and then back to the table to seize my pen like ‘Anna Matilda;’ and
when the door opened, I was placed in a thoughtful position, with the
contemplative look of a doctor of the Sorbonne, or of Lydia Languish;
but the apparition, which for a moment halted at the threshold, and then
moved on in solemn gait, actually made me start. A tall, gaunt figure,
wrapped from neck to heel in a dark roquelaure, with a large-leafed
hat flapped low over the face, presented the very picture of Guy Faux,
with nothing wanting but his dark lantern. The comely, the elegant
young man disappeared from my imagination; and the venerable, but very
singular-looking philosopher, “stood confessed.”
Mr. Kirwan, with all the grace of the old school, moved his hat, and
instantly replacing it on a full, old-fashioned peruke, pleaded the
necessity for covering his head, on account of some disorder, which
rendered it dangerous to do otherwise, even in a warm room. After a
few hems and haws on my part, and a fixed stare on his, we fell to
discourse, and the conversation soon became animated, and to me highly
interesting. It arose from his taking up a book that lay on the table,
and had replaced my Werter. This was unlucky: he threw down the book
with indignation, and cautioned me against what he called its “selfish
sophistry,” adding, “Young lady, you have too much imagination and too
much feeling, to give up your precious time to such works as this;” and
he then attacked the doctrines of Helvetius, with more feeling than
logic. His own philosophy being founded in his quick and almost morbid
sensibility, he would not allow self-love to be the _primum mobile_ of
all human action. Sympathy was his leading dogma; and the predominancy
of good his creed.
While we were talking, I perceived, from the window near which we were
seated, the wretched skeleton of a scarcely living horse, which had
been turned out to die on a piece of waste ground, not yet built on.
The bones had nearly pierced the skin, and it fell as we looked on it,
and died. “So much for the prevalence of good,” I said. “What must have
been the sufferings of that poor animal, since it first began to fail in
strength and utility, and was exposed to the brutality, ignorance, and
disappointed avarice of its owner, who has thus turned it forth to die
in agony and in want! Yet what had that poor beast done to merit such a
fate? For him no future compensation exists—no bright hereafter repays,
to all eternity, his sufferings on earth. But such is the lot of nearly
the whole brute creation; to serve and suffer,—to be incapable of crime,
and yet to feel its direst penalties.”
The countenance of Mr. Kirwan became gloomy and agitated; he turned away
from the window, and, seating himself by the fire, after a long silence,
he addressed me, in a solemn and impressive manner, that affected me
deeply, and left its influence fixed on my mind. He began by observing,
that the apparent sufferings of the animal who had died under our eyes,
had for a moment elicited the most painful and piteous sympathy; that the
idea of sufferings imposed without a cause on the part of the sufferer,
and which were to have no retribution, no recompense, was too painful an
idea to indulge in, and too derogatory to the wisdom and goodness of the
Supreme Being, to be credible; that he had therefore long been convinced,
that those signs of suffering manifested by brute animals, were but means
to cherish and promote the sympathies of men, and to check his natural
tendency to tyrannize and misuse power, whenever it was granted him.
In a word, that he was a sincere disciple and zealous advocate for the
doctrine of Gomez Pereira, (which was popularized by Descartes,) who
conceived that all appearances of sensibility manifested by animals are
fallacious; and that the brute species are mere machines, divested of all
feeling.
There is something so amiable in this horror of injustice, that it
is impossible not to pardon the inconsequence of the reasoning. In
what is the generally received notion of retributive vengeance, which
gratuitously inflicts pain, where neither amendment nor example can be
hoped, more consistent with the idea of infinite goodness, than that of
the temporal miseries of unoffending brutes? The difficulties surrounding
the admitted existence of evil in its simple relation to man, one would
think were sufficient, without bringing the brute race into question. It
is curious to remark, that the argument for the possible automatic nature
of the brute mechanism, is precisely that of the materialists against the
existence of the soul; all which is very good as it respects the animal,
but, applied to man, is “stark naught;”—a good specimen of the fairness
of theologians, which almost drives one on the mythology of Pope’s
Indian, and makes one wish to take our dog along with us into the regions
of immortality.
