where his feelings gave the impulse, he seldom “stood on the order” of
form, or of cold discretion. At that deplorable period which preceded
the rebellion, when a gentleman of the highest respectability, of large
fortune and of ancient family, was imprisoned, tried, and condemned, for
a libel on the nefarious government of those times, it entered into the
littleness of the Irish Secretary of State to refine upon the severity
of punishment, by adding to it the indelible stain of disgrace:—in a
word, it was intended to place a member of a noble family, a man of the
highest character, in the pillory. When the intelligence was communicated
to Mr. Kirwan, his emotion is said to have been extreme; and ordering
his carriage, he instantly drove to the castle—pushed by the familiars
who filled the ante-room of the Secretary of State’s office, and bolting
into the presence of the arbitrator of a nation’s fate, demanded if
what he had heard was true? A placid and rather affirmative smile,
was the equivocal and somewhat contemptuous answer. After a moment’s
indignant pause, Mr. Kirwan, drawing up his figure to its full height,
in his broadest brogue and deepest tones, said—“Sir, if this unfortunate
gentleman is guilty of high treason, bring him to the scaffold; if of a
libel against your government, fine and confine him: but if you send such
a personage to the pillory, you will revolt the whole order of gentlemen
throughout Europe against you.”—The _order_ of _gentlemen_ was, in Mr.
Kirwan’s estimation, the first order in the world; and none better
illustrated its pervading spirit than himself.
The long and truly paternal kindness, with which Mr. Kirwan honoured me,
from the moment of our first acquaintance till his death, I consider
as among the proudest circumstances of my life. When the first attack
was made on me, in the first number of the Quarterly, he was nearly as
indignant as when Mr. —— was threatened with the pillory—not more through
his partiality to me, than through the disgrace it might inflict on the
“_order of gentlemen_,” should any one suppose a gentleman capable of so
unmeasured an attack upon a young and defenceless woman.
He was extremely desirous, at that epoch, that I should write a prize
essay for a premium, offered by the Dublin University, for the best essay
on Literary Fiction. I wrote my essay—but it was not a _prize_ one. It
was my first and last attempt at writing “to order,” and was undertaken,
against my taste and will, merely to please him. Having found it some
years back, I gave it to Mr. Colburn for the “Literary Gazette,” at that
time under his direction.
The last letter which I had the honour to receive from Mr. Kirwan, a
short time before his death, is extremely characteristic of that high
tone of courtesy which he always assumed with women; and it is remarkable
for the perfect intellect it displayed, even when its gifted writer was
dropping into the grave:—
“DEAR MADAM,
“I received your letter about three weeks ago; and your
present, which does me so much honour, about a week ago:
but I cannot say that your letter gave me any pleasure, as
it announced your intention of speedily departing from this
country.
“Allowing you to do so, is indeed an accumulated proof how
little it is worthy of the praises you bestowed upon it.
Sentiments corresponding with your own, are now to be found
only among those of genuine Irish origin, who now, alas!
constitute the lowest class in the wretched population of the
western coast of Connaught—despised and persecuted for nearly
three centuries; though you will probably be rendered much more
happy, by absence from a scene which would daily afflict a
heart of such exquisite sensibility as your own—a sensibility
which, I must say, among your numerous accomplishments, forms
the essence of your character.
“It will, I hope, if report says true, be engrossed by a
person worthy of its selection, who in return will derive his
happiness from repaying it by equal constancy and intensity.
“This is the ardent hope of your faithful friend, and most
affectionate humble servant,
“R. KIRWAN.
“_Dublin, January 25th, 1812_”
TRÈS-DISTINGUÉ.
Who would think that this prevailing term in the nomenclature of modern
fashionable jargon is as old as the time of Ninon de l’Enclos, for whom
it was invented? Love had already taken shelter in her wrinkles,[24] and
intrenched himself behind her spectacles; and there was still found
about her a charm for which there was no name, which the old triumphed
to observe, and the young could neither resist nor define. They at
last called it something _distingué_. In one of her clever letters to
St. Evremont, speaking of a young friend he had presented to her, she
says:—“_J’ai lu devant lui votre lettre, avec des lunettes; mais elles
ne me siéent pas mal; j’ai toujours eu la mine grave. S’il est amoureux
du mérite qu’on appelle ici distingué, peut-être que votre souhait sera
accompli: car tous les jours on vient me consoler de mes pertes par ce
beau mot._”[25]
AUX PETITS SOINS.
