66 plain-spoken Lord Belhaven, as on the corresponding occasion in Edinburgh, to fill up the silence with, "So, there's an end of an auld sang!" All was, or looked courtly, and free from vulgar emotion. One person only I remarked whose features were suddenly illuminated by a smile, a sarcastic smile, as I felt it. It was Lord Castlereagh; who, at the moment when the irrevocable words were pronounced, looked earnestly, and with a penetrating glance amongst a party of ladies. His own wife was one of the party; but I did not discover the particular object on whom his smile had settled. After this I had no leisure to be interested in anything which followed. "You are all," thought I to myself, a pack of vagabonds henceforward, and interlopers, with no more right to be here than myself." Apparently they thought so themselves; for soon after this solemn fiat of Jove had gone forth, their Lordships, having no farther title to their robes, (for which I could not help wishing that a party of Jewish old clothesmen would at this moment have appeared, to bid a shum of moneysh,) made what haste they could to lay them aside for ever. The House dispersed much more rapidly than it had assembled. Major Sirr was found outside, just where we left him, laying down the law (as before) about pocket-handkerchiefs to old and young practitioners; and all parties adjourned to find what consolation they might in the great evening event of dinner. Thus we were set at liberty from Dublin. Parliaments and installations, and masqued balls, with all other secondary splendours in celebration of original splendours, at length had ceased to shine upon the Irish metropolis. The " season," as it is called in great cities, was over; unfortunately, the last season of all that were ever destined to illuminate the society, or to stimulate the domestic trade of Dublin. It began to be thought scandalous to be found in town: nobody, in fact, remained, except some two hundred thousand people who never did, nor ever would, wear ermine; and in all Ireland there remained nothing at all to attract, except that which no King, and no two Houses can, by any conspiracy, abolish, viz. the beauty of her most verdant scenery. I speak of that part which chiefly it is that I know, the scenery of the west, Connaught especially; and in Connaught, especially Mayo. There it was, and in the county next adjoining, that Lord A's large estates were situated; the family mansion and beautiful park being in Mayo. Thither, as nothing else now remained to divert us from what, in fact, we had thirsted for throughout the heats of summer, and throughout the magnificences of the capital, at length we set off by slow and very circuitous movements. Making but short journeys on each day, and resting always at the house of some private friend, I thus obtained an opportunity of seeing the old Irish nobility and gentry more extensively, and on a more intimate footing than I had hoped for. No experience, in my whole life, so much interested, or SO much surprised me. In a little work, not much known, of Suetonius, the most interesting record which survives of the early Roman literature, [De illustribus Grammaticis,] it comes out incidentally that many books, many idioms, and verbal peculiarities belonging to the primitive ages of Roman culture, were to be found still lingering in the old Roman settlements, both Gaulish and Spanish, long after they had become obsolete (and sometimes unintelligible) in Rome. From the tardiness and the difficulty of communication, the want of newspapers, &c., it followed natu rally enough that the distant provincial towns, though not without their literature and their literary professors, were always one or two generations in the rear of the metropolis; and thus it happened that, about the time of Augustus, there were some grammatici in Rome, answering to our black-letter critics, who sought the material of their researches in Boulogne [Gessoriacum,] in Arles, [Arelata,] or in Marseilles, [Massilia.] Now, the old Irish nobility—that part I mean which might be called the rural nobility-stood in the same relation to English manners and customs. Here might be found old rambling houses, in the style of antique English manorial chateaux, ill planned as regarded convenience and economy, with long rambling galleries, and "passages that lead to nothing," windows innumerable that evidently had never looked for that severe audit to which they were summoned by William Pitt; not unfrequently with a traditional haunted bed-chamber; but displaying, in the dwelling-rooms, a comfort and "coziness" not so effectually attained in modern times. Here were old libraries, old butlers, and old customs, that seemed all alike to belong to the era of Cromwell, or even an earlier era than his; whilst the ancient names, to one who was tolerably familiar with the great events of Irish history, often strengthened the illusion. Not that I could pretend to be familiar with Irish history as Irish: but as a conspicuous chapter in