Chapter VII: Part 7

Again, the dance is resumed; hearts, lost or mislaid, before supper, are detected on the person of the thief, after it. Partners, led out for a waltz, remain partners for life; and St. Patrick becomes the Hymen of the year, insuring the perpetuity of his rites, by the recollections which every recurrence of his joyous festival is sure to bring with it. Oh! that all the saints (St. Athanasius, the great protestant saint, included,) were thus worshipped! That all saints “militant here” in Ireland, maintained this spirit of social kindness, this interchange of social courtesy. To those who, like myself, have made the sacrifice, (the greatest that a true Irishman, and still more, a true Irishwoman can make,) that of living in the country, where patriotism has long been not only proscription, but martyrdom, what a change would such an order of things produce! what a perpetual recurrence of bitter sensations would it spare! what natural talent (now kept down by party spirit,) would explode, to illuminate the murky atmosphere of political disunion like the bursting of a sky-rocket on the midnight gloom of a winter’s night! Who, that loves Ireland, that loves humanity, would not drop a bead, or light a taper, to propitiate the saint, who would work this best and greatest of miracles? Be it hoped, that this Patrick’s day, 1829, will be the harbinger of an whole year of national festivals; and that he, who has represented the good saint on earth, by an act, which every Irish saint in the calendar will bless, will accept of this humble offering from one, who has proved herself no

“Swiss to fight for any God or king;”

and who, true to her old vocation, flung no tributary laurel under the chariot wheels of the conqueror at Waterloo, yet now gratefully lays her shamrock at the feet of the emancipator of Ireland.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The prevalence of these barbarous notions of the Deity, almost justifies the cynical observations of a French writer—“Ce fut donc toujours dans l’attelier de la tristesse que l’homme malheureux a façonné le fantôme dont il a fait son Dieu.”

[2] When this short interval of happiness closed before the tyranny of the succeeding Cæsars, the increase of the slave population, and the inroads of the northern barbarians, the human mind again relapsed into a gloomy superstition. The influx of Asiatics and Egyptians into Rome, conspiring with a strong sense of present misery, revived the taste for portents and prophecies: the fantastical religions of the east were imported, with its other products; and thus the Western World was prepared to receive those manifold corruptions of Christianity, which, under the name of church, have so long held mankind in slavery.

[3] “What would you have me do? When she goes to the cellar, she always stays there.”

[4] Dans le tems où l’on rougissait souvent, où l’on vouloit dissimuler son embarras et sa timidité, on portait de grands éventails. Aujourd’hui l’on ne rougit pas, &c. &c. &c.—MAD. DE GENLIS.

[5] Charles the Second died in the arms of the Church and the Duchess of Portsmouth.—See DALRYMPLE.

[6] “Era la carrozza tutta d’argento con statue, figurine intaglio et imprese misteriose, d’invenzione del Cavalier Bernini, con la fodera e le coperte di velluti di color celeste, tirata da sei corsieri leardi; coi finimenti dello stesso drappo; come pure del medesimo erano adornati i cocchieri, la lettica, e la sedia, e le coperte dei muli e della Chinea, il tutto tempestuti di brocche massiccie d’argento e ornato da diversi lavori superbi dello stesso metallo.”—_Platina Vite de’ Pont_.

[7] A book of engravings of the art of hair-dressing for the ladies of France, after my own designs, with an abridged treatise on the conservation of the natural hair.

[8] “Five and forty years ago, the women would have thought it indecent to have their hair dressed by men.”

[9] “Yes, he is the most excellent person in the world. He was the chancellor of my duchy; for my brother did not give me a kingdom.”

[10] Disputes on religion are, after all, but disputes upon men’s ideas concerning supernatural objects; and to ridicule what is incongruous in thought, is by no means to ridicule the divine Author of all things—that is impossible.

[11] First dissertation to the Supplement of the Encyclopædia.

[12]

“Sic tibi rescribo, de tuo palfrido,
Crede quod habes et habes.”

[13] Lettres écrites de la Montagne.

