Chapter II: Part 2

“Heyday!” said Sir William, staring: “what the deuce have we here? Hollo! Christopher—Kit—I say Kit—who—who—or where the devil did this come from?”

“By my sowl, my lord,” replied Christopher, “I dunnough who that same man was that fetched it; but he was neat an’ clean, and had good apparel on his body, though it was not a livery like mine, my lord.”

“Did—did—he say nothing, Kit?” said Sir William, surprised.

“Oh yes, plenty my lord; he desired me on my peril to give the thing safe and sound to your lordship’s own self. He swore, like any trooper, that it was as good as a ten thousand pound bank of Ireland note in your pocket any how. So I curdled up at that word, my lord; I towld him plain and plump he need not talk about peril to me; that I was nothing else but an honest sarvant; and if the said thing was worth _fifty_ pounds in _ready money_ it would be as safe as a diamond stone with me, my lord.”

“And was that all, Christopher?” said Sir William.

“Oh no, my lord,” replied Kit, “the man grinned at me all as one as a monkey; and said that, maybe, I’d be a master myself one of these days. ‘By my sowl, maybe so, Sir,’ says I, ‘many a worse man arrived at being an attorney since I came into service;’ and at the word, my lord, the said man held his hand quite natural, as if he’d fain get something into it for his trouble; but the devil a cross I had in my fob, my lord, so I turned my fob inside out to show I was no liar, and he bowed very civilly and went out of the street-door, laughing that the whole street could hear him; though I could swear by all the books in your lordship’s office, that he had nothing to laugh at: and that’s all I had act or part in it, my lord.”

Sir William now seemed a little puzzled, desired Christopher to be gone, and throwing the painting on the table, said, “I didn’t want any arms or crests. I had very good ones of my own, and I don’t understand this matter at all. My family had plenty of arms and crests since King William came over the water.”

“So have mine—a very nice lion rampant of their own, my lord,” said her ladyship, as excellent a woman as could be: “I’m of the Rawins’s,” continued she, “and they have put me into your arms, Sir William:—look!”

“Oh that is all as it should be, my dear,” said his lordship, who was a very tender husband. But regarding it more closely, her ladyship’s colour, as she looked over his shoulder, mantled a few shades higher than its natural roseate hue, and she seemed obviously discontented.

“I tell you, Sir William,” said she, “it is a malicious insult; and if you were out of the mayoralty, or my boy, Lovelace Steemer, had arrived at full maturity, I have no doubt the person who sent this would be made a proper example of. I hope you feel it, Sir William.”

“Feel!—feel what, my love?” said Sir William, calmly, he being not only a courteous, but a most peaceful citizen. “Don’t be precipitate, my darling!—let us see—let us see.”

“See!” said her ladyship, still more hurt, “ay, see with your own eyes!” pointing to the _insult_: “the fellow that painted that (whoever he is) has placed a pair of enormous horns just over your head, Sir William!—a gross insult, Sir William—to me, Sir William—indeed to both of us.”

I was much amused, and could not help observing “that the horns were certainly enormous horns, to be sure; but as the joke must be intended against Sir William himself—not her ladyship—I hope—” said I.

“No, no, Sir Jonah,” said the lady interrupting me.

“I see now,” said Sir William, looking at the bottom, “this comes from Ulster.”

“Read on, Sir William,” said I, “read on.”

“Ay, Ulster king-at-arms: and who the deuce is _Ulster king-at-arms_?”

“I suppose,” said I, “some blood relation to the Escheator of Munster, and—”

“And who—who the d—l is the _Escheator of Munster_?” said Sir William (who had never vacated a seat in the Irish Parliament).

“He is of the same family as the Chiltern hundreds,” quoth I.

“Chiltern hundreds! Chiltern hundreds! By Jove, they must be an odd family altogether,” said the Lord Mayor, still more puzzled, his lady sitting quite silent, being now altogether out of her depth,—till a small letter, to that moment overlooked, was taken up and read by the Lord Mayor, and was found to be connected with a bill furnished, and wanting nothing but a receipt in full to make it perfect. The countenance of Sir William now became less placid. It proved to be a very proper and fair intimation from his Majesty’s herald-at-arms, to the effect that, as the baronetcy originated with the Jubilee, and was granted in honour of King George the Third having ruled half a century, an amplification of the new baronet’s heraldry by an additional horn, motto, ribbon, &c., was only a just tribute to his Majesty’s longevity! and, in truth, so properly and professionally was the case stated, that Ulster’s clear opinion may be inferred that every family in the empire might, in honour and loyalty, take a pair of horns, motto, and ribbon, as well as Sir William, if they thought proper so to do, and on the same terms.

How the matter was finally arranged, I know not; but the arms came out well emblazoned and duly surmounted by a more moderate and comely pair of horns; and Sir William, in regular season, retired from office with due _éclat_, and in all points vastly bettered by his year of government. Though he retired, like Cincinnatus—but not to the plough—Sir William reassumed his less arduous duties of committing rogues to Newgate—long corks to Chateau Margaux—light loaves to the four Marshalsea Courts—and pronouncing thirteen-penny decrees in the Court of Conscience:[2] every one of which occupations he performed correctly and zealously, to the entire satisfaction of the nobility, clergy, gentry, and public at large, in the metropolis of Ireland.

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Footnote 2:

Every lord mayor of Dublin becomes judge of a “Court of Conscience”
for twelve months after the expiration of his mayoralty; each decree
costing a shilling; many of the causes are of the most comical
description; but never would there have arisen so great a judge as
Sancho Panza of Barataria, from presiding in our Court of Conscience.