the difficult policy of Queen Elizabeth, of Charles I., and of Cromwell, nobody who had read the English history could be a stranger to the O'Niells, the O'Donnels, the Ormonds, [i. e. the Butlers,] the Inchiquins, or the De Burghs. I soon found in fact that the aristocracy of Ireland might be divided into two great sections-the native Irish-those who might be viewed as territorial fixtures; and those who spent so much of their time and revenues at Bath, Cheltenham, Weymouth, London, &c., as to have become almost entirely English. It was the former whom we chiefly visited; and I remarked that, in the midst of hospitality the most unbounded, and the amplest comfort, some of these were in the rear of the English commercial gentry, as to modern refinements of luxury. There was, at the same time, an apparent strength of character, as if formed amidst turbulent scenes, and a raciness of manner, which interested me profoundly, and impressed themselves on my recollection. In our road to Mayo, we were often upon 1812-13 amongst the Pyrenees, was here completely successful. ground rendered memorable not only by histori-single battalion of the troops which fought in cal events, but more recently by the disastrous scenes of the rebellion, by its horrors or its calamities. On reaching W- House, we found ourselves in situations and a neighbourhood which had become the very centre of the final military operations, which had succeeded to the main rebellion, and which, to the people of England, and still more to the people of the Continent, had offered a character of interest wanting to the inartificial movements of Father Roche and Bagenal Harvey. About two months after the great defeat and subsequent dispersion of the rebel army, amounting, perhaps, to 25,000 men, with a considerable though small artillery, at Vinegar Hill; a French force of about 900 men had landed on the western coast, and again stirred up the Irish to insurrection. Had the descent been in time to co-operate with the insurgents of Wexford, Kildare, and Wicklow, it would have organized the powerful materials of revolt, in a way calculated to distress the Government, and to perplex it in a memorable degree. There cannot be a doubt, considering the misconduct of the Royal army, in all its branches, at that period of imperfect discipline, that Ireland would have been lost for a time. Whether the French Government, considering the feebleness and insufficiency of the Directory, would have improved the opportunity, is doubtful. It is also doubtful whether, under a government of greater energy, our naval vigilance would not have intercepted or overtaken any expedition upon a sufficient scale. But it is certain that, had the same opening presented itself to the energy of Napoleon, it would have been followed up at whatever sacrifice of men, shipping, or stores. The Bishop of this See, Dr. Stock, with his whole household, and, indeed, his whole pastoral charge, became on this occasion prisoners to the French. The head-quarters were fixed for a time in the Episcopal Palace: the French Commander-inchief, General Humbert, and his staff, lived in the house, and maintained a daily intercourse with the Bishop; who thus became well fitted to record (which he soon afterwards did in an anonymous pamphlet) the leading circumstances of the French incursion, and the consequent insurrection in Connaught, as well as the most striking features in the character and deportment of the Republican officers. Riding over the scene of these transactions daily for some months, in company with the Dean of F, whose sacred character had not prevented him from taking that military part which seemed, in those difficult moments, a duty of elementary patriotism laid upon all alike,-I enjoyed many opportunities for correcting or verifying the statements of the worthy Bishop, and of collecting anecdotes of interest. The small body of French troops, which undertook this remote service, had been detached in one-half from the army of the Rhine; the other half had served under Napoleon in his first foreign campaign-the brilliant one of 1796, which accomplished the conquest of northern Italy. Those from Germany showed, by their looks and their meagre condition, how much they had suffered; and some of them, in describing their hardships, told their Irish acquaintance, that, during the siege of Mentz, which had occurred in the previous winter of 1797, they had slept in holes made four feet below the surface of the snow. One officer declared solemnly that he had not once undressed, further than by taking off his coat, for a period of twelve months. The private soldiers had all the essential qualities fitting them for a difficult and trying service: "intelligence, activity, temperance, patience to a surprising I was naturally led, by hearing on every side the conversation reverting to the dangers and tragic incidents of the era, separated from us by not quite two years, to make inquiries of every body who had personally participated in the