Upon this distinguished day the hospitable board was loaded with every luxury; generous Burgundy and enlivening Champaign flowed around in bumpers; while it seemed a mooted matter of opinion which was most to be admired, the generous courtesy and hospitality of the noble proprietor of the castle, the excellence of his viands and wines, or the "soul of music" that breathed around!
Moments of convivial joy and harmony, however, soon pass by, and are forgotten likewise in the advance of time.
The following morning, soon after breakfast was concluded, the Duke of Tyrconnel bade an affectionate adieu to the Lord of Tarah, and accompanied by Lord Glandarah, set off in his travelling carriage for the castle of Dublin. The journey was safely proceeded on to Dunshauglin, where the Duke's state carriages and horses were in attendance to convey him to Dublin, accompanied by a squadron of horse.
As he approached the city of Dublin, at the barrier of Barrack-street the horses were taken from the carriage by the populace, and His Grace was drawn in triumph to the capital; all the cathedral and church bells ringing forth a merry peal. His Grace was sworn into his high office, the patent having been read, before the privy council; at the same moment three rockets in succession ascended from Birmingham Tower, which were signals of His Grace having been sworn into his high official station; and were duly responded to by the salute-battery in His Majesty's royal chase, or park; and the salute was again returned by the battery stationed on the south-wall of the Liffey. At night a general and splendid illumination succeeded, which concluded the rejoicings of this most memorable day.
Fully resolved justly and conscientiously to discharge with unremitting and unceasing attention the responsible duties of his high office, the Duke now commenced his vice-regal career. He arose at an early hour, and whatever public business was to be transacted, he constantly despatched before the hour of breakfast. He was polite, courteous, and accessible to all; his was the suaviter in modo, but it was also accompanied with the fortiter in re.
The first day for holding a vice-regal levee, as specified by public notice from the Chamberlain's office, having arrived, it commenced exactly at one o'clock, and was most numerously attended. Among the vast assemblage were noticed the Lord Mayor, the Lord High Chancellor Sir Alexander Fitton Lord Baron of Gausworth; the judges and great officers of state; a long train of gentry, numerous members of the lower and upper houses of parliament attended; many a grave and reverend prelate, and many a baron bold—"Post alios; fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum," &c.
The company appeared arrayed in full and appropriate court costume. There were likewise present the different staff officers, besides those of the garrison; and a large body of ecclesiastics, Protestant and Catholic, attended. The ceremonies of the day were throughout conducted with great decorum and propriety.
Among the notable personages that were this day presented to the Duke, we must not omit to notice the Honourable Mr. Berenger, M. P. for the County of——, of an ancient and ennobled family, whose ancestor came to Ireland in the time of the second Henry. He wore a very large black curled peruke, which flowed like a lion's mane adown his shoulders; his coat and small-clothes were of light blue velvet, richly embroidered; a waistcoat richly worked, and adorned with foliations formed of various precious stones. He wore, too, a superb diamond-hilted sword; diamond shoe and knee buckles; silk stockings, with gold embroidered clokes; and the heels of his shoes were of red Morocco leather. He was indeed, beyond all dispute, the unparalleled dandy of his day! Mr. Berenger had been in his youth a very handsome man; but his face now was deadly pale; and his eyes, which had been once brilliant as the diamonds which adorned him, reposed, dim and shorn of their beams, within their hollow and shrivelled sockets. Time, too, had left his stern impress in the indented furrows of the cheek and the care-scored wrinkles of his brow: he looked the languid voluptuary, while surfeit and satiety seemed to seal up his lips. His figure, notwithstanding, was yet even still fine and commanding. His countenance, however, spoke more plainly of the preterpluperfect than either of the present or future tense. His eyes reposed on the carpet or upon vacancy; they had in them "no speculation, that they did glare withal." When attending the gay and dissipated court of the second Charles he had often revelled with Rochester, and jested with Killigrew and, moreover, had the high distinction paid him of being called "a very finished gentleman indeed" by the witty monarch, "whose word no man relied on!"