Father Bougeant, a jesuit, and too much of a jesuit not to see the
difficulties of either system, cut the Gordian knot, by stating that
brutes were animated by the souls of devils; and one might sometimes
be tempted to think so, when a horse will gib, and a “pig won’t go to
market”—when an ass proves as obdurate as Balaam’s, without the same
cause—and a crocodile “puts its hand into its breeches pocket and sheds
feigned tears,” after the manner of Sir Boyle’s illustration.
Speaking of an objection that lies against this opinion, drawn from the
pleasure men take in the society of animals, the jesuit says, “If I am
told that these poor devils are doomed to suffer eternal torments, I
admire God’s decrees, but I have no share in that dreadful sentence. I
leave the execution of it to the sovereign judge; and I live with my
little devils, as I do with a multitude of people, of whom religion tells
me that a great number must be lost.” In this good natured feeling,
Bougeant is not singular. Most people have a lurking notion, that they
themselves will escape reprobation; and as for their relations and
friends, if they will try their chance of going “the other way, the other
way,” as Mr. Moore delicately phrases it, why then, _sauve qui peut_.
In the charitable creed of Mr. Kirwan, I have often been tempted to
put faith—after the fashion of St. Augustine, even though it were
impossible—when I have seen the dreadful sufferings inflicted on
domestic animals (and in Ireland they are worse treated, than in any
other part of the world, in spite of our dear Dick Martin). On such
occasions Gomez Pereira, and even the Abbé Bougeant, are often necessary
to reconcile one to the spectacle.
From metaphysics and physics, the conversation turned to music. Mr.
Kirwan was a devoted amateur of the divine art, which he had studied
_con amore_, abroad. He had not, however, got a step further than the
“_Coin de la Reine_,” and was as furious against Gluck, and as enamoured
of Piccini and Sacchini, as when he assisted to hunt down the “_Titan
et l’Aurore_,” of Jean Joseph of Meudonville, in spite of Madame de
Pompadour’s patronage of French discords. I was at this time, with
respect to Italian music, what St. Preux was before Lord Bomston had
discovered the musical bump on his eye-brow, and gave him a new sense. I
was so enthusiastic in my passion for Irish music, and had obtained such
a pretty little success by playing the airs of Carolan on my Irish harp,
that I had actually engaged with Messrs. Power and Golding, of London, to
collect and arrange twelve Irish melodies, with words translated from
the Irish, which they brought out shortly afterwards, supplying the idea
to Mr. Moore of a similar, though immeasurably superior, publication.
I thought, therefore, I would say a little word in favour of my poor
_Gramachrees_, _Emunch-a-Knuics_, and other bardic strains, which had,
even in infancy, produced the most extraordinary effect on (what is
vulgarly called) my nerves. This was worse than Helvetius. Mr. Kirwan
called my taste barbarous, and became quite vehement in his expression of
abhorrence of Irish music.
“Madam,” he said, “I left Ireland at your age; and full, as you now are,
of all the vulgar errors of enthusiastic patriotism, I thought there was
no poetry like Irish poetry—no music like Irish music. When I returned, I
could not endure either. However, at Christmas and other great festivals,
I had the servants’ hall, at Cregg, thrown open to all comers, beggars,
bards, and story-tellers, after the old Connaught fashion; and at night
I took my place in the midst of them, round the blazing hearth, and made
my eleemosynary guests each tell a story, recite a poem, or sing a song,
in Irish; and it was amazing how few among them could not recite or sing:
and some of them did both right well. It was thus I came at various
fragments of Ossian, which Mr. M’Pherson has dressed up and changed
at pleasure, and assigned to the Scottish bard. But the music was not
endurable—at least it put my nerves to the torture. Madam, it was quite
too much for me—it almost threw me into convulsions.”
While he was speaking, I had drawn my harp forward, and begged permission
to sing to it the fine old cronan of _Emunch-a-Knuic_, or, “Ned of the
Hills,” which dates back to the time of Henry VIII. He bowed his head
in sullen assent; but before I had finished the first stanza, the tears
gushed from his eyes, and seizing my hands, he said with vehemence,
“Madam, I won’t hear you—’tis terrible—it goes to the very soul!—it
wrings every nerve in the body!”