commotions. Records there were on every side, and memorials even in our bed-rooms, of the visit of the French; for they had occupied W -degree, together with the exactest discipline." House in some strength. The largest town in This is the statement of their truly candid and our neighbourhood was Castlebar, distant about upright enemy. "Yet," says the Bishop, with eleven Irish miles. To this it was that the all these martial qualities, "if you except the French addressed their very earliest efforts. Ad-grenadiers, they had nothing to catch the eye. vancing rapidly, and with their usual style of affected confidence, they had obtained at first a degree of success which was almost surprising to their own insolent vanity, and which was long afterwards a subject of bitter mortification to our own army. Had there been at this point any energy at all corresponding to that of the enemy, or commensurate to the intrinsic superiority of our own troops as to real courage, the French would have been compelled to lay down their arms. The experience of those days, however, showed how deficient is the finest composition of an army, unless when its martial qualities have been developed by practice; and how liable is all courage, when utterly inexperienced, to sudden panics. This gasconading advance, which would have foundered entirely against a VOL. I.-NO, III, Their stature, for the most part, was low, their complexion pale and yellow,-their clothes much the worse for wear; to a superficial observer they would have appeared incapable of enduring any hardship. These were the men, however, of whom it was presently observed, that they could be well content to live on bread or potatoes, to drink water, to make the stones of the street their bed, and to sleep in their clothes, with no covering but the canopy of heaven." It may well be imagined in what terror the families of Killala heard of a French invasion, and the necessity of immediately receiving a republican army. Sansculottes, as these men were, all over Europe they had the reputation of pursuing a ferocious marauding policy; in fact they were held little better than sanguinary brigands. P In candour, it must be admitted that their conduct at Killala belied these reports; though, on the other hand, an obvious interest obliged them to a more pacific demeanour in a land which they saluted as friendly, and designed to raise into extensive insurrection. The French army, so much dreaded, at length arrived. The General and his staff entered the palace; and the first act of one officer, on coming into the dining-room, was to advance to the sideboard, sweep all the plate into a basket, and deliver it to the Bishop's butler, with a charge to carry it off to a place of security. The French officers, with the detachment left under their orders by the Commander-in-chief, stayed about one month at Killala. This period allowed opportunities enough for observing individual differences of character, and the general tone of their manners. These opportunities were not thrown away upon the Bishop; he noticed with a critical eye, and he recorded on the spot, whatever fell within his own experience. Had he, however, happened to be a political or courtier Bishop, his record would, perhaps, have been suppressed and at any rate it would have been coloured by prejudice. As it was, I believe it to have been the perfectly honest testimony of an honest man; and, considering the minute circumstantiality of its delineations, I do not believe that, throughout the whole revolutionary war, any one document was made public which throws so much light on the quality and composition of the French Republican armies. On this consideration I shall extract a few passages from the Bishop's personal sketches; a thing which I should not have done but for two reasons,-1st, That the original pamphlet is now forgotten, though so well worthy of preservation; 2dly, That my own information from the Hon. D B- —, and from the Dean of F, who both rode with his Majesty's cavalry during that service, and personally witnessed many of the most important scenes in that local insurrection of Connaught, as well as in the furious and more national insurrection which had terminated in effect at Vinegar Hill, enabled me to check the Bishop's statements. It was upon the very estates of these gentlemen, or of their nearest relatives, that the French had planted their garrisons; and the Deanery of F was not above six miles from Enniscorthy, close to which was the encampment of Vinegar Hill. So that both enjoyed unexampled opportunities for observing the most circumstantial features in each field of these two local wars. The Commander-in-chief of the French armament is thus delineated by the Bishop: Humbert, the leader of this singular body 'of men, was himself as extraordinary a personage as any in his army. Of a good height and shape, in the full vigour of life, prompt to decide, quick in execution, apparently master of his art, you could not refuse him the praise of a