I cannot omit stating, that Sir William, when lord mayor, gave the
most numerous, brilliant, and complete masquerade ever seen in Dublin,
or, I believe, any where else. There were fourteen or fifteen hundred
persons, and I am sure not more than one hundred dominoes; every body
went in character, and every person tried to keep up the character he
adopted. Ireland, of all places in the world, is, perhaps, best
adapted to a masquerade, as every Irishman is highly amused when he
can get an opportunity of assuming, by way of freak, any new
character.

It was the custom for the mob, on those occasions, to stop every
carriage, and demand of each person, “What’s your character?” I was
dreadfully tired of them in the street on the night in question; but
fairly put into good-humour by the _jeu d’esprit_ of a mob-man, who
opened the carriage-door. After I had satisfied him as to character,
he desired to know, where I was going? “Shut the door,” said I. “Ah,
but where are you going?” I was vexed. “I’m going to the _Devil_,”
said I. “Ough, then, _God_ send you safe!” replied the blackguard.

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An incident appertaining to the same body, but with a termination by no means similar, occurred a few years afterward, which, among other matters, contributes to show what different sort of things the Irish at different times rejoice in. In 1809, they rejoiced in full jubilee on the memorable event of his Majesty King George the Third having entered the fiftieth year of his reign, without ever paying one visit to, or taking the least notice of, his loyal Corporation of Dublin: and after he was dead (_de facto_, for the King never dies _de jure_), they celebrated another jubilee on account of his Majesty George the Fourth honouring them with a visit _the very earliest opportunity_. This was the first time any king of England had come to Ireland, except to cut the throats of its inhabitants; and his present Majesty having most graciously crossed over to sow peace and tranquillity among them, if possible, and to do them any and every kindness which they would _submit to_, it was not wonderful each man in Ireland hailed the event as forming a most auspicious commencement of his Majesty’s reign, not only over his subjects at large, but, in particular, over that glorious, pious, immortal, and uproarious body, the Corporation of Dublin city. Events have proved how ungratefully his Majesty’s beneficent intentions have been requited.

His Majesty having arrived at the hill of Howth, to the universal joy of the Irish people, was received with unexampled cordiality, and in due form, by the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, on the very field of battle where O’Brien Borun had formerly acquired undying fame by cutting the Danes into slices (an operation which we have since repeated on them at Copenhagen, though with different instruments). That Right Honourable Lord Mayor was Sir Abraham Bradley King, then one of the best looking aldermen in Europe. On this occasion he obtained, not military honour, but, on the other hand, a more tranquil one than the said King O’Brien Borun ever arrived at;—he was actually _imperialised_ as a baronet in very superior style to his brother corporator _Steemer_, on the loyal demi-century occasion.

I have since heard that an effort was made somewhat to transform the armorial bearings of the Bradley King family, also, in commemoration of this auspicious event; and that it was intended to give him, as an addition to his crest, Sir John Skinner’s steam packet, out of which his Majesty had landed just previous to bestowing the baronetcy on Sir Abraham. Here the city punsters began again with their vulgar insinuations; and, omitting the word _packet_, gave out that Alderman King wanted to put Alderman _Steemer_ as a supporter to his arms, instead of a griffin rampant or unicorn, as customary on these occasions; but this vile play upon words Sir Abraham peremptorily and properly checked with the same constitutional firmness and success wherewith he had previously refused to “tell tales out of school” about the Orangemen to the House of Commons.[3]

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Footnote 3:

This was the first instance I recollect of pertinacity conquering
privilege.

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On this occasion, Sir Abraham proudly and virtuously declared that all the heralds in Europe should never _ravish_ him as they had done his brother Steemer; and that if any alteration was to be made in his shield by Ulster-at-arms, or any Ulster in Europe, he would permit nothing but an emblematic crown to be introduced therein, in honour and commemoration of his sovereign; and though our national poet, Mr. Thomas Moore, and Sir Abraham, never coalesced upon any point whatsoever (except the consumption of paper), yet on this conciliatory occasion, Sir Abraham declared his willingness to forgive and forget the religion and politics of the poet for eight and forty hours. This was as it should be; and a crown, with a posy or nosegay in its neighbourhood (instead of a cut and thrust) are accordingly embodied in the armorial bearings of Sir Abraham, the cruel idea of a bloody hand being now softened down and qualified by the bouquet which adorns it.

Again the indefatigable corporation wags, who could let nothing pass, began their jocularities: the worthy Baronet’s name being _King_, and the shield having a _crown_ in it, the Common Council began to hob-nob him as, _Your Majesty_, or the _Crown Prince_, or such like. But Sir Abraham had been an officer in the King’s service, and being a spirited fellow to boot, he declared open and personal hostility against all low and evil-minded corporate punsters. These _titles_ were therefore relinquished; and the whole affair ended, to the real satisfaction of every staunch Protestant patriot from Bray to Balbiggen, and as far westward as the College of Maynooth, where I understand the rejoicings terminated—for Sir Abraham found the road _too bad_ to travel any farther.

Having endeavoured somewhat to divert the reader’s criticism on my pedigree blunder, I have, in compliance with the wish of one of the ablest, wisest, and steadiest public personages of Great Britain (whose title heads this volume), reopened my old trunks, and made a further attempt at amusing myself and other folks—and at depicting, by authentic anecdotes, the various and extraordinary habits and propensities of the Irish people, with their gradual changes of national character for the last fifty or sixty years,—which (to my grief I say it) will be the work, not of a _novelist_, but a _contemporary_. I fancy there are very few of those who flourished so long ago, who could procure pen, ink, and paper, either for love or money, where they sojourn at present; and of those who still inhabit the same world with the stationers, some have lost one half of their faculties, at least, and scarce any among the remainder possess sufficient energy to retrace by description the events that took place during a long and, perhaps, active career. I shall take Time by the forelock; and, ere the candle goes out, draw as many Sketches of my past day as I may have time to record, before I wish the present generation a good morning—which adieu cannot now be long distant:—_tant pis_!