The eccentric Mr. Berenger had severally proposed at three different times a matrimonial alliance with Lady Lucy, the Duke's youngest sister, who politely, but positively refused him; and upon some overtures to renew his solicitations, Lady Lucy observed, that as she had so long delayed to marry for love, she was now resolved not to marry in the capacity of a nurse-tender! This was so home an argumentum ad superbiam a cut and thrust at the pride of the Honourable Member, that he now seemed to have no intention of becoming a Benedict. Lady Letitia found great fault with her sister, complained of her cruelty, and sturdily maintained "that the Honourable M. P. having shewn such a confirmed constancy, ought not to have met with this sharp repulse; for it was evident and manifest that Mr. Berenger did not indeed belong to the shabby class of 'perhaps' suitors.
But it is now time that we should return from this digression. Sir John Caldwell was at the levee, and his protegé, our quondam acquaintance Doctor Dismal Drew, a newly-appointed chaplain, in a gown and cassock spick and span, who having fully acceded to the rules and stipulations of address, costume, and conduct, appeared indeed to have been moulded into quite a different personage. However his strange absence of mind and defect of judgment fully remained unaltered, as was fully exemplified on the ensuing Sunday, when he preached a sermon at the castle chapel before the Duke and his vice-regal suite. The text was chosen in bad tact, however, and still worse policy: it was selected from the xxvth chapter of Proverbs, 5th verse: "Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness!" This was unquestionably an uncalled for attack upon the ministry, upon the noble viceroy, and on his patron; and his name was struck out of the list of chaplains, never to be again restored. So much for Doctor Drew! whose head seemed to be obtuse albeit—certainly, however, it was never destined to be encircled with that ornament with which Sancho crowned the head of his favourite Dapple.
Early on the succeeding day her Grace the Duchess of Tyrconnel, the lovely Lady Adelaide, Ladies Letitia and Lucy, escorted by the polite and facetious Sir Patricius Placebo, arrived safely at Dublin Castle, and were most warmly and affectionately received by the Duke and viceroy.
The vice-regal party sat down to dinner at their usual and not irrational hour of four o'clock, which, in these our modern days of dissipation and late hours, would be considered as an hour for dinner quite gothic and á la Bourgeois; for in these our polished days of finished taste and refinement, late hours seem to be the very acme of fashion; late dinners necessarily being succeeded by late suppers, and, par conséquence, afternoon breakfasts, in consequatory succession, bringing up the rere of fashionable high-life to the great practice and benefit of the College of Physicians.
The conversation after dinner was lively and agreeable. The Duchess described their journey, and gave many traits of the good feeling and humour of the lower classes, as witnessed in their journey from Tyrconnel Castle. When the ladies had retired, Lord Glandarah, who was of the party, speaking of the eccentric Mr. Berenger, who had been at the levee on the preceding day, turning to Sir Patricius, inquired of him if he knew that eccentric personage? and the following reply, aided by the effects of brisk Champaign, thus effervesced and flowed from his lips: "Oh, yes, my Lord, I have before these days met with Count Berenger, as he was called; I have too heard him converse with the Windsor beauties, whose similitudes Sir Peter Lely, of pictorial fame,
Ay, my Lord, and often have I met him at the carousals of old King Carolus, now defunct, but of blessed memory! He is certes the completely finished gentleman. He was once gay, and airy, and agreeable; but now in sooth I must say that he looks as sombre and demure as a solemn gentleman of the long robe extending his silken train, and dancing down a paven![17] In the sublime art of eating he is not a professor, but an artist, only munches the sunny side of a peach or a nectarine; when he wishes to be helped to fowl or chicken, he is always sure to bespeak the liver wing; knows all the nice cuts in a haunch of venison, and he can carve you twenty nice morceaux from the head of a cod-fish; he knows too how turtle should be cooked, and how duly to appreciate callipash and callipe; a glass of liqueur or genuine Coniac he knows as well as I do to be a safe, salutary, and no unpleasant condiment to his fish. In a word, his is the true art of sçavoir vivre; and 'fore Jove or great Apollo, if this were a writing or a printing age, I should incontinently like and admire to have 'Culinary Lucubrations, or the whole divine Art of Cookery,' from the pen of the honourable and polished Mr. Berenger! But it was a sad omission of mine, my Lord, not to include among his various accomplishments, that he is an excellent judge of wines, and an excellent taster too, to boot; for he would never mistake Port wine for Tokay, Chambertin for Chateau-Margut, nor Vin de Grave for Hock! I think there is no going beyond these. Here, then, I sum up the climax of his character, 'not to know him argues one's self unknown!'—My Lord Glandarah, your Lordship's very good health."