“Then, Sir, I ask no more—the effect which Irish music produces on you is
the best proof of its excellence.”
“You may as well say that the howl of a dying dog, which would produce
much the same effect, is the proof of its excellence; my dear child,
give up your Irish harp and your Irish howl, and study Italian music—you
are worthy of knowing it! for you have a true musical organization, but
it is all perverted. You must take tea with me on Thursday next; it is my
shaving day. I only pay visits, or receive ladies, twice a-week, on my
shaving days. I have a good piano-forte, and a fine collection of Italian
music; you shall try both—my tea-table hour is half-past five!”
It happened that on the very evening for which Mr. Kirwan engaged me to
take tea at his house in Rutland Square, at half-past five, I had engaged
myself to take tea at half-past seven with another celebrated invalid,
Mrs. Henry Tighe, the charming Psyche of poetical fame, and my most dear
and early friend.
The notes which reminded me of my double and very interesting
engagements, lie at this moment before me; they are extremely
characteristic:—
“Mr. Kirwan presents his best respects to Miss Owenson, and
writes to remind her of her kind promise to take tea with
him to-morrow evening, at half past five. She will meet Mr.
Hamilton Rowan, and Professor Higgins. Mr. Kirwan will take
the liberty to send his carriage for Miss O. at a quarter-past
five.”
“MY DEAR GLORVINA,
“Lest, in your poetical flights, you should forget to-morrow
evening, this is to request you will come early, and bring
your best looks and best spirits with you; the beautiful Lady
Charlemont is coming to meet you expressly. Lady Asgill brings
Sir Arthur Wellesley,[22] and William Parnel joins us as soon
as he can—so come. If you would like Harry to go for you, say
so.—Your’s ever,
“M. TIGHE.”
The sober carriage of Mr. Kirwan was at my door to the moment; and, to
the moment, I was at his. My punctuality pleased him; for his own whole
useful and laborious life was governed by a sense of the value of time,
and of the virtue of punctuality. I was received by his man, Pope, who
seemed born and organized to be the servant of a philosopher—the perfect
image of Dumps, the servant of old Rueful, in “The Good Natured Man,”
pale, lank, solemn, and demure.
On entering the drawing room, the heat was so excessive, that I was
afraid I should never go through the _séance_. Although it was a fine
mild spring evening, an enormous fire blazed on the hearth; and a skreen,
of considerable dimensions, drawn closely round it, excluded every breath
of air. Within this enclosure, on a large cumbrous sofa, sat the advocate
of phlogiston. He was dressed in the same roquelaure and slouched hat,
in which he had visited me; with, however, the addition of a shawl wrapt
round his neck. On either side him, were placed two persons, who, in
their appearance, seemed to form the extreme links in the human chain.
The one was the good and simple Professor Higgins, with his _air de
prêtre_, the very _beau-idéal_ of a catholic curate, from his own wild
native district of Erris; the other a Roman tribune of Rome’s best day,
already indeed past the prime of life, but with the figure of an athlete,
and a bust of the antique mould: it was Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who had
then but lately returned from his long exile in America. The impression
made on me, by this now best and truest of old friends, has come forth,
after a long lapse of years, in my last work, the “O’Briens and the
O’Flahertys;” and some resemblance to what he then was may be found in
his fine picture by Hamilton.
Over the chimney-piece was a portrait of Catherine of Russia, “whom,”
said Mr. Kirwan, “I call Catherine the Great, in contradistinction to
Frederick the Infamous, her rival, and by far her inferior.”
Meantime, a conversation, of the most scientific nature, was resumed,
which my entrance had interrupted, and in which my ignorance and
timidity, at the learned society into which I had been so strangely
introduced, prevented me from taking a part.