DANGERS OF REFLECTION.

Personal description of Counsellor Conaghty—Singular contrast of
physical roughness and mental suavity—A legal costume—The Counsellor’s
marriage—The bride described—Her plan for inducing her husband to
sacrifice to the Graces—The fatal mirror—The Counsellor views himself
in a new light—His consternation and false persuasion—The devil
unjustly accused—Conaghty’s illness and death.

The most extraordinary instance I recollect of a sudden affection of the mind being fatal to the body was presented by an old acquaintance of mine, Counsellor Conaghty, a gentleman of the Irish bar, who pined and died in consequence of an unexpected view of his own person; but by no means upon the same principle as Narcissus.

Mr. Conaghty was a barrister of about six feet two inches in length; his breadth was about three feet across the shoulders; his hands splay, with arms in full proportion to the rest of his members. He possessed, indeed, a set of limbs that would not have disgraced a sucking elephant; and his body appeared slit up two-thirds of its length, as if Nature had originally intended (which is not very improbable) to have made twins of him—but finding his _brains_ would not answer for _two_, relinquished her design. His complexion, not a disagreeable fawn-colour, was spotted by two good black eyes, well intrenched in his head, and guarded by a thick _chevaux de frise_ of curly eyebrows. His mouth, which did not certainly extend, like a john-dory’s, from ear to ear, was yet of sufficient width to disclose between thirty and forty long, strong, whitish tusks, the various heights and distances whereof gave a pleasing variety to that feature. Though his _tall_ countenance was terminated by a chin which might, upon a pinch, have had an interview with his stomach, still there was quite enough of him between the chin and waistband to admit space for a waistcoat, without the least difficulty.

Conaghty, in point of disposition, was a quiet, well-tempered, and, I believe, totally irreproachable person. He was not unacquainted with the superficies of law, nor was he without professional business. Nobody, in fact, disliked him, and he disliked nobody. In national idiom, and Emerald brogue, he unquestionably excelled (save one) all his contemporaries. Dialogues sometimes occurred in Court between him and Lord Avonmore, the Chief Baron, which were truly ludicrous.

The most unfortunate thing, however, about poor Conaghty, was his utter contempt for what fastidious folks call _dress_.—As he scorned both garters and suspenders, his stockings and small-clothes enjoyed the full blessings of liberty. A well-twisted cravat, as if it feared to be mistaken for a cord, kept a most respectful distance from his honest throat—upon which the neighbouring beard flourished in full crops, to fill up the interstice. His rusty black coat, well trimmed with peeping button-moulds, left him, altogether, one of the most tremendous figures I ever saw, of his own profession.

At length it pleased the Counsellor, or old Nick on his behalf, to look out for a wife; and, as dreams go by contraries, so Conaghty’s perverse vision of matrimonial happiness induced him to select a _sposa_ very excellent internally, but in her exterior as much the reverse of himself as any two of the same species could be.

Madam Conaghty was (and I dare say still is) a neat, pretty, dressy little person: her head reached nearly up to her spouse’s hip; and if he had stood wide, to let her pass, she might (without much stooping) have walked under him as through a triumphal arch.

He was quite delighted with his captivating fairy, and she equally so with her good-natured giant. Nothing could promise better for twenty or thirty years of honey-moons, when an extraordinary and most unexpected fatality demonstrated the uncertainty of all sublunary enjoyments, and might teach ladies who have lost their beauty the dangers of a looking-glass.

The Counsellor had taken a small house, and desired his dear little Mary to furnish it to her own dear little taste. This, as new-married ladies usually do, she set about with the greatest zeal and assiduity. She had a proper taste for things in general, and was besides extremely anxious to make her giant somewhat smarter; and, as he had seldom in his life had any intercourse with looking-glasses larger than necessary just to reflect his chin whilst shaving, she determined to place a grand _mirror_ in her little drawing-room, extensive enough to exhibit the Counsellor to himself from head to foot—and which, by reflecting his loose, shabby habiliments, and tremendous contour, might induce him to trim himself up.

This plan was extremely promising in the eyes of little Mary; and she had no doubt it would be entirely consonant with her husband’s own desire of Mrs. Conaghty’s little drawing-room being the nicest in the neighbourhood. She accordingly purchased, in Great George Street, at a very large price, a looking-glass of sufficing dimensions, and it was a far larger one than the Counsellor had ever before noticed.

When this fatal reflector was brought home, it was placed leaning against the wall in the still unfurnished drawing-room,—and the lady, having determined at once to surprise and reform her dear giant, did not tell him of the circumstance. The ill-fated Counsellor, wandering about his new house—as people often do toward the close of the evening—that interregnum between sun, moon, and candlelight, when shadows are deep and figures seem lengthened—suddenly entered the room where the glass was deposited. Unconscious of the presence of the immense reflector, he beheld, in the gloom, a monstrous and frightful Caliban—wild, loose, and shaggy,—standing close and direct before him; and, as he raised his own gigantic arms in a paroxysm of involuntary horror, the goblin exactly followed his example, lifting its tremendous fists, as if with a fixed determination to fell the Counsellor, and extinguish him for ever.