Here the noble Duke, concluding from the foregoing symptoms that the Doctor had not omitted taking his quantum sufficit of Burgundy, proposed another flask to Lord Glandarah, or some coffee with the ladies. The ladies had the preference given them; and the Duke retiring to the drawing-room, was followed by his guests.
"I have," whispered Sir Patricius to Lord Glandarah, "observed, in divers companies and upon several occasions, that His Grace in these matters always leaves the discussion to the liberum arbitrium of his guests."
"And," replied the Peer, "Gad save my soul, I laud his discreet resolution!"
The Duchess appointed her first drawing-room for the succeeding evening. It may not be amiss here to acquaint the reader, that at the period of which we now write, court dresses were universally worn by both sexes at evening routes and balls: the gentlemen appeared in full court costume, with bags, swords, and buckles; and the ladies with monstrous bell-hoops, and portentous stomachers of an ell in longitude! and withal incased in the cumbrous accoutrement of a heavy stiffened silk mantua; while their false and elevated tetes reminded one of Pelion piled up on Ossa.
The above remarks will be sufficient to account for the short notice given for the intended drawing-room. We would also observe upon the hours at which the worthy folks of these days assembled at their evening parties. At this period of time the fashionable hour of paying visits was not, as it is now, in the morning, or rather mid-day, when every body is abroad, but it was in the evening, when every one almost was at home; and the visiting hour commenced at so early an hour as seven o'clock. In the autumnal and winter months the saloons and drawings-rooms of the noblesse and gentry in Dublin were at that hour, or at the first visitor's knock at the door, immediately brilliantly lighted up, and if both parties were perfectly disengaged, the guests remained; each room displaying richly cut glass lustres and glass chandeliers illuminated with wax; there was a numerous display of card-tables; the servants attending in rich liveries; while lords and knights, and commoners, and stately dames, and ladies gay, came attired in their court costume. The company partook of tea, coffee, &c.; in the course of the evening lemonade, orgeat, cake, wine, negus, jellies, sweetmeats, and confections, (for the luxury of ice was then unknown,) were handed around to the company, many of whom had meantime sat down to the card-table, some playing whist, cribbage, or tredrille; some at ombre, and others at loo. And as the clock struck ten the company separated, and all retired.
Ladies of high rank usually visited in their state sedan-chairs, which were stuffed, and lined with white and pink satin, and externally decorated with different rich ornaments; large silk tassels dangled at the four angular points of the roof, and the highest top, or pinnacle, was surmounted by a gilt coronet reposing on a crimson cushion; three, sometimes four, footmen, according to the rank of the individual, habited in splendid liveries, and arranged in single files, preceded the sedan-chair, each bearing a lighted flambeau. And sooth to say, some of the old dowagers, when the doubtful light of the flambeau flashed upon their withered visages, incontinently reminded the spectator of the waxen figure of queen Elizabeth in the glass-case at Westminster-Abbey!
The drawing-room night arrived, and was crowded by numbers of the nobility and gentry of both sexes, when the old and the young were assembled together. It was indeed a splendid scene—a galaxy of beauty and magnificence; the dresses were superb; and bright and brilliant were the blaze of gems and jewels that adorned the brows, ears, and encircled the lovely necks of the young, and sparkled on those of a more matronly description. The youthful and lovely fair presenting no unfavourable specimen of the beauty of the daughters of Erin; their cheeks rivalling the rose, and blushing in graceful adolescence; while their lovely bosoms, glowing in healthful bloom, reflected a pearly radiance around the diamonds which sparkled upon and adorned them.
Several ladies of the nobility and gentry, amounting to many hundreds, were presented, and all of whom were most graciously received by the truly kind and agreeable Duchess.
