Commencement of the Series of Early Essayists -- Thackeray as a
Lecturer -- The 'English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century' --
Charlotte Brontë at Thackeray's readings -- The Lectures repeated
in Edinburgh -- An invitation to visit America -- Transatlantic
popularity -- Special success attending the reception of the
'English Humourists' in the States -- 'Week-day Preachers' --
Enthusiastic Farewell -- Appleton's New York edition of
Thackeray's works; the Author's introduction, and remarks on
International Copyright -- Thackeray's departure -- Cordial
impression bequeathed to America -- The 'History of Henry Esmond,
a story of Queen Anne's Reign' -- The writers of the Augustan Era
-- The 'Newcomes' -- An allusion to George Washington
misunderstood -- A second visit to America -- Lectures on the
'Four Georges' -- The series repeated at home -- Scotch sympathy
-- Thackeray proposed as a candidate to represent Oxford in
Parliament -- His liberal views and impartiality.
In 1851 Thackeray appeared in an entirely new character, but one which
subsequently proved so lucrative to him, that to this cause, even more
than to the labours of his pen, must be attributed that easy fortune
which he had accumulated before he died. In May he commenced the
delivery of a series of lectures on the English Humourists. The
subjects were--Swift, Congreve and Addison; Steele; Prior, Gay and
Pope; Hogarth, Smollett and Fielding, and Sterne and Goldsmith. The
lectures were delivered at Willis's Rooms. The price of admission was
high, and the audience was numerous, and of the most select kind. It
was not composed of that sort of people who crowd to pick up
information in the shape of facts with which they have been previously
unacquainted, but those who, knowing the eminence of the lecturer,
wished to hear his opinion on a subject of national interest. One of
the two great humourists of the present age was about to utter his
sentiments on the humourists of the age now terminated, and the
occasion was sufficient to create an interest which not even the
attractive power of the Great Exhibition, then open, could check. The
newspapers complained slightly of the low key in which the lecturer
spoke, from which cause many of his best points were sometimes lost to
the more distant of his auditors. 'In other respects,' says a
newspaper report, 'we cannot too highly praise the style of his
delivery.' Abstaining from rant and gesticulation he relied for his
effect on the matter which he uttered, and it was singular to see how
the isolated pictures by a few magic touches descended into the hearts
of his hearers. Among the most conspicuous of the literary ladies at
this gathering was Miss Brontë, the authoress of 'Jane Eyre.' She had
never before seen the author of 'Vanity Fair,' though she had
dedicated the second edition of her own celebrated novel to him, with
the assurance that she regarded him 'as the social regenerator of his
day--as the very master of that working corps who would restore to
rectitude the warped state of things.' Mrs. Gaskell tells us that,
when the lecture was over, the lecturer descended from the platform,
and making his way towards her, frankly asked her for her opinion.
'This,' adds Miss Brontë's biographer, 'she mentioned to me not many
days afterwards, adding remarks almost identical with those which I
subsequently read in "Villette," where a similar action on the part of
M. Paul Emanuel is related.' The remarks of this singular woman upon
Thackeray and his writings, and her accounts of her interviews with
him, are curious, and will be found scattered through Mrs. Gaskell's
popular biography. Readers of the 'Cornhill Magazine' will not have
forgotten Thackeray's affectionate and discriminating sketch of her,
which appeared some years later in that periodical.
The course was perfectly successful, and the Lectures, subsequently
reprinted, rank among the most masterly of his writings. They were
delivered again soon afterwards in some of the provincial cities,
including Edinburgh. A droll anecdote was related at this period in
the newspapers, in connection with one of these provincial
appearances. Previously to delivering them in Scotland, the lecturer
bethought himself of addressing them to the rising youth of our two
great nurseries of the national mind; and it was necessary, before
appearing at Oxford, to obtain the licence of the authorities--a very
laudable arrangement, of course. The Duke of Wellington was the
Chancellor, who, if applied to, would doubtless have understood at
once the man and his business. The Duke lived in the broad atmosphere
of the every-day world, and a copy of 'Vanity Fair' was on a snug
shelf at Walmer Castle. But his deputy at Oxford, on whom the modest
applicant waited, knew less about such trifles as 'Vanity Fair' and
'Pendennis.' 'Pray what can I do to serve you, sir?' enquired the
bland functionary. 'My name is Thackeray.' 'So I see by this card.' 'I
seek permission to lecture within the precincts.' 'Ah! you are a
lecturer; what subjects do you undertake--religious or political?'