Conaghty’s imagination was excited to its utmost pitch. Though the spectre appeared larger than any d—l on authentic record, he had no doubt it was a genuine demon sent express to destroy his happiness and carry him to Belzebub. As his apprehensions augmented, his pores sent out their icy perspiration: he tottered—the fiend too was in motion! his hair bristled up, as it were like pikes to defend his head. At length his blood recoiled, his eyes grew dim, his pulse ceased, his long limbs quivered—failed; and down came poor Conaghty with a loud shriek and a tremendous crash. His beloved bride, running up alarmed by the noise, found the Counsellor as inanimate as the boards he lay on. A surgeon was sent for, and phlebotomy was resorted to as for _apoplexy_, which the seizure was pronounced to be. His head was shaved; and by the time he revived a little, he had three extensive blisters and a cataplasm preparing their stings for him.

It was two days before he recovered sufficiently to tell his Mary of the horrid spectre that had assailed him—for he really thought he had been felled to the ground by a blow from the goblin. Nothing, indeed, could ever persuade him to the contrary, and he grew quite delirious.

His reason returned slowly and scantily; and when assured it was only a _looking-glass_ that was the cause of his terror, the assurance did not alter his belief. He pertinaciously maintained, that this was only a kind story invented to tranquillise him. “Oh, my dearest Mary!” said poor Conaghty, “I’m gone!—my day is come—I’m called away for ever. Oh! had you seen the frightful figure that struck me down, you could not have survived it one hour! Yet why should I fear the d—l? I’m not wicked, Mary! No, I’m not _very_ wicked!”

A thorough Irish servant, an old fellow whom the Counsellor had brought from Connaught, and who _of course_ was well acquainted with supernatural appearances, and had not himself seen the fatal mirror,—discovered, as he thought, the real cause of the goblin’s visit, which he communicated to his mistress with great solemnity, as she afterward related.

“Mistress,” said the faithful Dennis Brophy, “Mistress, it was all a _mistake_. By all the books in the master’s study, I’d swear it was only a mistake!—What harm did ever my master do nobody? and what would bring a d—l overhauling a Counsellor that did no harm? What say could he have to my master?”

“Don’t teaze me, Dennis,” said the unhappy Mary; “go along!—go!”

“I’ll tell you, mistress,” said he; “it was a d—l sure enough that was in it!”

“Hush! nonsense!” said his mistress.

“By J—s! it _was_ the d—l, or one of his gossoons,” persisted Dennis; “but he mistook the house, mistress, and that’s the truth of it!”

“What do you mean?” said _the mistress_.

“Why, I mane that you know Mr. —— lives on one side of us, and Mr. —— lives at the other side, and they are both _attornies_, and the people say they’ll both go to _him_: and so the d—l, or his gossoon, mistook the door, and you see he went off again when he found it was my master that was _in it_, and not an attorney, mistress.”

All efforts to convince Conaghty he was mistaken were vain. The illusion could not be removed from his mind; he had received a shock which affected his whole frame; a constipation of the intestines took place; and in three weeks, the poor fellow manifested the effects of groundless horror in a way which every one regretted.

FORMER STATE OF MEDICINE IN IRELAND.

Remarks on Sir Charles Morgan’s account of the Former State of Medicine
in Italy—The author’s studies in the Anatomical Theatre of Dublin
University—Dr. Burdet—Former importance of farriers and colloughs—Jug
Coyle, and her powers of soliloquy—Larry Butler, the family farrier,
described—Luminous and veritable account of the ancient colloughs—The
_faculty_ of the present day—Hoynhymms and Yahoos—Hydrophobia in
Ireland, and its method of cure.

Doctor Sir Charles Morgan has given us, at the conclusion of his lady’s excellent work “Italy,” the state of “medicine” in that country. Our old cookery books, in like manner, after exquisite receipts for all kinds of dainties, to suit every appetite, generally finished a luxurious volume with _remedies_ for the “bite of a mad dog—for scald heads—ague—burns—St. Anthony’s fire—St. Vitus’s dance—the tooth-ache,” &c. &c. Now, though the Doctor certainly did not take the cooks by way of precedent, that is no reason why I should not indulge my whim by citing both examples, and garnishing this volume with “the state of medicine in Ireland” fifty years ago.

I do not, however, mean to depreciate the state of medicine in these days of “new lights” and novelties, when old drugs and poisons are _nicknamed_, and every recipe is a rebus to an old apothecary. Each son of Galen now strikes out his own system; composes his own syllabus; and _finishes_ his patients according to his own proper fancy. When a man dies after a consultation (which is generally the case—the thing being often decided by _experiment_)—there is no particular necessity for any explanation to widows, legatees, or heirs-at-law; the death alone of any testator being a sufficient apology to his nearest and dearest relatives for the failure of a consultation—that is, if the patient left sufficient property behind him.

My state of Irish medicine, therefore, relates to those “once on a time” days, when sons lamented their fathers,[4] and wives could weep over expiring husbands; when every root and branch of an ancient family became as black as rooks for the death of a blood relation, though of almost incalculable removal. In those times the medical old woman and the surgeon-farrier—the bone-setter and the bleeder—were by no means considered contemptible practitioners among the Christian population—who, in common with the dumb beasts, experienced the advantages of their miscellaneous practice.

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Footnote 4:

In these times it may not, perhaps, be fully credited when I tell—that
four of my father’s sons carried his body _themselves_ to the grave:
that his eldest son was in a state bordering on actual distraction at
his death; and in the enthusiastic paroxysms of affection which we all
felt for our beloved parent at that cruel separation, I do even now
firmly believe there was not one of us who would not, on the impulse
of the moment, have sprung into, and supplanted him in his grave, to
have restored him to animation. But we were all a family of nature and
of heart, and decided enemies to worldly objects.

