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Full text of "The works of Father Prout (the Rev. Francis Mahony)"

ST. MICHAEL'S 
TORONTO ft, OA 



THE 



WORKS OF FATHER PROUT. 



THE WORKS 



OF 



PATH ER PROUT 



(THE REV. FRANCIS MAHONY) 



EDITED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 

CHARLES KENT 

BARKISTER-AT-LAW 
AUTHOR OF "ALETHEIA," "CORONA CATHOLICA," ETC. 



LONDON 

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 

NEW YORK : 416, BROOME STREET 

1881 



"A rare combination of the Teian lyre and the Irish bagpipe ; 
of the Ionian dialect blending harmoniously with the Cork 
brogue ; an Irish potato seasoned with Attic salt. 

OLIVER YORKE. 




MAY 2 1 1956 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION vu 

THE RELIQUES OF FATHER PROUT. 

OLIVER YORKE'S PREAMBLE xxxv 

FATHER PROUT'S APOLOGY FOR LENT i 

His PLEA FOR PILGRIMAGES l8 

His CAROUSAL 39 

DEAN SWIFT'S MADNESS : A TALE OF A CHURN . . . . . .64 

THE ROGUERIES OF TOM MOORE 8 3 

LITERATURE AND THE JESUITS . . . ."* I0 4 

THE SONGS OF FRANCE 

WINE AND WAR I2 9 

WOMEN AND WOODEN SHOES J 49 

PHILOSOPHY I 7 

FROGS AND FREE TRADE , J 9 

THE SONGS OF ITALY- 
CHAPTER THE FIRST 2I1 

CHAPTER THE SECOND 2 3 

BARRY IN THE VATICAN 2 49 

THE DAYS OF ERASMUS z68 

VICTOR HUGO'S LYRICAL POETRY .288 

A SERIES OF MODERN POETS 

VIDA'S "SILKWORM" 3 8 

SARBIEWSKI, SANNAZAR, AND FRACASTOR 3 2 5 

BEZA, VANIERE, AND BUCHANAN 34 2 

FATHER PROUT'S DIRGE 361 

MAHONY ON PROUT 3 6 3 

THE SONGS OF HORACE- 
FIRST DECADE 377 

SECOND DECADE . . . , 396 

THIRD DECADE 4*3 

FOURTH DECADE 4 ' 2 9 

FIFTH DECADE 448 

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 

THE EPIPHANY : A FRAGMENT 4 

THE BOTTLE OF ST. JANUARIUS 468 

THE SABINE FARMER'S SERENADE 469 



VI 



Contents. 



I'AGE 

THE HOT WELLS OF CLIFTON 473 

THE ORIGINAL OF "NoT A DRUM WAS HEARD" . 475 

THE IDES OF MARCH 477 

THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC 478 

BURNS AND BERANGER 480 

LOVER AND OVID 482 

A BAPTISMAL CHANT 485 

THE PIPER'S PROGRESS 487 

THE DOUBLE BARREL 489 

POETICAL EPISTLE TO Boz 490 

THE MISTLETOE 492 

THE REDBREAST OF AQUITANIA 495 

INAUGURAL ODE TO THE "AUTHOR OF VANITY FAIR" 500 



BEING 



THE LIFE OF THE REV. FRANCIS MAHONY, 
" FATHER PROUT." 



AN assumed name has often acquired a celebrity in literature, as contrasted 
with which that of the author himself, down to the very last, dwindles to com- 
parative insignificance. Thomas Ingoldsby, for example, is far more widely 
known to the generality of readers than Richard Harris Barham ; while 
many upon whose ears the name of Bryan Waller Procter might sound 
but strangely would, nevertheless, be perfectly familiar with his pseudonym 
as a lyrist, Barry Cornwall. Similarly, it may be taken for granted, that 
while, as a rule, the Parisians of the days of the Citizen King enjoyed, 
with the greatest gusto, the fame of Timon, the majority of them either 
knew nothing whatever, or next to nothing, of the individuality of Louis 
de Cormenin. With anonymous writers it happens, perhaps, the most 
frequently, that the mask having been first allowed to slip awry, is 
eventually thrown away altogether. Boz, after this fashion, was soon 
tossed aside like a superfluous domino, when Dickens, still a very young 
man, quietly stepped to the front, according to Thackeray's expression, and 
calmly took his place in perpetuity among the first of English humorists. 
Thackeray himself, as it fell out, required a little longer time before he was 
enabled, in his own person, to supersede his supposititious alter ego, 
Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Only very seldom, a nom de plume gets 
to be so far identified with an author, that it becomes, so to speak, 
a convertible term with his patronymic. In this way, the merest casual 
mention, at any time, of Elia, is about equivalent to the express naming 
of Charles Lamb. Again, it but exceptionally occurs that a writer of 
note indulges in the luxury of building up for himself two or three distinct 
pseudonymous reputations. Swift's reduplicated triumph in that way is 
about the one solitary instance that can be adduced an instance notably 
commemorated by Pope's famous apostrophe in the "Dunciad" 

O thou ! whatever title please thine ear, 
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver ! 

Otherwise, it has been the general rule, in this particular, among authors 
and for that matter, indeed, it may be said, among artists as well to 



viii Biographical Introduction. 

select some imaginary title, and hold to it consistently. In the history of 
Italian art it is in this manner noteworthy that more than one of the great 
painters acquired fame under the merest nickname or sobriquet Maso di 
San Giovanni being better known to the world at large as Slovenly Tom, 
otherwise Masaccio, and Jacopo Robusti, by reason of his father's craft, as 
the Little Dyer, otherwise Tintoretto. In our own time, again, there have 
been two skilled draughtsmen who have enjoyed a wide popularity, the one 
in France as a caricaturist, the other in England as a book-illustrator, each 
of whom in turn has had his real name virtually obliterated or, at any rate, 
in a great measure eclipsed by an eccentric pseudonym. One of these 
has long been universally known on the other side of the Channel under 
his fantastic signature of Cham in the Charivari, hardly any but his per- 
sonal intimates being acquainted with his actual designation, Amedee de Noe. 
While, with regard to his contemporary and compeer amongst ourselves, 
though for upwards of forty years he has been familiarly before the public 
under his grotesque nom de crayon as Phiz, comparatively few have, 
even as yet, accustomed themselves to identify him under his nomely sur- 
name, Browne. Reverting, however, from the artistic to the purely 
literary experts who have, at different times, indulged in this innocent kind 
of masquerading, it may be argued, with some show of reason, that the 
fashion, afterwards so much in vogue in this country, was first set in earnest 
when Sir Richard Steele began to discourse in the Spectator as Mr. Short- 
face, and his associate Addison, through the same medium, from behind the 
classic mask of C.L.I.O. Improving, from the very outset, upon the design 
thus happily hit- upon between them, those congenial intimates, besides, 
there and then, by simply harmonizing their fancies, called an entirely new 
personality into existence : one ever since familiarly known in the world of 
letters, and instantly recognizable by all to this day as Sir Roger de 
Coverley. 

What Steele's and Addison 's Sir Roger de Coverley was to the Spectator, 
that, a little more than a hundred years afterwards, was Professor Wilson's 
Christopher North to Blackwood, and that, a very little later yet, was the 
Rev. Francis Mahony's Father Prout to Fraser. Each in turn was a 
creation, each was a central and dominant figure in a group of originals. 
Each was not only witty and humorous in himself, but the cause of abounding 
wit or humour, as the case might be, in those with whom he was associated. 
If around Sir Roger de Coverley there were clustered, not infrequently, 
in happy commune, such sympathetic characters as Captain Sentry, and 
Sir Andrew Freeport, and Will Honeycomb, with Christopher North there 
were hilariously allied, in the carousals of the Blue Parlour, Tickler, and 
the Ettrick Shepherd, and the English Opium Eater ; while, at Father 
Prout's bidding, there were brought together at least upon one memorable 
occasion Jack Bellew, Dan Corbet, and Dick Dowden, to chop logic 
and cap verses, to crack jokes and bottles far on into the small hours, 
at the hospitable board of the good old parish priest of Watergrasshill. 
That Christopher North needed no crutch being, in fact, that stalwart 
athlete, both physically and intellectually, John Wilson everybody knew 
who had the smallest acquaintance with that wonderful repertory of 
sarcasm, frolic, wit and wisdom, the "Noctes Ambrosianse. " With the 
identity merged in the purely imaginary character of Father Prout, how- 
ever, it has been from first to last quite otherwise. The author, in this 



Biographical Introduction. ix 



instance, has not merely, in a great measure, disappeared from view behind 
the veil, as it were, of his own productions, but what few glimpses have 
been caught of him have been obtained through a medium so misted over 
by prejudice, that nothing has hitherto been secured in his regard but a few 
distorted outlines of his character. It seems only just and fair, therefore, 
everything considered, that some effort should at length be made to dissi- 
pate, so far as may be in any way possible, the haze until now enveloping the 
reputation of the scholarly Bohemian who was the author of these Reliques. 

FRANCIS SYLVESTER MAHONY, better known among his intimates as 
Frank Mahony, but best known of all to the outerworld as " FATHER PROUT," 
was born in 1804, at Cork, in Ireland. Although his parentage on both sides 
showed him to be distinctly a member of the middle classes, his father was 
reputed to have descended from a younger branch of one of the most ancient 
families in the county Kerry, the Mahonys, or, more strictly, the O'Mahonys, 
of Dromore Castle. For a brief interval, indeed, towards the close of his 
life in Paris, the subject of this memoir not only had the aristocratic O pre- 
fixed to his surname upon his visiting card, but the family crest besides, 
engraved above it. These little coquetries with the airs of high life, how- 
ever, he at the very last, as in truth better became him, abandoned. 
Nevertheless, during the time when he was still indulging in such harmless 
luxuries as the O and the heraldic device just mentioned, he showed himself 
ready enough upon occasion stoutly to vindicate his right to the possession 
of both. Playfully asked by a lady friend, whose good opinion he greatly 
regarded, why he had not long before claimed his own by assuming the 
prefixed vowel, he not merely answered at once by word of mouth, but 
deliberately wrote to her on the morrow, that he valued her esteem altogether 
too highly to render himself ridiculous by assuming what he had no right 
to possess. At the same tima> he referred her to an authority in these 
matters, from which she might recognize, at a glance, what claim he really 
had to employ an escutcheon that had been borne by his race for at least 
two centuries and a half. This authority, he explained, was readily acces- 
sible among the records relating to the siege of Limerick preserved in the 
Bermingham Tower of Dublin Castle, from which it might be seen that 
among those who marched out of the beleaguered city, and who, on arriving 
at Cork, refused to cross over to France, was one who had stood to his guns 
like a trump, having served throughout the defence in the artillery, to wit, 
his ("Frank O'Mahony's") great-great-grandfather. 

However chivalrous may have been the surroundings of his ancestors, 
there can at least be no doubt of this, that his immediate progenitors were 
persons of the homeliest status. For a dozen years after his entrance into 
the world, Francis Sylvester Mahony (without the O) flourished at Cork, 
growing up there into a shrewd, bright-eyed, saucy-faced gossoon, while 
picking up with about equal readiness the brogue that never afterwards 
altogether forsook him, and the rudiments of an education which, a little 
later on, was to ripen, on the continent, into the soundest scholarship. In 
point of fact, he was just twelve years of age when he first quitted his 
native place for those foreign shores which for half a century afterwards 
had, for him, a supreme fascination. His student days began thus betimes 
in the Jesuit College of St. Acheul, at Amiens. Thence, a little while fur- 
ther on, he was transferred by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus to their 

b 



x Biographical Introduction. 

Parisian seminary in the Rue de Sevres. Destined from an early period 
for the priesthood, Frank Mahony or, as he was then called by preference, 
Sylvester passed the customary two years of his novitiate under the care 
of the Jesuit Fathers, alternately at their establishment in the Rue de 
Sevres, and in their suburban retreat, or maison de campagne, at Montrouge. 

An apter scholar than Mahony those great masters of erudition never had 
entrusted to their charge ; while, on the other hand, the advantages accruing 
to himself, intellectually, from their system, it would be difficult in any way 
to exaggerate. During the time when he was enrolled under their instruc- 
tion, as he used himself afterwards exultantly to declare, he breathed a very 
atmosphere of latinity, drank it in, so to speak, through all his senses, 
got saturated with it to the very tips of his nails. Skilled and accomplished 
though he eventually became in Greek scholarship, his knowledge of Greek 
was never at any time comparable to his rare and intimate knowledge of 
Latin. Under his foreign Jesuit masters he learned, while yet a stripling, 
to write, not only with facility but with elegance, in Latin, according to the 
whim of the moment, elegiacs, alcaics, sapphics, and hexameters. He not 
only spoke the language glibly even in his college days, but then and 
thenceforward his latinity, both oral and written, was exceptionally remark- 
able as at once pure and idiomatic. During his student life abroad, more- 
over, he contrived so completely to conquer the difficulties of French and 
Italian, that from that date forward he could converse in either with the 
rapidity of a native, as though each in turn had been his mother tongue. 
His successes throughout, it should be said at once, were exclusively those 
achieved in literis humanioribus. At Acheul, at Paris, and at Montrouge it 
was exactly the opposite with him, in his intellectual predilections and 
antipathies, to what it had been at Brienne with Napoleon, when the latter 
was familiarly referred to among his comrades as the Young Mutineer 
" avec le cerveau de feu pour 1'Algebre, et de glace pour le Latin. " Mahony, 
on the contrary, never once from the outset dreamt of winning honours in 
disciplinis malhematicis. His preference was given from the first, and with 
his whole heart, to the classic languages and to literature. 

Having completed his novitiate in the Rue de Sevres, Sylvester was in 
due course despatched to Rome for the pursuance of his higher studies there 
in philosophy and theology, at the Jesuit College. His instructors had long 
before then come to recognize in him far more of the student than of the 
devotee. In temperament he was known to be habitually disputatious, 
occasionally choleric, and, under anything like direct opposition, whether 
in trivial or important matters, persistently self-opinionated. If friends 
were won to him with ease from among his companions, they were not in- 
frequently repelled by the caustic irony of his remarks, which too often 
illustrated only too poignantly Sydney Smith's famous metaphor about the 
sword-stick, out of which seemingly innocent and harmless object there 
suddenly leaps forth something keen, glittering, and incisive. 

Having received In due sequence the tonsure and the four minor orders, 
Mahony had by this time, at reasonable intervals, been advanced to the 
sub-diaconate, and eventually to the diaconate. Precisely at the period of 
life, however, when he was eligible for ordination to the priesthood, his 
health failed him so completely that it was considered in every way advis- 
able that he should return for a while to Ireland. On this journey home- 
ward he had got as far as Genoa when, calling in there upon the Pro- 



Biographical Introduction. xi 

ns communicated to him as gently, but as distinctly, as possible, 
that he was considered by his superiors to have no vocation whatever for 
the priesthood, and that in any case it had been decided by them that he 
i no way qualified to enter the Society. Although, during the course 
of his studies in the Eternal City under the Jesuit Fathers, intimations of a 
like kind had been made to him whenever he had taken occasion to express 
his desire to become a novice, the weighty remonstrance addressed to him 
at Genoa by the Provincial took him, in a great measure, by surprise, 
riliing his mind for a while with doubt and bewilderment, but leaving him in 
the end wholly unconvinced. Pursuing his journey westwards, nevertheless, 
it may here be said at once, by anticipation, that on reaching his native 
land he obtained permission to renew his efforts, to the end, that is, of test- 
ing his vocation, with a result exactly the same as that already arrived at. 

Before relating, however, what occurred on the occasion of that 
second and, as it might be considered, crucial test as to the validity 
of his vocation at the great Jesuit College of Clongowes (which is to 
Ireland what Stonyhurst is to England), it is, to say the least of it, remark- 
able to note, from a book actually published in Paris when Mahony was 
in his twenty-second year, that is, in 1826, how strongly his (in the cruel 
English sense of the word) Jesuitical character had impressed itself upon 
one of his contemporaries. This contemporary, it should be explained at 
once, was the Abbe Martial Marest de la Roche- Arnand, who, in his work 
" Les Jesuites Modernes," sketched in lurid colours a most extravagant 
caricature of the genius and temperament of as he dubbed him O'Mahoni ! 
" Born in Ireland," quoth this atrabilious and ultra-caustic penciller by 
the way, " I know not if O'Mahoni is descended from the Count of that 
name, but to the spirit, to the prejudices, to the system of the Count, he 
adds the fanaticism, the dissimulation, the intrigue, and the chicane of a 
thorough Jesuit ! God help us in the contingency of his Company ever 
triumphing in France ! Were he only to become confessor to our good 
King, he would, fora dead certainty, give us magnificent auto-da-fes ! Irish 
and Scotch Catholics have about them a smack of the Spanish Catholics ; 
they love to sniff the reek wafted from the funeral pyres of the doomed 
wretches who have declined to hear mass. The Society designs to place 
O'Mahoni, later on, at the head either of colleges or of congregations. 
Having taught him to stifle all natural sentiment under the morality of a 
devout life, they hope that, docile to the teachings of his instructors, the 
young O'Mahoni" will become still more insensible and still more cruel than 
the most pitiless inquisitors of Valence and of Saragossa ! " For forty 
years together Mahony preserved a copy of the book containing this 
amazingly grotesque distortion of his own lineaments in his youth, and 
would often point out with a chuckle of delight the passage just translated. 
But at length, in 1865, when, as it may be presumed, he had got it pretty 
well by heart, he handed the precious volume over as a gage d 'amide to 
.James Hannay, enhancing its interest to his friend by scrawling on the 
fly-leaf that it was a gift to him from Frank Mahony (it should have been 
O'Mahoni) de Saragosse ! 

Leaving behind him on the Continent, in one mind at least, such par- 
ticularly strong-flavoured impressions as to his being inspired by a religious 
zeal amounting to nothing less than ferocity impressions, it can alone be 
presumed, derived from "no other source than the sketcher's own inner con- 

b 2 



xii Biographical Introduction. 

sciousness, Francis Mahony, still a young cleric aspiring to the priesthood 
arrived at Clongowes Wood College, to put yet again to the test what he, 
at any rate, for one, still believed in as his religious vocation. 

The position occupied by him at Clongowes immediately upon his 
arrival was that of one of the masters of the establishment. As Prefect 
of Studies and of the Higher Playground he had devolved upon him the 
duty, in the first place, of preserving silence and general decorum among 
the more advanced students, both in the school-hall and in the college 
chapel ; and in the next place, during the hours of recreation, of seeing to 
the good conduct of those who took part in whatever game happened at 
the moment to be uppermost, such as cricket, football, rounders, or hare- 
and-hounds. 

Reaching Clongowes at the end of August, 1830, Mahony found there, 
among the pupils entrusted to his charge, one who, like himself, was but 
a very few years afterwards to become a contributor to Battlers Miscellany, 
this being the future author of the Tipperary Papers in that periodical, 
otherwise John Sheehan, better known to the generality of readers by his 
comical title of the Irish Whisky Drinker. Another pupil, who was 
already noted among the collegians as the most skilled Greek scholar 
of them all, writing already as he did brilliant Anacreontics, took part 
with Mahony also, but a brief while later on, in the literary jousts of 
Regina. This was Frank Stock Murphy, afterwards known far and 
wide in the courts of law as Serjeant Murphy, and who, like the young 
Prefect of Studies and of the Higher Playground, was, at so early a date, 
to be counted among the picked band of the Fraserians. 

A couple of months had hardly elapsed after Mahony's induction into 
the post of Prefect at Clongowes when he was promoted by Father Kenny, 
the then Rector of the College, to the yet more responsible office of Master 
of Rhetoric. Rapid though his advance was, however, his career there, in 
any capacity, was destined to be of very brief duration. It closed not 
only abruptly but by a sort of catastrophe. 

A couple of months had barelyrun out after Mahony's arrival at Clongowes 
when, early in November, a holiday for the whole College was unexpectedly 
announced. Among the plans which were thereupon suddenly impro- 
vised for the day's enjoyment, it was arranged that, under the special charge 
of their young master, a score of Rhetoricians were to start in coursing 
line across country in pursuit of a hare about an hour or so after breakfast. 
This select band, it was further agreed, was to head well off through the 
Duke of Leinster's country in the direction of Carton, while the other 
divisions of the Higher School were to scurry away by entirely dif- 
ferent routes with their greyhounds. Mahony's party, each member of 
which was that genuine broth of a boy, a lightfooted Patlander, were, 
according to the day's programme, to sit down to a two o'clock dinner in 
the Hotel at Maynooth, and then, after a brief interval of rest, were to 
course home again before nightfall. Nearly midway, on their return, there 
was to be one slight additional interruption at Celbridge, where tea was 
to be partaken of at the house of young John Sheehan's father, three 
miles from Maynooth, and five from Clongowes. 

The Irish Whisky Drinker himself is not inappropriately the one who 
has put upon record the result of the day's proceedings. According to 
his veracious narrative of what occurred, all went prosperously enough 



BiograpJiical Introduction. xiii 



until that fatal turning point, when the day was, with a vengeance, done 
to a tea a thoroughly disastrous tea and turn out at Celbridge. There, 
for one of the revellers at least, the paternal hospitalities, those, that is to 
say, of the elder Sheehan, were all but within an ace of illustrating, quite 
literally, what is meant by the phrase of killing with kindness. Modera- 
tion, until then, had been the order of the festivities. A solitary tumbler 
of whisky punch, for example, had sufficed for each excursionist as the 
accompaniment to the homely banquet partaken of with a relish by " the 
boys " at the Hotel in Maynooth. A hundred thousand welcomes (cead 
inii.'i: failthc) awaited them, all too generously, as the sequel proved, at 
Celbridge. " If the fatted calf was not killed " Mr. Sheehan 's ingenuous 
ipsissima verba are here given "there was, as they said in Ireland 
of old, ' a fire lit under the pump, ' or, speaking less poetically, 
the kitchen boiler was ready to overflowing for what promised to be 
an exceptionally wet evening." As for the beverage actually giving a 
name to the meal, it turned out to be nothing better than the merest 
preliminary. As a sequel to the tea, with its Brobdingnagian accom- 
paniment of hot tea-cake, hight Barnbrack, a luscious compound of 
flour and eggs, thickly sown with raisins, there came in, in relays, to be 
again and again replenished, huge decanters of mountain dew freshly 
distilled, capacious bowls of sugar and ample jugs of screeching water, 
renewed with proportionate frequency. "I don't know how many songs 
we sang," confesses the younger Sheehan, in this reminiscence of his 
bibulous boyhood, "how many patriotic toasts and personal healths we 
proposed, how many speeches we made, how many decanters we emptied." 
At the head of the too hospitable board sat the evidently not unworthy 
sire of one who was so soon afterwards to win repute to himself as, by pre- 
eminence, The Irish Whisky Drinker ! At the foot of the table was the 
universally popular Parish Priest of Celbridge, Father Dan Callinan, soul- 
searching as a pulpit orator, heart-stirring as the singer of a patriotic song, 
and true master of the revels on an occasion like this, if he happened to be 
called upon by circumstances, for the delivery of an impromptu harangue. 
The speech of the evening, the song of the evening, in this particular 
instance, were alike Father Dan's ; the song in rapturous tribute to Erin, 
the speech in impassioned praise of O'Connell. The Liberator was 
already even then, as he continued to be increasingly thenceforward to the 
very last, in an especial manner, Mahony's bite noir or pet aversion. Father 
Callinan 's panegyric on the victorious champion of Catholic Emancipa- 
tion, while it suddenly roused the ire, stirred up all the bile and virulence 
of his systematic depreciator, the self-willed and hot-headed young 
Master of Rhetoric. When the ringing cheers which marked the close of 
Father Dan's encomium upon O'Connell had at length died away, the 
sarcastic voice of Mahony was heard raised, to every one's amazement, in 
caustic dissent. Some of the most scornful lines in Byron's Irish Avatar 
.were quoted by him against the Liberator, with the added sting of the fine 
Cork brogue with which they were articulated. Hot words elicited words 
still hotter, fierce taunts provoked taunts yet fiercer, the disputants at the 
table being all the rest against the one solitary dissentient, who was 
denounced in speech after speech as the degenerate son of Ireland. Hap- 
pily in the end, as Saul's wrath, when at its worst, was appeased by the 
harp of David, the war of discord was drowned by the harmonious voice 



xiv Biographical Introduction. 



of Father Callinan, opportunely trolling out a ditty, the closing rhymes 
of which celebrated, thus, the intertwining of the national emblems 

Then let thy native shamrock shine in rays of triple gleaming, 

And Scotland's thistle round entwine, the rose betwixt them beaming. 

A couple of hours later than was intended the little impromptu orgie 
broke up to many a hearty hand-grip and cordial clinking of the stirrup 
cup among the revellers. Excited by argument and heated with potations, 
the youngsters, immediately upon their emerging into the open air to 
return to Clongowes, found themselves completely vanquished by the very 
coolness and freshness of the evening atmosphere. 

Confusedly, in a straggling way, they had barely accomplished the first 
mile of their return journey when their discomfiture was completed by 
the sudden outburst of an autumnal tempest of thunder and lightning, 
with rain in such overwhelming torrents that they were drenched to the skin 
within a few minutes from its commencement. This climax of calamity 
appears to have had its sobering influence upon two or three of the 
least youthful members of the little party, foremost among them, of course, 
the young Master of Rhetoric, now thoroughly awakened, at the eleventh 
hour and three-quarters, to a recognition of his responsibility. Mercifully, 
when affairs were at this supreme juncture, some Bog of Allen carmen 
opportunely came to the rescue, like so many del ex machind, tramping by 
leading their cars, laden with black turf, on their way to Dublin. But for 
their providential interposition thus, in the very nick of time, the imminent 
probability is that the boys, ' ' much bemused with" potheen and half-drowned 
by thunder showers, 'must inevitably have scattered away in the darkness 
and before morning have succumbed. A costly bargain having been made, 
however, with the peat-gatherers, the drenched and stupefied urchins were 
bound with the car ropes on to the top of the turf-loads by the bogmen, the 
cavalcade, in this miserable plight, wending their way slowly towards 
their destination. 

Not until midnight was the outer gate of the College at length reached. 
Watchers were there on the look-out with lanterns. The whole estab- 
lishment was in trepidation. One after another, the unconscious way- 
farers were unbound from their al fresco peat beds and carried 
into the entrance hall of Clongowes. To the momentary horror of the 
Rector, upon counting their number up, one, it turned out, was missing, 
who was, however, eventually discovered in a state of collapse half-buried 
away in one of the peat-cars. Extricated from the superincumbent turf, 
to all appearance dead, he was, by order of the house apothecary, plunged 
as quickly as possible into a hot bath, a bath so hot that upon his immersion, 
though he was restored to life, he was, as his brother collegian Sheehan 
has related, peeled, before the close of the next fortnight, from the nape 
of the neck to the tendon Achilles. The Rector of the College, Father 
Kenny, as could alone have been reasonably expected under the circunv 
stances, was profoundly indignant with every one concerned in what 
appeared to him so disgraceful a saturnalia, but most of all, of course, 
with the young master, who was especially in charge of the ill-fated cours- 
ing party. As the result of the incident, Mahony resigned his chair as 
Master of Rhetoric almost immediately after these occurrences, and before 
Christmas bade adieu to Clongowes on his return to the Continent. 



Biographical Introduction. xv 

Passing through Paris, Mahony went on for a while to the College of the 
Jesuits at Freiburg, whence, after a few months' hesitation as to the course 
he ought in prudence to pursue, he proceeded once more to Rome, there to 
settle down again among his old haunts, though not in his old quarters. 
During this, for him more or less anxious sojourn in the Eternal City, he 
continued, with exemplary regularity, to attend theological lectures for 
two years together, lodging the while out of college at his own expense. 

The opinion of the Jesuit Fathers was still resolutely opposed, not 
merely to the desire he persistently cherished of being enrolled in the 
Society, but to the ambition which, in spite of all obstacles, continued 
to possess him of being, at any rate as a secular, oidained to the 
priesthood. The declared ambition of his life was to become Sacerdos. 
'Whatever obstructions were placed in his path, and there were many, 
appeared only to strengthen his resolve that this one dominant desire 
of his nature, in spite of everything that could be said to the contrary, 
should be realized. Years afterwards he repented, when it was altogether 
too late, that, in this vital matter for him, he had set all reasoning at 
defiance. As he frankly acknowledged to Monsignor Rogerson, who had 
the happiness at the last of reconciling him to the Church of God and of 
administering to him the last sacraments, he himself was "determined to 
enter the Church, in spite of Jesuit opinion." Not merely of his own 
perfect free will, therefore, but literally by reason of his rooted self-willed 
persistence he was, for once and for all, signed on the forehead and the 
hands with the sacred chrism, and enrolled a priest for ever according to the 
order of Melchisedek. Dimissory letters to that end having been ob- 
tained from the Bishop of Cork, the Rev. Francis Mahony was ordained 
at Lucca, thenceforth standing before the world Presbyter. It has been 
stated, in error, that not very long after his ordination to the Priesthood 
Father Mahony, in obedience to instructions from his bishop, the Right 
Rev. Dr. Murphy, not only joined the Cork Mission, but acted for a time 
as chaplain to one of the hospitals in his native city, in 1832, during the 
terrible cholera visitation. As a simple matter of fact he never in life 
returned to Cork after the date of his ordination. He frequently said 
mass both in France and in Italy, occasionally even officiating in London 
shortly after his first return in his priestly character to England. More 
than once he preached from the pulpit of the Spanish Ambassador's 
chapel near Manchester Square, and at intervals assisted in his parochial 
labours the well known Dr. Magee, who was facetiously dubbed about 
that period by O'Connell the Abbot of Westminster. 

All too soon, however, for his own happiness, because unhappily, of 
course, all too late for any possible rectification of his own grievous error 
of judgment in the matter, Mahony awakened to a recognition of the 
painful truth that his Jesuit preceptors had been right from the first, and 
that in ranning counter to their earnest wishes and advice he had become 
a priest without any true vocation. Thenceforth, through nobody's fault 
but his own, he stood before the world, and before the Church until all 
but the very end, in a distinctly false position. There was something 
essentially unclerical in the mocking spirit with which he regarded the 
men and things, not actually consecrated to religion, that fell under his_ 
immediate observation. A scoffer at Christianity or a depredator of 
Catholicism he constantly looked upon from first to last with abhorrence. 



xvi Biographical Introduction. 



Conscious at all times, in the midst of the incongruities of his after life, of 
the permanent effect of the anointing from which there was no possibility 
of escape the sacred chrism leaving, as he knew, a mark that was abso- 
lutely indelible he was keenly alive to, and always instantly resented, 
any semblance even, under any conceivable circumstances, of a slight put 
upon him, whether directly or indirectly, in his priestly character. 

Having once realized to the full that by nature, instinct, temperament, 
nay, by his whole idiosyncrasy, he was far more of the man of letters 
than of the ecclesiastic, his very sense of reverence constrained him first 
of all into relaxing and eventually into foregoing altogether the ques- 
tionable luxury of continuing to exercise his sacerdotal functions. His 
office he still loved to con. His breviary remained to the last his 
constant companion. //, and neither Horace nor Beranger, both of 
whom he knew pretty well by heart, he delighted to carry about with 
him in his pocket. Refraining, as has been said, out of his very sense 
of reverence, from venturing any longer within the sanctuary, there to 
offer up with his own hands at the altar the sacrifice of the mass, he drifted 
away little by little from the ordinary practices of religion. The Roman 
collar was doffed. The soutane was abandoned. A biretta never any 
longer pressed his broad temples : yet while these evidences of the priest 
were one after another stripped away, the presbyter-turned-man-of- 
letters still asserted himself in the semi-clerical costume he thenceforth 
adopted. A threadbare black it may be said was from that time forward 
his only wear, as indeed in some sort best became so scholarly a Bohemian. 
Dropping gradually out of further association with his brother ecclesiastics, 
he found entirely new and in some respects more congenial companions 
among the contributors to the magazines and newspapers with which he 
soon afterwards came to be connected. 

In the calm retrospect which can be taken, now, of his long completed 
career, it seems to have been a circumstance curiously illustrative of its, so 
to speak, slipshod, and haphazard character that while in the earlier half 
of his literary life he was hand-and-glove with the ultra-Conservatives 
when writing for Fraser's Magazine and Bentley's Miscellany , he was in 
its later moiety just as intimate with the ultra- Liberals when he was corre- 
sponding from Rome with the Daily News and from Paris with the Globe 
addressing the latter under the guise of a sort ofyWw^wr-bookworm, and 
the former under the nom de plume of the Benedictine Monk Don Jeremy 
Savonarola. 

Constitutionally arrogant and self-opinionated though he showed him- 
self to be throughout his whole life as a disputant, he nevertheless con- 
trived at all times to foregather, no less pleasurably for others than for him- 
self, with men of both the great political parties his ready wit, combined 
with his ripe scholarship, not infrequently securing to him the maintenance 
of these amicable relations with antagonists whom his ferocity of attack 
must otherwise have utterly estranged. A perfect master of fence in argu- 
ment, he disdained to wear the wire mask himself, or the button on his foil. 
Cut and thrust, carte and tierce were of no interest whatever to him 
unless, in those fierce bouts of disputation in which he delighted, he, and 
of course his opponent in like manner, had each full privilege allowed, 
so to speak, of drawing blood act libitum whenever the opportunity for 
so doing might present itself to either. Sharper things were then said 



Biographical Introduction. 



xvn 



and written than are now dreamt of in our social philosophy. Regina 
and Maga flung vitriol and wielded bludgeons while dispensing their 
criticisms. Lord Alvanley, looking into the cadaverous face of Samuel 
Rogers, could cynically raise the laugh in those days against his corpse-like 
friend, the poet-banker not, we may be certain, as adding thereby another 
to his Pleasures of Memory by observing interrogatively, " I say, Rogers, 
why don't you start your hearse ? you're rich enough I " The amenities of 
life were not only fewer then than they are now-a-days, but were of a 
wholly different character. Indiarubber tyres, C springs, and wooden 
pavements being comparatively unknown, the ways of the world were less 
smooth and the torturing jolts more frequent. 

It happened by good fortune for Mahony, at the very juncture when he 
was preparing to open up a new path for himself in literature, that a 
monthly periodical was just at that time springing into celebrity in London, 
with fair promise of rivalling in vigour and originality its already famous 
senior by thirteen years, Blackwood of Edinburgh. This was Fraser's 
Magazine, for Town and Country, the initial number of which was pub- 
lished on the ist of February, 1830. It had been but a little more 
than four years in existence when there was quietly enrolled one day upon 
its staff a new contributor, who immediately, upon his voice becoming 
audible, was recognized by all as indeed an acquisition. The originator of 
the Magazine it may here, however, be first remarked was Hugh Fraser, 
its publisher being his brother James Fraser, and its standpoint in London 
215, Regent Street. There, at regularly recurrent intervals, the contributors 
were in the habit of assembling convivially in symposium. Less than a 
twelvemonth after the new recruit had accepted the colours of Regina and 
the coin of enlistment, there was shadowed forth upon a varnished 
copper-plate, by the rapid movements of an etching-needle held in the 
hand of one Alfred Croquis a young Irishman afterwards renowned in 
the world of art as Daniel Maclise, the Royal Academician the reflection, 
as like as life, of one of these famous gatherings. "The Fraserian?, 1 ' to 
the number of seven-and-twenty, are there depicted, each of them with a 
marvellous verisimilitude. Two alone at this present writing are still 
survivors. The rest a quarter of a hundred in all have long since, one 
after another, gone over to the majority. The pair yet extant are the now 
veteran Carlyle and the then eminently handsome yorng novelist Harri- 
son Ainsworth. Glasses and decanters scattered al out the fruit-laden 
board, Dr. Maginn, then Editor of Fraser, has just riser, to give the toast of 
the evening. Upon either side of him, in the background, are the two name- 
less attendants one, a Sydney Smith-like butler in the act of decanting an 
especial magnum of port, the other an assistant flunkey extracting with an 
all but audible doop the cork from a fresh bottle. Coleridge, Thackeray, 
Lockhart, Southey, D'Orsay are among those present who are the most 
readily distinguishable. Immediately to the left of Maginn, as he stands 
there delicately resting the tips of his fingers on the table, are seated 
three clergymen Edward Irving of the Unknown Tongues, Gleig the 
Army Chaplain, and between the two, shrewdly peering at you from under 
his eyebrows and over his spectacles, Frank Mahony. 

One who knew several of the Fraserian set, and among them Mahony, 
I am alluding here to the late Charles Lewis Gruneisen, the accomplished 
musical critic, speaks of them in a communication addressed by him to the 



xviii Biographical Introduction. 

Pall Mall Gazette on the 25th May, 1866, as having lived thirty-two years 
previously in a dangerous time, when club life was in its infancy. ' ' The 
artistic and literary world," he there writes, "congregated chiefly in the 
small hours, in strange places. The painter, the sculptor^ the actor, the 
reviewer, the critic, the journalist, the barrister, the author, nay, even 
the divine, fraternized in coteries, either at Eastey's Hotel, the \Viduv. -'s 
in Saint Martin's Lane, afterwards in Dean Street, Soho, the Coalhole, 
Offiey's, the Eccentrics in May Buildings, the Piazza, the Bedford, and 
other localities familiar to the few survivors. The Irish and Scotch con- 
vivialists in their visits to London," he adds, "considered it to be a 
marked distinction to be admitted to these coteries, at a period when 
drinking habits were in the ascendant." Mahony's tutelary muse at this 
juncture might, hardly with extravagance, have been described as akin to 
the Fairy Philomel in Planche's charming extravaganza of " The Sleeping 
Beauty," of whom the late James Bland, that true King of Burlesque, used 
to exclaim with an august clearing of the throat beforehand 

" (Ahem !) we've known her long. 
She likes a. jug and sings a tidy song." 

According to Mr. Gmneisen's recollection, Father Prout's vivacity found 
vent in the nocturnal revels just now referred to, "and," the narrator 
goes on to remark in so many words, "he never had sufficient resolu- 
tion to shake off the convivial habits then acquired." It was about that 
time that among other extravagant freaks of scholarship indulged in by 
Father Prout and his companions, he, in association among others with 
Dr. Maginn, Percival Bankes, and John (familiarly Jack) Churchill, trans- 
lated, or, as Mahony always loved, by preference, to express it, upset 
into various dead and living languages the then ridiculously popular street 
song of "All Round my Hat I wear a Green Willow." 

As a philologist, as a wit, as a lyrist, as a master of persiflage, Frank 
Mahony stepped at once conspicuously to the front with his earliest con- 
tribution to FraseSs Magazine in the April of 1834. His communication 
there came to the readers of Regina as a distinct revelation. It introduced 
to their notice one who forthwith took his place permanently among the 
typical creations of our national literature. In setting forth what was 
entitled by him, with an air of delightful gravity, his " Apology for Lent," 
it, in the very act of recording his Death, Obsequies, and Elegy, made the 
public at large acquainted for the first time with Father Prout, whose 
Reliques thenceforth, month by month for a couple of years together, 
while they formed the chief attraction of Fraser, substantially built up for 
the writer himself an enduring reputation. 

According to a statement put forth on the l8th January, 1875, with all 
apparent seriousness, by Mr. Nicholas Mahony, Justice of the Peace of 
Blarney, in a letter addressed by him to the editor of the "Final Reliques," 
Father Prout was in some sense at least a real personage. He is there spoken 
of, at any rate, by the brother of the scholarly idealizer of his character who 
has thus given his name immortality, as an old clergyman who was intimate 
with the family of the Mahonyswhen they were children. This intimation 
it is especially worthy of note, however, is at once coupled with the acknow- 
ledgment that " the real Father Prout," as he is gravely called, " was only 
remarkable for his quiet simple manners !" Precisely. And upon an exactly 



Biographical Introduction. xix 

similar showing it might just as reasonably be argued that Bob Fagin, 
the boy who helped to paste the labels on the pots of blacking down at 
Hungerford Market when Charles Dickens was for a while there, in his 
childhood, as " a little labouring hind " at Warren's manufactory, was the 
veritable germ of the infamous Jew in " Oliver Twist " who goaded Sikes 
on to the murder of Nancy, and who is himself given over in the end to 
the hangman's hands at Newgate as an accomplice of the malefactor. A 
scene and a designation may not improbably in this matter have been 
adopted for the nonce as suggestive of a theme by Frank Mahony ; but he 
it was who, by his very mode of adopting it, made that theme his own, 
and in the true Shaksperian sense as a creator imparted to it perennially 
in return a " local habitation and a name." The original Father Prout 
original so far, that is, as the appellation and the venue are concerned ma)', 
without doubt, have been, as indeed is stated on that very same page of 
the "Final Reliques," by another witness, Mr. James Murphy, from 1800 
to 1830, in which latter year he died, parish priest, at Watergrasshill. But, 
for all this, the true Father Prout the still living and breathing Father 
Prout of whom we read in the Reliques, and who there talks to us all in a 
voice that has long since become perfectly familiar is no other than Mahony's 
own innermost other self, not so much flesh of his flesh and bone of his 
bone, as, from his whole nature and genius, through brain and heart, hi:; 
most intimate self-revelation. Guided to his right destiny when following 
in obedience to his first impulse the earliest conception formed by him of 
that delightful alter ego, one is tempted to say that Mahony by a happy 
instinct strolled from the Groves of Blarney to the Groves of Academe. 

Let who will turn the leaves, however cursorily, of those racy and indi- 
genous Reliques, he will for certain acquire a relish for them and a familiarity 
with them far more readily than he imagines. The potheen has not about 
it a tang more appetizing. The brogue is not more instantly suggestive of 
exhilaration. For, with a very literal truth, has he not himself hit off to 
a T his own highest faculty as a writer in those words of his already 
inscribed upon the fly-leaf of these collected " Works of Father Prout " as 
their most fitting motto ? words in which the Reliques are described in 
the aptest possible way as "a new combination of the Teian lyre and the 
Irish bagpipe, of the Ionian dialect blending harmoniously with the Cork 
brogue," or, yet more tersely even, as " an Irish potato seasoned with Attic 
salt." Discoursing thus, ostensibly in the posthumous voice of the parish 
priest of Watergrasshill, but really in his own, he for twenty-four months 
together through Prater's Magazine flung abroad in lavish handfuls the 
largess of his accumulated wit and learning, scattering them about pell- 
mell, according to the whim of the moment, with reference to whatever 
subject-matter chanced to come uppermost. As a critic, there was but too 
often something scurrile in his acerbity. As a lyrist, his songs had for the 
most part a lilting swing that bore all before them. The personalities 
and nicknames with which he pelted the motley throng of those who 
in any way excited his antipathy, must have bred ill blood enough at 
the time of their first publication, and read even now most offensively 
when the passion of the hour has long subsided. 

For "real larky fun," as James Hannay admirably expressed it in 
the North British Revieiv, Father Prout's lucubrations are scarcely to 
be surpassed. Six years before he thus laughingly eulogized the 



xx Biographical Introduction. 

Reliques, the same animated writer enlarged with gusto in the Universal 
A\:-i\-;v upon their general excellence as " a piquant mixture of toryism, 
classicism, sarcasm, and punch." Evidencing therein, as .Mahony did, 
in a hundred whimsical ways, that he knew Latin quite as well as either 
Erasmus or Buchanan ; he showed his love for the classics, as Hannay 
deliciously put it, "as a father shows his love for his children byplay- 
ing with them. " While doing this, moreover, he may be said, through 
the medium of his gravefaced imputations of plagiarism, to have invented 
a system of intellectual torture until then undreamt of, the poignant 
operation of which he, besides, in a manner perfected through his cruelly 
ingenious method of applying it by preference to the genus irritabile. And 
if, according to Lord Brougham's scathing phrase, Lord Campbell could be 
said to have added a new pang to the agonies of death by threatening to 
become his biographer a threat eventually realized in the shape of a 
supplementary volume to the " Lives of the Lord Chancellors" Father 
I'rout might with equal truth have been said by Moore to have added a 
new pang to the agonies of living by the triumphant skill with which he 
affected to demonstrate that the "Irish Melodies," so far from being in any 
way original effusions, were many of them no better than sly borrowings by 
translation from the Greek, the Latin, or the French ! The Greek of an 
unnamed disciple of Anacreon, the Latin of Prout himself, ipsissima verba, 
the French of the ill-starred Marquis Cinq-Mars ! \Vho that has ever 
dipped into the "Rogueries" can be blind to the verisimilitude of the 
Padre's shadowing forth there in classic verse, at one and the same time 
of the Nora Creina of Moore, and of the Julia of Prout's fellow-cleric 
of the Hesperides, Robert Herrick ? Who cannot see that Mahony bore 
equally in mind Moore's rapturous ejaculation, 

" O my Nora's gown for me, 

That floats as wild as mountain breezes, 
Leaving every beauty free 

To sink or swell as Heaven pleases ;" 

and with it Herrick's ecstatic allusion to what he terms " the liquefaction 
of her [Julia's] clothes," where he exclaims, in regard to their 

" brave vibrations each way free, 
O how their glittering taketh me ! " 

when, in the good Father's blending of his recollection of the two in his 
harmonious numbers, he added a perfecting charm to each in his 

" Norae tunicam prseferres. 

Flante zephyro volantem ; 
Oculis et raptis erres 
Contemplando ambulantem?" 

Mahony was just thirty years of age when he assumed his place a fore- 
most one from the very first by right of his wit and learning among the 
select band of the contributors to Fraser's Magazine. His earliest paper 
there, the first of the four-and-twenty making up the aggregate after the 
lapse of a little more than two years of the now famous Reliques, made its 
appearance, as already observed, in the number of JRegina for April, 1834. 
It introduced the reader at once to a new and delightful personality, 
thenceforth perennially existent in the familiar dreamland of English 
literature that of the Reverend Father Andrew Prout, Parish Priest 



BiograpJiical Introduction. xxi 

of Watergrasshill. Its sequel, a month later on, gave, parenthetically, 
as it might be said, vouchers to the more incredulous for his having 
actually existed in the flesh, by referring to his executors, Father 
Magrath the elegiac poet, and Father Mat Horrogan, P.P. of the 
neighbouring village of Blarney. The initial paper, under the guise 
of "An Apology for Lent," not only revealed to all comers in an off- 
hand way the menage of the good Father of Watergrasshill, but enabled 
them to realize with a relish his taste both for creature comforts and for 
classical scholarship. The May number, which in its turn was entitled " A 
Plea for Pilgrimages," rendered them besides for once and for all intimate 
with his immediate pastoral surroundings, while it familiarized them with 
much that was odd and with more that was attractive in his compan- 
ions, his visitors, and his conversation. Then, moreover, was made 
clear to the comprehension of all, the abounding vivacity with which 
Mahony revelled in his mastery over both the ancient and modern 
languages. The earliest testimony afforded by him of his holding thus 
completely under his command not only the resources of the two great 
classic tongues, but of Norman-French as well, was his turning, as by a 
very tour de force, Millikin's roystering celebration of "The Groves of 
Blarney " into a triple polyglot " Blarneum Nemus," 'H 'TAij E\apvtKt], and 
" Le Bois de Blarnaye." Appended to these at the time was the fragment of 
a version of the same ditty in Celtic, which purported to have been copied 
from an antique manuscript preserved in the King's Library at Copen- 
hagen ; an Italian version, "I Boschidi Blarnea," being set forth by Mahony 
upwards of a quarter of a century afterwards as having been sung by 
Garibaldi on the 25th May, 1859, among the woods near Lake Como 
Italic, Celtic, Gallic, Doric, Vulgate, each serio-comically purporting to be 
the veritable prototype of the merely reputed original, the Corcagian ! 

" Father Front's Carousal," as reported in the third instalment of the 
Reliques, which was published in the Juris number of Fraser, was taken 
rather gravely to heart, as it happened, among the population of Cork by 
reason of the liberal use made therein of the names of some of its leading 
inhabitants. George Knapp, Dick Dowden, Jack Bellew, Dan Corbet, 
Bob Olden, and Friar O'Meara, were but the chorus, however, attendant 
upon Sir Walter Scott, the illustrious guest of the incumbent of Water- 
grasshill. As to the bandying of grotesque fun and erudite sarcasms 
between Scott and Prout in this paper, it may be regarded as reaching its 
climax where Sir Walter, in answer to the Padre's bantering inquiry as 
to whether he is any relation of that ornament of the Franciscan order, 
the great irrefragable doctor, Duns Scotus, replies, "No, I have not that 
honour ; " adding at once, however, slyly, ' ' but I have read what Erasmus 
says of certain of your fraternity, in a dialogue between himself and the 
Echo : 

(ERASMUS loquitur). 'Quid est sacerdotiutn ? 
(ECHO rcspondzt). Otium !' 

Prout at once turning the gibe aside with the laughing rejoinder, "That 
reminds me of Lardner's idea of ' otium cum dignitate, ' which he purposes 
to read thus otium cum diggirf Katies !" In the course of the "Carousal" 
occurs the Padre's noble version in Latin of Campbell's "Hohenlinden,"the 
ringing sapphics of his "Prselium apud Hohenlinden " not unworthily echo- 



xxii Biographical Introduction. 

ing the heroic original. There also he gave the first cruel foretaste of his 
more highly elaborated onslaught, two months later, upon Moore, when 
he adduced, with the matchless effrontery of his persiflage, what he coolly 
announced as the Latin original of " Let Erin remember the days of old, 
beginning 

" O ! utinam sanos mea lerna recogitet annos ! " 

It was in the fourth of the Prout papers, which appeared in the July 
number of Regina, that Mahony, indulging in the same eccentric pastime, 
imputed to Byron the like delinquency of plagiarism, pretending to have 
discovered the source of the famous apostrophe to Kirke White, familiar 
to the readers of " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," in the dainty 
verses of a purely imaginary young French poet, hight Chenedolle. 

A score of equally brilliant, bizarre, fantastic, and hilarious contributions 
from the hand of Frank Mahony followed these in rapid and almost un- 
broken succession through the double-columned pages of Regina, until, in 
1836, the whole were collected together in two volumes for separate publi- 
cation as "Father Prout's Reliques." Maclise who had been all the while 
embellishing Fraser month after month with a series of wonderfully etched 
portraits of the literary celebrities of that generation to three of which, 
by the way, those of Henry O'Brien, L. E. L., and Beranger, Mahony 
himself furnished the letterpress accompaniment enhanced the interest and 
attraction of the reissued Reliques by interspersing them with a number 
of eminently characteristic illustrations. Eighteen in number, these em- 
bellishments were announced on the new title-page, under the artist's 
then pseudonym, as from the pencil of Alfred Croquis, while the Reliques 
themselves were said to be collected and arranged by Oliver Yorke, a 
nom de plume generally usable among the Fraserians, as though, like 
Legion, it had been a noun of multitude signifying many. It can hardly 
be regarded indeed as having been applicable in any distinctive manner 
to the Editor of Fraser himself, Dr. William Maginn's assumed name being 
unmistakably Sir Morgan O'Dogherty, as Father Prout was that of Francis 
Mahony. 

Before continuing this record of the few and slight incidents which 
mark the career of the author of the Reliques, let it be said here at once 
that incomparably the finest of them all is, without doubt, the sixth, in 
which Mahony pays his tribute of respect and gratitude to his Jesuit 
instructors. " Literature and the Jesuits " is the title of it ; and it is from 
the celebration of the apiary in the "Georgics" that Mahony has aptly 
selected his motto 

"Alii spem gentis adultos 
Educunt foetus : alii purissima mella 
Stipant, et liquido distendunt nectare cellas." 

His theme was suggested to him by the then recent massacre of fourteen 
Jesuits in the College of St. Isidore at Madrid. Referring at the outset 
of his paper to that atrocity, he is inclined to think, as he protests with 
cutting irony, that, with all due respect to Dr. Southey, the Poet 
Laureate, Roderick was not by any means the Last of the Goths in 
the Iberian peninsula. It is characteristic of him that, even against 
himself, in the midst of his emotional enthusiasm in the cause of his 
old masters in literature, he cannot help cynically hinting a suspicion 



Biographical Introduction. xxiii 

that he has a sort of "drop serene" in his eye, seeing that he only, 
as he expresses it, winks at the rogueries of the Jesuits never reddening 
for them the gridiron on which he gently roasts Moore and Lardnert 
Incidentally in a casual sentence he lays down a proposition which, 
looked back to now, seems like the foreshadowing of the noble master- 
piece produced years aftenvards by the Count de Montalembert, " Les 
Moines de 1'Occident : " " There is not, perhaps a more instructive and 
interesting subject of inquiry in the history of the human mind than the 
origin, progress, and workings of what are called monastic institutions. " 

He enumerates with exultation, among a throng of other illustrious 
pupils of the great Society, Descartes, Torricelli, Tasso, Bossuet, Corneille, 
Moliere, Fontenelle, Bellarmine, Cornelius a Lapide, Bourdaloue. In the 
vindication of them as undoubted benefactors to their fellow-creatures, 
physically no less than intellectually, he recalls to mind the celebrity achieved 
by their beneficent medicaments, asking, for himself, who has not heard of 
Jesuits' bark, Jesuits' drops, Jesuits' powders ? and, with Virgil 

" Qua; regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?" 

Grandly he sings, there, too, in his own voice, though nominally in that 
of an old schoolfellow of Front's, who died in 1754, as a Jesuit Missionary 
in Cochin China, the noble Latin ode in which he commemorates the Vigil 
and Triumphs of the great founder of the Order, Ignatius Loyola 

" Tellus gigantis sentit itur ; siraul 
Idola nutant, fana ruunt, micat 
Christi triumphantis trophoeum, 
Cruxque novos numeral clientes." 

Persecuted from generation to generation ; ruthlessly expelled from Venice j 
twice (it maybe said now, thrice) driven ignominiously from France, where, 
thrust out of the door, they returned through the window ; executed by the 
dozen, here, in England ; encountering stripes, perils, and incarcerations as 
numerous as those of St. Paul, in Poland, Germany, Portugal and Hungary 
the Society's march through Europe for two centuries together, Mahony 
finely declares to be alone comparable in heroic endurance with the retreat of 
the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon. As for himself, he protests that 
he owes everything to their guidance, finding only in the words of Tully any 
adequate expression for his gratitude "Si quid est in me ingenii, judices 
(et sentio quam sit exiguum), si quae exercitatio ab optimarum artium dis- 
ciplinis profecta, earum rerum fructum, sibi, suo jure, debent repetere. " 
It is after this sustained and strenuous avowal of his sense of obligation to 
the Society of Jesus that, as if yielding himself up at once to the irre- 
pressible resilience of his nature as a satiric humorist, he evidently 
enough for the sheer relief of unbending after so much unwonted serious- 
ness, upsets into English verse the extravagant drollery of the Jesuit 
Cresset's comic poem " Vert- Vert," the Parrot who, although he can sing 
of him one while in the days of his original innocence, 

" Green were his feathers, green his pinions, 
And greener still were his opinions," 

alternates, to the delight and terror of the Ursuline community of whom 
he was the boast, between the saintly and the satanic. 



xxiv Biographical Introduction. 

Having unburdened his mind thus in Fraser between 1834 and 1836 of 
a good deal of the miscellaneous load of familiar humour and out-of-the- 
way learning that nevertheless, even when most thickly accumulated there, 
always sat so lightly upon it, Mahony, at the very dawn of 1837, began 
poking his fun anew at the public through an entirely fresh channel that, 
namely, which was opened up to him by Dickens, then at the very outset of 
his career, when, having just completed " Pickwick," and dropped the mask 
of " Boz," he inaugurated under his editorship a new monthly venture for 
the million, under the title of Bentley's Miscellany. The very first page of 
the new periodical was Prout's, dated Watergrasshill, Kal. Januarii, entitled 
No. I of " Our Songs of the Month." It was an effervescent lyrical draught 
from, or anent, the Bottle of St. Januarius. Exactly a year afterwards, in 
the January number of Bentley for 1838, another and somewhat longer 
lyrical effusion from the same pen appeared in the form of "A Poetical 
Epistle from Father Prout to Boz," under date Genoa, the I4th of Decem- 
ber, 1837. Intermediately between these two contributions, Mahony had 
been pouring out his rhymed drolleries abundantly enough, though for the 
most part in a very fragmentary way, in the Miscellany, to the number of 
seventeen or eighteen. Four of these were scattered, like the sugar-plums 
from an exploded bonbon -cracker, in different parts of the initial number 
of Bentley, Teddy O'Dryscull, the Schoolmaster of Watergrasshill being 
ostensibly, in the instance of three of them, the intermediary for their trans- 
mission. Again, in the Miscellany, the charge of plagiarism was demurely 
cast in the teeth of dead and living celebrities by this most incorrigible of 
larking scholiasts Lover's Molly Carew, "Och hone! Oh! what will I 
do?" reappearing as "Heu ! Heu ! me tedet, me piget o ! " while Tom 
Hudson's Barney Brallaghan came forth anew, robed in the classic toga, 
under the title of "The Sabine Farmer's Serenade," with its irresistible 
refrain thus whimsically imitated 

" Semel tantum die eris nostra Lalage" ; 
Ne recuses sic, dulcis Julia Callage." 

Before the close of his connection as a regular contributor with Bentley's Mis- 
cellany, Mahony had- at length forsaken the haunts to which he had latterly 
become accustomed in London, particularly towards the small hours of the 
morning, and had wandered back through Paris into Italy. Thence, being 
in no way tethered, either by home ties or clerical responsibilities, he went 
for two or three years together further afield than he had hitherto ever dreamt 
of venturing. His movements, which were discursive, carried him gradually 
and in a wholly unpremeditated way through Hungary, through Asia 
Minor, through Greece and Egypt, until in 1841 the observant nomad re-, 
turning to the South of France, paused a while there, to all appearance 
solely for rest and reflection. Before setting out on these peregrinations 
he had, in 1837, passed through the press in London, with notes and illus- 
trations, a little duodecimo, entitled " La Boullaye le Gouz in Ireland." 
By the time his wanderings eastward were completed he settled down into 
what came to be thenceforth his confirmed character that of a bookish, 
scholarly flaneur, loitering through life by preference in continental cities ; 
with quips and cranks galore for every one he encountered ; gladdened by 
the chance, whenever he was lucky enough to stumble across one, of fore- 
gathering with an old friend from whom he had long drifted apart, and 



Biographical Introduction. xxv 

from this time forward until the very end giving up his pen exclusively 
to the rough and ready labours of the journalist. Twice in this capacity 
he discharged for a lengthened period, first for two years at Rome, and 
afterwards for eight years together at Paris these being in fact the last years 
of his life the responsible duties of a Special Correspondent. 