'Neither; I am a literary man.' 'Have you written anything?' 'Yes; I
am the author of "Vanity Fair."' 'I presume a dissenter--has that
anything to do with John Bunyan's book?' 'Not exactly; I have also
written "Pendennis."' 'Never heard of these works; but no doubt they
are proper books.' 'I have also contributed to "Punch."' '"Punch!" I
have heard of _that_; is it not a ribald publication?'
An invitation to deliver the lectures in America speedily followed.
The public interest which heralded his coming in the United States was
such as could hardly have been expected for a writer of fiction who
had won his fame by so little appeal to the love of exciting scenes.
His visit (as an American critic remarked at the time) at least
demonstrated that if they were unwilling to pay English authors for
their books, they were ready to reward them handsomely for the
opportunity of seeing and hearing them.
At first the public feeling on the other side of the Atlantic had been
very much divided as to his probable reception. 'He'll come and humbug
us, eat our dinners, pocket our money, and go home and abuse us, like
Dickens,' said Jonathan, chafing with the remembrance of that grand
ball at the Park Theatre, and the Boz tableaux, and the universal
speaking and dining, to which the author of 'Pickwick' was subject
while he was their guest. 'Let him have his say,' said others, 'and we
will have our look. We will pay a dollar to hear him, if we can see
him at the same time; and as for the abuse, why it takes even more
than two such cubs of the roaring British lion to frighten the
American eagle. Let him come, and give him fair play.' He did come,
and certainly had fair play; and as certainly there was no
disappointment with his lectures. Those who knew his books found the
author in the lecturer. Those who did not know the books, says one
enthusiastic critic, 'were charmed in the lecturer by what is
charming in the author--the unaffected humanity, the tenderness, the
sweetness, the genial play of fancy, and the sad touch of truth, with
that glancing stroke of satire which, lightning-like, illumines while
it withers.' He did not visit the West, nor Canada. He went home
without seeing Niagara Falls. But wherever he did go, he found a
generous social welcome, and a respectful and sympathetic hearing. He
came to fulfil no mission; but it was felt that his visit had knit
more closely the sympathy of the Americans with Englishmen. Heralded
by various romantic memoirs, he smiled at them, stoutly asserted that
he had been always able to command a good dinner, and to pay for it,
nor did he seek to disguise that he hoped his American tour would help
him to command and pay for more. He promised not to write a book about
the Americans, and he kept his word.
[Illustration: An old English gentleman]
His first lecture was delivered to a crowded audience: on November 19
he commenced his lectures before the Mercantile Library Association,
in the spacious New York church belonging to the congregation presided
over by the Rev. Dr. Chapin.
[Illustration: Another 'Spectator']
Before many days the publishers told the world that the subject of
Thackeray's talk had given rise to a Swift and Congreve and Addison
furore. The booksellers were driving a thrifty trade in forgotten
volumes of 'Old English Essayists;' the 'Spectator' found its way
again to the parlour tables; old Sir Roger de Coverley was waked up
from his long sleep. 'Tristram Shandy' even was almost forgiven his
lewdness, and the Ass of Melun and Poor Le Fevre were studied
wistfully, and placed on the library table between 'Gulliver' and the
'Rake's Progress.' Girls were working Maria's pet lamb upon their
samplers, and hundreds of Lilliput literary ladies were twitching the
mammoth Gulliver's whiskers.
The newspaper gossipers were no less busy in noting every personal
characteristic of the author. One remarks: 'As for the man himself who
has lectured us, he is a stout, healthful, broad-shouldered specimen
of a man, with cropped greyish hair, and keenish grey eyes, peering
very sharply through a pair of spectacles that have a very satiric
focus. He seems to stand strongly on his own feet, as if he would not
be easily blown about or upset, either by praise or pugilists; a man
of good digestion, who takes the world easy, and scents all shams and
humours (straightening them between his thumb and forefinger) as he
would a pinch of snuff.' A London letter of the time says: 'The New
York journalists preserve, on the whole, a delicate silence (very
creditable to them) on the subject of Mr. Thackeray's nose; but they
are eloquent about his legs; and when the last mail left a controversy
was raging among them on this matter, one party maintaining that "he
stands very firm on his legs," while the opposition asserted that his
legs were decidedly "shaky."'