_Petits soins! Alte là_, my dear little women, coquettes, prudes, and
platonists; and you who are none of these, but have just philosophy
enough at the ends of your rosy fingers, to prefer that pleasant series
of intellectual sensations, which come of the _petits soins_ of an
agreeable and clever man, with all their imaginative enjoyments, which
are followed neither by satiety nor remorse, but are yet far removed from
a “cool suspense from pleasure and from pain.”
French women understand this gracious era in the progress of a
“_sentiment_,” much better than the English. They have the prudence to
put off the evil day, when it shall be no more, as long as they can; and
they have the wit and information to fill up the interval between growing
prepossession, and unequivocal passion. They have a still more precious
art—that of inspiring _les petits soins_, when _les grands_ have passed
for ever. In England, indifference treads closely on the steps of
love—in France, the most lasting and tender friendship is made up of the
fragments of an old passion.
RAPIDITY.
“You sleep so slow, Father.”
_Young Rapid—Cure for the Heart Ache._
I cannot get on with Mr. ——: not but he is a sensible and a clever man;
but then, in thought, delivery, and enunciation, he is so slow!—We start
together fairly from the same point, and gain the same end; but he goes
by the heavy Birmingham, and I am booked by the mail. One of the great
characteristics of modern times is rapidity. A slow development, is in
all things, either an evidence of the timidity of ignorance, or a proof
of inefficiency and feebleness. This is particularly illustrated in the
science of music. The earliest musical compositions which have reached
us, are dragging, drawling, monotonous chaunts. Even the “_Charmante
Gabrielle_” of _Henri Quatre_, and the cavatinas by Salvator Rosa,
resemble a modern psalmody.
From Sacchini to Rossini, (no very great interval, by the by) the
successive changes in music are all characterized by increasing rapidity.
Rossini condenses into a single bar musical ideas, which the masters
of the last century would have extended through many phrases. The
reiteration, which occurs in the grounds of Purcel, Corelli, &c. &c.,
is a result of the same cause: one idea in these compositions makes
the whole _frais_ of the piece, and is husbanded and worked like a
geometrical problem. The compositions of Rossini form an epoch in the
history of the most delicious of arts. Rossini is the Voltaire of music.
He has given it an impulsion, which the world was ready to receive, but
which no preceding composer had the genius or the courage to propose.
Paesiello, his predecessor, was the Rousseau of his art. Full of
sentiment and eloquence, he was deficient in that force of truth, that
energetic vigour of conception, which irresistibly masters the passions
of the auditor. We sleep with soft dreams in listening to Paesiello; but
we are awakened by Rossini.
People must have spoken more slowly in the time of Queen Elizabeth, than
they do now. The cumbrous construction of phrases in the written style of
that day, obliges one to read the page of an old author much slower than
a modern one. It must have been the same in conversation: there being
then fewer ideas in general circulation, the speaker had further to seek
for subject matter: the words did not “come skipping rank and file.”
There was no ready money of mind in the market, although there were
immense masses of unworked ingot, lying in the great bank of the national
intellect. There was not then, as now, a ready-made set of conventional
phrases, which served to dress up every man’s thoughts, and often to
supply the place of thinking; every man was then his own thinker. A
rapid speaker, in such a state of things, must have outstripped his
hearers. “In all kinds of speech,” (says Lord Bacon) “either pleasant,
grave, severe, or ordinary, it is convenient to speak leisurely, and
rather drawlingly, than hastily; because hasty speech confounds the
memory, and oftentimes, beside the unseemliness, draws a man either to
stammering, a nonplus, or harping on that which should follow; whereas a
slow speech confirmeth the memory, and addeth a conceit of wisdom to the
hearers,—besides a seemliness of speech and countenance.” Here then was
the _beau-idéal_ of a good speaker in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
One of the most satisfactory evidences of improvement in the details of
civilized life, is the increased rapidity of all its movements. Rapidity
is power—omnipotence goes at once to its object, and reaches it. To
be slow is to be feeble—to measure human action against time, and to
overtake it, is to double existence. To live fast (properly understood)
is not to wear out life briefly, but to multiply the sensations which
extend it. The more thought, action, intellect, and sensation, can be
crammed into this “petty space,” the longer we live: for it is not years,
but the consciousness of living, that gives the true longevity.