As the Roman Correspondent of the Daily News in 1846 and 1847, he 
had the privilege of describing the end of the Pontificate of Gregory the 
Sixteenth and the commencement of the wonderful reign of Pope Pius the 
Ninth. He it was who, shortly after the accession of Giovanni Mastai Ferretti 
to the chair of the Fisherman, said so finely in his regard, in the words of 
the Gospel Fuit homo missus a Deo ctii nomen erat Joannes. In carry- 
ing on this Roman correspondence from day to day Mahony wrote no 
longer like the Prout of Fraser in a conservative sense but, on the contrary, 
as an advanced Liberal. Immediately his communications were brought to 
a conclusion they were collected together as a separate and substantive 
publication his title-page runningthus : "Facts and Figures from Italy, by 
Don Jeremy Savonarola, Benedictine Monk. Addressed during the last two 
Winters to Charles Dickens, Esq., being an Appendix to his ' Pictures.' " 
His introduction to the work, which affected to give an autobiographical 
account of himself as this supposititious monk of St. Benedict, and of his 
supposed birthplace, Sardinia, amounted in reality to a bitter and caustic 
satire, the veil thrown over which was only too transparent. John Taureau, 
Tomaso il Moro, Mac(chiav) Hello, Archbishop of Vestrum, Dandelione, 
Consternatum Hall, and the like, so flagrantly indicated their application, 
that they were almost tantamount to printing the real names they signified 
in italics. Mahony's antipathy to O'Connell, it must be said in honest 
truth, bore about it no more distinct characteristic than that of malignity. 
Nothing less than malignity, it will be evident, dictated every syllable of 
Don Jeremy's revolting lyric entitled "The Lay of Lazarus," or hinted 
with such gusto at the notion of the rats clearing off with the heart of the 
Liberator, after the depositing of that relic overnight in the ponderous 
catafalque. Consistent at least to the very last, in his ungrateful deprecia- 
tion of the archchampion and victor of Catholic Emancipation, was the 
sometime usher of Clongowes, later on Father Prout, later on yet, Don 
Jeremy Savonarola. 

A wanderer by choice for years upon the European continent, a cosmo- 
politan ingrained, Mahony, it has been well said by one of his younger 
friends, Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, while he was at home in many places on 
the banks of the Tiber, the Seine, the Arno, and the Thames was most 
at home in London. Yet for all that he settled down at length en perma- 
nence in dear, delightful Paris" Paris plein^d'or et de misere." Occa- 
sionally, even then, but only at very rare intervals indeed, he wrote for 
the magazines. In 1860, for example, he contributed to the Comhill 'his 
" Inaugural Ode to the Author of 'Vanity Fair' " that dear friend of the old 
Fraser days whom he could never praise too highly. Otherwise Mahony's 
writing during the last eight years of his life was given up exclusively to 
the Globe_ in his capacity as its regular Paris Correspondent. His letters 
there" were often brief, and always both desultory and intermittent. His 
reader, however, sat down to them invariably as a gourmand might sit 
down to a dish of ripe walnuts, with a favourite bottle of madeira at his 
elbow, to crack, and peel, and munch them with a relish et cum grano 



xxvi Biographical Introduction. 

salts. His residence down to the very last during these years was in the 
entresol of one of those huge Parisian hotels in which he so much delighted. 
It was situated in the Rue des Moulins, a thoroughfare running out of 
the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, or, as Thackeray facetiously preferred 
to call it in plain English, the New Street of the Little Fields. There the 
old scholiast, striking at last, so to speak, his nomadic tent, settled down 
permanently in bohemian seclusion. There, at odd intervals, according to 
the spur of the moment, he jotted down those alternately whimsical and 
recondite commentaries on passing events which went to the making up i-f 
his daily newsletter. During the first half-dozen of the " "sixties," his was 
a familiar figure enough to some, at least, of the habitius of the streets of 
Paris. Wherever encountered whether dropping in fitfully at Galignani's 
newsroom, or sipping his brandy-and-water in solitary state at some 
favourite cafe, or mooning, half dreamily, half observantly, along either 
a gaslit or a sunlit boulevard he was scarcely to be passed unnoticed even 
by a stranger. 

As characteristic a glimpse of Father Prout in his Parisian days as any 
I know of is that afforded through the loophole of the third chapter of the 
" Final Reliques," where he is described as one of those voluntary exiles to 
the banks of the Seine, who were as much integral parts of its fair 
Lutetia as Murger, Musset, Privat d'Anglemont, Mery, the great Theo, 
Lespes, Monselet, Dr. Veron, and a host of other strollers. At that time, 
quoth Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, "it was difficult to meet Father Prout. He 
was an odd, uncomfortable, uncertain man. His moods changed like 
April skies. Light little thoughts were busy in his brain, lively and frisk- 
ing as ' troutlets in a pool.' He was impatient of interruption, and 
shambled forward talking in an undertone to himself, with now and then 
a bubble or two of laughter, or one short sharp laugh almost a bark, like 
that of the marksman when the arrow quivers in the bull's-eye. He would 
pass you with a nod that meant, ' Hold off not to-day ! ' You had been 
with him in his entresol of the Rue des Moulins over night, and had been 
dismissed in the small hours when he had had gossiping enough. You 
had been charmed with the range of his scholarship, the ease and raciness 
of his wit, by the masterly skill with which he handled his literary tools, 
and the shades of the best of all good company whom he could summon 
before you in anecdotes which almost brought their breath again upon the 
cheek. To-day he is gathered up closely within himself, and is holding 
company in solitude. He was very impatient if any injudicious friend or 
a passing acquaintance (who took him to be usually as accessible as any 
Jldneitr on the macadam) thrust himself forward and would have his hand 
and agree with him that it was a fine day, but would possibly rain shortly. 
A sharp answer, and an unceremonious plunge forward without bow or 
good-day, would put an end to the interruption. Of course the Father was 
called a bear by ceremonious shallow-pates, who could not see there was 
something extra in the little man talking to himself and shuffling, with his 
hands behind him, through the fines Jleurs and grandes dames of the 
Italian Boulevard. There were boobies of his cloth, moreover, who called 
him a bore. He was forgetful at times of the bieiiseances, it seems, which 
regulate the use of scissors and paste. He made ill-timed visits. He was 
unmindful of the approach of ' the "hour of going to press.' He lingered 
over the paper when a neighbour was waiting for it, while he travelled far 



Biogmpliical Introduction. xxvii 

off amid the vast stores of his memory, seeking to clothe some fact or 
truth of to-day in the splendour of a -classic phrase or in some quaint old 
Jesuit dress. When his brain was full-flowing to his tongue, he would 
keep you under a tropical sun by the Luxor obelisk, and tell you when he 
first knew Paris, and how he saw the scaffoldings of the Rue Royale, and 
what historic pageants he had watched progressing inwards and outwards 
by the Tuileries. Apposite anecdote, queer figure, sounding phrase cover- 
in:.;; wretched littleness, lace coats over muddy petty hearts : Monsieur de 
Talleyrand, Beranger's de, everybody's de, Louis Philippe and his raess, the 
poet-president and then the nephew of somebody who lives to rule the 
roast better roast, too, than Monsieur Chose got by contract for his guests 
ha ! ha ! the Father laughed, unmindful of the heat and he gossiped 
on. Louis Philippe as Ulysses ! as Leech could draw him, with bottle- 
nose, a cotton umbrella under his arm, and a market- basket in his hand, 
going out for the Sunday dinner. The store of recollection would gape 
wide, and it would end with this, ' You've nothing to do for an hour, have 
a cigar.'" Lightly touched in though this silhouette is, it is surely a 
speaking likeness of the man whom, as Mgr. Rogerson reminds me, Vis- 
count Palmerston, Lord John Russell, and others of the Whig party used 
to look up as something to be seen in Paris and encouraged in politics. 

Stooping his short and spare but thick-set figure as he walked, wearing 
his ill-brushed hat upon the extreme back of his head, clothed in the 
slovenliest way in a semi-clerical dress of the shabbiest character, he saun- 
tered by, with his right arm habitually clasped behind him in his left hand 
altogether presenting to view so distinctly the appearance of a member of 
one of the mendicant orders, that upon one occasion, in the Rue de Rivoli, an 
intimate friend of his found it impossible to resist the impulse of slipping a 
sou into the open palm of his right hand, with the apologetic remark, "You 
do look so like a beggar ! " Apart, however, from his threadbare garb and 
shambling gait, there were personal traits of character about him which 
caught the attention almost at a glance, and piqued the curiosity of even 
the least observant wayfarer. The " roguish Hibernian mouth," noted 
in his regard by Mr. Gruneisen, and the grey piercing eyes, that looked 
up at you so keenly over his spectacles, won your interest in him even 
upon a first introduction. From the mocking lip soon afterwards, if you 
fell into conversation with him, came the " loud snappish laugh," with 
which, as Mr. Blanchard Jerrold remarks, the Father so frequently evi- 
denced his appreciation of a casual witticism uproarious fits of merri- 
ment signalizing at other moments one of his own ironical successes, 
outbursts of fun, followed during his later years by the racking cough with 
which he was too often then tormented. His " pipes," as he called the 
bronchial tubes, he mistakenly regarded as the only weak point in his con- 
stitution, his physical strength having been mainly worn down at last by 
k diabetes. That disease, in the midst of a complication of maladies and 
infirmities, first indicated its undermining influence by the excessive 
depression it superinduced in his naturally hilarious temperament. Leading 
in his domestic character the life of a recluse, he had only too obviously 
ample opportunity for solitary reflection. Ordained to the priesthood, 
consecrated to the service of God by the sacred chrisjn, not only, as has been 
seen, had he ceased for years to exercise his sacerttotal faculties, but he had 
even drifted away altogether, as already remarked, from the ordinary prac- 



xxviii Biographical Introduction. 

tices of religion. It must be understood at once, however, and ought, in 
justice to his memory, to be here stated as emphatically as words can in 
any way express it, that contrary to a belief in his regard still unhappily 
very prevalent he never was suspended ! More than this, no shadow 
of a charge was ever directed against him of having, at any time, either 
directly or indirectly, denied his Faith. He was never, it should be added, 
besides, in any way seriously taken to task, either by the Holy See, 
or by his immediate ecclesiastical superiors. More than this, the fact is 
upon record, that the Tablet, having once incidentally referred to him as "a 
suspended priest, " was summarily challenged by him to prove its assertion 
in a court of justice, Mahony laying his damages at ,2,000, and the result 
being that an apology was instantly offered and the charge unconditionally 
withdrawn. 

About six weeks before Mahony's demise, the illness from which he had 
for a considerable interval been more or less constantly suffering assumed 
an unmistakably menacing character. He did then what he had done 
three years previously when attacked by severe indisposition he sent 
round to St. Roch, his parish church, for the Abbe Rogerson. Thence- 
forth, day after day, the latter was sedulously in attendance upon him in 
his apartment. The spiritual adviser of the lonely wit became his friend, 
his guide, his consoler. It is from the testimony of this venerated priest, 
better known now as Monsignor Rogerson, that the facts are derived 
which are here, for the first time in print, about to be enumerated. 
Desirous as I naturally was, immediately upon my having undertaken to 
become Mahony's biographer, to state only in his regard what was abso- 
lutely authentic, but more particularly with reference to the incidents 
attendant upon his deathbed, I turned instinctively, as a matter of 
course, for the desired information to Mgr. Rogerson, my application to 
whom, it is but the simplest justice to say, was responded to with the 
most instant and gracious cordiality. Whatever materials Mgr. Rogerson 
had at his command that were in any way likely to be serviceable to me, 
he placed entirely at my discretion. The characteristic portrait, for 
example, which forms the frontispiece to the present volume he has enabled 
me to have engraved from the latest photograph of Mahony that executed 
by Weyler, of 45 in the Rue Lafitte : the very copy having been generously 
confided to me for that purpose which was the sitter's last souvenir to his 
deathbed confessor. Thanks to a similar kindness again, the very auto- 
graph which will be found inscribed underneath that likeness has been fac- 
similed from one of the very last and one of the most confidential letters 
addressed to Mgr. Rogerson by the author of the Reliques, 

During the closing six weeks of Mahony's existence, within which interval, 
as has been said, he was brought day after day into intimate acquaintance 
with Mgr. Rogerson, their usual hour of meeting was late in the afternoon. 
Ordinarily the former's diurnal letter to the Globe had by that time been com- 
pleted, Father Prout's special correspondence with that journal, by the way, 
being continued up to within a fortnight of the actual date of his decease. 
Upon one of these occasions, however, he had not quite finished his com- 
munication. Hence, upon the Abbe showing himself at the door, which 
generally stood open, Mahony called out with some asperity, " I'm busy." 
" All right," was the reply "and not very civil to-day. That same evening 
a line written with a black-lead pencil on his card was sent round to his 



Biographical Introduction. xxix 

confessor zoologically apologetic thus : "If you will poke up a bear 
in his hours of digestion, you must expect him to growl." Hereupon, 
Mgr. Rogerson remarks, that, although Mahony was undoubtedly by nature 
testy and abrupt, he evidently, in his regard, restrained his impetuosity, as 
a rule receiving him as a priest who had a duty to perform. The exception 
just instanced he conceives to have betokened unmistakably the self- con- 
quest which had already commenced. 

Another slight ebullition of temper is also mentioned as having 
occurred at one of their earlier conferences. Upon the occasion referred 
to, the Abbe had thrown out, it appears, the suggestion that Mahony 
should resort for purposes of especial devotion to Notre Dame des 
Victoires, urging as its peculiar privilege, that that sanctuary was the 
seat of the great archconfraternity for the conversion of sinners, as 
well as a place of holy pilgrimage sought by people of all classes 
when weighed down by any particular anguish or solicitude, adding that 
at such times it was visited, among others, by the Empress Eugenie. 
Upon this Mahony, who had listened sullenly to these remarks, kindling 
into a poetic flame, exclaimed abruptly, "Don't talk to me of localizing 
devotion. God is to be met with in all places. The canopy of heaven is 
the roof of his temple : its walls are not our horizon," and so on. Seeing 
clearly that he was in for a strenuous remonstrance, and realizing at once 
the importance of asserting his own position in his regard, Mgr. Rogerson, 
interrupting him, mildly observed, "Excuse me, I am speaking to you 
under the impression that you are a Catholic wishful to resume his duty. 
Byron has given us his rhapsodies in some such fashion as this. Pray let 
me speak as a priest and as a believer. If you find me limited and illiberal 
seek some one else." Having from the very outset been under the appre- 
hension that he would in his intercourse with Mahony have to encounter 
impatience of control and pride of intellect, Mgr. Rogerson deemed it 
advisable, he says, at once to claim his position unhesitatingly, as here 
described. In so doing it may be remarked at once that he succeeded 
effectually. Mahony never repeated his assault, but on the contrary 
remained to the last docile and tractable. Here, for example, is one of 
the little epistolary indications he gave at this period of his having become 
thoroughly amenable. Dating his note simply "6 o'clock evening," he 
writes as follows with reference to his intended general confession : 

" Dear and Reverend Friend, 

" I am utterly unfit to accomplish the desired object this evening, 

having felt a giddiness of head all the afternoon, and am now compelled to seek sleep. 
It is my dearest wish to make a beginning of this merciful work, but complete prostration 
of mind renders it unattainable just now. I will call in the morning and arrange for 
seeing you. 

" Do pray for your 

" penitent, F. MAHONY." 

Mgr. Rogerson remembers also perfectly well, as he tells me, having been 
influenced in his determination to take this resolute stand with Mahony, 
by reason of his having been some time previously struck by the remark 
of an Irish dignitary, who, when conversing with another bishop on the 
subject of Father Prout, said in the Abbe's hearing, "I should fear him 
even dying ! " the reply of the prelate thus addressed being, " I should covet 
no greater grace than to see poor Frank prepared to die well. " When listen- 



xxx Biographical Introduction. 

ing to those words the Abbe Rogerson little expected, as he says, that his 
was to be the privilege and fit's the responsibility. The event actually 
came to pass, however, on the evening of Friday, the iSth of May, 1866, 
at Mahony's apartment in the entresol of No. 19 in the Rue__.des Moulins, 
and it did so, as will be seen at once, under circumstances of great conso- 
lation both to penitent and confessor. 

Their conversations for half a dozen weeks together, though generally brief 
and business-like, had been often prolonged, extending at those times into 
details of Father Front's past history and reminiscences. Repeatedly 
during the course of them, ejaculations like the following would start in 
anguish from his lips : " But I ought never to have been a priest ! " "I 
had no vocation ! " or exclamations of a similar character. As already 
explained, the Jesuit Fathers, before it was yet too late, had striven in vain 
to impress upon him, betimes, the same conviction. Their proverbial 
powers of penetration had, as Mgr. Rogerson conjectures, enabled them 
even then to detect what was invisible to Mahony himself, namely, a prepon- 
derating excess of will and unusual intellectual endowments, together with 
a ready armoury of dangerous wit and satire. Notwithstanding his general 
recklessness when treating of Churchmen and Church matters, it is especially 
noticeable in his regard that he never once allowed either his tongue or his 
pen to give expression, with reference to his old masters, to any of those denun- 
ciations of the great Order, so much in accord with the popular prejudices. 

Mahony's remorseful sense of having obtruded himself into the Church 
was, it may here be remarked, embodied by him in a document which the 
Abbe Rogerson presented on his behalf to Rome when first he sought his aid 
towards reconciling him to the Church of God. This was in 1863, when, 
through the archbishop's office in Paris, permission was obtained for him 
"to retire for ever," as he expressed it, "from the sanctuary," and to 
resort thenceforth to lay communion. Simultaneously he received a dis- 
pensation enabling him, in consideration of his failing eyesight and his 
advancing age, to substitute the rosaiy or the penitential psalms for his 
daily office in the Breviary. Mahony, it is worthy of note, drew up this 
petition himself at the Abbe Rogerson's suggestion, both its completeness 
and its latinity being so remarkable that the Roman ecclesiastical lawyer 
who charged himself with it volunteered to the Abbe an expression at 
once of his surprise and his admiration. Commenting upon this same 
document Mgr. Rogerson himself remarks, that whilst Mahony's published 
specimens of classical and canine Latin are no doubt the wonder and amuse- 
ment of scholars, his taking up his pen, as he did in this instance, after 
years of disuse, and in a couple of hours throwing off an ecclesiastical 
paper full of technical details and phraseology, was, to say the least of it, 
very remarkable. Already, at the period here immediately referred to, 
that is three years prior to the end, the Abbe had the happiness of restor- 
ing his penitent to practical life in the Church, though, greatly to the inter- 
mediary's regret, only in the degree of lay communion. 

To two alone of Father Prout's friends was this fact communicated one of 
these two being bound to him by ties of affection from their early youth, when 
they were fellow-novices at Acheul, meaning the good Pere Lefevre, while 
the other was the late saintly Bishop Grant of Southwark, who had never, at 
any time evidenced towards Mahony anything like estrangement. It was 
the last-mentioned, by the way, who, in 1848, during Don Jeremy Savona- 



Biographical Introduction. xxxi 

rola's residence in Rome as the Daily News' Correspondent, "drew him, 
in his own sweet winning way," as Mgr. Rogerson expresses it, once 
more within the sanctuary, Father Mahony then for the last time venturing 
to offer up the Holy sacrifice. Many years afterwards the two met by 
accident one day in Paris, at the comer where the Rue de Rivoli turns into 
the Rue Castiglione. The Bishop, stopping abruptly in front of Father 
Prout, claimed him upon the instant as an old friend, calling him delight- 
edly by his real name, and at once walked oft" with him arm-in-arm with 
every evidence of affectionate cordiality. Referring with manifest pleasure 
at the time to this incident, Mahony in 1863 requested the Abbe Rogerson 
to communicate to Bishop Grant and to the Pere Lefevre, and to those two 
intimates alone, the fact of his reconciliation. 

When, towards the close of April, and yet more plainly at the beginning 
of May, 1866, Mahony's last malady gave unmistakable evidence of its 
alarming character, the Abbe Rogerson, finding that his penitent took to his 
bed at length without reluctance (he who had always hitherto striven hard 
to receive his friends in his accustomed corner), directed his utmost efforts 
to the completion of his work by the administration of the last sacraments. 
Immediately prior to Father Prout's actually taking to his deathbed, upon 
the last occasion, that is, of the Abbe's finding him yet "up," he was 
huddled in his arm-chair, scantily clad, and eagerly expectant ! Mgr. 
Rogerson's own words shall be here given : "Thanking me for my patient 
and persevering attention to him during his sickness, he asked pardon of 
me and of the whole world for offences committed against God and to 
the prejudice of his neighbour, and then sinking down in front of me, with 
his face buried in his two hands and resting them on my knees, he received 
from me with convulsive sobs the words of absolution. His genial Irish 
heart was full to overflowing with gratitude to God as a fountain released 
at this moment, and the sunshine of his early goodness had dispelled the 
darkness of his after life, and he was as a child wearied and worn out after 
a day's wanderings, when it had been lost and was found, when it had 
hungered and was fed again. I raised him up, took him in my arms and 
laid him on his bed as I would have treated such a little wanderer of a 
child, and left him without leavetaking on his part, for his heart was too 
full for words. " After this he never attempted to quit his bed, or desired 
to see any one. At the Abbe Rogerson's suggestion, however, he consented 
to see his fellow-novice of the old days, the Pere Lefevre, his parting with 
whom is described as wonderfully touching. The old college intimate, 
addressing him by his once familiar name as a novice, " Sylvestre, " embraced 
him with an effusion of tenderness, and gave him rendezvous in eternity ! 

Two days afterwards he received extreme unction at the hands of the 
Abbe Rogerson. The latter had been desirous, it is true, of giving this 
sacrament to him earlier, Mahony himself, however, entreating at the 
time to be allowed to give the signal himself when he should feel prepared 
for its administration. Immediately upon his confessor's appearance at his 
bedside, on the very next morning, he uttered significantly the two words 
"Holy Oils," upon hearing which the Abbe Rogerson lost no time in 
summoning his assistants, and with the aid of the Abbe Chartrain gave 
the solemn anointing. The last sacred rites having been completed, the 
end was seen to be rapidly approaching. No articulate syllable from that 
moment passed his lips, and at about half-past nine o'clock on the evening 



xxxii Biographical Introduction. 

of Friday, the l8th May, 1866, he tranquilly expired in the presence of his 
sister, Mrs. Woodlock, and of his friend and confessor, the Abbe Rogerson. 
" We could detect," says the latter, " the approach of the final moment, 
and continued through the beautiful prayers for the agonizing, to appeal to 
God, earnestly for him up to the very instant \vhen his breathing ceased. 
He could not, in fact," continues this sympathetic eyewitness, "have sur- 
rounded himself with more accessories of grace had he been permitted to 
sketch out his mode of quitting life ; and I feel that our ever-merciful 
Saviour, His compassionate Mother, and the whole Court of Heaven must 
have welcomed this one other ' lost and found,' wounded it may be and 
having many sores, and requiring the process of renewal in Purgatorial 
detention, but saved. No other thought or feeling comes back to me to 
interrupt as a cloud the clear remembrance that I hold of this event," 
observes Mgr. Rogerson in conclusion, "and it troubles me to hear un- 
catholic reflections pronounced by those whose faith and the experiences 
of life, and much more the 'charity that hopeth all things,' ought to 
check, admonish, and deter. 'And thinkest thou, O man, that judgest 
them that do such things, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? 
or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and patience, and long-suffer- 
ing?' Rom. ii. 3, 4." With reason did the then British consul at Barce- 
lona, James Hannay, write of his old friend, on the morrow of Mahony's 
death, in the Pall Mall Gazette : " Probably nc man with whom he was 
brought into contact, friendly or otherwise, but will hear with satisfaction 
that a sister of his blood and a priest of his faith cheered the deathbed of 
the lonely old wit and scholar, and helped to make his last hours pass 
tranquilly away. " More tranquilly, as will be evident now upon unques- 
tionable authority,. he could not well have passed the awful boundary line 
that divides time from eternity. 

It is characteristic of the magnanimity of the venerable Archbishop 
McHale, who still survives, at the patriarchal age of a nonogenarian, that 
years ago he checked one whom he overheard reprehending Mahony by 
observing that, after all, the Irishman who wrote Father Prout's papers was 
an honour to his country. Dying abroad though he did, his remains had 
fitting sepulture at once in his native land, at his birthplace, Cork, on 
the banks of the river Lee, under the shadow of the spire and within sound 
of those Bells of Shandon he had sung of so lovingly and harmoniously in 
his lyrical masterpiece. Immediately upon its arrival at Cork, upon the 
evening of Sunday, the 27th May, 1866, the coffin containing his remains 
was disembarked from the London steamer and conveyed to St. Patrick's 
Church, King Street, where it was laid in front of the sanctuary until 
the following morning. Shortly after daybreak, masses were said there 
for the repose of the soul of the deceased, at each mass large numbers 
attending. At eight o'clock, Bishop Delaney, preceded by a long procession 
of priests, entered from the sacristy and sang the Miserere. Another pro- 
cession being formed upon the completion of the solemn requiem and the 
aspergings, the remains were borne to the bier which stood in readiness at 
the gates, and conducted, with twenty priests in attendance, to the vaults at 
Shandon, in which, among the dust of many generations of Frank Mahony's 
kith and kin, they have ever since reposed. 

By a curious irony of fate remembering how Mahony during his last 
illness had remarked to the Abbe Rogerson, with especial reference to his 



Biographical Introduction. xxxiii 

threatened action against the Tablet for defamation of character, " I have 
spoken of the C//ev/ization of Ireland, and that amounts to heresy with 
some people," the very number of the Cork Examiner containing the 
account of the funeral ceremony at Shandon, gave on the opposite page 
the announcement from the Freeman 's Jotirnal that "His Holiness the 
Pope, appreciating the eminent services rendered to the Catholic Church 
by the most reverend Dr. Cullen, has elevated his grace to the dignity 
of Cardinal." According to a statement, put forth with the utmost gravity 
of manner, by the late Mr. Gruneisen, in the Pall Mall Gazette, of the 
25th of May, 1866, a Cardinal's hat might have been had by Mahony 
himself, "but for that which was imputed to him as his one great fault 
conviviality. At Rome," continued the writer, " so strongly impressed were 
the leading men of the Church with his abilities, that it was intimated to 
him that he might hope to rise high in honours ecclesiastical if he would 
devote his exclusive services to the Pope. He assented : a period of pro- 
bation was assigned during which it was ascertained that his notions of 
temperance were too liberal for the Church." Mr. Gruneisen further 
asserts in plain words, " Prout told me the temptation he had at Rome," 
that is to this advancement the archwag not impossibly meaning 
all the while to the conviviality. The Pall Mall's Correspondent, though 
frankly acknowledging, " I treated his statement at the time as a joke," 
adds, "but, from one of the highest Church authorities in Paris I sub- 
sequently had full confirmation of the fact that the Cardinal's hat was 
actually offered to him in prospect, and that he lor.t the distinction as 
I have intimated." On submitting these wild rumours and wilder asser- 
tions to the dispassionate judgment of Mgr. Rogerson, I have the latter's 
assurance that Prout at any rate never once spoke to him of a Cardinal's 
hat, and that for his own part he cannot consider the idea in any way to 
have accorded with Mahony's then character. 

Besides the original edition of "The Reliques," published in two 
volumes by James Fraser in 1836, another edition in one volume was 
issued from the press in 1860, otherwise, during Mahony's lifetime, as an 
important integral part of Bonn's Illustrated Library. Supplementary to 
these two editions, an exceedingly miscellaneous collection of his writings 
as a journalist and of memorabilia in his regard contributed by various 
hands, those of several of his friends, acquaintances, and contemporaries, 
appeared in 1875, under the editorship of Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, with the 
title of "Final Reliques of Father Prout." The materials compacted 
together in that volume, however, interesting and valuable though 
some of them undoubtedly were, it must be admitted were so loosely put 
together and so confusedly arranged, that their general effect was a source 
rather of disappointment than of satisfaction. The present edition of the 
collected "Works of Father Prout" is the third that has yet made its 
appearance. Several estimates of the genius and learning, the wit and 
wisdom, of Francis Mahony have been put forth at different times in the 
periodicals both of France and of England, three of which may be regarded 
as of sufficient intrinsic excellence to entitle them to be here enumerated. 
Two of these were from the skilled and scholarly hand of no less sound a 
critic than the late James Hannay, who first of all in the Universal A'tvv', 
for February, 1860, weighed in the balance and did not find wanting the 
humoristic erudition of Father Prout ; and who upon the morrow of 



xxxiv Biographical Introduction. 

Mahony's decease, six years afterwards, with brilliant effect held up in 
contrast to each other in the North British Review for September, 1866, 
those three typical humorists of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Pea- 
cock, Aytoun, and Prout. It was this last-mentioned paper beyond all 
question which in the following year suggested to a French critic the 
article entitled " Trois Ecrivains (humorist) Anglais," meaning Hood, 
Prout, and Thackeray, which in 1867 appeared in the Revue Britan- 
nique. The Works themselves, however, which are here brought 
together, and arranged in chronological sequence, will, without any 
extraneous aid whatever in that direction, most surely guide the saga- 
cious reader to their just appraisement. They are as exhilarating as the 
first runnings of a well-filled wine-press, the grapes heaped together 
in which have been ripened by laughing suns and grown in classic 
vineyards. 



THE 



0f jfatfrer I)nr.ut, 



LATE 



in tije ttoimtj) of OTorfc, JErrlanto. 



COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY 

OLIVER YORKE. 
PREAMBLE. 



[The Preface to the First Edition of the " Relique?," published in 1836, in two 
volumes post octavo, by James Fraser, of 215, Regent Street, was thus entitled. The 
work was embellished with eighteen daintily-pencilled illustrations by Alfred Croquis, 
aftenvards famous under his real name as Daniel Maclise the Royal Academician.] 

IT is much to be regretted that our Author should be no longer in the 
land of the living, to furnish a general Preamble, explanatory of the scope 
and tendency of his multifarious writings. By us, on whom, with the con- 
tents of his coffer, hath devolved the guardianship of his glory, such de- 
ficiency is keenly felt ; having learnt from Epictetus that every sublunary 
thing has two handles (irav vpay^a, Svas exi Aa^os), and from experience 
that mankind are prone to take hold of the wrong one. King Ptolemy, to 
whom we owe the first translation of the Bible into a then vulgar tongue 
(and consequently a long array of ' ' centenary celebrations "), proclaimed, 
in the pithy inscription placed by his order over the entrance of the Alex- 
andrian Library, that books were a sort of physic. The analogy is just, 
and pursuing it, we would remark that, like other patent medicines, they 
should invariably be accompanied with "directions for use." Such 



xxxvi Preamble. 

yoptva would we in the present case be delighted ourselves to supply, but 
that we have profitably studied the fable of La Fontaine entitled " L'.-lae 
qui portail les Rdiques " (liv. v. fab. 14). 

Nevertheless.it is not our intention, in giving utterance to such a very natu- 
ral regret, to insinuate that the present production of the lamented writer is 
unfinished, abortive, or incomplete : on the contrary, our interest prompts 
us to pronounce it complete, as far as it goes. It requires, in point of fact, 
no extrinsic matter ; and Prout, as an author, will be found what he wr.s 
in the flesh " tolas tercs atque rotundus." Still, a suitable introduction, 
furnished by a kindred genius, would in our idea be ornamental. The 
Pantheon of republican Rome, perfect in its simplicity, yet derived a sup- 
plementary grace from the portico superadded by Agrippa. 

All that remains for us to say under the circumstances is to deprecate 
the evil constructions which clumsy "journeymen" may hereafter put on 
the book. In our opinion it can bear none. 

The readers of Frascr's Magazine will recognize these twelve papers as 
having been originally put forth, under our auspices, in one year's consecu- 
tive numbers of tfegina i.e., from the 1st of April, 1834, to the recurrence 
of that significant date in 1835. For reprinting them in their present 
shape we might fairly allege the urgent "request of friends," had not the 
epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot made that formula too ridiculous ; we will, there- 
fore content ourselves by stating that we merely seek to justify, by this 
undertaking, the confidential trust reposed in us by the parish of Water- 
grasshill. 

Much meditating on the materials that fill "the chest," and daily more 
impressed with the merit of our author, we thought it a pity that its wis- 
dom should be suffered to evaporate in magazine squibs. What impression 
could, in sooth, be made on the public mind by such desultory explosions? 
Never on the dense mass of readers can isolated random shots produce the 
effect of a regular feu de peloton. For this reason we have arranged in one 
volume his files of mental musketry, to secure a simultaneous discharge. 
The hint, perhaps, of right belongs to the ingenious Fieschi. 

We have been careful to preserve the order of succession in which these 
essays first met the public eye, prefixing to each such introductory com- 
ments as from time to time we felt disposed to indulge in, with reference 
to synchronous occurrences for, on looking back, we find we have been 
on some occasions historical, on others prophetical, and not unfrequently 
rhapsodical. This latter charge we fully anticipate, candidly confessing 
that we have been led into the practice by the advice and example of 
Fliny the Younger : " Ipsa varietatc," are his words, " Icntamus efficere ttt 



Preamble. xxxvii 

alia aliis, qiuzdam fortasse omnibus placeant. " This would appear to con- 
stitute the whole theory of miscellaneous writing : nor ought it to be for- 
gotten by the admirers of more strictly methodical disquisition, that 
" L'ennui naf uit un jour de I'uniformitc." 

Caterers for public taste, we apprehend, should act on gastronomic 
principles; according to which " toujours Prout" would be far less 
acceptable than "toujours perdrix:" hence the necessity for a few hors 
d'ccitvres. 

We have hitherto had considerable difficulty in establishing, to the satis- 
faction of refractory critics, the authenticity of one simple fact ; viz. , that 
of our author's death, and the consequently posthumous nature of these 
publications. People absurdly persist in holding him in the light of a 
living writer : hence a sad waste of wholesome advice, which, if judiciously 
expended on some reclaimable sinner, would, no doubt, fructify in due 
season. In his case 'tis a dead loss Prout is a literary mummy ! Folks 
should look to this : Lazarus will not come forth to listen to their stric- 
tures ; neither, should they happen to be in a complimentary mood, will 
Samuel arise at the witchery of commendation. 

Objects of art and virtu lose considerably by not being viewed in their 
proper light ; and the common noonday effulgence is not the fittest for the 
right contemplation of certain capi cfopera. Canova, we know, preferred 
the midnight taper. Let therefore, " tit fruaris refyutis" (Phad. lib. i. 
fab. 22), the dim penumbra of a sepulchral lamp shed its solemn influence 
over the page of Prout, and alone preside at its perusal. 

Posthumous authorship, we must say, possesses infinite advantages ; and 
nothing so truly serves a book as the writer's removal by death or trans- 
portation from the sphere or hemisphere of his readers. The ' ' Memoirs 
of Captain Rock " were rendered doubly interesting by being dated from 
Sidney Cove. Byron wrote from Venice with increased effect. Nor can 
we at all sympathize with the exiled Ovid's plaintive utterance, "Sine me, 
liber, ibis in tirbem." His absence from town, he must have known, was a 
right good thing for his " publisher under the pillars." But though distance 
be useful, death is unquestionably better. Far off, an author is respected ; 
dead, he is beloved. Extinctus, amabitzir. 

[This theory is incidentally dwelt on by Prout himself in one of his 
many papers published by us, though not comprised within the present 
limited collection. In recounting the Roman adventures of his fellow- 
townsman Barry, he takes the occasi<^i to contrast the neglect which his 
friend experienced during life with the rank now assigned him in pictorial 
celebrity. 



xxxviii Preamble. 

Ainsi les maitres de la lyre 

Partout exhalent leur chagrins ; 
Vivans, la haine les dechire, 
Et ces dieux, que la terre admire, 

Ont peu comptd de jours serens. 

Longtemps la gloire fugitive 

Semble tromper leur noble orgeuil ; 
La gloire enfin pour eux arrive, 
Et toujours sa palme tardive 

Croit plus belle pres d'un cerceuil. 

FONTANES, Ode <i Chateaubriand. 

I've known the youth with genius cursed 
I've mark'd his eye hope-lit at first ; 
Then seen his heart indignant burst, 

To find his efforts scorn'd. 
Soft on his pensive hour I stole, 
And saw him draw, with anguish'd soul, 
Glory's immortal muster-roll. 

His name should have adorn 'd. 

His fate had been, with anxious mind, 
To chase the phantom Fame to find 
His grasp eluded ! Calm, resign'd, 

He knows his doom he dies. 
Then comes RENOWN, then FAME appears, 
GLORY proclaims the Coffin hers ! 
Aye greenest over sepulchres 

Palm-tree and laurel rise. 

PROUT, Notti Romans nel Palazzo Vaticano.\ 

Vr'e recollect to have been forcibly struck with a practical application of 
this doctrine to commercial enterprise when we last visited Paris. The 
2nd of November, being "All Souls'-day,"* had drawn a concourse of 
melancholy people to Ptre la \Chaise, ourselves with the rest ; on which 
occasion our eye was arrested, in one of the most sequestered walks of that 
romantic necropolis, by the faint glimmering of a delicious little lamp a 
glow-worm of bronze keeping silent and sentimental vigil under a modest 
urn of black marble, inscribed thus : 

CI-GIT FOURNIER (Pierre Victor), 

Inventeur brevete" des lampes dites sans fin, 

Brulant unJ centime d'huile a 1'heure. 

1L FUT BON FERE, BON FILS, BON EPOUX. 
SA VEUVE INCONSOLABLE 

Continue son commerce, Rue aux Ours, No. 19. 

Elle fait des envois dans les d<5partemens. 

N.B. ne pas confondre avec la boutique en face s.v. p. 

R. i. p. 



Preamble. xxxix 

We had been thinking of- purchasing an article of the kind ; so, on our 
return, we made it a point to pass the Rue aux Ours, and give our custom 
to the mournful Artemisia. On entering the shop, a rubicund tradesman 
accosted us ; but we intimated our wish to transact business with ' ' the 
widow," "La veuve inconsolable? " " Eh, pardteu I c"est moi! je suis, 
moi, Pierre Fournier, inventeur, &c. : la veuve n'est qtfun symlole, tin 
mythe." We admired his ingenuity, and bought his lamp; by the mild 
ray of which patent contrivance we have profitably pursued our editorial 
labours. 

OLIVER YORKE. 
REGENT STREET, Feb. 29, 1836. 

* In the first edition of the " Reliques " the date of All Souls' was given very literally 
indeed by a "clerical " error as the ist of November. 



"At Covent Garden a sacred drama, on the story of Jcphlha, 
conveying solemn impressions, is PROHIBITED as a PROFANATION of 
the period of fasting and mortification ! There is no doubt where the 
odium should fix on the Lord Chamberlain or on the BISHOP OF 
LONDON. Let some intelligent Member of Parliament bring the ques- 
tion before the HOUSE OF COMMONS." 

Times, Feb. 20 and 21, 1834. 



THE WORKS OF FATHER PROUT. 

THE RELIQUES. 



Jf 



I. 
rmif s 0ir for 



HIS DEATH, OBSEQUIES, AND AN ELEGY. 

(Fraser s Magazine, April, 1834.) 
o 

[Mahony's first contribution to Fraser appealed in the same numbef in which Carlyle 
completed the second of the three books of his " Sartor Resartus." The now well-known 
Magazine, which had already won to itself a high degree of popularity, had but just then 
rounded the fourth year of its existence. Its salient feature from its commencement had 
been, as it long continued to be, the publication in each monthly instalment of one in a 
singularly Varied Gallery of Literary Characters. These were doubly sketched, and 
with about an equally startling vividness, by the pseudonymous pencil of Alfred Croquis, 
a young artist afterwards world-famous in his own name as Daniel Maclise, R.A., and, 
upon a confronting leaf, by the pen of an anonymous writer, who was in reality no less 
Caustic and scholarly a wit than Dr. William Maginn, then the responsible editor of 
Regina. No. 47 in that Gallery portrayed thus, in walking costume, for the amuse- 
ment of the readers of Fraser, the well-buttpned-up form and vinous countenance of 
Theodore Hook, author of " Sayings and Doings." A couple of years afterwards, when 
" The Reliques " were collected together for independent publication, Maclise's facile 
pencil adorned this opening chapter with two embellishments, one of them forming the 
frontispiece to the first volume, being his wicked limning, under embowering nets, of 
Mahony seated vis-d-vis with his alter ego or eidolon Father Prout, each busily engaged, 
fork in hand, discussing his ahem ! " Apology for Lent ! " relays of dishes being 
brought in processionally to the already well-laden board ; while the other, the companion 
vignette, appended to this opening instalment of the " Reliques," delineated, under the 
two significant words " Pace Implora," the reverend Father's solemn interment.] 



" Cependant, suivant la chronique, 

Le CarSme, depuis un mois, 
Sur tout 1'univers Catholique 
Etendait ses severes lois." CRESSET. 

THERE has been this season in town a sad outcry against Lent. For the first 
week the metropolis was in a complete uproar at the suppression of the 
oratorio ; and no act of authority since the fatal ordonnances of Charles X. 
bid fairer to revolutionize a capital than the message sent from Bishop Blom- 
field to Manager Bunn. That storm has happily blown over. The Cockneys, 
having fretted their idle hour, and vented their impotent ire through their 



TJie Works of Father Prout. 



"safety-valve," the press, have quietly relapsed into their wonted attitude of 
indifference and resumed their customary calm. The clamour of the day is 
now passed and gone, and the dramatic " murder of Jephtha " is forgotten. In 
truth, after all, there was something due to local reminiscences ; and when the 
present tenants of the " Garden" recollect that in by-gone days these " deep 
solitudes and awful cells " were the abode of fasting and austerity, they will 
not grudge the once-hallowed premises to commemorate in sober stillness the 
Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent. But let that rest. An infringement on 
the freedom of theatricals, though in itself a grievance, will not, in all likeli- 
hood, be the immediate cause of a convulsion in these realms ; and it will 
probably require some more palpable deprivation to arouse the sleeping 
energies of John Bull, and to awake his dormant anger. 

It was characteristic of the degeneracy of the Romans, that while they 
crouched in prostrate servility to each imperial monster that swayed their desti- 
nies in succession, they never would allow their amusements to be invaded, nor 
tolerate a cessation of the sports of the amphitheatre ; so that even the despot, 
while he riveted their chains, would pause and shudder at the well-known 
ferocious cry of "Pattern et Circenscs !" Now, food and the drama stand 
relatively to each other in very different degrees of importance in England ; 
and while provisions are plentiful, other matters have but a minor influence on 
the popular sensibilities. The time may come, when, by the bungling measures 
of a Whig administration, brought to their full maturity of mischief by the 
studied neglect of the agricultural and shipping interests, the general disorgan- 
ization of the state-machinery at home, and the natural results of their inter- 
meddling abroad, a dearth of the primary articles of domestic consumption 
may bring to the Englishman's fireside the broad conviction of a misrule and 
mismanagement too long and too sluggishly endured. It may then be too 
late to apply remedial measures with efficacy ; and the only resource left, may 
be, like Caleb Balderstone at Wolfs Crag, to proclaim "a general fast." 
When that emergency shall arise, the quaint and original, nay, sometimes 
luminous and philosophic, views of Father Prout on the fast of Lent, may 
afford much matter for speculation to the British public ; or, as Childe Harold 
says, 

" Much that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly." 

Before we bring forward Father Prout's lucubrations on this grave subject, 
it may be allowable, by way of preliminary observation, to remark, that, as 
far as Lent is concerned, as well indeed as in all other matters, " they manage 
these things differently abroad." In foreign countries a carnival is the 
appropriate prelude to abstemiousness ; and folks get such a surfeit of 
amusement during the saturnalian days which precede its observance, that they 
find a grateful repose in the sedate quietude that ensues. The custom is a 
point of national taste, which I leave to its own merits ; but whoever has 
resided on the Continent must have observed that all this bacchanalian riot 
suddenly terminates on Shrove Tuesday ; the fun and frolic expire with the 
"boeuf-gras; " and the shouts of the revellers, so boisterous and incessant 
during the preceding week, on Ash Wednesday are heard no more. A singu- 
lar ceremony in all the churches that of sprinkling over the congregation 
on that Wednesday the pulverized embers of the boughs of an evergreen 
(meant, I suppose, as an emblem and record of man's mortality) appears to 
have the instantaneous effect of turning their thoughts into a different channel : 
the busy hum subsides at once; and learned commentators have found, in the 
fourth book of Virgil's Georgics, a prophetic allusion to this magic operation : 

" Hi motus animorum atque h?ec certamina tanta 
Pulveris exiijui jactu compressa quiescunt." 

The non-consumption of butchers' meat, and the substitution of fish diet, 






FatJier Front's Apology for Lent. 



is also a prominent feature in the continental form of observing Lent ; and on 
this topic Father Prout has been remarkably discursive, as will be seen on 
perusal of the following pages. To explain how I became the depositary of 
the reverend man's notions, and why he did not publish them in his lifetime 
(for, alas ! he is no more peace be to his ashes ! ) is a duty which I owe the 
reader, and from which I am far from shrinking. I admit that some apology 
is required for conveying the lucid and clarified ideas of a great and good 
divine through the opaque and profane medium that is now employed to bring 
them under the public eye ; I account for it accordingly. 

I am a younger son. I belong to an ancient, but poor and dilapidated 
house, of which the patrimonial estate was barely enough for my elder ; hence, 
as my share resembled what is scientifically called an evanescent quantity, I 
was directed to apply to that noble refuge of unprovided genius the bar ! 
To the bar, with a heavy heart and aching head, I devoted year after year, 
and was about to become a tolerable proficient in the black letter, when an 
epistle from Ireland reached me in Furnival's Inn, and altered my prospects ma- 
terially. This despatch was from an old Roman Catholic aunt whom I had in 
that country, and whose house I had been sent to, when a child, on the specu- 
lation that this visit to my venerable relative, who, to her other good qualities, 
added that of being a resolute spinster, might determine her, as she was both 
rich and capricious, to make me her inheritor. The letter urged my imme- 
diate presence in the dying chamber of the Lady Cresswell ; and as no time was 
to be lost, I contrived to reach in two days the lonely and desolate mansion on 
Watergrasshill, in the vicinity of Cork. As I entered the apartment, by the 
scanty light of the lamp that glimmered dimly, I recognized, with some 
difficulty, the emaciated form of my gaunt and withered kinswoman, over 
\vhose features, originally thin and wan, the pallid hue of approaching death 
cast additional ghastliness. By the bedside stood the rueful and unearthly 
form of Father Prout ; and, while the sort of chiaroscuro in which his figure 
appeared, half shrouded, half revealed, served to impress me with a proper 
awe for his solemn functions, the scene itself, and the probable consequences 
to me of this last interview with my aunt, affected me exceedingly. I involun- 
tarily knelt ; and while I felt my hands grasped by the long, cold, and bony 
fingers of the dying, my whole frame thrilled ; and her words, the last she 
spoke in this world, fell on my ears with all the effect of a potent witchery, 
never to be forgotten! "Frank," said the Lady Cresswell, "my lands and 
perishable riches I have bequeathed to you, though you hold not the creed of 
which this is a minister, and I die a worthless but steadfast votary : only 
promise me and this holy man that, in memory of one to whom your welfare 
is dear, you will keep the fast of Lent while you live ; and, as I cannot control 
your inward belief, be at least in this respect a Roman Catholic : I ask no 
more." How could I have refused so simple an injunction? and what junior 
member of the bar would not hold a good rental by so easy a tenure ? In 
brief, I was pledged in that solemn hour to Father Prout, and to my kind and 
simple-hearted aunt, whose grave is in Rathcooney, and whose soul is in 
heaven. 

During my short stay at Watergrasshill (a wild and romantic district, of 
which every brake and fell, every bog and quagmire, is well known to Crofton 
Croker for it is the very Arcadia of his fictions), I formed an intimacy with this 
Father Andrew Prout, the pastor of the upland, and a man celebrated in the 
south of Ireland. He was one of that race of priests now unfortunately 
extinct, or very nearly so, like the old breed of wolf-dogs, in the island : I 
allude to those of his order who were educated abroad, before the French 
revolution, and had imbibed, from associating with the polished and high-born 
clergy of the old Galilean church, a loftier range of thought, and a superior 
delicacy of sentiment. Hence, in his evidence before the House of Lords, 



The Works of Father Front. 



"the glorious Dan" has not concealed the grudge he feels towards those 
clergymen, educated on the Continent, who, having witnessed the doings 
of the sansculottes in France, have no fancy to a rehearsal of the same in 
Ireland. Of this class was Prout, P.P. of Watergrasshill ; but his real 
value was very faintly appreciated by his rude flock : he was not understood by 
his contemporaries ; his thoughts were not their thoughts, neither could he 
commune with kindred souls on that wild mountain. Of his genealogy 
nothing was ever known with certainty ; but in this he resembled Melchizedek : 
like Eugene Aram, he had excited the most intense interest in the highest 
quarters, still did he studiously court retirement. He was thought by some 
to be deep in alchemy, like Friar Bacon ; but the gaugers never even suspected 
him of distilling "potheen." He was known to have brought from France a 
spirit of the most chivalrous gallantry ; still, like Pension retired from the 
court of Louis XIV., he shunned the attractions of the sex, for the sake of 
his pastoral charge : but in the rigour of his abstinence, and the frugality of 
his diet, he resembled no one, and none kept Lent so strictly. 

Of his gallantry one anecdote will be sufficient. The fashionable Mrs. P , 

with two female companions, travelling through the county of Cork, stopped 
for Divine service at the chapel of Watergrasshill (which is on the high road 
on the Dublin line), and entered its rude gate while Prout was addressing his 
congregation. His quick eye soon detected his fair visitants standing behind 
the motley crowd, by whom they were totally unnoticed, so intent were all 
on the discourse ; when, interrupting the thread of his homily, to procure 
suitable accommodation for the strangers, "Boys!" cried the old man, "why 
don't ye give three chairs for the ladies?" " Three cheers for the ladies ! " 
re-echoed at once the parish clerk. It was what might be termed a clerical, 
but certainly a very natural, error ; and so acceptable a proposal was suitably 
responded to by the frieze-coated multitude, whose triple shout shook the very 
cobwebs on the roof of the chapel ! after which slight incident, service was 
quietly resumed. 

He was extremely fond of angling; a recreation which, while it ministered 
to his necessary relaxation from the toils of the mission, enabled him to 
observe cheaply the fish diet imperative on fast days. For this he had estab- 
lished his residence at the mountain-source of a considerable brook, which, 
after winding through the parish, joins the Blackwater at Fermoy ; and on its 
banks would be found, armed with his rod, and wrapped in his strange 
cassock, fit to personate the river-god or presiding genius of the stream. [Old 
Izaak Walton would have liked the man exceedingly.] 

His modest parlour would not ill become the hut of one of the fishermen of 
Galilee. A huge net in festoons curtained his casement ; a salmon-spear, 
sundry rods, and fishing tackle, hung round the walls and over his bookcase, 
which latter object was to him the perennial spring of refined enjoyment. 
Still he would sigh for the vast libraries of France, and her well-appointed 
scientific halls, where he had spent his youth, in converse with the first 
literary characters and most learned divines; and once he directed my 
attention to what appeared to be a row of folio volumes at the bottom of his 
collection, but which I found on trial to be so many large stone-flags, with 
parchment backs, bearing the appropriate title of CORNELII A LAPIDE 
Opera qua extant omnia ; by which semblance of that old Jesuit's commen- 
taries he consoled himself for the absence of the original. 

His classic acquirements were considerable, as will appear by his essay on 
Lent; and while they made him a most instructive companion, his unobtrusive 
merit left the m&st favourable impression. The general character of a 
churchman is singularly improved by the tributary accomplishments of the 
scholar, and literature is like a pure grain of Araby's incense in the golden 
censer of religion. His taste for the fine arts was more genuine than might 



FatJicr P rout's Apology for Lent. 5 

be conjectured from the scanty specimens that adorned his apartment, 
though perfectly in keeping 1 with his favourite sport ; for there hung over the 
mantelpiece a print of Raphael's cartoon the " Miraculous Draught ;" here, 
"Tobith rescued by an Angel from the Fish;" and there, " St. Anthony 
preaching to the Fishes." 

With this learned Theban I held a long and serious converse on the nature 
of the antiquated observance I had pledged myself to keep up ; and oft have 
we discussed the matter at his frugal table, aiding our conferences with a plate 
of water-cresses and a red herring. I have taken copious notes of Father 
Prout's leading topics ; and while I can vouch them as his genuine arguments, 
I will not be answerable for the style ; which may possibly be my own, and 
probably, like the subject, exceedingly jejune. 

I publish them in pure self-defence. I have been so often called on to 
explain my peculiarities relative to Lent, that I must resort to the press for a 
riddance of my persecutors. The spring, which exhilarates all nature, is to 
me but the herald of tribulation ; for it is accompanied in the Lent season 
with a recurrence of a host of annoyances consequent on the tenure by 
which I hold my aunt's property. I have at last resolved to state my case 
openly; and I trust that, taking up arms against a sea of troubles, I may, by 
exposing, end them. No blessing comes unalloyed here below : there is ever 
a cankerworm in the rose ; a dactyl is sure to be mixed up with a spondee in 
the poetry of life ; and, as Homer sings, there stand two urns, or crocks, 
beside the throne of Jove, from which he doles out alternate good and bad 
gifts to men, but mostly both together. 

I grant, that to repine at one's share of the common allotment would 
indicate bad taste, and afford evidence of ill-humour : but still a passing 
insight into my case will prove it one of peculiar hardship. As regularly as 
dinner is announced, so surely do I know that my hour is come to be stared 
at as a disciple of Pythagoras, or scrutinized as a follower of the Venetian 
Cornaro. I am "a lion" at "feeding time." To tempt me from my 
allegiance by the proffer of a turkey's wing, to eulogize the sirloin, or dwell on 
the haut gout of the haunch, are among my friends' (?) practical sources of 
merriment. To reason with them at such unpropitious moments, and against 
such fearful odds, would be a hopeless experiment ; and I have learned from 
Horace and Father Prout, that there are certain mollia tempora, fandi, which 
should always be attended to : in such cases I chew the cud of my resentment, 
and eke out my repast on salt-fish in silence. None will be disposed to 
question my claim to the merit of fortitude. In vain have I been summoned 
by the prettiest lisp to partake of the most tempting delicacies. I have 
declined each lady-hostess's hospitable offer, as if, to speak in classic parlance, 
Canidia tractavit dopes ; or, to use the vernacular phraseology of Moore, 
as if 

" The trail of the serpent was over them all." 

Hence, at the club I am looked on as a sort of rara avis ; or, to speak 
more appropriately, as an odd fish. Some have spread a report that I have a 
large share in the Hungerford Market ; others, that I am a Saint Simonian. 
A fellow of the Zoological Society has ascertained, forsooth, from certain 
maxillary appearances, that I am decidedly of the class of i-xQvotfruyoi, with a 
mixture of the herbivorous. When the truth is known, as it will be on the 
publication of this paper, it will be seen that I am no phenomenon what- 
ever. 

My witty cousin, Harriet R., will no longer consider me a fit subject for the 
exercise of her ingenuity, nor present me a copy of Gray's Poems, with the 
page turned down at "An Elegy on a Cat drowned in a Tub of Gold 
Fishes." She will perhaps, when asked to sing, select some other aria 
besides that eternal barcarolle, 






The Works of Father Front. 



" O pescator dell' onda, 
Vieni pescar in quil 
Colla bella tua barca ! " 

and if I happen to approach the loo-table, she will not think it again 
necessary to caution the old dowagers to take care of their fish. 

Revtnons a nos moutons. When last I supped with Father Prout, on the 
eve of my departure from Watergrasshill (and I can only compare my reminis- 
cences of that classic banquet to Xenophon's account of the symposion of 
Plato), " Young man," said he, " you had a good aunt in the Lady Cresswell ; 
and if you thought as we do, that the orisons of kindred and friends can benefit 
the dead, you should pray for her as long as you live. But you belong to a 
different creed different, I mean, as to this particular point ; for, as a whole, 
your Church of England bears a close resemblance to ours of Rome. The 
daughter will ever inherit the leading features of the mother ; and though in 
your eyes the fresh and unwithered fascinations of the new faith may fling into 
the shade the more matronly graces of the old, somewhat on the principle 
of Horace, O matre pulchr'i filia pulchriorl still has our ancient worship 
many and potent charms. I could proudly dwell on the historic recollections 
that emblazon her escutcheon, the pomp and pageantry of her gorgeous 
liturgy " 

" Pardon me, reverend friend," I interposed, lest he should diverge, as was 
his habit, into some long-winded argument, foreign to the topic on which I 
sought to be informed, "I do not undervalue the matronly graces of your 
venerable church ; but (pointing to the remnant of what had been a red her- 
ring) let us talk of her fish-diet and fast-days." 

"Ay, you are right there, child," resumed Prout ; " I perceive where my 
panegyric must end 

' Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne ! ' 

You will get a famous badgering in town when you are found out to have for- 
sworn the flesh-pots ; and Lent will be a sad season for you among the 
Egyptians. But you need not be unprovided with plausible reasons for your 
abstinence, besides the sterling considerations of the rental. Notwithstanding 
that it has been said or sung by your Lord Byron, that 

' Man is a carnivorous production, 
And cannot live (as woodcocks do) on suction ; ' 

still that noble poet (I speak from the record of his life and habits furnished us 
by Moore) habitually eschewed animal food, detested gross feeders, and in his 
own case lived most frugally, I might even say ascetically ; and this abstemi- 
ousness he practised from a refinement of choice, for he had registered no vow 
to heaven, or to a maiden aunt. The observance will no doubt prove a trial of 
fortitude; but for your part at the festive board, were you so criminal as to 
transgress, would not the spectre of the Lady Cresswell, like the ghost of 
Banquo, rise to rebuke you ? 

"And besides, these days of fasting are of the most remote antiquity; they 
are referred to as being in vogue at the first general council that legislated for 
Christendom at Nice, in Bithynia, A.D. 325 ; and the subsequent assembly of 
bishops at Laodicea ratified the institution A.D. 364. Its discipline is fully'de- 
veloped in the classic pages of the accomplished Tertullian, in the second century 
(Tract, dejejuniis). I say no more. These are what Edmund Burke would 
call 'grave and reverend authorities," and, in the silence of Holy Writ, may 
go as historic evidence of primitive Christianity ; but if you press me, I can no 
more show cause under the proper hand and seal of an apostle for keeping the 
fast on these days, than I can for keeping the Sabbath on Sunday. 

" 1 do not choose to notice that sort of criticism, in its dotage, that would 
trace the custom to the well-known avocation of the early disciples : though 



Father Front's Apology for Lent, 



that they were fishermen is most true, and that even after they had been raised 
to the apostolic dignity, they relapsed occasionally into the innocent pursuit of 
their primeval calling, still haunted the shores of the accustomed lake, and 
loved to disturb with their nets the crystal surface of Gennesareth. 

' ' Lent is an institution which should have been long since rescued from the 
cobwebs of theology, and restored to the domain of the political economist, 
for there is no prospect of arguing the matter in a fair spirit among conflicting 
divines ; and, of all things, polemics are the most stale and unprofitable. 
Loaves and fishes have, in all ages of the church, had charms for us of the cloth ; 
yet how few would confine their frugal bill of fare to mere loaves and fishes ! 
So far Lent may be considered a stumbling-block. But here I dismiss theology : 
nor shall I further trespass on your patience by angling for arguments in the 
muddy stream of church history, as it rolls its troubled waters over the middle 
ages. 

"Your black-letter acquirements, I doubt not, are considerable; but have 
you adverted to a clause in Queen Elizabeth's enactment for the improvement 
of the shipping interests in the year 1564? You will, I believe, find it to run 
thus : 

"Anno 50 Eliz. cap. v. sect, n : 'And for encrease of provision of fishe 
by the more usual eating thereof, bee it further enacted, that from the feast of 
St. Mighell th'archangell, ano. Dni. fiftene hundreth threescore foure, every 
Wednesdaye in every weeke through the whole yere shal be hereafter observed 
and kepte as the Saturdays in every weeke be or ought to be ; and that no 
person shal eat any fleshe no more than on the common Saturdays. 