[Illustration]
These, however, were light matters compared with the notices in other
newspapers, which unscrupulously raked together, for the amusement of
their readers, details which were mostly untrue, and where true, were
of too private a character for public discussion. This led to a
humorous remonstrance, forwarded by Thackeray to 'Fraser's Magazine,'
where it appeared with the signature of 'John Small.' In this he gave
a droll parody of his newspaper biographers' style, which caused some
resentment on the part of the writers attacked. One Transatlantic
defender of the New York press said that 'the two most personal
accounts of Thackeray published appeared in one of the Liverpool
papers, and in the London "Spectator;"' adding, 'the London
correspondents of some of the provincial papers spare nothing of fact
or comment touching the private life of public characters. Nay, are
there not journals expressly devoted to the contemporary biography of
titled, wealthy, and consequential personages, which will tell you
how, and in what company, they eat, drink, and travel; their itinerary
from the country to London, and from the metropolis to the Continent;
the probable marriages, alliances, &c.? No journal can be better
acquainted with these conditions of English society than the classical
and vivacious "Fraser." Why, then, does John Small address that London
editor from New York, converting some paltry and innocent-enough
penny-a-liner notice of the author of "Vanity Fair" into an enormous
national sin and delinquency?' Among the lectures delivered at New
York, before he quitted the gay circles of the 'Empire City' for
Boston, was one in behalf of a charity; and the charity lecture was
stated to be a _mélange_ of all the others, closing very appropriately
with an animated tribute to the various literary, social, and humane
qualities of Charles Dickens. 'Papa,' he described his daughter as
exclaiming, with childish candour; 'papa, I like Mr. Dickens's book
much better than yours.'
The remonstrance of John Small in 'Fraser,' however, did not conclude
without a warm acknowledgment of the general kindness he had received
in America, thus feelingly expressed in his last lecture of the
series, delivered on April 7. 'In England,' he said, 'it was my
custom, after the delivery of these lectures, to point such a moral as
seemed to befit the country I lived in, and to protest against an
outcry which some brother authors of mine most imprudently and
unjustly raise, when they say that our profession is neglected and its
professors held in light esteem. Speaking in this country, I would say
that such a complaint could not only not be advanced, but could not
even be understood here, where your men of letters take their manly
share in public life; whence Everett goes as minister to Washington,
and Irving and Bancroft to represent the Republic in the old country.
And if to English authors the English public is, as I believe, kind
and just in the main, can any of us say, will any who visit your
country not proudly and gratefully own, with what a cordial and
generous greeting you receive us? I look around on this great
company. I think of my gallant young patrons of the Mercantile Library
Association, as whose servant I appear before you, and of the kind
hand stretched out to welcome me by men famous in letters, and
honoured in our own country as in their own, and I thank you and them
for a most kindly greeting and a most generous hospitality. At home
and amongst his own people it scarce becomes an English writer to
speak of himself; his public estimation must depend on his works; his
private esteem on his character and his life. But here, among friends
newly found, I ask leave to say that I am thankful; and I think with a
grateful heart of those I leave behind me at home, who will be proud
of the welcome you hold out to me, and will benefit, please God, when
my days of work are over, by the kindness which you show to their
father.'