“Mourir, sans avoir vécu,”
is therefore the fate of the whole tortoise tribe, whether in or out of
their shell.
The events of the American and French revolutions have quadrupled the
existence of the generation which witnessed them. More has been done in
the last century, than in any three centuries which preceded it.
By rapidity, however, is not intended that description of haste, which is
proverbially said to make the worst speed. That which is done imperfectly
will require more time to mend, than, if properly bestowed, would have
been consumed in its original completion; and as imperfect objects are
objects not adapted to their end, to employ them in that state, occasions
an equal waste of time in the business of life. The merit of the rapidity
of civilization is, that it is combined with a greater perfection in the
arts and sciences.
We travel over Macadamized roads, and sail in steam vessels, not only
quicker, but safer and more comfortably. The modern speaker is not only
more rapid, but clearer, and less exposed to fallacy. Society begins its
progress, like life, feebly and slowly; the human intellect develops
itself in ponderous poems, of a thousand and one cantos, essays in
folios, and “hints,” in quarto. Journeys, in the infancy of society,
are made in moving houses, over trackless mountains and “crack-skull
commons,” at the rate of ten miles per day.
“Slow and sure,” was a maxim of the wisdom of our ancestors; and (to end
with the pleasant farce whence I took the motto for the head of this
rapid rhapsody) “keep moving,” should be the epigraph of ours. The “_en
avant_” of Bonaparte set all the old dynasties in a bustle; and but for
the whip and the spur, and the “_allez, allez_” of the French Revolution,
we should have their absolutisms still moving their “_minuet de la
Lorraine_.” They have been taught to dance in quicker time, since that
important _pas grave_ nearly caused a war in which half Europe was to
have taken a part.
MY FIRST ROUT IN LONDON.
Of all metaphysical mysteries, there is nothing more difficult to get at
than the mystery of memory. Montaigne, complaining of his, observes, “_et
suis si excellente en oubliance, que mes escripts mêmes, je les oublie,
pas moins que les autres_.”[26] This is precisely my own case. I never
could remember any thing I wrote, beyond the moment when it was going
through the press. The other evening I found a book lying open on the
piano-forte, which somebody had just laid down, on being called to take
a part in the _Preghiera_ in the opera of the _Mosé_, and I chanced to
light upon a high-flown and rather nonsensical passage, of which I could
make nothing. This induced me to look at the title-page. It was “the Wild
Irish Girl,” seventh edition. I had not seen it for years. I was amused,
and a little surprised.
In _diebus illis_, it was with my style, pretty much as with the oaths
of Frère Jean de l’Entommoures—“_Comment, vous jurez, Frère Jean?_” “_Ce
n’est (dit le moine) que pour orner mon langage: ces sont couleurs de
rhétorique Cicéronienne._”[27] All, that literary counsel, acquirement,
and instruction give to literary composition, was, in my early career of
authorship, utterly denied me. The imagination, or feeling, or whatever
it was, that carried the “Wild Irish Girl” through seven editions in less
than two years, was wholly unsupported by any of the advantages which
reading, the world, society, or the judgment and taste they bring with
them, could confer. I began to write almost as soon as I could read; and
the premature development of imagination, which enabled me to combine
and invent, was inevitably destitute of that command of language, which
books and reflection only give. Hurried on by the “thick-coming fancies”
of a fervid but uncultivated mind, I did not always pause to secure the
best and most precise expression by which they could be conveyed; and
except when I had to give utterance to some strong feeling, (for feeling
always finds its own language,) I was often, as the sportsman’s phrase
is, “at fault.” Conscious of the poverty of my vocabulary, I frequently
borrowed a word, or adopted a phrase, as Frère Jean did an oath, not for
its precise application or intrinsic meaning, but simply “_pour orner mon
langage_.”
I remember once making this humble and plenary confession under very
singular circumstances, and with a most propitiating effect. It was on
the occasion of my first appearance at a great London rout, and at the
moment when the uncalculated success of the juvenile work alluded to,
had given me that sort of vogue which learned pigs, and learned ladies,
and other things more valuable for their singularity than their utility,
enjoy in common.