" 12. ' And bee it further enacted by th'auctoritee aforesaid, for the commo- 
ditie and benifit of this realme, as well to growe the navie as in sparing and 
encrease of fleshe victual, that from and after the feast of Pentecost next 
coming, yt shall not be lawful for any p'son to eat any fleshe upon any days 
now usually observed as fish-days ; and that any p'son offending herein shal 
forfeite three powndes for every tyme.' 

" I do not attach so much importance to the act of her royal successor, 
James I., who in 1619 issued a proclamation, reminding his English subjects of 
the obligation of keeping Lent; because his Majesty's object is clearly ascer- 
tained to have been to encourage the traffic of his countrymen the Scotch, who 
had just then embarked largely in the herring trade, and for whom the thrifty 
Stuart was anxious to secure a monopoly in the British markets. 

" But when, in 1627, I find the chivalrous Charles I., your martyred king, 
sending forth from the banqueting-room of Whitehall his royal decree to the 
same effect, I am at a loss to trace his motives. It is known that Archbishop 
Laud's advice went to the effect of reinstating many customs of Catholicity; 
but, from a more diligent consideration of the subject, I am more inclined to 
think that the king wished rather, by this display of austere practices, to soothe 
and conciliate the Puritanical portion of his subjects, whose religious notions 
were supposed (I know not how justly) to have a tendency to self-denial and 
the mortification of the flesh. Certain it is, that the Calvinists and Round- 
heads were greater favourites at Billingsgate than the high-church party ; from 
which we may conclude that they consumed more fish. A fact corroborated by 
the contemporary testimony of Samuel Butler, who says .that, when the great 
struggle commenced, 

' Each fisherwoman locked her fish up, 
And trudged abroad to cry, No Bishop ! ' 

" I will only remark, in furtherance of my own views, that the king's beef- 
eaters, and the gormandizing Cavaliers of that period, could never stand in 
fair fight against the austere and fasting Cromwellians. 

" It is a vulgar error of your countrymen to connect valour with roast beef, 



TJic Works of Father Front. 



or courage with plum-pudding. There exists no such association ; and I 
wonder this national mistake has not been duly noticed by Jeremy Bentham in 
his ' Book of Fallacies.' As soon might it be presumed that the pot-bellied 
Falstaff, faring on venison and sack, could overcome in prowess Owen Glen- 
dower, who. I suppose, fed on leeks ; or that the lean and emaciated Cassius 
was not a better soldier than a well-known sleek and greasy rogue who fled 
from the battle of Philippi, and, as he himself unblushingly tells the world, left 
his buckler behind him : ' KelictQ, non bene parmul(L.' 

' ' I cannot contain my bile when I witness the mode in which the lower 
orders in your country abuse the French, for whom they have found nothing in 
their Anglo-Saxon vocabulary so expressive of contempt as the term ' frog- 
eater.' A Frenchman is not supposed to be of the same flesh and blood as 
themselves ; but, like the water-snake described in the Georgics 

' Piscibus atram, 
Improbus ingluviem ranisque loquacibus iraplet.' 

Hence it is carefully instilled into the infant mind (when the young idea is 
taught how to shoot), that you won the victories of Poitiers and Agincourt 
mainly by the superiority of your diet. Jn hewing down the ranks of the foe- 
man, much of the English army's success is of course attributed to the dex- 
terous management of their cross-bills, but considerably more to their bill of 
fare. If I could reason with such simpletons, I would refer them to the records 
of the commissariat department of that day, and open to their vulgar gaze the 
folio vii. of Rymer's Fccdera, where, in the twelfth year of Edward III., 
A.D. 1338, at page 1021, they would find, that previous to the victory of Cressy 
there were shipped at Portsmouth, for the use of these gallant troops, fifty tons 
of Yarmouth herrings. Such were the supplies (rather unusual now in the 
contracts at Somerset House) which enabled Edward and his valiant son to 
drive the hosts of France before them, and roll on the tide of war till the 
towers of Paris yielded to the mighty torrent. After a hasty repast on such 
simple diet, might the Black Prince appropriately address his girded knights 
in Shakespearian phrase, 

' Thus far into the bowels of the land 
Have we marched on without impediment.' 

"The enemy sorely grudged them their supplies. For it appears by the 
chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrellet, the continuator of Froissart, that in 
1429, while the English were besieging Orleans, the Duke of Bedford sent from 
his head-quarters, Paris, on the Ash Wednesday of that year, five hundred 
carts laden with herrings, for the use of the camp during Lent, when a party 
of French noblemen, viz., Xaintraille, Lahire, De Ja Tour de Chavigny, and 
the Chevalier de Lafayette (ancestor of the revolutionary veteran), made a 
desperate effort to intercept the convoy. But the English detachment, under 
whose safeguard was this precious deposit, fought pro arts et foci's in its 
defence, and the assailants were routed with the loss of sixscore knights and 
much plebeian slaughter. Read Rapin's account of the affray, which was 
thence called ' la journ&e des harcngs.' 

" What schoolboy is ignorant of the fact, that at the eve of the battle of 
Hastings, which gave to your Norman ancestors the conquest of the island, the 
conduct of the Anglo-Britons was strongly contrasted with that of the invaders 
from France ; for while in Harold's camp the besotted natives spent the night 
in revelling and gluttony, the Norman chivalry gave their time to fasting and 
devotion. {Goldsmith, A.D. 1066.) 

" It has not escaped the penetrating mind of the sagacious Buffon, in his 
views of man and man's propensities (which, after all, are the proper study of 
mankind), that a predilection for light food and spare diet has always been the 
characteristic of the Celtic and Eastern races ; whjle the Teutonic, the Sclav- 



Father Prout 's Apology for Lent. 



oniari, and Tartar branches of the human family betray an aboriginal craving 
for heavy meat, and are gross feeders. In many countries of Europe there has 
been a slight amalgamation of blood, and the international pedigree in parts 
of the continent has become perplexed and doubtful : but the most obtuse 
observer can see that the phlegmatic habits of the Prussians and Dutch argue a 
different genealogical origin from that which produced the lively disposition of 
the tribes of Southern Europe. The best specimens extant of the genuine 
Celt are the Greeks, the Arabians, and the Irish, all of whom are temperate in 
their food. Among European denominations, in proportion as the Celtic in- 
fusion predominates, so in a corresponding ratio is the national character for 
abstemiousness. Nor would I thus dwell on an otherwise uninteresting specu- 
lation, were I not about to draw a corollary, and show how these secret influ- 
ences become apparent at what is called the great epoch of the Reformation. 
The latent tendency to escape from fasting observances became then revealed, 
and what had lain dormant for ages was at once developed. The Tartar and 
Sclavonic breed of men filing off the yoke of Rome ; while the Celtic races 
remained faithful to the successor of the 'Fisherman,' and kept Lent. 

" The Hollanders, the Swedes, the Saxons, the Prussians, and in Germany 
those circles in which the Gothic blood ran heaviest and most stagnant, hailed 
Luther as a deliverer from salt-fish. The fatted calf was killed, bumpers of 
ale went round, and Popery went to the dogs. Half Europe followed the 
impetus given to free opinions, and the congenial impulse of the gastric juice ; 
joining in reform, not because they loved Rome less, but because they loved sub- 
stantial fare more. Meantime neighbours differed. The Dutch, dull and 
opaque as their own Zuydersee, growled defiance at the Vatican when their 
food was to be controlled ; the Belgians, being a shade nearer to the Celtic 
family, submitted to the fast. While Hamburg clung to its beef, and West- 
phalia preserved her hams, Munich and Bavaria adhered to the Pope and to 
sour-crout with desperate fidelity. As to the Cossacks, and all that set of 
northern marauders, they never kept Lent at any time ; and it would be arrant 
folly to expect that the horsemen of the river Don, and the Esquimaux of the 
polar latitudes, would think of restricting their ravenous propensities in a 
Christian fashion; the very system of cookery adopted by these terrible 
hordes would, I fear, have given Dr. Kitchiner a fit of cholera. The apparatus 
is graphically described by Samuel Butler : I will indulge you with part of the 
quotation : 

' For like their countrymen the Huns, 
They cook their meat 

All day on horses' backs they straddle, 
Then every man eats up his saddle !'* 

A strange process, no doubt : but not without some sort of precedent in 
classic records; for the Latin poet introduces young lulus at a picnic, in the 
^Eneid, exclaiming 

'Heus ! etiam mensas consumimus.' 

" In England, as the inhabitants are of a mixed descent, and as there has 
ver been a disrelish for any alteration in the habits and fireside traditions of the 
country, the fish-days were remembered long after every Popish observance had 
become obsolete; and it was not until 1668 that butchers' meat finally estab- 
lished its ascendency iu Lent, at the arrival of the Dutchman. We have seen 
the exertions of the Tudor dynasty under Elizabeth, and of the house of 
Stuart under James I. and Charles I., to keep up these fasts, which had 
flourished in the days of the Plantagenets, which the Heptarchy had revered, 
* Hudibras, panto ii. 1. 275. 



io TJte Works of Fatlicr Proiit. 

which Alfred and Canute had scrupulously observed, and which had come 
down positively recommended by the Venerable Bede. William III. gave a 
death-blow to Lent. Until then it had lingered among the threadbare curates 
of the country, extremaper illos excedens tcrris vestigia fecit, having been long 
before exiled from the gastronomic hall of both Universities. But its extinction 
was complete. Its ghost might still remain, flitting through the land, without 
corporeal or ostensible form ; and it vanished totally with the fated star of the 
Pretender. It was William who conferred the honour of knighthood on the 
loin of beef ; and such was the progress of disaffection under Queen Anne, that 
the folks, to manifest their disregard for the Pope, agreed that a certain ex- 
tremity of the goose should be denominated his nose ! 

"The indomitable spirit of the Celtic Irish preserved Lent in this country 
unimpaired an event of such importance to England, that I shall dwell on it 
by-and-by more fully. The Spaniards and Portuguese, although Gothic and 
Saracen blood has commingled in the pure current of their Phoenician pedi- 
gree, clung to Lent with characteristic tenacity. The Gallic race, even in the 
days of Caesar, were remarkably temperate, and are so to the present day. 
The French very justly abhor the gross, carcase-eating propensities of John 
Bull. But as to the keeping of Lent, in an ecclesiastical point of view, I can- 
not take on myself to vouch, since the ruffianly revolution, for their orthodoxy 
in that or any other religious matters. They are sadly deficient therein, though 
still delicate and refined in their cookery, like one of their own artistes, whose 
epitaph is in Pere la Chaise 

' Ci git qui dfes I'&ge le plus tendre 

Inventa la sauce Robert ; 
Mais jamais il ne put apprendre 
Ni son credo ni son pater.' 

" It was not so of old, when the pious monarchs of France dined publicly in 
Passion week on fasting fare, in order to recommend by their example the use of 
fish when the heir-apparent to the crown delighted to be called a dolphin 
and when one of your own kings, being on a visit to France, got so fond of 
their lamprey patties, that he died of indigestion on his return. 

"Antiquity has left us no document to prove that the early Spartans kept 
certain days of abstinence ; but their black broth, of which the ingredients have 
puzzled the learned, must have been a fitting substitute for the soupe maigrc of 
our Lent, since it required a hard run on the banks of the Eurotas to make it 
somewhat palatable. At all events, their great lawgiver was an eminent 
ascetic, and applied himself much to restrict the diet of his hardy countrymen ; 
and if it is certain that there existed a mystic bond of union among the 300 
Lacedemonians who stood in the gap of Thermopylae, it assuredly was not a 
beef-steak club of which Leonidas was president. 

"The Athenians were too cultivated a people not to appreciate the value of 
periodical days of self-denial and abstemiousness. Accordingly, on the eve of 
certain festivals, they fed exclusively on figs and the honey of Mount Hymettus. 
Plutarch expressly tells us that a solemn fast preceded the celebration of the 
Thermophoria ; thence termed i/rjo-Tf ta. In looking over the works of the 
great geographer Strabo (lib. xiv.), I find sufficient evidence of the respect paid 
to fish by the inhabitants of a distinguished Greek city, in which that erudite 
author says the arrival of the fishing-smacks in the harbour was announced joy- 
fully by sounding the ' tocsin ; ' and that the musicians in the public piazza were 
left abruptly by the crowd, whenever the bell tolled for the sale of the herrings : 
KtSrapiaooii fTTioiiKVUfiEVov Tfeos /UEP aKpoatrSdi. TravTay' cat OB o KIOOUOV o 
KOTO. TTJI; o\f/OTTto\tav t\f/o(t](ri KaraXiiroi/TEs a-rrtX6ctv iiri TO o\Jfov. A 
custom to which Plutarch also refers in his Symposium of Plato, lib. iv. cap. 4 : 
TOO? TTtpi f)(6voTrti.>\iav avaCLSovras Kai TOV KteStovos of<os at;ovovT(t<;. 

"That practices similar to our Lent existed among the Romans, may be 



Father Prout J s Apology for Lent. 



II 



gathered from various sources. In Ovid's Fasti (notwithstanding the title) I 
find nothing; but from the reliques of old sacerdotal memorials collected by 
Stephano Morcelli, it appears that Numa fitted himself by fasting for an inter- 
view with the mysterious inmate of Egeria's grotto. Livy tells us that the 
decemvirs, on the occurrence of certain prodigies, were instructed by a vote of 
the senate to consult the SibyHine books ; and the result was the establishment 
of a fast in honour of Ceres, to be observed perpetually every five years. It is 
hard to tell whether Horace is in joke or in earnest when he introduces a vow 
relative to these days of penance 

' Frigida si puerum quartana reliquerit illo 
Manfe die quo tu indicts jejunia nudus 
In Tyberi stabit ! ' Serm. lib. ii. sat. 3, v. 290. 

But we are left in the dark as to whether they observed their fasts by restricting 
themselves to lentils and vegetable diet, or whether fish was allowed. On this 
interesting point we find nothing in the laivs of the twelve tables. However, a 
marked predilection for herbs, and such frugal fare, was distinctive of the old 
Romans, as the very names of the principal families sufficiently indicate. The 
Fabii, for instance, were so called from faba, a bean, on which simple aliment 
that indefatigable race of heroes subsisted for many generations. The noble line 
of the Lentuli derive their patronymic from a favourite kind of lentil, to which 
they were partial, and from which Lent itself is so called. The aristocratic Pisoes 
were similarly circumstanced ; for their family appellation will be found to 
signify a kind of vetches. Scipio was titled from cefe, an onion ; * and we may 
trace the surname and hereditary honours of the great Roman orator to the 
same horticultural source, for deer in Latin means a sort of pea ; and so on 
through the whole nomenclature. 

' ' Hence the Roman satirist, ever alive to the follies of his age, can find nothing 
more ludicrous than the notion of the Egyptians, who entertained a religious 
repugnance to vegetable fare : 

' Porrum et cepe nefas violare et frangere morsu, 
O sanctas gentes ! ' Juv. Sat. 15. 

And as to fish, the fondness of the people of his day for such food can be 
demonstrated from his fourth satire, where he dwells triumphantly on the cap- 
ture of a splendid tunny in the waters of the Adriatic, and describes the 
assembling of a cabinet council in the ' Downing Street ' of Rome to deter- 
mine how it should be properly cooked. It must be admitted that, since the 
Whigs came to office, although they have had many a pretty kettle of fish to 
deliberate upon, they have shown nothing half so dignified or rational in their 
decisions as the imperial privy council of Domitian. 

"The magnificence displayed by the masters of the world in getting up fish- 
ponds is a fact which every schoolboy has learnt, as well as that occasionally 
the murcence were treated to the luxury of a slave or two, flung in alive for their 
nutriment. The celebrity which the maritime villas of Baiae obtained for that 
fashionable watering-place, is a further argument in point ; and we know that 
when the reprobate Verres was driven into exile by the brilliant declamation of 
Cicero, he consoled himself at Marseilles over a dish of sprats, with the reflec- 
tion that at Rome such a delicacy could not be procured in such high per- 
fection. 

" Simplicity and good taste in diet gradually declining in the Roman 
empire, the gigantic frame of the colossus itself soon hastened to decay. It 
burst of its own plethory. The example of the degenerate court had pervaded 
the provinces; and soon the whole body politic reeled, as after a surfeit of 

* Here Prout is in error. Scipio means a "walking-stick," and commemorates the 
filial piety of one of the gens Cornelia, who went about constantly supporting his totter- 
ing aged father. O. Y. 



12 The Works of Father Front. 

debauchery. Vitellius had gormandized with vulgar gluttony; the Emperor 
Maximinus was a living sepulchre, where whole hecatombs of butchers' meat 
were daily entombed ; and no modern keeper of a table d'hote could stand a 
succession of such guests as Heliogabalus. Gibbon, whose penetrating eye 
nothing has escaped in the causes of the Decline and Fall, notices this vile 
propensity to overfeeding ; and shows that, to reconstruct the mighty system of 
dominion established by the rugged republicans (the Fabii, the Lent'uli, and 
Pisoes), nothing but a bond fide return to simple fare and homely pottage could 
be effectual. The hint was duly acted on. The Popes, frugal and abstemious, 
ascended the vacant throne of the Cresars, and ordered Lent to be observed 
throughout the eastern and western world. 

"The theory of fasting, and its practical application, did wonders in that 
emergency. It renovated the rotten constitution of Europe it tamed the 
hungry hordes of desperate savages that rushed down with a war-whoop on the 
prostrate ruins of the empire it taught them self-control, and gave them a 
masterdom over their barbarous propensities ; it did more, it originated 
civilization and commerce. 

"A few straggling fishermen built huts on the flats of the Adriatic, for the 
convenience of resorting thither in Lent, to procure their annual supply of 
fish. The demand for that article became so brisk and so extensive through the 
vast dominions of the Lombards in northern Italy, that from a temporary 
establishment it became a permanent colony in the lagunes. Working like the 
coral insect under the seas, with the same unconsciousness of the mighty result 
of their labours, these industrious men for a century kept on enlarging their 
nest upon the waters, till their enterprise became fully developed, and 

' Venice sat in state, throned on a hundred isles." 

"The fasting necessities of France and Spain were ministered to by the 
rising republic of Genoa, whose origin I delight to trace from a small fishing 
town to a mighty emporium of commerce, fit cradle to rock (in the infant 
Columbus) the destinies of a nevv world. Few of us have turned our attention 
to the fact, that our favourite fish, the John Dory, derives its name from the 
Genoese admiral, Doria, whose seamanship best thrived on meagre diet. Of 
Anne Chovy, who has given her name to another fish found in the Sardinian 
waters, no record remains ; but she was doubtless a heroine. Indeed, to revert 
to the humble herring before you, its etymology shows it to be w r ell adapted for 
warlike stomachs, heer (its German root) signifying an army. In England, is 
not a soldier synonymous with a lobster? 

" In the progress of maritime industry along the shores of southern, and sub- 
sequently of northern Europe, we find a love for freedom to grow up with a 
fondness for fish. Enterprise and liberty flourished among the islands of the 
Archipelago. And when Naples was to be rescued from thraldom, it was the 
hardy race of watermen who plied in her beauteous bay, that rose at Freedom's 
call to effect her deliverance, when she basked for one short hour in its full 
sunshine under the gallant Masaniello. 

" As to the commercial grandeur, of which a constant demand for fish was 
the creating principle, to illustrate its importance, I need only refer to a remark- 
able expression of that deep politician, and exceedingly clever economist, 
Charles V., when, on a progress through apart of his dominions, on which the 
sun at that period never went down, he happened to pass through Amsterdam, 
in company with the Queen of Hungary : on that occasion, being complimented 
in the usual form by the burgomasters of his faithful city, he asked to see the 
mausoleum of John Rachalen, the famous herring-barreller; but when told that 
his grave, simple and unadorned, lay in his native island in the Zuydersee, 
' What ! ' cried the illustrious visitor, ' is it thus that my people of the Nether- 
lands show their gratitude to so great a man ? Know ye not that the founda- 



Father Front's Apology for Lent. 13 

tions of Amsterdam are laid on herring-bones?' Their majesties went on a 
pilgrimage to his tomb, as is related by Sir Hugh Willoughby in his ' Historic 
of Fishes.' 

" It would be of immense advantage to these countries were we to return 
unanimously to the ancient practice, and restore to the full extent of their 
wise policy the laws of Elizabeth. The revival of Lent is4he sole remedy for 
the national complaints on the decline of the shipping interest, the sole way to 
meet the outcry about corn-laws. Instead of Mr. Attwood's project for a 
change of currency, Mr. Wilmot Horton's panacea of emigration, and Miss 
Martineau's preventive check, re-enact Lent. But mark, I do not go so far as 
to say that by this means all and everything desirable can be accomplished, nor 
do I underta'ke by it to pay off the national debt though the Lords of the 
Treasury might learn that, when the disciples were at a loss to meet the de- 
mand of tax-collectors in their day, they caught a fish, and found in its gills 
sufficient to satisfy the revenue. (St. Matthew s Gospel, chap, xvii.) 

"Of all the varied resources of this great empire, the most important, in a 
national point of view, has long been the portion of capital afloat in the 
merchantmen, and the strength invested in the navy of Great Britain. True, 
the British thunder has too long slept under a sailor-king, and under so many 
galling national insults ; and it were full time to say that it shall no longer 
sleep on in the grave where Sir James Graham has laid it. But my concern is 
principally for the alarming depression of our merchants' property in vessels, 
repeatedly proved in evidence before your House of Commons. Poulett 
Thomson is right to call attention to the cries of the shipowners, and to that 
dismal howling from the harbours, described by the prophet as the forerunner 
of the fall of Babylon. 

" The best remedial measure would be a resumption of fish-diet during a 
portion of the year. Talk not of a resumption of cash payments, of opening 
the trade to China, or of finding a north-west passage to national prosperity. 
Talk not of ' calling spirits from the vasty deep,' when you neglect to elicit 
food and employment for thousands from its exuberant bosom. Visionary 
projectors are never without some complex system of beneficial improve- 
ment ; but I would say of them, in the words of an Irish gentleman who has 
lately travelled in search of religion, 

' They may talk of the nectar that sparkled for Helen 
Theirs is a fiction, but this is reality.' 

Melodies. 

Demand would create supply. Flotillas would issue from every seaport in the 
spring, and ransack the treasures of the ocean for the periodical market : and 
the wooden walls of Old England, instead of crumbling into so much rotten 
timber, would be converted into so many huge wooden spoons to feed the 
population. 

"It has been sweetly sung, as well as wisely said, by a genuine English 
writer, that 

' Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear.' 

To these undiscovered riches Lent would point the national eye, and direct 
the national energies. Very absurd would then appear the forebodings of the 
croakers, who with some plausibility now predict the approach of national 
bankruptcy and famine. Time enough to think of that remote contingency 
when the sea shall be exhausted of its live bullion, and the abyss shall cry, 
1 Hold, enough ! ' Time enough to fear a general stoppage, when the run on 
the Dogger Bank shall have produced a failure when the shoals of the teem- 
ing north shall have refused to meet their engagements in the sunny waters of 
the south, and the drafts of the net shall have been dishonoured. 



14 The Works of Fattier Front. 

" I am one of the many modern admirers of Edmund Burke, who, in his 
speech on American conciliation, has an argumcntum piscatorium quite to my 
fancy. Tollc ! Ic^c ! 

" ' As to the wealth which these colonies have derived from the sea by their 
fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely 
thought these acquisitions of value; for they even seemed to excite your envy. 
And yet the spirit with which that enterprising employment has been exercised 
ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And 
pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it? Look at the manner in which the 
people of New England have carried on their fishery. While we follow them 
among the tumbling mountains of ice, penetrating into the deepest recesses of 
Hudson's Bay ; while we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we 
hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they 
are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. 
Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the 
grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of 
their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to 
them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know, that while 
some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, 
others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the shores of 
Brazil : no sea that is not vexed by their fisheries, no climate that is not 
witness to their toils ! ' 

"Such glorious imaginings, such beatific dreams, would (I speak advisedly) 
be realized in these countries by Lent's magic spell; and I have no doubt 
that our patriot King, the patron of so many very questionable reforms, will 
see the propriety of restoring the laws of Elizabeth in this matter. Stanislaus, 
the late pious king of Lorraine, so endeared himself to his subjects in general, 
and market-gardeners in particular, by his sumptuary regulations respecting 
vegetable diet in Lent, that in the hortus siccus of Nancy his statue has been 
placed, with an appropriate inscription : 

' Vitales inter succos herbasque salubres, 
Quam bene stat populi vita salusque sui !' 

"A similar compliment would await his present Majesty William IV. from 
the shipowners, and the ' worshipful Fishmongers' Company,' if he should 
adopt the suggestion thrown out here. He would figure colossally in Trafal- 
gar Square, pointing with his trident to Hungerford Market. The three- 
pronged instrument in his hand would be a most appropriate emblem (much 
more so than on the pinnacle of Buckingham Palace), since it would signify 
equally well the fork with which he fed his people, and the sceptre with which 
he ruled the world. 

' Le trident de Neptune est le sceptre du raonde ! ' 

Then would be solved the grand problem of the Corn-Law question. Hitherto 
my Lord Fitzwilliam has taken nothing by his motions. But were Lent pro- 
claimed at Charing Cross and Temple Bar, and through the market towns of 
England, a speedy fall in the price of grazing stock, though it might afflict 
Lord Althorp, would eventually harmonize the jarring interests of agriculture 
and manufacturing industry. The superabundant population of the farming 
districts would crowd to the coast, and find employment in the fisheries ; 
while Devonshire House would repudiate for a time the huge sirloin, and 
receiving as a substitute the ponderous turbot, Spitalfields would exhibit on 
her frugal board salt ling flanked with potatoes. A salutary taste for fish 
would be created in the inmost recesses of the island, an epoch most bene- 
ficial to the country would take date from that enactment. 
' Omne qnum Proteus pecus egit altos 
Visere monies.' 



FatJicr Front's Apology for Lent. 15 

Nor need the landlords take alarm. People would not plough the ground 
less because they might plough the deep more ; and while smiling Ceres 
would still walk through our isle with her horn of plenty, Thetis would follow 
in her train with a rival cornucopia. 

"Mark the effects of this observance in Ireland, where it continues in its 
primitive austerity, undiminished, unshorn of its beams. The Irish may be 
wrong, but the consequences to Protestant England are immense. To Lent 
you owe the connection of the two islands ; it is the golden link that binds the 
two kingdoms together. Abolish fasting, and from that evil hour no beef or 
pork svould be suffered by the wild natives to go over to your English markets; 
and the export of provisions would be discontinued by a people that had 
unlearned the lessons of starvation. Adieu to shipments of live stock and 
consignments of bacon ! Were there not some potent mysterious spell over 
this country, think you we should allow the fat of the land to be everlastingly 
abstracted? Let us learn that there is no virtue in Lent, and repeal is 
triumphant to-morrow. We are in truth a most abstemious race. Hence our 
great superiority over our Protestant fellow-countrymen in the jury-box. It 
having been found that they could never hold out against hunger as we can 
when locked up, and that the verdict was generally carried by popish obstinacy, 
former administrations discountenanced our admission to serve on juries at all. 
By an oversight of Serjeant Lefroy, all this has escaped the framers of the 
new jury bill for Ireland. 

" To return to the Irish exports. The principal item is that of pigs. The 
hog is as essential an inmate of the Irish cabin as the Arab steed of the 
shepherd s tent on the plains of Mesopotamia. Both are looked on as part of 
the household ; and the affectionate manner in which these dumb friends of the 
family are treated, here as well as there, is a trait of national resemblance, 
denoting a common origin. We are quite oriental in most of our peculiarities. 
The learned Vallancey will have it, that our consanguinity is with the JeXvs. I 
might elucidate the colonel's discovery, by showing how the pig in Ireland plays 
the part of the scape-goat of the Israelites : he is a sacred thing, gets the run 
of the kitchen, is rarely molested, never killed, but alive and buoyant leaves 
the cabin when taken off by the landlord's driver for arrears of rent, and is then 
shipped clean out of the country, to be heard of no more. Indeed, the pigs of 
Ireland bear this notable resemblance to their cousins of Judea, that nothing 
can keep them from the sea, a tendency which strikes all travellers in the 
interior of the island whenever they meet our droves of swine precipitating 
themselves towards the outports for shipment. 

' ' To ordinary observers this forbearance of the most ill-fed people on the 
face of the globe towards their pigs would appear inexplicable ; and if you 
have read the legend of Saint Anthony and his pig, you will understand the 
value of their resistance to temptation. 

' ' They have a great resource in the potato. This capital esculent grows 
nowhere in such perfection, not even in America, where it is indigenous. But 
it has often struck me that a greater national delinquency has occurred in the 
sad neglect of people in this country towards the memory of the great and 
good man who conferred on us so valuable a boon, on his return from the expe- 
dition to Virginia. To Sir Walter Raleigh no monument has yet been erected, 
' and nothing has been done to repair the injustice of his contemporaries. His 
head has rolled from the scaffold on Tower Hill ; and though he has fed with 
his discovery more families, and given a greater impulse to population, than any 
other benefactor of mankind, no testimonial exists to commemorate his bene- 
faction. Nelson has a pillar in Dublin : in the city of Limerick a whole 
column has been devoted to Spring Rice ! ! and the mighty genius of Raleigh 
is forgotten. I have seen some animals feed under the majestic oak on the 
acorns that fell from its spreading branches (glande sues Icsti], without once 



1 6 The Works of Father Prout. 



looking up to the parent tree that showered down blessings on their ungrateful 
heads." 

Here endeth the " Apology," and so abruptly terminate my notes of Prout's 
Lenten vindicice. But, alas ! still more abrupt was the death of this respect- 
able divine, which occurred last month, on Shrove Tuesday. There was a 
peculiar fitness in the manner of Anacreon's exit from this life ; but not so in 
the melancholy termination of Prout's abstemious career, an account of which 
is conveyed to me in a long and pathetic letter from my agent in Ireland. It 
was well known that he disliked revelry on all occasions ; but if there was a 
species of gormandizing which he more especially abhorred, it was that prac- 
tised in the parish on pancake-night, which he frequently endeavoured to dis- 
countenance and put down, but unsuccessfully. Oft did he tell his rude 
auditors (for he was a profound Hellenist) that such orgies had originated with 
the heathen Greeks, and had been even among them the source of many evils, 
as the very name showed, iran K.O.KOV \ So it would appear, by Prout's ety- 
mology of the pancake, that in the English language there are many terms 
which answer the description of Horace, and 

' Graeco fonte cadunt parce detorta.' 

Contrary to his own better taste and sounder judgment, he was, however, on 
last Shrove Tuesday, at a wedding-feast of some of my tenantry, induced, from 
complacency to the newly-married couple, to eat of the profane aliment ; and 
never was the Attic derivation of the pancake more wofully accomplished than 
in the sad result for his condescension cost him his life. The indigestible 
nature of the compost itself might not have been so destructive in an ordinary 
case ; but it was quite a stranger and ill at ease in Father Prout's stomach : it 
eventually proved fatal in its effects, and hurried him away from this vale of 
tears, leaving the parish a widow, and making orphans of all his parishioners. 
My agent writes that his funeral (or herring, as the Irish call it) was thronged 
by dense multitudes from the whole county, and was as well attended as if it 
were a monster meeting. The whole body of his brother clergy, with the 
bishop as usual in full pontificals, were mourners on the occasion ; and a Latin 
elegy was composed by the most learned of the order, Father Magrath, one, 
like Prout, of the old school, who had studied at Florence, and is still a corre- 
spondent of many learned Societies abroad. That elegy I have subjoined, as 
a record of Prout's genuine worth, and as a specimen of a kind of poetry 
called Leonine verse, little cultivated at the present day, but greatly in vogue 
at the revival of letters under Leo X. 

IN MORTEM VENERABILIS ANDREJE PROUT, CARMEN. 
Quid juvat \npiilchro Sanctos dormire sepulchral 

Optimus usque bonos nonne manebit honos I 
Plebs tmmfassd Pastoris condidit ossit, 

Splendida sed iniri mens petit astra viri. 
Porta patens esto ! coelum reseretur honesto, 

Neve sit a Petro jussus abire retro. 
Tola malam sortem sibi flet vicinia mortem, 

Ut pro patre solent undique rura dolent ; 
Sed i iires gauiie >it ; securos hactenils audettt 

Disturbare greges, nee mage tua seges. 
Audio singvltus, rixas, miserosque tumultlis, 

Et pietas luget, sobrietasquey//f//. 
Namque furore bn~a i liquidaque ardentis aqua Vt 

Antiquus NicJwlas perdidit agricolas. 
Jam patre dcfimcto, meliores flumine cwtcto 

Latantur pisces obtinuisse vices. 
Exultans almo, Ijctare sub scquore salmo! 

Carpe, o carpe dies, nam tibi parta quies ! 



FatJier Prout 's Apology for Lent. 1 7 



Gaudent anguillt?, quia tandem est mortuus *'//<?, 

Presbyter Andreas, qui capiebat eas. 
Petro^iscator placuit plus artis ainator, 

Cui, propter mores, pandit utrosque./frrw. 
Cur lachrymi\/tt.f justi comitabitur units ? 

Flendum est non tali, sed bene morte mali: 
Munera nunc Flora spargo. Sic flebile rare 

Florescat grcunen. Pace quie scat. Amen, 

Sweet upland ! where, like hermit old, in peace sojourn'd 

This priest devout ; 
Mark where beneath thy verdant sod lie deep inurn'd 

The bones of Prout ! 
Nor deck with monumental shrine or tapering column 

His place of rest, 
Whose soul, above earth's homage, meek yet solemn, 

Sits mid the blest. 
Much was he prized, much loved ; his stern rebuke 

O'erawed sheep-stealers ; 
And rogues fear'd more the good man's single look 

Than forty Peelers. 
He's gone : and discord soon I ween will visit 

The land with quarrels ; 
And the foul demon vex with stills illicit 

The village morals. 
No fatal chance could happen more to cross 

The public wishes ; 
And all the neighbourhood deplore his loss, 

Except the fishes ; 
For he kept Lent most strict, and pickled herring 

Preferred to gammon. 
Grim Death has broke his angling-rod ; his herring 

Delights the salmon. 
No more can he hook up carp, eel, or trout, 

For fasting pittance. 
Arts which Saint Peter loved, whose gate to Prout 

Gave prompt admittance. 
Mourn not, but verdantly let shamrocks keep 

His sainted dust ; 
The bad man's death it well becomes to weep, 

Not so the just. 



1 8 The Works of Father Front. 



II. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT'S VISIT TO THE BLARNEY STONE. 

(Eraser's Magazine, May, 1834.) 



[The number of Regina containing the record of Father Prout's delightful imaginary 
foregathering with Sir Walter Scott was the one embellished with the portrait of the then 
Editor of The Age, Charles Molloy Westmacott, comely, black-whiskered, loosely- 
attired, seated slouchingly with a sort of rakish, sporting air about him, his hat upon the 
floor with a long-lashed whip trailing out of it, his foot, like a true critic's, brought down 
heavily on a book or two. As a grand choral finish to this second of the Prout Papers, 
came Mahony's memorable polyglot version of the "Groves of Blarney," in which, 
upon confronting pages, appeared cheek-by-jowl the English and French as contrasted 
with the Greek and Latin. Twenty-three years after the issuing from the press of the 
original edition of the " Reliques," yet another version in Italian was put forth by 
Mahony as purporting to have been sung in bivouac amonsj the woods near Lake Como, 
on the 25th of May, 1859, by the Condottiere Giuseppe Garibaldi ; the title of this supple- 
mentary companion to the Doric,Vulgate, and Gallic translations, so long before produced, 
being "I Hoschi di Blarnea." Immediately appended to the fragment of the Celtic 
manuscript reputed to have been obtained from the Royal Library _at Copenhagen, 
appeared by way of tailpiece to this paper, in the edition of 1836, Maclise's wonderfully 
comic yet lifelike sketch of Sir Walter when he had just said, " So here I kiss the 
stone."] 

" Beware, beware 

Of the black friar, 
Who sitteth by Norman stone : 
For he mutters his prayer 
In the midnight air, 
And his mass of the days that are gone." 

, BYRON. 

SINCE the publication of this worthy man's " Apology for Lent," which, with 
some account of his lamented death and well-attended funeral, appeared in our 
last Number, we have written to his executors (one of whom is Father Mat. 
Horrogan, P.P. of the neighbouring village of Blarney; and the other, our 
elegiac poet, Father Magrath) in the hope of being able to negotiate for the 
valuable posthumous essays and fugitive pieces which we doubted not had been 
left behind in great abundance by the deceased. These two disinterested 
divines fit associates and bosom-companions of Prout during his lifetime, and 
whom, from their joint letters, we should think eminently qualified to pick up 
the fallen mantle of the departed prophet have, in the most handsome manner, 
promised us all the literary and philosophic treatises bequeathed to them by 
the late incumbent of Watergrasshill ; expressing, in the very complimentary 
note which they have transmitted us, and which our modesty prevents us from 
inserting, their thanks and that of the whole parish, for our sympathy and 
condolence on this melancholy bereavement, and intimating at the same time 



A Plea for Pilgrimages. 19 

their regret at not being able to send us also, for our private perusal, the collec- 
tion of the good father's parochial sermons ; the whole of which (a most 
valuable MS.) had been taken off for his own use by the bishop, whom he had 
made his residuary legatee. These " sermons" must be doubtless good things 
in their way a theological yutya Oavfta well adapted to swell the episcopal 
library ; but as we confessedly are, and suspect our readers likewise to be, a 
very improper multitude amongst whom to scatter such pearls, we shall console 
ourselves for that sacrifice by plunging head and ears into the abundant sources 
of intellectual refreshment to which we shall soon have access, and from which 
Frank Cresswell, lucky dog ! has drawn such a draught of inspiration. 

" Sacros ausus recludere fontes ! " 

for assuredly we may defy any one that has perused Prout's vindication of fish- 
diet (and -who, we ask, has not read it con amore, conning it over with secret 
glee, and forthwith calling out for a red herring?), not to prefer its simple 
unsophisticated eloquence to the oration of Tully pro Domo sud, or Barclay's 
"Apology for Quakers." After all, it may have been but a sprat to catch a 
whale, and the whole affair may turn out to be a Popish contrivance ; but if so, 
we have taken the bait ourselves : we have been, like Festus, ' ' almost per- 
suaded," and Prout has wrought in us a sort of culinary conversion. Why should 
we be ashamed to avow that we have been edified by the good man's blunt 
and straightforward logic, and drawn from his theories on fish a higher and 
more moral impression than from the dreamy visions of an " English Opium- 
eater," or any other "Confessions" of sensualism and gastronomy. If this 
"black friar" has got smuggled in among our contributors, like King Saul 
among the regular votaries of the sanctuary, it must be admitted that, like the 
royal intruder, he has caught the tone and chimed in with the general harmony 
of our political opinions no Whigling among true Tories, no goose among 
swans. Argutos inter strepere anser olores. 

How we long to get possession of " the Prout Papers ! " that chest of learned 
lumber which haunts our nightly visions ! Already, in imagination, it is within 
our grasp ; our greedy hand hastily its lid 

" Unlocks, 
And all Arcadia breathes from yonder box ! " 

In this prolific age, when the most unlettered dolt can find a mare's nest in the 
domain of philosophy, why should not we also cry, EvpiiKafj.ii> ! How much 
of novelty in his views ! how much embryo discovery must not Prout unfold ! 
It were indeed a pity to consign the writings of so eminent a scholar to 
oblivion : nor ought it be said, in scriptural phrase, of him, what is, alas ! 
applicable to so many other learned divines when they are dead, that " their 
works have followed them." Such was the case of that laborious French 
clergyman, the Abbd Trublet, of whom Voltaire profanely sings : 

" L'Abbd Trublet (Scrit, le Letho sur ses rives 
Re?oit avec plaisir ses feuilles fugitives ! " 

Which epigram hath a recondite meaning, not obvious to the reader on a first 
perusal ; and being interpreted into plain English, for the use of the London 
University, it may run thus : 

" Lardner compiles kind Lethe on her banks 
Receives the doctor's useful page with thanks." 

Such may be the fate of Lardner and of Trublet, such the ultimate destiny 
that awaits their literary labours; but neither men, nor gods, nor our columns 
(those graceful pillars that support the Muses' temple), shall suffer this old 
priest to remain in the unmerited obscurity from which Frank Cresswell first 
essayed to draw him. To that young barrister we have written, with a request 



2O The Works of Father Front. 

that he would furnish us with further details concerning Prout, and, if possible, 
a few additional specimens of his colloquial wisdom ; reminding him that 
modern taste has a decided tendency towards illustrious private gossip, and 
recommending to him, as a sublime model of the dramatico-biographic style, 
my Lady Blessington's "Conversations of Lord Byron." How far he has 
succeeded in following the ignis fat iius of her ladyship's lantern, and how many 
bogs he has got immerged in because of the dangerous hint, which we gave 
him in an evil hour, the judicious reader will soon find out. Here is the com- 
munication. 

OLIVER YORKE. 

3 fay i, 1834. 

Furnival's Inn, April 14. 

ACKNOWLEDGING the receipt of your gracious mandate, O Queen of Peri- 
odicals ! and kissing the top of your ivory sceptre, may I be allowed to express 
unblamed my utter devotion to your orders, in the language of .-Eolus, quondam 
ruler of the winds : 

" Tuus, O REGINA, quid optes 

Explorare labor, nrihi jussa capessere fas est ! " 

without concealing, at the same time, my wonderment, and that of many other 
sober individuals, at your patronizing the advocacy of doctrines and usages 
belonging exclusively to another and far less reputable Queen (quean?) whom 
I shall have sufficiently designated when I mention that she sits upon seven 
hills /in stating which singular phenomenon concerning her, I need not add 
that her fundamental maxims must be totally different from yours. Many 
orthodox people cannot understand how you could have reconciled it to your 
conscience to publish, in its crude state, that Apology for Lent, without adding 
note or comment in refutation of such dangerous doctrines; and are still more 
amazed that a Popish parish priest, from the wild Irish hills, could have got 
among your contributors 

" Claimed kindred there, and have that claim allowed." 

It will, however, no doubt, give you pleasure to learn, that you have established 
a lasting popularity among that learned set of men the fishmongers, who are 
never scaly of their support when deserved ; for, by a unanimous vote of the 
"worshipful company" last meeting-day, the marble bust of Father Prout, 
crowned with sea-weeds like a Triton, is to be placed in a conspicuous part of 
their new hall at London Bridge. But as it is the hardest thing imaginable to 
please all parties, your triumph is rendered incomplete by the grumbling of 
another not less respectable portion of the 'community. By your proposal for 
the non-consumption of butchers' meat, you have given mortal offence to the 
dealers in horned cattle, and stirred up a nest of hornets in Smithfield. In 
your perambulations of the metropolis, go not into the bucolic purlieus of that 
dangerous district; beware of the enemy's camp; tempt not the ire of men 
armed with cold steel, else the long-dormant fires of that land celebrated in 
every age as a tierra del fucgo may be yet rekindled, and made " red with 
uncommon wrath," for your especial roasting. Lord Althorp is no warm friend 
of yours; and by your making what he calls "a most unprovoked attack on 
the graziers," you have not propitiated the winner of the prize ox. 

" Foenum habet in cornu, hunc tu, Romane, caveto !" 

In vain would you seek to cajole the worthy chancellor of his Majesty's 
unfortunate exchequer, by the desirable prospect of a net revenue from the 
ocean: you will make no impression. His mind is not accessible to any reason- 



A Plea for Pilgrimages. 2 1 

ing on that subject ; and, like the shield of Telamon, it is wrapt in the inipene^ 
trable folds of seven tough bull-hides. 

But eliminating at once these insignificant topics, and setting aside all minor 
things, let me address myself to the grand subject of my adoption. Verily, 
since the days of that ornament of the priesthood, and pride of Venice, 
Father Paul, no divine has shed such lustre on the Church of Rome as 
Father Prout. His brain was a storehouse of inexhaustible knowledge, and 
his memory a bazaar, in which the intellectual riches of past ages were 
classified and arranged in marvellous and brilliant assortment. When, by the 
liberality of his executor, you shall have been put in possession of his writings 
and posthumous papers, you will find I do not exaggerate ; for though his 
mere conversation was always instructive, still, the pen in his hand, more 
potent than the wand of Prospero, embellished every subject with an aerial 
charm ; and whatever department of literature it touched on, it was sure to 
illuminate and adorn, from the lightest and most ephemeral matters of the day, 
to the deepest and most abstruse problems of metaphysical inquiry ; vigorous 
and philosophical, at the same time that it is minute and playful ; having no 
parallel unless we liken it to the proboscis of an elephant, that can with equal 
ease shift an obelisk and crack a nut. 

Nor did he confine himself to prose. He was a chosen favourite of the 
nine sisters, and flirted openly with them all, his vow of celibacy preventing 
his forming a permanent alliance with one alone. Hence pastoral poetry, 
elegy, sonnets, and still grander effusions in the best style of Bob Montgomery, 
flowed from his muse in abundance ; but, I must confess, his peculiar forte 
lay in the Pindaric. Besides, he indulged copiously in Greek and Latin versi- 
fication, as well as in French, Italian, and High Dutch; of which accomplish- 
ments I happen to possess some fine specimens from his pen ; and before I 
terminate this paper, I mean to introduce them to the benevolent notice of the 
candid reader. By these you will find, that the Doric reed of Theocritus was 
to him but an ordinary sylvan pipe that the lyre of Anacreon was as familiar 
to him as the German flute and that he played as well on the classic chords 
of the bard of Mantua as on the Cremona fiddle ; at all events, he will prove 
far superior as a poet to the covey of unfledged rhymers who nestle in annuals 
and magazines. Sad abortions ! on which even you, O Queen, sometimes 
take compassion, infusing into them a life 

" Which did not you prolong, 
The world had wanted many an idle song." 

To return to his conversational powers : he did not waste them on the gene- 
rality of folks, for he despised the vulgar herd of Corkonians with whom it 
was his lot to mingle ; but when he was sure of a friendly circle, he broke out 
in resplendent style, often humorous, at times critical, occasionally profound, 
and always interesting. Inexhaustible in his means of illustration, his fancy 
was an unwasted mine, into which you had but to sink a shaft, and you were 
sure of eliciting the finest ore, which came forth stamped with the impress of 
genius, and fit to circulate among the most cultivated auditory : for though the 
mint of his brain now and then would issue a strange and fantastic coinage, 
sterling sense was sure to give it value, and ready wit to promote its currency. 
The rubbish and dust of the schools with which his notions were sometimes 
incrusted did not alter their intrinsic worth ; people only wondered how the 
diaphanous mind of Prout could be obscured by such common stuff : its 
brightness was still undiminished by the admixture ; and like straws in amber, 
without deteriorating the substance, these matters only made manifest its 
transparency. Whenever he undertook to illustrate any subject worthy of him 
he was always felicitous. I shall give you an instance. 

There stands on the borders of his parish, near the village of Blarney, an 



22 The Works of Father Front. 

old castle of the M'Carthy family, rising abruptly from a bold cliff, at the foot 
of which rolls a not inconsiderable stream the fond and frequent witness of 
I'rout's angling propensities. The well-wooded demesne, comprising an 
extensive lake, a romantic cavern, and an artificial wilderness of rocks, belongs 
to the family of Jeffereys, which boasts in the Dowager Countess Glengall a 
most distinguished scion ; her ladyship's mother having been immortalized 
under the title of " Lady Jeffers," with the other natural curiosities produced 
by this celebrated spot, in that never-sumciently-to-be-encored song, the 
Groves of Blarney. But neither the stream, nor the lake, nor the castle, nor 
the village (a sad ruin ! which, but for the recent establishment of a spinning 
factory by some patriotic Corkonian, would be swept away altogether, or 
possessed by the owls as a grant from Sultan Mahmoud) ; none of these 
picturesque objects has earned such notoriety for "the Groves" as a certain 
stone, of a basaltic kind, rather unusual in the district, placed on the pinnacle 
of the main tower, and endowed with the property of communicating to the 
happy tongue that comes in contact with its polished surface the gift of gentle, 
insinuating speech, with soft talk in all its ramifications, whether employed in 
vows and promises light as air, ivta vrtpoivra, such as lead captive the female 
heart ; or elaborate mystification of a grosser grain, such as may do for the 
House of Commons ; all summed up and characterized by the mysterious term 
Blarney.* 

Prout's theory on this subject might have remained dormant for ages, and 
perhaps been ultimately lost to the world at large, were it not for an event 
which occurred in the summer of 1825, while I (a younker then) happened to 
be on that visit to my aunt at Watergrasshill which eventually secured me her 
inheritance. The occurrence I am about to commemorate was, in truth, one 
of the first magnitude, and well calculated, from its importance, to form an 
epoch in the Annals of the Parish. It was the arrival of SIR WALTER SCOTT 
at Blarney, towards the end of the month of July. 

Nine years have now rolled away, and the " Ariosto of the North " is dead, 
and our ancient constitution has since fallen under the hoofs of the Whigs ; 
quenched is many a beacon-light in church and state Prout himself is no 
more ; and plentiful indications tell us we are come upon evil days : but still 
may I be allowed to feel a pleasurable, though somewhat saddened emotion, 
while I revert to that intellectual meeting, and bid memory go back in "dream 
sublime" to the glorious exhibition of Prout's mental powers. It was, in 
sooth, a great day for old Ireland ; a greater still for Blarney ; but, greatest of 
all, it dawned, Prout, on thee ! Then it was that thy light was taken from 
under its sacerdotal bushel, and placed conspicuously before a man fit to 
appreciate the effulgence of so brilliant a luminary a light which I, who pen 
these words in sorrow, alas ! shall never gaze on more a light 

" That ne'er shall shine again 
On Blarney's stream ! " 

That day it illumined the " cave," the " shady walks," and the "sweet rock- 
close," and sent its gladdening beam into the gloomiest vaults of the ancient 

* To Crofton Croker belongs the merit of elucidating this obscure tradition. It appears 
that in 1602, when the Spaniards were exciting our chieftains to harass the English 
authorities, Cormac M'Dermot Carthy held, among other dependencies, the castle of 
Blarney, and had concluded an armistice with the Lord-president, on condition of sur- 
rendering this fort to an English garrison. Day after day did his lordship look for the 
fulfilment of the compact ; while the Irish Pozzo di Borgo, as loath to part with his 
stronghold as Russia to relinquish the Dardanelles, kept protocolizing with soft promises 
and delusive delays, until at last Carew became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth's minis- 
ters, and "lilantey talk " proverbial. [It is a singular coincidence, that while Crofton was 
engaged in tracing the origin of this Irish term, D'Israeli was equally well employed in 
evolving the pedigree of the English word " Fudge."] 



A Plea for Pilgrimages. 23 

fort ; for all the recondite recesses of the castle were explored in succession by 
the distinguished poet and the learned priest, and Prout held a candle to 
Scott. 

We read with interest, in the historian Polybius, the account of Hannibal's 
interview with Scipio on the plains of Zama ; and often have we, in our school- 
boy days of unsophisticated feeling, sympathized with Ovid, when he told us 
that he only got a glimpse of Virgil ; but Scott basked for a whole summer's 
day in the blaze of Prout's wit, and witnessed the coruscations of his learning. 
The great Marius is said never to have appeared to such advantage as when 
seated on the ruins of Carthage : with equal dignity Prout sat on the Blarney 
stone, amid ruins of kindred glory. Zeno taught in the "porch;" Plato 
loved to muse alone on the bold jutting promontory of Cape Sunium ; Socra- 
tes, bent on finding Truth, "in sylvis Academi quterere verum," sought her 
among the bowers of Academus; Prout courted the same coy nymph, and 
wooed her in the " groves of Blarney." 

I said that it was in the summer of 1825 that Sir Walter Scott, in the pro- 
gress of his tour through Ireland, reached Cork, and forthwith intimated his 
wish to proceed at once on a visit to Blarney Castle. For him the noble river, 
the magnificent estuary, and unrivalled harbour of a city that proudly bears on 
her civic escutcheon the well-applied motto, " Statio bene fida carinis," had 
but little attraction when placed in competition with a spot sacred to the 
Muses, and wedded to immortal verse. Such was the interest which its 
connection with the popular literature and traditionary stories of the country 
had excited in that master-mind such the predominance of its local 
reminiscences such the transcendent influence of song ! For this did the 
then "Great Unknown" wend his way through the purlieus of "Golden 
Spur," traversing the great manufacturing fauxbourg of "Black Pool," and 
emerging by the " Red Forge ;" so intent on the classic object of his pursuit, 
as to disregard the unpromising aspect of the vestibule by which alone it is 
approachable. Many are the splendid mansions and hospitable halls that stud 
the suburbs of the " beautiful city," each boasting its grassy lawn and placid 
lake, each decked with park and woodland, and each well furnished with that 
paramount appendage, a batterie de cuisine ; but all these castles were passed 
unheeded by, carent quia vate sacro. Gorgeous residences, picturesque seats, 
magnificent villas, they be, no doubt ; but unknown to literature, in vain do 
they plume themselves on their architectural beauty; in vain do they spread 
wide their well-proportioned wings they cannot soar aloft to the regions of 
celebrity. 

On the eve of that memorable day I was sitting on a stool in the priest's 
parlour, poking the turf fire, while Prout, who had -been angling all day, sat 
nodding over his "breviary," and, according to my calculation, ought to be 
at the last psalm of vespers, when a loud official knock, not usual on that bleak 
hill, bespoke the presence of no ordinary personage. Accordingly, the 
"wicket, opening with a latch," ushered in a messenger clad in the livery of 
the rncient and loyal corporation of Cork, who announced himself as the 
bearer of a despatch from the mansion-hbuse to his reverence; and, handing 
it with that deferential awe which even his masters felt for the incumbent of 
Watergrasshill, immediately withdrew. The letter ran thus : 

Council Cliamber, July 24, 1825. 

VERY REVEREND DOCTOR PROUT, 

Cork harbours within its walls the illustrious author of Waverley. On 
receiving the freedom of our ancient city, which we presented to him (as usual 
towards distinguished strangers) in a box carved out of a chip of the Blarney 
stone, he expressed his determination to visit the old block itself. As he will, 
therefore, be in your neighbourhood to-morrow, and as no one is better able to 



24 The Works of Father Front. 

do the honours than you (our burgesses being sadly deficient in learning, as you 
and I well know), your attendance on the celebrated poet is requested by your 
old friend and foster brother, 

GEORGE KNAPP,* Mayor. 

Never shall I forget the beam of triumph that lit up the old man's features on 
the perusal of Knapp's pithy summons ; and right warmly did he respond to 
my congratulations on the prospect of thus coming in contact with so dis- 
tinguished an author. " You are right, child ! " said he; and as I perceived 
by his manner that he was about to enter on one of those rambling trains 
of thought half-homily, half-soliloquy in which he was wont to indulge, I 
settled myself by the fireplace, and prepared to go through my accustomed 
part of an attentive listener. 

"A great man, Frank ! A truly great man ! No token of ancient days 
escapes his eagle glance, no venerable memorial of former times his observant 
scrutiny ; and still, even he, versed as he is in the monumentary remains of by- 
gone ages, may yet learn something more, and have no cause to regret his visit 
to Blarney. Yes ! since our ' groves ' are to be honoured by the presence of the 
learned baronet, 

' Sylvae sint consule digns !' 

let us make them deserving of his attention. He shall fix his antiquarian eye 
and rivet his wondering gaze on the rude basaltic mass that crowns the battle- 
ments of the main tower ; for though he may have seen the ' chair at Scone,' 
where the Caledonian kings were crowned ; though he may have examined that 
Scotch pebble in Westminster Abbey, which the Cockneys, in the exercise of a 
delightful credulity, believe to be 'Jacob's pillow ;' though he may have 
visited the misshapen pillars on Salisbury plain, and the Rock of Cashel, and 
the ' Hag's Bed,' and St. Kevin's petrified matelas at Glendalough, and many 
a cromlech of Druidical celebrity, there is a stone yet unexplored, which he 
shall contemplate to-morrow, and place on record among his most profitable 
days that on which he shall have paid it homage : 

' Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo ! ' 

" I am old, Frank. In my wild youth I have seen many of the celebrated 
writers that adorned the decline of the last century, and shed a lustre over 
France, too soon eclipsed in blood at its sanguinary close. I have conversed 

* The republic of letters has great reason to complain of Dr. Maginn, for his non- 
fulfilment of a positive pledge to publish "a great historical work" on the Mayor of 
Cork. Owing to this desideratum in the annals of the Empire, I am compelled to bring 
into notice thus abruptly the most respectable civic worthy that has worn the cocked hat 
and chain since the days of John Walters, who boldly proclaimed Perkin Warbeck, in 
the reign of Henry VII., in the market-place of that beautiful city. Knapp's virtues 
and talents did not, like those of Donna Ines, deserve to be called 

" Classic all, 
Nor lay they chiefly in the mathematical," 

for his favourite pursuit during the canicule of 1823, was the extermination of mad dogs ; 
and so vigorously did he urge the carnage during the summer of his mayoralty, that 
some thought he wished to eclipse the exploit of St. Patrick in destroying the breed alto- 
gether, as the saint did that of toads. A Cork poet, the laureate of the mansion-house, 
has celebrated Knapp's prowess in a didactic composition, entitled "Dog-Killing, a 
Poem ; " in which the mayor is likened to Apollo in the Grecian camp before Troy, in the 
opening of the " Iliad : " 

Aurop /5ous Ttptarov e<j>' lo/cero <c<u icvvas Apyous. 

[But as you may think it all mere doggrel, I shall omit to quote from it, though it might 
edify many a magisterial Dogberry, and prove a real mayor's nest. F. CRESSWELL.] 