[14] “Foreign ambassadors formerly made a pompous and solemn entry into Paris. This usage subsisted until the middle of the last age: we know not why it was abolished.”

[15] “Some day, or other, I will make a formal apology for bad books. They are invaluable to a sound thinker.”

[16] “There is as much invention in making money by a bad book as there is folly in buying it. Not to hazard sometimes great nonsense is to be ignorant of public taste.”

[17] “Of bad wine is made good vinegar.”

[18]

“And since the vulgar pay for books, ’tis just
To take some pains to write down to their gust.”

[19] “We should be thankful to those who dare to broach paradoxes. If the received opinion be the truth, they occasion us the advantage of believing on reason, what before we credited by habit: if it be false, they deliver us from an error.”

[20] “It is strange that they will print folks without their leave.”

[21] There is one of these cancelli, or altarpieces, at the castle of Malahide, which escaped the religious rapacity of Myles Corbett, to whom Malahide was given by Oliver Cromwell; the Talbots being then driven into Connaught, the limbo of catholic gentility in Ireland.

[22] “E lavoravano con molto profitto, alle cose delle arti; non lasciando ne in palazzo, ne in altra parte di Roma, cosa alcuna notabile, che non disegnassero: e perche, quando il Papa era in palazzo, non potevano così stare a disegnare, subito che sua Santità cavalcava, come spesso faceva, entravano, per mezzo d’amici, in dette stanze a disegnare, e vi stavano dalla mattina alla sera, senza mangiare alto che un poco di pane.”

[23] That there are many bright personal exceptions, makes nothing against the truth of the general conclusion. Genius and virtue are superior to contingent circumstance; and the Russels, the Hollands, and the Darnleys, are not to be placed in the common muster-roll of the class to which they belong. The vice, however, is in the system, and not in the individuals, and we daily feel its influence even on the liberal and enlightened; who, when called upon to decide between privilege and the people, are too apt to have their judgments warped by the peculiarity of their position.

[24] “No persecution, and plenty of indifference or forgetfulness, would be the death of all sects.”

[25] The deceased friend here alluded to, partook largely of the wit and intellect of a family, to whose members, male and female, it is the fashion in Ireland to apply “_l’esprit de Mortimar_,” as a distinction. It is saying nothing, to say of Mr. B——, that he was one of the few surviving conservators of the peculiar wit, humour, and national information which once distinguished “_the order of gentlemen_” in Ireland! I not only lost in him “_mon meilleur causeur_,” as Madame de Villette said on losing her friend Champfort, but one to whose judgment on all that was characteristically Irish, I could always refer with confidence, and by whose approbation I was always flattered and assured.

[26] “Alas! why cannot I still expect him, even though he should not come.”

[27] “As for the rouge and the president, I shall not give them the honors of a rupture.”

[28] It is not without much pain that I revive the memory of circumstances, which ought to lie buried in the tomb of the eminent lady to whom they relate. There is nothing so certain, as that morality varies with times and places; and that to censure conduct without reference to the age and nation of the individual, is substantial injustice. Helen Maria Williams came into life at a moment when the malignant influence of bad institutions on happiness, and the prevailing hypocrisy of the times, had rendered every moral principle problematical, and, like her highly gifted cotemporary, the author of the Rights of Woman, she fell into the common error of supposing, that whatever is opposed to wrong must be right. But, though the individual should not be hastily condemned, the interests of the younger part of my own sex require that the error should be signalized. Female purity is indispensable to social happiness. It is one of nature’s own laws; and is never violated with impunity.

[29] “That young lady who has been so long young.”

[30] “You flatter me; but no matter, always flatter.”

[31] He calls ambition “_la queue de Bonaparte_.”

[32] Saturnalia, I. 16.

[33] “The genius of man is too great for his little habitation; we must, then, conclude that he is destined to a more elevated existence.”

[34] “Give the past to oblivion, the present to indifference; and, to live exempt from all care, leave the future to Providence.”

[35] “What, then, is the use of emancipation?”

[36] “There is no devil, sufficiently a devil, to make head against a wicked woman.”

