THE END

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Translated for the benefit of country gentlemen:

‘By your angel flown away just like a dove,

By the royal infant, that frail and tender reed,

Pardon yet once more! Pardon in the name of the tomb!

Pardon in the name of the cradle!’

[2] In order to account for these trivial details, the reader must be

told that the story is, for the chief part, a fact; and that the little

sketch in this page was _taken from nature_. The letter was likewise a

copy from one found in the manner described.

[3] This reply, and indeed the whole of the story, is historical. An

account, by Charles Nodier, in the _Revue de Paris_, suggested it to the

writer.

[4] These countries are, to be sure, inundated with the productions

of our market, in the shape of ‘Byron Beauties,’ reprints from the

‘Keepsakes,’ ‘Books of Beauty,’ and such trash; but these are only of

late years, and their original schools of art are still flourishing.

[5] Almost all the principal public men had been most ludicrously

caricatured in the _Charivari_: those mentioned above were usually

depicted with the distinctive attributes mentioned by us.

[6] It is not necessary to enter into descriptions of these various

inventions.

[7] We have given a description of a genteel Macaire in the account of

_M. de Bernard’s_ novels.

[8] He always went to mass; it is in the evidence.

[9] This sentence is taken from another part of the ‘acte d’accusation.’

[10] ‘Peytel,’ says the act of accusation, ‘did not fail to see the

danger which would menace him, if this will (which had escaped the

magistrates in their search for Peytel’s papers) was discovered. He,

therefore, instructed his agent to take possession of it, which he did,

and the fact was not mentioned for several months afterwards. Peytel and

his agent were called upon to explain the circumstance, but refused, and

their silence for a long time interrupted the “instruction” (getting up

of the evidence). All that could be obtained from them was an avowal

that such a will existed, constituting Peytel his wife’s sole legatee;

and a promise, on their parts, to produce it before the court gave its

sentence.’ But why keep the will secret? The anxiety about it was surely

absurd and unnecessary: the whole of Madame Peytel’s family knew that

such a will was made. She had consulted her sister concerning it, who

said--‘If there is no other way of satisfying him, make the will;’ and

the mother, when she heard of it, cried out--‘Does he intend to poison

her?’

[11] M. Balzac’s theory of the case is, that Rey had intrigued with

Madame Peytel; having known her previous to her marriage, when she was

staying in the house of her brother-in-law, Monsieur de Montrichard,

where Rey had been a servant.

[12] The italics are the author’s own.

[13] It is fine to think that, in the days of his youth, his Majesty

Louis XIV. used to _powder his wig with gold-dust_.

[14] I think it is in the amusing _Memoirs of Madame de Créqui_ (a

forgery, but a work remarkable for its learning and accuracy) that the

above anecdote is related.

[15] They made a Jesuit of him on his death-bed.

[16] Saint Simon’s account of Lauzun, in disgrace, is admirably

facetious and pathetic; Lauzun’s regrets are as monstrous as those of

Raleigh when deprived of the sight of his adorable queen and mistress,

Elizabeth.

[17] A pair of diamond earrings, given by the King to La Vallière,

caused much scandal; and some lampoons are extant, which impugn the

taste of Louis XIV. for loving a lady with such an enormous mouth.

[18] In the diamond-necklace affair.

[19] He was found hanging in his own bedroom.

[20] Among the many lovers that rumour gave to the Queen, poor Ferscu

is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and

perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape

to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and

was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue.

Ferscu lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He

was dragged from his carriage by the mob, in Stockholm, and murdered by

them.

[21] The two men were executed pursuant to sentence, and both persisted

solemnly in denying their guilt. There can be no doubt of it: but it

appears to be a point of honour with these unhappy men to make no

statement which may incriminate the witnesses who appeared on their

behalf, and on their part perjured themselves equally.

[22] The only instance of intoxication that I have heard of as yet,

has been on the part of two ‘cyouncillors,’ undeniably drunk and noisy

yesterday after the bar dinner at Waterford.