The amusements of the evening commenced. Several grave minuets were danced in a most marvellous solemn pace; to these succeeded the minuet de lá Cour, which was danced by Sir Patricius Placebo and Lady Letitia Raymond, to the great entertainment of the Duke and Duchess, whose gravity, in sooth to say, was upon this occasion quite borne down and vanquished. Then followed cotillions, which were succeeded by contre-dances, which ended the amusements of the night. Numerous card-tables were placed, and were not unoccupied by the elder part of the assemblage, many of whom went away with their purses many a minus diminished, when they at solemn leisure reckoned their losses on the said night or ensuing morning. But the fun and the drollery of the evening seemed to concentrate in the ridicule attached to Sir Philip Fumbally, a civic knight and alderman, who somewhat resembled, in corporal shape and form, the paunch of Falstaff, with all the stiffness of mine ancient Pistol—aye, and the very nose of renowned Bardolph! However we must take up the brush and finish our portrait. Sir Philip was in stature about four feet five, a perfect rotundity in corpulence, fat short hands, fat short legs; and his face—oh, ye gods, such a face was his! Forehead, he had none! his hair was red, his small ferret eyes were grey, if eyes they could be called, which were indeed to him no windows of the soul! but closed as if under the awful influence of Somnus! His nose was flat, and in colour ruddy red, his chubby cheeks the same; and his mouth opened and grinned with all the agreeability of a cayman or crocodile! His laugh and look were horrid, the former the diapason of a demon, and the latter the very outline of Memistopheles. Leaning upon his unwieldy arm was seen his long-necked, long-armed, and long-legged ugly lady. The Irish, who are somewhat "both the great, vulgar, and the small," too much given liberally to bestow soubriquets, nicknamed this unparalleled pair flesh and bone! And Sir Patricius Placebo somewhat wittily observed, upon his word of honour, as a true knight, that Lady Fumbally always reminded him of an undertaker's horse, a Rosinante covered with a compound of velvet trappings and nodding plumage, withal to cover the skeleton which they adorned!
When the presentations commenced, Sir Philip, "like a doating mallard," waddled after the unfurled train of "his darling duckie," (by which endearing name he familiarly styled my Lady Fumbally,) it so happened that in discharging this uxorious task he tripped up fairly, or rather foully, his lady's train, and by which losing his equipoise, the worthy knight was very nearly tripped up himself. The courtiers all tittered, and some indeed extended it to a most uncourtly loud laugh. The lady, like unto Lot's wife, would fain turn around in defiance of all courtly etiquette, and her visage seemed deeply to participate in the bouleversement of her velvet train. Here the amiable knight, compassionating her trodden down vanity, fairly took up the said portentous train, which was soon somewhat incontinently snatched by a chamberlain in waiting from the grasp of the knight, and again permitted to perform its meanders on the carpet ad libitum. The laugh and titters were again renewed. Mr. Berenger, who was standing close to Sir Patricius Placebo, seemed to be quite roused from his usual nonchalance, and whispered Sir Patricius, "this is too bad, risu ineptu nulla res ineptior est; (nothing is so foolish as the laugh of fools!) however, we courtiers are always too fond of a laugh, that is to say, (crede experto,) provided that it be never directed against ourselves! Sir Patricius, we (with his fore-finger touching the facial nerve of his nose) have been at the court of good old Carolus!"
The worthy Baronet, to whom these observations were addressed, did not commit himself by one single comment, but silently nodded, and was meantime taking snuff with immoderate rapidity, and in no stinted quantities; and when these piquant remarks were made by the ornament of the old court, Sir Patricius politely and gently as possible laughed (voce depresso) his heh, heh, heh, and his ahem! "Yes, yes, Mr. Berenger, indeed we have seen the world!—ahem!
DOSS MOI, TANE STIGMEN!"
Sir Philip Fumbally was the renowned and recorded alderman who at a civic feast loudly proclaimed that Marshal Turenne had taken Great Umbrage, and proposed as a right gallant toast—"Health to the mighty and glorious conqueror of Great Umbrage, the valiant Turenne!" The toast was drank with great enthusiasm; but soon each civic guest asked significantly his neighbour the geographical position of Great Umbrage; was it in France, in Flanders, Utopia, or the Lord knows where? The Gazetteer was put in requisition, and the general atlas (such as the times afforded) were called for, and were conned over. But alas! Umbrage—the proud, the great, and mighty, could no where be found; its place was a blank amid the nations!
What conduced to the mistake or blunder was, that a pique had arisen at that time between General Konigsmark and General Geis (subsequent to the passage of the river Neckar in Germany,) against the Duc d'Enghien, (by whose valour that pass was won, and also Wimpfen was taken;) declaring that the two former would quit the army, &c. At this declaration the Field Marshal Viscount Turenne, it was rumoured, had taken Umbrage! It was upon this datum that the worthy alderman had built his el dorado, his airy citadel, his undiscoverable principality and victory! But Turenne soared above the impetuosity of Konigsmark, and the obstinacy of the other two. Turenne was a hero! and one who would scorn to the city achievement of taking Umbrage from friend or foe!