[37] “Fools are not to be seduced; they must be overpowered.”

[38] A friend of mine kept a pet toad in his cellar, and for nine years it never stirred off the tile which it had chosen for its habitation.

[39] “And all this for a flower and a walk—for a fatigue the less.”

[40] When Louis XIV. sent an army to dragoon the Britons into submission, on their resistance to his oppressive taxation, they fell on their knees, and cried aloud, “Mea culpa, mea culpa!” “C’étoit,” says Madame de Sévigné, “le seul mot de François qu’ils savoient.”

[41] The Traité des Landes, made between these two pretenders to the Duchy, was characteristic of the men and times.—“Rien de plus simple que les conditions. Le Duché étoit partagé en deux. Chacun devoit porter le titre de Duc, et avoir sa capitale; Rennes pour l’un, Nantes pour l’autre. On se sépara avec promesses de se rejoindre, dans un lieu indiqué, pour convenir des arrangemens que le partage exigeoit, et recevoir la ratification de la Duchesse, Jeanne la Boiteuse, épouse de Charles de Blois. C’est d’elle, qu’il tenoit le duché de Brétagne. Quand elle eut lu le traité que son mari lui envoya, elle dit à celui qui l’apportoit, ‘Il fait trop bon marché de ce qui n’est pas à lui;’ et dans sa lettre de réponse, elle lui mandoit, ‘Vous ferez ce qu’il vous plaira; je ne suis qu’une femme, et ne puis mieux: mais plutôt je perdrais la vie, ou deux si je les avais, avant de consentir à chose si réprochable, à la honte des miens.’ Sa lettre étoit mouillée de larmes; l’époux en fut ému; et encore plus, lorsque en quittant sa femme, qu’il étoit allé voir, elle lui dit, ‘Conservez-moi votre cœur, mais aussi conservez-moi mon Duché; et quelque chose qu’arrive, faites que la souveraineté me reste toute entière.’ Il le promit, baisa sa dame, et partit.”—ANQUETIL.

[42] “This mushroom Baron is most likely one of the Black band”—the purchasers and dilapidators of the forfeited châteaux.

[43] “Send me your prospects, and I will send you my trees.”

[44] “We have white-washed all the old premises, and given them three coats, inside and out.”

[45] “Mademoiselle du Plessis est tout justement comme vous l’avez laissée. Elle a une nouvelle amie à Vitri, dont elle se pare, parce-que c’est un bel esprit, qui a lu tous les romans, et qui a reçu deux lettres de la Princesse de Tarente. J’ai fait dire méchamment par Vaillant, que je ne témoignerais rien; mais que mon cœur étoit saisi. Tout ce qu’elle dit là-dessus, est digne de Molière.”

_Lettres de Madame de Sévigné_, vol. i. p. 199.

[46] “Mes petits arbres sont d’une beauté surprenante. Pilois les élève jusqu’au nues. Rien n’est si beau que ces Allées, que vous avez vu naitre. Vous savez que je vous donnai une manière de dévise, qui vous convenoit. Voici un mot que j’ai écrit sur un arbre pour mon fils, qui est revenu de Candie, ‘vago di fama.’”—_Lettres de Madame de Sévigné_, p. 200.

[47] This article, already printed, has been so favourably received by the public, that I have ventured to reclaim it from the miscellany in which it originally appeared. It may be scarcely necessary to add, that as far as the personal narrative is concerned, the production is a mere _jeu d’esprit_, undertaken to fulfil a task incurred at a game of forfeits.

[48] Every possible encouragement should be held out to the rising aristocracy, to pursue other roads to distinction than those acquired by coronets and quarterings. Upon such heaven-born distinctions, the world is now somewhat _désabusé!_ thanks to the Monsieur Tonsons of the French revolution, and to the Jesuitism and _toujours en arrière_ vocation of the _premier sang Chrétien de l’Europe_. The _bel air_ pages of “Matilda” and “Granby,” light as they are, are real benefactions, after the eternal imitations of the Scotch novels.

[49] Archæology, so called playfully by H. W.