[23] The suspicion turned out to be very correct. The gentleman is the

respected cook of C----, as I learned afterwards from a casual Cambridge

man.

[24] By the help of an Alexandrine, the names of these famous families

may also be accommodated to verse.

‘Athey, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Dorsey, Frinche,

Joyce, Morech, Skereth, Fonte, Kirowan, Martin, Lynche.’

[25] If the rude old verses are not very remarkable in quality, in

_quantity_ they are still more deficient, and take some dire liberties

with the laws laid down in the Gradus and the Grammar:--

‘Septem ornant montes Romam, septem ostia Nilum,

Tot rutilis stellis splendet in axe Polus.

Galvia, Polo Niloque bis æquas. Roma Conachtæ,

Bis septem illustres has colit illa tribus.

Bis urbis septem defendunt mœnia turres,

Intus et en duro est marmore quæque domus.

Bis septem portæ sunt, castra et culmina circum,

Per totidem pontum permeat unda vias.

Principe bis septem fulgent altaria templo,

Quævis patronæ est ara dicata suo.

Et septem sacrata Deo cœnobia, patrum,

Fœminei et sexus, tot pia tecta tenet.’

[26] First edition “_The Irish Sketch Book_, 1843.”

An allusion has been made in the first chapter of this volume to a

frontispiece which was originally intended for it. But an accident

happened to the plate, which has compelled the author to cancel it, and

insert that which at present appears.

[27] This epithet is applied to the party of a Colonel somebody, in a

Dublin paper.

[28] Here is an extract from one of the latter--

‘Hasten to some distant isle,

In the bosom of the deep,

Where the skies for ever smile,

_And the blacks for ever weep_.’

Is it not a shame that such nonsensical false twaddle should be sung in

a house of the Church of England, and by people assembled for grave and

decent worship?

[29] It must be said, for the worthy fellow who accompanied us, and who

acted as cicerone previously to the great Willis, the great Hall, the

great Barrow, that though he wears a ragged coat his manners are those

of a gentleman, and his conversation evinces no small talent, taste, and

scholarship.

[30] ‘Boarders are received from the age of eight to fourteen at £12 per

annum, and £1 for washing, paid quarterly in advance.

‘Day Scholars are received from the age of ten to twelve at £2, paid

quarterly in advance.

‘The Incorporated Society have abundant cause for believing that the

introduction of Boarders into their Establishments has produced far

more advantageous results to the public than they could, at so early

a period, have anticipated; and that the election of boys to their

Foundations _only_ after a fair competition with others of a given

district, has had the effect of stimulating masters and scholars to

exertion and study, and promises to operate most beneficially for the

advancement of religious and general knowledge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