A Plea for Pilgrimages. 25 

with Buffon and with Fontenelle, and held intercourse with Nature's simplest 
child, Bernardin de St. Pierre, author of ' Paul and Virginia;' Cresset and 
Marmontel were my college-friends ; and to me, though a frequenter of the 
halls of Sorbonne, the octogenaire of Ferney was not unknown : nor was I un- 
acquainted with the recluse of Ermenonville. But what are the souvenirs of a 
single period, however brilliant and interesting, to the recollections of full seven 
centuries of historic glory, all condensed and concentrated in Scott? What a 
host of personages does his name conjure up ! what mighty shades mingle in 
the throng of attendant heroes that wait his bidding, and form his appropriate 
retinue ! Cromwell, Claverhouse, and Montrose, Saladin, Front de Bceuf, and 
Coeur de Lion ; Rob Roy, Robin Hood, and Marmion ; those who fell at 
Culloden and Flodden Field, and those who won the day at Bannockburn, 
all start up at the presence of the Enchanter. I speak not of his female forms 
of surpassing loveliness his Flora M'lvor, his Rebecca, his Amy Robsart : 
these you, Frank, can best admire. But I know not how I shall divest myself 
of a secret awe when the wizard, with all his spells, shall rise before me. The 
presence of my old foster-brother, George Knapp, will doubtless tend to dis- 
sipate the illusion ; but if so it will be by personifying the Bailie Nicol Jarvie 
of Glasgow, his worthy prototype. Nor are Scott's merits those simply of a 
pleasing novelist or a spirit-stirring poet ; his ' Life of Dryden,' his valuable 
commentaries on Swift, his researches in the dark domain of demonology, his 
biography of Napoleon, and the sterling views of European policy developed 
in 'Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk,' all contribute to enhance his literary pre- 
eminence. Rightly has Silius Italicus depicted the Carthaginian hero, sur- 
rounded even in solitude by a thousand recollections of well-earned renown 

' Nee credis inermem 

8uem mihi tot cinxere duces : si admoveris ora, 
annas et Trebiam ante oculos, Romanaque busta, 
Et Pauli stare ingenlem miraberis umbram ! ' 

Yet, greatly and deservedly as he is prized by his contemporaries, future ages 
will value him even more ; and his laurel, ever extending its branches, and 
growing in secret like the ' fame of Marcelius,' will overshadow the earth. Pos- 
terity will canonize his every relic; and his footsteps, even in this remote district, 
will be one day traced and sought for by the admirers of genius. For, not- 
withstanding the breadth and brilliancy of effect with which he waved the torch 
of mind while living, far purer and more serene will be the lamp that shall 
glimmer in his tomb and keep vigil over his hallowed ashes : to that fount of 
inspiration other and minor spirits, eager to career through the same orbit of 
glory, will recur, and 

' In their golden urns draw light.' 

Nor do I merely look on him as a writer who, by the blandishment of his narra- 
tive and the witchery of his style, has calmed more sorrow, and caused more 
happy hours to flow, than any save a higher and a holier page a writer who, 
like the autumnal meteor of his own North, has illumined the dull horizon of 
these latter days with a fancy ever varied and radiant with joyfulness one who, 
for useful purposes, has interwoven the plain warp of history with the many- 
coloured web of his own romantic loom; but further do I hail in him the 
genius who has rendered good and true service to the cause of mankind, by 
driving forth from the temple of Religion, with sarcasm's knotted lash, that 
canting puritanic tribe who would obliterate from the book of life every earthly 
enjoyment, and change all its paths of peace into walks of bitterness. I honour 
him for his efforts to demolish the pestilent influence of a sour and sulky system 
that would interpose itself between the gospel sun and the world that retains 
no heat, imbibes no light, and transmits none ; but flings its broad, cold, and 
disastrous shadow over the land that is cursed with its visitation. 



26 The Works of Father Front. 

" The excrescences and superfoetations of my own church most freely do I 
yield up to his censure ; for while in his Abbot Boniface, his Friar Tuck, and 
his intriguing Rashleigh, he has justly stigmatized monastic laziness, and de- 
nounced ultramontane duplicity, he has not forgotten to exhibit the bright 
reverse of the Roman medal, but has done full measure of justice to the nobler 
inspirations of our creed, bodied forth in Mary Stuart, Hugo de Lacy, Cathe- 
rine Seaton, Die Vernon, and Rose de Beranger. Nay, even in his fictions of 
cloistered life, among the drones of that ignoble crowd, he has drawn minds of 
another sphere, and spirits whose ingenuous nature and piety unfeigned were 
not worthy of this world's deceitful intercourse, but fitted them to commune in 
solitude with Heaven. 

"Such are the impressions, and such the mood of mind in which I shall 
accost the illustrious visitor ; and you, Frank, shall accompany me on this 
occasion." 

Accordingly, the next morning found Prout, punctual to Knapp's summons, 
at his appointed post on the top of the castle, keeping a keen look-out for the 
arrival of Sir Walter. He came, at length, up the " laurel avenue," so called 
from the gigantic laurels that overhang the path, 

" Which bowed, 
As if each brought a new classic wreath to his head ; " 

and alighting at the castle-gate, supported by Knapp, he toiled up the winding 
stairs as well as his lameness would permit, and stood at last, with all his fame 
around him, in the presence of Prout. The form of mutual introduction was 
managed by Knapp with his usual tact and urbanity ; and the first interchange 
of thoughts soon convinced Scott that he had lit on no " clod of the valley " 
in the priest. The confabulation which ensued may remind you of the 
"Tusculanae Quasstiones" of Tully, or the dialogues " De Oratore," or of 
Home Tooke's " Diversions of Purley," or of all three together. Ld, void. 

SCOTT. 

I congratulate myself, reverend father, on the prospect of having so 
experienced a guide in exploring the wonders of this celebrated spot. Indeed, 
I am so far a member of your communion, that I take delight in pilgrimages ; 
and you behold in me a pilgrim to the Blarney stone. 

PROUT. 

I accept the guidance of so sincere a devotee ; nor has a more accomplished 
palmer ever worn scrip, or staff, or scollop-shell, in my recollection ; nay, 
more right honoured shall the pastor of the neighbouring upland feel in 
affording shelter and hospitality, such as every pilgrim has claim to, if the 
penitent will deign visit my humble dwelling. 

SCOTT. 

My vow forbids ! I must not think of bodily refreshment, or any such pro- 
fane solicitudes, until I go through the solemn rounds of my devotional career 
until I kiss " the stone," and explore the " cave where no daylight enters," 
the "fracture in the battlement," the "lake well stored with fishes," and, 
finally, "the sweet rock-close." 

PROUT. 

All these shall you duly contemplate when you shall have rested from the 
fatigue of climbing to this lofty eminence, whence, seated on these battlements, 
you can command a landscape fit to repay the toil of the most laborious pere- 
grination ; in truth, if the ancient observance were not sufficiently vindicated 
by your example to-day, I should have thought it my duty to take up the 
gauntlet for that much-abused set of men, the pilgrims of olden time. 



A Pica for Pilgrimages. 27 



In all cases of initiation to any solemn rites, such as I am about to enter on, 
it is customary to give an introductory letter to the neophyte ; and as you 
seem disposed to enlighten us with a preamble, you have got, reverend father, 
in me a most docile auditor. 

PROUT. 

There is a work, Sir Walter, with which I presume you are not unacquainted, 
which forcibly and beautifully portrays the honest fervour of our forefathers in 
their untutored views of Christianity : but if the "Tales of the Crusaders" 
count among their dramatis persona the mitred prelate, the cowled hermit, the 
croziered abbot, and the gallant templar strange mixture of daring and devo- 
tion, far do I prefer the sketch of that peculiar creation of Catholicity and 
romance, the penitent under solemn vow, who comes down from Thabor or 
from Lebanon to embark for Europe : and who in rude garb and with unshodden 
feet will return to his native plains of Languedoc or Lombardy, displaying 
with pride the emblem of Palestine, and realizing what Virgil only dreamt of 
" Primus Idumseas referam tibi, Mantua, palmas ! " 

But I am wrong in saying that pilgrimages belong exclusively to our most 
ancient form of Christianity, or that the patent for this practice appertains to 
religion at all. It is the simplest dictate of our nature, though piety has con- 
secrated the practice, and marked it for her own. Patriotism, poetry, philan- 
thropy, all the arts, and all the finer feelings, have their pilgrimages, their 
hallowed spots of intense interest, their haunts of fancy and of inspiration. 
It is the first impulse of every genuine affection, the tendency of the heart in 
its fervent youthhood ; and nothing but the cold scepticism of an age which 
Edmund Burke so truly designated as that of calculators and economists, 
could scoff at the enthusiasm that feeds on ruins such as these, that visits 
with emotion the battle-field and the ivied abbey, or Shakespeare's grave,.or 
Galileo's cell, or Runnymede, or Marathon. 

Filial affection has had its pilgrim in Telemachus ; generous and devoted 
loyalty in Blondel, the best of troubadours ; Bruce, Be.lzoni, and Humboldt, 
were pilgrims of science ; and John Howard was the sublime pilgrim of 
philanthropy. 

Actuated by a sacred feeling, the son of Ulysses visited every isle and 
inhospitable shore of the boisterous ^Egean, until a father clasped him in his 
arms; propelled by an equally absorbing attachment, the faithful minstrel of 
Cceur de Lion sang before every feudal castle in Germany, until at last a 
dungeon-keep gave back the responsive echo of " O Richard! O man royt" 
If Belzoni died toilworn and dissatisfied if Baron Humboldt is still plodding 
his course through the South American peninsula, or wafted on the bosom of 
the Pacific it is because the domain of science is infinite, and her votaries 
must never rest : 

" For there are wanderers o'er eternity, 
Whose bark goes on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be ! " 

But when Howard explored the secrets of every prison-house in Europe, per- 
forming that which Burke classically described as "a circumnavigation of 
charity ; " nay, when, on a still holier errand, three eastern sages came from 
the boundaries of the earth to do homage to a cradle ; think ye not that in 
theirs, as in every pilgrim's progress, a light unseen to others shone on the 
path before them ? derived they not untiring vigour from the exalted nature of 
their pursuit, felt they not " a pinion lifting every limb " ? Such are the feel- 
ings which Tasso beautifully describes when he brings his heroes within view 
of Sion : 



28 The Works of Father Front. 



-i 



" Al grand piacer che quella prima viita 
Dolcemente spiro, nell' altrui petto, 
Alta contrizion successe, mista 
Di timoroso e riverente afletto. 
Osano appena d' innalzar la vista 
Ver la citti, di Cristo albergo eletto, 
Dove morl, dove sepolto fue, 
Dove poi rivestl le membra sue ! " 

Canto III. 

I need not tell you, Sir Walter, that the father of history, previous to taking 
up the pen of Clio, explored every monument of Upper Egypt ; or that Hero- 
dotus had been preceded by Homer, and followed by Pythagoras, in this 
philosophic pilgrimage ; that Athens and Corinth were the favourite resorts of 
the Roman literati, Sylla, Lucullus, and Mecaenas, when no longer the seats 
of empire; and that Rome itself is, in its turn, become as well the haunt of 
the antiquarian as the poet, and the painter, and the Christian pilgrim ; for 
dull indeed would that man be, duller than the stagnant weed that vegetates 
on Lethe's shore, who again would put the exploded interrogatory, once fallen, 
not inaptly, from the mouth of a clown 

" Qua; tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi ? " 

I mean not to deny that there exist vulgar minds and souls without refinement, 
whose perceptions are of that stunted nature that they can see nothing in the 
"pass of Thermopylae" but a gap for cattle; in the "Forum" but a cow- 
yard ; and for whom St. Helena itself is but a barren rock : but, thank 
Heaven ! we are not all yet come to that unenviable stage of utilitarian philo- 
sophy ; and there is still some hope left for the Muses' haunts, when he of 
Abbotsford blushes not to visit the castle, the stone, and the groves of Blarney. 
Nor is he unsupported in the indulgence of this classic fancy ; for there 
exists another pilgrim, despite of modern cavils, who keeps up the credit of 
the profession a wayward childe, whose restless spirit has long since spurned 
the solemn dulness of conventional life, preferring to hold intercourse with the 
mountain-top and the ocean-brink : Ida and Salamis "are to him companion- 
ship ;" and every broken shaft, prostrate capital, and marble fragment of 
that sunny land, tells its tale of other days to a fitting listener in Harold : 
for him Etruria is a teeming soil, and the spirit of song haunts Ravenna 
and Parthenope : for him 

" There is a tomb in Arqui," 

which to the stolid peasant that wends his way along the Euganeian hills 
is mute indeed as the grave, nor breathes the name of its indweller; but a 
voice breaks forth from the mausoleum at the passage of Byron, the ashes 
of Petrarch grow warm in their marble bed, and the last wish of the poet 
in his " Legacy " is accomplished : 

" Then if some bard, who roams forsaken, 

Shall touch on thy cords in passing along, 
O may one thought of its master waken 
The sweetest smile for the Childe of Song ! " 

SCOTT. 

Proud and flattered as I must feel, O most learned divine ! to be classi- 
fied with Herodotus, Pythagoras, Belzoni, Bruce, and Byron, I fear much 
that I am but a sorry sort of pilgrim, after all. Indeed, an eminent writer of 
your church has laid it down as a maxim, which I suspect applies to my 
case, " Qui multuin peregrinantur raro sanctificantur." Does not Thomas i, 
Kempis say so? 



A Pica for Pilgrimages. 29 



The doctrine may be sound ; but the book from which you quote is one of 
those splendid productions of uncertain authorship which we must ascribe to 
some "great unknown" of the dark ages. 



Be that as it may, I can give you a parallel sentiment from one of your 
French poets ; for I understand you are partial to the literature of that merry 
nation. The pilgrim's wanderings are compared by this Gallic satirist to the 
meandering course of a river in Germany, which, after watering the plains of 
Protestant Wirtemberg and Catholic Austria, enters, by way of finale, on the 
domains of the Grand Turk : 

" J'ai vu le Danube inconstant, 
Qui, tant6t Catholique et tant6t Protestant, 
Sert Rome et Luther de son onde ; 

Mais, comptant apres pour rien 

Romain et Lutherien, 
Finit sa course vagabonde 

Par n'etre pas mfime Chretien. 
Rarement en courant le monde 

On devient homme de bien !" 

By the way, have you seen Stothard's capital print, " The Pilgrimage to 
Canterbury " ? 

PROUT. 

Such orgies on pious pretences I cannot but deplore, with Chaucer, Erasmus, 
Dryden, and Pope, who were all of my creed, and pointedly condemned them. 
The Papal hierarchy in this country have repeatedly discountenanced such 
unholy doings. Witness their efforts to demolish the cavern of Loughderg, 
called St. Patrick's Purgatory, that has no better claim to antiquity than our 
Blarney cave, in which " bats and badgers are for ever bred." And still, con- 
cerning this truly Irish curiosity, there is a document of a droll description in 
Rymer's " Fcedera," in the 32nd year of Edward III., A.D. 1358. It is no 
less than a certificate, duly made out by that good-natured monarch, showing 
to all men as how a foreign nobleman did really visit the Cave of St. Patrick,* 
and passed a night in its mysterious recesses. 

* This is, vye believe, what Prout alludes to ; and we confess it is a precious relic of 
olden simplicity, and ought to see the light : 

" A.D. 1358, an. 32 Edw. III. 

" Litterx testimonials super mora in S cti Patricii Purgatorio. Rex uuiversis et singulis 
ad quos praesentes litterae pervenerint, salutem ! 

" Nobilis vir Malatesta Ungarus de Arimenio, miles, ad praesentiam nostram veniens, 
maturfc nobis exposuit quod ipse nuper a terrae suas discedens laribus, Purgatorium Sancti 
Patricii, infra ten-am nostram Hyberniae constitutum, in multis corporis sui laboribus 
peregrfe visitarat, ac per integrae diei ac noctis continuatum spatium, ut est moris, clausus 
manserat in eodeni, nobis cum instanti& supplicando, ut in praemissorum veracius fulci- 
mentum regales nostras litteras inde sibi concedere dignaremur. 

" Nos autem ipsius peregrinatipnis considerantes periculosa discrimina, licet tanti 
nobilis in hftc parte nobis assertip sit accepta, quia tamen dilecti ac fidelis nostri Almarici 
de S to Amando, militis, jtisticiarii nostri Hyberniae, simul ac Prioris et Conventus loci 
dicti Purgatorii, et etiam aliorum auctoritatis multac virorum litteris, aliisque claris evi- 
dentiis informamur quod dictus nobilis hanc peregrinationem rite perfecerat et etiam 
amntose. 

" Dignum duximus super his testimonium nostnim favorabiliter adhibere, ut sublato 
cujusvis dubitationis invplucro, prapmissprum veritas singulis lucidius patefiat, has litteras 
nostras sigillo regio consignatas illi duximus concedendas. 

" Dat' in palatio nostro West', xxiv die Octobris, 1358." 

RYMER'S Fcedera, by Caley. London, 1825. 
Vol. iii. pt. i. p. 408. 



3O The Works of Father Front. 



I was aware of the existence of that document, as also of the remark made 
by one Erasmus of Rotterdam concerning the said cave : " Non desunt hodie 
qui descendunt, sedprius triduano enecti jejunio ne sano capite ingrediantur."* 
Erasmus, reverend friend, was an honour to your cloth ; but as to Edward III., 
I am not surprised he should have encouraged such excursions, as he belonged 
to a family whose patronymic is traceable to a pilgrim's vow. My reverend 
friend is surely in possession of the historic fact, that the name of Plantagenet 
is derived from plante de genest, a sprig of heath, which the first Duke of 
Anjou wore in his helmet as a sign of penitential humiliation, when about to 
depart for the Holy Land ; though why a broom-sprig should indicate lowliness 
is not satisfactorily explained. 

PKOUT. 

The monks of that day, who are reputed to have been very ignorant, 
were perhaps acquainted with the "Georgics" of Virgil, and recollected the 
verse 

" Quid majora sequar? Salices humilesqite Genista." 

II. 434. 

SCOTT. 

I suppose there is some similar recondite allusion in that unaccountable deco- 
ration of every holy traveller's accoutrement, the scollop-shell ? or was it merely 
used to quaff the waters of the brook ? 



It was first assumed by the penitents who resorted to the shrine of St. Jago 
di Compostella, on the western coast of Spain, to betoken that they had 
extended their penitential excursion so far as that sainted shore ; just as the 
palm-branch was sufficient evidence of a visit to Palestine. Did not the 
soldiers of a Roman general fill their helmets with cockles on the brink of the 
German Ocean? By the bye, when my laborious and learned friend the 
renowned Abbd Trublet, in vindicating the deluge against Voltaire, instanced 
the heaps of marine remains and conchylia on the ridge of the Pyrenees, the 
witty reprobate of Ferney had the unblushing effrontery to assert that those 
were shells left behind by the pilgrims of St. Jacques on recrossing the moun- 
tains. 

SCOTT. 

I must not, meantime, forget the objects of my devotion ; and with your 
benison, reverend father, shall proceed to examine the "stone." 

* Erasmus in Adagia, artic. de antro Trophonii. See also Camden's account of this 
cave in his Hybemue Descriptio, edition of 1594, p. 671. It is a singular fact, though 
little known, that from the visions said to occur in this cavern, and bruited abroad by the 
fraternity of monks, whose connection with Italy was constant and intimate,' Dante took 
the first hint of his Divina Commedia, II Purgatorio. Such was the celebrity this cave 
had obtained in Spain, that the great dramatist Calderon made it the subject of one of 
his best pieces ; and it was so well known at the court of Ferrara, that Ariosto introduced 
it into his Orlando Fnrioso, canto x. stanza 92. 

" Quindi Ruggier, poiche di banda in banda 
Vide gl" Inglesi, and6 verso 1' Irlanda 
E vide Ibemia fabulosa, dove 
II santo vecchiarel fece la cava 



In che tanta merce par che si trove, 
Che 1' uom vi purga ogni sua colpa p 



i purga ogni sua colpa prava ! " 

[F. CRESSWELL.] 



A Pica for Pilgrimages. 3 1 

PROUT. 

You behold, Sir Walter, in this block the most valuable remnant of Ireland's 
ancient glory, and the most precious lot of her Phoenician inheritance ! Pos- 
sessed of this treasure, she may well be designated 

" First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea ; " 

for neither the musical stone of Memnon, that "so sweetly played in tune," 
nor the oracular stone at Delphi, nor the lapidary talisman of the Lydian 
Gyges, nor the colossal granite shaped into a sphinx in Upper Egypt, nor 
Stonehenge, nor the Pelasgic walls of Italy's Palasstrina, offer so many attrac- 
tions. The long-sought lapis philosophorum, compared with this jewel, 
dwindles into insignificance ; nay, the savoury fragment which was substituted 
for the infant Jupiter, when Saturn had the mania of devouring his children ; 
the Luxor obelisk ; the treaty-stone of Limerick, with all its historic endear- 
ments ; the zodiacal monument of Denderach, with all its astronomic impor- 
tance; the Elgin marbles with all their sculptured, the Arundelian with all their 
lettered, riches, cannot for a moment stand in competition with the Blarney 
block. What stone in the world, save this alone, can communicate to the 
tongue that suavity of speech, and that splendid effrontery, so necessary to get 
through life ? Without this resource, how could Brougham have managed 
to delude the English public, or Dan O'Connell to gull even his own country- 
men? How could St. John Long thrive? or Dicky Sheil prosper? What 
else could have transmuted my old friend Pat Lardner into a man of letters 
LL.D., F.R.S.L. and E., M.R.I.A., F.R.A.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.C.P.S., 
&c., &c. ? What would have become of Spring Rice? and who would have 
heard of Charley Phillips ? When the good fortune of the above-mentioned 
individuals can be traced to any other source, save and except the Blarney 
stone, I am ready to renounce my belief in it altogether. 

This palladium of our country was brought hither originally by the Phoe- 
nician colony that peopled Ireland, and is the best proof of our eastern 
parentage. The inhabitants of Tyre and Carthage, who for many years had 
the Blarney stone in their custody, made great use of the privilege, as the 
proverbs fides Punica, Tyriosque bilingu.es, testify. Hence the origin of this 
wondrous talisman is of the remotest antiquity. 

Strabo, Diodorus, and Pliny, mention the arrival of the Tyrians in Ireland 
about the year 883 before Christ, according to the chronology of Sir Isaac 
Newton, and the twenty-first year after the sack of Troy. 

Now, to show that in all their migrations they carefully watched over this 
treasure of eloquence and source of diplomacy, I need only enter into a few 
etymological details. Carthage, where they settled for many centuries, but 
which turns out to have been only a stage and resting-place in the progress of 
their western wanderings, bears in its very name the trace of its having had in 
its possession and custody the Blarney stone. This city is called in the Scrip- 
ture Tarsus, or Tarshish, ttWin, which in Hebrew means a valuable stone, a 
stone of price, rendered in your authorized (?) version, where it occurs in the 
28th and 39th chapters of Exodus, by the specific term beryl, a sort of jewel. 
In his commentaries on this word, an eminent rabbi, Jacob Rodrigues 
Moreira, the Spanish Jew, says that Carthage is evidently the Tarsus of the 
Bible, and he reads the word thus IJttHn, accounting for the termina- 
tion in ish, by which Carthago becomes Carshish, in a very plausible way : 
" now," says he, "our peoplish have de very great knack of ending dere vords 
in is/i ; for if you go on the 'Change, you will hear the great man Nicholish 
Rotchild calling the English coin monish." See Lectures delivered in the 
Western Synagogue, by J. R. M. 

But, further, does it not stand to reason that there must be some other latent 



32 The Works of Father Front. 

way of accounting for the purchase of as much ground as an ox-hide would 
cover, besides the generally received and most unsatisfactory explanation ? The 
fact is, the Tynans bought as much land as their Blarney stone would require 
to fix itself solidly, 

" Taurino quantum potuit circumdare tergo ;" 

and having got that much, by the talismanic stone they humbugged and 
deluded the simple natives, and finally became the masters of Africa. 



I confess you have thrown a new and unexpected light on a most obscure 
passage in ancient history ; but how the stone got at last to the county of 
Cork, appears to me a difficult transition. It must give you great trouble. 



My dear sir, don't mention it ! It went to Minorca with a chosen body of 
Carthaginian adventurers, who stole it away as their best safeguard on the 
expedition. They first settled at Port Mahon, a spot so called from the clan 
of the O'Mahonys, a powerful and prolific race still flourishing in this county; 
just as the Nile had been previously so named from the tribe of the O' Neils, 
its aboriginal inhabitants. All these matters, and many more curious points, 
will be one day revealed to the world by my friend Henry O'Brien, in his work 
on the Round Towers of Ireland. Sir, we built the pyramids before we left 
Egypt ; and all those obelisks, sphinxes, and Memnonic stones, were but 
emblems of the great relic before you. 

George Knapp, who had looked up to Prout with dumb amazement from the 
commencement, here pulled out his spectacles, to examine more closely the old 
block, while Scott shook his head doubtingly. 

" I can convince the most obstinate sceptic. Sir Walter," continued the 
learned doctor, "of the intimate connection that subsisted between us and 
those islands which the Romans called insulcB J^aleares, without knowing the 
signification of the words which they thus applied. That they were so called 
from the Blarney stone, will appear at once to any person accustomed to trace 
Celtic derivations : the Ulster king of arms, Sir William Betham, has shown 
it by the following scale." 

Here Prout traced with his cane on the muddy floor of the castle the words 



Prodigious ! My reverend friend, you' have set the point at rest for ever 
rcm acu tctigisli! Have the goodness to proceed. 

PROUT. 

Setting sail from Minorca, the expedition, after encountering a desperate 
storm, cleared the Pillars of Hercules, and landing in the Cove of Cork, 
deposited their treasure in the greenest spot and the shadiest groves of this 
beautiful vicinity. 

SCOTT. 

How do you account for their being left by the Carthaginians in quiet pos- 
session of this invaluable deposit ? 

PROUT. 

They had sufficient tact (derived from their connection with the stone) to give 
out, that in the storm it had been thrown overboard to relieve the ship, in lati- 






A Pica for Pilgrimages. 



33 



tude 36 14", longitude 24. A search was ordered by the senate of Carthage, 
and the Mediterranean was dragged without effect; but the mariners of that 
sea, according to Virgil, retained a superstitious reverence for every submarine 
appearance of a stone : 

" Saxa vocant Itali mediis quae in fluctibus aras ! " 

And Aristotle distinctly says, in his treatise " De Mirandis," quoted by the 
erudite Justus Lipsius, that a law was enacted against any further intercourse 
with Ireland. His words are : "In mari, extra Herculis Columnas, insulam 
desertam inventam fuisse sylva, nemorosam, in quam crebro Carthaginienses 
commearint, et series etiam fixerint : sed veriti ne nimis cresceret, et Carthago 
laberetur, edicto cavisse ne quis pcena capitis e6 deinceps navigaret." 

The fact is, Sir Walter, Ireland was always considered a lucky spot, and 
constantly excited the jealousy of Greeks, Romans, and people of every 
country. The Athenians thought that the ghosts of departed heroes were 
transferred to our fortunate island, which they call, in the war-song of Harmo- 
dius and Aristogiton, the land of O's and Macs : 

4>i\Ta6' 'ApfioSt, OUTS -JTOV TiQvtiKas, 
Nrjows &' fi> MAK ap' QN <7E (fiacriv ttvai. 

And the " Groves of Blarney " have been commemorated by the Greek poets 
many centuries before the Christian era. 



There is certainly somewhat of Grecian simplicity in the old song itself ; and 
if Pindar had been an Irishman, I think he would have celebrated this favourite 
haunt in a style not very different from Millikin's classic rhapsody. 

PROUT. 

Millikin, the reputed author of that song, was but a simple translator from 
the Greek original. Indeed, I have discovered, when abroad, in the library of 
Cardinal Mazarin, an old Greek manuscript, which, after diligent examination, 
I am convinced must be the oldest and "princepseditio" of the song. I begged 
to be allowed to copy it, in order that I might compare it with the ancient 
Latin or Vulgate translation which is preserved in the Brera at Milan ; and 
from a strict and minute comparison with that, and with the Norman-French 
copy which is appended to Doomsday-book, and the Celtic-Irish fragment pre- 
served by Crofton Croker (rejecting as spurious the Arabic, Armenian, and 
Chaldaic stanzas on the same subject, to be found in the collection of the Royal 
Asiatic Society), I. have come to the conclusion that the Greeks were the 
undoubted original contrivers of that splendid ode ; though whether we ascribe 
it to Tyrtoeus or Callimachus will depend on future evidence ; and perhaps, 
Sir Walter, yon would give me your opinion, as I have copies of all the versions 
I allude to at my dwelling on the hill. 

SCOTT. 

I cannot boast, learned father, of much i/oi/s in Hellenistic matters; but 
should find myself quite at home in the Gaelic and Norman-French, to inspect 
which I shall with pleasure accompany you : so here I kiss the stone ! 

The wonders of " the castle," and "cave," and "lake," were speedily gone 
over; and now, according to the usage of the dramatist, modo Romce, modo 
ponit Athenis, we shift the scene to the tabernacle of Father Prout on Water- 
grasshill, where, round a small table, sat Scott, Knapp, and Prout a trium- 
virate of critics never equalled. 1'he papers fell into my hands when the table 
was cleared for the subsequent repast ; and thus I am able to submit to the 
world's decision what these three could not decide, viz., -which is the original 
version of the " Groves of Blarney." 



34 



The Works of Father Front. 



2Tf)p Grobrs of JSIamrj. 
i. 

The groves of Blarney, 
They look so charming, 
Down by the purlings 
Of sweet silent brooks, 
All decked by posies 
That spontaneous grow there, 
Planted in order 
In the rocky nooks. 
Tis there the daisy, 
And the sweet carnation, 
The blooming pink, 
And the rose so fair ; 
Likewise the lily, 
.And the daffodilly 
All flowers that scent 
The sweet open air. 



LE Bois DE BLARNAYE. 
I. 

Channans bocages ! 
Vans me ravissez, 
Qiie d'a-vantages 
Vous rtunissez ! 
Rochers sau-vages, 
Paisibles ruisseaux, 
Tendres ramages 
De genii Is oiseaux : 
Dans ce doux parage 
Aimable Nature 
A fait italage 
D'eternelle -verdure ; 
Et lesfleurs, d mesure 
Qitelles croissent, a raison 
De la belle saison 
Font briller leur parurc. 



II. 

Tis Lady Jeffers 
Owns this plantation ; 
Like Alexander, 
Or like Helen fair, 
There's no commander 
In all the nation, 
For regulation 
Can with her compare. 
Such walls surround her, 
That no nine-pounder 
Could ever plunder 
Her place of strength ; 
But Oliver Cromwell, 
Her he did pommel, 
And made a breach 
In her battlement. 



II. 

Cest Madame de Jefferts, 
Femme pleine d'addresse, 
Qni snr ces beaux deserts 
Rfgne enfiere princesse. 
Elle exerce ses droits 
Comme dame ma'dresse, 
Dans cette forte resse 
Qite Id hautje ^>cis. 
Plus sage millefois 
Qu Helene ou Cleopatre, 
Cromvel seul put rabb&tre, 
La ntettant aux atois, 
Quand, allumant sa nteche, 
Point tie tira au kasard, 
Mais bien dans son rempart 
Fit irreparable breche. 



III. 

There is a cave where 
No daylight enters, 
But cats and badgers 
Are for ever bred ; 
And mossed by nature 
Makes it completer 
Than a coach-and-six, 
Or a downy bed. 
'Tis there the lake is 
Well stored with fishes, 
And comely eels in 
The verdant mud ; 
Besides the leeches, 
And groves of beeches, 
Standing in order 
To guard the flood. 



III. 

// est dans ces vallons 
Une sombre caverne, 
Oujatnnis nous n'allons 
Qti'armes dune lanterne. 
ia mousse en cette grotte 
Tapissant chaque motte 
Vous ojffre des sofas ; 
Et Id se trouve unie 
La douce symphonie 
Des hiboux et des chats. 
Tout fres on voit un lac, 
Ou lesfoisstms affluent, 
A vec asses de sangsues 
Pour en remplir un sac ; 
Et sur ces bords champetres 
On aplantt des hctrcs. 



A Plea for Pilgrimages. 



35 



'H 'YXtj B/\opi/i/oj. 



TTJS BAapvia? <u vAai 
tcpiarai, KaAAi(f>i/AAai, 
'Ojrov 0"iy77 peoueri 



Me(T<70i? ev ayKOve&ffLV 
ECTT' ai'Se' w(Tp<a&e<T<r<.v. 
Eicei ear' <ryAai.i]jaa 
FAvKV KCU epv#r)/ua, 
lov T' e/cei OaAoi' re 
BacrtAiKoi' poSov Tf. 
Kai Aeipiot/ re $vet, 
A<r<f>o5eAos re /Spvei, 
Havr' ai/6f ju.' a. KaAjj<T(i' 
Ei/ cvtai$ aTjaif. 



Blarneum Nemus. 

I. 

Quisquis hie in laetis 
Gaudes errare virefis, 
Turrigeras rupes 
Blarnea saxa stupes ! 
Murmure dum caeco 
Lympharum perstrepit echo, 
Quas veltiti mutas 
Ire per arva putas. 
Multus in hoc luco 
Rubet undique flos sine fuco, 
Ac ibi formosam 
Cernis ubique rosam ; 
Suaviter hi flores 
Miscent ut amabis odores ; 
Nee requiem demus, 
Nam placet omne nemus ! 



Taunjs IE*EPE22A 



*Os 'EAenj, <os T' uios 
Tou Afijiofos 6 Sios, 
"tvTetas car' ayacror). 
lepi^j r' ev aTracrjj 
Owns fipOTiav yevoiro 
'Os auryj <n>iJi<j)fpOi.TO, 
OiKovofifiv yap oifie. 
Toi^oi ro<rot rotoi 6e 



Man)!/ wi' aAA' cos Vjpco; 

OAt(/>7)p 
awatras 



II. 

Fcemina dux horum 
Regnat Jeferessa locorum, 
Pace, virago gravis, 
Marteque pejor avis ! 
Africa non atram 
Componeret ei Cleopatram, 
Nee Dido constares ! 
Non habet ilia pares. 
Turre manens isttl 
Nulls, est violanda balistfi : 
Turris erat diris 
Non penetranda viris ; 
Cromwellus latum 
Tamen illlc fecit hiatum, 
Et ludos heros 
Lucit in arce feros ! 



Koi avTpoi' ear" fKfi Se 
'Oy' riiJiep' OVITOT' eiSc, 
MeAeis <5e xai "j/aAai tv 
AVTU> Tpc^oi'Tai aiei- 
Ei/reAearepoi' <f>vov re 
A^c? Trotei fipvov ye 
'Ef tirjrov T] Su/jpoio 

H KOITTJ5 lOuAOlO* 



ei jrapecm, 
K' eyxeAees <j>vovffi 
EK cAut 0oAoutr}j" 
BSeAAat re eKTiv aAAa 
' re aAorj KaA.' a 



Ais por; 



III. 

Hie tenebrosa caverna 
Est, gattorumque taberna, 
Talpa habitata pigro, 
Non sine fele nigro ; 
Muscus iners olli 
Stravit loca tegmine molli 
Lecticas, ut plumis 
Mollior esset humus : 
Inque lacu anguillje 
Luteo nant gurgite mille ; 
Quo nat, arnica luti, 
Hostis hirudo cuti : 
Grande decus pagi, 
Fluvii slant margine fagi ; 
Quodque tegunt ramo 
Labile llunu.n amo ! 



The Works of Father Front. 



IV. 

There gravel walks are 
For recreation, 
And meditation 
In sweet solitude. 
"Tis there the lover 
May hear the dove, or 
The gentle plover, 
In the afternoon ; 
And if a lady 
Would be so engaging 
As for to walk in 
Those shady groves, 
'Tis there the courtier 
Might soon transport her 
Into some fort, or 
The "sweet rock-close." 



IV. 

Id I'homme atrabilaire 
Un sentier petit choisir 
Pour y suivird loisir 
Son reve solitaire, 
Quand line nymplie cruelle 
L'a mis an desespoir, 
Saris qn'il piiisse t'lnouvoir 
L' 'inexorable belle. 
Queldoiix repos je goute, 
Assis surce gaznn ! 
Du rossignol j'ecoute 
J.e tendre diapason. 
Ah', dans cet antre noir 
Puisse ma Leonore, 
Celle que man cceur adore, 
Venir furtii'e au soir ! 



V. 

There are statues gracing 
This noble place in 
All heathen gods, _ 
And nymphs so fair ; 
Bold Neptune, Caesar, 
And Nebuchadnezzar, 
All standing naked 
In the open air ! 
There is a boat on 
The lake to float on, 
And lots of beauties 
Which I can't entwine ; 
But were I a preacher, 
Or a classic teacher, 
In every feature 
I'd make 'em shine ! 



V. 

Dans ces classiques lieux 
Plus d'une statue brille, 
Et se prisente aux yeux 
En parfait deshabille ! 
La Neptune on discerne, 
Et Jules Cesar en plotnb, 
Et Venus, et le tronc 
Du General Holoferne. 
Veut-on vaguer au large 
Sur ce lac ? un esquif 
Offre a I' amateur craintif 
Les chances d'un naufrage. 

gue ne suis-je un Hugo, 
u quelqu' auteur en vogue, 
En ce genre d'eglogue. 
ye riaurais pas d egaux. 



VI 

There is a stone there, 
That whoever kisses, 
Oh ! he never misses 
To grow eloquent. 
'Tis he may clamber 
To a lady's chamber, 
Or become a member 
Of parliament : 
A clever spouter 
He'll sure turn out, or 
An out-and-outer, 
" To be let alone," 
Don't hope to hinder him, 
Or to bewilder him ; 
Sure he's a pilgrim 
From the Blarney stone ! * 

* End of Millikin's Translation of the 
Groves of Blarney. 



VI. 

Une pierrc s'y rencontre, 

Estimable trisor, 

Qui vaut son poids en or 

Au guide qui la montre. 

Qui baise ce monument, 

Acquiert la parole 

Qui doucement cajole ; 

// devient eloquent. 

Au boudoir d'unc dame 

II sera bien refu, 

Et tneme d son inscu 

fera naltre unejlammc. 

Homme d botines fortunes, 

A lui on pent scfier 

Pour mystifier 

La Chambre dcs Communes. \ 

t Ici finist le PoSme dit le Bois de Blar- 
naye, copie du Livre de Doomsdaye, A. i>. 
1069. 



A Plea for Pilgrimages. 



Kar' cpijfiiaf yAuice 
Effort icat epaorjj 



T) Tprfpiav' 



Ei TIS re (cat 

Exe 

AAaofla 

I<rws ev <ricio6<r<ri, 

Tts evyenjs yei/otTO 

AUTTJC 6s oTrayotTO 

Trvpyoi/ TI ij Trpos ae, 
' cnreos ye ! 



IV. 

Cernis in has valles 
Quo ducunt tramite calles, 
Hanc mente in sedem 
Fer meditante pedem, 
(^uisquis ades, bella; 
1 ransfixus amore puellx 
Aut patriae carse 
Tempus inane dare ! 
Dumque jaces herba, 
'1'urtur flet voce superbfl, 
Arboreoque throno 
Flet philomela sono : 
Spelunca apparet 
Quam dux 1'rojanus amaret, 
In simili nido 
Nam fuit icta Dido. 



EoTt SlOV TOTTOV TC. 

fiav fBviKiav 6av re, 
Tioi/ Apvafuf KaAiof re* 
Ilocreijojv Tj6e Kattrap 
T' iSou Na^ex v ^ l/at< '' o P' 
Ei^ atapia Q.ITQ.VTQ.S 
EOT' iSav yu/xvovs orai'Tas. 
Ei/ Aiftif) cart irAotop', 
Et TIS RAcei? SeAoi av 
Kai KoAa o<7(r' cyco <rot 
Ou Sui/aji' (KTvma<rai' 
AAA' et 7' eiTji/ Aoytcrnjs, 
H 5i6a(7(caAoy trcx^toTrjs, 
TOT" ef o\tarar' av (rot. 
Aei Jaifii TO a7ra>> o~ot. 



V. 

Plumbea signa Defim 

Nemus ornant, grande trophaeum ! 

Stas ibi, Kacche teres ! 

Nee sine fruge Ceres, 

Neptunique vagp 

De flumine surgit imago ; 

Julius hlc Caesar 

Stat, Nabechud que Nezar ! 

Navicula insonti 

Dat cuique pericula ponti, 

Si quis cymba hflc cum 

Vult super ire lacum. 

Carmini huic ter sum 

Conatus hlc addere versum : 

Pauper at ingenio, 

Plus nihil invenio ! 



Eicei Atflof T" eiip^o'ei?, 
Auroi' lifv ei <J>iAijo"6is 
' 



Prjrojp yap T 



Kat ec Tais a^ 



o-oi 'icoAou0i)o-ei, 
Kai ^eipas uot Kponjcrct 
'fis av&pi -rta fj.eyi<TT<J 
L^iffioyopiav T' aptoro)' 
il 660? oupai'Oi'St- 
Aia BAapi'tKoi' Aifloi' y" |j.* 

* TeAos njs 'YArjs BAavptx?)?. Ex Codice 
Vatic, vetustiss. incert. a;vi circa an. Sal. 
CM. 



VI. 

Fortunatam autem 
Premuerunt oscula cautem 
(Fingere diim Conor 
Debitus huic sic honor) : 
Quam bene tu fingis 
Qui saxi oracula lingis, 
Eloquioque sapis 
Quod dedit ille lapis ! 
Gratus homo bellis 
Fit unctis melle labellis, 
Gratus erit populo 
Oscula dans scopulo; 
Fit subitb orator, 
Caud4que sequente senator. 
Scandere vis aethram ? 
Hanc venerare pctram ! t 

t Explicit hie Carmen de Nemore Dlar- 
ncnsi. Ex Codice No. 464 in Bibliothecil 
Brerae apud Wediolanum. 



38 The Works of Father Front, 



leir AI) be Ic^ni beAtjAjr AIJ AJC reo 

2J)An cfteun-2t)Arcti 

Mi'l ceA^peAbijA A]jt 

Cornjvil leicj cun) Afl 

CA cAit\eAf) 'IJA cionjcjoll. tjAleoftc 

21 bAlUio CCA^A b'^nSM 

2lcc Olibejt C|\onjfMlj 6' 



" Fragment of a Celtic MS., from the King's Library, Copenhagen. 



39 



III. 

Jfa%r grout's Carmtsal. 

(Fraser's Magazine, June, 1834.) 



[The Literary Portrait adorning the number of Regina containing this exhilarating 
account of Father Prout's symposium at Watergrasshill was the vera effigies of Leigh 
Hunt as he then was long before his sable locks were silvered, and when, though already 
in his fortieth year, he could be portrayed without much extravagance as bearing the 
semblance of a dark-eyed, careworn youth ! The linguistic gems of this third paper by 
Mahony arc undoubtedly his Latin version of Campbell's glorious war-song, resonantly 
echoed in Prout's " Prelium apud Hohenlinden," and that foretaste of his onslaught with 
the big end of the shilelagh on Moore, the Cork Father's classic rendering of " Let Erin 
remember the days of old " as " O utinam sanos mea lerna recogitet annos." Asa fitting 
embellishment to the Carousal in the original edition of 1836 the reader enjoyed a glimpse 
at its close of " The Miraculous Draught," to which the convives were challenged by the 
uplifted tumbler of whisky toddy. 1 



" He spread his vegetable store, 

And gaily pressed and smiled ; 
And, skilled in legendary lore, 
The lingering hours beguiled." 

GOLDSMITH. 

BEFORE we resume the thread (or yarn) of Frank Cresswell's narrative con- 
cerning the memorable occurrences which took place at Blarney, on the remark- 
able occasion of Sir Walter Scott's visit to " the groves," we feel it imperative 
on us to set ourselves right with an illustrious correspondent, relative to a most 
important particular. We have received, through that useful medium of the 
interchange of human thought, "the twopenny post," a letter which we think 
of the utmost consequence, inasmuch as it goes to impeach the veracity, not of 
Father Prout (palrem quis dicerefalsum audeat ~F), but of the young and some- 
what facetious barrister who has been the volunteer chronicler of his life and 
opinions. 

For the better understanding of the thing, as it is likely to become a qucsstio 
vexata in other quarters, we may be allowed to bring to recollection that, in 
enumerating the many eminent men who had kissed the Blarney stone during 
Prout's residence in the parish an experience extending itself over a period of 
nearly half a century Doctor D. Lardner was triumphantly mentioned by the 
benevolent and simple-minded incumbent of Watergrasshill, as a proud and 
incontestable instance of the virtue and efficacy of the talisman, applied to the 
most ordinary materials with the most miraculous result. Instead of feeling a 
lingering remnant of gratitude towards the old parent-block for such super- 
natural interposition on his behalf, and looking back to that " kiss " with fond 



40 The Works of Father Front. 

and filial recollection instead of allowing "the stone" to occupy the greenest 
spot in the wilderness of his memory "the stone" that first sharpened his 
intellect, and on which ought to be inscribed the line of Horace, 

" Fungor vice cotis, acutum 
Reddere quae valeat ferrura, exsors ipsa secandi " 

instead of this praiseworthy expression of tributary acknowledgment, the 
Doctor writes to us denying all obligation in the quarter alluded to, and con- 
tradicting most flatly the " soft impeachment" of having kissed the stone at 
all. His note is couched in such peevish terms, and conceived in such fretful 
mood, that we protest we do not recognize the tame and usually unexcited 
tracings of his gentle pen ; but rather suspect he has been induced, by some 
medical wag, to use a quill plucked from the membranous integument of that 
celebrated " man-porcupine" who has of late exhibited his hirsuteness at the 
Middlesex Hospital. 

"London University, May &th. 
"SIR, 

" I owe it to the great cause of ' Useful Knowledge,' to which I 
have dedicated my past labours, to rebut temperately, yet firmly, the yssertion 
reported to have been made by the late Rev. Mr. Prout (for whom I had a 
high regard), in conversing with the late Sir Walter Scott on the occasion 
alluded to in your ephemeral work ; particularly as I find the statement re- 
asserted by that widely-circulated journal the Morning Herald of yesterday's 
date. Were either the reverend clergyman or the distinguished baronet now 
living, I would appeal to their candour, and so shame the inventor of that tale. 
But as both are withdrawn by death from the literary world, I call on you, sir, 
to insert in your next Number this positive denial on my part of having ever 
kissed that stone ; the supposed properties of which, I am ready to prove, do 
not bear the test of chymical analysis. I do recollect having been solicited 
by the present Lord Chancellor of England (and also of the London Univer- 
sity), whom I am proud to call my friend (though you have given him the 
sobriquet of Bridlegoose, with your accustomed want of deference for great 
names), to join him, when, many years ago, he privately embarked on board a 
Westmoreland collier to perform his devotions at Blarney. That circumstance 
is of old date : it was about the year that Paris was taken by the allies, and 
certainly previous to the Queen's trial. But I did not accompany the then 
simple Hany Brougham, content with what nature had done for me in that 
particular department. 

" You will please insert this disavowal from, 

"Sir, 
1 ' Your occasional reader, 

"DioNvsius LARDNER, D.D. 

" P.S. If you neglect me, I shall take care to state my own case in the 
Cyclopaedia. I'll prove that the block at Blarney is an 'Aerolithe,' and that 
your statement as to its Phoenician origin is unsupported by historical evidence. 
Recollect, you have thrown the first stone." 

Now, to us, considering these things, and much pondering on the Doctor's 
letter, it seemed advisable to refer the matter to our reporter, Frank Cresswell 
aforesaid, who has given us perfect satisfaction. By him our attention was 
called, first, to the singular bashfulness of the learned man, in curtailing from 
his signature the usual appendages that shed such lustre o'er his name. He 
lies before us in this epistle a simple D. D., whereas he certainly is entitled to 
write himself F.R.S., M.R.I.A., F.R.A.S., F.L.S.. F.Z.S., F.C.P.S., &c. 



Father Proufs Carousal. 41 

Thus, in his letter, "we saw him," to borrow an illustration from the beautiful 
episode of James Thomson, 

" We saw him charming ; but we saw not half 
The rest his downcast modesty concealed." 

Next as to dates : how redolent of my Uncle Toby -"about the year Den- 
dermonde \vas taken by the allies." The reminiscence was probably one of 
which he was unconscious, and we therefore shall not call him a plagiary ; but 
how slyly, how diabolically does he seek to shift the onus and gravamen of the 
whole business on the rickety shoulders of his learned friend Bridlegoose ! 
This will not do, O sage Thaumaturgus ! By implicating " Bridoison,'' you 
shall not extricate yourself " et vitul<% tu dignus, et hie;" and Frank Cress- 
well has let us into a secret. Know then, all men, that among these never-too- 
anxiously-to-be-looked-out-for " Prout Papers," there is a positive record of 
the initiation both of Henry Brougham and Patrick Lardner to the freemasonry 
of the Blarney stone ; and, more important still (O, most rare document !) 
there is to be found amid the posthumous treasures of Father Prout the original 
project of a University at Blarney, to be then and there founded by the united 
efforts of Lardner, Dan O'Connell, and Tom Steele ; and of which the Doctor's 
" AEKOHTHE " was to have been the corner-stone. 

[Frank Cresswell tells us that the statutes, and the whole getting up of that 
contemplated Alma Mater have been reproduced like a "twice-boiled cabbage " 
a sort of crambe repetita in the Gower Street Academy for young Cockneys ; 
but that the soil being evidently not congenial to the plant, unless it be 
transferred back to Blarney, the place of its nativity, it must droop and die. 
So we often told the young gulls that frequent the school itself so we told 
Lardner, the great oracle of its votaries so we often told Lord Brougham and 
Vaux, the sublime shepherd of the whole flock : 

" Formosi pecoris custos, formosior ipse !"] 

We therefore rely on the forthcoming Prout Papers for a confirmation of all 
we have said ; and here do we cast down the glove of defiance to the champion 
of Stinkomalee, even though he come forth armed to the teeth in a panoply, 
not, of course, forged on the classic anvil of the Cyclops, however laboriously 
hammered in the clumsy arsenal of his own ' ' Cyclopaedia. ' ' 

We know there is another world, where every man will get his due according 
to his deserts; but if there be a limbuspatrum, or literary purgatory, where the 
effrontery and ingratitude of folks ostensibly belonging to the republic of 
letters are to be visited with condign retribution, we think we behold in that 
future middle state of purification (which, from our friend's real name, we shall 
call Patrick's Purgatory], Pat Lardner rolling the Blarney stone, d la Sisyphus, 
up the hill of Science. 

Kat fj.ijv "Siiavfyov tiauSov <cpaTep' aXys.' tyov-ra 
A.!iu.v paaTaXpvrit -irtKtaptov a/Ji<f)OTpii<Tiv, 

AllTlS 7TlTCt TTiSovdi KV\tVOe.TO AAAS ANAIAHS ! 

And now we return to the progress of events on Watergrasshill, and to matters 
more congenial to the taste of our REGINA. 

OLIVER YORKE. 
Regent Street, \st June, 1835. 



Fitritival's Inn, May 14. 

ACCEPT, O Queen ! my compliments congratulatory on the unanimous and 
most rapturous welcome with which the whole literary world hath met, on its 
first entrance into life, that wonderful and more than Siamese bantling your 



42 The Works of Father Front. 

"Polyglot edition" of the "Groves of Blarney." Of course, various are the 
conjectures of the gossips in Palernoster Row as to the real paternity of that 
" most delicate monster ; " and some have the unwarrantable hardihood to hint 
that, like the poetry of Sternhold and Hopkins, your incomparable lyric must 
be referred to a joint-stock sort of parentage : but, cntre nous, how stupid and 
malignant are all such insinuations ! How little do such simpletons suspect or 
know of the real source from which hath emanated that rare combination of 
the Telan lyre and theTipperary bagpipe of the Ionian dialect blending har- 
moniously with the Cork brogue ; an Irish potato seasoned with Attic salt, 
and the humours of Donnybrook wed to the glories of Marathon ! Verily, 
since the days of the great Complutensian Polyglot (by the compilation of 
which the illustrious Cardinal Ximenes so endeared himself to the bibliom.iniacal 
world), since the appearance of that still grander effort of the " Clarendon" 
at Oxford, the "Tetrapla," originally compiled by the most laborious and 
eccentric father of the Church, Origen of Alexandria, nothing has issued from 
the press in a completer form than your improved quadruple version of the 
" Groves of Blarney." The celebrated proverb, Ivcu: d non lucendo, so often 
quoted with malicious meaning and for invidious purposes, is no longer applic- 
able to your " Groves :" this quaint conceit has lost its sting, and, to speak in 
Gully's phraseology, you have taken the shine out of it. What a halo of glory, 
what a flood of lustre, will henceforth spread itself over that romantic " plan- 
tation !" How oft shall its echoes resound with the voice of song, Greek, 
French, or Latin, according to the taste or birthplace of its European visitors ; 
all charmed with its shady bowers, and enraptured with its dulcet melody ! 
From the dusty purlieus of High Holborn, where I pine in a foetid atmosphere, 
my spirit soars afar to that enchanting scenery, wafted on the wings of poesy, 
and transported with the ecstasy of Elysium 

"Videorpios 
Errare per lucos, ammrue 
Quos et aquae subcunt et auras ! " 

Mine may be an illusion, a hallucination, an " amabilis insania," if you will ; 
but meantime, to find some solace in my exile from the spot itself, I cannot 
avoid poring, with more than antiquarian relish, over the different texts placed 
by you in such tasteful juxtaposition, anon comparing and collating each par- 
ticular version with alternate gusto 

" Amant alterna Camcenx." 

How pure and pellucid the flow of harmony ! how resplendent the well-grouped 
images, shining, as it were, in a sort of milky way, or poetic galaxy, through 
your glorious columns; to which I cannot do better than apply a line of tit. 
Gregory (the accomplished Greek father) of Nazianzene 

'H aotpias jrij'ytj tv /3i/3\iOi<ri pt ! 

A great minister is said to have envied his foreign secretary the ineffable plea- 
sure of reading ' ' Don Quixote " in the original Spanish, and it would, no doubt, 
be a rare sight to get a peep at Lord Palmerston's French notes to Talleyrand ; 
but how I pity the sorry wight who hasn't learnt Greek ! What can he know 
of the recondite meaning of certain passages in the "Groves?" He is in- 
capacitated from enjoying the full drift of the ode, and must only take it 
diluted, or Velluti-ed, in the common English version. Noruntfidcles, as Tom 
Moore says. 

For my part, I would as soon see such a periwig-pated fellow reading your 
last Number, and fancying himself capable of understanding the full scope of 
the poet, as to behold a Greenwich pensioner with a wooden leg trying to run a 
race with Atalanta for her golden apple, or a fellow with a modicum quid of 



Father Proufs Carousal. 43 

legal knowledge affecting to sit and look big under a chancellor's peruke, like 
Bridlegoose on the woolsack. In verity, gentlemen of the lower house ought 
to supplicate Sir Daniel Sandford, of Glasgow, to give them a few lectures on 
Greek, for the better intelligence of the real Blarney style ; and I doubt not 
that every member will join in the request, except, perhaps, Joe Hume, who 
would naturally oppose any attempt to throw light on Greek matters, for reasons 
too tedious to mention. Verb. sap. 

To have collected in his youthful rambles on the continent, and to have dili- 
gently copied in the several libraries abroad, these imperishable versions of an 
immortal song was the pride and consolation of Father Front's old age, and 
still, by one of those singular aberrations cf mind incident to all great men, he 
could never be prevailed on to give further publicity to the result of his labours ; 
thus sitting down to the banquet of literature with the egotistic feeling of a 
churl. He would never listen to the many offers from interested publishers, 
who sought for the prize with eager competition ; but kept the song in manu- 
script on detached leaves, despite of the positive injunction of the sibyl in the 
^Eneid 

" Non foliis tu carmina manda, 
Ne correpta volent rapidis ludibria ventis ! " 

Pknow full well to what serious imputations I make myself liable, when I can- 
didly admit that I did not come by the treasure lawfully myself; having, as I 
boldly stated in the last Number of REGINA, filched the precious papers, 
disjecti membra poetcs, when the table was being cleared by Prout's servant 
maid for the subsequent repast. But there are certain " pious frauds " of which 
none need be ashamed in the interests of science : and when a great medal- 
collector (of whom " Tom England" will tell you the particulars), being, on 
his homeward voyage from Egypt, hotly pursued by the Algerines, swallowed 
the golden series of the Ptolemies, who ever thought of blaming Mr. Dufour, 
as he had purchased in their human envelope these recondite coins, for having 
applied purgatives and emetics, and every possible stratagem, to come at the 
deposit of glory? 

But to describe " the repast " has now become my solemn duty a task im- 
posed on me by you, O Queen ! to whom nothing relating to Sir Walter Scott, 
or to Father Prout, appears to be uninteresting. In that I agree with you, for 
nothing to my mind comes recommended so powerfully as what hath apper- 
tained to these two great ornaments of "humanity; " which term I must be 
understood to use in its double sense, as relating to mankind in general, and in 
particular to the literts humaniores, of which you and I are rapturously fond, 
as Terence was before we were born, according to the hackneyed line 

"Homo sum : humani nihil 3, me alienum puto ! " 

That banquet was in sooth no ordinary jollification, no mere bout of sensuality, 
but a philosophic and rational commingling of mind, with a pleasant and succu- 
lent addition of matter a blending of soul and substance, typified by the union 
of Cupid and Psyche a compound of strange ingredients, in which a large in- 
fusion of what are called (in a very Irish-looking phrase) "animal spirits" 
coalesced with an abundance of distilled ambrosia ; not without much erudite 
observation, and the interlude of jovial song ; wit contending for supremacy 
with learning, and folly asserting her occasional predominance like the tints of 
the rainbow in their tout ensemble, or like the smile and the tear in Erin's left 
eye, when that fascinating creature has taken "a drop " of her own mountain 
dew. But though there were lots of fun at Prout's table at all times, which the 
lack of provisions never could interfere with one way or another, I have special 
reason for recording in full the particulars of THIS carousal, having learned 
with indignation that, since the appearance of the Father's "Apology for 



44 The Works of Father Front. 

Lent," calumny has been busy with his character, and attributed his taste for 
meagre diet to a sordid principle of economy. No ! Prout was not a penurious 
wretch ! And since it has been industriously circulated in the club-houses at 
the west-end, that he never gave a dinner in his life, by the statement of one 
stubborn fact I must silence for ever that " whisper of a faction." 

From the first moment of delight, when the perusal of George Knapp's 
letter (dated July 25, 1825) had apprised Prout of the visit intended by Sir 
Walter Scott to the Blarney stone, he had predetermined that the Great 
Unknown should partake of sacerdotal hospitality. I recollect well on that 
evening (for you are aware I was then on a visit to my aunt at Watergrasshill, 
and, as luck would have it, happened to be in the priest's parlour when the 
news came by express) how often he was heard to mutter to himself, as if 
resolving the mighty project of a "let out," in that beautiful exclamation, 
borrowed from his favourite Milton 

" What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, 
Of Attic taste with wine ? " 

I then foresaw that there really would be " a dinner, ' ' and sure enough there 
was no mistake, for an entertainment ensued, such as the refinement of a 
scholar and the tact of a well-informed and observant traveller naturally and 
unaffectedly produced, with the simple but not less acceptable materials which 
circumstances allowed of, and a style as far removed from the selfishness of the 
anchorite as the extravagance of the glutton. 

Prout had seen much of mankind ; and in his deportment through life 
showed that he was well versed in all those varied arts of easy, but still gradual 
acquirement, which singularly embellish the intercourse of society : these 
were the results of his excellent continental education 

IToXXtoi/ o" avQptoTTtov icon atrTta, KOI voov tyvto. 

But at the head of his own festive board he particularly shone ; for though in 
his ministerial functions he was exemplary and admirable, ever meek and un- 
affected at the altar of his rustic chapel, where 

" His looks adorned the venerable place," 

still, surrounded by a few choice friends, the calibre of whose genius was in 
unison with his own, with abottleof his choice old claret before him, hewas truly 
a paragon. I say claret ; for when, in his youthful career of early travel, he 
had sojourned at Bourdeaux in 1776, he had formed an acquaintanceship with 
the then representatives of the still flourishing house of Maccarthy and Co. ; and 
if the prayers of the old priest are of any avail, that firm will long prosper in 
the splendid capital of Gascony. This long-remembered acquaintanceship svas 
periodically refreshed by many a quarter cask of excellent medoc, which found 
its way (no matter how) up the rugged by-roads of Watergrasshill to the sacer- 
dotal cellar. 