As soon as Mr. Kirwan had settled the constitution of acids with
Professor Higgins, he turned to me, with an air of great gallantry, and
said, “Let us now revert to a sweeter subject.” Lord, how I fancied
myself Miss Helen Maria Williams, gallanted by Dr. Johnson! After some
very civil things, such as young ladies like to hear, even from old
gentlemen (at least I did), he drew up a _précis_ of the respective
merits of Miss Edgeworth’s admirable “Castle Rackrent,” and my “Wild
Irish Girl,” very flattering to both. On the exaggeration so unjustly
imputed to Miss Edgeworth’s most graphic work, he related the following
anecdote:—
“When I first returned to my native province, from abroad, I accepted an
invitation to a gentleman’s house. After a day’s sport on his estate, I
arrived late, and found that the house had been burned down the night
before.—I was only one of many guests. We had a joyous supper in the
roofless hall; and sheds and temporary sleeping places had been erected
for us in the barn, behind the ruined mansion. When we retired for
the night, I was led to my pavilion, accompanied by my two favourite
dogs, like one of Ossian’s hunters. Extremely tired, and, perhaps, not
particularly sober, I threw myself on the bed prepared for me, from which
I had a distinct view of the stars, through the crevices of the roof.
However, I slept soundly, though not uninterruptedly; for, the middle
of the night, I was roused by extraordinary sounds of groaning, and
grunting, and squeakings, and squallings, mingled with the sharp bark
of one dog, and the low growl of the other, as if in deadly contest with
some unwelcome intruder. All that I had then heard of the atrocities of
the disturbed state of Ireland rushed to my mind. I started on my legs
in search of my fowling piece, but fell over a huge bleeding body, which
seemed to give out its last groan under my pressure; my fierce dog, as I
supposed, still clinging to the wretch’s throat. I called for help—again
got upon my legs; and staggering to the entrance, and opening the door,
found that I had indeed been attacked, and by the swinish multitude. The
fact was, that I had been lodged in the pig-sty, to which the lawful,
but extruded proprietors had, by a natural instinct, made their way back
in the night; and my faithful dogs, who had in vain striven to repel the
invaders, had laid at my feet the mother sow, ‘with all her pretty little
ones,’ bleeding and vanquished. The scene lay near Ballinoshe; the time
was, literally, ‘the day after the fair.’”
While this conversation was passing, Pope made tea behind the screen,
and served it with a most characteristic formality. The scene was a
picture; and though I afterwards drank tea with Mr. Kirwan fifty
times, this first impression was the strongest, and the most lasting.
At eight precisely, the party broke up; and Pope conducted me back to
the carriage. Before, however, I drove off, he was already employed in
unscrewing the knocker:[23] for, from that hour, the mansion of the
philosopher was hermetically sealed against all intrusion.
The manners, the habits, the accent of Mr. Kirwan, were marked by
all those distinctive peculiarities which belonged to his creed, his
education, and the country and times in which he flourished. Born in an
epoch of Irish story, the most marked, the most heart-rending, under that
_régime_ of terror, when the worst penal statutes against the catholics
were first imposed;—born too, and receiving his first and deepest
impressions in a province, poetically and historically the most Irish, he
preserved, from the early part of the last century to the commencement
of the present, the high and formal courtesy, the gallant bearing, and
chivalrous point of honour, the broad guttural accent and the idiomatic
phraseology, with which the brave officers who survived the siege of
Limerick went forth into voluntary exile, to fight and perish in foreign
lands for foreign interests.
His opinions were as singular as his appearance and his manners.
Abhorring the atrocities of the fatal re-action, which retarded the
benefits and stained the cause of the French Revolution, he was frank
and loud in his reprobation of that ruinous continental war by which
the British empire was drained and demoralised, to revive pernicious
institutions, and restore a race, the antitypes of the unfortunate family
which England had herself spurned and dethroned. It was curious to hear
him calculate the expenses of this war, and the disbursement which would
have been required to build a causeway or pier that should extend across
the channel.—“Works,” he said, “of almost equal magnitude had been
completed by the ancients, with less aid from science than could now be
had. Bonaparte,” he would add, “would effect works as useful and as
sublime, if the old dynasties would let him alone.”
Starting with his favourite maxim, that—“with labour and money nothing is
impossible,” he was wont to bring all his wonderful geological knowledge
to bear upon this favourite scheme. He tumbled the mountains of Wicklow
into St. George’s Channel—played with Bray-head and the Sugar-loaf, as
if they were jack-stones,—finished by walking dryshod from Howth to
Holyhead, and reckoning his way, not by knots, but by milestones.