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An anatomical theatre being appended to the University of Dublin, whenever I heard of a _fresh_ subject, or remarkable corpse, being obtained for dissection, I frequently attended the lectures, and many were the beauteous women and fine young fellows then carved into scraps and joints _pro bono publico_.[5] I thereby obtained a smattering of information respecting our corporeal clockwork; and having, for amusement, skimmed over “Cullen’s First Lines,” “Every Man his Own Doctor,” “Bishop Berkeley on Tar Water,” and “Sawny Cunningham on the Virtues of Fasting Spittle,” I almost fancied myself qualified for a diploma. A Welsh aunt of mine, also, having married Doctor Burdet, who had been surgeon of the Wasp sloop of war, and remarkable for leaving the best stumps of any naval practitioner, he explained to me the use of his various instruments for tapping, trepanning, raising the shoulder-blades, &c. &c.: but when I had been a short time at my father’s in the country, I found that the farriers and old women performed, either on man or beast, twenty cures for one achieved by the doctors and apothecaries. I had great amusement in conversing with these people, and perceived some reason in their arguments.

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Footnote 5:

I never saw a young woman brought into the dissecting-room but my
blood ran cold, and I was immediately set a-moralising. The old song
of “Death and the Lady” is a better lecture for the fair sex than all
the sermons that ever were preached, including Mr. Fordyce’s. ’Tis a
pity that song is not _melodised_ for the use of the fashionables
during their campaigns in London.

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As to the farriers, I reflected, that as man is only a mechanical animal, and a horse one of the same description, there was no reason why a drug that was good for a pampered gelding might not also be good for the hard-goer mounted on him. In truth, I have seen instances where, in point both of intellect and endurance, there was but very little distinction between the animals—save that the beverage of the one was _water_, and that of the other was _punch_—and, in point of _quantity_, there was no great difference between them in this matter either.

At that time there was seldom more than one regular doctor in a circuit of twenty miles, and a farrier never came to physic a gentleman’s horse that some boxes of pills were not deducted from his balls, for the general use of the ladies and gentlemen of the family; and usually succeeded vastly better than those of the apothecary.

The class of old women called colloughs were then held in the highest estimation, as understanding the cure (that is if God pleased) of all disorders. Their _materia medica_ did not consist of gums, resins, minerals, and hot iron,—as the farriers’ did; but of leaves of bushes, bark of trees, _weeds_ from _churchyards_, and mushrooms from _fairy grounds_; rue, garlic, rosemary, birds’-nests, foxglove, &c.: in desperate cases they sometimes found it advisable to put a _charm_ into the bolus or stoop, and then it was sure to be “firm and good.” I never could find out what either of their charms were. They said they should die themselves if they disclosed them to any body. No collough ever could be a _doctor_ whilst she had one tooth remaining in her head, as the remedy was always reduced to a pulp or paste by her own mumbling of its materials, and the contact of an old grinder would destroy the purity of the charms and simples, and leave the cure, they would say, no better than a farrier’s.

Our old collough, Jug Coyle, as she sat in a corner of the hob, by the great long turf fire in the kitchen, exactly in the position of the Indian squaws, munching and mumbling for use an apron-full of her morning’s gatherings in the fields, used to talk at intervals very _sensibly_ of her art. “Ough! then, my dear sowl, (said she one evening,) what would the poor Irishers have done in owld times but for their colloughs? Such brutes as you!” continued she, (looking at Butler, the farrier of the family, who was seated fast asleep on a bench at the opposite end of the hearth,) “’tis you, and the likes of you, a curse on you, root and branch! that starved the colloughs by giving your poisons to both cows and quality. Sure its the farriers’ and pothecaries’ drugs that kills all the people-ay, and the horses and cattle too,” and she shook her claw-like fist at the unconscious farrier.

“Jug Coyle,” said I, “why are you so angry?”

Jug:—“Sure it’s not for myself, it’s for my calling,” said she: “a thousand years before the round towers were built (and nobody can tell _that_ time), the colloughs were greater nor any lady in the country. We had plenty of charms in those days, Master Jonah, till the farriers came, bad luck to the race! Ough! may the curse of Crummell light on yees all, breed, seed, and generation, Larry Butler! not forgetting Ned Morrisy of Clapook, the villanous cow-doctor, that takes the good from the colloughs likewise, and all—”

Here Jug Coyle stopped short, as the farrier opened his eyes, and she knew well that if Larry Butler had a sup in, he would as soon beat an old woman as any body else. She therefore resumed munching her herbs, but was totally silenced.

Larry Butler was one of the oldest and most indispensable _attachés_ of our family. Though nobody remembered him a _boy_, he was as handy, as fresh, and as _rational_, perhaps more so, than half a century before. Short, broad, and bow-legged, bone and muscle kept his body together—for flesh was absent. His face, once extremely handsome, still retained its youthful colouring—though broken and divided: his sharp eye began to exhibit the dimness of age: the long white hair had deserted his high forehead, but fell, in no scanty locks, down each side of his animated countenance. He is before my eye at this moment—too interesting, and, at the same time, odd a figure ever to be forgotten.

I had a great respect for old Butler: he was very passionate, but universally licensed: he could walk any distance, and always carried in his hand a massive firing-iron. I have thus particularly described the old man, as being one of the most curious characters of his class I ever met in Ireland.

Larry soon showed signs of relapsing into slumber; but Jug, fearing it was a _fox’s sleep_ (an old trick of his), did not recommence her philippic on the farriers, but went on in her simple praise of the collough practice. “Sure,” said she, “God never sent any disorder into a country that he did not likewise send something to cure it with.”

“Why, certainly, Jug,” said I, “it would be rather bad treatment if we had no cures in the country.”