Nor was the barren upland, of which he was the pastor (and which will one 
day be as celebrated for having been his residence as it is now for water-tresses), 
so totally estranged from the wickedness of the world, and so exalted above the 
common level of Irish highlands, that no whisky was to be found there ; for 
though Prout never openly countenanced, he still tolerated Davy Draddy's 
public-house at the sign of the " Mallow Cavalry." But there is a spirit (an 
evil one) which pays no duty to the King, under pretence of having paid it to 
Her Majesty the Queen (God bless her !) a spirit which would even tempt you, 
O REGINA ! to forsake the even tenour of your ways a spirit which Father 
Prout could never effectually chain down in the Red Sea, where every foul 
demon ought to lie in durance until the vials of wrath are finally poured out on 
this sinful world that spirit, endowed with a smoky fragrance, as if to indi- 



Father Proufs Carousal. 



45 



cate its caliginous origin not a drop of it would he give Sir Walter. He 
would have wished, such was his anxiety to protect the morals of his 
parishioners from the baneful effects of private distillation, that what is called 
technically " mountain-dew" were never heard of in the district; and that in 
this respect Watergrasshill had resembled the mountain of Gilboa, in the 
country of the Philistines. 

But of legitimate and excellent malt whisky he kept a constant supply, 
through the friendship of Joe Hayes, a capital fellow, who presides, with great 
credit to himself, and to his native city, over the spiritual concerns of the Glin 
Distillery. Through his intelligent superintendence, he can boast of maintain- 
ing an unextinguishable furnace and a worm that never dies ; and O ! may he 
in the next life, through Prout's good prayers, escape both one and the other. 
This whisky, the pious offering of Joe Hayes to his confessor, Father Prout, 
was carefully removed out of harm's way ; and even I myself was considerably 
puzzled to find out where the good divine had the habit of concealing it, until 
I got the secret out of Margaret, his servant-maid, who, being a 'cute girl, had 
suggested the hiding-place herself. I don't know whether you recollect my 
description, in your April Number, of the learned Father's bookcase and the 
folio volumes of stone-flag inscribed "CoRNELUA LAPIDE Opera qruz ext. 
omn. :" well, behind them lay hidden the whisky in a pair of jars 

For buxom Maggy, careful soul, 

Had two stone bottles found, 
To hold the liquor that Prout loved, 

And kept it safe and sound. 

Orders had been given to this same Margaret to kill a turkey, in the first 
impulse of the good old man's mind, " on hospitable thoughts intent :" but, 
alas ! when the fowl had been slain, in accordance with his hasty injunctions, 
he bethought himself of the melancholy fact, that the morrow being Friday, 
fish diet was imperative, and that the death-warrant of the turkey had been a 
most premature and ill-considered act of precipitancy. The corpus delicti was 
therefore hung up in the kitchen, to furnish forth the Sunday's dinner next 
ensuing, and his thoughts of necessity ran into a piscatory channel. He had 
been angling all day, and happily with considerable success ; so that, what with 
a large eel he had hooked out of the lake at Blarney, and two or three dozen 
of capital trout from the stream, he might emulate the exploit of that old 
Calabrian farmer, who entertained Virgil on the produce of his hives : 

" Seraque revertens 
Nocte domum, dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis." 

But when Prout did the thing, he did it respectably : this was no ordinary 
occasion " pot luck " would not do here. And though he bitterly deplored the 
untoward coincidence of the fast-day on the arrival of Sir Walter, and was 
heard to mutter something from Horace very like an imprecation, viz. " Ille 
et nefasto te posuit die, quicumque," &c., &c. ; still it would ill become the 
author of an V Apology for Lent " to despair of getting up a good fish dinner. 

In this emergency he summoned Terry Callaghan, a genius infinitely 
superior even to the man-of-all-work at Ravenswood Castle, the never-to-be- 
forgotten Caleb Balderstone. Terry Callaghan (of whom we suspect we shall 
have, on many a future occasion, much to recount, ere the star of Father 
Prout shall eclipse itself in the firmament of REGINA), Terry Callaghan is a 
character well known in the Arcadian neighbourhood of Watergrasshill, the 
life and soul of the village itself, where he officiates to this day as "pound- 
keeper," "grave-digger," "notary public," and " parish piper." In addition to 
these situations of trust and emolument, he occasionally stands as deputy at 
the turnpike on the mail-coach road, where lie was last seen with a short pipe 



4 6 



The Works of Father Prout. 



in his mouth, and a huge black crape round his "caubeen," being in mourning 
for the subject of these memoirs. He also is employed on Sundays at the 
chapel-door to collect the coppers of the faithful, and, like the dragon of the 
Hesperides, keeps watch over the "box" with untamable fierceness, never 
having allowed a rap to be subtracted for the O'Connell tribute, or any other 
humbug, to the great pecuniary detriment of the Derrynane dynasty, 'in the 
palace at Iveragh, where a geographical chart is displayed on the wall, showing 
at a glance the topography of the " rint," and exhibiting all those districts, 
from Dan to Beersheba, where the copper-mines are most productive, the 
parish of Watergrasshill is marked "all barren;" Terry very properly con- 
sidering that, if there was any surplus in the poor-box, it could be better placed, 
without going out of the precincts of that wild and impoverished tract, in the 
palm of squalid misery, than in the all-absorbing Charybdis, the breeches- 
pocket of our glorious Dan. 

Such was the "Mercury new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill," to whom 
Prout delivered his provisional orders for the market of Cork ; and early, with 
a hamper on his back, at the dawn of that important day which settled'into so 
glorious an evening of fun and conviviality, Terry set off to lay the foundation 
of the whole affair at the fish-stall kept by that celebrated dame de la halle, the 
Widow Desmond. Pursuant to directions, he bought a turbot, two lobsters, a 
salmon, and a hake, with a hundred of Cork-harbour oysters ; and considering, 
prudently, that a corps de reserve might be wanted in the course of the repast, 
he added to the aforesaid matters, which Prout had himself specified, a hors 
d'ceuvre of his own selection, viz. a keg of cod-sounds ; he having observed 
that on all state occasions, when Prout entertained his bishop, he had always, 
to suit his lordship's taste, &plat oblige of cod-sounds, "by particular desire." 

At the same time he was commissioned to deliver sundry notes of invitation 
to certain choice spirits, who try to keep in wholesome agitation, by the buoy- 
ancy of their wit and hilarity, the otherwise stagnant pond of Corkonian 
society ; citizens of varied humour and diversified accomplishments, but of 
whom the highest praise and the most comprehensive eulogy cannot convey 
more to the British public than the simple intimation of their having been 
" the friends of Father Prout :" for while Job's Arabian " friends " will be re- 
membered only as objects of abhorrence, Prout's associates will be cherished 
by the latest posterity. These were, Jack Bellew, Dan Corbet, Dick Dowden, 
Bob Olden, and Friar O'Meara. 

Among these illustrious names, to be henceforth embalmed in the choicest 
perfume of classic recollection, you will find on inquiry, O Queen ! men of all 
parties and religious persuasions, men of every way of thinking in politics and 
polemics, but who merged all their individual feelings in the broad expanse of 
one common philanthropy ; for at Prout's table the serene horizon of the festive 
board was never clouded by the suffusion of controversy's gloomy vapours, or 
the mephitic feuds of party condition. And, O most peace-loving RKGINA ! 
should it ever suit your fancy to go on a trip to Ireland, be on your guard 
against the foul and troublesome nuisance of speech-makers and political 
oracles, of whatever class, who infest that otherwise happy island : betake thy- 
self to the hospitable home of Dan Corbet, or some such good and rational 
circle of Irish society, where never will a single drop of acrimony be found to 
mingle in the disembosomings of feeling and the perennial flow of soul 

"Sic tibi c&ra fluctus prasterlabere Sicanos, 
Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam ! " 

But, in describing Prout's guests, rank and precedency belong of right to 
that great modern ruler of mankind, "the Press;" and therefore do we 
first apply ourselves to the delineation of the merits of Jack Bellew, its 



Father Proufs Carousal. 47 

significant representative he being the wondrous editor of that most accom- 
plished newspaper, the Cork Chronicle. 

Jack Montesquieu Bellew * (quern honoris caustl nomino) was I say was, 
for, alas ! he too is no more : Prout's death was too much for him, 'twas a 
blow from which he never recovered ; and since then he was visibly so heart- 
broken at the loss of his friend that he did nothing but droop, and soon 
died of what the doctor said was a decline; Jack was the very image of his 
own Chronicle, and vice versd, the Chronicle was the faithful mirror (ti&ioXov, 
or alter ego) of Jack : both one and the other were the queerest concerns in 
the south of Ireland. The post of editor to a country newspaper is one, 
generally speaking, attended with sundry troubles and tribulations ; for even 
the simple department of "deaths, births, and marriages," would require a 
host of talent and a superhuman tact to satisfy the vanity of the subscribers, 
without making them ridiculous to their next neighbours. Now Bellew didn't 
care a jot who came into the world or who left it ; and thus he made no 
enemies by a too niggardly panegyric of their kindred and deceased relations. 
There was an exception, however, in favour of an old subscriber to the 
"paper," whose death was usually commemorated by a rim of mourning at 
the edges of the Chronicle : and it was particularly when the subcsription had 
not been paid (which, indeed, was generally the case) that the emblems of 
sorrow were conspicuous so much so, that you could easily guess at the 
amount of the arrears actually due, from the proportionate breadth of the 
black border, which in some instances was prodigious. But Jack's attention 
was principally turned to the affairs of the Continent, and he kept an eye on 
Russia, an eye of vigilant observation, which considerably annoyed the czar, 
Tn vain did Pozzo di Borgo endeavour to silence, or purchase, or intimidate 
Bellew : he was to the last an uncompromising opponent of the " miscreant of 
the North." The opening of the trade to China was a favourite measure with 
our editor; for he often complained of the bad tea sold at the sign of the 
" Elephant," on the Parade. He took part with Don Pedro against the Serene 
Infanta Don Miguel ; but that was attributed to a sort of Platonic he felt for 
the fascinating Donna Maria da Gloria. As to the great question of rcpale, 
he was too sharp not to see the full absurdity of that brazen imposture. He 
endeavoured, however, to suggest a. juste millieu, a medius terminus, between 
the politicians of the Chamber of Commerce and the common-sense portion 
of the Cork community ; and his plan was, to hold an imperial parliament 
for the three kingdoms on the Isle of Man ! But he failed in procuring the 
adoption of his conciliatory sentiments. Most Irish provincial papers keep 
a London "private correspondent" some poor devil, who writes from a 
blind alley in St. Giles's, with the most graphic minuteness, and a truly 
laughable hatred of mystery, all about matters occurring at the cabinet me,et- 
ings of Downing Street, or in the most impenetrable circles of diplomacy. 
Jack despised such fudge, became his own " London private correspondent," 
and addressed to himself long communications dated from Whitehall. The 
most useful intelligence was generally found in this epistolary form of 
soliloquy. But in the "fashionable world," and "News from the beau 
monde," the Chronicle was unrivalled. The latest and most rcchcrcM modes, 
the newest Parisian fashions, were carefully described ; notwithstanding which, 

* How the surname of the illustrious author of the Esprit de Lois came to be used by 
the Bellews in _ Ireland has puzzled the Heralds' College. Indeed, many other Irish 
names offer a wide field for genealogical inquiry : e.g. , Sir Hercules Langhrish, Ccesar 
Otway, Eneas MacDonnell, Hannibal Plunkett, Ebenezer Jacob, Jonah Barrington 
(this last looks very like a whale). That the Bellews dealt largely in spirits appears to 
be capable of proof: at any rate, there was never any propensity for I'esprit des Ms, 
whatever might be the penchant for unlawful spirit, at the family mansion Knock an 
isquciuAnglicZ Mount Whisky, Gallic^ Montesquieu. 



48 The Works of Father Front. 

Jack himself, like Diogenes or Sir Charles Wetherell, went about in a most 
ragged habiliment. To speak with Shakespeare, though not well dressed 
himself, he was the cause of dress in others. His finances, alas ! were always 
miserably low ; no fitting retribution was ever the result of his literary labours ; 
and of him might be said what we read in a splendid fragment of Petronius 
Arbiter, 

"Sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis, 
Atque inopi lingua disertas invocat artes ! " 

Such was Bellew ; and next to him of political importance in public estima- 
tion was the celebrated Dick Dowden, the great inventor of the ' ' pyroligneous 
acid for curing bacon." He was at one time the deservedly popular librarian 
of the Royal Cork Institution; but since then he has risen to eminence as the 
greatest soda-water manufacturer in the south of Ireland, and has been 
unanimously chosen by the sober and reflecting portion of his fellow-citizens 
to be the perpetual president of the " Cork Temperance Society." He is a 
Presbyterian but I believe I have already said he was concerned in vinegar.* 
He is a great admirer of Dr. Bowring, and of the Rajah Rammohun Roy ; 
and some think him inclined to favour the new Utilitarian philosophy. But 
why do I spend my time in depicting a man so well known as Dick Dowden ? 
Who has not heard of Dick Dowden ? I pity the wretch to whom his name 
and merits are unknown ; for he argues himself a dunce that knows not 
Dowden, and deserves the anathema pronounced by Goldsmith against his 
enemies, 

"To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor ! " 

Talking of razors, the transition to our third guest, Bob Olrlen is most 
smooth and natural Olden, the great inventor of the wonderful shaving- 
lather, called by the Greeks EUKEIROGENEION (EvKtipoytvtiov) ! Olden, the 
reproducer of an Athenian cosmetic, and the grand discoverer of the patent 
"Trotter-oil," for the growth of the human hair ; a citizen of infinite worth 
and practical usefulness ; a high churchman eke was he, and a Tory ; but his 
"conservative " excellence was chiefly applicable to the epidermis of the chin, 
which he effectually preserved by the incomparable lather of his EvKtipoycvtiov ; 
an invention that would, to use the words of a Cork poet, 

" Bid even a Jew bid adieu to his beard." 

But Dan Corbet, the third guest, was a real trump, the very quintessence 
of fun and frolic, and of all Prout's friends the one of whom he was most 
particularly proud. He is the principal dentist of the Munster district a 
province where a tooth-ache is much rarer, unfortunately for dentists, than a 
broken head or a black eye. In Corbet, the kindliest of human beings, and 
sincerest of Corkonians, the buttermilk of human friendliness was ever found 
in plentiful exuberance ; while the loud laugh and the jocund song bespoke 
the cnndour of his soul. Never was a professor of odontology less pednntic 
or less given to quackery. His ante-chamber was always full of patients, 
awaiting his presence with pleasurable anticipation, and some were known to 
feign a tooth-ache, in order to have a pleasant interview with the dentist. 
When he made his appearance in his morning gown before the crowd of 
afflicted visitors, a general titter of cheerfulness enlivened the visages of the 
sufferers ; and I can only compare the effect produced by his presence to the 
welcome of Scarron on the banks of the Styx, when that man of wondrous 
hilarity went down to the region of the ghosts as a dispeller of sorrow : 

" Solvuntur risu mosstissima turba silentum, 
Cum venit ad Stygias Scarro facetus aquas." 

* "A Quaker, sly ; a Presbyterian, sour." POPE. 



Father Front's Carousal. 49 

I have only one thing to say against Corbet. At his hospitable table, where, 
without extravagance, every good dish is to be found, a dessert generally 
follows remarkable for the quantity and iron-hardness of the walnuts, while 
not a nutcracker can be had for love or money from any of the servants. Now 
this is too bad : for you must know, that next morning most of the previous 
guests reappear in the character of patients ; and the nuts (like the dragon- 
teeth sown in a field by Cadmus) produce a harvest of lucrative visitors to the 
cabinet of the professor. Ought not this system to be abolished, O Queen I 
and is it any justification or palliation of such an enormity to know that the 
bane and antidote are both before one ? When I spoke of it to Corbet, he 
only smiled at my simplicity, and quoted the precedent in Horace (for he is a 
good classic scholar), 

" Et nux ornabat mensam, cuiu duplice ficu." 

Lib. ii. sat. 2. 

But I immediately pointed out to him, that he reversed the practice of the 
Romans ; for, instead of the figs being in double ratio to the nuts, it was the 
latter with him that predominated in quantity, besides being pre-eminently 
hard when submitted to the double action of that delicate lever the human 
jaw, which nature never (except in some instances, and these more .apparent, 
perhaps, in the conformation of the nose and chin) intended for a nut-cracker. 

Of Friar O'Meara there is little to be said. Prout did not think much of 
friars in general ; indeed, at all times the working parochial clergy in Ireland 
have looked on them as a kind of undisciplined Cossacks in the service of the 
church militant, of whom it cannot conveniently get rid, but who are much 
better adepts in sharing the plunder than in labouring to earn it. The good 
father often explained to me how the matter stood, and how the bishop 
wanted to regulate these friars, and make them work for the instruction of the 
poor, instead of their present lazy life ; but they were a match for him at 
Rome, where none dare whisper a word against one of the fraternity of the 
cowl. There are some papers in the Prout collection on this subject, which 
(when you get the chest) will explain all to you. O'Meara (who was not 
the "Voice from St. Helena," though he sometimes passed for that gentle- 
man on the Continent) was a pleasant sort of fellow, not very deep in divinity 
or black-lettered knowledge of any kind, but conversable and chatty, having 
frequently accompanied young 'squires, as travelling tutor to Italy, much in 
the style of those learned functionaries who lead a dancing-bear through the 
market-towns of England. There was no dinner within seven miles of Cork 
without O'Meara. Full soon would his keen nostril, ever upturned (as Milton 
sayeth) into the murky air, have snuffed the scent of culinary preparation in 
the breeze that came from Watergrasshill : therefore it was that Prout sent 
him a note of invitation, knowing he would come, whether or no. 

Such were the guests who, with George Knapp and myself, formed the 
number of the elect to dine with Sir Walter at the father's humble board ; 
and when the covers were removed (grace having been said by Prout in a 
style that would have rejoiced the sentimental Sterne) a glorious vision of fish 
was unfolded to the raptured sight ; and I confess I did not much regret the 
absence of the turkey, whose plump carcase I could get an occasional 
glimpse of, hanging from the roof of the kitchen. We ate, and confabulated 
as follows : 

"I don't approve," said Bob Olden, "of Homer's ideas as to a social 
entertainment : he does not let his heroes converse rationally until long after 
they have sat down to table, or, as Pope vulgarly translates it, 

' Soon as the rage of hunger is repressed." 
Now I think that a very gross way of proceeding." 



SO The Works of Father Prout. 

O'MEAKA. 

In our convent we certainly keep up the observance, such as Pope has it. 
The repast is divided into three distinct periods ; and in the conventual refec- 
tory you can easily distinguish at what stage of the feeding time the brother- 
hood are engaged. The first is called i, altum silentium ; then 2, clangor 
dentium ; then, 3, rumor gentium. 

CORBET. 

I protest against the personal allusion contained in that second item. You 
are always making mischief, O'Meara. 

BELLEW. 

I hope that when the friars talk of the news of the day, for such, I suppose, 
is the meaning of rumor gentium, they previously have read the private 
London correspondence of the Cork Chronicle. 

PROUT. 

Sir Walter, perhaps you would wish to begin with a fresh egg, ab ovo, as 
Horace recommends ; or perhaps you'd prefer the order described by Pliny, in 
his letter to Septimus, i, a radish; 2, three snails ; and 3, two eggs* or 
oysters ad libitum, as laid down by Macrobius.f 

SCOTT. 

Thank you, I can manage with this slice of salmon trout. I can relish 
the opinion of that great ornament of your church, Thomas a Kempis, to 
whose taste nothing was more delicious than a salmon, always excepting the 
Psalms of David t as he properly says, Mihi Psalmi Davidici sapiunt 
salmon es /J 

PROUT. 

That was not a bad idea of Tom Kempis. But my favourite author, St. 
Chrysostom, surpasses him in wit. When talking of the sermon on the Lake 
of Tiberias, he marvels at the singular position of the auditory relative to 
the preacher : his words are Auvov tha/ua, oi tx^uts nri TI]V ynv, nai 6 d\.itvs 
iv OaXaTTj; ! Sertn. de Nov. et Vet. Test. 

O'MEARA. 

That is a capital turbot, O Prout ! and, 'instead of talking Greek and 
quoting old Chrysostom (the saint with the golden mouth), you ought to be 
helping Jack Bellew and George Knapp. What sauce is that? 

PROUT. 

The senate of Rome decided the sauce long ago, by order of Domitian, as 
Juvenal might tell you, or even the French translation 

" Le senat mit aux yoix cette affaire importante, 
Et le turbot fut mis d la sauce piquante." 




" Sum cochleis habilis, sed nee magis utilis ovis ; 
Numquid scis potius cur cochleare vocer? " 




,. 

quantum quisqite vellet. 
t See the Elzevir edition of Thorn, a Kentpis, in vit&, p. 246. 



Fatlier Front's Carousal. 51 



KNAPP. 

Sir Walter ! as it has been my distinguished lot a circumstance that con- 
fers everlasting glory on my mayoralty to have had the honour of present- 
ing you yesterday with the freedom of the corporation of Cork, allow me to 
present you with our next best thing, a potato. 

SCOTT. 

I have received with pride the municipal franchise, and I now accept with 
equal gratitude the more substantial gift you have handed me, in this capital 
esculent of your happy country. 

PROUT. 

Our round towers, Sir Walter, came from the east, as will be one day 
proved ; but our potatoes came from the West ; Persia sent us the one, and 
Virginia the other. We are a glorious people ! The two hemispheres 
minister to our historic recollections ; and if we look back on our annals, we 
get drunk with glory ; 

" For when hist'ry begins to grow dull in the east, 
We may order our wings, and be off to the west. " 

May I have the pleasure of wine with you ? Gentlemen, fill all round. 

SCOTT. 

I intend writing a somewhat in which Sir Walter Raleigh shall be a dis- 
tinguished and prominent character ; and I promise you the potato shall not 
be forgotten. The discovery of that root is alone sufficient to immortalize the 
hero who lost his head so unjustly on Tower Hill. 

KNAPP. 

Christopher Columbus was equally ill-treated : and neither he nor Raleigh 
have ever given their name to the objects they discovered. Great men have 
never obtained justice from their contemporaries. I'll trouble you for some of 
the fins of that turbot, Prout. 

PROUT. 

Nay, further, without going beyond the circle of this festive board, why has 
not Europe and the world united to confer some signal distinction on the 
useful inventor of " Pyroligneous Acid?" Why is not the discoverer of 
" Trotter oil " and " Eukeirogeneion " fittingly rewarded by mankind? Because 
men have narrow views, and prefer erecting columns to Spring Rice, and to 
Bob Waithman who sold shawls in Fleet Street. Let me recommend some 
lobster-sauce. 

CORBET. 

Minerva, who first extracted oil from the olive, was deified in Greece ; and 
Olden is not yet even a member of the dullest scientific body ; while Dr. 
Lardner belongs to them all, if I can understand the phalanx of letters that 
follows his name. 

KNAPP. 

I have read the utilitarian Doctor's learned treatise on the potato a 
subject of which he seems to understand the chemical manipulation. He 
says, very justly, that as the root contains saccharine matter, sugar may be 
extracted therefrom ; he is not sure whether it might not be distilled into 
whisky ; but he is certain that it makes capital starch, and triumphantly 
shows that the rind can feed pigs, and the stalk thatch the pigsty. O most 
wonderful Doctor Lardner ! Here's his health ! Atot>ucrio ! not a bad 
introduction to a bumper of claret. {Three limes three.} 



52 The Works of Father Front. 

PROUT. 

I too have turned my thoughts into that channel, and among my papers 
there is a treatise on " the root." I have prefixed to my dissertation this 
epigraph from Cicero's speech "pro Archia Poeta," where the Roman orator 
talks of the belles lettres ; but I apply the words much more literally I 
hale metaphor in practical matters such as these : "They are the food of our 
youth, the sustenance of our old age; they are delightful at home, and by no 
means in one's way abroad ; they cause neither nightmare nor indigestion, but 
are capital things on a journey, or to fill the wallet of a pilgrim." " Adoles- 
centiam alunt, senectutem oblectant ; delectant domi, non impediunt foris ; 
pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur." So much for potatoes. 
But there are other excellent natural productions in our island, which are 
also duly celebrated in my papers, and possibly may be published ; but not 
till I am gathered to the grave. I have never forgotten the interests of 
posterity. Pass that decanter. 

SCOTT. 

Talking of the productions of the soil, I cannot reconcile the antiquity, 
the incontestable antiquity, of the lyric ode called the "Groves of Blarney," 
of which before dinner we have traced the remote origin, and examined so 
many varied editions with a book of more modern date called " Cassar's Com- 
mentaries." The beech-tree, Caesar says, does not grow in these islands, or 
did not in his time : All trees grow there, he asserts, the same as in Gaul, 
except the lime-tree and the beech " Materia fere eadem ac in Gallia, pneter 
fagum et abietem." (C<zs. de Bella Gallico, lib. v.) Now in the song, which 
is infinitely older than Caesar, we have mention made, "besides the leeches," 
of certain " groves of beeches," the text is positive. 

KNAPP. 

That observation escaped me totally; and still the different versions all 
concur in the same assertion. The Latin or Vulgate codex says 

" Grande decus pagi 
Fluvii slant margine FACI." 

The Greek or Septuagint version is equally stubborn in making out the 
case 

'\a-rnfjiivtav /cat uAj 



And the French copy, taken from Doomsday Book, is conclusive, and a 
complete poser 

" Sur ces bords champetres 
On a plant6 des METRES." 

I am afraid Caesar's reputation for accuracy will be greatly shaken by this 
discovery : he is a passable authority in military tactics, but not in natural 
history : give me Pliny ! This trout is excellent ! 

OLDEN. 

I think the two great authors at issue on this beech-tree business can be 
conciliated thus : let us say, that by the Greek fy^ytov, and the Latin fagi, 
nothing more is meant than the clan the O'FAGANS, who are very thickly 
planted hereabouts. They are still a hungry race, as their name Fagan indicates 
airo TOV (payttv. 

PROUT. 
It must have been one of that family who, in the reign of Aurelius, dis 



Father P routs Carousal. 53 

tinguished himself by his great appetite at the imperial court of Rome. 
Thus Berchoux sings, on the authority of Suetonius : 

" Phagon fut en ce genre un homme extraordinaire ; 
11 avail 1'estomac (grands Dieux !) d'un dromadaire : 
II faisait disparaltre, en ses rares festins, 
Unporc, un sanglier, un moitton, et cent fains ! ! ! " 

O'MEARA. 

That's what we at Paris used to call pain d discretion. Margaret, open 
some oysters, and get the cayenne pepper. 

BELLEW. 

I protest I don't like to see the O'Fagans run down my aunt was an 
O'Fagan; and as to deriving the name from the Greek OTTO TOU <payitv, I 
think it a most gratuitous assumption. 

KNAPP. 

I agree with my worthy friend Bellew as to the impropriety of harping 
upon names. One would think the mayor of Cork ought to obtain some 
respect, and be spared the infliction of the waggery of his fellow-townsmen. 
But no; because I clear the city of mad dogs, and keep hydrophobia far 
from our walls, I am called the " dog- (I had almost said kid-) Knapper I" 
Now, my family is of German extraction, and my great-grandfather served 
under the gallant Dutchman in his wars with the "Grand/ Monarque," 
before he came over with William to deliver this country from slavery and 
wooden shoes. It was my great-grandfather who invented that part of a 
soldier's accoutrement called, after him, a " Knapp's sack." 

CORBET. 

I hope, Sir Walter, you will not leave Cork without dining at the mansion- 
house with our worthy mayor. Falstaff himself could not find fault with the 
excellent flavour of Knapp's sack. 

SCOTT. 

I fear I shall not be able to postpone my departure ; but as we are on this 
subject of names, I have to observe, that it is an old habit of the vulgar to 
take liberty with the syllables of a great man's patronymic. Melancthon* was 
forced to clothe his name in Greek to escape their allusions ; Jules de 1'Echelle 
changed his into Scaliger ; Pat Lardner has become Dionysius ; and the great 
author of those immortal letters, which he has taken care to tell us will be 
read when the commentaries of Cornelius & Lapide are forgotten, gave no 
name at all to the world 

" Stat nominis umbra ! " 

PROUT. 
Poor Erasmus ! how he used to be badgered about his cognomen 

" Quaeritur unde tibi sit nomen, ERASMUS? Eras Mus !" 

for even so that arch wag, the Chancellor Sir Thomas More, addressed him. 
But his reply is on record, and his pentameter beats the Chancellor's hexa- 
meter 

" Si sum Mus ego, te judice Summus ero ! " 

* The real name of Melancthon was Philipp Schwartzerd ($maT&frb), which means 
black earth, and is most happily rendered into Greek by the term Melancthon, MeAaiva- 
\6<av. Thus sought he to escape the vulgar conundrums which his name in the ver- 
nacular German could not fail to elicit. A Lapide's name was stein. 



54 The Works of FatJicr Front. 

SCOTT. 

Ay, and you will recollect how he splendidly retaliated on the punster by 
dedicating to Sir Thomas his Mcooius Ey/cca/uoj/. Erasmus was a capital 
fellow, 

" The glory of the priesthood, and the shame ! " 

O'MEARA. 

Pray, Sir Walter, are you any relation of our great irrefragable doctor, 
Duns Scotus ? He was an ornament of the Franciscan order. 

SCOTT. 

No, I have not that honour ; but I have read what Erasmus says of 
certain members of your fraternity, in a dialogue between himself and the 
Echo: 

"(ERASMUS loquitur.') Quid est sacerdotium ? 
(ECHO respondit.} Otium !" 

PROUT. 

That reminds me of Lardner's idea of "otium cum dignitate," which he 
proposes to read thus otium cum diggiri 'laties ! The sugar and the materials 
here for Mr. Belle w. 

CORBET. 

There was a witty thing, and a severe thing, said of the Barberini family 
at Rome, when they took the stones of the Amphitheatrum Flavium to build 
them their palazzo : "Quod non fecerant Barbari, hoc fecerunt Barberini." 
But I think Jack Bellew, in his Chronicle, made as pointed a remark on 
Sir Thomas Deane, knight and builder, who bought the old furniture and 
gutted the old castle of Blarney : " The Danes," quoth Jack, " have always 
been pillaging old Ireland 1 " 

SCOTT. 

Whoever connived at or abetted the destruction of that old mansion, or 
took any part in the transaction, had the soul of a Goth ; and the 
Chronicle could not say less. 

CORBET. 

Bellew has vented his indignation in a song, which, if called on by so dis- 
tinguished an antiquary, he will, no doubt, sing. And first let me propose 
the "Liberty of the Press" and the Cork Chronicle, nine times nine, 
standing. Hurrah ! 

JACK BELLEW'S SONG. 

AIR" O weep for the hour .' " 

Oh ! the muse shed a tear 

When the cruel auctioneer, 
With a hammer in his hand, to sweet Blarney came ! 

Lady Jeffery's ghost 

Left the Stygian coast, 
And shriek'd the livelong night for her grandson's shame. 

The Vandal's hammer fell, 

And we know full well 
Who bought the castle furniture and fixtures, O ! 

And took off in a cart 

(Twas enough to break one's heart !) 
AH the statues made of lead, and the pictures, O ! 



Father Fronts Carousal. 



55 



You're the man I mean, hight 

Sir Thomas Deane, knight, 
Whom the people have no reason to thank at all ; 

But for you those things so old 

Sure would never have been sold, 
Nor the fox be looking out from the banquet-hall. 

Oh, ye pull'd at such a rate 

At every wainscoting and grate. 
Determined the old house to sack and garble, O ! 

That you didn't leave a splinter, 

To keep out the could winter, 
Except a limestone chimney-piece of marble, O ! 

And there the place was left 

Where bold King Charles the Twelfth 
Hung, before his portrait went upon a journey, O ! 

Och ! the family's itch 

For going to law was sitch, 
That they bound him long before to an attorney, O ! 

But still the magic stone 

(Blessings on it is not flown, 
To which a debt of gratitude Pat Lardner owes ; 

Kiss that block, if you're a dunce, 

And you'll emulate at once 
The genius who to fame by dint of blarney rose. 

SCOTT. 

I thank you, Mr. Bellew, for your excellent ode on that most lamentable 
subject : it must have been an evil day for Blarney. 

BELLEW. 

A day to be blotted out of the annals of Innisfail a day of calamity and 
downfall. The nightingale never sang so plaintively in "the groves," the 
dove or the "gentle plover" were not heard "in the afternoon," the fishes wept 
in the deepest recesses of the lake, and strange sounds were said to issue 
from " the cave where no daylight enters." Let me have a squeeze of 
lemon. 

SCOTT. 

But what became of the " statues gracing this noble mansion? " 

BELLEW. 

Sir Thomas Deane bought "Nebuchadnezzar," and the town-clerk, one 
Besnard, bought "Julius Czesar." Sir Thomas of late years had taken to 
devotion, and consequently coveted the leaden effigy of that Assyrian king, of 
whom Daniel tells us such strange things ; but it turned out that the graven 
image was a likeness of Hercules, after all ! so that, having put up the statue in 
his lawn at Blackrock, the wags have since called his villa " Herculaneum." 
Like that personage of whom Tommy Moore sings, in his pretty poem about 
a sculptor's shop, who made a similar qui pro quo. What's the verse, 
Corbet? 

CORBET. 
" He came to buy Jonah, and took away Jove ! " 

O'MEARA. 

There is nothing very wonderful in that. In St. Peter's at Rome we have an 
old statue of Jupiter (a capital antique bronze it is), which, with the addition of 
"keys" and some other modern improvements, makes an excellent figure of 
the prince of the apostles. 



The Works of Father Front. 



PROUT. 

Swift says that Jupiter was originally a mere corruption cf "Jew Peter." 
You have given an edition of the Dean, Sir Walter? 

SCOTT. 

Yes ; but to return to your Blarney statue : I wonder the peasantry did not 
rescue, vi et armis, the ornaments of their immortal groves, from the grasp of 
the barbarians. I happened to be in Paris when the allies took away the 
sculptured treasures of the Louvre, and the Venetian horses of the Carrousel ; 
and I well remember the indignation of the sons of France. Pray what was 
the connection between Blarney Castle and Charles XII. of Sweden? 

BELLEW. 

One of the Jeffery family served with distinction under the gallant Swede, 
and had received the royal portrait on his return to his native country, after a 
successful campaign against the Czar Peter. The picture was swindled out of 
Blarney by an attorney, to satisfy the costs of a lawsuit. 

OLDEN. 

The Czar Peter was a consummate politician ; but when he chopped off the 
beards of the Russians, and forced his subjects by penal laws to shave their 
chins, he acted very unwisely ; he should have procured a supply of eukeiro- 
geneion, and effected his object by smooth means. 

CORBET. 

Come, Olden, let us have one of your songs about that wonderful dis- 
covery. 

OLDEN. 

I'll willingly give you an ode in praise of the incomparable lather ; but I 
think it fair to state that my song, like my eukeirogeneion, is a modern imita- 
tion of a Greek original : you shall hear it in both languages. 

OLDEN'S SONG. 

Come, list to my stave, 
Ye who roam o'er the land or the wave, 
Or in grots subterranean, 
Or up the blue Mediterranean, 
Near Etna's big crater, 
Or across the equator, 
Where, within St. Helena, theie lieth an emperor's 

grave ; 

If, when you have got to the Cape of Good Hope, 
You begin to experience a sad want of soap. 
Bless your lot 
On the spot, 

If you chance to lay eye on 
A flask of Eukeirogeneion ; 
For then you may safely rely on 
A smooth and most comforting shave ! 

In this liquid there lies no deception ; 

For even old Neptune, 
Whose bushy chin frightens 
The green squad of Tritons 
And who turns up the deep 
With the huge flowing sweep 



TTJS qirjf aicpoacrOe 
OSifs, cxroi Tr\ava.(r6e 

Ef yjl, T fV KVfia.TT<n 

Karaycuoif , r' ev oTn)f<7<7i 
Kvaveu rf Mccroyatcii, 
ITapa KOfjuvtu AITVCUW 
Icrrjfxepu'ou Tfpox Te 
KvicAoii, eir" EAcpai' re 
'OSov irAeoirts puucpav, 
" AyafleAiriSos " Tpos cucpaij 
^Trai'ts ei TI? yfvoiro 
SaTrwros, itijp x<upom> 
Ei y' ofi/ua TO (Aere t trov 
To EYKEIPOrENEION, 
Kovpa yap TJ fxaAurra 
IIapOTi <roi TpiAAwrra. 

TS,v KAva/otar" ovru rta&t 
EOT' airarrj, yap 6 6ij 
Iloireiftoi', 6 yepatof 
Mryas EcrooHyaios, 
Aacror eiav iruyuva, 



FatJier Proufs Carousal. 



57 



Of his lengthy and ponderous beard, 
Should he rub but his throttle 
With the foam of this bottle, 
He'd find, 
To his mind, 
In a twinkling the mop would have all disappear 'd. 



King Nebuchadnezzar, 
Who was turn'd for his sins to a grazier, 
(For they stopp'd his allowance of praties, 
And made him eat grass on the banks of Euphrates), 

Whose statue Sir Thomas 

Took from us ; 

Along with the image of Caesar ; 
(But Frank Cresswell will tell the whole story to 

Fraser :) 

Though they left him a capital razor, 
Still went for seven years with his hair like a lion, 
For want of Eukeirogeneion. 



Kai oiSai' 
OCTOKIS ef 
Tluiyu>vo<; eieTafleiras 
nAoiea/uous /Sorpuoej/ras, 
Ilpocjio-of ei ye Aouet, 
KUTOUS a(pa> TOI/TOVI 
Ey axaptt TO Of (.ov 
Aeicui/eTai yet/ecoi'. 

NejSu^aSfattrop (<ruA>js 
Ou BAapviKijs a<f>' vArjs 
JO cu/xas TO et&uAoi' 
'O /UapjSapos /U.TJ 2oA<oi', 
MeyaArjc a<f>a.ip<av Anai/ 
Kat Srjiobjr (^UTeta^, 
2oi. T' auTa pee Kaiaap, 
'Os yrocreTai o *PAI2AP) 
Ta fup' aprr' avaf ' ei> 
OIKCO e^cov Tapaev, 
'O TTcoyui' <cai xeuTpo'll' 



OUTO) yap 6iOf 
Ei X ' EYKEIPOrENEION. 



PROUT. 

I don't think it fair that Frank Cresswell should say nothing all the evening. 
Up, up, my boy ! give us a speech or a stave of some kind or other. Have 
you never been at school ? Come, let us have ' ' Norval on the Grampian 
hills," or something or other. 

Thus apostrophized, O Queen! I put my wits together; and, anxious to 
contribute my quota to the common fund of classic enjoyment, I selected 
the immortal ode of Campbell, and gave a Latin translation in rhyme as well 
as I could. 



THE BATTLE OF HOHEN- 
LINDEN 1 . 

On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow, 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser rolling rapidly. 

But Linden saw another sight, 
When the drums beat at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of the scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast array'd, 
Each horseman drew his battle-blade, 
And furious every charger neigh'd 
To join the dreadful rivalry. 

Then shook the hills, by thunder riven ; 
Then rush'd the steed, to battle driven : 
And louder than the bolts of heaven 
Far flash'd the red artillery ! 

The combat thickens ! on, ye brave ! 
Who rush to glory or the grave. 
Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave, 
And charge with all thy chivalry ! 

Few, few shall part where many meet ! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
And every sod beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre ! 



Pralium apud Hohenlinden. 

Sol ruit coelo minuitque lumen, 
Nix super terris jacet usque munda, 
Et tenebrosa fluit Iser und& 
Flebile flumen ! 

Namque nocturnus simul arsit ignis, 
Tympanum rauco sonuit boatu, 
Dum micant flammis, agitante flatu, 
Rura malignis. 

Jam dedit vocem tuba ! fax rubentes 
Ordinal turmis equites, et ultrd 
Fert equos ardor, rutilante cultro, 
Ire furentes. 

Turn sono colles tremuere belli, 
Turn ruit campo sonipes, et aether 
Mugit, et rubr& tonitru videtur 
Arce revelli ! 

Ingruit strages ! citb, ferte gressum ! 
Quos triumphantem redimere pulchro 
Tempori laurum juvat ! aut sepulchro 
Stare cupressum ! 

Hlc ubi campum premuere multi, 
Tecta quitm rari patriae videbunt 
Heu sepulchral! nive quot manebunt, 
Pol ! nee inulti ! 



58 The Works of Father Prout. 

Such, O Queen ! was my feeble effort : and to your fostering kindness I 
commit the luckless abortion, hoping to be forgiven by Tom Campbell for 
having upset into very inadequate Latin his spirit-stirring poetry, i made 
amends, however, to the justly-enraged Muse, by eliciting the following 
dithyrambic from Dan Corbet, whom I challenged in my turn : 

DAN CORBET'S SONG. 

The Ivory Tootli. 

Believe me, dear Prout, 
Should a tooth e'er grow loose in your head, 

Or fall out, 

And perchance you'd wish one in its stead, 
Soon you'd see what my Art could contrive for ye ; 

When I'd forthwith produce, 

For your reverence's use, 
A roost beautiful tooth carved from ivory ! 

Which, when dinner-time comes, 

Would so well fit your gums, 

That to make one superior 

Twould puzzle a fairy, or 

Any 'cute Leprechawn 

That trips o'er the lawn, 

Or the spirit that dwells 

In the lonely harebells, 
Or a witch from the big lake Ontario ! 

'Twould fit in so tight, 

So brilliant and bright, 

And be made of such capital stuff, 

That no food 

Must needs be eschew'd 
On account of its being too tough ; 

'Twould enable a sibyl 

The hardest sea-biscuit to nibble ; 
Nay, with such a sharp tusk, and such polish'd enamel, 

Dear Prout, you could eat up a camel ! 

As I know you will judge 
With eye microscopic 
What I say on this delicate topic, 
And I wish to beware of all fudge, 
I tell but the bare naked truth, 
And I hope I don't state what's irrelevant, 
When I say that this tooth, 
Brought from Africa, when 
In the depths of a palm-shaded glen 
It was captured by men. 
Then adorn'd in the full bloom of youth, 
The jaws of a blood-royal elephant. 

We are told, 

t That a surgeon of old 
Oh, 'tis he was well skill'd in the art of nosology ! 

For such was his knowledge, he 
Could make you a nose bran new ! 
I scarce can believe it, can you ? 
And still did a public most keen and discerning 

Acknowledge his learning ; 
Yea, such skill was his, 
That on any unfortunate phiz, 
By some luckless chance, 
In the wars of France, 
Deprived of its fleshy ridge, 
He d raise up a nasal bridge. 



Father P rout's Carousal. 59 

Now my genius is not so precocious 
As that of JJr. Tagliacotius, 

For I only profess to be versed in the art of dontology ; 
To make you a nose 
" C'est toute autre chose ;" 
For at best, my dear Prout, 
Instead of a human snout, 

You'd get but a sorry apology. 
But let me alone 
For stopping a gap, or correcting a flaw 

In a patient's jaw ; 
Or making a tooth that, like bone of your bone, 

Will outlive your own, 
And shine on in the grave when your spirit is flown. 

I know there's a blockhead 
That will put you a tooth up with wires, 
And then, when the clumsy thing tires, 

This most impudent fellow 

Will quietly tell you 

To take it out of its socket, 
And put it back into your waistcoat pocket ! 

But 'tis not so with mine, 

O most learned divine ! 
For without any spurious auxiliary, 
So firmly infix 'd in your dexter maxillary, 

To your last dying moment 'twill shine, 
Unless 'tis knock'd out, 
In some desperate rout, 
By a sudden discharge of artillery. 

Thus the firmer 'twill grow as the wearer grows older, 
And then, when in death you shall moulder, 
Like that Greek who had gotten an ivory shoulder, 
The delight and amazement of ev'ry beholder, 
You'll be sung by the poets in your turn, O ! 
"Dente Prout humeroque Pelops insigiiis eburno ! " 

VIRG. Georg. II. 
CORBET. 

Come, old Prout, let's have a stave ! And first, here's to your health, my 
old cock ! 

" Perpetual bloom 
To the Church of Rome ! " 

\_Dnink standing,'] 

The excellent old man acknowledged the toast with becoming dignity, and 
tunefully warbled the Latin original of one of " the Melodies." 

FATHER PROUT'S SONG. Prout can tat. 

Let Erin remember the days of old, O ! utinam sanos mea lema recogitet annos 

Ere her faithless sons betray 'd her, Antei\ qu&m nati vincla dedere pati, 

When Malachi wore the collar of gold, Cum Malachus TORQUE ut patrias defcn- 

Which he won from the proud invader ; sor honorque 

When Nial, with standard of green un- Ibat : erat ver6 pignus ab hoste fero. 

furl'd, Tempore vexillo viridante equitabat in illo 

Led the red-branch knights to danger, Nialus ante truces fervidus ire duces. 

Ere the emerald gem of the western world Hi nee erant anni radiis in fronte tyranni 

Was set in the brow of a stranger. Fulgeat ut claris, insula gemma maris. 

On Lough Neagh's banks as the fisherman Quando tacet ventus, Neagha; dum mar- 
strays, gine lentus 

When the cool, calm eve's declining, Piscator vadit, vesperae ut umbra cadit, 

He sees the round towers of other days Contemplans undas, ibi turres stare rotun- 

Beneath the waters shining. das 



6o 



The Works of Father Prout. 



So shall memory oft, in dream sublime, 
Catch a glimpse of the days that are 

over, 
And, sighing, look through the waves of 

time, 
For the long-faded glories they cover. 



Credidit, inque lacfts oppidacemit aquis. 
Sic memori in somnis res gesta reponitur 
omnis 

Historicosque dies rettulit alma quies, 
Gloria sublimis se effert fe fluctibus imis, 

Atque apparel ibi patria cara tibi. 



I now call on my worthy friend Dowden, \vhom I am sorry to see indulging 
in nothing but soda all the evening: come, President of the "Temperance,' 
and ornament of " the Kirk," a song I 



DICK DOWDEN'S SONG. 

AIR "/ sing the Maid of Lodi." 



I sing the fount of soda, 

That sweetly springs for me, 
And I hope to make this ode a 

Delightful melody ; 
For if " Castalian ' water 

Refresh'd the tuneful nine, 
Health to the Muse ! I've brought her 

A bubbling draught of mine. 

Apitrroi/ f*v TO vSiap 

So Pindar sang of old, 
Though modern bards -proh pudor ! 

Deem water dull and cold ; 
But if at my suggestion 

They'd try the crystal spring, 
They'd find that, for digestion, 

Pure element's the thing. 

With soda's cheerful essence 

They'd fill the brimming glass, 
And feel the mild 'fervescence 

Of hydrogen and gas ; 
Nor quaff Geneva's liquor 

Source of a thousand ills ! 
Nor swill the poisonous ichor 

Cork (to her shame !) distils. 

Gin is a lurking viper, 

That stings the madden'd soul, 
And Reason pays the piper, 

While Folly drains the bowl ; 



And rum, made of molasses, 

Inclineth man to sin ! 
And far potheen surpasses 

The alcohol of gin. 

But purest air in fixture 

Pervades the soda draught, 
And forms the sylph-like mixture 

Brew'd by our gentle craft. 
Nor is the beverage injured 

When flavour'd with a lime ; 
Or if, when slightly ginger 'd, 

'Tis swallow d off in time. 

Far from the tents of topers 

Blest be my lot to dwell, 
Secure from interlopers 

At peaceful "Sunday's well." 
Free o'er my lawn to wander, 

Amid sweet flowers and fruits ; 
And may I still grow fonder 

Of chemical pursuits. 

Through life with step unerring 

To glide, nor wealth to hoard, 
Content if a red herring 

Adorn my frugal board ; 
While Martha, mild and placid, 

Assumes the household cares, 
And pyroligneous acid 

The juicy ham prepares. 



That is a capital defence of the Ten-.perance Society, and of sodaic com- 
pounds, Mr. Dowden, and clearly refutes the rash assertion of Horace 

" Nee durare ditl nee vivere carmina possunt 
Quac scribuntur aquae potoribus." 



Dick, you have a decided claim for a song on any of our guests whose 
melodious pipe we have not as yet heard. 

DOWDEN. 

I call on O'Meara, whom I have detected watching, with a covetous eye, 
something in the distant landscape. A song, friar ! 



Father Pronfs Carousal. 



61 



O'MEARA. 

I am free to confess that yonder turkey, of which I can get a glimpse 
through the kitchen-door, has a most tempting aspect. Would it were 
spitted ! but, alas ! this is Friday. However, there are substitutes even for a 
turkey, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate in the most elegant style of Fran- 
ciscan Latinity ; adding a free translation for the use of the ignorant. 



FRIAR O'MEARA'S SONG. 



Why then, sure it was made by a learned owl, 

The "rule" by which I beg, 
Forbidding to eat of the tender fowl 
That hangs on yonder peg. 
But, rot it ! no matter : 
For here on a platter, 
Sweet Margaret brings 
A food fit for kings ; 
And a meat 
Clean and neat 
That's an egg ! 

Sweet maid, 

She brings me an egg newly laid ! 
And to fast I need ne'er be afraid, 

For 'tis Peg 
That can find me an egg. 



Three different ways there are of eating them ; 

First boil'd, then fried with salt, 
But there's A particular way of treating them, 
Where many a cook's at fault : 
For with parsley and flour 
'Tis in Margaret's power 
To make up a dish, 
Neither meat, fowl, nor fish ; 
But in Paris they call 't 
A neat 
Omelette. _ 

Sweet girl ! 
In truth, as in Latin, her name is a pearl, 

When she gets 
Me a platter of nice omelettes. 



Och ! 'tis all in my eye, and a joke, 
To call fasting a sorrowful yoke ; 
Sure, of Dublin Bay herrings a keg, 

And an egg, 

Is enough for all sensible folk ! 
Success to the fragrant turf-smoke, 
That curls round the pan on the fire ; 
While the sweet yellow yolk 
From the egg-shells is broke 
In that pan, 
Who can, 

If he have but the heart of a man, 
Not feel the soft flame of desire, 
When it burns to a clinker the heart of a friar? 



Cantilena Omcanca. 
I. 

Nostra non est regula 

Edenda gallina, 
Altera sed edula 

Splendent in culinfl, : 
Ova manus sedula 

Affert mihi bina ! 
Est Margarita, 
Quae facit ita, 

Puellarum regina ! 



II. 

Triplex mos est edere : 

Primb, genuina ; 
Dein, certo foedere 

Tosta et salina ; 
Turn, nil herbae laedere 

Possunt aut farina ; 
Est Margarita, 
QUJE facit ita, 

Puellarum regina ! 



III. 

(Lenta e maetoso.} 
Tempus stulta plebs abhorret 

Quadragesimale ; 
Halec sed si in mensd foret, 

Res iret non tam male ! 
Ova dum ha;c nympha torret 
In ollil cum sale. 
Est Margarita, 
Qua; facit ita, 

Puellarum regina ! 



62 The Works of FatJier Front. 

PKOUT. 

I coincide with all that has been said in praise of eggs ; I have written a 
voluminous essay on the subject; and as to frying them in a pan, it is 
decidedly the best method. That ingenious man. Crofton Croker, was the 
first among all the writers on "useful knowledge" who adorn this utili- 
tarian epoch to discover the striking resemblance that exists between those 
two delightful objects in national history, a daisy and a fried egg. Eggs 
broken into a pan seem encircled with a whitish border, having a yellow 
nucleus in the centre; and the similar appearance of the field-daisy ought 
to have long since drawn the notice of Wordsworth. Meantime in the matter 
of frying eggs, care should be taken not to overdo them, as an old philosopher 
has said /utXtTrj TO irav. But let none imagine that in all 1 have said I 
intend to hint, in the remotest manner, any approval of that barbarous and 
unnatural combination that horrid amalgam, yclept a pancake, than which 
nothing can be more detestable. 

SCOTT. 

Have you any objection, learned host, to our hearing a little instrumental 
music ? Suppose we got a tune on the bagpipe ? I understand your man, 
Terry Callaghan, ran squeeze the bags to some purpose. 

PROUT. 
Terry ! come in, and bring your pipes ! 

Terry, nothing loth, came, though with some difficulty, and rather unsteadily, 
from the kitchen ; and having established himself on a three-legged stool (the 
usual seat of Pythonic inspiration), gave, after a short prelude, the following 
harmonious strain, with vocal accompaniment to suit the tuneful drone of 
the bags: in which arrangement he strictly adhered to the Homeric prac- 
tice ; for we find that the most approved and highly gifted minstrels of the 
" Odyssey " (especially that model among the bards of antiquity, Demodocus), 
owing to their contempt for wind-instruments, were enabled to play and sing 
at the same time ; but neither the lyre, the plectrum, the <op^iy, the chelys, 
the testudo, or the barbiton, afford such facilities for the concomitance of 
voice and music as that wondrous engine of harmony the Celtic bagpipe, 
called " come muse " by the French, as if par excellence " cornu muses." Terry, 
having exalted his horn, sang thus : 

TERRY CALLAGHAN'S SONG; 

Being a full and true Account of the Storming of Blarney Castle, by the united 

forces of Cromwell, Ireton, and Fairfax, 

in 1628. 

AIR "I'm akin to the Callaghans." 

O Blarney Castle, my darlint ! 

Sure you're nothing at all but a stone 
Wrapt in ivy a nest for all varmint, 

Since the ould Lord Clancarty is gone. 
Och ! 'tis you that was once strong and aincient, 

And ye kep all the Sassenachs down, 
While fighting them battles that ain't yet " 

Forgotten by martial renown. 

O Blarney Castle, &c. 

Bad luck to that robber, ould Crommill ! 

That plundered our beautiful fort ; 
We'll never forgive him, though some will 

Saxons ! such as George Knapp and his sort. 



Father Front's Carousal. 63 

Ijtit they tell us the day'll come, when Dannel 

Will purge the whole country, and drive 
All the Sassenachs into the Channel, 

Nor leave a Cromwellian alive. 

O Blarney Castle, &c. 

Curse the day clumsy Noll's ugly corpus, 

Clad in copper, was seen on our plain ; 
When he rowled over here like a porpoise, 

In two or three hookers from Spain ! 
And bekase that he was a freemason 

He mounted a battering-ram, 
And into her mouth, full of treason, 

Twenty pound of gunpowder he'd cram. 
O Blarney Castle, &c. 

So when the brave boys of Clancarty 

Looked over their battlement-wall, 
They saw wicked Oliver's party 

All a feeding on powder and ball ; 
And that giniral that married his daughter, 

Wid a heap of grape-shot in his jaw 
That's bould Ireton, so famous for slaughter 

And he was his brother-in-law. 

O Blarney Castle, &c. 

They fired off their bullets like thunder, 

That whizzed through the air like a snake ; 
And they made the ould castle (no wonder !) 

With all its foundations to shake. 
While the Irish had nothing to shoot off 

But their bows and their arras, the sowls ! 
Waypons fit for the wars of old Plutarch, 

And perhaps mighty good for wild fowls. 
O Blarney Castle, &c. 

Och ! 'twas Crommill then gave the dark token 

For in the black art he was deep ; 
And though the eyes of the Irish stood open, 

They found themselves all fast asleep ! 
With his jack-boots he stepped on the water, 

And he walked clane right over the lake ; 
While his sodgers they all followed after, 

As dry as a duck or a drake. 

O Blarney Castle, &c. 
Then the gates he burnt down to a cinder, 

And the roof he demolished likewise ; 
O ! the rafters they flamed out like tinder, 

And the buildin'_/?rtn-rf up to the skies. 
And he gave the estate to the Jeffers, 

With the dairy, the cows, and the hay : 
And they lived there in clover like heifers, 

As their ancestors do to this day. 

O Blarney Castle, &c. 

Such was the song of Terry, in the chorus of which he was aided by the 
sympathetic baryton of Jack Bellew's voice, never silent when his country's 
woes are the theme of eloquence or minstrelsy. An incipient somnolency 
began, however, to manifest itself in Corbet and Dick Dowden ; and I con- 
fess I myself can recollect little else of the occurrences of the evening. 
Wherefore with this epilogue we conclude our account of the repast on 
Watergrasshill, observing that Sir Walter Scott was highly pleased with the 
sacerdotal banquet, and expressed himself so to Knapp ; to whom, on their 
return in a post-chaise to Cork, he exclaimed, 

" Prorsus jucunde cosnam produximus illam." HOR. 



64 The Works of Father Front. 



IV, 

Shrift's I 

A TALE OF A CHURN. 
(Erasers Magazine, July, 1834.) 



[The Fraser which contained this grimly grotesque phantasy by Prout was the one in 
which, as the fiftieth Literary Portrait in Reginas Gallery, the Author of " Rookwood," 
then in his jeunesse done, was depicted, symmetrical in form, perfectly clad, curly- 
headed, delicately chiselled in feature, negligently half-seated upon a table, surrounded 
by festoons of manacles, crape-masks, and pistols at full cock, befitting the celebrant of 
prison-breakers and highwaymen. Obeying the impulse of some now incomprehensible 
freak, Maginn, in the letterpress accompanying Maclise's sketch, dubbed the romancist, 
not according to his baptismal register, William Harrison, but Walker Hedric Ainsworth. 
There can be little doubt of it but that Thackeray had this paper of Mahony's uncon- 
sciously in his recollection when in his lecture on Swift, seventeen years later on, he spoke 
of the great Dean as entering the nursery with the look and tread of an ogre. Not 
inappropriately as the tailpiece to the reprint of this double-headed essay in 1836, the 
infant Prout was revealed by the pencil of Croquis as escaping in a churn from the 
terrible risk of getting only too literally a little later on into a pickle, through the carry- 
ing out of his illustrious putative father's suggestion that the children of papists should 
be utilized for the advantage of the Royal Navy by being turned into salt provisions.] 



" O thou, whatever title please thine ear, 
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver 
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, 
Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' easy-chair, 
Or praise the court, or magnify mankind, 
Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind ! " 

POPE. 

WE are fully cognizant of and prepared for the overwhelming burst of felicita- 
tion which we shall elicit from a sympathizing public, when we announce the 
glad tidings of the safe arrival in London of the Watergrasshill "chest," 
fraught with treasures such as no Spanish galleon ever wafted from Manilla or 
Peru into the waters of the Guadalquiver. From the remote Irish highland 
where Prout wasted so much Athenian suavity on the desert air, unnoticed and 
unappreciated by the rude tenants of the hamlet, his trunk of posthumous 
papers has been brought into our cabinet ; and there it stands before us, 
like unto the Trojan horse, replete with the armed offspring of the great 
man's brain, right well packed with classic stuffing ay, pregnant with life and 
glory ! Haply has Fate decreed that it should fall into proper hands and 
fitting custody; else to what vile uses might not this vile box of learned 
lumber have been unwittingly converted we shudder in spirit at the probable 



Dean Swiff s Madness. 65 

destiny that would have awaited it. The Caliph Omar warmed the bath of 
Alexandria with Ptolemy's library; and the " Prout Papers" might ere now 
be lighting the pipes of "the boys" in Blarney Lane, while the chest itself 
might afford materials for a three'-legged stool . 