good officer, while his physiognomy forbade you to like him as a man. His eye, which was small and sleepy, (the effect, perhaps, of much watching,) cast a sidelong glance of insidiousness and even of cruelty it was the eye of a cat preparing to spring upon her prey. His education and man. ners were indicative of a person sprung from the lower orders of society, though he knew how to assume, when it was convenient, the deportment of a gentleman. For learning, he had scarcely enough to enable him to write his name. His passions were furious; and all his behaviour seemed marked with the character of roughness and insolence. A narrower observation of him, however, seemed to discover that much of this roughness was the result of art, being assumed with the view of extorting by terror a ready compliance with his commands. Of this truth the Bishop himself was one of the first who had occasion to be made sensible." The particular occasion here alluded to by the Bishop, arose out of the first attempts to effect the disembarkation of the military stores and equipments from the French shipping, as also to forward them when landed. The case was one of extreme urgency; and proportionate allowance must be made for the French General. Every moment might bring the British cruisers in sight-two important expeditions had already been baffled in that way-and the absolute certainity, known to all parties alike, that delay under these circumstances, was tantamount to ruin, that upon a difference of ten or fifteen minutes, this way or that, might happen to hinge the whole issue of the expedition ;—this consciousness, I say, gave, unavoidably to every demur at this critical moment, the colour of treachery. Neither boats, nor carts, nor horses, could be obtained; the owners most imprudently and selfishly retiring from that service. Such being the extremity, the French General made the Bishop responsible for the execution of his orders: the Bishop had really no means to enforce his commission, and failed. Upon this General Humbert threatened to send his Lordship, together with his whole family, prisoners of war to France, and assumed the air of a man violently provoked. Here came the crisis for determining the Bishop's weight amongst his immediate flock, and his hold upon their affections. One great Bishop, not far off, would, on such a trial, have been exultingly consigned to his fate: that I well know; for Lard W. and I, merely as his visiters, were attacked so fiercely with stones, that we were obliged to forbear going out, unless in broad daylight. Luckily the Bishop of Killala had shown himself a Christian pastor, and now he reaped the fruits of his goodness. The public selfishness gave way, when the danger of the Bishop was made known. The boats, the carts, the horses, were now liberally brought in from their lurking places; the artillery and stores were landed; and the drivers of the carts, &c., were paid in drafts upon the Irish Directory, which (if it were an aerial coin) served at least to mark an unwillingness in the enemy to adopt violent modes of hostility, and ultimately became avail able in the very character assigned to them by the French General; not, indeed, as drafts upon | five days and nights together, when the rebels the Rebel, but as claims upon the equity of the English Government. The officer left in command at Killala, when the presence of the Commander-in-chief was required elsewhere, bore the name of Charost. He was a lieutenant-colonel, aged forty-five years, the son of a Parisian watchmaker. Hav ing been sent over at an early age, to the unhappy island of St. Domingo, with a view to some connexions there by which he hoped to profit, he had been fortunate enough to marry a young woman, who brought him a plantation for her dowry, which was reputed to have yielded him a revenue of £2000 sterling per annum. But this, of course, all went to wreck in one day, upon that mad decree of the French Convention, which proclaimed liberty, without distinction, without restrictions, and without gradations, to the unprepared and ferocious negroes. Even his wife and daughter would have perished simultaneously with his property, but for English protection, which delivered them from the black sabre, and transferred them to Jamaica. There, however, though safe, they were, as respected Colonel Charost, unavoidably captives; and "his eyes would fill," says the Bishop, "when he told the family that he had not seen these dear relatives for six years past, nor even had tidings of them for the last three years." On his return to France, finding that to have been a watchmaker's son was no longer a bar to the honours of the military profession, he had entered the army, and had risen by merit to the rank which he now held." He had a plain, good understanding. He seemed careless or doubtful of revealed religion; but said that he believed in God; was inclined to think that there must be a future state; and was very sure, that, while he lived in this world, it was his duty to do all the good to his fellow-creatures that he could. Yet what he did not exhibit in his own conduct he appeared to respect in others; for he took care that no noise nor disturbance should be made in the castle (i. e. the Bishop's palace) on Sundays, while the family, and many Protestants from the town, were assembled in the library at their devotions. 