A few days after my arrival in London, and while my little book was
running rapidly through successive editions, I was presented to the
Countess Dowager of C——k, and invited to a rout at her fantastic and
pretty mansion in New Burlington-street. Oh, how her Irish historical
name tingled on my ears, and seized on my imagination; as that of her
great ancestor, “the father of chemistry, and uncle to Lord Cork,” did on
the mind of my old friend, Professor Higgens. I was freshly launched from
the bogs of the barony of Tireragh, in the province of Connaught, and had
dropped at once into the very sanctuary of English _ton_, without time
to go through the necessary course of training in manners or millinery,
for such an awful transition: so, with no _chaperon_ but my incipient
notoriety, and actually no toilet but the frock and the flower in which,
not many days before, I had danced a jig, on an earthen floor, with an
O’Rourke, prince of Brefney, in the county of Leitrim, I stepped into my
job-carriage at the hour of ten, and, “all alone by myself”—as the Irish
song says—
“To Eden took my solitary way.”
What added to my fears, and doubts, and hopes, and embarrassments, was a
note from my noble hostess, received at the moment of departure, which
ran thus:—
“Every body has been invited expressly to meet the Wild Irish
Girl: so she must bring her Irish harp.
“M. C. O.”
I arrived at New Burlington-street without my Irish harp, and with a
beating heart; and I heard the high-sounding titles of princes and
ambassadors, and dukes and duchesses, announced, long before my own poor
plebeian Hibernian name puzzled the porter, and was bandied from footman
to footman, as all names are bandied, which are not written down in the
red-book of Fashion, nor rendered familiar to the lips of her insolent
menials. How I wished myself back in Tireragh with my own princes, the
O’s and Macs; and yet this position was among the items of my highest
ambition! To be sought after by the great, not for any accidental
circumstance of birth, rank, or fortune, but simply “_pour les beaux yeux
de mon mérite_,” was a principal item in the utopia of my youthful fancy.
I endeavoured to recall the fact to mind; but it would not do: and as I
ascended the marble stairs, with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated
by emotions, similar to those which drew from my countryman, Maurice
Quill,[28] his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria,
“Oh, Jasus, I wish some one of my greatest enemies was kicking me down
Dame-street!”
Lady C——k met me at the door of that suite of apartments which opens with
a brilliant boudoir, and terminates with a sombre conservatory, where
eternal twilights fall upon fountains of rose-water which never dry,
and on beds of flowers which never fade,—where singing birds are always
silent, and butterflies are for once at rest.
“What, no harp, Glorvina?” said her ladyship.
“Oh, Lady C——!”
“Oh, Lady Fiddlestick!—you are a fool, child; you don’t know your own
interests. Here, James, William, Thomas, send one of the chairmen to
Stanhope-street, for Miss Owenson’s harp.”
Led on by Doctor Johnson’s celebrated “little Dunce,” and Boswell’s
“_divine Maria_,” who kindly and protectingly drew my arm through hers,
I was at once merged into that mob of _élégantes_ and _élégants_, who
always prefer narrow door-ways for incipient flirtations, to the clear
stage and fair play of the centre of a salon. As we stood wedged on
the threshold of fashion, my dazzled eyes rested for a moment, on a
strikingly sullen-looking handsome creature, whose boyish person was
distinguished by an air of singularity, which seemed to vibrate between
hauteur and shyness. He stood with his arms crossed, and alone, occupying
a corner near the door; and though in the brilliant bustling crowd, was
“not of it.”
“How do, Lord Byron?” said a pretty sprite of fashion, as she glided her
spirituality through a space, which might have proved too narrow for one
of Leslie Forster’s demi-semi souls to pass through.
Lord Byron! All “_les braves Birons_” of French and English chivalry
rushed to my mind, at the sound of the historical name! But I was then
ignorant, that its young and beautiful inheritor was to give it greater
claims on the admiration of posterity, than the valiant _preux_ of
France, or the loyal cavaliers of England, had yet bestowed on it. For
fame travels slowly in our Barony of Tireragh; and though Lord Byron had
already made his first step in that career which ended in the triumph of
his brilliant and powerful genius over all his cotemporaries, _I_ had got
no further in the article Byron, than the “_pends-toi, brave Biron_,” of
_Henri Quatre_.