" Truncnsjiculinis, inutile lignum !" 

In verity it ought to be allowable at times to indulge in that most pleasing 
opiate, self-applause ; and having made so goodly an acquisition, why should 
not we chuckle inwardly while congratulated from without, ever and anon 
glancing an eye of satisfaction at the chest : 

"Mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac contemplor in arcft !" 

Never did 'that learned ex-Jesuit, Angelo Mai, now librarian of the Vatican, 
rejoice more over a " palimpsest " MS. of some crazy old monk, in which his 
quick eye fondly had detected the long-lost decade of Livy never did friend 
Pettigrew gloat over a newly uncoffined mummy (warranted of the era of Sesos- 
tris) never did (that living mummy) Maurice de Talleyrand exult over a fresh 
bundle of Palmerstonian protocols, with more internal complacency, than 
did we, jubilating over this sacerdotal anthology, this miscellany " in boards," 
at last safely lodged in our possession. 

Apropos. We should mention that we had previously the honour of 
receiving from his Excellency Prince Maurice (aforesaid) the following note, to 
which it grieved us to return a flat negative : 

" Le Prince de Talleyrand prie Mr. OLIVIER YORKE d'agreer ses respec- 
tueux hommages. Ayant eu 1'avantage de connaitre personellement feu 
1'Abbe de Prout lors de ses etudes a la Sorbonne en 1778, il serait charme', 
shot qu'arriveront les papiers de ce respectable eccldsiastique. d'assister & 
1'ouverture du coffre. Cette faveur, qu'il se flatte d'obtenir de la politesse 
reconnue de Monsieur YORKE, il S9aura duement appre'cier. 

"Ambassade de France, Hanovre Sq. 
"ce 3 Juin." 

We suspected at once, and our surmise has proved correct, that many 
documents would be found referring to Marie Antoinette's betrayers, and the 
practices of those three prime intriguers, Mirabeau, Cagliostro, and Prince 
Maurice ; so that we did well in eschewing the honour intended us in over- 
hauling these papers Non " Talley " auxilio ! 

We hate aflourish of trumpets ; and though we could justly command all the 
clarions of renown to usher in these Prout writings, let their own intrinsic worth 
be the sole herald of their fame. We are not like the rest of men, obliged to 
inflate our cheeks with incessant effort to blow cur commodities into notoriety. 
No ! we are not disciples in the school of Puffendorf : Prout'syf.r/z will be 
found fresh and substantial not " blown," as happens too frequently in the 
literary market. We have more than once acknowledged the unsought and 
unpurchased plaudits of our contemporaries ; but it is also to the imperishable 
verdict of posterity that we ultimately look for a ratification of modern 
applause; with Cicero we exclaim " Memoria vestra, Quirites, nostrae res 
vivent, sermonibus crescent, litteraram rnonumentis veterascent et cor- 
roborabuntur !" Yes ! while the ephemeral writers of the day, mere bubbles 
on the surface of the flood, will become extinct in succession, while a few, 
more lucky than their comrade dunces, may continue for a space to swim with 
the aid of those vile bladders, newspaper puffs, Father Prout will be seen 
floating triumphantly down foe stream of time, secure and buoyant in a genuine 
"Cork" jacket. 



66 The Works of Father Prout. 

We owe it to the public to account for the delay experienced in the trans- 
mission of the "chest" from Watergrasshill to our hands. The fact is, that 
at a meeting of the parishioners held on the subject (Mat Horrogan, of 
Blarney, in the chair), it was resolved, "That Terry Callaghan, being a tall 
and trustworthy man, able to do credit to the village in London, and carry 
eleven stone weight (the precise tariff of the trunk), should be sent at the 
public expense, vi<\ Bristol, with the coffer strapped to his shoulders, and 
plenty of the wherewithal to procure ' refreshment ' on the western road, 
until he should deliver the same at Mr. Eraser's, Regent Street, with the 
compliments of the parish." Terry, wisely considering, like the Commissioners 
of the Deccan prize-money, that the occupation was too good a thing not to 
make it last as long as possible, kept refreshing himself, at the cost of the 
parochial committee, on the great western road, and only arrived last week in 
Regent Street. Having duly stopped to admire Lady Aldborough's "round 
tower," set up to honour the Duke of York, and elbowed his way through 
the " Squadrint," he at last made his appearance at our office ; and when he 
had there discharged his load, went off to take pot-luck with Feargus 
O'Connor. 

Here, then, we are enabled, no longer deferring the promised bson, to 
lay before the public the first of the " Prout Papers ; " breaking bulk, to use a 
seaman's phrase, and producing at hazard a specimen of what is contained in 
the coffer brought hither on the shoulders of tall and trustworthy Terry 
Callaghan. 

" Pandere res alta TerrA et Caligitic mersas." 

OLIVER YORKE. 
Regent Street, ist July, 1834. 



Watergrasshill, March 1830. 

YET a few years, and a full century shall have elapsed since the death of Dr. 
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's. Yes, O my friends ! if such I may 
presume to designate you into whose hands, when I am gathered to the 
silent tomb, these writings shall fall, and to whose kindly perusal I commend 
them, bequeathing, at the same time, the posthumous blessing of a feeble and 
toil-worn old man yes, when a few winters more shall have added to the 
accumulated snow of age that weighs on the hoary head of the pastor of this 
upland, and a short period shall have rolled on in the dull monotony of these 
latter days, the centenary cycle will be fully completed, the secular anthem of 
dirge-like solemnity may be sung, since the grave closed for ever on one whom 
Britain justly reveres as the most upright, intuitive, and gifted of her sages ; 
and whom Ireland, when the frenzied hour of strife shall have passed away, 
and the turbulence of parties shall have subsided into a national calm, will 
hail with the rapture of returning reason, as the first, the best, the mightiest 
of her sons. The long arrears of gratitude to the only true disinterested 
champion of her people will then be paid the long-deferred apotheosis of 
the patriot-divine will then take place the shamefully-forgotten debt of 
glory which the lustre of his genius shed around his semi-barbarous country- 
men will be deeply and 4 feelingly remembered ; the old landmark of genuine 
worth will be discovered in the ebbing of modern agitation, and due honour 
will be rendered by a more enlightened age to the keen and scrutinizing 
philosopher, the scanner of whate'er lies hidden in the folds of the human 
heart, the prophetic seer of coming things, the unsparing satirist of con- 
temporary delinquency, the stern Rhadamanthus of the political and of the 



Dean Swift's Madness. 67 

literary world, the star of a benighted land, the lance and the buckler of 
Israel 

" We ne'er shall look upon his like again." * 

And still why must I recall (what I would fain obliterate) the ever-painful 
fact, graven, alas ! too indelibly on the stubborn tablets of his biographers, 
chronicled in the annals of the country, and, above all, firmly and fatally 
established by the monumental record of his own philanthropic munificence, 
the disastrous fact, that ere this brilliant light of our island was quenched in 
death, towards the close of the year 1745 long before that sad consummation, 
the flame had wavered wild and flickered fitfully in its lamp of clay, casting 
around shadows of ghastly form, and soon assuming a strange and melancholy 
hue, that made every well-wisher hail as a blessing the event of its final 
extinction in the cold and dismal vaults of St. Patrick's. In what mysterious 
struggle his gigantic intellect had been cloven down, none could tell. But the 
evil genius of insanity had clearly obtained a masterdom over faculties the 
most powerful, and endowments the highest, that have fallen to the lot of 
man. 

We are told of occasional hours of respite from the fangs of his tormenting 
oatjucoi/, we learn of moments when the " mens divinior" was suffered to go 
loose from its gaoler, and to roam back, as it were, on "parole," into the 
dominions of reason, like the ghost of the murdered king, allowed to revisit, for 
a brief space, the glimpses of our glorious firmament, but such gleams of 
mental enlightenment were but few, and short in their duration. They were 
like the flash that is seen to illumine the wreck when all hope is gone, and, 
fiercely bursting athwart in the darkness, appears but to seal the doom of the 
cargo and the mariners intervals of lugubrious transport, described by our 
native bard as 

" That ecstasy which, from the depths of sadness, 
Glares like the maniac's moon, whose light is madness." 

Alas ! full rapidly would that once clear and sagacious spirit falter and relapse 
into the torpor of idiocy. His large, expressive eyes, rolling wildly, would at 
times exhibit, as it were, the inward working of his reason, essaying in vain to 
cast off the nightmare that sat triumphant there, impeding that current of 
thought, once so brisk and brilliant. Noble and classic in the very writhings 
of delirium, and often sublime, he would appear a living image of the sculp- 
tured Laocoon, battling with a serpent that had grasped, not the body, but the 
mind, in its entangling folds. Yet must we repeat the sad truth, and again 
record in sorrow, that the last two or three years of Jonathan Swift presented 
nothing but the shattered remnants of what had been a powerfully organized 
being, to whom it ought to have been allotted, according to our faint notions, 
to carry unimpaired and undiminished into the hands of Him who gave such 
varied gifts, and formed such a goodly intellect, the stores of hoarded wisdom 
and the overflowing measure of talents well employed : but such was not the 

* Note in Prout's handwriting: "Doyle, of Carlow, faintly resembles him. Bold, 
honest, disinterested, an able writer, a scholar, a gentleman ; a bishop, too, in our 
church, with none of the shallow pedantry, silly hauteur, arrant selfishness, and anile 




best and most enlightened patriots ? Truly, it hath ' Moses and the prophets ' doth the 
Legislature wait until one come from the dead ? " 

Doyle is since dead but " defunctus adhuc loquitur ! " O. Y. 



68 The Works of Father Front. 

counsel of an inscrutable Providence, whose decree was to be fulfilled in the 
prostration of a mighty understanding 

AlOS 0* T\ElTO /?OU\J. 

And here let me pause for a sadly plensing reminiscence steals across my 
mind, a recollection of youthful days. I love to fix, in its flight, a transitory 
idea ; and I freely plead the privilege of discursiveness conceded to the garru- 
lity of old age. When my course of early travel led me to wander in search 
of science, and I sought abroad that scholastic knowledge which was denied to 
us at home in those evil days ; when, by force of legislation, I became like 
others of my clerical brethren, a "peripatetic" philosopher like them com- 
pelled to perambulate some part of Europe in quest of professional education 
the sunny provinces of southern France were the regions of my choice ; and 
my first gleanings of literature were gathered on the banks of that mighty 
stream so faithfully characterized by Burdigala's native poet Ausonius, in his 
classic enumeration : 

"Lentus Arar, Rhodanusque celer, PLENUSque GARUMNA." 

One day, a goatherd, who fed his shaggy flock along the river was heard by me, 
as, seated on the lofty bank, he gazed on the shining flood, to sing a favourite 
carol of the country. 'Twas but a simple ballad; yet it struck me as a neat 
illustration of the ancient parallel between the flow of human life and the 
course of the running waters ; and thus it began : 

" Salut ! O vieux fleuve, qui coulez par la plaine ! 
Helas ! un meme cours ici has nous entraine 

Egal est en tout notre sort : 
Tous deux nous fournissons la meme carriere ; 
Car un m6me destin nous mene, O riviere ! 

Vous a la mer ! nous i la mort ! " 

So sang the rustic minstrel. But it has occurred to me, calmly and sorrowfully 
pondering on the fate of Swift, that although this melancholy resemblance, so 
often alluded to in Scriptural allegory, may hold good in the general fortunes of 
mankind, still has it been denied to some to complete in their personal history 
the sad similitude ; for not a few, and these some of the most exalted of our 
species, have been forbidden to glide into the Ocean of Eternity bringing there- 
unto the fulness of their life-current with its brimming banks undrained. 

Who that has ever gazed on the glorious Rhine, coeval in historic memory 
with the first Caesar, and boasting much previous traditionary renown, at the 
spot where it gushes from its Alpine source, would not augur to it, with the 
poet, an uninterrupted career, and an ever-growing volume of copious exuber- 
ance? 

" Au pied du Mont Adulle, entre mille roseaux, 
Le Rhin tranquil, et fier du progres de ses eaux, 
Appuy6 d'une main sur son urne penchante, 
S'endort au bruit flaneur de son onde naissante." 

BOILEAU. 

Whence if it is viewed sweeping in brilliant cataracts through many a moun- 
tain glen, dnd many a woodland scene, until it glides from the realms of romance 
into the business of life, and forms the majestic boundary of two rival nations, 
conferring benefits on both reflecting from the broad 'expanse of its waters 
anon the mellow vineyards of Johannisberg, anon the hoary crags of Drachen- 
fels who then could venture to foretell that so splendid an alliance of useful- 
ness and grandeur was destined to be dissolved that yon rich flood would 



Dean Swiff s Madness. 69 

never gain that ocean into whose bosom a thousand rivulets flow on with 
unimpeded gravitation, but would disappear in the quagmires of Helvoetsluys, 
be lost in the swamps of Flanders, or absorbed in the sands of Holland ? 

Yet such is the course of the Rhine, and such was the destiny of Swift, of 
that man the outpourings of whose abundant mind fertilized alike the land of 
his fathers* and the land of his birth : that man the very overflowings of whose 
strange genius were looked on by his contemporaries with delight, and 
welcomed as the inundations of the Nile are hailed by the men of Egypt. 

A deep and hallowed motive impels me to select that last and dreary period 
of his career for the subject of special analysis ; to elucidate its secret history, 
and to examine it in all its bearings ; eliminating conjecture, and substituting 
fact ; prepared to demolish the visionary superstructure of hypothesis, and to 
place the matter on its simple basis of truth and reality. 

It is far from my purpose and far from my heart to tread on such solemn 
ground save with becoming awe and with feet duly unshodden. If, then, in 
the following pages, I dare to unseal the long-closed well, think not that I 
seek to desecrate the fountain : if it devolves on me to lift the veil, fear not 
that I mean to profane the sanctuary : tarry until this paper shall have been 
perused to its close; nor will it fall from your grasp without leaving behind it 
a conviction that its contents were traced by no unfriendly hand, and by no 
unwarranted biographer : for if a bald spot were to be found on the head of 
Jonathan Swift, the hand of Andrew Prout should be the first to cover it with 
laurels. 

There is a something sacred about insanity : the traditions of every country 
agree in flinging a halo of mysterious distinction around the unhappy mortal 
stricken with so sad and so lonely a visitation. The poet who most studied 
from nature and least from books, the immortal Shakespeare, has never made 
our souls thrill with more intense sympathy than when his personages are 
brought before us bereft of the guidance of reason. The grey hairs of King 
Lear are silvered over with additional veneration when he raves; and the wild 
flower of insanity is the tenderest that decks the pure garland of Ophelia. 
The story of Orestes has furnished Greek tragedy with its most powerful 
emotions ; and never did the mighty Talma sway with more irresistible domin- 
ion the assembled men of France, than when he personated the fury-driven 
maniac of Euripides, revived on the French stage by the muse of Voltaire. 
We know that among rude and untutored nations madness is of rare occur- 
rence, and its instances few indeed. But though its frequency in more refined 
and civilized society has taken away much of the deferential homage paid to 
it in primitive times, still, in the palmiest days of Greek and Roman illumina- 
tion, the oracles of Delphi found their fitting organ in the frenzy of the 
Pythoness ; and through such channels does the Latin lyrist represent the 
Deity communicating with man : 



"quatit 



Mentem sacerdotum incola Pythius." 

But let us look into our own breasts, and acknowledge that, with all the fastid- 
ious pride of fancied superiority, and in the full plenitude of our undimmed 
reason, we cannot face the breathing ruin of a noble intellect undismayed. 
The broken sounds, the vague intensity of that gaze, those whisperings that 
seem to commune with the world of spirits, the play of those features, still 
impressed with the signet of immortality, though illegible to our eye, strike 
us with that awe which the obelisk of the desert, with its insculptured riddles, 
inspires into the Arabian shepherd. An oriental opinion makes such beings 

* Prout supposes Swift to have been a natural son of Sir William Temple. We believe 
him in error here. O. Y. 



70 The Works of Father Front. 

the favourites of Heaven : and the strong tincture of eastern ideas, so discern- 
ible on many points in Ireland, is here also perceptible ; for a born idiot 
among the offspring of an Irish cabin is prized as a family palladium. 

To contemplate what was once great and resplendent in the eyes of man 
slowly mouldering in decay, has never been an unprofitable exercise of thought ; 
and to muse over reason itself fallen and prostrate, cannot fail to teach us our 
complete deficiency. If to dwell among ruins and am id sepulchres to explore 
the pillared grandeur of the tenantless Palmyra, or the crumbling wreck of that 
Roman amphitheatre once manned with applauding thousands and rife with 
joy, now overgrown with shrubs and haunted by the owl if to soliloquize in 
the valley where autumnal leaves are thickly strewn, ever reminding us by their 
incessant rustle, as we tread the path, " that all that's bright must fade; " if 
these things beget that mood of soul in which the suggestions of Heaven 
find readiest adoption, how forcibly must the wreck of mind itself, and the 
mournful aberrations of that faculty by which most we assimilate to our Maker, 
humble our self-sufficiency, and bend down our spirit in adoration ! It is in 
truth a sad bereavement, a dissevering of ties long cherished, a parting scene 
melancholy to witness, when the ethereal companion of this clay takes its 
departure, an outcast from the earthly coil that it once animated with intel- 
lectual fire, and wanders astray, cheerless and friendless, beyond the picturings 
of poetry to describe; a picture realized in Swift, who, more than Adrian, was 
entitled to exclaim : 

" Animula vagula, blandula, "Wee soul, fond rambler, whither, say, 

Hospes comesque corporis, Whither, boon comrade, fleest away ? 

Quae nunc abibis in loca? Ill canst thou bear the bitter blast 

Pallidula, rigida, nudula, Houseless, unclad, affright, aghast ; 

Nee, ut sol^, dabis jocos '. " Jocund no more ! and hush'd the mirth 

That gladden'd oft the sons of earth ! " 

Nor unloth am I to confess that such contemplations have won upon me in 
the decline of years. Youth has its appropriate pursuits ; and to him who 
stands on the threshold of life, with all its gaieties and festive hours spread in 
alluring blandishment before him, such musings may come amiss, and such 
studies may offer no attraction. We are then eager to mingle in the crowd of 
active existence, and to mix with those who swarm and jostle each other on 
the molehill of this world 

"Towered cities please us then, 
And the busy hum of men ! " 

But to me, numbering fourscore years, and full tired of the frivolities of 
modern wisdom, metaphysical inquiry returns with all its charms, fresh as 
when first I courted, in the halls of Sorbonne, the science of the soul. On 
this barren hill where my lot is fallen, in that " sunset of life" which is said to 
" bring mystical lore," I love to investigate subjects such as these. 

"And may my lamp, at midnight hour, 
Be seen in some high, lonely tower, 
Seeking, with Plato, to unfold 
What realms or what vast regions hold 
TV immortal soul that hath forsook 
Its mansion in this fleshy nook ! 
And may, at length, my weary age 
Find out some peaceful hermitage, 



Till old experience doth attain 

To something like prophetic strain ! " 



To fix the precise limits where sober reason's well-regulated dominions end 
and at what bourne the wild region of the fanciful commences, extending in 
many a tract of lengthened wilderness until it joins the remote and volcanic 
territory of downright insanity, were a task which the most deeply-read 



Dean Swift 's Madness. 



psychologist might attempt in vain. Hopeless would be the endeavour to 
settle the exact confines; for nowhere is there so much debatable ground, so 
much unmarked frontier, so much undetermined boundary. The degrees of 
longitude and latitude have never been laid down, nor, that I learn, ever 
calculated at all, for want of a really sensible solid man to act the part of a 
first meridian. The same remark is applicable to a congenial subject, viz. 
that state of the human frame akin to insanity, and called intoxication ; for 
there are here also various degrees of intensity ; and where on earth (except 
perhaps in the person of my friend Dick Dowden) will you find, Kara typiva 
Kai Kara tiu/j.ov a SOBER man, according with the description in a hymn of our 
church liturgy ? 

" Qui phis, prudens, humilis, pudicus, 

Sobriam duxit sine labe vitam, 

Donee humanos levis afflat aurii 
Spiritus ignes." 

Ex officio Brci'. Rom. de cowmuni Con/, non 
Pont, cut vesper as. 

I remember well, when in 1815 the present Lord Chancellor (then simple 
Harry Brougham) came to this part of the country (attracted hither by the 
fame of our Blarney-stone), having had the pleasure of his society one summer 
evening in this humble dwelling, and conversing with him long and loudly on 
the topic of inebriation. He had certainly taken a drop extra, but perhaps 
was therefore better qualified for debating the subject, viz. at what precise 
point drunkenness sets in, and what is the exact low water-mark. He first 
advocated a three-bottle system, but enlarged his view of the question as he 
went on, until he reminded me of those spirits described by Milton, who 
sat apart on a hill retired, discussing freewill, fixed fate, foreknowledge 
absolute, 

"And found no end, 5n wandering mazes lost !" 

My idea of the matter was very simple, although I had some trouble in 
bringing him round to the true understanding of things ; for he is obstinate by 
nature, and, like the village schoolmaster, whom he has sent "abroad," 

"Even though vanquish'd, he can argue still." 

I showed him that the poet Lucretius, in his elaborate work "DeNatura 
Rerum," had long since established a criterion, or standard a sort of clepsy- 
dra, to ascertain the final departure of sobriety, being the well-known pheno- 
menon of reduplication in the visual orb, that sort of second-sight common 
among the Scotch : 

" Tiina lucernartim flagrantia lumina flammis, 
Et duplices hominum vultus et corpora bina ! " 

LUCRETIUS, lib. iv. 452. 

But, unfortunately, just as I thought I had placed my opinions in their most 
luminous point of view, I found that poor Harry was completely fuddled, so 
as to be unconscious of all I could urge during the rest of the evening ; for, 
as Tom Moore says in " Lalla Rookh," 

" the delicate chain 




Of thought, once tangled, could not clear again." 

ago been laid down as a maxim by Seneca, that "nullum 
^ rn sine mixtura insanioe." Newton was decidedly mad when 
irnent on Revelations; so, I think, was Napier of the 



TJie Works of Father Front. 



logarithms, when he achieved a similar exploit; Burns was more than once 
labouring under delirium, of the kind called tremens; Tasso was acquainted 
with the cells of a madhouse ; Nathaniel Lee,* the dramatist, when a tenant 
of Bedlam, wrote a tragedy twenty-five acts long ; and Sophocles was accused 
before the tribunal of the <pparpia, and only acquitted of insanity by the recita- 
tion of his CEdip. Colon. Pascal was a miserable hypochondriac ; the poet 
Cowper and the philosopher Rousseau were subject to lunacy; Luis de 
Camoens died raving in an hospital at Lisbon ; and, in an hospital at 
Madrid, the same fate, with the same attendant madness, closed the career 
of the author of "Don Quixote," the immortal Miguel Cervantes. Shelley 
was mad outright ; and Byron's blood was deeply tainted with maniacal 
infusion. His uncle, the eighth lord, had been the homicide of his kindred, 
and hid his remorse in the dismal cloisters of Newstead. He himself enume- 
rates three of his maternal ancestors who died by their own hands. Last 
February (1830), Miss Milbanke, in the books he has put forth to the world, 
states her belief and that of her advisers, that ' ' the Lord Byron was actually 
insane." And in Dr. Millingen's book (the Surgeon of the Suliote brigade) 
we find these words attributed to the Childe : " I picture myself slowly expir- 
ing on a bed of torture, or terminating my days, like Swift, a grinning idiot." 
Anecdotes of Lord Byron's Illness and Death, by JULIUS MILLINGEN, 
p. i2o.-*I^ondon. 

Strange to say, few men have been more exempt from the usual exciting 
causes of insanity than Swift. If ambition, vanity, avarice, intemperance, and 
the fury of sexual passion, be the ordinary determining agents of lunacy, then 
should he have proudly defied the approaches of the evil spirit, and withstood 
his attacks. As for ambitious cravings, it is well known that he sought not the 
smiles of the court, nor ever sighed for ecclesiastical dignities. Though a 
churchman, he had none of the crafty, aspiring, and intriguing mania of a 
Wolsey or a Mazarin. By the boldness and candour of his writings, he 
effectually put a stop to that ecclesiastical preferment which the low-minded, 
the cunning, and the hypocrite, are sure to obtain : and of him it might be 
truly said, that the doors of clerical promotion closed while the gates of glory 
opened. 

But even glory (mystic word !), has it not its fascinations, too powerful at 
times even for the eagle eye of genius, and capable of dimming for ever the 
intellectual orb that gazes too fixedly on its irradiance? How often has splen- 
did talent been its own executioner, and the best gift of Heaven supplied the 
dart that bereft its possessor of all that maketh existence valuable ! The very 
intensity of those feelings which refine and elevate the soul, has it not been 
found to operate the work of ruin ? 

" "Twos thine own genius gave the final blow, 
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low. 

* This fact concerning Lee I stumbled on in that olla podrida, the "Curiosities of 
Literature" of the elder D'Israeli. In his chapter on the "Medicine of the Mind " (vol. i. 
second series ; Murray, 1823), I find a passage which tells for my theory ; and I there- 
fore insert it here, on the principle of je frrends moit bien partont eriije le troieve: " Plu- 
tarch says, in one of his essays, that should the body sue the mind in a court of judica- 
ture for damages, it would be found that the mind would prove to have been a most 
ruinous tenant to its landlord." This idea seemed to me so ingenious, that I searched for 
it through all the metaphysical writings of the Boeotian sage ; and I find that Democritus, 
the laughing philosopher, first made the assertion about the Greek law of landlord and 
tenant retailed by him of Cherona-a : Otfxat fiaAitrra rov A>jfioicpiToi' ciircir, u? ft TO <rco/ia 
i/ccuraiTo TJJ <ln>Xfl> ifaxiaireia^ ov<c au> avnji' airo^iryeic. Theaphrastus enlarges on the 
same topic : eo^paoros aAt)#e c iirey, jroAu r<a crucian TtAeiv cfoixtoc Trfv tyvxnv. 
IlXtiova fievroi TO <naft.a. TT/S ijrv\rf; airoAavf i xaxa, fti) Kara Koyov avrta \pw/af ro?. See the 
magnificent edition of Plutarch's Moral Treatises, from the Clarendon press of Oxford, 
I795i being IIAOYT. TA H6IKA, torn. i. p. 375. PROUT. 



Dean Sivift's Madness. 73 



So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Views his own feather on the fatal dart 
Which wing'd the shaft that quivers in his heart. 
Keen are his pangs, but keener far to feel 
He nursed the pinion that impell'd the steel ; 
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest 
Drinks the last life-drop of his bleeding breast." 

So Byron sings in his happiest mood ; and so had sung before him a young 
French poet, who died in early life, worn out by his own fervour : 

" Oui, 1'homme ici has aux talents condamne, 
Sur la terre en passant sublime infortune, 
Ne peut impunement achever une vie 
Que le Ciel surchargea du fardeau du genie ! 
Souvent il meurt brittle de ces celestes feux . . . 
Tel quelquefois 1'oiseau du souverain des dieux, 
L'aigle, tombe du haul des plaines immortelles, 

BruU dufoudre ardent qitilportait sous ses ailes .' " r.J 

CHENEDOLLE. ' 

I am fully aware that in Swift's case there was a common rumour among his 
countrymen in Ireland at the time, that over-study and too much learning had 
disturbed the equilibrium of the doctor's brain, and unsettled the equipoise of 
his cerebellum. The "most noble" Festus, who was a well-bred Italian 
gentleman, fell into the same vulgar error long ago with respect to St. Paul, and 
opined that much literature had made of him a madman ! But surely such a 
sad confusion of materialism and spiritualism as that misconception implies will 
not require refutation. The villagers in Goldsmith's beautiful poem may have 
been excusable for adopting so unscientific a theory ; but beyond the sphere of 
rustic sages the hypothesis is intolerable : 

" And still they gazed, and still their wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew ! " 

How can the ethereal and incorporate stores of knowledge become a physical 
weight, and turn out an incumbrance, exercising undue pressure on the human 
brain ? how can mental acquirement be described as a body ponderous ? 
What folly to liken the crevices of the cerebral gland to the fissures in an old 
barn bursting with the riches of a collected harvest ! ruperunt horrea messes 
or to the crazy bark of old Charon, when, being only fitted for the light 
waftage of ghosts, it received the bulky personage of the -Eneid : 

" Gemuit sub pondere cymba 
Sutilis, ac multam accepit rimosa paludem." Lib. vi. 

Away with such fantasies ! The more learned we grow, the better organized 
is our mind, the more prejudices we shake off; and the stupid error which I 
combat is but a pretext and consolation for ignorance. 

The delusions of love swayed not the stern mind of the Dean of St. 
Patrick's, nor could the frenzy of passion ever overshadow his clear under- 
standing. Like a bark gliding along a beautiful and regular canal, the soft 
hand of woman could, with a single riband, draw him onward in a fair and 
well-ordered channel ; but to drag him out of his course into any devious path, 
it was not in nature nor the most potent fascination to accomplish. Stella, the 
cherished companion of his life, his secretly wedded bride, ever exercised a 
mild influence over his affections 



" And rose, wkere'er he turn'd his eye, 
The morning star of memory." 



But his acquaintanceship with Vanessa (Mrs. Vanhomrigg) was purely of that 
description supposed to have been introduced by Plato. For my part, having 



74 The Works of Father Prout. 

embraced celibacy, I am perhaps little qualified for the discussion of these 
delicate matters ; but I candidly confess, that never did Goldsmith so win upon 
my good opinion, by his superior knowledge of those recondite touches that 
ennoble the favourite character of a respectable divine, as when he attributes 
severe and uncompromising tenets of monogamy to Dr. Primrose, vicar of 
Wakefield ; that being the next best state to the one which I have adopted 
myself, in accordance with the Platonic philosophy of Virgil, and the example 
of Paul : 

" Oitique sacerdotes casti, dinn vita iitanebat ; 
Quique pii vates, et Phoebo digna locuti ; 
Omnibus his niveS, cinguntur tempora vita ! " 

Mtieid. VI. 

The covetousness of this world had no place in the breast of Swift, and 
never, consequently, was his mind liable to be shaken from its basis by the in- 
roads of that overwhelming vice, avarice. Broad lands and manorial posses- 
sions he never sighed for ; and, as Providence had granted him a competency, 
he could well adopt the resignation of the poet, and exclaim, " Nil amplius 
oro." Nothing amused him more than the attempt of his friend Doctor 
Delany to excite his jealousy by the ostentatious display of his celebrated villa, 
which, as soon as purchased, he invited the Dean to corne and admire. We 
have the humorous lines of descriptive poetry which were composed by Swift 
on the occasion, and were well calculated to destroy the doctor's vanity. The 
estate our satirist represents as liable to suffer ' ' an eclipse of the sun " wher- 
ever "a crow" or other small opaque body should pass between it and that 
luminary. The plantations "might possibly supply a toothpick ;" 

" And the stream that's call'd 'Meander' 
Might be suck'd up by a gander ! " 

Such were the sentiments of utter derision with which he contemplated the 
territorial aggrandizement so dear to the votaries of Mammon ; nor is it 
foreign from this topic to remark, that the contrary extreme of hopeless 
poverty not having ever fallen to his lot, one main cause of insanity in high 
minds was removed. Tasso went mad through sheer distress and its concomi- 
tant shame ; the fictions of his romantic love for a princess of the Court of 
Ferrara are all fudge : he had at one time neither fire nor a decent coat to his 
back ; and he tells us that, having no lamp in his garret, he resorted to his cat 
to lend him the glare of her eyes : 

" Non avendo candele per iscrivere i suoi versi ! " 

Intemperance and debauchery never interfered with the quiet tenour of the 
Dean's domestic habits ; and hence the medical and constitutional causes of 
derangement flowing from these sources must be considered as null in this 
case. I have attentively perused the best record extant of his private life his 
own "Journal to Stella," detailing his sojourn in London; and I find his diet 
to have been such as I could have wished. 

" London, Oct. 1711. Mrs. Vanhomrigg has changed her lodgings I dined 
with her to-day. I am growing a mighty lover of herrings ; but they are much 
smaller here than with you. In the afternoon I visited an old major-general, 
and ate six oysters." Letter 32, p. 384, in Scott's edition of Swift. 

"I was invited to-day to dine with Mrs. Vanhomrigg, with some company 
who did not come ; but I ate nothing but herrings." Same Letter, p. 388. 

" Oct. 23, 1711. I was forced to be at the secretary's office till four, and 
lost my dinner. So I went to Mrs. Van's, and made them get me three herrings, 
which I am very fond of. And they are a light victuals" (sic. in orig.}. 
Letter 33, p. 400. i 






Dean Swift's Madness. 75 

He further shows the lively interest he always evinced for fish diet by the 
following passage, which occurs in a publication of his printed in Dublin, 1732, 
and entitled "An Examination of Certain Abuses, Corruptions, and Enor- 
mities in this City of Dublin. By Dr. Jonathan Swift, D.D." 

' ' The affirmation solemnly made in the cry of Herrings I is against all truth, 
viz. ' Herrings alive, ho ! ' The very proverb will convince us of this ; for what 
is more frequent in ordinary speech than to say of a neighbour for whom the 
bell tolls, ' He is dead as a herring ! ' And pray, how is it possible that a herring, 
which, as philosophers observe, cannot live longer than one minute three 
seconds and a half out of water, should bear a voyage in open boats from 
Howth to Dublin, be tossed into twenty hands, and preserve its life in sieves 
for several hours ?" 

The sense of loneliness consequent on the loss of friends, and the with- 
drawal of those whose companionship made life pleasant, is not unfrequently 
the cause of melancholy monomania; but it could not have affected Swift, 
whose residence in Dublin had estranged him long previously from those who 
at that period died away. Gay, his bosom friend, had died in December, 1732; 
Bolingbroke had retired to France in 1734 ; Pope was become a hypochondriac 
from bodily infirmities; Dr. Arbuthnot was extinct; and he, the admirer and 
the admired of Swift, John of Blenheim, the illustrious Marlborough, had pre- 
ceded him in a madhouse ! 

"Down Marlborough's cheeks the tears of dotage flow." 

A lunatic asylum was the last refuge of the warrior if, indeed, he and his 
fellows of the conquering fraternity were not candidates for it all along intrin- 
sically and professionally, 

" From Macedonia's madman to the Swede." 

Thus, although the Dean might have truly felt like one who treads alone some 
deserted banquet-hall (according to the beautiful simile of the Melodist), still 
we cannot, with the slightest semblance of probability, trace the outbreak of his 
madness to any sympathies of severed friendship. 

If Swift ever nourished a predominant affection if he was ever really under the 
dominion of a ruling passion, it was that of pure and disinterested love of country ; 
and were he ever liable to be hurried into insane excess by an overpowering enthu- 
siasm, it was the patriot's madness that had the best chance of prostrating his 
mighty soul. His works are the imperishable proofs of the sincere and 
enlightened attachment which he bore an island connected with him by no 
hereditary recollections, but merely by the accident of his birth at Cashel. 

We read in the sacred Scriptures (Eccles. vii. 7). that the sense of " oppres- 
sion maketh a man mad;" and whosoever will peruse those splendid effusions 
of a patriotic soul, " The Story of an Injured Lady" (Dublin, 1725), " Maxims 
controlled in Ireland" (Dublin, 1724), " Miserable State of Ireland " (Dublin, 
1727), must arise from the perusal impressed with the integrity and fervour of 
the Dean's love of his oppressed country. The " Maxims controlled " develop, 
according to that highly competent authority, Edmund Burke, the deepest and 
most statesmanlike views ever taken of the mischievous mismanagement that 
has constantly marked England's conduct towards her sister island. In the 
" Miserable State, &c.," we have evidence that the wretched peasantry at that 
time was at just the same stage of civilization and comfort as they are at the 
present day ; for we find the Dean thus depicting a state of things which none 
but an Irish landlord could read without blushing for human nature "There 
are thousands of poor creatures who think themselves blessed if they can 
obtain a hut worse than the squire's dog-kennel, and a piece of ground for 
potato-plantation, on condition of being as very slaves as any in America, 
starving in the midst of plenty." Further on, he informs us of a singular item 



7 6 



The Works of Father Front. 



of the then traffic of the Irish : " Our fraudulent trade in wool to France is 
the best branch of our commerce." 

And in his " Proposal for the Use of Irish Manufactures," which was prose- 
cuted by the Government of the day, and described by the learned judge who 
sent the case to the jury as a plot to bring in the Pretender ! we have this wool- 
traffic again alluded to : " Our beneficial export of wool to France has been our 
only support for several years : we convey our wool there, in spite of all the 
harpies of the custom-house." In this tract, he introduces the story of Pallas 
and the nymph Arachne, whom the goddess, jealous of her spinning, changed 
into a spider ; and beautifully applies the allegory to the commercial restrictions 
imposed by the sister-country on Ireland. "Arachne was allowed still to spin ; 
but Britain will take our bowels, and convert them into the web and warp of her 
own exclusive and intolerant industry." 

Of the "Drapier's Letters," and the signal discomfiture of the base-currency 
scheme attempted by William Woods, it were superfluous to speak. Neverwas 
there a more barefaced attempt to swindle the natives than the copper imposition 
of that notorious hardwareman ; and the only thing that in modern times can 
be placed in juxtaposition, is the begging-box of O'Connell. O for a Drapier 
to expose that second and most impudent scheme for victimizing a deluded and 
starving peasantry ! 

The Scotch rebellion of 1745 found the Dean an inmate of his last sad 
dwelling his own hospital ; but the crisis awakened all his energies, and he 
found an interval to publish that address to his fellow-countrymen which some 
attributed to the Lord- Lieutenant Chesterfield, but which bears intrinsic evidence 
of his pen. It is printed by Sir W. Scott, in the appendix of the " Drapier's 
Letters." There is a certain chemical preparation called sympathetic ink, 
which leaves no trace on the paper ; but if applied to the heat of a fire, the 
characters will become at once legible. Such was the state of Swift's soul a 
universal blank ; but when brought near the sacred flame that burnt on the 
altar of his country, his mind recovered for a time its clearness, and found means 
to communicate its patriotism. Touch but the interests of Ireland, and the 
madman was sane again ; such was the mysterious nature of the visitation. 

" O Reason ! who shall say what spells renew, 
When least we look for it, thy broken clue ; 
Through what small vistas o'er the darken'd brain 
The intellectual daybeam bursts again ! 
Enough to show the maze in which the sense 
Wander'd about, but not to guide thee hence 
Enough to glimmer o'er the yawning wave, 
But not to point the harbour which might save ! " 

When Richard Coeur de Lion lay dormant in a dungeon, the voice of a song 
which he had known in better days came upon his ear, and was the means of 
leading him forth to light and freedom ; but, alas ! Swift was not led forth from 
his lonely dwelling by the note of long-remembered music, the anthem of 
fatherland. Gloomy insanity had taken too permanent possession of his mind ; 
and right well did he know that he should die a maniac. For this, a few years 
before his death, did he build unto himself an asylum, where his own lunacy 
might dwell protected from the vulgar gaze of mankind. He felt the approach 
of madness, and, like Csesar, when about to fall at the feet of Pompey's statue, 
he gracefully arranged the folds of his robe, conscious of his own dignity even 
in that melancholy downfall. The Pharaohs, we are told in Scripture, built 
unto themselves gorgeous sepulchres : their pyramids still encumber the earth. 
Sardanapalus erected a pyre of cedar-wood and odoriferous spices when death 
was inevitable, and perished in a blaze of voluptuousness. The asylum of 
Swift will remain a more characteristic memorial than the sepulchres of Egypt, 
and a more honourable funeral pyre than that heaped up by the Assyrian king. 



Dean Swift's Madness. 77 



He died mad, among fellow-creatures similarly visited, but sheltered by his 
munificence; and it now devolves on me to reveal to the world the unknown 
cause of that sad calamity. 

I have stated that his affections were centred in that accomplished woman, 
the refined and gentle Stella, to whom he had been secretly married. The 
reasons for such secrecy, though perfectly familiar to me, may not be divulged ; 
but enough to know that the Dean acted in this matter with his usual sagacity. 
An infant son was born of that marriage after many a lengthened year, and in 
this child were concentrated alf the energies of the father's affection, and all the 
sensibilities of the mother's heart. In him did the Dean fondly hope to live on 
when his allotted days should fail, like unto the self-promised immortality 
of the bard "Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei vitabit Libitinam ! " 
How vain are the hopes of man ! That child most unaccountably, most 
mysteriously disappeared ; no trace, no clue, no shadow of conjecture, could 
point out what had become its destiny, and who were the contrivers of this 
sorrowful bereavement. The babe was gone ! and no comfort remained to a 
desponding father in this most poignant of human afflictions. 

In a copy of Verses composed on his own. Death, the Dean indulges in a 
humorous anticipation of the motives that would not fail to be ascribed, as 
determining his mind to make the singular disposal of his property which (after 
the loss of his only child) he resolved on : 

" He gave the little wealth he had 
To build a house for people mad, 
To show, by one satiric touch, 
No nation wanted it so much." 

But this bitter pleasantry only argued the sad inroads which grief was making 
in his heart. The love of offspring, which the Greeks call <n-opyt) (and which 
is said to be strongest in the stork), was eminently perceptible in the diagnosis 
of the Dean's constitution. Sorrow for the loss of his child bowed down his 
head eventually to the grave, and unsettled a mind the most clear and well- 
regulated that philosophy and Christianity could form. 

THESE PAPERS WILL NOT MEET THE PUBLIC EYE UNTIL I TOO AM NO 

MORE; BUT WHEN THAT DAY SHALL COME WHEN THE PASTOR OF THIS 
OBSCURE UPLAND SHALL, IN A GOOD OLD AGE, BE LAID IN THE EARTH 
WHEN NEITHER PRIDE OF BIRTH NOR HUMAN APPLAUSE CAN MOVE THE 
COLD EAR OF THE DEAD, THE SECRET OF THAT CHILD'S HISTORY, OF 
SWIFT'S LONG-LOST CHILD, SHALL BE TOLD ; AND THE OLD MAN WHO 
HAS DEPARTED FROM THIS WORLD OF WOE IN PEACE, WILL BE FOUND 
TO HAVE BEEN THAT LONG-SOUGHT SON, WHOM WILLIAM WOODS, IN 
THE BASENESS OF A VILE VINDICTIVENESS, FILCHED FROM A FATHER'S 
AFFECTIONS. 

Baffled in his wicked contrivances by my venerable father, and foiled in every 
attempt to brazen out his notorious scheme of bad halfpence, this vile tinker, 
nourishing an implacable resentment in his soul, 

"Sternum servans sub pectore vulnus," 

resolved to wreak his vengeance on the Dean ; and sought out craftily the 
most sensitive part to inflict the contemplated wound. In the evening of 
October, 1741, he kidnapped me, Swift's innocent child, from my nurse at 
Glendalough, and fraudulently hurried off his capture to the extremity of Mun- 
ster ; where he left me exposed as a foundling on the bleak summit of Water- 
grasshill. The reader will easily imagine all the hardships I had to encounter 
in this my first and most awkward introduction to my future parishioners. 
Often have I told the sorrowful tale to my college companion in France, the 



The Works of Father Front. 



kind-hearted and sensitive Gresset, who thus alludes to me in the well-known 
lines of his " Lutrin Vivant : " 

" Et puis, d'ailleurs, le petit malheureux, 
Ouvrage ne d'un auteur anonyme, 
Ne connaissant parens, ni legitime, 
N'avait, en tout dans ce sterile lieu, 
Pour se chauffer que la grace de Dieu ! " 

Some are born, says the philosophic Goldsmith, with a silver spoon in their 
mouth, some with a wooden ladle ; but wretched I was not left by Woods even 
that miserable implement as a stock-in-trade to begin the world. Moses lay 
ensconced in a snug cradle of bulrushes when he was sent adrift ; but I was 
cast on the flood of life with no equipage or outfit whatever ; and found myself, 
to use the solemn language of my Lord Byron, 

" Sent afloat 
With nothing but the sky for a great coat." 

But stop, I mistake. I had an appendage round my neck a trinket, which I 
still cherish, and by which I eventually found a clue to my real parentage. It 
was a small locket of my mother Stella's* hair, of raven black (a distinctive 
feature in her beauty, which had especially captivated the Dean) : around this 
locket was a Latin motto of my gifted father's composition, three simple words, 
but beautiful in their simplicity " PROUT STELLA REFULGES!" So that, 
when I was taken into the " Cork Foundling Hospital," I was at once christened 
" Prout," from the adverb that begins the sentence, and which, being the 
shortest word of the three, it pleased the chaplain to make my future patro- 
nymic. 

Of all the singular institutions in Great Britain, philanthropic, astronomic, 
Hunterian, ophthalmic, obstetric, or zoological, the " Royal Cork Foundling 
Hospital," where I had the honour of matriculating, was then, and is now, 
decidedly the oddest in principle and the most comical in practice. Until the 
happy and eventful day when I managed, by mother-wit, to accomplish my 
deliverance from its walls (having escaped in a churn, as I will recount pre- 
sently), it was my unhappy lot to witness and to endure all the varieties of 
human misery. The prince of Latin song, when he wishes to convey to his 
readers an idea of the lower regions, and the abodes of Erebus, begins his 
nffecting picture by placing in the foreground the souls of infants taken by the 
mischievous policy of such institutions from the mother's breast, and perishing 
by myriads under the infliction of a mistaken philanthropy : 

" Infantumque animse flentes in lumine prirno : 
Quos dulcis vitae exsortes, et ab ubere raptos, 
Abstulit atra dies, et funere mersit acerbo." 

The inimitable and philosophic Scarron's translation of this passage in the 
/Eneid is too much in my father's own style not to give it insertion : 

" Lors il entend, en ce lieu sombre, 
Les cris aigus d'enfants sans nombre. 
Pauvres bambins ! ils font grand bruit, 
Et braillent de jour et de nuit 
Peut-etre faute de nourrice?" &c., &c. 

Eneid travest. 6. 

But if I had leisure to dwell on the melancholy subject, I could a tale unfold 
that would startle the Legislature, and perhaps arouse the Irish secretary to 
examine into an evil crying aloud for redress and suppression. Had my perse- 
cutor, the hard-hearted coppersmith, Woods, had any notion of the sufferings 
he entailed on Swift's luckless infant, he would never have exposed me as an 
enfant trouvi ; he would have been satisfied with plunging my father into a 



Dean Swiff s Madness. 79 

madhouse, without handing over his child to the mercfes of a foundling hospi- 
tal. Could he but hear my woful story, I would engage to draw "copper" 
tears down the villain's cheek. 

Darkness and mystery have for the last half century hung over this establish- 
ment ; and although certain returns have been moved for in the House of 
Commons, the public knows as little as ever about the fifteen hundred young 
foundlings that there nestle until supplanted, as Death collects them under his 
wings, by a fresh supply of victims offered to the Moloch of x//-ei;<5o-philanthropy. 
Horace tells us, that certain proceedings are best not exhibited to the general 
gaze 

" Nee natos coram populo Medea trucidet" 

Such would appear to be the policy of these institutions, the only provision 
which the Legislature has made for Irish pauperism. 

Some steps, however, have been taken latterly by Government ; and from a 
paper laid before Parliament last month (May 1830), it appears that, in conse- 
quence of the Act of 1822, the annual admissions in Dublin have fallen from 
2,000 to 400. But who will restore to society the myriads whom the system has 
butchered ? who will recall the slain ? When the flower of Roman chivalry, 
under improvident guidance, fell in the German forests, ' ' Varus, give back my 
legions ! " was the frantic cry wrung from the bitterness of patriotic sorrow. 

My illustrious father has written, among other bitter sarcasms on the cruel 
conduct of Government towards the Irish poor, a treatise, which was printed 
in I7"29, and which he entitled "A Modest Proposal for preventing Poor Chil- 
dren from being a Burden to their Parents." He recommends, in sober 
sadness, that they should be made into salt provisions for the navy, the colonies, 
and for exportation ; or eaten fresh and spitted, like roasting-pigs, by the 
aldermen of Cork and Dublin, at their civic banquets. A quotation from that 
powerful pamphlet may not be unacceptable here : 

" Infant's flesh (quoth the Dean) will be in season throughout the year, but 
more plentifully in March, or a little before ; for we are told by a grave author, 
an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more 
children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than 
at any other season. Therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will 
be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish infants is at least 
three to one in the kingdom ; and therefore it will have one other collateral 
advantage, by lessening the number of Papists amongst us." 

These lines were clearly penned in the very gall and bitterness of his soul ; 
and while the Irish peasant is still considered by the miscreant landlords of 
the country as less worthy of his food than the beasts of the field, and less 
entitled to a legal support in the land that bore him ; while the selfish demagogue 
of the island joins in the common hostility to the claims of that pauper who 
makes a stock-purse for him out of the scrapings of want and penury ; the 
proposal of Swift should be reprinted, and a copy sent to every callous and 
shallovv-pated disciple of modern political economy. Poor-laws, forsooth, 
they cannot reconcile to their clear-sighted views of Irish legislation : fever 
hospitals and gaols they admire ; grammar-schools they will advocate, where 
half-starved urchins may drink the physic of the soul, and forget the cravings 
of hunger ; and they will provide in the two great foundling hospitals a recep- 
tacle for troublesome infants, wh'o, in those " white- washed sepulchres," soon 
cease to be a burden on -the community. The great agitator, meantime (God 
wot !) will bring in "a bill " for a grand national cemetery in Dublin :* such 
is the provision he deigns to seek for his starving fellow-countrymen ! 

" The great have still some favour in reserve 
They help to bury whom they help to starve. " 

* Historical fact. Vide Parl. proceedings. O. Y. 



8o The Works of Father Front. 

The Dublin Hospital, being supported out of the consolidated fund, has, by 
the argument it m ad crumenam, at last attracted the suspicions of Government, 
and is placed under a course of gradual reduction ; but the Cork nursery is 
upheld by a compulsory local tax on coal, amounting to the incredible sum of 
j 6,000 a year, and levied on the unfortunate Corkonians for the support of 
children brought into their city from Wales, Connaught, and the four winds of 
heaven ! Three hundred bantlings are thus annually saddled on the beautiful 
city, with a never-failing succession of continuous supply : 

" Miranturque novas frondes, et non sua poma !" 

By the Irish Act of Parliament, these young settlers are entitled, on coming of 
age (which few do), to claim as a right the freedom of that ancient and loyal 
corporation ; so that, although of the great bulk of them it may be said that 
\ve had " no hand in their birth," they have the benefit of their coming "a 
place in the commonwealth " (ita Shakespeare). 

My sagacious father used to exhort his countrymen to burn every article that 
came from England, except coals ; and in 1729 he addressed to the Dublin 
[Weekly Journal a series of letters on. the use of Irish coals exclusively. But 
it strikes me that, as confessedly we cannot do without the English article in 
the present state of trade and manufactures, the most mischievous tax that any 
Irish seaport could be visited with would be a tonnage on so vital a commodity 
to the productive interests of the community. Were this vile impost withdrawn 
from Cork, every class of manufacture would hail the boon ; the iron foundry 
would supply us at home with what is now brought across the Channel ; the 
glassblower's furnace would glow with inextinguishable fires ; the steam-engine, 
that giant power, as yet so feebly developed among us, would delight to wield 
on our behaif its energies unfettered, and toil unimpeded for the national 
prosperity ; new enterprise would inspirit the capitalist ; while the humble 
artificer at the forge would learn the tidings with satisfaction, 

" Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear." 

Something too much of this. But I have felt it incumbent on me to place 
on record my honest conviction of the impolicy of the tax itself, and of the 
still greater enormity of the evil which it goes to support. To return to my 
own history. 

In this "hospital," which was the first alma mater of my juvenile days, I 
graduated in all the science of the young gipsies who swarmed around me. 
My health, which was naturally robust, bore up against the fearful odds of 
mortality by which I was beset ; and although I should have ultimately, no 
doubt, perished with the crowd of infant sufferers that shared my evil destiny, 
still, like that favoured Grecian who won the good graces of Polyphemus in 
his anthropophagous cavern, a signal privilege would perhaps have been 
granted me : Prout would have been the last to be devoured. 

But a ray of light broke into my prison-house. The idea of escape, a bold 
thought ! took possession of my soul. Yet how to accomplish so daring an 
enterprise ? how elude the vigilance of the fat door-keeper, and the keen eye 
of the chaplain? Right well did they know the muster-roll of their stock of 
urchins, and often verified the same : 

" Bisque die numerant ambo pecus, alter et hxdos." 

Heaven, however, soon granted what the porter denied. The milkman from 
Watergrasshill, who brought the supplies every morn and eve, prided himself 
particularly on the size and beauty of his churn, a capacious wooden recipient 
which my young eye admired with more than superficial curiosity. Having acci- 
dentally got on the waggon, and explored the capacious hollow of the machine, 



Dean Siviffs Madness. Si 

a bright angel whispered in my ear to secrete myself in the cavity. I did so ; 
and, shortly after, the gates of the hospital were flung wide for my egress, and 
I found myself jogging onward on the high road to light and freedom ! Judge 
of my sensations ! Milton has sung of one who, "long in populous city pent," 
makes a visit to Highgate, and, snuffing the rural breeze, blesses the country 
air : my rapture was of a nature that defies description. To be sure, it was 
one of the most boisterous days of storm and tempest that ever vexed the 
heavens ; but secure in the churn I chuckled with joy, and towards evening fell 
fast asleep. In my subsequent life I have often dwelt with pleasure on that 
joyous escape ; and when in my course of studies I met with the following 
beautiful elegy of Simonides, I could not help applying it to myself, and trans- 
lated it accordingly. There have been versions by Denman, the Queens 
solicitor ;* by Elton, by W. Hay, and by Doctor Jortin ; but I prefer my own, 
as more literal and more conformable to genuine Greek simplicity. 



THE LAMENT OF 

By Simonides, tJie Elegiac Poet of Cos. 
OTE XauvaKi tv 8ai5a\ea, avfuov 

Bpf/UE TTVEtOV, KlVl]$ll(Ta T XlfJLVtl 

AstfjLaTt t)pc7Tv, ovo' aoiavroi(Ti 
ITapEiai?, afj.(pi OE IlfpcrEi /3a\ 

$>t\aV X P a ) ' 7r " Ti ' Q TEMJS, 

Oiov X a> TTOVOV' trv o' auiTEis, yaXtt0ijvci> T' 
H.Topi Kvtotraiis tv aTipirti cto/naTi, 
Xa\Koyoju<<o $E vuKTi\afj.TTfi 
Kvavsio TE cvo<f>ti>' CTU o' auaXiav 
TfirtpOE Ttciv Kofiav patitiav 
Tlaptovros KU/UOTOS OVK aXfytjs, 
Ouo' avtuou (ptioyytav, irop^upECt 
KEI/XEI/OS tv \\avt8i, iraoaunrov Ka\ov. 

El O TOl &IIVOV TOyE CtlVOV JJ1/, 

Kat Ktv ifitfv p^fiaTiov XETTTOI; 
'Yirft\is oas' KtXo/jiai, ivSe /SoE^os, 

Eu^ETO Ss -tTOVTOS, IVCtTO OfiiTpOV KO.KOV. 

MaTioou\ia OE TIS <pavf.ii), 

ZEU TraTfp, t/c crto' o Tt oij 6aptra\tov 

ETTOS, iv%o[j.rti TiKvcxfri iiKas juot. 

THE LAMENT OF STELLA. 

By FatJier Proiet. 

While round the churn, "mid sleet and rain, 
It blew a perfect hurricane, 
Wrapt in slight garment to protect her, 
Methought I saw my mother's spectre, 
Who took her infant to her breast 
Me, the small tenant of that chest 

* WE never employed him. REGINA. 'Twas Caroline of Brunswick. 



82 



TIic Works of Father Front. 



While thus she lull'd her babe : " How crutl 
Have been the Fates to thee, my jewel ! 
But caring nought for foe or scoffer, 
Thou sleepest in this milky coffer, 
Cooper'd with brass hoops weather-tight, 
Impervious to the dim moonlight. 
The shower cannot get in to soak 
Thy hair or little purple cloak ; 
Heedless of gloom, in dark sojourn, 
Thy face illuminates the churn ! 
Small is thine ear, wee babe, for hearing, 
But grant my prayer, ye gods of Erin ! 
And may folks find that this young fellow 
Does credit to his mother Stella. 



V. 



Cam 



(Frasers Magazine, August, 1834.) 



[In several respects this paper must be regarded as the most remarkable of a)l the 
Reliques. For one thing, it gave to the world towards its conclusion the most delicious 
copy of verses ever penned by Mahony his exquisite poem of " The Bells of Shandon." 
It illustrated, besides, in a more marvellous way than ever, his capacity, whenever he 
so pleased, to deal with his scholarship as freely as a juggler does with the golden balls 
and daggers which he sets at any moment, ad libitum, in bewildering gyration. The 
" Melody to the Beautiful Milkmaid " thus reappeared Latinized in his magic as "Lesbia 
Semper hinc et inde," "The Shamrock" in its Gallic reflection, and "Wreathe the 
Bowl" in Greek anacreontics as STe^wjuei' ovv KV7reAAoi>. The Literary Portrait 
contained in the number of Rcgina to which these and other similar Rogueries 
were contributed was that of Thomas Hill, who though, judging from his likeness, he 
certainly looked not in the least like it wasauthor of the " Mirror of Fashion." Two of 
Maclise's happiest embellishments adorned this paper in the original edition of 1836, one 
of them revealing Moore in the sanctum at Watergrasshill listening, chin on fist, to 
Father Prout carolling one of his Rogueries ; while the other delineates, starkly under 
its winding-sheet, the dead body of Henry O'Brien, author of " The Round Towers of 
Ireland," a patriotic archaeologist, but very recently deceased before the first publication 
of this paper in the magazine. Yet another of Croquis' sketches associated with this 
instalment of the Reliques prettily portrayed L. K. L. otherwise Letitia Elizabeth 
Landon in the then fashionable attire of a cottage bonnet and preposterous gigot 
sleeves, standing in front of a trellised bower, like the lady who sat in Thackeray's cane- 
bottomed chair, " with a smile on her face and a rose in her hair ! "] 



" Grata carpendo thyma per laborem 
Plurimum, circa nemus* uvidique 
Tiburis ripas, operosa PARVUS 
Carmina fingo." 

QUINTUS HORA.TIUS FLACCUS. 

" By taking time, and some advice from Prout, 
A polish'd book of songs I hammer'd out ; 
But still my Muse, for she the fact confesses. 
Haunts that sweet hill, renown'd for water-cresses." 

THOMAS L. MOORH. 

WHEN the star of Father Prout (a genuine son of the accomplished Stella, 
and in himself the most eccentric luminary that has of late adorned our plane- 
tary system) first rose in the firmament of literature, it deservedly attracted the 
gaze of the learned, and riveted the eye of the sage. We know not what may 
have been the sensation its appearance created in foreign countries, at the 
Observatoire Royal of Paris, in the Val d'Aruo, or at Fesol(5, where, in Milton's 

* i.e., Blarneum nemus. 