A still more interesting paper was his Preface to Messrs. Appleton and
Co.'s New York edition of his minor works. Readers will remember
Thackeray's droll account, in one of his lectures, of his first
interview with the agent of Appleton and Co., when holding on,
sea-sick, to the bulwarks of the New York steam-vessel on his outward
voyage. The preface referred to contains evidence that the appeal of
the energetic representative of that well-known publishing house was
not altogether fruitless. It is as follows:--
'On coming into this country I found that the projectors of this
series of little books had preceded my arrival by publishing a number
of early works, which have appeared under various pseudonyms during
the last fifteen years. I was not the master to choose what stories of
mine should appear or not; these miscellanies were all advertised, or
in course of publication; nor have I had the good fortune to be able
to draw a pen, or alter a blunder of author or printer, except in the
case of the accompanying volumes which contain contributions to
"Punch," whence I have been enabled to make something like a
selection. In the "Letters of Mr. Brown," and the succeeding short
essays and descriptive pieces, something graver and less burlesque was
attempted than in other pieces which I here publish. My friend, the
"Fat Contributor," accompanied Mr. Titmarsh in his "Journey from
Cornhill to Cairo." The prize novels contain imitations of the
writings of some contemporaries who still live and flourish in the
novelists' calling. I myself had scarcely entered on it when these
burlesque tales were begun, and I stopped further parody from a sense
that this merry task of making fun of the novelists should be left to
younger hands than my own; and in a little book published some four
years since, in England, by my friends Messrs. Hannay and Shirley
Brooks, I saw a caricature of myself and writings to the full as
ludicrous and faithful as the prize novels of Mr. Punch. Nor was
there, had I desired it, any possibility of preventing the
re-appearance of these performances. Other publishers, besides the
Messrs. Appleton, were ready to bring my hidden works to the light.
Very many of the other books printed I have not seen since their
appearance twelve years ago, and it was with no small feelings of
curiosity (remembering under what sad circumstances the tale had been
left unfinished) that I bought the incomplete "Shabby Genteel Story,"
in a railway car, on my first journey from Boston hither, from a
rosy-cheeked, little peripatetic book merchant, who called out
"Thackeray's Works" in such a kind, gay voice, as gave me a feeling of
friendship and welcome.
[Illustration]
'There is an opportunity of being either satiric or sentimental. The
careless papers written at an early period, and never seen since the
printer's boy carried them away, are brought back and laid at the
father's door; and he cannot, if he would, forget or disown his own
children.
'Why were some of the little brats brought out of their obscurity? I
own to a feeling of anything but pleasure in reviewing some of these
misshapen juvenile creatures, which the publisher has disinterred and
resuscitated. There are two performances especially (among the
critical and biographical works of the erudite Mr. Yellowplush) which
I am very sorry to see reproduced; and I ask pardon of the author of
the "Caxtons" for a lampoon, which I know he himself has forgiven, and
which I wish I could recall.
'I had never seen that eminent writer but once in public when this
satire was penned, and wonder at the recklessness of the young man who
could fancy such personality was harmless jocularity, and never
calculate that it might give pain. The best experiences of my life
have been gained since that time of youth and gaiety, and careless
laughter. I allude to them, perhaps, because I would not have any kind
and friendly American reader judge of me by the wild performances of
early years. Such a retrospect as the sight of these old acquaintances
perforce occasioned cannot, if it would, be gay. The old scenes
return, the remembrance of the bygone time, the chamber in which the
stories were written, the faces that shone round the table.
'Some biographers in this country have been pleased to depict that
homely apartment after a very strange and romantic fashion; and an
author in the direst struggles of poverty, waited upon by a family
domestic in "all the splendour of his menial decorations," has been
circumstantially described to the reader's amusement as well as to the
writer's own. I may be permitted to assure the former that the
splendour and the want were alike fanciful, and that the meals were
not only sufficient but honestly paid for.
'That extreme liberality with which American publishers have printed
the works of English authors has had at least this beneficial result
for us, that our names and writings are known by multitudes using our
common mother tongue, who never had heard of us or our books but for
the speculators who have sent them all over this continent.
'It is of course not unnatural for the English writer to hope that
some day he may share a portion of the profits which his works bring
at present to the persons who vend them in this country; and I am
bound gratefully to say myself, that since my arrival here I have met
with several publishing houses who are willing to acknowledge our
little claim to participate in the advantages arising out of our
books; and the present writer having long since ascertained that a
portion of a loaf is more satisfactory than no bread at all,
gratefully accepts and acknowledges several slices which the
book-purveyors in this city have proffered to him of their own
free-will.
'If we are not paid in full and in specie as yet, English writers
surely ought to be thankful for the very great kindness and
friendliness with which the American public receives them; and if in
hope some day that measures may pass here to legalise our right to
profit a little by the commodities which we invent and in which we
deal, I for one can cheerfully say that the good-will towards us from
publishers and public is undoubted, and wait for still better times
with perfect confidence and good-humour.
