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Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 51, June 19, 1841

Author: Various

Release date: September 22, 2017 [eBook #55603]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading
        Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

         NUMBER 51.      SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1841.      VOLUME I.

[Illustration: SAINT SENAN’S WELL, COUNTY OF CLARE.]

There are perhaps no objects in our own dear Ogygia, or Sacred Island,
as it was also anciently called, which strike the minds of strangers
with greater surprise, and excite them to more meditative reflection,
than the holy wells which are so numerous in it, and the religious
observances--to them so strange--which they see practised at them. By
the devout of the reformed creeds, among such observers, these sacred
fountains, with their adjacent and almost equally sacred trees, covered
with bits of rag and other votive offerings of propitiation or gratitude
to the presiding spirit of the spot, who is generally the patron saint of
the district, are usually regarded with horror, as objects closely allied
to pagan idolatry; and the religious devotions which they see practised
at them excite only feelings of pity or contempt for what they consider
the debased intellect of the votaries who frequent them. By the painter,
poet, and the mere man of taste, however, they are viewed in a spirit of
greater toleration, and with a more pleasing interest, particularly in
the western portions of our island, where the wild scenery amid which
they are generally to be met with, the symmetrical forms and often
beautiful faces of the devotees, and the brilliant colours of their
ancient national costumes, impart that interest and picturesqueness to
the spectacle of which our own great national painter Burton has so
admirably availed himself, and made familiar to the world, in his picture
of the Blind Girl at the Holy Well. It is, however, by the antiquary
and the philosopher that they are viewed with the deepest interest, for
to the one they present in all their vividness the still existing images
of customs which originated in the earliest period of the history of our
race, while to the other they supply the most touching evidences of the
strength of that devotional instinct, however blind and misapplied, that
humble faith in the existence and omnipotence of a Divine Intelligence,
which are among the loftiest feelings of our nature, and which, when
properly directed, must lead to the noblest results. In the minds of such
philosophers, a contemplation of the usages to which we have referred
will be apt to excite, not feelings of depression and despondency, but
rather cheering anticipations of hope for the future prospects and
ultimate happiness of the human race; and they who practise those usages
will be regarded, even in their present meanness of garb, and concomitant
vulgarity of habits, not as degraded outcasts from society, grovelling in
the mire of ignorance and superstition, but as members of the universal
human family, to be tolerated and cherished in all kindliness; while,
with respect to their peculiar devotion, for which so many censure them,
it can still be said,

    ----“This may be superstition, weak or wild,
    But even the faintest relicts of a shrine
    Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine.”

The Pagan origin of well-worship is now established beyond the
possibility of contradiction, and its extreme antiquity is lost in the
night of time. This has been satisfactorily shown in a very interesting
essay, written with a view to the annihilation of its remains in
Ireland, by a Roman Catholic clergyman of distinguished abilities and
learning, the late Dr Charles O’Conor. This learned writer attributes
its introduction into the British islands, and Ireland in particular,
to the Phœnicians, and quotes several authorities to show that if it
had not its origin with the Chaldeans, it can at least be traced as
far back as to them, and that from Chaldea and Persia it passed into
Arabia, thence into Egypt and Lybia, and lastly into Greece, Italy,
Spain, and Ireland. In all these countries its vestiges are still to
be found, but in none of them at this day so numerous as in Ireland;
and it is remarkable that its usages are still identical in the far
distant regions of the east with those in our own _Ultima Thule_ of the
west. This identity is clearly evidenced by Hanway, in his “Travels
in Persia,” in which he says, “We arrived at a desolate caravanserai,
where we found nothing but water. I observed a tree _with a number of
rags to the branches_. These were so many charms which passengers coming
from Ghilan, a province remarkable for agues, had left there in a fond
expectation of leaving their disease also in the same spot.” Similar
instances have been adduced by later travellers in the east, in reading
whose descriptions we might almost suppose that they were depicting
scenes in Ireland; and if all other evidences were wanting, these facts
alone would be sufficient to establish the conclusion that the worship
of fountains in Ireland was of Pagan origin. But we have in our ancient
manuscripts the most satisfactory historical evidences to establish the
fact. Thus, in Tirechan’s Life of St Patrick, preserved in the Book of
Armagh, and St Evin’s Life as published by Colgan, it is stated, in
detailing the progress of the Irish Apostle through Ireland, that he came
to the fountain called Slan [that is, health], “because it was indicated
to him that the Magi honoured this fountain, and made donations to it as
gifts to God.” This fountain was square, and there was a square stone in
the mouth of it, and the water came over the stone, that is, through the
interstices; and the Pagans told him that a certain Magus, who worshipped
water as a divinity, and considered fire as a destroyer, when dying, made
a shrine for his bones in the water beneath the stone, in order that they
might be preserved. Patrick told the assembled congregation that it was
not true that the king of the waters was in the fountain, and bade them
raise up the stone, remarking that the bones of a man were not beneath
it, but that he thought there was some gold and silver appearing through
the joinings from their impious offerings; no such valuable offerings
were, however, found; and Patrick consecrated the stone so raised to
the true Divinity. It may not be unworthy of remark, that the well of
Finnmagh is still, as in the time of St Patrick, equally reverenced,
though under a different name and with a different faith. It is now
called Tober Brighde, or Bride’s Well, having been subsequently dedicated
to that saint as well as all the churches in the plain of Finnmagh,
and under this name the Druidical well of _Slan_ is one of the most
frequented and honoured in the whole of the county of Roscommon.