84 The Works of Father Front. 



time, the sons of Galileo plied the untiring telescope to descry new heavenly 
phenomena, "rivers or mountains in the shadowy moon" but we can vouch 
for the impression made on the London University; for all Stinkomalee hath 
been perplexed at the apparition. The learned Chaldeans of Gower Street 
opine that it forbodes nothing good to the cause of " useful knowledge," and 
they watch the "transit "of Prout, devoutly wishing for his "exit." With 
throbbing anxiety, night after night has Dr. Lardner gazed on the sinister 
planet, seeking, with the aid of Dr. Babbage's calculating machine, to ascer- 
tain the probable period of its final eclipse, and often muttering its name, " to 
tell how he hates its beams." He has seen it last April shining conspicuously 
in the constellation of Pisces, when he duly conned over the " Apology for 
Lent," and the Doctor has reported to the University Board, that, " advancing 
with retrograde movement in the zodiac," this disastrous orb was last perceived 
in the milky way, entering the sign of " Amphora," or "the churn." But 
what do the public care, while the general eye is delighted by its irradiance, 
that a few owls and dunces are scared by its effulgency? The Georgium Sidus, the 
Astrium Julium, the Soleil d'Austerlitz, the Star at Vauxhall, the Nose of Lord 
Chancellor Vaux,* and the grand Roman Girandola shot off from the mole of 
Adrian, to the annual delight of modern "Quirites," are all fine things and 
rubicund in their generation ; but nothing to the star of Watergrasshill. Nor 
is astronomical science or pyrotechnics the only department of philosophy that 
has been influenced by this extraordinary meteor the kindred study of 
GASTROnomy has derived the hint of a new combination from its inspiring 
ray; and, after a rapid perusal of " Prout's Apology for Fish," the celebrated 
Monsieur Ude, whom Croquis has so exquisitely delineated in the gallery of 
REGINA, has invented on the spot an original sauce, a novel obsonium, more 
especially adapted to cod and turbot, to which he has given the reverend 
father's name ; so that Sir William Curtis will be found eating his " turbot a la 
Prout" as constantly as his "cotelette a la Maintenon." The fascinating Miss 
Landon has had her fair name affixed to a frozen lake in the map of Captain 
Ross's discoveries ; and if Prout be not equally fortunate in winning terraqueous 
renown with his pen (" Nititur penna vitreo daturus nomina ponto"), he will 
at least figure on the " carte" at Verey's, opposite our neighbour. 

Who can tell what posthumous destinies await the late incumbent of Water- 
grasshill ? In truth, his celebrity (to use an expression of Edmund Burke) is as 
yet but a ' ' speck in the horizon a small seminal principle, rather than a 
formed body;" and when, in the disemboguing of the chest, in the evolving 
of his MSS., he shall be unfolded to the view in all his dimensions, developing 
his proportions in a gorgeous shape of matchless originality and grandeur, then 
will be the hour for the admirers of the beautiful and the votaries of the sub- 
lime to hail him with becoming veneration, and welcome him with the sound 
of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of 
music. (Dan. viii. 15.) 

" Then shall the reign of mind commence on earth, 
And, starting fresh, as from a second birth, 

* The following song was a favourite with the celebrated Chancellor d'Aguesseau. It 
is occasionally sung, in our own times, by a modern performer on the woolsack, in the 
intervals of business : 

" Sit6t que la lumifere 

Redore nos c6teaux, 
Je commence ma carriSre 
Par visiter mes tonneaux. 

Ravi de revoir 1'aurore, 

Le verre en main, je lui dis, 
Vois-tu done plus, chez le Matire, 

Que stir man nez, de rttbis ? " 



The Rogueries of Tom Moore. 85 

Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring, 
Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing ! ! ! 
Then, too, your prophet from his angel-brow 
Shall cast the veil that hides its splendour now, 
And gladden' d earth shall, through her wide expanse, 
Bask in the glories of his countenance ! " 

The title of this second paper taken from the Prout Collection is enough to 
indicate that we are only firing off the small arms the pop-guns of this 
stupendous arsenal, and that we reserve the heavy metal for a grander occasion, 
when the Whig ministry and the dog-days shall be over, and a merry autumn 
and a Wellington administration shall mellow our October cups. To talk of 
Tom Moore is but small talk "in tenui labor, at tenuis non gloria;" for 
Prout's great art is to magnify what is little, and to fling a dash of the sublime 
into a twopenny-post communication. To use Tommy's own phraseology, 
Prout could, with great ease and comfort to himself, 

" Teach an old cow pater-noster, 
And whistle Moll Roe to a pig." 

But we have another reason for selecting this " Essay on Moore" from the 
papers of the deceased divine. We have seen with regret an effort made to 
crush and annihilate the young author of a book on the " Round Towers of 
Ireland," with whom we are not personally acquainted, but whose production 
gave earnest of an ardent mind bent on abstruse and recondite studies ; and 
who, leaving the frivolous boudoir and the drawing-room coterie to lisp their 
ballads and retail their Epicurean gossip unmolested, trod alone the craggy 
steeps of venturous discovery in the regions of Oriental learning; whence, 
returning to the isle of the west, the " iKan of the fire-worshipper," he trimmed 
his lamp, well fed with the fragrant oil of these sunny lands, and penned a work 
which will one day rank among the most extraordinary of modern times. The 
Edinburgh Review attempted, long ago, to stifle the unfledged muse of Byron; 
these truculent northerns would gladly have bruised in the very shell the young 
eagle that afterwards tore with his lordly talons both Jeffery and his colleague 
Moore (of the leadless pistol), who were glad to wax subservient slaves, after 
being impotent bullies. The same review undertook to cry down Wordsworth 
and Coleridge; they shouted their vulgar " crucifigatur " against Robert 
Southey ; and seemed to have adopted the motto of the French club of 
witlings, 

" Nul n'aura de 1'esprit que nous et nos amis." 

But in the present case they will find themselves equally impotent for evil : 
O'Brien may defy them. He may defy his own alma mater, the silent and 
unproductive Trin. Coll. Dub. ; he may defy the Royal Irish Academy, a 
learned assembly, which, alas ! has neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to 
be damned ; and may rest secure of the applause which sterling merit challenges 
from every freeborn inhabitant of these islands, 

" Save where, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 

The moping owl does to the moon complain 
Of those who, venturing near her silent bower, 
Molest her ancient solitary reign." 

Moore (we beg his pardon) the reviewer, asserts that O'Brien is a plagiary, 
and pilferred his discovery from " Nimrod." Now we venture to offer a copy 
of the commentaries of Cornelius a Lapide (which we find in Prout's chest) 
to Tom, if he will show us a single passage in "Nimrod" (which we are con- 
fident he never read) warranting his assertion. But, apropos of plagiarisms ; 
let us hear the prophet of Watergrasshill, who enters largely on the subject. 

OLIVER YORKE. 

Regent Street, \st August, 1834. 



86 The Works of FatJicr Prout. 

Watergrasshill, Feb. 1834. 

THAT notorious tinker, William Woods, who, as I have recorded among the 
papers in my coffer somewhere, to spite my illustrious father, kidnapped me in 
my childhood, little dreamt that the infant Prout would one day emerge from 
the Royal Cork Foundling Hospital as safe and unscathed as the children from 
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, to hold up his villany to the execration of man- 
kind : 

" Non sine Dls animosus infans ! '' 

Among the Romans, whoever stole a child was liable by law to get a sound 
flogging ; and as plaga in Latin means a stripe or lash, kidnappers in Cicero's 
time were called plagiarii, or cat-o -nine-tail-villains. I approve highly of 
this law of the twelve tables ; but perhaps my judgment is biassed, and I should 
be an unfair juror to give a verdict in a case which comes home to my own 
feelings so poignantly. The term plagiary has since been applied meta- 
phorically to literary shop-lifters and book-robbers, who stuff their pages with 
other men's goods, and thrive on indiscriminate pillage. This is justly con- 
sidered a high misdemeanour in the republic of letters, and the lash of criti- 
cism is unsparingly dealt on pickpockets of this description. Among the 
Latins, Martial is the only classic author by whom the term plagiarius is used 
in the metaphorical sense, as applied to literature ; but surely it was not because 
the practice only began in his time that the word had not been used even in the 
Augustan age of Rome. Be that as it may, we first find the term in Martial's 
Epigrams (lib. i. epigr. 53) : talking of his verses, he says, 

" Dicas esse meos, manuque missos : 
Hoc si terque quaterque clamitSris, 
Impones plagiario pudorem." 

Cicero himself was accused by the Greeks of pilfering whole passages, for his 
philosophical works, from the scrolls of Athens, and cooking up the fragments 
and broken meat of Greek orations to feed the hungry barbarians of the Roman 
forum. My authority is that excellent critic St. Jerome, who, in the " Proemium 
in qu. Heb. lib. Genesis," distinctly says, "Cicero repetundarum accusatur a. 
Grcecis," &c., &c. ; and in the same passage he adds, that Virgil being accused 
of taking whole similes from Homer, gloried in the theft, exclaiming, " Think 
ye it nothing to wrest his club from Hercules?" (it. ibidem.) Vide S *" Hier- 
onymi Opera, torn. iv. fol. 90. But what shall we say when we find Jerome 
accusing another holy father of plagiarism ? Verily the temptation must have 
been very great to have shaken the probity of St. Ambrose, when he pillaged 
his learned brother in the faith, Origen of Alexandria, by wholesale. " Nuper 
Sanctus Ambrosius Hexaemeron illius compilavit " (S cti Hieronymi Opera, torn, 
iii. fol. 87, in epistolh ad Pammach). It is well known that Menander and 
Aristophanes were mercilessly pillaged by Terence and Plautus ; and the Latin 
freebooters thought nothing of stopping the Thespian waggon on the highways 
of Parnassus. The French dramatists are similarly waylaid by our scouts from 
the green-room, and the plunder is awful ! What is Talleyrand about, that 
he cannot protect the property of the French ? Perhaps he is better employed ? 
I am an old man, and have read a great deal in my time being of a quiet 
disposition, and having always had a taste for books, which I consider a great 
blessing; but latterly I find that I may dispense with further perusal of printed 
volumes, as, unfortunately, memory serves me but too well ; and all I read now 
strikes me as but a new version of what I had read somewhere before. Plagi- 
arism is so barefaced and so universal, that I can stand it no longer : I have 
shut up shop, and will be taken in no more. Qu<zre peregrinum ? chimo. 
I'm sick of hashed-up works, and loathe the baked meats of antiquity served in 
a fricassee. Give me a solid joint, in which no knife has been ever fleshed, 



TJic Rogueries of Tom Moore. 87 

and I will share your intellectual banquet most willingly, were it but a moun- 
tain kid, or a limb of Welsh mutton. Alas ! whither shall I turn? Let me 
open the reviews, and lo ! the critics are but repeating old criticisms; let me 
fly to the poets, 'tis but the old lyre with catgut strings ; let me hear the orators, 
" that's my thunder ! " says the ghost of Sheridan or the spectre of Burke; 
let me listen to the sayers of good things, and alas for the injured shade of Joe 
Miller ! I could go through the whole range of modern authors (save Scott, 
and a few of that kidney), and exclaim, with more truth than the chieftain of 
the crusaders in Tasso 

" Di chi di voi non so la patria e '1 seme ? 

Qual spada m' fe ignota ? e qual saetta, 
Bench& per 1' aria ancor sospesa treme, 
Non saprei dir s' <S Franca, o s' 6 d'Irlanda, 
E quale appunto il braccio e che la manda V " 

Genisal. Liber, canto xx. st. 18. 

To state the simple truth, such as I feel it in my own conviction, I declare 
that the whole mass of contemporary scribblement might be bound up in one 
tremendous volume, and entitled "Elegant Extracts; " for, if you except the 
form and style, the varnish and colour, all the rest is what I have known in a 
different shape forty years ago ; and there is more philosophy than meets the 
vulgar eye in that excellent song on the transmutation of things here below, 
which perpetually offer the same intrinsic substance, albeit under a different 
name : 

" Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale, 
Was once Toby Philpot, a merry old soul," &c., &c. 

This transmigration of intellect, this metempsychosis of literature, goes on 
silently reproducing and reconstructing what had gone to pieces. But those 
whose memory, like mine, is unfortunately over-tenacious of its young impres- 
sions, cannot enjoy the zest of a twice-told tale, and consequently are greatly 
to be pitied. 

It has lately come out that " Childe Harolde " (like other naughty children 
whom we daily read of as terminating their " life in London " by being sent 
to the "Euryalus hulk,") was given to picking pockets. Mr. Beckford, the 
author of "Vathek," and the builder of Fonthill Abbey, has been a serious 
sufferer by the Childe's depredations, and is now determined to publish his 
case in the shape of "Travel, in 1787, through Portugal, up the Rhine, and 
through Italy; " and it also appears that Saml. Rogers, in his " Italy," has 
learned a thing or two from the " Bandits of Terracina," and has devalis6 Mr. 
Beckford aforesaid on more than one occasion in the Apennines. I am not 
surprised at all this : murder will out ; and a stolen dog will naturally nose out 
his original and primitive master among a thousand on a race-course. 

These matters may be sometimes exaggerated, and (honour bright !) far be it 
from me to pull the stool from under every poor devil that sits down to write a 
book, and sweep away, with unsparing besom, all the cobwebs so industriously 
woven across Paternoster Row. I don't wish to imitate Father Hardouin, the 
celebrated Jesuit, who gained great renown among the wits of Louis XlVth's 
time by his paradoxes. A favourite maggot hatched in his prolific brain was, 
that the Odes of Horace never were written by the friend of Mecoenas, but 
were an imposture of some old Benedictine monk of the twelfth century, who, 
to amuse his cloistered leisure, personated Flaccus, and under his name strung 
together those lyrical effusions. This is maintained in a large folio, printed 
at Amsterdam in 1733, v ' z -' " Harduini Opera Varia, ^ eu 8o-Horatius." One of 
his arguments is drawn from the Christian allusions which, he asserts, occur 
so frequently in these Odes : ex. gratia, the "praise of celibacy; " 



88 The Works of Father Front. 

" Platanusque coclebs 
Evincit ulmos ; " 

Lib. ii. ode 15. 

for the elm-tree used to be married to the vine ; not so the sycamore, as any 
one who has been in Italy must know. The rebuilding of the temple by Julian 
the Apostate is, according to the Jesuit, thus denounced : 

" Sed bellicosis fata Quiritibus 
H&c lege dico, ne nimitira pii, 
Tecta velint reparare Trojae." 

Lib. iii. ode 3. 

Again, the sacred mysteries of the Lord's Supper, and the concealed nature 
of the bread that was broken among the primitive Christians : 



-"Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum 



Vulgftrit arcana, sub iisdem 
Sit trabibus, fragilemve mecum 
Solvat phaselum " (i.e., the bark of Peter). 
Lib. iii. ode 2. 

And the patriarch Joseph, quoth Hardouin, is clearly pointed out under the 
strange and un-Roman name of Proculeius, of whom Pagan history says 
naught : 

" VI vet extento Proculeius aevo, 
Notus infratrcs tutimipatern.il" 

Lib. ii. ode 2. 

For the rest of Hardouin's discoveries I must refer to the work itself, as quoted 
above; and I must in fairness add, that his other literary efforts and deep 
erudition reflect the highest credit on the celebrated order to which he belonged 
the Jesuits, and I may add, the Benedictines being as distinct and as superior 
bodies of monastic men to the remaining tribes of cowled coenobites as the 
Brahmins in India are to the begging Farias.* 

There is among the lyric poems of the lower Irish a very remarkable ode, 
the authorship of which has been ascribed to the very Rev. Robert Burrowes, 
the mild, tolerant, and exemplary Dean of St. Finbarr's Cathedral, Cork, whom 
I am proud to call my friend : it refers to the last tragic scene in the comic or 
melodramatic life of a Dublin gentleman, whom the above-mentioned excellent 
divine accompanied in his ministerial capacity to the gallows ; and nothing 
half so characteristic of the genuine Irish recklessness of death was ever penned 
by any national Labruyere as that incomparable elegy, beginning 

"The night before Larry was stretched, 
The boys they all paid him a visit," &c. 

Now, were not this fact of the clerical authorship of a most sublime Pindaric 
composition chronicled in these papers, some future Hardouin would arise to 
unsettle the belief of posterity, and the claim of my friend Dean Burrowes 
would be overlooked ; while the songster of Turpin the highwayman, the illus- 

* Father Hardouin, who died at Paris 3rd Sept., 1729, was one of the many high orna- 
ments of the society and of the century to which he belonged. His " Collection of the 
Councils" ranks among the most elaborate efforts of theological toil, " Concil. Collect. 
Regia," 15 vols. folio, Paris, 1715. The best edition extant of the naturalist Pliny is his 
(in usiim Delphini), and displays a wondrous range of reading. He was one of the 
witty and honest crew of Jesuits who conducted that model of periodical criticism, the 
Journal de Trtvoux. Bishop Atterbury of Rochester has written his epitaph : 

Hie jacet Petrus Harduinvs, 
Hominum paradoxotatos, vir summa: memoria, 

Judicium expectans." PROUT. 



77/6' Rogueries of Tom Moore. 89 

trious author of " Rookwood."* would infallibly be set down as the writer of 
" Larry's" last hornpipe. But let me remark, en passant, that in that interest- 
ing department of literature "slang songs," Ireland enjoys a proud and lofty 
pre-eminence over every European country : her musa pedestris, or "footpad 
poetry," being unrivalled; and, as it is observed by Tacitus (in his admirable 
work " De Moribus Germanorum ") of the barbarians on the Rhine the native 
Irish find an impulse for valorous deeds, and a comfort for all their tribulations, 
in a song. 

Many folks like to write anonymously, others posthumously, others under an 
assumed name ; and for each of these methods of conveying thought to our 
fellow-men there may be assigned sundry solid reasons. But a man should 
never be ashamed to avow his writings, if called on by an injured party, and I, 
for one, will never shrink from that avowal. If, as my friend O'Brien of the 
Round Towers tells me, Tom Moore tried to run him down in the Edinburgh 
Review, after holding an unsuccessful negotiation with him for his services in 
compiling a joint-stock history of Ireland, why did not the man of the paper 
bullet fire a fair shot in his own name, and court the publicity of a dirty job, 
which done in the dark can lose nothing of its infamy? Dr. Johnson tells us 
that Bolingbroke wrote in his old age a work against Christianity, which he 
hadn't the courage to avow or publish in his lifetime ; but left a sum of money 
in his will to a hungry Scotchman, Mallet, on condition of printing in his own 
name this precious production. "He loaded the pistol," says the pious and 
learned lexicographer, "but made Sawney pull the trigger." Such appear to 
be the tactics of Tommy in the present instance : but I trust the attempt will 
fail, and that this insidious missile darted against the towers of O'Brien will 
prove a " telum imbelle, sine ictu." 

The two most original writers of the day, and also the two most ill-treated by 
the press, are decidedly Miss Harriet Martineau and Henry O'Brien. Of Miss 
Martineau I shall say little, as she can defend herself against all her foes, and 
give them an effectual check when hard-pressed in literary encounters. Her 
fame can be comprised in one brief pentameter, which I would recommend as 
a motto for the title-page of all her treatises : 

" Foemina tractavit ' propna quae maribus.' " 

But over Henry O'Brien, as he is young and artless, I must throw the shield of 
my fostering protection. It is now some time since he called at Watergrass- 
hill ; it was in the summer after I had a visit from Sir Walter Scott. The 
young man was then well versed in the Oriental languages and the Celtic : he 
had read the " Coran" and the " Psalter of Cashil," the " Zendavesta" and 
the " Ogygia," Lalla Rookh " and " Rock's Memoirs," besides other books 
that treat of Phoenician antiquities. From these authentic sources of Irish 
and Hindoo mythology he had derived much internal comfort and spiritual 
consolation ; at the same time that he had picked up a rude (and perhaps a 
crude) notion that the Persians and the boys of Tipperary were first cousins 
after all. This might seem a startling theory at first sight ; but then the story 
of the fire-worshippers in Arabia so corresponded with the exploits of General 
Decimus Rock in Mononia, and the camel-driver of Mecca was so forcibly 
associated in his mind with the bog-trotter of Derrynane, both having deluded 
an untutored tribe of savages, and the flight of the one being as celebrated as 
the vicarious imprisonment of the other, he was sure he should find some 
grand feature of this striking consanguinity, some landmark indicative of former 
relationship : 

* Prout must have enjoyed the gift of prophecy, for " Rookwood " was not published 
till four months after his death at Watergrasshill. Perhaps Mr. Ainsworth submitted his 
embryo romance to the priest's inspection when he went to kiss the stone. O. Y. 



90 The Works of Fatlier Front. 

Journeying with that intent, he eyed these TOWERS ; 
And, Heaven-directed, came this way to find 
The noble truth that gilds his humble name. 

Being a tolerable Greek scholar (for he is a Kerryman), with Lucian, of 
course, at his fingers' ends, he probably bethought himself of the two great 
phallic towers which that author describes as having been long ago erected in 
the countries of the East (" ante Syriae Deas templum stare phiillos duos miroe 
altitudinis ; sacerdotem per funes ascendere, ibi orare, sacra facere, tinnitumque 
ciere," &c., &c.); a ray of light darted through the diaphanous casement of 
O'Brien's brain 'twas a most eurekish moment, 'twas a coup de soleil, a mani- 
festation of the spirit 'twas a divino: particulo. aura, 'twas what a French- 
man would call Iheure du berger ; and on the spot the whole theory of " Round 
Towers" was developed in his mind. The dormant chrysalis burst into a 
butterfly. And this is the bright thing of surpassing brilliancy that Tom Moore 
would extinguish with his flimsy foolscap pages of the Edinburgh Review. 

Forbid it, Heaven ! Though all the mercenary or time-serving scribes of 
the periodical press should combine to slander and burke thee, O' B. ! though 
all the world betray thee, one pen at least thy right shall guard, and vindicate 
thy renown : here, on the summit of a bleak Irish hill here, to the child of 
genius and enthusiasm my door is still open ; and though the support which I 
can give thee is but a scanty portion of patronage indeed, I give it with good 
will, and assuredly with good humour. O'Brien ! historian of round towers, 
has sorrow thy young days faded ? 

Does Moore with his cold wing wither 

Each feeling that once was dear? 
Then, child of misfortune, come hither 

I'll weep with thee tear for tear. 

When O'Brien consulted me as to his future plans and prospects, and the 
development of his theory, in the first instance confidentially to Tom Moore, I 
remember distinctly that in the course of pur conversation (over a red herring), 
I cautioned the young and fervent enthusiast against the tricks and rogueries of 
Tommy. No man was better able to give advice on this subject Moore and I 
having had many mutual transactions, the reciprocity of which was all on one 
side. We know each other intus et in cute, as the reader of this posthumous 
paper will not fail to learn before he has laid down the document ; and if the 
ballad-monger comes off second best, I can't help him. I warned O'B. against 
confiding his secret to the man of melody, or else he would surely repent of his 
simplicity, and to his cost find himself some day the dupe of his credulous 
reliance : while he would have the untoward prospect of seeing his discovery 
swamped, and of beholding, through the medium of a deep and overwhelming 
flood of treachery, 

"His round towers of other days 
Beneath the waters shining." 

For, to illustrate by a practical example the man's way of doing business, I 
gave, as a striking instance, his "Travels in Search of Religion." Now, since 
my witty father's celebrated book of "Gulliver's Travels," I ask, was there ever 
a more clever, or in every way so well got up a performance as this Irish gentle- 
man's "steeple-chase ? " But unfortunately memory supplies me with the FACT 
that this very same identical Tommy, who in that work quotes the " Fathers " 
so accurately, and, I may add (without going into polemics), so felicitously and 
triumphantly, has written the most abusive, scurrilous, and profane article that 
ever sullied the pages of the Edinburgh Review, the whole scope of which is 
to cry down the Fathers, and to turn the highest and most cherished ornaments 
of the primitive church into ridicule. See the 24th volume of the Edinburgh 






TJic Rogueries of Tom Moore. 91 

Review* p. 65, Nov. 1814, where you will learn with amazement that the most 
accomplished Christian writer of the second century, that most eloquent church- 
man, Africa's glorious son, was nothing more in Tommy's eye than the " harsh, 
muddy, and unintelligible Tertullian ! " Further on you will hear this Anacre- 
ontic little chap talk of "the pompous rigidity of Chrysostom ;" and soon 
after you are equally edified by hearing him descant on the "antithetical trifling 
of Gregory Nazianzene" of Gregory, whose elegant mind was the result and 
the index of pure unsullied virtue, ever most attractive when adorned with the 
graces of scholarship Gregory, the friend of St. Basil, and his schoolfellow 
at Athens, where those two vigorous champions of Christianity were associated 
in their youthful studies with that Julian who was afterwards an emperor, a 
sophist, and an apostate a disturber of oriental provinces, and a fellow who 
perished deservedly by the javelin of some young patriot admirer of round 
towers in Persia. In the article alluded to, this incredulous Thomas goes on to 
say, that these same Fathers, to whom he afterwards refers his Irish gentleman 
in the catch-penny travels, are totally ' ' unfit to t>e guides either in faith or 
morals." (it. id.} The prurient rogue dares to talk of their "pagan imagi- 
nations!" and, having turned up his ascetic nose at these saintly men, because, 
forsooth, they appear to him to be but " indifferent Christians," he pronounces 
them to be also "elephants in battle," and, chuckling over this old simile, 
concludes with a complacent smirk quite self-satisfactory. O for the proboscis 
of the royal animal in the Surrey Menagerie, to give this poet's carcase a sound 
drubbing ! O most theological, and zoological, and supereminently logical 
Tommy ! 'tis you that are fit to travel in search of religion ! 

If there is one plain truth that oozes forth from the feculent heap of trash 
which the reviewer accumulates on the merits of the Fathers, it is the conviction 
in every observant mind, drawn from the simple perusal of his article, that he 
never read three consecutive pages of their works in his life. No one that ever 
did no one who had banqueted with the gorgeous and magnificent Chrysostom, 
or drained the true Athenian cup of Gregory Nazianzene, or dwelt with the 
eloquent and feelingly devout Bernard in the cloistered shades of Clairvaux, or 
mused with the powerful, rich, and scrutinizing mind of Jerome in his hermit- 
age of Palestine, could write an article so contemptible, so low, so little. He 
states, truly with characteristic audacity, that he has mounted to the most 
inaccessible shelves of the library in Trin. Coll. Dublin, as if he had scaled the 
" heights of Abraham," to get at the original editions; but believe him not : 
for the old folios would have become instinct with life at the approach of the 
dwarf they would have awakened from their slumber at his touch, and, 
tumbling their goodly volumes on their diminutive assailant, would have over- 
whelmed him, like Tarpeia, on the very threshold of his sacrilegious inva- 
sion. 

Towards my young friend O'Brien of the towers he acts the same part, 
nppearing in his favourite character that of an anonymous reviewer, a veiled 
prophet of Khorassan. Having first negotiated by letter with him to extract 
his brains, and make use of him for his meditated " History of Ireland" (the 
correspondence lies before me) he winds up the confidential intercourse by an 
Edinburgh volley of canister shot, "quite in a friendly way." He has the 
. ineffable impudence to accuse O'B. of plagiarism, and to state that this grand 
and unparalleled discovery had been previously made by the author of " Nim- 
rod ; "f a book which Tommy read not, neither did he care, so he plucked the 

* The book rniiewed by Moore is entitled " Select Passages from the Fathers," by 
Hugh Boyd, Esq. Dublin, 1814. 

t " Nimrod," by the Hon. Reginald Herbert, i vol. 8vp. London, 1826. Priestley. 
A work of uncommon enidition ; but the leading idea of which is, that these towers were 
fire-altars. O'B. 's theory is not to be found in any page of it having tfte remotest 



9 2 



The Works of Father Front. 



laurel from the brow of merit. But to accuse a writer of plagiarism, he should . 
he himself immaculate ; and while he dwells in a glass house, he should not 
throw stones at a man in a tower. 

The Blarney stone in my neighbourhood has attracted hither many an illus- 
trious visitor ; but none has been so assiduous a pilgrim in my time as Tom 
Moore. While he was engaged in his best and most unexceptionable work on 
the melodious ballads of his country, he came regularly every summer, and did 
me the honour to share my humble roof repeatedly. He knows well how often 
he plagued me to supply him with original songs which I had picked up in 
France among the merry troubadours and carol-loving inhabitants of that once 
happy land, and to what extent he has transferred these foreign inventions into 
the " Irish Melodies." Like the robber Cacus, he generally dragged the plun- 
dered cattle by the tail, so as that, moving backwards into his cavern of stolen 
goods, the foot-tracks might not lead to detection. Some songs he would turn 
upside down, by a figure in rhetoric called va-npov Trpo-rcpov ; others he would 
disguise in various shapes ; but he would still worry me to supply him with the 
productions of the Gallic muse ; " for, d'ye see, old Prout," the rogue would 
say, 

' The best of all ways 
To lengthen our lays, 
Is to steal a few thoughts from the French, 'my dear.' " 

Now I would have let him enjoy unmolested the renown which these " Melo- 
dies" have obtained for him ; but his last treachery to my round-tower friend 
has raised my bile, and I shall give evidence of the unsuspected robberies. 

" Abstractseque boves abjurataque rapinae 
Ccelo ostendentur." 

It would be easy to point out detached fragments and stray metaphors, 
which he has scattered here and there in such gay confusion that every page 
has within its limits a mass of felony and plagiarism sufficient to hang him. 
For instance, I need only advert to his " Bard's Legacy." Even on his dying 
bed this "dying bard " cannot help indulging his evil pranks; for, in 
bequeathing his "heart" to his " mistress dear," and recommending her to 
"borrow" balmy drops of port wine to bathe the relic, he is all the while 
robbing old Clement Mar6t, who thus disposes of his remains : 

"Quand je suis mort, je veux qu'on m'entere 

Dans la cave oil est le vin ; 
Le corps sous un tonneau de Madfcre, 
Et la bouche sous le robin." 

But I won't strain at a gnat, when I can canture a camel a huge dromedary 
laden with pilfered soil ; for, would you believe it if you had never learned it 
from Prout, the very opening and foremost song of the collection, 

" Go where glory waits thee," 

is but a literal and servile translation of an old French ditty, which is among 
my papers, and which I believe to have been composed by that beautiful and 
interesting "ladye," Frantjoise de Foix, Comtesse de Chateaubriand, born in 
i .491, and the favourite of Francis I., who soon abandoned her : indeed, the 
lines appear to anticipate his infidelity. They were written before the battle 
of Pavia. 

reference to Ireland; and we are astonished at the unfairness of giving (as Moore has 
done) a pretended quotation from "Nimrod " without indicating where it is to be met 
with in the volume. O. Y. 



The Rogueries of Tom Moore. 



93 



CHANSON 

de la Comtesse dc Chateaubriand 
a Francois I. 

Va oil la gloire t 'invite ; 
Et quand d'orgueil palpite 

Ce Cceur, qu'il pense a moi ! 
Quand 1'eloge enflamme 
Toute 1'ardeur de ton ;1me, 

Pense encore a moi ! 
Autres charmes peut-etre 
Tu voudras connaitre, 
Autre amour en maitre 

Regnera sur toi ; 
Mais quand ta levre presse 
Celle qui te caresse, 

Mechant, pense a moi ! 

Quand au soir tu erres 
Sous 1'astre des bergeres, 

Pense aux doux instans 
Lorsque cette dtoile, 
Qu'un beau ciel devoile, 

Guida deux amans ! 
Quand la fleur, symbole 
D'cte' qui s'envole, 
Penche sa tdte molle, 

S'exhalant \ 1'air, 
Pense a la guirlande, 
De ta mie 1 offrande 

Don qui fut si cher ! 

Quand la feuille d'automne 
Sous tes pas resonne, 

Pense alors a moi ! 
Quand de la famille 
L'antique foyer brille, 

Pense encore a moi ! 
Et si de la chanteuse 
La voix melodieuse 
Berce ton ame heureuse 

Et ravit tes sens, 
Pense a 1'air que chante 
Pour toi ton amante 

Tant aim^s accens ! 



TOM MOORE'S 

Translation of this Song iti tJtc Irish 
Melodies. 

Go where glory waits thee ; 
But while fame elates thee, 

Oh, still remember me ! 
When the praise thou meetest 
To thine ear is sweetest, 

Oh, then remember me ! 
Other arms may press thee, 
Dearer friends caress thee 
All the joys that bless thee 

Dearer far may be : 
But when friends are dearest, 
And when joys are nearest. 

Oh, then remember me ! 

When at eve thou rovest 
By the star thou lovest, 

Oh, thep remember me ! 
Think, when home returning, 
Bright we've seen it burning 

Oh, then remember me ! 
Oft as summer closes, 
When thine eye reposes 
On its lingering roses, 

Once so loved by thee, 
Think of her who wove them 
Her who made thee love them 

Oh, then remember me ! 

When around thee, dying, 
Autumn leaves are lying, 

Oh, then remember me ! 
And at night, when gazing 
On the gay hearth blazing, 

Oh, still remember me ! 
Then, should music, stealing 
All the soul of feeling, 
To thy heart appealing, 

Draw one tear from thee ; 
Then let memory bring thee 
Strains I used to sing thee 

Oh, then remember me ! 



Any one who has the slightest tincture of French literature must recognize 
the simple and unsophisticated style of a genuine love-song in the above, the 
language being that of the century in which Clement Marotand Maitre Adam 
wrote their incomparable ballads, and containing a kindly admixture of gentle- 
ness and sentimental delicacy, which no one but a " ladye" and a loving heart 
could infuse into the composition. Moore has not been infelicitous in render- 
ing the charms of the wondrous original into English lines adapted to the 
measure and tune of the French. The air is plaintive and exquisitively beauti- 
'ful ; but I recommend it to be tried first on the French words, as it was sung 
by the charming lips of the Countess of Chateaubriand to the enraptured ear 
of the gallant Francis I. 

The following pathetic strain is the only literary relic which has been 
preserved of the unfortunate Marquis de Cinqmars, who was disappointed in 
a love affair, and who, " to fling forgetfulness around him," mixed in politics, 
conspired against Cardinal Richelieu, was betrayed by an accomplice, and 
perished on the scaffold. Moore has transplanted it entire into his " National 



94 



Tlie Works of Father Front. 



Melodies ; " but is very careful not to give the nation or writer whence he trans- 
lated it. 



LE MARQUIS DE CINQMARS. 

Tu n'as fait, 6 mon cceur ! qu'un beau 

songe, 

Qui te fut, helas ! ravi trop tot ; 
Ce doux rfive, ah dieux ! qu'il se prolonge, 
Je consens & n'aspirer plus haut. 
Faut-il que d'avance 
Jeune esp^rance 
Le destin detruise ton avenir? 
Faut-il que la rose 
La premiere 6close 
Soil celle qu'il se plaise a fletrir ? 

Tu n'as fait, &c. 

Que de fois tu trompas notre attente, 
Amitie, soeur de 1 'amour trompeur ! 
De 1'amour la coupe encore enchante 
A 1'ami on livre encor' son cceur : 
L'insecte qui file 
Sa trame inutile 

Voit p6rir cent fois le frele tissu ; 
Tel, amour ensorcele 
L'homme qui renouvelle 
Des liens qui 1'ont cent fois decu ! 
Tu n'as fait, &c. 



THOMAS MOORE. 

O ! 'twas all but a dream at the best 
And still when happiest, soonest o'er : 
But e'en in a dream to be blest 
Is so sweet, that I ask for no more ! 
The bosom that opes 
With earliest hopes 
The soonest finds those hopes untrue ; 
Like flowers that first 
In spring-time burst, 
The soonest whither too ! 

Oh, 'twas all but, &c. 



By friendship we've oft been deceived, 
And love, even love, too soon is past ; 
But friendship will still be believed, 
And love trusted on to the last ; 
Like the web in the leaves 
The spider weaves 
Is the charm that hangs o'er men 
Tho' oft as he sees 
It broke by the breeze, 
He weaves the bright line again ! 
O ! 'twas all but, &c. 



Every thing was equally acceptable in the way of a song to Tommy ; and 
provided I brought grist to his mill, he did not care where the produce came 
from even the wild oats and the thistles of native growth on Watergrasshill, 
all was good provender for his Pegasus. There was an old Latin song of my 
own, which I made when a boy, smitten with the charms of an Irish milkmaid, 
who crossed by the hedge-school occasionally, and who used to distract my 
attention from " Corderius" and " Erasmi Colloquia." I have often laughed at 
my juvenile gallantry when my eye has met the copy of verses in overhauling 
my papers. Tommy saw it, grasped it with avidity ; and I find he has given ii, 
word for word, in an English shape in his " Irish Melodies." Let the intelli- 
gent reader judge if he has done common justice to my young muse. 



IN PULCHRAM LACTIFERAM. 
Carmen, Aiictore Praut. 

Lesbia semper hinc et indb 

Oculorum tela movit : 
Captat omnes, sed deindb 

Quis ametur nemo novit. 
Palpebrarum, Noracara, 

Lux tuarum non est foris, 
Flamma micat ibi rara, 

Sed sinceri lux amoris. 
Nora Creina sit regina, 

Vultu, gressu tarn modesto ! 
Haec, puellas inter bellas, 

Jure omnium dux esto ! 



Lesbia vestes auro graves 

Fert, et gemmis, juxta normam ; 
Gratia; sed, eheu ! suaves 

Cinctam reliquSre formam. 



TO A BEAUTIFUL MILKMAID. 
A Melody, by Thomas Moore. 

Lesbia hath a beaming eye, 

But no one knows for whom it beameth ; 
Right and left its arrows fly, 

But what they aim at, no one dreamcth. 
Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon 

My Norah's lid, that seldom rises ; 
Few her looks, but every one 

Like unexpected light surprises. 
O, my Norah Creina dear ! 

My gentle, bashful Norah Creina ! 
Beauty lies 
In many eyes 

But love's in thine, my Norah Creina ! 

Lesbia wears a robe of gold ; 

But all so tight the nymph hath laced it, 
Not a charm of beauty s mould 

Presumes to stay where nature placed it. 



The Rogueries of Tom Moore. 



95 



Noras tunicam praeferres, 

Flante zephyro volantem ; 
Oculis et raptis erres 

Contemplando ambulantem ! 
Vesta Nora tarn decor& 

Semper indui memento, 
Semper purae sic naturae 

Ibis tecta vestimento. 



Lesbia mentis praefert lumen, 

Quod coruscat perlibenter ; 
Sea quis optet hoc acumen, 

Quando acupuncta dentur ? 
Noras sinu cum recliner, 

Dormio luxuries^ 
Nil corrugat hoc pulvinar, 

Nisi crispae ruga rosae. 
Nora blanda, lux amanda, 

Expers usque tenebrarum, 
Tu cor mulces per tot dulces 

Dotes, fons illecebrarum ! 



O, my Norah's gown for me, 

That floats as wild as mountain breezes, 
Leaving every beauty free 

To sink or swell as Heaven pleases. 
Yes, my Norah Creina dear ! 
My simple, graceful Norah Creina ! 
Nature's dress 
Is loveliness 
The dress you wear, my Norah Creina ! 

Lesbia hath a wit refined ; 

But when its points are gleaming round us, 
Who can tell if they're design'd 

To dazzle merely, or to wound us ? 
Pillow'd on my Norah's heart, 

In safer slumber Love reposes 
Bed of peace, whose roughest part 

Is but the crumpling of the roses. 
O, my Norah Creina dear ! 

My mild, my artless Norah Creina ! 
Wit, though bright, 
Hath not the light 

That warms your eyes, my Norah Creina ! 



It will be seen by these specimens that Tom Moore can eke out a tolerably 
fair translation of any given ballad ; and indeed, to translate properly, retain- 
ing all the fire and spirit of the original, is a merit not to be sneezed at it is 
the next best thing to having a genius of one's own ; for he who can execute 
a clever forgery, and make it pass current, is almost as well off as the capitalist 
who can draw a substantial check on the bank of sterling genius : so, to give 
the devil his due, I must acknowledge that in terseness, point, pathos, and 
elegance, Moore's translations of these French and Latin trifles are very near 
as good as the primary compositions themselves. He has not been half so 
lucky in hitting off Anacreon ; but he was a young man then, and a "wild 
fellow ; " since which time it is thought that he has got to that climacteric in 
life to which few poets attain, viz. , the years of discretion. A predatory sort of 
life, the career of a literary freebooter, has had great charms for him from his 
cradle ; and I am afraid that he will pursue it on to final impenitence. He 
seems to care little about the stern reception he will one day receive from that 
inflexible judge, Rhadamanthus, who will make him confess all his rogueries 
" Castigatque dolos, subigitque fateri "our bard being of that epicurean and 
careless turn of mind so strikingly expressed in these lines of " Lai la 
Rookh" 

" O ! if there be an Elysium on earth, 
It is this ! it is this ! " 

Which verses, by the by, are alone enough to convict him of downright 
plagiarism and robbery ; for they are (as Tommy knows right well) to be seen 
written in large letters in the Mogul language over the audience-chamber of 
the King of Delhi :* in fact, to examine and overhaul his " Lalla Rookh" 
would be a most diverting task, which I may one day undertake. He will be 
found to have been a chartered pirate in the Persian Gulf, as he was a high- 
wayman in Europe "spoliis Orientis onustum." 

But the favourite field in which Tommy has carried on his depredations, to 
an almost incredible extent, is that of the early French troubadours, whose 
property he has thought fair game, availing himself thereof without scruple. 
In his soi-disant " Irish" Melodies, and indeed in all his effusions of more 
refined gallantry, he has poured in a large infusion of the spirit and the letter 

* See the Asiatic Journal for May, 1834, p. 2. 



g6 The Works of Father Front. 

of southern France. To be sure, he has mixed up with the pure, simple, and 
genuine inspirations of these primitive hearts, who loved, in the oklen time, 
after nature's fashion, much of his own overstrained fancy, strange conceits, and 
forced metaphors; but the initiated can easily distinguish when it is he 
speaketh in propria, persond, and when it is that he uses the pathetic and soul- 
stirring language of the mtnestrels of Gaul, those legitimate laureates of love. 
There has been a squib fired off by some wag of the sixteenth century against 
an old astrologer, who practised many rogueries in his generation, and which 
I think not inapplicable to Moore : 

"Nostra damus cum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est : 
Et cum falsa damus, non nisi Nostra damns." 

And, only it were a profanation to place two such personages in juxtaposition, 
I would say that Moore might use the affecting, the soul-rending appeal of the 
ill-fated Mary Stuart, addressed to that land of song and civilization which she 
was quitting for ever, when she exclaimed, as the Gallic shore receded from her 
view, that ' ' half of her heart would still be found on the loved plains of France, 
and even the other half pined to rejoin it in its primitive abodes of pleasantness 
and joy." The song of the unfortunate queen is too exquisitely beautiful not 
to be given here by me, such as she sang it on the deck of the vessel that 
wafted her away from the scenes of her youth and the blessings of friendship, 
to seek the dismal regions of bleak barbarity and murderous fanaticism. I 
also give it because Tommy has modelled on it his melody, " As slow our ship 
its foamy track," and Byron his "Native land, good night !" 

"Adieu, plaisant pays de France ! 

Oh, ma patrie la plus cherie, 
Qui as nourri ma jeune enfance 

Adieu, France ! adieu, mes beaux jours ! 
La nef qui dejoint mes amours 

N'a ici de moi que la moitie ; 
Une part te reste, elle est tienne, 

Je la fie i ton amitid 
Pour que de 1'autre, il te souvienne ! " 

I now come to a more serious charge against the gentleman of "Sloperton Cot- 
tage, Wiltshire," and it will require more mother-wit than he is known to possess 
to bamboozle the public into a satisfactory belief in his innocence. To plunder 
the French is all right ; but to rob his own countrymen is what the late Lord 
Liverpool would call " too bad." I admit the claims of the poet on the grati- 
tude of the aboriginal Irish ; for glorious Dan might have exerted his leathern 
lungs during a century in haranguing the native sans culottes on this side of 
the Channel ; but had not the "Melodies" made emancipation palatable to 
the thinking and generous portion of Britain's free-born sons had not his 
poetry spoken to the hearts of the great and the good, and enlisted the fair 
daughters of England, the spouters would have been but objects of scorn and 
contempt. The " Melodies " won the cause silently, imperceptibly, effectually ; 
and if there be a tribute due from that class of the native, it is to the child of 
song. Poets, however, are always destined to be poor ; and such used to be 
the case with patriots too, until the rint opened the eyes of the public, and 
aught them that even that sacred and exalted passion, love of country, could 
resolve itself, through an Irish alembic, into an ardent love for the copper 
currency of one's native land. The dagge 1 of Harmodius, which used to be 
concealed under a wreath of myrtle, is now-a-days hidden within the cavity of 
a church-door begging-box : and Tom Moore can only claim the second part 
of the celebrated line of Virgil, as the first evidently refers to Mr. O'Connell ; 

"sErc ciere viros Martemque accendere ctintit." 
But I am digressing from the serious charge I mean to bring against the author 






The Rogueries of Tom Moore. 



97 



of that beautiful melody, " The Shamrock." Does not Tom Moore know that 
there was such a thing in France as the Irish brigade? and does he not fear 
and tremble lest the ghosts of that valiant crew, whom he has robbed of their 
due honours, should, "in the stilly night, when slumber's chains have bound 
him," drag his small carcase to the Styx, and give him a well-merited sousing? 
For why should he exhibit as his production their favourite song? and what 
ineffable audacity to palm off on modern drawing-rooms as his owji that glorious 
carol which made the tents of Fontenoy ring with its exhilarating music, and 
which old General Stack, who lately died at Calais, used to sing so gallantly ? 



LE TREFLE D'IRLANDE. 

Chanson de la Brigade, 1748. 

Un jour en Hybernie, 

D'AMOUR le beau genie 
Et le dieu de la VALEUR firent rencontre 

Avec le "BEL ESPRIT," 

Ce dr&le (jui se rit 
De tout ce qui lui vient H 1'encontre ; 

Partout leur pas reveille'' 

Une herbe a triple feuille, 
Que la nuit huraecta de ses pleurs, 

Et que la douce aurore 

Fraichement fait eclorre, 
De 1'emeraude elie a les couleurs. 

Vive le trefle ! 

Vive le vert gazon ! 
De la patrie, terre cherie ! 

L'embleme est bel et bon ! 

VALEUR, d'un ton superbe, 

S'ecrie, " Pour moi cette herbe 
Croit sit6t qu'elle me voit ici paraitre ; " 

AMOUR lui dit, " Non, non, 

C'est moi que le gazon 
Konore en ces bijoux qu'il fait naitre : " 

Mais BEL ESPRIT dirige 

Sur 1'herbe a triple tige 
Un ceil observateur, a son tour, 

" Pourquoi," dit-il, "defaire 

Un noeud si beau, qui serre 
En ce type ESPRIT, VALEUR, et AMOUR !" 

Vive le trefle ! 

Vive le vert gazon ! 
De la patrie, terre cherie ! 

L'embleme est bel et bon ! 

Prions le Ciel qu'il dure 

Ce noeud, oil la nature 
Voudrait voir une eternelle alliance ; 

Que mil venin jamais 

N'empoisonne les traits 
Qu'a 1'entour si gaiement 1'EsPRlT lance ! 

Que nul tyran ne rcve 

D'user le noble glaive 
De la VALEUR contre la liberte'; 

Et que 1 'AMOUR suspende 

Sa plus belle guirlande 
Sur I'autel de la fidelitu ! 

Vive le trefle ! 

Vive le vert gazon ! 



De la patrie, terre cherie ! 

L'embleme est bel et bon ! 



THE SHAMROCK. 

A "Melody" of Tom Moore's, 1813. 

Through Erin's isle, 

To sport awhile, 
As Love and Valour wander 'd 

With Wit the sprite, 

Whose quiver bright 
A thousand arrows squander'd : 

Where'er they pass 

A triple grass 
Shoots up, with dewdrops streaming, 

As softly green 

As emeralds seen 
Through purest crystal gleaming. 

O the shamrock ! 

The green immortal shamrock ! 
Chosen leaf of bard and chief, 

Old Erin's native shamrock ! 

Says Valour, " See ! 

They spring for me 
Those leafy gems of morning ; " 

Says Love, " No, no, 

For me they grow, 
My fragrant path adorning. " 

But Wit perceives 

The triple leaves, 
And cries, " O, do not sever 

A type that blends 

Three god-like friends 
Wit, Valour, Love, for ever ! " 

O the shamrock ! 

The green immortal shamrock ! 
Chosen leaf of bard and chief, 

Old Erin's native shamrock ! 

So firm and fond 

May last the bond 
They wove that morn together ; 

And ne'er may fall 

One drop of gall 
On Wit's celestial feather ! 

May Love, as shoot 

His flowers and fruit, 
Of thorny falsehood weed them ; 

Let Valour ne'er 

His standard rear 
Against the cause of freedom, 

Or of the shamrock, 

The green immortal shamrock ! 
Chosen leaf of bard and chief, 

Old Erin's native shamrock ! 



' Alia lectio : jartout leur wain recueillc. 



9 8 



The Works of FatJier Front. 



Moliere has written a pleasant and instructive comedy entitled the Fourberia 
de Sea fin, which I recommend to Tom's perusal; and in the "spelling-book" 
which I used to con over when at the hedge-school with my foster-brother 
George Knapp. who has since risen to eminence as mayor of Cork, but with 
whom I used then to share the reading of the " Universal Spelling-Book" 
(having but one between us), there is an awful story about "Tommy and Harry," 
very capable of deterring youthful minds from evil practices, especially the 
large wood-cut representing a lion tearing the stomach of the luckless wight 
who led a career of wickedness. Had Tommy Moore been brought up properly 
(as Knapp and I were) he would not have committed so many depredations, 
which he ought to know would be discovered on him at last, and cause him 
bitterly to repent his "rogueries." 

With all my sense of indignation, unabated and unmitigated at the unfairness 
with which O'Brien " of the round towers" has been treated, and which has 
prompted me to make disclosures which would have otherwise slept with me in 
the grave, I must do Moore the justice to applaud his accurate, spirited, and 
sometimes exquisite translations from recondite MSS. and other totally unex- 
plored writings of antiquity. I felt it my duty, in the course of these strictures, to 
denounce the version of Anacreon as a total failure, only to be accounted for by 
the extreme youth and inexperience of the subsequently matured and polished 
melodist ; but there is an obscure Greek poet, called STOKICOS Mopc^ioV, whose 
ode on whisky, or negus, composed about the sixteenth olympiad, according to 
the chronology of Archbishop Usher, he has splendidly and most literally 
rendered into English Anacreontic verse, thus : 



CIKKOV Moo<t>idfos iv^ 
(Stat nominis timbra.) 

OVV 

Tots 

Tois cJ>fpraTOis ^peve? y' a 

* 



TavTf) yap ovpavov&e 
Tfl VUKTI Set TreTootfou, 
TavTijr Atiroires ami'. 
Ei / ovv Kp<os AaOotro 
Tois orefijiaTeo-o"' a Tepi/rts 
"H/iiv /iayos SiStotnv, 
Ovma 0oo$ yei'OiTO, 
'Us yap 7rapeoTii> ou'os, 
Bai^tofxef fiye Kfvrfl. 

*fl? fioc. Aryou<n, vcKTap 
ITaAat evivov 'HPAI 
K<u ZHNE2 t)f *OIBOI. 
Efeori cai jSporoio'ii' 

'llu.ll' TTOtflV TO VfKTOp* 

TToiijTeov -yap toif 
TOUTOI/ Aa^oiTf? Oivov, 
Tow \apiiaTos TTpoiriairois 
Ajicji <ritu</)os OTe^ovTcs, 
Tore Qpfvtav <^aei^7ji/ 
VloT<a ^eorres avyriv, 
ISov, jrapeoTi veKTap. 

TIITT' ovv Xpoi/o? ye i^afi^o 
T)v K\e\jrv&pa.v e7rA>j(re 
TT)I/ ayAarji' aeocci ; 
Ev fief yap OiSev oivov 

Siapptw, 
epOf Tf \afjiireiv' 



ON WHISKY OR NEGUS. 

By Moore. 

Wreathe the bowl 

With flowers of soul 
The brightest wit can find us ; 

We'll take a flight 

Towards heaven to-night, 
And leave dull earth behind us. 

Should Love amid 

The wreath be hid, 
That joy th' enchanter brings us ; 

No danger fear 

While wine is near 
We'll drown him if he stings us. 

Then wreathe the bowl, &c., &c. 

'Twas nectar fed 

Of old, 'tis said, 
Their Junos, Joves, Apollos ; 

And man may brew 

His nectar too 
The rich receipt's as follows : 

Take wine like this. 

Let looks of bliss 
Around it well be blended : 

Then bring wit's beam 

To warm the stream 
And there's your nectar splendid. 

Then wreathe the bowl, &c., &C. 

Say, why did Time 

His glass sublime 
Fill up with sands unsightly, 

When wine, he knew, 

Runs brisker through. 
And sparkles far more brightly ? 



The Rogueries of Tom Moore. 99 

Aos ow. Sot i7|uup avrr\v, O lend it us, 

Kai (uietSiaiiTes OUTUS And, smiling, thus 

i:i\v K\eij/v5pa.t> 0-x.io-a.in-ef, The glass in two we'd sever, 

IIoi.T)(ropci' ye 8nrAw Make pleasure glide 

Pety ^8oio)>' pecSpijj In doume tide, 

Eju>rA>j<ro/if' 6' traipot And fill both ends for ever. 

KUTTJ es aiei; Then wreathe the bowl, &c., c. 



Such carefully finished translations as this from SraK-K-os, in which not an 
idea or beauty of the Greek is lost in the English version, must necessarily do 
Tommy infinite credit ; and the only drawback on the abundant praise which I 
should otherwise feel inclined to bestow on the Anacreontic versifier, is the fatal 
neglect, or perhaps wilful treachery, which has led him to deny or suppress the 
sources of his inspiration, and induced him to appear in the discreditable 
fashion of an Irish jackdaw in the borrowed plumage of a Grecian peacock. 
The splendour of poesy, like "Malachy's collar of gold," is round his neck, 
but he won it from a stranger : the green glories of the emerald adorn his glow- 
ing crest or, as Phasdrus says, 

" Nitor smaragdi collo refulget tuo " 

but if you ruffle his feathers a little, you will find that his literary toilette is com- 
posed of what the French coiffeurs call des or nemens pastiches ; and that there 
was never a more called-for declaration than the avowal which he himself makes 
in one of his Melodies, when, talking of the wild strains of the Irish harp, he 
admits, he " was tut the wind passing heedlessly over" its chords, and that the 
music was by no means his own. 

A simple hint was sometimes enough to set his muse at work ; and he not 
only was, to my knowledge, an adept jn translating accurately, but he could 
also string together any number of lines in any given measure, in imitation of 
a song or ode which casually came in his way. This is not such arrant 
robbery as what I have previously stigmatized ; but it is a sort of guasi-pilkT- 
ing, a kind of petty larceny, not to be encouraged. There is, for instance, his 
" National Melody," or jingle, called, in the early edition of his poems, " Those 
Evening Bells," a "Petersburg air;" of which I could unfold the natural 
history. It is this : In one of his frequent visits to Watergrasshill, Tommy 
and I spent the evening in talking of our continental travels, and more par- 
ticularly of Paris and its mirabilia ; of which he seemed quite enamoured. 
The view from the tower of the central church, Notre Dame, greatly struck 
his fancy ; and I drew the conversation to the subject of the simultaneous ring- 
ing of all the bells in all the steeples of that vast metropolis on some feast-day, 
or public rejoicing. The effect, he agreed with me, is most enchanting, and 
the harmony most surprising. At that time Victor Hugo had not written his 
glorious romance, the "Hunchback Quasimodo; " and, consequently, I could 
not have read his beautiful description . "In an ordinary way, the noise issuing 
from Paris in the day-time is the talking of the city ; at night, it is the breath- 
ing of the city ; in this case, it is the singing of the city. Lend your ear to 
this opera of steeples. Diffuse over the whole the buzzing of half a million of 
human beings, the eternal murmur of the river, the infinite piping of the wind, 
the" grave and distant quartette of the four forests, placed like immense organs 
on .the four hills of the horizon ; soften down as with a demi-tint all that is too 
shrill and too harsh in the central mass of sound, and say if you know any- 
thing in the world more rich, more gladdening, more dazzling, than that tumult 
of bells than that furnace of music than those ten thousand brazen tones, 
breathed all at once horn flutes of stone three hundred feet high than that city 
which is but one orchestra than tha symphony, rushing and roaring like a 
tempest." All these matters, we ngreed, were very fine ; but there is nothing, 
after all, like the associations which early infancy attaches to the well-known 



too 



The Works of Father Prout. 









and long-remembered chimes of our own parish steeple : and no magic can 
equal the eft'ect on our ear when returning after long absence in foreign, and 
perhaps happier countries. As we perfectly coincided in the truth of this 
observation, I added, that long ago, while at Rome, I had thrown my ideas 
into the shape of a song, which I would sing him to the tune of the " Groves." 

THE SHANDON BELLS.* 

SABBATA PANGO, 
FUNERA PLANGO, 
SOLKMNIA CLANGO. 

Iiiscrip. on an old Bell. 

With deep affection 
And recollection 
I often think of 

Those Shandon bells, 
Whose sounds so wild would, 
In the days of childhood. 
Fling round my cradle 

Their magic spells. 
On this I ponder 
Where'er I wander 
And thus grow fonder, 

.Sweet Cork, of thee ; 
With thy bells of Shandon, 
That sound so grand on 
The pleasant waters 

Of the river Lee. 

I've heard bells chiming 
Full many a clime in, 
Tolling sublime in 

Cathedral shrine, 
While at a glibe rate 
Brass tongues would vibrate 
But all their music 

Spoke naught like thine ; 
For memory dwelling 
On each proud swelling 
Of the belfry knelling 

Its bold notes free, 
Made the bells of Shandon 
Sound far more grand on 
The pleasant waters 

Of the river Lee. 

I've heard bells tolling 

, , Old " Adrian's Mole " in, 

Their thunder rolling 
From the Vatican, 
t And cymbals glorious 

Swinging uproarious 
In the gorgeous turrets 
Of Notre Dame ; 

* The church and spire of Shandon, built on the ruins of old Shandon Castle (for 
which see the plates in " Pacata Hybernia "), is a prominent object, from whatever side 
the traveller approaches our beautiful city. There exists a pathetic ballad, composed by 
some exile when "eastward darkly going," in which he begins his adieux to the sweet 
spot thus : " Farewell to thee, Cork, and thy sugar-loaf steeple," &c., &c. But as no- 
thing is done in Ireland in the ordinary routine of sublunary things, this belfry u built on 
a novel and rather droll principle of architecture, viz., one side is all of grey stone, and 
the other all red, like the Prussian soldier's uniform trousers, one leg blue, the other 
green. Note by CROFTON CKOKEK. 



The Rogueries of Tom Moore, 



IOI 



But thy sounds were sweeter 
Than the dome of Peter 
Flings o'er the Tiber, 
Pealing solemnly ; 

! the bells of Shandon 
Sound far more grand on 
The pleasant waters 

Of the river Lee. 

There's a bell in Moscow, 
While on tower and kiosk ! 
In Saint Sophia 

The Turkman gets, 
And loud in air 
Calls men to prayer 
From the tapering summit 

Of tall minarets. 
Such empty phantom 

1 freely grant them ; 
But there is an anthem 

More dear to me, 
'Tis the bells of Shandon, 
That sound so grand on 
The pleasant waters 

Of the river Lee. 