[50] “It was an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance,” says its author, “the ancient and the modern. In the former, all was imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always intended to be (and sometimes has been) copied with success. Invention has not been wanting; but the great resources of fancy have been dammed up, by a strict adherence to common life. But if in the latter species nature has cramped imagination, she did but take her revenge, having been totally excluded from old romances. The actions, sentiments, conversations, of the heroes and heroines of ancient days, were as unnatural as the machines employed to put them in motion.”—_Preface to the second edition of Otranto._

[51] The first imitation of Otranto was “The Old English Baron,” of which Walpole gives the following notice. “I have seen, too, the criticism you mention on ‘The Castle of Otranto,’ in the preface to ‘The Old English Baron.’ It is not at all oblique, but, though mixed with high compliments, directly attacks the visionary part, which, says the author or authoress, makes one laugh. I do assure you, I have not had the smallest inclination to return that attack. It would even be ungrateful, for the work is a professed imitation of mine, only stripped of the marvellous—and so entirely stripped, except in one awkward attempt at a ghost or two, that it is the most insipid dull nothing you ever saw. It certainly does not make one laugh; for what makes one doze, seldom makes one merry.”—_Correspondence of Horace Walpole._

[52] Lady M. W. Montagu’s letters, judged by the conventional standard of modern refinement, must be deemed occasionally vulgar, coarse, and indelicate; but they are clever, spirited, and easy, and invaluable for the traits of manners they have preserved of her own times. Her anecdotes of her friends, Moll Skerratt, Peg Pelham, Biddy Noel, and the pretty fellows,—her lady-like remedy against spleen, galloping all day, and champagne at night,—are exquisite. Her account also of the state of morals, in those good old times, is worth quoting:—“When honour, virtue, and reputation, are laid aside like crumpled ribbons, the forlorn state of matrimony is as much ridiculed by young ladies as by young fellows.”—See her Letters, Vol. I.

It is worth adding, that Lady Mary was so sensible of the superiority of her own letters over those of her contemporaries, that she makes the following prophecy of their future success:—“The last pleasant work that fell in my way, was Madame de Sévigné’s Letters: very pretty they are; but I assure you, without the least vanity, that mine will be full as interesting in forty years.”

[53] See Pope’s love-letter to Lady M. W. Montagu, in which he talks of “Momus his project,” and gets in, neck and shoulders, Herod and Herodias, Jupiter and Curtius, to show off his power of “wit and raillery,” and prove the strength of his passion by the force of his learning. “Before Addison and Swift,” says Walpole, “style was scarce aimed at even by our best authors.”

[54] “Mr. Addison travelled through the poets, and not through Italy; for all his ideas are borrowed from descriptions, and not from the reality.”—_Correspondence of Horace Walpole._

[55] I allude here to Ninon’s genuine letters, many of which are to be found scattered through the works of St. Evremond, and her supposed letters, addressed to the Marquis de Sévigné. “Les vraies lettres de Ninon,” says a modern French critic, “étoient moins recherchés et plus délicates, quoique le tour en soit singulier et qu’elles soient remplies de morale et brillantes d’esprit.”

[56] He says of his own letters:—“I write more trifling letters than any man living; am ashamed of them; and yet they are expected of me.”

[57] For the schemers see Lady M. W. Montagu’s letters. The following passage from one of Walpole’s letters contains a curious prediction of the future supremacy of Almack’s:—“Mrs. Cornelis, apprehending the future assembly at Almack’s, has enlarged her vast room, and hung it with blue satin, and another with yellow satin; but Almack’s room, which is to be ninety feet long, proposes to swallow up both hers as easily as Moses’s rod gobbled down those of the magicians.”

[58] See his admirable sketches of those “rags of a dishclout ministry,” which he has scattered through his letters; particularly the Duke of Newcastle. See also his letters to, and various anecdotes of Lord Chatham.