66 Boudet, the next in command, was a captain of foot, twenty-eight years old. His father, he said, was still living, though sixty-seven years old when he was born. His height was six feet two inches. In person, complexion, and gravity, he was no inadequate representation of the Knight of La Mancha, whose example he followed in a recital of his own prowess and wonderful exploits, delivered in measured language, and an imposing seriousness of aspect." The Bishop represents him as vain and irritable, but distinguished by good feeling and principle. Another officer was Ponson, described as five feet six inches high, lively, and animated in excess, volatile, noisy, and chattering, a l'outrance. "He was hardy," says the Bishop, " and patient to admiration of labour and want of rest." And of this last quality the following wonderful illustration is given:-"A continued watching of were growing desperate for prey and mischief, did not appear to sink his spirits in the smallest degree." This particular sort of strength has nothing in common with strength of muscle: I shall have occasion to notice it again in some remarks, which I may venture to style important, on the secret of happiness, so far as it depends upon physical means. The power of supporting long vigils is connected closely with diet. A few great truths on that subject, little known to men in general, are capable of making a revolution in human welfare. For it is undeniable that a sane state of the animal nature is the negative condition of happiness: that is to say, such a condition being present, happiness will not follow as the inévitable result; but, in the absence of such a condition, it is inevitable that there will be no happiness. Contrasting with the known and well-established rapacity of the French army in all its ranks, (not excepting those who have the decoration of the Legion of Honour,) the severe honesty of these particular officers, we must come to the conclusion that they had been selected for their tried qualities of abstinence and self-control. Of this same Ponson, the lastdescribed, the Bishop declares that "he was strictly honest, and could not bear the absence of this quality in others; so that his patience was pretty well tried by his Irish allies." At the same time, he expressed his contempt for religion, in a way which the Bishop saw reason for ascribing to vanity-" the miserable affectation of appearing worse than he really was." One officer there was, named Truc, whose brutality recalled the impression, so disadvantageous to French republicanism, which else had been partially effaced by the manners and conduct of his comrades. To him the Bishop (and not the Bishop only, but every one of my own informants, to whom Truc had been familiarly known) ascribes a front of brass, an incessant fraudful smile, manners altogether vulgar, and in his dress and person a neglect of cleanliness, even beyond the affected negligence of republicans." 66 True, however, happily, was not leader; and the principles or the policy of his superiors prevailed. To them, not merely in their own conduct, but also in their way of applying that influence which they held over their very bigoted allies, the Protestants of Connaught were under deep obligations. Speaking merely as to property, the honest Bishop renders the following justice to the enemy:" And here it would be an act of great injustice to the excellent discipline constantly maintained by these invaders while they remained in our town,-not to remark that, with every temptation to plunder, which the time and the number of valuable articles within their reach presented to them in the Bishop's palace, from a sideboard of plate and glasses, a hall filled with hats, whips, and great-coats, as well of the guests as of the family, not a single particular of private property was found to have been carried away, when the owners, after the first fright, came to look for their effects, which was not for a day or two after the landing." Even in matters of delicacy the same forbearance was exhibited :"Beside the entire use of other apartments, during the stay of the French in Killala, the attic story, containing a library, and three bed-chambers, continued sacred to the Bishop and his family. And so scrupulous was the delicacy of the French, not to disturb the female part of the house, that not one of them was ever seen to go higher than the middle floor, except on the evening of the success at Castlebar, when two officers begged leave to carry to the family the news of the battle; and seemed a little mortified that the news was received with an air of dissatisfaction." These, however, were not the