For about the space of an hour the lovely Lady Adelaide was permitted to remain at the drawing-room, the delight of every eye, and the theme of every tongue.
The Duke sat down to play at tredrille with the Countess Dowager of Ossory and Lord Glandarah. This game, as the name implies, was played by three persons at a small triangular table, which in these our degenerate days, are shown only as curiosities in the cabinets of the curious; and the Duke, when they left off play, arose a winner of about twenty pounds; for in their quiet, snug way the good folks of those days often lost or won fourteen or fifteen pounds of the current coin of the realm at a pool of tredrille, which was then considered most moderate play!
About the hour of eleven o'clock the Duke and Duchess, who had been much gratified and amused during the course of the evening, arose, and bowing most gracefully and courteously to their guests, broke up the drawing-room, and retired.
The company soon departed for their homes, highly pleased and gratified with the courteous deportment of the noble pair; charmed alike by their affable manners and fascinating attentions equally bestowed on all. It would be tedious at this time of day to detail the names, and it might seem invidious to record the particular beauties that graced the brilliant circle, which upon that memorable evening crowded and adorned the splendid suite of rooms at Dublin Castle.
The faculty having strongly recommended sea-bathing as salutary and beneficial to the health of Lady Adelaide, the Duke, in consequence of this advice, purchased a hunting lodge, not remote from the sea-shore, and beautifully situated amid the romantic scenery of the county of Wicklow, which, from its proximity to the metropolis, afforded a convenient retreat, and from whence he could, with little or no delay, receive and despatch the duties attendant upon his high official situation. As soon as the mansion was placed in a state of proper repair, and becomingly furnished to be worthy of the reception of the representative of majesty, the Duke resolved, for the benefit of the health of a beloved and only daughter, as well as for his own repose from the fatigues of office, to retire to his newly-acquired purchase of Lætely Abbey—for thus was this hunting lodge denominated; and this resolve was not long without being carried into execution. The Duke and Duchess of Tyrconnel, accompanied by Lady Adelaide, the sisters of the Duke, not forgetting Sir Patricius Placebo, that witty knight; along with a numerous attendant suite, left Dublin Castle for their sojourn at Lætely Abbey, and after a few hours travelling, they safely reached the place of their destination.
Letely (or Lætely) Abbey (quasi lætus locus), for by this latter designation antiquarians insisted that it should be called, was indeed a lovely place, surrounded as it was by all the combining beauties of natural scenery: here stood the venerable ruins of a decayed abbey, its walls wreathed and its summits crowned with ivy, while its grand oriel or eastern window, magnificent even in decay, was festooned and enlivened with various creeping plants, the sweet-smelling clematis, the jessamine, and woodbine, trailed around the ruins of the stone casement, through which the sun-beams cheerfully shone, while the foliage gracefully waved in the blast, and the blossoms all sweetly perfumed the surrounding air. To the right of the abbey arose an extensive sheep-walk, whose boundaries were crowned by lofty groves of arbutus, or the strawberry tree; laurel, holly, added their combining greens and shades; and though last, not least, myrtle groves, which in this county grow to an amazing height, verifying the very just description of the great pastoral poet, Virgil, "amantes littora myrtos"—myrtles which rejoice in being near to the shores of the sea. While in the fore-ground of the landscape, in all its splendid azure majesty, burst forth upon the delighted spectator's view the mighty ocean, its bosom studded with frequent white sails, which, as they scudded along, brightly glistened in the rays of a refulgent autumnal sun. The shore was indented by high and undulating downs, all richly cultivated, whose green sward, in smoothness and brilliance, vied with, if not rivalled, any carpet from the looms of Bruxelles, Turkey, or Persia. A range of meadows succeeded the downs, which were bordered with hedge-rows of oak, sycamore, and ash. Adjoining this enlivening scene stood a dense grove of forest trees, now glowing in all the rich and diversified tints of autumn. The dark green hue of the American spruce formed a rich and striking contrast with its deep brown cones, which gracefully clustered amid their parent verdure, and undulated upon the waving branches, while they bent to the breeze. The lemon-tinted leaves of the Alpine larch here were also seen, which were finely opposed to the deep copper colour of the umbrageous beech, and alternately blending with the bright green of the Scottish fir, or the deeper shades of the ilex, or ever-green oak.