[59] “For my writings, they do not depend on venal authors, but on their own merits and demerits. It is from men of sense they must expect their sentence, not from boobies and hireling authors, whom I have always shunned, with the whole fry of minor wits, critics, and monthly censors.”—_H. Walpole’s Correspondence._

[60] “The turn-coat, hypocrite, infidel, Bishop Warburton.”—_Ibid._

[61] “There are two more volumes come out of Sir Charles Grandison. I shall detain them till the last is published, and not think I postpone much of your pleasure. For my part, I stopped at the fourth: I was so tired of sets of people getting together and saying, ‘Pray, Miss, with whom are you in love?’ and of mighty good young men, who convert your Mr. M.’s in the twinkling of a sermon.”—_Correspondence of H. Walpole._

[62] “On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and W—— are to be joined by the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. You have not been witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple alliance; we have some idea of it. Only figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics, all except the second understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all. You shall have the journals of this notable academy.”—_Correspondence of H. Walpole._

[63] “I was diverted with two relics of St. Charles the martyr: one, the pearl you see in his pictures, taken out of his ear after his foolish head was off; the other, the cup out of which he took his last sacrament. They should be given to that nursery of nonsense and bigotry, Oxford.”—_Ibid._

[64] “What foundation can there be for subjects devoting themselves to their prince, if he is bound by no reciprocal ties? If they are his chattels, his herd, his property, oaths are frivolous. He has power to punish them, if they revolt, whether they are sworn to him or not. To swear a king without reciprocity from him, is subjecting our souls to him, as well as our bodies. We are to be damned to all eternity, if he makes his tyranny intolerable. Proclaim him God at once: God alone can be trusted with power over our minds: God alone can judge how much we can endure. The blindest bigot to the memory of Charles I. or James II. cannot deny that both were the original aggressors. Had they both acted conformably to the constitution and laws, no man living can think that any part of the nation would have revolted.”—_Life of Mr. Thomas Baker, by Horace Walpole._

[65] The following little anecdote is extremely illustrative of the tenor of the _tête-à-tête_ conversations of the father and son, during the last two years that they spent together at Houghton. “In one of those summers, I forget which, desirous of amusing him, which his ill health required, I promised to read to him. He said, ‘What will you read?’ I answered, as a young man would to a statesman, ‘History, Sir.’ ‘No, child,’ said he, ‘I know that cannot be true.’”—_Detection of a late Forgery, by H. Walpole._

[66] See also his sermon on painting, preached at Houghton, and the picturesque descriptions in his own letters, whilst on his travels in Italy. The following is quite a Salvator:—“But the road west, the road! winding round a prodigious mountain, and surrounded by others, all shagged with hanging woods, obscured with pines, or lost in clouds! Below, a torrent, breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks! Sheets of cascades, forcing their silver speed down channelled precipices, and hasting into the roughened river at the bottom! Now and then an old foot-bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage.”—_Correspondence of Horace Walpole._

[67] See his letters to Mr. Pitt, Lord Chatham.

[68] “Pope has made a subterranean grotto, which he has furnished with looking-glasses.”—_Lady M. W. Montagu._

[69] See his most amusing description of Hardwicke:—“The next is her (Mary Queen of Scots) dressing-room, hung with patch-work on black velvet. Then her state bed-chamber. The bed has been rich beyond description, and now hangs in costly golden tatters. The hangings, part of which they say her Majesty worked, are composed of figures, large as life, sewed and embroidered on black velvet, white satin, &c., and represent the virtues that were necessary for her, or that she was forced to have, as Patience and Temperance, &c. The fire-screens are particular: pieces of yellow velvet, fringed with gold, hang on a cross bar of wood, which is fixed on the top of a single stick that rises from the foot. The only furniture which has any appearance of taste are the table and cabinets, which are all of oak, richly carved. There is a private chamber within, where she lay, her arms and style over the door. The arras hangs over all the doors. The gallery is sixty yards long, covered with bad tapestry, and wretched pictures of Mary herself, Elizabeth in a gown of sea-monsters,” &c. &c.—_Correspondence of Horace Walpole._

[70] “As I returned, I saw Newstead and Althorpe: the former is the very abbey. The great east window of the church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient cistern of the convent, and their arms on it; a private chapel, quite perfect.”—_Ibid._

[71] He took the idea of the picture walking out of its frame in the “Castle of Otranto,” from his own picture of Lord Falkland.