His opinion on the antiquity of knowledge was as original as his belief
in the mechanism of the brute creation. He asserted that we borrowed
much of our astronomical lights from the antediluvians, and that Adam
spoke Greek with a purity that might have elicited the applause of the
Portico. In his religious opinions he was equally paradoxical; and he
remained unsettled upon some leading dogmas to the last, though it has
been said of him, “that he died _ferme catholique_, as he had lived
_preux chevalier_.” He was extremely fond of female society, and not only
invited ladies of all ages to his early tea-parties, but went to theirs;
always stipulating for leave to _bring_ and _make_ his own tea, and to
come and go at his own hours.
The last time I ever saw him was at a tea-party made expressly for
himself at my sister’s, Lady Clarke’s, a few months before his death; and
the company which he upon that occasion drew round him, formed a curious
contrast with the grave and learned philosopher who was its centre.
It is the misfortune of all the high officials who come to Ireland,
that they are, instantly on their arrival, surrounded by a certain
heir-loom circle, whose interest it is to keep aloof from the lords of
the ascendant the genuine talent and true and independent gentry of the
country. Whoever takes the trouble to read the court circular of the
Irish dignitaries, will find, that precisely the same persons dine with
his excellency Lord B., who dined with his excellency Lord A.; and so on
through the vice-regal alphabet: while commanders-in-chief, and chief
commanders, run the same gauntlet, and “go by the scrip,” just as their
military predecessors did before them.
At a moment when Mr. Kirwan’s name and works were familiar to all Europe,
and when he was a fellow of nearly all its learned societies, the
fact was utterly unknown to the English officials, military and civil,
who then held the _dessus du pavé_, that Dublin was distinguished by
the constant residence of one, who did such honour to its literary and
scientific annals. Having to plead as an excuse to Sir Charles and Lady
Asgill, for a late attendance at their dinner-party, that if I were
served up with the game of the second course, it would be because I was
first to assist at a tea-party given to Mr. Kirwan, they expressed not
only surprise at his residence in Dublin, but an anxious curiosity to be
of the tea-party.
Not to take the philosopher by surprise, the proposition was made to
him by Lady C—— and myself—and I remember his answer was, “Madam, I am
always pleased to mingle with people of the world. I never knew one,
even the lightest and most frivolous, from whom something was not to be
learned, that threw a light upon the follies and virtues of society. I
once lived much in the world of fashion myself; and was as foolish and as
vain as the worst. But I stipulate for my own hours, my own _tay_, and
my own _tay-pot_.”—This being agreed, the party assembled in Lady C.’s
drawing-room, at the usual fashionable hour for morning visits. Under the
pretence of bringing his staff, Sir Charles Asgill was accompanied by his
amiable nephew and A. D. C., Captain Bouverie, and several other young
officers; and Lady Asgill smuggled in General and Lady Augusta Leith. In
short, the whole 8 o’clock dinner-party of Merrion-square were seated at
my sister’s tea-table before six.
The contrast of the gay and gallant _militaires_, with two or three
learned professors who had been invited to meet Mr. Kirwan, and above all
with the strange costume and erect posture of the philosopher himself,
formed a pleasant picture. It was very evident, that there was a previous
inclination on the part of the fashionables towards mystification; and
that a very active system of quizzing had been organized by the two
_grandes dames de par le monde_, in which every beau present was to
have played his part—(within, however, be it acknowledged, the bounds
of perfect good breeding,—a virtue never transgressed with impunity
in the society of the polished and courteous Sir Charles Asgill). It
happened, however, in this instance, (as I have known it happen in a
hundred others, when genuine talent is brought to stand the brunt of
that frivolous _persiflage_, in which fashion delights and exults,)
that those who came to scoff, remained—to admire. Unconsciously led on
to talk, by the insidious propositions of the mystifiers, to whom his
charming, unadulterated brogue was a feast, he gradually dilated into the
most communicative pleasantry. His ever anecdotic mine was opened to its
richest abundance; and so full of interest, novelty, and information, was
his discourse, that even appetite stood in check while he spoke; and Mr.
Kirwan, (whose tea was his supper,) was the first to give notice to his
delighted listeners, that it was time for them to go to dinner.