'If I have to complain of any special hardship, it is not that our
favourite works are reproduced, and our children introduced to the
American public--children whom we have educated with care, and in whom
we take a little paternal pride--but that ancient magazines are
ransacked, and shabby old articles dragged out, which we had gladly
left in the wardrobes where they have lain hidden many years. There is
no control, however, over a man's thoughts--once uttered and printed,
back they may come upon us on any sudden day; and in this collection
which Messrs. Appleton are publishing I find two or three such early
productions of my own that I gladly would take back, but that they
have long since gone out of the paternal guardianship.
'If not printed in this series, they would have appeared from other
presses, having not the slightest need of the author's own imprimatur;
and I cannot sufficiently condole with a literary gentleman of this
city, who (in his voyages of professional adventure) came upon an
early performance of mine, which shall be nameless, carried the news
of the discovery to a publisher of books, and had actually done me the
favour to sell my book to that liberal man; when, behold, Messrs.
Appleton announced the book in the press, and my _confrère_ had to
refund the prize-money which had been paid to him. And if he is a
little chagrined at finding other intrepid voyagers beforehand with
him in taking possession of my island, and the American flag already
floating there, he will understand the feelings of the harmless but
kindly-treated aboriginal, who makes every sign of peace, who smokes
the pipe of submission, and meekly acquiesces in his own annexation.
'It is said that those only who win should laugh: I think, in this
case, my readers will not grudge the losing side its share of harmless
good-humour. If I have contributed to theirs, or provided them with
means of amusement, I am glad to think my books have found favour with
the American public, as I am proud to own the great and cordial
welcome with which they have received me.
'W. M. THACKERAY.
'New York, December 1852.'
Such words could not fail to be gratifying to the American people, as
an evidence of Thackeray's sense of the reception he had received; and
in spite of a subsequent slight misunderstanding founded on a mistake
and speedily cleared up, it may be said that no English writer of
fiction was ever more popular in the United States.
[Illustration: A mere accident]
[Illustration]
The publication of the 'Adventures of Henry Esmond,' which appeared
just as its author was starting for America in 1852, marked an
important epoch in his career. It was a continuous story, and one
worked out with closer attention to the thread of the narrative than
he had hitherto produced--a fact due, no doubt, partly to its
appearance in three volumes complete, instead of in detached monthly
portions. But its most striking feature was its elaborate imitation of
the style and even the manner of thought of the time of Queen Anne's
reign, in which its scenes were laid. The preparation of his Lectures
on the Humourists had no doubt suggested to him the idea of writing a
story of this kind, as it afterwards suggested to him the design of
writing a history of that period which he had long entertained, but in
which he had, we believe, made no progress when he died. But his
fondness for the Queen Anne writers was of older date. Affectionate
allusions to Sir Richard Steele--like himself a Charterhouse boy--and
to Addison, and Pope, and Swift, may be found in his earliest magazine
articles. That the style with which the author of 'Vanity Fair' and
'Pendennis' had so often delighted his readers was to some degree
formed upon those models so little studied in his boyhood, cannot be
doubted by anyone who is familiar with the literature of the 'Augustan
age of English authorship.' The writers of that period were fond of
French models, as the writers of Elizabeth's time looked to Italy for
their literary inspiration; but there was no time when English prose
was generally written with more purity and ease; for the translation
of the Scriptures, which is generally referred to as an evidence of
the perfection of our English speech in Elizabeth's time, owed its
strength and simplicity chiefly to the rejection by the pious
translators of the scholarly style most in vogue, in favour of the
homely English then current among the people. If we except the
pamphlet writers of earlier reigns, the Queen Anne writers were the
first who systematically wrote for the people in plain Saxon English,
not easy to imitate in these days. 'Esmond' was from the first most
liked among literary men who can appreciate a style having no
resemblance to the fashion of the day; but there was a vein of
tenderness and true pathos in the story which, in spite of some
objectionable features in the plot, and of a somewhat wearisome
genealogical introduction, has by degrees gained for it a high rank
among the author's works. 'Esmond' was followed by the 'Newcomes,' in
1855, a work which revealed a deeper pathos than any of his previous
novels, and showed that the author could, when he pleased, give us
pictures of moral beauty and exquisite tenderness. In this work he
returned to the yellow numbers in the old monthly form.