“Ough! that saying is like your dear father,” said she, “and your grandfather before you, and your great-grandfather who was before him agin. Moreover,” pursued Jug, “God planted our cures in the fields because there was no pothecaries.”

“Very true, Jug,” said I.

“Well, then, Master Jonah,” resumed she, “if God or the Virgin, and I’m sure I can’t say which of them, planted the cures, sure they must have made people who knew how to pick them up in the fields, or what good is their growing there?”

“There’s no gainsaying that, Jug,” gravely observed I.

“Well, then, it was to the colloughs, sure enough, God gave the knowledge of picking the cures up—because he knew well that they were owld and helpless, and that it would be a charity to employ them. When once they learned the herbs, they were welcome every where; and there was not _one_ man died in his bed (the people say) in owld times for _twenty_ now-a-days.”

“Of that there is no doubt, Jug,” said I, “though there may be other reasons for it.”

“Ough! God bless you agin, avourneen! any how,” said Jug. “Well, then, they say it was Crummell and his troopers, bad luck to their sowls, the murdering villains! that brought the first farriers (and no better luck to _them_!) to Ireland, and the colloughs were kilt with the hunger. The craturs, as the owld people tell, eat grass like the beasts when the cows were all kilt by the troopers and farriers—avourneen, avourneen!”

Modern practitioners will perceive, by these two specimens of our ancient _doctors_, that the state of medicine in Ireland was totally different from that in Italy. Surgery being likewise a branch of the healing art, no doubt also differed in the two countries, in a similar degree. I shall therefore give a few _instances_ of both medico-surgical and surgico-medical practice fifty years ago in Ireland; and if my talented friend, Lady Morgan, will be so good as to inquire, she will find, that though she has left medicine so entirely to her lord, she may get an admirable _doctor_ or two to introduce into her next Irish _imaginations_—which I hope will be soon forthcoming—certainly not sooner than agreeable and welcome.

I must here notice a revolution; namely, that of late, since farriers have got a “step in the peerage,” and are made commissioned officers in the army, they think it proper to refine their pharmacopeia so as to render it more congenial to their new rank and station, and some horses are now not only theoretically but practically placed on more than a level with the persons who mount them.

The practice of horse medicine is indeed so completely revolutionised, that gas, steam, and the chemistry of Sir Humphrey Davy, are resorted to for the morbid affections of that animal in common with those of a nobleman. The horse, now, regularly takes his hot bath like my lord and lady, James’ powders, refined liquorice, musk, calomel, and laudanum, with the most “elegant extracts” and delicate infusions. As if _Gulliver_ were a prophet, he literally described, in the reign of Queen Anne, both the _English horse_ and the _Irish peasant_ as they exist at the present moment. If the lodging, clothing, cleaning, food, medicine, and attendance of the modern Hoynhymm, be contrasted with the pig-sty, rags, filth, neglect, and hunger of the Yahoo, it must convince any honest neutral that Swift (that greatest of Irishmen) did not overcharge his satire. The sum lavished upon the care of one Hoynhymm for _a single day_, with little or nothing to do, is more (exclusive of the farrier) than is now paid to five Irish Yahoos for _twelve hours’_ hard labour, with to feed, clothe, lodge, and nourish _themselves_, and probably five wives and twenty or thirty children, for the same period, into the bargain.

A few very curious cases may elucidate our ancient practice of cure—a practice, I believe, never even heard of in any other part of Europe. The bite of a mad dog was to the Irish peasantry of all things the most puzzling and terrific; and I am sure I can scarcely guess what Doctor Morgan will think of my veracity when I state the two modes by which that horrible mania was neutralised or finally put an end to.

When the bite of a dog took place, every effort was made to kill the beast, and if they succeeded, it was never inquired whether he actually _was_, or (as the colloughs used to say) _pretended to be_ mad: his liver was immediately taken out, dried by the fire till quite hard, then reduced to powder, and given in frequent doses with a draught of holy or blessed water, to the patient for seven days. If it happened that the saliva did not penetrate the sufferer’s clothes, or if the dog was _not_ actually mad, it was then considered that the patient was _cured_ by drinking the dog’s liver and holy water;—and if it so happened that the bite set him barking, then the priest and farrier told them it was the will of God that he should bark, and they were contented either to let him die at his leisure, or send him to heaven a little sooner than was absolutely necessary.

The herbs of the colloughs were sometimes successfully resorted to; whether accidental or actual preventives or antidotes, it is not easy to determine: but when I detail the ulterior remedy to cure the hydrophobia in Ireland, or at least to render it _perfectly innoxious_, I am well aware that I shall stand a good chance of being honoured by the periodicals with the appellation of a “bouncer,” as on occasion of the former volumes: but the ensuing case, as I can personally vouch for the fact, I may surely give with tolerable confidence.

KILLING WITH KINDNESS.

Illustration of the Irish horror of hydrophobia—Thomas Palmer, of
Rushhall, Esquire, magistrate and land-agent, &c.—A substantial bill
of fare—Dan Dempsey, of the Pike, is bitten by a mad dog—Application
to the magistrate for legal permission to _relieve_ him of his
sufferings—Mode of relief proposed—Swearing scholars—Permission
obtained—Dan regularly smothered, by way both of _cure_ and
_preventive_—Fate of Mr. Palmer himself—Allen Kelly, of
Portarlington—“New Way to Pay Old Debts.”

Such a dread had the Irish of the bite of a mad dog, that they did not regard it as murder, but absolutely as a legal and meritorious act, to smother any person who had arrived at an advanced stage of hydrophobia. If he made a noise similar to barking, his hour of suffocation was seldom protracted.