Shortly afterwards Moore published his "Evening Bells, a. Petersburg air." 
But any one can see that he only rings a few changes on my Roman ballad, 
cunningly shifting the scene as far north as he could, to avoid detection. He 
deserves richly to be sent on a hurdle to Siberia. 

I do not feel so much hurt at this nefarious " belle's stratagem" regarding 
me, as at his wickedness towards the man of the round towers ; and to this 
matter I turn in conclusion. 

" O blame not the bard ! " some folks will no doubt exclaim, and perhaps 
think that I have been over-severe on Tommy, in my vindication of O'B. ; I 
can only say, that if the poet of all circles and the idol of his own, as soon as 
this posthumous rebuke shall meet his eye. begins to repent him of his wicked 
attack on my young friend, and, turning him from his evil ways, betakes him 
to his proper trade of ballad-making, then shall he experience the comfort 
of living at peace with all mankind, and old Prout's blessing shall fall as a 
precious ointment on his head. In that contingency if (as I understand it to 
be his intention) he should happen to publish afresh number of his ' ' Melodies," 
may it be eminently successful ; and may Power of the Strand, by some more 
sterling sounds than the echoes of fame, be convinced of the power of song 

For it is not the magic of streamlet or hill : 

O no ! it is something that sounds in the " till ! " 

My humble patronage, it is true, cannot do much for him in fashionable circles; 
for I never mixed much in the beau monde (at least in Ireland), during my life- 
time, and can be of no service, of course, when I'm dead ; nor will his " Melo- 
dies," I fear, though well adapted to mortal pianofortes, answer the purposes 
of that celestial choir in which I shall then be an obscure but cheerful vocalist. 
But as I have touched on this great topic of mortality, let Moore recollect that 
his course here below, however harmonious in the abstract, must have a finale ; 
and at his last hour let him not treasure up for himself the unpleasant retrospect 
of young genius nipped in the bud by the frost of his criticism, or glad enthu- 
siasm's early promise damped by inconsiderate sneers. O'Brien's book can, and 
will, no doubt, afford much matter for witticism and merriment to the super- 
ficial, the unthinking, and the profane ; but to the eye of candour it ought to 
have presented a page richly fraught with wondrous research redolent with 



IO2 The Works of Father Front. 

all the perfumes of Hindostan ; its leaves, if they failed to convince, should, 
like those of the mysterious lotus, have inculcated silence; and if the finger of 
meditation did not rest on every line, and pause on every period, the volume, 
at least, should not be indicated to the vulgar by the finger of scorn. Even 
granting that there were in the book some errors of fancy, of judgment, or of 
style, which of us is without reproach in our juvenile productions ? and though 
I myself am old, I am the more inclined to forgive the inaccuracies of youth. 
Again, when all is dark, who would object to a ray of light, merely because of 
the faulty or flickering medium by which it is transmitted? And if these round 
towers have been hitherto a dark puzzle and a mystery, must we scare away 
O'Brien because he approaches with a rude and unpolished but serviceable 
lantern? No ; forbid it, Diogenes : and though Tommy may attempt to put 
his extinguisher on the towers and their historian, there is enough of good 
sense in the British public to make common cause with O'Brien the enlightener. 
Moore should recollect, that knowledge conveyed in any shape will ever find a 
welcome among us ; and that, as he himself beautifully observes in his " Loves 
of the Angels" 

" Sunshine broken in the rill, 
Though turn'd aside, is sunshine still" 

For my own part, I protest to Heaven, that were I, while wandering in a 
gloomy forest, to meet on my dreary path the small, faint, glimmering light 
even of a glow-worm, I should shudder at the thought of crushing with my 
foot that dim speck of brilliancy ; and were it only for its being akin to brighter 
rays, honouring it for its relationship to the stars, I would not harm the little 
lamplighter as I passed along in the woodland shade. 

If Tommy is rabidly bent on satire, why does he not fall foul of Doctor 
Lardner, who has got the clumsy machinery of a whole Cyclopsedia at work, 
grinding that nonsense which he calls "Useful Knowledge?" Let the poet 
mount his Pegasus, or his Rosinante, and go tilt a lance against the doctor's 
windmill. It was unworthvof him to turn on O'Brien, after the intimacy of pri- 
vate correspondence ; and if he was inclined for battle, he might have found a 
seemlier foe. Surely my young friend was not the quarry on which the vulture 
should delight to pounce, when there are so many literary reptiles to tempt his 
beak and glut his maw ! Heaven knows, there is fair game and plentiful carrion 
on the plains of Boeotia. In the poet's picture of the pursuits of a royal bird, 
we find such sports alluded to 

" In reluctantes dracones 
Egit amor dapis atque pugnae." 

Let Moore, then, vent his indignation and satiate his voracity on the proper 
objects of a volatile of prey ; but he will find in his own province of imagina- 
tive poetry a kindlier element, a purer atmosphere, for his winged excursions. 
Long, long may we behold the gorgeous bird soaring through the regions of 
inspiration, distinguished in his loftier as in his gentler flights, and combining, 
by a singular miracle of ornithology, the voice of the turtle-dove, the eagle's 
eye and wing, with the plumage of the "bird of Paradise." 



MEM. On the zlthofjune, 1835, died, at the Hermitage, Han-well, " Henry 
OBrien, author of the Round Towers of Ireland." His portrait was hung up 
in the Gallery of REGINA on the ist of August following ; and the functionary 
who exhibits the " Literary Characters" dwelt thus on his merits : 

In the village graveyard of Hanwell (aef riii. ab vrbe lapideiii] sleeps the original of 
yonder sketch, and the rude forefathers of the Saxon hamlet have consented to receive 
among them the clay of a Milesian scholar. That "original" was no stranger to us. 



The Rogueries of Tom Moore. 103 

Some time back we had our misgivings that the oil in his flickering lamp of life would 
soon dry up ; still, we were not prepared to hear of his light being thus abruptly extin- 
guished. " One morn we missed him " from the accustomed table at the library of the 
British Museum, where the page of antiquity awaited his perusal ; " another came nor 
yet " was he to be seen behind the pile of " Asiatic Researches," poring over his 
favourite Herodotus, or deep in the Zendavesta. "The next" brought tidings of his 
death. 

"Au banquet de la vie, infortune' convive, 

J'apparus un jour, et je meurs : 
Je meurs, et sur la tombe oil, jeune encor, j'arrive 

Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." 

His book on the " Round Towers " has thrown more light on the early history of Ireland, 
and on the freemasonry of these gigantic puzzles, than will ever shine from the cracked 
pitchers of the " Royal Irish Academy," or the farthing candle of Tommy Moore. And 
it was quite natural that he should have received from them, during his lifetime, such 
tokens of malignant hostility as might sufficiently " tell how they hated his beams." The 
" Royal Irish " twaddlers must surely feel some compunction now, when they look back 
on their paltry transactions in the matter of the " prize essay ; " and though we do not 
expect much from " Tom Browc the younger," or " Tom Little," the author of sundry 
Tomfudgeries and Tomfooleries, still it would not surprise us if he now felt the necessity 
of atoning for his individual misconduct by doing appropriate penance in a white sheet or 
a " blue and yellow " blanket when next he walks abroad in that rickety go-cart of 
drivelling dotage, the Edinburgh Review. 

While Cicero was quaestor in Sicily, he discovered in the suburbs of Syracuse the 
neglected grave of Archimedes, from the circumstance of a symbolical cylinder indicat- 
ing the pursuits and favourite theories of the illustrious dead. Great was his joy at the 
recognition. No emblem will mark the sequestered spot where lies the CEdipus of the 
Round Tower riddle no hieroglyphic, 

" Save daisies on the mould, 

Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, 
His name and life's brief date." 

But ye who wish for monuments to his memory, go to his native land, and there cir- 
cutnspicite ! Glendalough, Devenish, Clondalkin, Inniscattery, rear their architectural 
cylinders ; and each, through those mystic apertures that face the cardinal points, pro- 
claims to the four winds of heaven, trumpet-tongued, the name of him who solved the 
problem of 3,000 years, and who first disclosed the drift of these erections ! 
Fame, in the Latin poet's celebrated personification, is described as perched 

" Sublimi culmine tecti, 
Turribus aut altis. " 

Mneid IV. 

That of O'B. is pre-eminently so circumstanced. From these proud pinnacles nothing 
can dislodge his renown. Moore, in the recent pitiful compilation meant for "a his- 
tory," talks of these monuments as being so many "astronomical indexes." He might 
as well have said they were tubes for the purposes of gastronomy. 'Tis plain he knew as 
little about their origin as he may be supposed to know of the " Hanging Tower of 
Pisa," or the " Torre degli Asinelli," or how the nose of the beloved resembled the tower 
of Damascus. 

Concerning the subject of this memoir, suffice it to add that he was born in the kingdom 
of Iveragh, graduated in T.C.D. (having been classically "brought up at the feet of" 
the Rev. Charles Boyton) ; and fell a victim here to the intense ardour with which he 
pursued the antiquarian researches that he loved. 

" Kerria me genuit ; studia, heu ! rapure ; tenet nunc 
Anglia : sed patriam turrigeram cecini." 

REGENT STREET, August i, 1835. 



IO4 The Works of Father Prout. 



VI. 

pitniture aufr % Jesuits. 

(Eraser 's Magazine, September 1834.) 



[This, in many ways, noble evidence of Mahony's gratitude to the great and learned 
Order to the fathers of which he owed so much of his ripe scholarship, appeared in the 
number of Fraser containing the portrait of the Rev. George Robert Gleig, author of 
"The Subaltern," twelve years afterwards appointed Chaplain-General of the Forces, the 
clerical novelist as portrayed by Maclise's pencil, hat in hand, and with his hands 
clasped before him, all but walking out of the picture as we examine his likeness. 
Rather incongruously, at the close of so loyal a tribute to his old masters, the Jesuits, 



hu 

introducing as a tailpiece to it in the 1836 edition his prol 

the cloisters, "Toutes pensent Stre JUa fin du mpnde.' Conspicuous, by the way, among 

the finest specimens of our author's graver Latin poetry, his Ode in celebration of the 

Vigil of Saint Ignatius Loyola, incidentally given in this sixth of the Prout Papers, is 

entitled to the reader's closest Consideration.] 



" Alii spem gentis adultos 
Educunt foetus : alii purissima mella 
Stipant, et liquido distendunt nectare cellas." 

VIRG. Gcorgic IV. 

"Through flowery paths 

Skill'd to guide youth, in haunts where learning dwells, 
They fill'd with honey'd lore their cloister'd cells." 

PROUT. 

THE recent massacre by a brutal populace in Madrid of fourteen Jesuits, in 
the hall of their college of St. Isidore, has drawn somewhat of notice, if not 
of sympathy, to this singular order of literati, whom we never fail, for the last 
three hundred years, to find mixed up with every political disturbance There 
is a certain species of bird well known to ornithologists, but better still to 
mariners, which is sure to make its appearance in stormy weather so con- 
stantly, indeed, as to induce among the sailors (durum genus} a belief that it is 
the fcrwl that has raised the tempest. Leaving this knotty point to be settled 
by Dr. Lardner in his "Cyclopaedia," at the article of " Mother Carey's 
Chickens," we cannot help observing, meantime, that since the days of the 
French League under Henri Trois, to the late final expulsion of the branche 
ainbe (an event which has marked the commencement of REGINA'S accession 
to the throne of literature), as well in the revolutions of Portugal as in the 
vicissitudes of Venice, in the revocation of the edict of Nantz, in the expulsion 
of James II., in the severance of the Low Countries from Spain, in the invasion 
of Africa by Don Sebastian, in the Scotch Rebellion of '45, in the conquest of 



Literature and the Jesuits. 105 

China by the Tartars, in all the Irish rebellions, from Father Salmeron in 1561, 
and Father Archer (for whom see " Pacata Hibernia"), to that anonymcus 
Jesuit who (according to Sir Harcourt Lees) threw the bottle at the Lord-Lieu- 
tenant in the Dublin Theatre some years ago, there is always one of this ill- 
fated society found in the thick of the confusion 

"And whether for good, or whether for ill, 

It is not mine to say ; 
But still to the house of Amundevilie 
He abideth night and day ! 

When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn, 

And when ought is to befall 
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine 

He walks from hall to hall." 

BYRON. 

However, notwithstanding the various and manifold commotions which 
these Jesuits have confessedly kicked up in the kingdoms of Europe and the 
commonwealth of Christendom, we, OLIVER YORKE, must admit that they have 
not deserved ill of the Republic of Letters ; and therefore do we decidedly set 
our face against the Madrid process of knocking out their brains ; for, in our 
view of things, the pineal gland and the cerebellum are not kept in such a 
high state of cultivation in Spain as to render superfluous a few colleges and 
professors of the litera humaniores. George Knapp, the vigilant mayor of 
Cork, was, no doubt, greatly to be applauded for demolishing with his civic 
club the mad dogs which invested his native town ; and he would have won 
immortal laurels if he had furthermore cleared that beautiful city of the idlers, 
gossips, and cynics, who therein abound ; but it was a great mistake of the 
Madrid folks to apply the club to the learned skulls of the few literati they 
possessed. We are inclined to think (though full of respect for Robert 
Southey's opinion) that, after all, Roderick was not the last of the Goths in 
Spain. 

When the Cossacks got into Paris in 1814, their first exploit was to eat up all 
the tallow-candles of the conquered metropolis, and to drink the train oil out 
of the lamps, so as to leave the ' ' Boulevards " in Cimmerian darkness. By 
murdering the schoolmasters, it would seem that the partisans of Queen 
Christina would have no great objection to a similar municipal arrangement 
for Madrid. But all this is a matter of national taste ; and as our gracious 
REGINA is no party to "the quadruple alliance," she has determined to adhere 
to her fixed system of non-intervention. 

Meantime the public will peruse with some curiosity a paper from Father 
Prout, concerning his old masters in literature. We suspect that on this 
occasion sentimental gratitude has begotten a sort of "drop serene" in his 
eye, for he only winks at the rogueries of the Jesuits; nor does he redden lor 
them the gridiron on which he gently roasts Dr. Lardner and Tom Moore. 
But the great merit of the essay is, that the composer evidently had opportunities 
of a thorough knowledge of his subject a matter of rare occurrence, and 
therefore quite refreshing. He appears, indeed, to be fully aware of his van- 
tage-giound : hence the tone of confidence, and the firm, unhesitating tenour 
of his assertions. This is what we like to see. A chancellor of England who 
rarely got drunk, Sir Thomas More, has left this bit of advice to folks in 
general : 

Wise men alwaye 

affirme and say 

that tis best for a man 

diligently 

for to apply 
to the business he can, 



ro6 TJie Works of Father Front. 

and in no wyse 
to enterprise 

another facultie. 
A simple hatter 
should not go smatter 

in philosophic ; 
nor ought a peddlar 
become a meddlar 

in theologie.* 

Acting on this principle, how gladly would we open our columns to a treatise 
by our particular friend, Marie Taglioni, on the philosophy (A hops I how 
cheerfully would we welcome an essay on heavy wet from the pen of Dr. 
Wade, or of Jack Reeve, or any other similarly qualified Chevalier de Malte ! 
We should not object to a tract on gin from Charley Pearson ; nor would we 
exclude Lord Althorp's thick notions on "flummery" or Lord Brougham's 
XXX. ideas on that mild alcohol which, for the sake of peace and quietness, 
we shall call "tea." Who would not listen with attention to Irving on a 
matter of " unknown tongues," or to O'Brien on " Round Towers?" Verily 
it belongeth to old Benjamin Franklin to write scientifically on the paratonnere ; 
and his contemporary, Talleyrand, has a paramount claim to lecture on the 
weather-cock. 

" Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis asquarn 
Viribus." 

Turning finally to thee, O Prout ! truly great was thy love of frolic, but still 
more remarkable thy wisdom. Thou wert a most rare combination of Socrates 
and Sancho Panza, of Scarron and the venerable Bede ! What would we not 
have given to have cracked a bottle with thee in thy hut on Watergrasshill, 
partaking of thy hospitable " herring," and imbibing thy deep flood of know- 
ledge with the plenitude of thy "Medoc?" Nothing gloomy, narrow, or 
Pharisaical, ever entered into thy composition " In wit, a man ; simplicity, a 
child." The wrinkled brow of antiquity softened into smiles for thee; and the 
Muses must have marked thee in thy cradle for their own. Such is the per- 
fume that breathes from thy chest of posthumous elucubrations, conveying a 
sweet fragrance to the keen nostrils of criticism, and recalling the funeral 
oration of the old woman in Phsedrus over her emptied flagon 

" O suavis anima ! quale te dicam bonum 
Antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquiae." 

OLIVER YORKE. 
REGENT STREET, ist Sept. 1834. 



WATERGRASSHILL, Dec. 1833. 

ABOUT the middle of the sixteenth century, after the vigorous arm of an 
Augustinian monk had sounded on the banks of the Rhine that loud tocsin of 

* See this excellent didactic poem printed at length in the elaborate preface to Dr. 



youthe." [The last six lines as printed by the Doctor run 
Whan an hatter 
Wyll go smatter 

In philosophy, 
Or a pedlar 
Ware a medlar 

In theology.] 



Literature and tJte Jesuits. 107 

reform that found such responsive echo among the Gothic steeples of Germany, 
there arose in southern Europe, as if to meet the exigency of the time, a body 
of popish men, who have been called (assuredly by no friendly nomenclator) 
the Janissaries of the Vatican. Professor Robertson, in his admirable " His- 
tory of Charles V.," introduces a special episode concerning the said "janis- 
saries ; " and, sinking for a time the affairs of the belligerent continent, turns 
his grave attention to the operations of the children of Loyola. The essay 
forms an agreeable interlude in the melodrama of contemporary warfare, and 
is exquisitely adapted to the purpose of the professor ; whose object was, I 
presume, to furnish his readers with a light divertimento. For surely and 
soberly (pace tanti viri dixerim) he did not expect that his theories on the 
origin, development, and mysterious organization of that celebrated society 
would pass current with any save the uninitiated and the profane ; nor did he 
ever contemplate the adoption of his speculations by any but the careless and 
unreflecting portion of mankind. It was a capital peg on which to hang the 
flimsy mantle of a superficial philosophy ; it was a pleasant race-ground over 
which to canter on the gentle back of a metaphysical hobby-horse : but what 
could a Presbyterian of Edinburgh, even though a pillar of the kirk, know 
about the inmost and most recondite workings of Catholic freemasonry? 
What could he tell of Jerusalem, he being a Samaritan ? Truly, friend 
Robertson, Father Prout would have taken the liberty, had he been in the 
historical workshop where thou didst indite that ilk, of acting the unceremonious 
part of ' ' Cynthius " in the eclogue : 

"Aurem 

Vellit et admonuit, ' Pasterem, Tityre, pingues 
Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen.' " 

What could have possessed the professor? Did he ever go through the 
Course of "'spiritual exercises ?" Did he ever eat a peck of salt with Loyola's 
intellectual and highly disciplined sons? "Had he ever manifested his con- 
science?" Did his venturous foot ever cross the threshold of the Jesuitical 
sanctuary? Was he deeply versed in the "ratio studiorum?" Had his ear 
ever drank the mystic whisperings of the monita secreta ? No ! Then why the 
deuce did he sit down to write about the Jesuits ? Had he not the Brahmins 
of India at his service ? Could he not take up the dervishes of Persia ? or the 
bonzes of Japan ? or the illustrious brotherhood of Bohemian gipsies ? or the 
" ancient order of Druids"? or all of them together? But, in the name of 
Cornelius a Lapide, why did he undertake to write about the Jesuits? 

I am the more surprised at the learned historian's thus indulging in the 
Homeric luxury of a transient nap, as he generally is broad awake, and scans 
with scrutinizing eye the doings of his fellow-men through several centuries of 
interest. To talk about matters of which he must necessarily be ignorant, never 
occurs (except in this case) to his comprehensive habit of thought : and it was 
reserved for modern days to produce that school of writers who industriously 
employ their pens on topics the most exalted above their range of mind, and 
the least adapted to their powers of illustration. The more ignorance, the 
more audacity. " Prince Puckler Muskaw " and "Lady Morgan" furnish the 
beau idtal of this class of scribblers. Let them get but a peep at the " toe of 
Hercules," and they will produce forthwith an accurate mezzotinto drawing of 
his entire godship. Let them get a footing in any country in the habitable globe 
for twenty-four hours, and their volume of " France," " England," " Italy," or 
" Belgium " is ready for the press. 

" Oh give but a glance, let a vista but gleam, 
Of any given country, and mark how they'll feel ! " 

It is not necessary that they should know the common idiom of the natives, 



zoS The Works of Father Front. 

or even their own language grammatically ; for Lady Morgan (aforesaid) stands 
convicted, in her printed rhapsodies, of being very little acquainted with French, 
and not at all with Italian : while her English, of which every one can judge, 
is poor enough. The Austrian authorities shut the gates of Germany against 
her impostures, not relishing the idea of such audacious humbug : in truth, 
what could she have done at Vienna, not knowing German ; though perhaps 
her obstetric spouse, Sir Charles, can play on the German flute ? 

" Lasciami por' nella terra il piede 
E vider' questi inconosciuti lidi, 
Vider' le gente, e il colto di lor fede, 
E tutto quellp onde uom saggio m' invidi, 
Quando mi gioveri narrare altrui 
Le noviti vedute, e dire, ' iofui ! ' " 

TASSO, Gerus. Lib. cant. 15, st. 38. 

There is in the county of Kildare a veritable Jesuits' college (of whose exist- 
ence Sir Harcourt Lees is well satisfied, having often denounced it) : it is called 
"Clongowes Wood;" and even the sacred "Groves of Blarney" do not so 
well deserve the honours of a pilgrimage as this haunt of classic leisure and 
studious retirement. Now Lady Morgan wanted to explore the learned cave of 
these literary coenobites, and no doubt would have written a book, entitled 
"Jesuitism in all its Branches," on her return to Dublin; but the sons of 
Loyola smelt a rat, and acted on the principle inculcated in the legend of St. 
Senanus (Colgan. Acta SS. Hyb.) : 

"Quid foeminis 
Commune, est cum monachis? 
Nee te nee ullam aliam 
Admittamus in insulam." 

For which Prout's blessing on 'em ! Amen. 

In glaring contrast and striking opposition to this system of forwardness and 
effrontery practised by the "lady" and the "prince," stands the exemplary 
conduct of Denny Mullins. Denny is a patriot and a breeches-maker in the 
town of Cork, the oracle of the " Chamber of Commerce," and looked up to 
with great reverence by the radicals and sans culottes who swarm in that beau- 
tiful city. The excellence of his leather hunting unmentionables is admitted by 
the Mac-room fox-hunters ; while his leather gaiters and his other straps are 
approved of by John Cotter of the branch bank of Ireland. But this is a mere 
parenthesis. Now when the boys in the Morea were kicking against the Sub- 
lime Porte, to the great delight of Joe Hume and other Corinthians, a grand 
political dinner occurred in the beautiful capital of Munster ; at which, after 
the usual flummery about Marathon and the Peloponnesus, the health of Prince 
Ypsilanti and " Success to the GreeKs " was given from the chair. There was 
a general call for Mullins to speak on this toast ; though why he should be 
selected none could tell, unless for the reason which caused the Athenians to 
banish Aristides, viz. his being " too honest." Denny rose and rebuked their 
waggery by protesting, that, " though he was a ptein man, he could always give 
a reason for what he was about. As to the modern Greeks, he would think 
twice before he either trusted them or refused them credit. He knew little about 
their forefathers, except what he had read in an author called Pope's ' Homer,' 
who says they were ' well-gaitered ;' and he had learned to respect them. But 
latterly, to call a man a ' Greek ' was, in his experience of the world, as bad as 
to call him 'a Jesuit ;' though, in both cases, few people had ever any personal 
knowledge of a real Jesuit or a bona fide Grecian." Such was the wisdom of 
the Aristides of Cork. 

Nevertheless, it is not my intention to enter on the debatable ground of ' ' the 
order's" moral or political character. Cerutti, the secretary of Mirabeau (whose 



Literature and the Jesuits. 



109 



funeral oration he was chosen to pronounce in the church of St. Eustache, April 
4, 1791), has written most eloquently on that topic ; and in the whole range of 
French polemics I know nothing so full of manly logic and genuine energy of 
style as his celebrated " Apologie des Jesuites" (8vo. Soleure, 1778). He after- 
wards conducted, with Rabaud St. Etienne, that firebrand newspaper. La Feuillc 
Villageoisc, in which there was red-hot enthusiasm enough to get all the chateaux 
round Paris burnt : but the work of his youth remains an imperishable perform- 
ance. My object is simply to consider " the Jesuits " in connection with litera- 
ture. None would be more opposed than I to the introduction of polemics 
into the domain of the " belles lettres," or to let angry disputation find its way 
into the peaceful vale of Tempe", 

" Pour changer en champ-clos I'harmonieux vallon ! " 

MILLEVOYE. 

The precincts of Parnassus form a "city of refuge," where political and 
religious differences can have no access, where the angry passions subside, and 
the wicked cease from troubling. Wherefore to the devil, its inventor, I be- 
queath the Gunpowder Plot ; and I shall not attempt to rake up the bones of 
Guy Faux, or disturb the ashes of Doctor Titus : not that Titus, ' ' the delight 
of the human race," who considered a day as lost when not signalized by some 
benefaction ; but Titus Gates, who could not sleep quiet on his pillow at night 
unless he had hanged a Jesuit in the morning. 

I have often in the course of these papers introduced quotations from the 
works of the Jesuit Cresset, the kind and enlightened friend of my early years ; 
and to that pure fountain of the most limpid poetry of France I shall again 
have occasion to return : but nothing more evinces the sterling excellence of 
this illustrious poet's mind than his conduct towards the "order," of which he 
had been an ornament until matters connected with the press caused his with- 
drawal from that society. His "Adieux aux Jesuites " are on record, and 
deserve the admiration which they excited at that period. A single passage will 
indicate the spirit of this celebrated composition : 

" Je dois tous mes regrets aux sages que je quitte ! 

J'en perds avec douleur 1'entretien vertueux ; 
Et si dans leurs foyers desormais je n'habite, 

Mon coeur me survit aupres d'eux. 
Car ne les crpis point tels que la main de 1'envie 

Les peint a des yeux prevenus : 
Si tu ne les connais que sur ce qu'en public 
La tenebreuse calomnie, 
Us te sont encore inconnus ! " 

To the sages I leave here's a heartfelt farewell ! 
'Twas a blessing within their loved cloisters to dwell, 

And my dearest affections shall cling round them still : 
Full gladly I mix'd their blessed circles among. 
And oh ! heed not the whisper of Envy's foul tongue ; 

If you list but to her, you must know them but ill. 

But to come at once to the pith and substance of the present inquiry, viz. 
the influence of the Jesuits on the belles lettres. It is one of the striking facts 
we meet with in tracing the history of this "order," and which D'Israeli may 
do well to insert in the next edition of his " Curiosities of Literature," that 
the founder of the most learned, and by far the most distinguished literary 
corporation that ever arose in the world, was an old soldier who took up his 
"Latin Grammar" when past the age of thirty; at which time of life Don 
Ignacio de Loyola had his leg shattered by an eigh teen-pounder, while 
defending the citadel of Pampeluna against the French. The knowledge of 
this interesting truth may encourage the great captain of the age, whom I do 
not yet despair of beholding in a new capacity, covering his laurelled brow 



no 



The Works of Father Prout. 



with a doctor's cap, and filling the chancellor's chair to the great joy of the 
public and the special delight of Oxford. 1 have seen more improbable 
events than this take place in my experience of the world. Be that as it 
may, this lieutenant in the Caijadores of his imperial majesty Charles V., 
called into existence by the vigour of his mind a race of highly educated 
followers. He was the parent-stock (or, if you will, the primitive block) 
from which so many illustrious chips were hewn during the XVI Ith century. 
If he had not intellect for his own portion, he most undeniably created it 
around him : he gathered to his standard men of genius and ardent spirits ; he 
knew how to turn their talents to the best advantage (no ordinary knowledge), 
and, like Archimedes at Syracuse, by the juxtaposition of reflectors, and the 
skilful combination of mirrors, so as to converge into a focus and c&ttcentrate 
the borrowed rays of the sun, he contrived to damage the enemy's fleet and 
fire the galleys of Marcellus. Other founders of monastic orders enlisted the 
prejudices, the outward senses, and not unfrequently the fanaticism of man- 
kind ; their appeal was to that love for the marvellous inherent to the human 
breast, and that latent pride which lurked long ago under the torn blanket of 
Diogenes, and which would have tempted Alexander to set up a rival tub. 
But Loyola's quarry was the cultivated mind ; and he scorned to work his 
purpose by any meaner instrumentality. When in the romantic hermitage of 
our Lady of Montserrat he suspended for ever over the altar his helmet and 
his sword, and in the spirit of most exalted chivalry resolved to devote him- 
self to holier pursuits one eagle glance at the state of Europe, just fresh 
from the revival of letters under Leo X., taught him how and with what 
weapons to encounter the rebel Augustinian monk, and check the pro- 
gress of disaffection. A short poem by an old schoolfellow of mine, who 
entered the order in 1754, and died a missionary in Cochin China, may 
illustrate these views. The Latin shows excellent scholarship; and my attempt 
at translation can give but a feeble idea of the original. 

PERVIGILIUM LOYOL/E DON IGNACIO LOYOLA'S VIGIL 



In Maria Sacello, 1522. 

Cum bellicosus Cantaber fe tholo 
Suspendit ensem, " Non ego lugubri 
Defuncta bello," dixit, "arma 
Degener aut timidus perire 

Miles resigno. Me nova buccina, 
Me non profani tessera praelii 
Deposcit ; et sacras secutus 
Auspicio meliore panes, 

Non indecorus transfuga, gloriae 
Signis relictis, nil cupientium 
Succedo castris, jam futurus 
Splendidior sine clade victor. 

Domare M ENTER, stringere fervidis 
Sacro catenis INGENIUM throno, 
Et cuncta terrarum subacta 
Corda Deo dare gestit ardor : 

Fraudis magistros artibus aemulis 
Deprzliando sternere ; sed magis 
Loyola Lutheri triumphos 
Orbe novo reparabit ultor ! " 

Tellus gigantis sentit iter : simul 
Idola nutant, fana ruunt, mic.it 
Christi triumphantis trophxum, 
Cruxque novos numeral clientes. 



In the Chapel of our Lady of Montserrat. 

When at thy shrine, most holy maid 1 
The Spaniard hung his votive blade. 

And bared his helmed brow 
Not that he fear'd war's visage grim, 
Or that the battle-field for him 

Had aught to daunt, I trow ; 

" Glory !" he cried, " with thee I've done ! 
Fame ! thy bright theatres I shun, 

To tread fresh pathways now : 
To track thy footsteps, Saviour God ! 
With throbbing heart, with feet unshod : 

Hear and record my vow. 

Yes, THOU shalt reign ! Chain'd to thy throne, 
The mind of man thy sway shall own, 

And to its conqueror bow. 
Genius his lyre to Thee shall lift, 
And intellect its choicest gift 

Proudly on Thee bestow." 

Straight on the marble floor he knelt, 
And in his breast exulting felt 

A vivid furnace glow ; 
Forth to his task the giant sped, 
Earth shook abroad beneath his tread, 

And idols were laid low. 



Literature and the Jesuits. in 

Videre gentes Xayerii jubar India repair'd half Europe's loss ; 

Igni corusco nubila dividens ) O'er a new hemisphere the Cross 

Coepitque mirans Christianos Shone in the azure sky ; 

Per medios fluitare Ganges. And, from the isles of far Japan 

To the broad Andes, won o'er man 
A bloodless victory ! 

Professor Robertson gravely opines that Ignatius was a mere fanatic, who 
never contemplated the subsequent glories of his order ; and that, were he to 
have revisited the earth a century after his decease, when his institute was 
making such a noise in the world, he would have started back, 

" Scared at the sound himself had made." 

Never did the historian adopt a more egregious blunder. Had he had leisure 
or patience to con over the original code, called INSTITUTVM Soc. JESV, he 
would have found in every paragraph of that profound and crafty volume the 
germs of wondrous future development ; he would have discovered the long- 
hidden but most precious ' ' soul of the licentiate Garcias " under the inscription 
that adorns the title-page. Yes, the mind of Loyola lies embalmed in the 
leaves of that mystic tome ; and the ark of cedar-wood, borne by the children 
of Israel along the sands of the desert, was not more essential to their happy 
progress unto the land of promise than that grand depository of the founder's 
wisdom was to the march of intellect among the Jesuits. 

Before his death, this old veteran of Charles V., this illiterate lieutenant, 
this crippled Spaniard from the "imminent and deadly breach " of Pampe- 
luna (for he too was lame, like Tyrteeus, Talleyrand, Lord Byron, Sir W. 
Scott, Tamerlane, and Appius Claudius], had the satisfaction of counting 
twelve "provinces" of his order established in Europe, Asia, Brazils, and 
Ethiopia. The members of the society amounted at that epoch (3151 July, 
1556), sixteen years after its foundation, to seven thousand educated men. 
Upwards of one hundred colleges had been opened. Xavier had blown 
the trumpet of the Gospel over India; Bobadilla had made a noise in 
Germany ; Caspar Nunes had gone to Egypt ; Alphonso Salmeron to Ireland. 
Meantime the schools of the new professors were attracting, in every part of 
Europe, crowds of eager pupils : industry and zeal were reaping their best 
reward in the visible progress of religion as well as literature : 

" Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella ! " 

At the suppression of the order, it numbered within a fraction of twenty 
thousand well-trained, well-disciplined, and well-taught members. 

There is an instinct in great minds that tells them of their sublime 
destinies, and gives them secret but certain warning of their ultimate gran- 
deur : like Brutus, they have seen a spirit of prophetic import, whether for 
good or evil, who will meet them at Philippi : like Plato, they keep correspon- 
dence with a familiar caiijuov : like Napoleon, they read their meridian glories 
of successful warfare in the morning sun; sure as fate, Loyola saw the future 
laurels of his order, and placed full reliance on the anticipated energy of his 
followers yet unborn : the same reliance which that giant fowl of Arabia, the 
ostrich, must entertain, when, depositing its monstrous egg on the sands, it 
departs for ever, leaving to the god of day the care of hatching into life its 
vigorous young. 

Industry, untiring ardour, immortal energy were the characteristics of these 
learned enthusiasts. Some cleared away the accumulated rubbish of the 
friars, their ignorant predecessors ; and these were the pioneers of literature. 
Some gave editions of the Fathers or the Classics, hitherto pent up in the 
womb of MS. ; these were the accoucheurs of knowledge. Others, for the 
use of schools, carefully expurgated the received authors of antiquity, and 



112 The Works of Father Prout. 



suppressed every prurient passage, performing, in usum Dclphini, a very 
meritorious task. I need not say to what class of operators in surgery these 
worthy fathers belonged. Some wrote "commentaries" on Scripture, which 
Junius undervalues ; but with all his acquirements, I would sooner take the 
guidance of Cornelius & Lapide in matters of theology. Finally, some wrote 
original works ; and the shelves of every European library groan under the 
folios of the Jesuits. 

There is not, perhaps, a more instructive and interesting subject of inquiry 
in the history of the human mind than the origin, progress, and workings of 
what are called monastic institutions. It is a matter on which I have bestowed 
not a little thought, and I may one day plunge into the depths thereof in a 
special dissertation. But I cannot help adverting here to some causes that 
raised the order of the Jesuits so far above all the numerous and fantastical 
fraternities to which the middle ages had previously given birth. Loyola saw 
the vile abuses which had crept into these institutions, and had the sagacity to 
eschew the blunders of his predecessors. Idleness was the most glaring evil 
under which monks and friars laboured in those days ; and hence incessant 
activity was the watchword of his sons. The rules of other " orders " begot a 
grovelling and vulgar debasement of mind, and were calculated to mar and 
cripple the energies of genius, if it ever happened exceptionally to lurk under 
" the weeds of Francis or of Dominick :" but all the regulations of the Jesuits 
had a tendency to develop the aspirings of intellect, and to expand the scope 
and widen the career of talent . The system of mendicancy adopted by each 
holy brotherhood as the ground-work of its operations, did not strike Loyola 
as much calculated to give dignity or manliness to the human character; hence 
he left his elder brethren in quiet possession of that interesting department. 
When cities, provinces, or kings founded a Jesuits' college, they were sure of 
getting value in return; hence most of their collegiate halls were truly magnifi- 
cent, and they ought to have been so. When of old a prince wished to 
engage Zeno as tutor to his son, and sought to lower the terms of the 
philosopher by stating, that with such a sum he could purchase a slave, " Do 
so, by all means, and you will have a pair of them," was the pithy reply of 
the indignant Stoic. 

I do not undervalue the real services of some " orders" of earlier institu- 
tion. I have visited with feelings of deep respect the gorgeous cradle of the 
Benedictine institute at Monte Cassino ; and no traveller has explored Italy's 
proud monuments of Roman grandeur with more awe than I did that 
splendid creation of laborious and persevering men. I have seen with less 
pleasure the wcrk of Bruno, la Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble; he 
excluded learning from the solitude to which he drew his followers : but I 
have hailed with enthusiasm the sons of Bernard on the Alps ministering to 
the wants of the pilgrim ; and I knew, that while they prowled with their 
mountain-dogs in quest of wayworn travellers, their brethren were occupied 
far off in the mines of Mexico and Peru, soothing the toils of the encavemed 
slave. But while I acknowledged these benefactions, I could not forget the 
crowds of lazy drones whom the system has fostered in Europe : the humor- 
ous lines of Berchoux, in his clever poem " La Gastronomic," involuntarily 
crossed my mind : 

" Oui, j'avais un bon oncle en votre ordre, eleve" 
D'un merite eclatant, gastronome acheve" ; 
Souvent il m'etalait son brillant refectoire, 
CVStait la du couvent la veritable gloire ! 
Garni des biens exquis qu'enfante 1'univers, 
Vins d'un bouquet celeste, et mets d'un gout divers ! 

" Cloitres majestueux ! fortune's monastics ! 
Retraite du repos des vertus solitaires, 



Literature and the Jesuits. 113 

Je vous ai vu tpmber, le coeur gros des soupirs ; 
Mais je vous ai gardti d'uternels souvenirs ! 
Je scais qu'on a prouve que vous aviez grand tort, 
Mais que ne prouve-t-on pas quand on est le plus fort ? " 

This last verse is a capital hit, in its way. 

But to return to the Jesuits. Their method of study, or ratio studiorum, 
compiled by a select quorum of the order, under the guidance of the pro- 
found and original Father Maldonatus,* totally broke up the old machinery 
of the schools, and demolished for ever the monkish fooleries of contemporary 
pedagogues. Before the arrival of the Jesuits in the field of collegiate exer- 
cises, the only skill applauded or recognized in that department consisted in a 
minute and servile adherence to the deep-worn tracks left by the passage of 
Aristotle's cumbrous waggon over the plains of learning. The well-known 
fable of Gay, concerning 

"A Grecian youth of talents rare," 

whom he describes as excelling in the hippodrome of Athens by the fidelity 
with which he could drive his chariot-wheels within an inch of the exact circle 
left on the race-course by those who had preceded, was the type and model of 
scholastic excellence. The Jesuits, in every university to which they could get 
access, broke new ground. Various and fierce were the struggles against those 
invaders of the territory and privileges of Bosotia; dulness opposed his old 
bulwark, the vis inertice, in vain. Indefatigable in their pursuit, the new 
professors made incessant inroads into the domains of ignorance and sloth ; 
awfully ludicrous were the dying convulsions of the old universitarian system, 
that had squatted like an incubus for so many centuries on Paris, Prague, 
Alcala, Valladolid, Padua, Cracow, and Coimbra. But it was in the halls of 
their own private colleges that they unfolded all their excellence, and toiled 
unimpeded for the revival of classic studies. " Consule scholas Jesuitarum," 
exclaims the Lord Chancellor Bacon, who was neither a quack nor a swiper, 
but " spoke the words of sobriety and truth." (Vide Opus de Dignit. Scient. 
lib. vii.) And Cardinal Richelieu has left on record, in that celebrated docu- 
ment the "Testament Politique,'' part i. chap. 2, sect. 10, his admiration of 
the rivalry in the race of science which the order created in France. 

Forth from their new college of Lafleche came their pupil Descartes, to dis- 
turb the existing theories of astronomy and metaphysics, and start new and 
unexampled inquiries. Science until then had wandered a captive in the 
labyrinth of the schools ; but the Cartesian Daedalus fashioned wings for 
himself and for her, and boldly soared among the clouds. Tutored in their 
college of Fayenza (near Rimini), the immortal Torricelli reflected honour on 
his intelligent instructors by the invention of the barometer, A.D. 1620. Of 
the education of Tasso they may well be proud. Justus Lipsius, trained in 
their earliest academies, did good service to the cause of criticism, and cleared 
off the cobwebs of the commentators and grammarians. Soon after, Cassini 
rose from the benches of their tuition to preside over the newly established 
Observatoire in the metropolis of France ; while the illustrious Tournefort 
issued from their halls to carry a searching scrutiny into the department of 
botanical science, then in its infancy. The Jesuit Kircherf meantime astonished 
his. contemporaries by his untiring energy and sagacious mind, equally con- 
spicuous in its most sublime as in its trifling efforts, whether he predicted with 
precision the eruption of a volcano, or invented that ingenious plaything the 
" Magic Lantern." Father BoscovichJ shone subsequently with equal lustre : 

* See Bayle's Diet., art. Maldonat. 

t Mtindus Subterraneus, Artist. 1664, 2 vols. fol. China Illustrat., ibid. 1667, folio. 
De Usu Obeliscor. Rema>, 1666, folio. Museum Kircher, ibid. 1709, folio. 
% Born at Ragusa, on the Adriatic ; taught by the Jesuits, in their college in that 



H4 The Works of Father Front. 

and it was a novel scene, in 1759, to find a London Royal Society preparing to 
send out a Jesuit to observe the transit of Venus in California. His pane- 
gyric, from the pen of the great Lalande, fills the Journal des S<n'<7tis, 
February 1792. To Fathers Riccioli and De Billy science is also deeply in- 
debted. 

Forth from their college of Dijon, in Burgundy, came Bossuet to rear his 
mitred front at the court of a despot, and to fling the bolts of his tremendous 
oratory among a crowd of elegant voluptuaries. Meantime the tragic muse of 
Corneille was cradled in their college of Rouen ; and, under the classic guid- 
ance of the fathers who taught at the College de Clermont, in Paris, Moliere 
grew up to be the most exquisite of comic writers. The lyric poetry of Jean 
Baptiste Rousseau was nurtured by them in their college of Louis le Grand. 
And in that college the wondrous talent of young " Frai^ois Arouet " was also 
cultivated by these holy men, who little dreamt to what purpose the subsequent 
"Voltaire " would convert his abilities 

" Non hos quaesitum munus in usus." 

sEncid. IV. 

D'Olivet, Fontenelte, Crebillon, Le Franc de Pompignan there is scarcely a 
name known to literature during the seventeenth century which does not bear 
testimony to their prowess in the province of education no profession for 
which they did not adapt their scholars. For the bar they tutored the illus- 
trious Lamoignon (the Maecenas of Racine and Boileau). It was they who 
taught the vigorous ideas of D'Argenson how to shoot ; they who breathed into 
the young Montesquieu his "Esprit;" they who reared those ornaments of 
French jurisprudence, Nicoliii, Mole 1 , Seguier, and Amelot. 

Their disciples could wield the sword. Was the great Conde deficient in 
warlike spirit for having studied among them ? was Marechal Villars a discredit- 
able pupil? Need I give the list of their other belligerent scholars? De 
Grammont, De Boumers, De Rohan, De Brissac, De Etr^es, De Soubise, De 
Crequi, De Luxembourg, in France alone. 

Great names these, no doubt ; but literature is the title of this paper, and 
to that I would principally advert as the favourite and peculiar department of 
their excellence. True, the Society devoted itself most to church history and 
ecclesiastical learning, such being the proper pursuit of a sacerdotal body ; and 
success in this, as in every study, waited on their industry. The archaiologist 
is familiar with the works of Father Petavius, whom Grotius calls his friend ; 
with the labours of Fathers Sirmond, Bolland, Hardouin, Labbe, Parennin, 
and Tournemine. The admirer of polemics (if there be any such at this time 
of day) is acquainted with Bellarmin, Menochius, Suarez, Tolet, Becan, Sheff- 
maker, and (last, though not least) O ! Cornelius a Lapide, with thee ? But in 
classic lore, as well as in legendary, the Jesuits excelled. Who can pretend to 
the character of a literary man that has not read Tiraboschi and his "Storia 
della Letteratura d'ltalia," Bouhours on the " Manniere de bien penser," Bru- 
moy on the "Theatre des Grecs," Vavassour "de Ludicra Dictione," Rapin's 

town ; entered the order at the age of sixteen ; was sent to Rome, and forthwith was 
made professor of mathematics in the Archigymn. Rom. ; was employed by the Papal 
Government in the measurement of the arc of meridian, which he traced from Rome to 
Rimini, assisted by an English Jesuit, Mayer ; in 1750, employed by the Republic of 
Lucca in a matter relating to their marshes ; subsequently by the Emperor of Austria ; 
and was elected, in 1760, a fellow of the London Royal Society, to whom he dedicated 
his poem on the " Eclipses," a clever manual of astronomy. His grand work on the 
properties of matter (Lex Continuitatis) was printed at Rome, 410, 1754. We have 
also from his pen, Dioptrica, Vind. 1767 ; Mathesis Universa, Venetiis, 1757 ; Lens et 
Telescop., Rom. 1755 ; Theoria Philos. Natur., Vienna?, 1758. The French Government 
invited him to Paris, where he died in 1792, in the sentiments of unfeigned piety which 
he ever displayed. 



Literature and the Jesuits. 115 

poem on the "Art of Gardening" (the model of those by Dr. Darwin and 
Abbs' Delille), Vaniere's " Praedium Rusticum," Tursellin "de Particulis 
Latini Sermonis," and Casimir Sarbievi's Latin Odes, the nearest approach to 
Horace in modern times ? What shall I say of Poree (Voltaire's master), of 
Sanadon, of Desbillons, Sidronius, Jouvency, and the "journalistes de Tre- 
voux?" 

They have won in France, Italy, and Spain, the palm of pulpit eloquence. 
Logic, reason, wisdom, and piety, dwelt in the soul of Bourdaloue, and flowed 
copiously from his lips. Lingendes, Cheminais, De la Rue, were at the head 
of their profession among the French ; while the pathetic and unrivalled 
Segneri took the lead among the eloquent orators of Italy. In Spain, a Jesuit 
has done more to purify the pulpit of that fantastic country than Cervantes to 
clear the brains of its chivalry; for the comic romance of " Fray Gerundio" 
(Friar Gerund), by the Jesuit Isla, exhibiting the ludicrous ranting of the cowled 
fraternity of that day, has had the effect, if not of giving eloquence to clods of 
the valley, at least of putting down absurdity and presumption. 

They wooed and won the muse of history, sacred and profane. Strada* in 
Flanders, Maffeif at Genoa, Mariana J in Seville. In France, Maimbourg.8 
Daniel, || Boujeant.^f Charlevoix,** Berruyer.ft D'Orleans.JJ Ducerceau, 
and Du Halde,|||| shed light on the paths of historical inquiry which they 
severally trod. I purposely omit the ex-Jesuit Raynal. 

They shone in art as well as in science. Father Pozzi was one of Rome's 
best painters. A Jesuit was employed in the drainage of the Pontine marshes ; 
another to devise plans for sustaining the dome of St. Peter's, when it threat- 
ened to crush its massive supports. In naval tactics (a subject estranged from 
sacerdotal researches) the earliest work on the strategy proper to ships of the 
line was written by Pure le Hoste, known to middies as " the Jesuits' book," its 
French title being "Traite des Evolutions Navales." The first hint of aerial 
navigation came from Padre Lana, in his work de Arte Prodromo, Milan. 
Newton acknowledges his debt to Father Grimaldi, de Lumine Coloribus et 
Iride, Bononiae, 1665, for his notions on the inflexion of light. The best edi- 
tion of Newton's Principia was brought out at Geneva, 1739-60, by the Jesuits 
Lesueur and Jaquier, in 3 vols. In their missions through Greece, Asia Minor, 
and the islands of the Archipelago, they were the best antiquaries, botanists, 
and mineralogists. They became watchmakers, as well as mandarins, in China ; 
they were astronomers on the ' ' plateau " of Thibet ; they taught husbandry 
and mechanics in Canada ; while in their own celebrated and peculiar conquest 
(since fallen into the hands of Doctor Fran9ia) on the plains of PARAGUAY, 
they taught the theory and practice of civil architecture, civil economy, farming, 
tailoring, and all the trades of civilized life. They played on the fiddle and on 
the flute, to draw the South American Indians from the forests into their villages ; 
and the story of Thebes rising to the sound of Amphion's lyre ceased to be a 
fable. 
We find them in Europe and at the antipodes, in Siam and at St. Omer's, in 

* " De Bello Belgico." 
" Rerum Intlicar. Hist." 

'Histor. di Espana." De Regis Institutione, Toledo, 1599. 

'.' Histoire de I'Arianisme, des Iconoclastes, des Croisades, du Calvinism, de la 
Ligue." 

' Hist, de France." "De la Milice Francaise." 
( Hist. du TraitS de Wcstphalie." " Ame des Betes," &c. 
' Hist, du Paraguay, du Japon, de St. Domingue. " 
' Du Peuple de Diou." 
' Revolutions d'Angleterre." 
us 'Conjuration de Rienzi," &c., &c. 
III! ' Description Gcogr. Histor. Politic, et Physique de la Chine." Land. 1742, 2 vols. 
folio. 



ii6 The Works of Father Front. 

1540 and in 1830 every where the same. Lainez preached before the Council 
of Trent in 1560; Rev. Peter Kenney was admired by the North American 
Congress not many years ago. Tiraboschi was librarian of the Brera in 1750 : 
Angelo Mai (ex-Jesuit) is librarian of the Vatican in 1833. By the bye, they 
were also capital apothecaries. Who has not heard of Jesuits' bark, Jesuits' 
drops, Jesuks' powders, Jesuits' cephalic snuff? 

" Qua: regio in terns nostri non plena laboris ? " 

sEneid. I. 

And, alas ! must I add, who has not heard of the cuffs and buffetings, the 
kicks and halters, which they have met with in return : 

" Qua caret ora cruore nostro? " 

Hor. lib. ii. ode i. 

For, of course, no set of men on the face of God's earth have been more abused. 
Tis the fate of every mortal who raises himself by mother-wit above the com- 
mon level of fools and dunces, to be hated by the whole tribe most cordially : 
" Urit enim fulgore suo," &c. 

Hor. lib. ii. ep. i. 

The friars were the. first to raise a hue and cry against the Jesuits, with one 
Melchior Cano, a Dominican, for their trumpeter. Ignatius had been taken up 
by "the Inquisition" three several times. Then came the pedants of the uni- 
versity at Paris, whom these new professors threw into the shade. The "order" 
was next at loggerheads with that suspicious gang of intriguers, the council and 
doge of Venice ; the Jesuits were expelled the republic.* Twice they were 
expelled from France ; but, thrust out of the door, they came back through the 
window. They encountered, like Paul, "stripes, perils, and prisons," in 
Poland, in Germany, in Portugal, and Hungary. They were hanged by dozens 
in England. Their march for two centuries through Europe was only to be 
compared to the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon. 

A remarkable energy, a constant discipline, a steady perseverance, and a 
dignified self-respect, were their characteristics from the beginning. They did 
not notice the pasquinades of crazy Pascal, whose " Provincial Letters," made 
up of the raspings of antiquated theology and the scrapings of forgotten casu- 
istry, none who knew them ever thought much of. The sermons of Bourda- 
loue were the only answer such calumnies required ; and the order confined 
itself to giving a new edition of the " I^ttres edifiantes et curieuses, ecrites par 
nos Missionaires du Levant, de la Chine, du Canada, et du Malabar." When 
a flimsy accusation was preferred against him of Africa, 

" Hunc qui 
Duxit ab eversfl, meritum Carthagine nomen," 

ho acted in a similar manner, and silenced his miserable adversaries. 

If ever there was an occasion on which the comparative merits of the Jesuits 
and Jansenists could be brought to the test, it was at the outbreak of the 
pestilential visitation that smote the city of Marseilles; and which history, 
poetry, and piety, will never allow to be forgotten : 

" Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath, 
When nature sicken'd, and each gale was death?" 

POPE'S Essay on Man, ep. 4. 

For while the Pharisees of that school fled from their clerical functions, and 
sneaked off under some paltry pretext, the Jesuits came from the neighbouring 
town of Aix to attend the sick and the dying; and, under the orders of th.it 

* In Bayle's Dictionary, among the noter. appended to the article on Ahclard, will be 
found the real cause of their expulsion ; they may be proud of it. 



Literature and the Jesuits. 117 

gallant and disinterested bishop, worked, while life was spared them, in the 
cause of humanity. Seven of them perished in the exercise of this noblest 
duty, amid the blessings of their fellow-men. The bishop himself, De Belzunce, 
had not only studied under the Jesuits, but had been a member of the order 
during the early part of his ecclesiastical career at Aix, in 1691. 

Long ago, that noblest emanation of Christian chivalry an order in which 
valorous deeds were familiar as the " matin song" or the "vesper hymn" the 
Templars, fell the victims of calumny, and were immolated amid the shouts of 
a vulgar triumph ; but history, keen and scrutinizing, has revealed the true 
character of the conspiracy by which the vices of a few were made to swamp 
and overwhelm, in the public eye, the great mass of virtue and heroism which 
constituted that refined and gentlemanly association ; and a tardy justice has 
been rendered to Jacques Molay and his illustrious brethren. The day may yet 
come when isolated instances and unauthenticated misdeeds will cease to create 
an unfounded antipathy to a society which will be found, taking it all in all, 
to have deserved well of mankind. This, at least, is Father Prout's honest 
opinion; and why should he hide it under a bushel? 

The most convincing proof of their sterling virtue is to be found in the docil- 
ity and forbearance they evinced in promptly submitting to the decree of their 
suppression, issued ex cathedra, by one Ganganelli, a Franciscan friar, who had 
got enthroned, Heaven knows how ! on the pontific chair. In every part of 
Europe they had powerful friends, and could have "shown fight " and " died 
game," if their respect for the successor of "the fisherman " had not been all 
along a distinctive characteristic, even to the death. In Paraguay they could have 
decidedly spurned the mandate of the Escurial, backed by an army of 60,000 
Indians, devoted to their spiritual and temporal benefactors, taught the tactics 
of Europe, and possessing, in 1750, a well-appointed train of artillery. That 
portion of South America has since relapsed into barbarism ; and the results of 
their withdrawal from the interior of that vast peninsula have fully justified the 
opinion of Muratori, in his celebrated work on Paraguay, "II Christianesimo 
felice." It was a dismal day for literature in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, when 
their colleges were shut up ; and in France they alone could have stayed the 
avalanche of irreligion ; for, by presenting Christianity to its enemies clad in 
the panoply of Science, they would have awed the scoffer, and confounded the 
philosophe. But the Vatican had spoken. They bowed ; and quietly dispers- 
ing through the cities of the continent, were welcomed and admired by every 
friend of science and of piety. The body did not cease to do good even after 
its dissolution in 1763, and, like the bones of the prophet, worked miracles of 
usefulness even in the grave.* 

Contrast their exemplary submissiveness with the frenzy and violence of their 
old enemies the Jansenists (of which sour and pharisaical sect Pascal was the 
mouthpiece), when the celebrated bull Unigenitus was issued against them. 
Never did those unfortunate wights, whom the tyrant Phalaris used to enclose 
in his brazen cow, roar so lustily as the clique of Port Royal on the occasion 
alluded to. It was, in fact, a most melancholy exhibition of the wildest fanati- 
cism, combined, as usual, with the most pertinacious obstinacy. The followers 
of Pascal were also the votaries of a certain vagabond yclept le Diacre Paris, 
whose life was a tissue of rascality, and whose remains were said by the Jansen- 
ists to operate wondrous cures in the churchyard of St. Medard, in one of the 
fauxbourgs of the capital. The devotees of Port Royal flocked to the tomb of 
the deacon, and became forthwith hysterical and inspired. The wags of Louis 

"And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, behold they spied a band of 
robbers ; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha : and when the man 
touched the bones of Elisha he came to life, and stood upon his feet." 2 Kings, chap, 
xiii. ver. 21. 



iiS 



The Works of Father Front. 



the Fifteenth's time called them " Lcs Convuhionnaircs." Things rose to 
such a height of dangerous absurdity at last that the cemetery was shut up by 
the police ; and a wit had an opportunity of writing on the gates of the afore- 
said churchyard this pointed epigram : 

" De par le roy, defense i Dieu, 
De faire miracles en ce lieu." 

And I here conclude this very inadequate tribute of long-remembered 
gratitude towards the men who took such pains to drill my infant mind, and 
who formed with plastic power whatever good or valuable quality it may 
possess. "Si quid est in me ingenii, judices (et sentio quam sit exiguum), si 
quae exercitatio ab optimarum artium disciplinis profecta, earum rerum fruc- 
tum, sibi, suo jure, debsnt repetere." (CiCERO/w Archil poet.) And as for 
the friend of my youth, the accomplished Cresset, whose sincerity and kindness 
will be ever embalmed in my memory, I cannot show my sense of his varied 
excellencies in a more substantial way than by making an effort a feeble one, 
but the best I can command to bring him before the English public in his 
most agreeable production, the best specimen of graceful and harmless humour 
in the literature of France. I shall upset Vert- Vert into English verse, for 
the use of the intelligent inhabitants of these islands; though I much fear, 
that to transplant so delicate an exotic into this frigid climate may prove an 
unsuccessful experiment. 



VERT- VERT, THE PARROT. 

A POEM BY THE JESUIT CRESSET. 

Hys Original Innocence. 

ALAS ! what evils I discern in 

Too great an aptitude for learning ! 

And fain would all the ills unravel 

That aye ensue from foreign travel ; 

Far happier is the man who tarries 

Quiet within his household "Lares :" 

Read, and you'll find how virtue vanishes, 

How foreign vice all goodness banishes, 

And how abroad young heads will grow dizzy, 

Proved in the underwritten Odyssey. 

In old Nevers, so famous for its 
Dark narrow streets and Gothic turret 1 ;, 
Close on the brink of Loire's young llood, 
Flourished a convent sisterhood 
Of Ursulities. Now in this order 
A parrot lived as parlour-boarder ; 
Brought in his childhood from the Antilles, 
And sheltered under convent mantles : 
Green were his feathers, green his pinions, 
And greener still were his opinions : 
For vice had not yet sought to pervert 
This bird, who had been christened Vert-Vert', 
Nor could the wicked world defile him, 
Safe from its snares in this asylum. 
Fresh, in his teens, frank, gay, and gracious, 
And, to crown all, somewhat loquacious ; 
If we e amine close, not one, or he, 
Had a vo