[72] Lady Stafford. “Madame de Mirepoix told me t’other day, that she had known a daughter of the Countess of Grammont, an abbess in Lorrain, who, to the ambassadress’s great scandal, was ten times more vain of the blood of Hamilton than of an equal quantity of that of Grammont. She had told her much of her sister, my Lady Stafford, whom I remember to have seen when I was a child. She used to live at Twickenham when my Lady Mary Wortley, and the Duke of Wharton lived there; she had more wit than both of them.”—_Correspondence of Horace Walpole._

[73] June 20th, 1825.

[74] “Yesterday I gave a great breakfast at Strawberry Hill to the Bedford court. There was the Duke and Duchess, Lord Tavistock and Lady Caroline, my Lord and Lady Gower, Lady Caroline Egerton, &c. &c. The first thing I asked Harry was, ‘Does the sun shine?’”—_Correspondence of H. Walpole._

[75] The order, elegance, and neatness in which Strawberry Hill is kept, in the absence of its present noble owner, is only too perfect for antiquarian illusions. A little touch of the dreariness and desolation of an Irish absentee’s “place,” would leave nothing to lament on that subject; and the _virtuoso_ visitor might then sing, with the poet of slovenly beauty, “Such sweet neglect most pleaseth me.”

[76] “In the gallery, I found myself quite at home, and surprised the housekeeper with my familiarity with the portraits.”—_Correspondence of Horace Walpole._

[77] When Walpole visited Hinchinbrook, in the middle of the last century, he found the garden wondrous small, the park almost smaller, and no appearance of territory.

[78] The first stanza of this ode is written on the vase:

“’Twas on this lofty vase’s side,” &c.

[79] Colley Cibber gave this bust to Mrs. Clive, Lord Orford’s fair friend—another equivocal Stella.

[80] A phrase of Horace Walpole.

[81] Among these, and far superior to them all in grace and loveliness, is the picture, by Sir J. Reynolds, of Maria, second daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, widow of James Earl of Waldegrave, and wife of William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George the Third. Walpole’s own portrait of this favourite niece, on her wedding-day, (in a letter to his friend G. Montague,) is equally lovely.

[82] I have mentioned this fine picture in the catalogue of Salvator Rosa’s works now in England. But I had not then seen it; nor was I then aware how enthusiastic an admirer of Salvator Lord Orford was, until I recently read his admirable introduction to the “Ædes Walpolianæ.” In the passage I allude to, he observes,—“The greatest genius Naples ever produced resided generally at Rome—a genius equal to any that city itself ever bore. This was the great Salvator Rosa! His thoughts, his expression, his landscape, his knowledge of the force of shade, and his masterly management of horror and distress, have placed him in the first class of painters. In Lord Townsend’s ‘Belisarius’ one sees a majesty of thought equal to Raphael, an expression great as Poussin’s. In Lord Orford’s ‘Prodigal’ is represented the extremity of misery and low nature, not foul and burlesque, like Michel Angelo Caravaggio’s, nor minute, circumstantial, and laborious, like the Dutch painters. Salvator Rosa was a poet and a satirist. Here again was a union of those arts: his pictures contain the genius and true end of satire, though, heightened and expressive as his pictures are, they still mean more than they speak. Pliny describes Salvator in ‘Timanthes:’—In omnibus ejus operibus intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur,” &c.

[83] One of the most beautiful and tender pieces of epistolary reminiscences that ever was written, is Horace Walpole’s letter, dated from Houghton, 1761, after fifteen years’ absence, and beginning, “Here I am at Houghton—alone,” &c.—_Correspondence_, vol. ii. p. 226.

[84] In no other collection is to be seen in any good preservation any number of the works of Isaac and Peter Oliver. I forget whether Raphael’s exquisite missal, with its unique miniatures, is in this cabinet or in the library.