After a stand and a stare of some seconds, I was pushed on—and, on
reaching the centre of the conservatory, I found myself suddenly pounced
upon a sort of rustic seat by Lady C——k, whose effort to detain me on
this very uneasy preeminence, resembled Lingo’s remonstrance of “keep
your temper, great Rusty-fusty;” for I too was treated _en princesse_,
(the Princess of _Coolavin_), and denied the civilized privileges of
sofa or chair, which were not in character with the habits of a “Wild
Irish Girl.” So, there I sat, “_patience per force with wilful choler
meeting_,” the lioness of the night! exhibited and shewn off like “the
beautiful hyena that never was tamed,” of Exeter Change,—looking almost
as wild, and feeling quite as savage!
Lady C——k, whose parties are the pleasantest in London, because they are
exempt from the monotony which broods like an incubus over the circles
of English fashion, has been accused of an inordinate passion for lions.
In my own respect I have only to say, that this _engouement_, indulged,
in the first instance, perhaps, a little too much at my expense, has been
followed up by nearly twenty years of unswerving friendship, kindness,
and hospitality.
I shall never forget the cordiality with which, upon this memorable
occasion, she presented me to all that was then most illustrious for
rank and talent in England; even though the manner savoured, perhaps,
something too much of the Duchess de la Ferté’s style of protection,
on a similar occasion, “_Allons, Mademoiselle, parlez—vous allez voir
comme elle parle_;” for if the manner was not exactly conformable to the
dignity of the Princess of _Coolavin_, the motive rendered all excusable;
and I felt with the charming _protégée_ of the French duchess, that “so
many whimsical efforts proceeded merely from an immoderate desire to
bring me forward.”
Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd, which an idle
curiosity, easily excited, and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us,
she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium, which seemed to
amuse every one but its subject. “Lord Erskine, this is the ‘Wild Irish
Girl,’ whom you were so anxious to know. I assure you, she talks quite
as well as she writes. Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of
those Irish stories, you told us the other evening at Lord C——ville’s.
Fancy yourself _en petit comité_, and take off the Irish brogue. Mrs.
Abington says you would make a famous actress, she does indeed! You must
play the short-armed orator with her; she will be here by and by. This is
the Duchess of St. A——, she has your ‘Wild Irish Girl’ by heart. Where
is Sheridan? Do, my dear Mr. T——; (this is Mr. T——, my dear—Geniuses
should know each other)—do, my dear Mr. T——, find me Mr. Sheridan. Oh!
here he is! what! you know each other already; _tant mieux_. This is Lord
Carysfort. Mr. Lewis, do come forward; that is Monk Lewis, my dear, of
whom you have heard so much—but you must not read his works, they are
very naughty. But here is one, whose works I know you have read. What,
you know him too!” It was the Hon. William Spenser, whose “Year of
Sorrow” was then drawing tears from all the brightest eyes in England;
while his wit and his pleasantry cheered every circle he distinguished by
his presence.
Lewis, who stood staring at me through his eye-glass, backed out at
this exhibition, and disappeared. “Here are two ladies,” continued her
ladyship, “whose wish to know you is very flattering, for they are wits
themselves, _l’esprit de Mortemar_, true N——’s. You don’t know the value
of this introduction. You know Mr. Gell, so I need not present you. He
calls you the Irish Corinne. Your friend Mr. Moore will be here by and
by. I have collected ‘all the talents’ for you. Do see, somebody, if Mr.
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons are come yet; and find me Lady Hamilton. Now pray
tell us the scene at the Irish baronet’s, in the rebellion, that you told
to the ladies of Llangollen; and then give us your blue stocking dinner,
at Sir Richard Phillips’s; and describe us the Irish priests. Here is
your countryman, Lord L——k, he will be your bottle holder.”
Lord L——k volunteered his services. The circle now began to widen—wits,
warriors, peers, and ministers of state. The harp was brought forward,
and I attempted to play; but my howl was funereal; I was ready to cry in
character, but endeavoured to laugh, and to cover out my real timidity
by an affected ease, which was both awkward and impolitic. The best
coquetry of the young and inexperienced is a frank exhibition of its own
unsophisticated feelings—but this is a secret learned too late.
A ball at Mrs. Hope’s drew off my auditory, and towards midnight, the
ring was thinned to a select few, some fifty particular friends, who
had been previously asked to stay supper. It was my good fortune to be
placed at table between Lords Erskine and Carysfort, who had both been
particularly kind to me during my perilous probation; and now, no longer
“the observed of all observers,” I had leisure to observe for myself, and
to be amused in my turn.