To the left yawned a rocky, dark, romantic glen, surmounted by stupendous rocks frowning on the abyss beneath, whose sides were studded with every variety of wild herb and plant indigenous to a mountainy region, and, among others, that rare plant, the adianthum, fringed the interstices of the frowning cliffs.
Beneath reposed in a secluded dell the cottage of the Duke's steward. The latticed windows were trellised with the rose, jasmin, and woodbine; the blue smoke which ascended and curled into clouds amid the overhanging foliage, betokened habitation and comfort. To the cottage was annexed an extensive farm-yard, with all the appendices of corn-stacks, turf, and hay likewise, cum multis aliis, besides the various addition of live stock, all of which added interest and animation to the scene.
Through the bosom of this glen slowly meandered along a mountain stream, (in winter a torrent,) whose devious course was distinctly outlined by an accompanying range of alder trees, that in double columns densely shaded its winding banks.
In the back ground, veiled in dark neutral tint, arose a craggy mountain, whose base was richly dotted with groves of larch and spruce. Prominently in the fore-ground was situated the Duke's hunting lodge, which, as we have already said, was denominated Lætely Abbey. This structure was built in the style of architecture of the family mansions of the Elizabethan period. An extensive lake, supplied by a copious mountain stream, presented itself in front of the house, until, winding onward, it was lost amid the adjoining woods. Close by was a deer-park, well enclosed, and numerously stocked with deer, some of whom gregariously reposed, while others were seen trooping through the dense woods, and gazing at the passing stranger, which added interest and a picturesque beauty to the scene.
But the pride, grace, and ornament of Lætely Abbey was to be found in the attractive and lovely Adelaide, who had now entered upon her fifteenth year—so rapidly onward does time advance. Indeed it was no flattery to say, that Adelaide was most truly engaging in her manners. Her statue would have graced the design of Phidias or Praxiteles; her lovely and expressive countenance captivated every beholder; the rose of youth was upon her cheek, and her skin was fair and pure as the unsunned lily; her dark blue eyes sparkled intelligence, beaming beneath her beautifully arched eye-brows. Her look, gesture, and demeanour, communicated joy; and we shall not deny a parental pride to the Duke and Duchess, at the same time, that her looks beamed forth delight upon all who beheld her; while her converse, sustained with a voice sweet, distinct, and melodious, charmed every listening ear. Her manners were unaffected, as they were natural, and all was silence when she spoke. Her figure was graceful, as we have before noticed, and beautifully and finely proportioned. When animated by discourse her features seemed to be lighted up by almost celestial fire; her brilliant eyes sparkled bright as the native diamond, and her entire countenance became irresistibly charming.
To those of inferior rank her deportment was kind and unassuming, and down to the lowest domestic she was beloved, for they felt and knew that her delight was to protect those beneath her power, and not to tyrannise over them.
With an ardent and sanguine admiration of the beauties of nature, Adelaide too possessed an enthusiastic love of literature, conjoined to a correctly formed and delicately refined taste. Every day her mind expanded, from the literary lore which she imbibed, and gradually, but extensively, her brilliant talents developed their powers. Poetry, painting, and music, principally fascinated, as they are ever wont to do, the feeling and romantic mind of youth. Some of those impressions thus elicited Adelaide was occasionally in the habit of committing to writing. One day, while some workmen of the Duke were employed in breaking up ground upon the confines of an ancient, but neglected cemetery, which surrounded a small dilapidated church, stationed on a green and rising knoll, whose ruinous walls were thickly overspread with ivy, while the alder, holly, and thorn, had stoutly installed them-selves in what had been once the chancel—it happened that, upon digging at the foot of an ancient thorn, they threw up a human skull, which the Duke caused immediately to be reinterred in the same spot; and within no distant space of time a tombstone was prepared to surmount the grave, upon which was duly chiselled a crucifix, with the usual accompaniments of a death's head, &c., and having called upon his daughter's muse for some lines to be inscribed thereon, the interesting Adelaide wrote the following, which was sculptured upon the tomb:—
INSCRIPTION.
The Duke and Duchess having attentively perused this brief inscription, fondly and affectionately embraced their lovely and much beloved child, no less pleased with the religious feeling which had called forth their warm approbation, and which they distinctly expressed, than delighted as they were with the poetic feeling (for thus their partial fondness adjudged) with which it was written; considering it as no unfavourable specimen of the expanding powers of a youthful mind. Adelaide was infinitely far more delighted by this praise of her parents, an incense so grateful to her heart, than any aspirant to fame in these our degenerate days could receive from the partial praise and prejudiced columns of any literary critick.