[Illustration]
An incident in connection with the publication of the 'Newcomes' may
here be mentioned. Thackeray's fondness for irony had frequently
brought him into disgrace with people not so ready as himself in
understanding that dangerous figure. A passage in one of his chapters
of this story alluding to 'Mr. Washington,' in a parody of the style
of the 'British Patriot' of the time of the War of Independence, was
so far misunderstood in America that the fact was alluded to by the
New York correspondent of the 'Times.' Upon which the author felt it
worth his while to explain the real sense of the offending paragraph
in a letter to that journal, and, in the concluding paragraph, he very
explicitly sets forth his own sincere convictions in regard to the
hero of American Independence, and his belief in the justice of the
cause for which he conquered.[11]
[Illustration: An embarrassing situation]
[Illustration: 1780]
Another journey to the United States, equally successful, and equally
profitable in a pecuniary sense, was the chief event in his life in
1856. The lectures delivered were those admirable anecdotal and
reflective discourses on the 'Four Georges,' made familiar to readers
by their publication in the 'Cornhill Magazine,' and since then in a
separate form. The subject was not favourable to the display of the
author's more genial qualities. But where in English literature could
we find anything more solemn and affecting than his picture of the old
king, the third of that name? When 'all light, all reason, all sound
of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God were taken
from him'--concluding with the affecting appeal to his American
audience--'O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue--O
comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we
stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Low he lies to
whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the
poorest--dead whom millions prayed for in vain. Hush, Strife and
Quarrels, over the solemn grave! Sound, Trumpets, a mournful march.
Fall, Dark Curtain, upon his pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful
tragedy!'
These lectures were successfully repeated in England. Thackeray,
indeed, was now recognised as one of the most attractive lecturers of
the day. His presence, whether in lecturing on the 'Georges' for his
own profit, or on 'Week-day Preachers,' or some other topic for the
benefit of the families of deceased brother writers, such as he
delivered to assist in raising monuments to the memories of Angus B.
Reach and Douglas Jerrold, always attracted the most cultivated
classes of the various cities in which he appeared; but an attempt to
draw together a large audience of the less-educated classes by giving
a course of lectures at the great Music Hall was less happy. In
Edinburgh his reception was always in the highest degree successful.
He was more extensively known and admired among the intellectual
portion of the people of Scotland than any living writer, not
excepting Thomas Carlyle. There was something in his peculiar genius
that commended him to the Northern temperament. Thackeray delivered
his essays on the 'Four Georges' in Scotland to larger and more
intellectual audiences than have probably flocked to any other
lecturer, and he, later on, lectured there for the benefit of Angus B.
Reach's widow. Nearly all the men of Edinburgh, with any tincture of
literature, had met him personally, and a few knew him well. He was
almost the only great author that the majority of the lovers of
literature in it had seen and heard, and his form and figure and
voice, with its tragic tones and pauses, well entitled him to take his
place in any ideal rank of giants. He was much gratified (says James
Hannay) by the success of the 'Four Georges' (a series which
superseded an earlier scheme for as many discourses on 'Men of the
World') in Scotland. 'I have had three per cent. of the whole
population here,' he wrote from Edinburgh in November 1856. 'If I
could but get three per cent. out of London!'
Most of Thackeray's readers will remember that in 1857 he was invited
by some friends to offer himself as a candidate for the representation
in Parliament of the city of Oxford.
[Illustration: Champions of order]
A characteristic anecdote was told in the newspapers relating to the
Oxford election by one who was staying with Thackeray at his hotel
during his contest with Mr. Cardwell. Whilst looking out of window a
crowd passed along the street, hooting and handling rather roughly
some of his opponent's supporters. Thackeray started up in the
greatest possible excitement, and, using some strong expletive, rushed
down stairs, and notwithstanding the efforts of numerous old
electioneerers to detain him, who happened to be of opinion that a
trifling correction of the opposite party might be beneficial _pour
encourager les autres_, he was not to be deterred, and was next seen
towering above the crowd, dealing about him right and left in defence
of the partisans of his antagonist and in defiance of his own friends.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] A somewhat similar circumstance happened during the delivery of
the lectures in America, an allusion in which to 'Catherine Hayes' was
warmly resented by the Irish newspapers, until the explanation arrived
from Thackeray that the allusion was not to Catherine Hayes, the
famous Irish singer, but to Catherine Hayes, the murderess of the last
century.