ARRANGEMENT OF SCHOOL BUSINESS IN DUNDALK INSTITUTION |

---------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

Hours | Monday, Wednesday, | Tuesday | Saturday. |

| and Friday. | and Thursday. | |

---------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

6 to 7 | Rise, wash, etc. | Rise, wash, etc. | Rise, wash, etc. |

| | | |

7 “ 7-1/2 |{Scripture by the |{Scripture by the |{Scripture by the |

|{Master, and prayer.|{Master, and prayer.|{Master and prayer. |

| | | |

7-1/2 “ 8-1/2 |{Reading, History, |{Reading, History, |{Reading, History, |

|{etc. |{etc. |{etc. |

| | | |

8-1/2 “ 9 | Breakfast. | Breakfast. | Breakfast. |

| | | |

9 “ 10 | Play. | Play. | Play. |

| | | |

10 “ 10-1/2 | English Grammar. | Geography. |}10 to 11 |

10-1/2 “ 11-1/4| Algebra. | Euclid. |}repetition. |

| | | |

| |{Lecture on |}11 to 12, |

11-1/4 “ 12 | Scripture. |{principles |}Use of |

| |{of Arithmetic. |}Globes. |

| | | |

12 “ 12-3/4 | Writing. | Writing. |{12 to 1, Catechism |

| | |{and Scripture |

|{Arithmetic at | |{by the Catechist. |

12-3/4 “ 2 |{Desks, and | Mensuration. | |

|{Bookkeeping. | | |

| | | |

2 “ 2-1/2 | Dinner. | Dinner. | Dinner. |

| | | |

2-1/2 “ 5 | Play. | Play. |{The remainder of |

| | |{this day is devoted|

|{Spelling, Mental |{Spelling, Mental |{to exercise till |

5 “ 7-1/2 |{Arithmetic, and |{Arithmetic, and |{the hour of Supper,|

|{Euclid. |{Euclid. |{after which the |

| | |{Boys assemble in |

7-1/2 “ 8 | Supper. | Supper. |{the Schoolroom |

| | |{and hear a portion |

8 “ 8-1/2 | Exercise. | Exercise. |{of Scripture read |

| | |{and explained by |

|{Scripture by the |{Scripture by the |{the Master, as on |

8-1/2 “ 9 |{Master, and prayer |{Master, and prayer |{other days, and |

|{in Schoolroom. |{in Schoolroom. |{conclude with |

| | |{prayer. |

9 | Retire to bed. | Retire to bed. | |

---------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

The sciences of Navigation and practical Surveying are taught in the |

Establishment; also a selection of the Pupils, who have a taste for it, are |

instructed in the art of Drawing. |

------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

DIETARY |

|

=Breakfast=.--Stirabout and Milk, every Morning. |

|

=Dinner=.--On Sunday and Wednesday, Potatoes and Beef; 10 ounces of the |

latter to each boy. On Monday and Thursday, Bread and Broth; 1/2 lb. of the |

former to each boy. On Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, Potatoes and Milk; |

2 lbs. of the former to each boy. |

|

=Supper=.--1/2 lb. of Bread with Milk, uniformly, except on Monday and |

Thursday; on these days, Potatoes and Milk. |

------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

‘The districts for eligible Candidates are as follow:--

‘Dundalk Institution embraces the counties of Louth and Down, because

the properties which support it lie in this district.

‘The Pococke Institution, Kilkenny, embraces the counties of Kilkenny

and Waterford, for the same cause.

‘The Ranelagh Institution, the towns of Athlone and Roscommon, and

three districts in the counties of Galway and Roscommon, which the

Incorporated Society hold in fee, or from which they receive impropriate

tithes.

(_Signed_) CÆSAR OTWAY, _Secretary_.’

[31] The Proprietary Schools of late established have gone far to

protect the interests of parents and children; but the masters of

these schools take boarders, and of course draw profits from them. Why

make the learned man a beef and mutton contractor? It would be easy to

arrange the economy of a school so that there should be no possibility

of a want of confidence, or of peculation, to the detriment of the pupil.

[32] ‘I want to go into a coal-mine,’ says Tom Sheridan, ‘in order to

say I have been there.’ ‘Well, then, say so,’ replied the admirable

father.

[33] The late Mr. Pope represents Camilla as ‘_scouring the plain_,’

an absurd and useless task. Peggy’s occupation with the kettle is

much more simple and noble. The second line of this poem (whereof the

author scorns to deny an obligation) is from the celebrated “Frithiof”

of Esaias Tigner. A maiden is serving warriors to drink, and is

standing by a shield--Und die Runde des Schildes ward wie das Mägdelein

roth,”--perhaps the above is the best thing in both poems.

[34] And then, how much Latin and Greek does the public schoolboy know?

Also, does he know anything else, and what? Is it history, or geography,

or mathematics, or divinity?

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

holdiug converse with each other.=> holding converse with each other.

{pg 176}

philosophic apophthegms=> philosophic apothegms {pg 367}

so pulled to the middle or Turk lake=> so pulled to the middle of Turk

lake {pg 375}

Does it strenghten a man=> Does it strengthen a man {pg 500}

scolloped sleeves=> scalloped sleeves {pg 504}

in throuble in England=> in trouble in England {pg 517}

middle in the rapid strame=> middle in the rapid stream {footnote pg

424}