Time rapidly moved onward, the winter had passed over with an uncommon mildness; but the spring, which had now succeeded, proved unusually harsh, tardy, and severe. The cold north-east wind had incessantly blown, and vegetation had consequently been chillingly repelled; while the usual flowers that form the chaplet of spring were chained in their petals, or wholly destroyed by the frost. And when the merry month of June arrived, it was indeed unusual and extraordinary to behold the blossoms of the wild rose, hawthorn, and the laburnum, all mingling their beauties and their perfumes amid the numerous hedge-rows, and presenting a diversified mass of colours and foliage, like to the bloom of a Russian spring, when, melted by a genial vernal sun, trees, plants, and flowers bud, and immediately burst forth into luxuriant and varied vegetation; the annual resurrection of nature vigorously springing forth in renovated youth from the tomb of winter!
One morning while Lady Adelaide was seated in the library reading some interesting work with that deep attention and wrapt enthusiasm with which she always dwelt upon a book of merit, she was suddenly interrupted in her studies by the approach of that important person, (as in her own estimation she considered herself;) we here speak of the redoubtable Mrs. Judith Braingwain, who, rushing incontinently into the library, and quite out of breath, exclaimed, "Oh, my Lady, who would have thought it? But however marvellous it is, see, yonder they come; see, there they are, Bishop Rocket along with his tall wife, who, by the bye, is hardy as a seagull; and, moreover, a whole flock, aye, a beautiful bevy of dainty damozels besides! See, my Lady, there—there they are; they are now just entering the porch; aye, there they come, sure enough!"
"How strange!" replied Lady Adelaide, "we left them at Tyrconnel; what unaccountable anomaly brings the bishop and family from his palace to this retired spot?"
Here Mrs. Judith catching at the word anomaly, and wholly uncomprehending it, while she thought proper to confound its meaning, thus rejoined:—"Anne O'Mally! Oh yes, my dear young Lady, just as if now before my eyes, I ken that sweet and charming creature, worth a whole fleet and cargo of such like ladies as Dame Rocket. I remember, ay faith do I, she was the finest——Oh no, not the finest—that belongs to another; but as fine a girl as a body might see on a fair May-day in ould Connaught, any how! And beside, and moreover, she was right loyally discended [lineally descended] from the great bould pirate princess, Grace O'Malley, in troth, and sure enough, far and near, and abroad and at home, far better known, mavourneen, by the famous name of Grana Uile, who (it is a storical fact) visited Elizabeth,[18] the grand and conquering queen of all England, in her gallipot [galliot,] afar across the salt water seas. Oh, Lady Adelaide! Anne O'Malley was indeed a promising young lady—the finest——"
"Nay, nay, nurse," said Lady Adelaide, "be not so flippant in thy praise, else I shall grow positively jealous. I therefore must stop you just now, for it seems your tongue runs riot quite with your discretion; and has bounced off at a tangent in full gallop, jumping pell-mell, hop and step, from the young and lovely Anne O'Malley to grey-head old Grana Uile, (of neither of whom, by the bye, did I speak,) until in most crab-like motion you pounce upon the majestic Elizabeth; and all this in most manifest and notable contempt of time, place, and circumstance. This really is not to be endured. Besides, I pray you to remember, that once, however, there was a time when no one was so handsome, so good, and all so angelic and so forth, as your own Adelaide! And, in undisguised truth, I was in a very fair and hopeful way of being utterly spoiled, but that happily I turned a deaf and obdurate ear to all your too partial praise, as well I knew that your commendations all sprung from overweening kindness. However, just now I am happy to find that you are converted from your former heresies, and that at length you behold your poor idol in its mortal shape, imbued with all its natural and perverse imperfections; and that you are now free to confess that, in sooth, I am not, as I never was, that angel of excellence, and that paragon of beauty, which your early devotions conceived me to be. You have broken your idol, and it has fallen from the pedestal upon which you had proudly placed it, shivered into atoms on the earth!"
This Lady Adelaide said in a playful way, half pretendedly serious, and the other half wholly comic.