Among the curious enamels is one of Charles the Second. It is in an old enamelled blue case, and is said to be one which he gave when in Holland to a young lady, to whom he stood godfather. In her extreme old age she sold it. There is another fine miniature of James the Second, when Duke of York, which is remarkable as being purchased at the sale of Mrs. Danet, daughter to his handsome bold-looking mistress, Mrs. Godfrey, of whom there is also a miniature by Petitot. The most interesting among the historical miniatures of this fine collection are, the clever Queen of Bohemia, the most gifted of all the Stuarts; Charles the First, by Petitot; Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, by Isaac Oliver; and Sir Anthony Shirley, in a dress half English, half Persian, done when he was ambassador from the Sophy of Persia.

[85] Among these the most striking are the Temptation of St. Anthony, by Teniers. Soldiers at Cards, by Vandyke. His own Head, by Himself and a portrait of Frances Howard, the celebrated Countess of Essex, by Isaac Oliver.

[86] See a description of this piece in “The Anecdotes of Painting.”

[87] Among these is Miss Fenton (afterwards Duchess of Bolton) as Polly.

[88] It is of this picture that Walpole says, “You see Ninon tries to look charming, and she only looks tipsy.” The tradition of this picture is, that Ninon herself gave it to Lady Sandwich, daughter of Wilmot, Earl of Rochester; her grandson (Miss Rae’s Lord Sandwich,) gave it to Horace Walpole.

[89] I really forget in what order of seeing we visited a handsome modernly-furnished saloon, in which the most interesting object is a fine, full-length and very beautiful portrait of the present noble lady of the castle, the Countess of Waldegrave. I think our cicerone told us it was by Sir William Beechey. Both as a portrait and a painting, it may stand the test with any of the Lely and Kneller beauties in the adjoining rooms.

[90] “Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos—it is the land of beauties. On Wednesday the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond, and Lady Ailesbury, dined there, and the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the shell. A thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell young people how much handsomer the women of my time were, than they will be then. I shall say, Women alter now; I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the shell on my terrace with the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings! Yesterday, t’other more famous Gunning, Lady Coventry, dined there!” _Correspondence of Horace Walpole_, vol. ii.

[91] The arts are now making a struggling effort in Ireland, where there is no want of genius, though great want of all means of rendering it available. The commodity is there; but where is the market? Two young artists of distinguished merit, the pupils of the school of sculpture in the Dublin Institution, are now I believe studying with their distinguished countryman Behnes, and have produced two original compositions of considerable talent. Their names are Panormo and Gallagher. Of the young artists, with whom I am personally acquainted, Mr. Lover, as a miniature painter, and Mr. Mulrennan, as a faithful and exquisite copyist of the old masters, only want a fair field, both of study and encouragement, to become distinguished in the art to which they are devoted. But though Ireland has given birth to some of the most eminent artists of the British school, to Jarvis, Bindon, Roberts, Robertson, Hamilton, Barret, Shea, Barry, Ashworth, Comerford, Smith, Kirk, &c. &c., still it can never be the country of the arts. It may produce artists for other markets; it will never have a mart of its own. In the present state of the country, I would rather bind my son apprentice to the meanest mechanical trade, than see him devote his time, talent, and energy, to the arts in the service of a nation, where excellence can only tend to generate disappointed ambition and indignant and ineffectual regret.

[92] Their Graces the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, though in the noviciate of their Irish Regency, had the condescension to appear, this day (March 17th, 1829) at the windows of the state apartments of the castle, with large shamrocks decorating their persons; while hundreds of the common people danced in the court beneath, to the enlivening air of Patrick’s Day, played by the band of the guard.

“Chi ben principia ha il mezzo del opra.”

[93] This is the only occasion on which country dances are performed at the Irish Court. The ball on Patrick’s night is always opened by the lively dance of “Patrick’s day.” The Dowagers of both sexes then come into play; and the “_Irish trot_” of many a veteran belle, recals the good old times of the Rutland Court; when French quadrilles were “undreamed of in the philosophy” of the dancing of that noted epoch.

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