weightiest instances of that eminent service which the French had it in their power to render on this occasion. The Royal army behaved ill in every sense. Liable to continual panics in the field, panics which, but for the overwhelming force accumulated, and the discretion of Lord Cornwallis, would have been fatal to the good cause, the Royal forces erred, as unthinkingly, in the abuse of any momentary triumph. Forgetting that the rebels held many hostages in their hands, they once recommenced the old system practised in Wexford and Kildare, of hanging and shooting without tria!, and without a thought of the horrible reprisals that might be adopted. These reprisals, but for the fortunate influence of the French commanders, and but for their great energy in applying that influence according to the exigencies of time and place, would have been made: it cost the whole weight of the French power; their influence was stretched almost to breaking, before they could accomplish the purpose of neutralizing the senseless cruelty of the Royalists, and of saving the trembling Protestants. Dreadful were the anxieties of those moments: and I myself heard persons, at a distance of nearly two years, declare that their lives hung at that time by a thread; and that, but for the hasty approach of the Lord Lieutenant by forced marches, that thread would have snapped. "We heard with panic," said they," of the madness which characterized the proceedings of our soi-disant friends: we looked for any chance of safety only to our nominal enemies, the staff of the French army." (To be continued.) THE DUCHESS D'ABRANTES AND THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. We cannot but regard the contemporaneous appearance of the Duchess d'Abrantès and Lady Blessington in the literary annals of England and France, as affording a very singular coinci dence. Both ladies have been elevated from an inferior grade of life to the highest dignity of the aristocracy;-both have been eminently remarkable for their personal charms ;-both, on becoming "fat, fair, and fifty," renounced their title as beauties, only to take out a diploma of bel-esprit; and both have suddenly attained renown or notoriety by appearing in the literary firmament under shelter of an eagle's wing,-the former as the historian of Napoleon, the latter of Byron. Considerable analogy, moreover, may be traced in the character of their minds and manners; a retentiveness of memory scarcely less than miraculous; a faculty (like that of Esop's human painter of the vanquished lion) of giving to themselves the best of the argument, in all their recorded conversations with the first men of the age; great plausibility in the commonplaces of moral philosophy; and a specious and amiable tone of candour, which might have perhaps imposed upon unsuspecting critics like ourselves, had not Sheridan's inimitable matron in the "School for Scandal," held a mirror up to nature, worthy to enlighten the most unwary. Madame d'Abrantès (we give due precedence to the Duchess) is the widow of one of the most distinguished of Bonaparte's Marshals,-at one time Generalissimo of the Peninsular armies; at another, Governor of Paris; and, at all epochs of the Empire, a brave soldier and energetic man. But not content with these distinctions,— with having occupied a rank secondary only to that of Josephine and Maria Louisa,-the Duchess must needs proclaim herself to the world a descendant from the Emperors of the East,- -a Comnena of pure race; and a considerable portion of this lady's "Memoirs of Napoleon" is occupied by affirmations of this absurd pretension. Since the death of Junot, (who threw himself out of a window* in the paroxysm of a brain-fever, after the disastrous issue of the Russian campaign,) his widow has experienced strange vicissitudes of fortune; and having been at length persuaded to turn to account the valuable resources afforded by her personal reminiscences of one of the most eventful epochs of universal history, she has wisely called to her aid the recollections of a large circle of friends, both literary and political; and in this manner were the soi-disant "Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantes" collated. It is understood in Paris, that the nominal authoress has done little more than furnish notes for the work; the compilation of which is attributed to two or three eminent French littérateurs. But the very notes must have been copious and circumstantial; for certain traits of vanity and egotism,-certain feminalities, (as my Uncle Toby would have thought,) peep through every page; feminalities such as the joint efforts of Messrs. De la Croix, St. Berrve, Janin, and Balzac, would never have availed to produce. But amid all this waste of frivolity, and parade of personal consequence, the work is highly amusing, and has been completely successful; and without a single qualification to It is remarkable, that a similar end is said to have befallen Mr. Farmer, the first husband of Lady Blessington. |