"Ah, my dear young Lady! and so you are still the idol of goodness, and the very dragon of beauty! none who ever saw you, who ever knew you, can think otherwise; this I ever thought you were; and I defy Guy of Warwig, the seven Champions of Chrysostom, and Saint Patrick himself, to boot, to deny it if they durst, but that you are the best, the brightest, and finest young lady in the 'varsal world; and I challenge ould England and ould Ireland to gainsay me!
It now becomes necessary to say a word or two of this said Bishop Rocket, who came a visitor to the Duke. Patronage—all powerful patronage—had placed the mitre upon his brow, as it too often has done upon the head of many an unmeritorious aspirant to the hierarchy. His classic acquirements and literary attainments will best be told by the subsequent details:—Three friends who came to dine en famille one day at his house in Dublin, sat down, previously to dinner, to play a snug rubber of whist, thus to pass the intermediate time. It happened to be of a Friday, during a parliament winter; the printed proceedings of the House of Lords of the preceding day were brought in, and, as is always the case, the day of the week and the date of the month surmounted the top of the page, as the head and front of these transactions. It ran thus:—"Die jovis," &c. "What?" inquired the prelate, addressing one whom his Lordship considered as the most classic of the trio, "pray, what is the meaning of Die jovis?"
And in order that such of our fair readers who are not conversant with the Latin tongue may not burst in ignorance with the hierarchical inquirant, we shall give, in totidem verbis, the answer of the learned Theban, the bishop's friend:—"Why, my good Lord," said the facetious gentleman, smiling withal, "'fore Jove, my Lord, the two words conjoined mean nothing more nor less than Thursday! upon which day your Lordship gave your benedicite to the House of Peers!"
His Lordship lost the odd trick, looked all quite discomposed; nor did he recover himself again until the sumptuous and savoury dinner smoked upon the board.
Bishop Rocket had enlarged the palace at the See-house of—— and had built, or caused to be built, with his usual want of tact and judgment, a grand and heavy portico, which fronted the north! Upon the final completion of this most notable and extraordinary structure the prelate seemed quite pleased; in which it was conceived that he remained solely in the singular number. However, he thought fit most condescendingly to write to a friend, then residing at Rome, a long letter, the burden of which ran to the following tenor:—"Now, dear and Reverend Sir, as you are seated, or I, who am a bishop, may say, enthroned at the fountain head of the fine arts, I have to request that you would have the goodness to purchase for me twelve statues of the heathen gods and goddesses to adornate my grand portico, which I have built at an immense expense; and it is allowed by all the curates in my diocese to have been accomplished with no inconsiderable portion of taste! And by so doing you will vastly oblige me."
The Reverend friend thus wrote back a letter, the chief paragraph of which, in reply to Bishop Rocket, ran to this effect:—"Most dear and Right Reverend Lord, as your Lordship requires the statues which you specify, to adorn the portico of a Christian bishop's palace, what would your Lordship think—(and oh, good, my Lord, I pray you not to be offended at the voice of truth, which is seldom heard with patience either within the precincts of courts or the palaces of prelates!)—what, I pray, my Lord, would you think if I should select for you, instead of the heathen gods of antiquated Greece and Rome, videlicet: Jupiter, Vulcan, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Bacchus, and Co., shall I, most dear and Reverend Lord, transmit to you statues of the twelve apostles, which surely, most venerated Prelate, you will find to be, upon mature deliberation, every way far more episcopal, apostolical, more in good taste, and indeed I must add, quite orthodox. And assuredly, my good Lord, I feel, and am most fully confident to say and pronounce it, that the Reverend Head of the holy see would most freely and cheerfully acquiesce in yielding his assent and consent to permit these said apostolical statues to be removed and transported to 'the Island of Saints,' so soon as His Holiness shall be informed that these stone-sculptured saints are destined for a brother bishop!"
But know, gentle reader, that Bishop Rocket, whatever might have been the cause, never even deigned to return any answer to this remonstrative letter of his too candid friend; and here consequently the proposal fell to the ground, and never was again resumed. The portico, however, still stood, presenting its dark facadé to the bleak northern blast, unsurmounted by statue either mythological or apostolical.
Mrs. Rocket had been—we must speak here historically in the past tense—had once been a fine woman, and still a portion of that beauty, though somewhat clipped by the shears of old Father Chronos, still remained. It was this attracted the bishop when only a curate, and
"Passing rich on forty pounds a year."
But all powerful love, whose transcendant sway remains undisputed from the days of the Teian bard down to those of the mighty minstrel of our own time, in whose own words we are told,