In this mode of administering the _remedy_, it was sometimes difficult to procure proper instruments; for they conceived that _by law_ the patient should be smothered between two _feather_-beds,—one being laid cleverly over him, and a sufficient number of the neighbours lying on it till he was “out of danger.”

The only instance I am able to state from my own knowledge occurred about the year 1781. Thomas Palmer, of Rushhall, in Queen’s County, was then my father’s land-agent, and at the same time a very active and intelligent magistrate of that county. He was, _gratis_, an oracle, lawyer, poet, horse—cow—dog and man doctor, farmer, architect, brewer, surveyor, and magistrate of all work. He was friendly and good-natured, and possessed one of those remarkable figures now so rarely to be seen in society. I feel I am, as usual, digressing;—however, be the digression what it may, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of depicting my old friend, and endeavouring to render him as palpable to the vision of my reader as he is at this moment to my own.

Palmer was one of that race of giants for which the rich and extensive barony of Ossory, in Queen’s County (now the estate of the Duke of Buckingham), was then and had long been celebrated. His height was esteemed the _middle_ height in that county—namely, about six feet two inches; he was bulky without being fat, and strong, though not very muscular. He was, like many other giants, _split up_ too much, and his long dangling limbs appeared still longer from their clothing, which was invariably the same:—a pair of strong buck-skin breeches, never _very_ greasy, but never free from grease; half jack-boots; massive, long silver spurs, either of his own or of somebody’s grandfather’s; a scarlet waistcoat with long skirts; and a coat with “_all the cloth_ in it.” These habiliments rendered him altogether a singular but not other than respectable figure. His visage made amends for both his _outré_ boots and breeches; it was as well calculated as could be for a kind-hearted, good-humoured, convivial old man. His queue wig, with a curl at each side, had his grizzle hair combed smoothly over the front of it; and he seldom troubled the powder-puff, but when he had got the “skins whitened,” in order to “dine in good company.” He was the _hardest-goer_ either at kettle or screw (except Squire Flood of Roundwood) of the whole grand-jury, for whose use he made a new song every summer assize: and it was from him I heard the very unanswerable argument, “that if a man fills the bottom of his glass, there can be no good reason why he should not also fill the top of it; and if he empties the top of his glass, he certainly ought in common civility to pay the bottom the same compliment:”—no man ever more invariably exemplified his own theorem.

Thomas Palmer was hale and healthy;—his fifty-seventh year had handed him over safe and sound to its next neighbour: his property was just sufficient (and no more) to gallop side by side with his hospitality. When at home, his boiler was seldom found bubbling without a corned round withinside it; and a gander or cock turkey frequently danced at the end of a string before the long turf fire. Ducks, hares, chickens, or smoked ham, often adorned the sides of his table; whilst apple-dumplings in the centre and potatoes at cross corners completed a light snack for five or six seven-feet Ossoronians, who left no just reason to the old cook and a couple of ruddy ploughmen, (who attended as _butlers_,) to congratulate themselves upon the _dainty_ appetites of their masters, or the balance of nourishment left to liquidate the demand of their own stomachs. But, alas! those pleasurable specimens of solid fare have passed away for ever! As age advances, Nature diminishes her weights and measures in our _consumption_, and our early _pounds_ and Scotch _pints_ (_two bottles_) are at length reduced to the miserable rations of _ounces_ and _glassfuls_.

At this magistrate’s _cottage_, which had as stout a roof to it as any mansion in the county, I once dined, about the year 1781, when the state of medicine in Ireland was exemplified in a way that neither Cullen, Darwin, Perceval, James, or any other learned doctor ever contemplated, and which I am convinced—had it been the practice in Italy—Doctor Morgan would not have passed over in total silence.

We had scarcely finished such a meal as I have particularised, and “got into the punch,” when a crowd of men, women, and children, came up to the door in great confusion, but respectfully took off their hats and bonnets, and asked humbly to speak to his worship.

Tom Palmer seemed to anticipate their business, and inquired at once “if Dan Dempsey of the Pike (turnpike) was in the same way still?”

“Ough! please your worship,” cried out twenty voices together, “worse, your worship, worse nor ever, death’s crawling upon him—he can’t _stop_, and what’s the use in leaving the poor boy in his pains any longer, your worship? We have got two good feather-beds at the Pike, and we want your worship’s leave to smother Dan Dempsey, if your worship pleases.”

“Ough avourneen! he growls and barks like any mastiff dog, please your worship,” cried a tremulous old woman, who seemed quite in terror.

“You lie, Nancy Bergin,” said her older husband, “Dan Dempsey does _not_ bark like a _mastiff_;—it’s for all the world like your worship’s white lurcher, when she’s after the rabbits, so it is!”

“He snapped three times at myself this morning,” said another humane lady, “and the neighbours said it were all as one, almost, as biting me.”

“Hush! hush!” said the magistrate, waving his hand: “any of you who can read and write, come in here.”

“Ough! there’s plenty of that sort, please your worship,” said Maurice Dowling, the old schoolmaster. “Sure it’s not ignorance I’d be teaching my scholards every day these forty years, except Sundays and holidays, at the Pike. There’s plenty of swearing scholards here any how, your worship.”

“Come in any three of you, then, who can clearly swear Dan Dempsey barks like a dog,—no matter whether like a mastiff or a lurcher—and attempts to bite.”

The selection was accordingly made, and the affidavit sworn, to the effect that “Dan Dempsey had been bit by a mad dog; that he went mad himself, barked like any greyhound, and had no objection to bite whatever Christian came near him. Squire Palmer then directed them to go back to the Pike, and said they might smother Dan Dempsey if he barked any more in the morning; but told them to wait till then.

“Ah, then, at what hour, please your worship?” said Nan Bergin, accompanied by several other female voices, whose owners seemed rather impatient.

“Three hours after day-break,” said the magistrate: “but take care to send to Mr. Calcut, the coroner, to come and hold his inquest after Dan’s smothered. Take care of that, at your peril.”

“Never fear, please your worship,” said Ned Bergin.

They then gathered into a sort of consultation before the door, and bowing with the same respect as when they came, all set off, to smother Dan Dempsey of Rushhall Turnpike.

The magistrate’s instructions were accurately obeyed: Daniel barked, and was duly smothered between two feather-beds, three hours after day-break next morning, by the schoolmaster’s watch. Mr. Calcut came and held his coroner’s inquest, who brought in their verdict that the said “Daniel Dempsey died _in consequence of a mad dog_!”

The matter was not at that day considered the least extraordinary, and was, in fact, never mentioned except in the course of common conversation, and as the subject of a paragraph in the Leinster Journal.

It is a singular circumstance, that the termination of poor Palmer’s life resulted from his consistency in strictly keeping his own aphorism which I have before mentioned. He dined at my father’s Lodge at Cullenagh; and having taken his _quantum sufficit_, (as people who dined there generally did,) became obstinate, which is frequently the consequence of being pot-valiant, and insisted on riding home, twelve or thirteen miles, in a dark night. He said he had a couple of songs to write for the high sheriff, which Mr. Boyce from Waterford had promised to sing at the assizes;—and that he always wrote best with a full stomach. It was thought that he fell asleep; and that his horse, supposing he had as much right to drink freely as his master, had quietly paid a visit to his accustomed watering-place, when, on the animal’s stooping to drink, poor Palmer pitched over his head into the pond, wherein he was found next morning quite dead—though scarcely covered with water, and grasping the long branch of a tree as if he had been instinctively endeavouring to save himself, but had not strength, owing to the overpowering effect of the liquor. His horse had not stirred from his side. His loss was, to my father’s affairs, irreparable.

It is very singular that nearly a similar death occurred to an attorney, who dined at my father’s about a month afterward—old Allen Kelly of Portarlington, one of the most keen though cross-grained attorneys in all Europe. He came to Cullenagh to insist upon a settlement for some bills of costs he had dotted up against my father to the tune of fifty pounds. It being generally, in those times, more convenient to country gentlemen to pay by bond than by ready money—and always more agreeable to the attorney, because he was pretty sure of doubling his costs before the judgment was satisfied, Allen Kelly said, that, out of _friendship_, he’d take a _bond and warrant of attorney_ for his fifty pounds; though it was not taxed, which he declared would only _increase_ it wonderfully. The bond and warrant, which he had ready filled up in his pocket, were duly executed, and both parties were pleased—my father to get rid of Allen Kelly, and Allen Kelly to get fifty pounds for the worth of ten. Of course he stayed to dine, put the bond carefully into his breeches pocket, drank plenty of port and hot punch, to keep him warm on his journey, mounted his nag, reached Portarlington, where he watered his nag (and _himself_ into the bargain). Hot punch, however, is a bad balance-master, and so Allen fell over the nag’s head, and the poor beast trotted home quite lonesome for want of his master. Next day Allen was found well bloated with the Barrow water; indeed, swollen to full double his usual circumference. In his pockets were found divers documents which _had been_ bonds, notes, and other securities, and which he had been collecting through the country: but unfortunately for his administrators, the Barrow had taken pity on the debtors, and whilst Allen was reposing himself in the bed of that beautiful river, her naiads were employed in picking his pocket, and there was scarcely a bill, bond, note, or any acknowledgment, where the fresh ink had not yielded up its colouring; and neither the names, sums, dates, or other written matters, of one out of ten, could be by any means decyphered. In truth few of the debtors were very desirous, on this occasion, of turning _decypherers_, and my father’s bond (among others) was from that day never even suggested to him by any representative of Allen Kelly, the famous attorney of Portarlington.

SKINNING A BLACK CHILD.

Lieutenant Palmer and his black servant—The Lieutenant’s sister marries
Mr. George Washington, a “blood relation” of the American
president—This lady presents her husband with a son and heir—Awkward
circumstance connected with the birth of the infant—Curious and
learned dissertation respecting “fancy-marks,” &c.—A _casus
omissus_—Speculations and consultations—Doctor Bathron, surgeon and
grocer—His suggestion respecting little Washington—Doctor Knaggs
called in—Operation begun—Its ill success—“Black and all Black”—The
operator’s dismay and despair—Final catastrophe of Master Washington.

Another, and a not unpleasant, because not fatal, incident may serve to illustrate the “state of medicine and surgery,” between forty and fifty years ago, in Ireland. It occurred near my brother’s house, at Castlewood, and the same Lieutenant Palmer, of Dureen, was a very interested party in it. The thing created great merriment among all the gossiping, tattling old folks, male and female, throughout the district.

The lieutenant having been in America, had brought home a black lad as a servant, who resided in the house of Dureen with the family. It is one of the mysteries of nature, that infants sometimes come into this world marked and spotted in divers fantastical ways and places, a circumstance which the faculty, so far as they know any thing about it, consider as the sympathetic effect either of external touch or ardent imagination;—or, if neither of these are held to be the cause, then they regard it as a sort of _lusus_ with which Dame Nature occasionally surprises, and then (I suppose) laughs at the world, for marvelling at her capriciousness,—a quality which she has, as satirists pretend, plentifully bestowed on the fairest part of the creation. Be this as it may, the incident I am about to mention is in its way unique; and whether the occasion of it proceeded from sympathy, fancy, or touch, or exhibited a regular _lusus Naturæ_, never has, and now never can be unequivocally decided.