Several authorities of the same character as that now adduced may be
found in the lives of other early Irish saints, but it is not necessary
to our purpose to quote them.

Dr O’Conor shows from various evidences that on the firm establishment
of Christianity in various parts of Europe the most severe ordinances of
the church were promulgated against the continuance of well-worship in
any form. “I have already stated,” he observes, “that well-worshipping
has been utterly abolished by the Catholic religion in Italy. The
_Fontinalia_ exist no longer; the fountain of Egeria, which I have seen
near Rome, is known only to the learned; and I have seen the common
peasantry of Castel Gandolfo and Marino washing their linen in the sacred
waters of the _Ferentine_ Assemblies of Latium and of Rome!”

In reference to its abolition in England, he adduces a canon made in the
reign of Edgar, A.D. 960, by which it was ordained “that every priest
_do forbid the worship of fountains_, and necromancy, and auguries, and
enchantments, and soothsayings, and false worship, and legerdemain, which
carry men into various impostures, and to groves and Ellens, and also
many _trees_ of divers sorts, and _stones_.”

He also shows that similar ordinances appear in the Capitularies of
Charlemagne, and that amongst the laws of the reign of Ecgbright, A.D.
740, the 148th canon is:--“If any man, following the custom of the
Pagans, introduce diviners or sorcerers into his house, or attend the
_lustrations_ of Pagans, let him do penance for five years.”

It may be asked, then, how has it happened that the veneration paid to
wells has continued in Ireland even to the present day, and to this
question it is not very easy to give a satisfactory answer. It may be
remarked, however, that no evidences have yet been discovered to show
that similar local ordinances were made to destroy their continuance in
Ireland, and that it may hence be inferred that the attachment of the
Irish People generally to their ancient usages in this instance, as well
as in their funeral lamentations, May-fires, and many other ceremonies
of a religious character derived from the same eastern and Pagan origin,
was too strong even for the power of the clergy to eradicate or greatly
diminish. Certain it is, that the pilgrimages to Lough Derg, which, there
is every reason to believe, derive their origin from the same source,
were abolished by an order of Pope Alexander VI, in 1497, and yet the
people returned to them again, and they are at the present moment as
numerously made, if not more so than ever. And, in like manner, the
pilgrimages to wells, even where discountenanced and punished by the
Roman Catholic clergy, as they are now in almost every part of Ireland,
are still continued in secrecy, with a tenacity to ancient usages
singularly characteristic of the Irish race, and which will ensure their
existence for a considerable time longer.

St Senan’s Well, which we have selected as a characteristic example of
the holy wells of Ireland, is situated near the west bank of the Shannon,
near Dunass, in the county of Clare. There is nothing very peculiar to
distinguish this well from a thousand other fountains of the same kind,
but the unusual character of the votive offerings made at it, which, as
our engraving exhibits, consist chiefly of wooden bowls, tea-cups whole
and broken, blacking-pots, and similar odd offerings of gratitude to St
Seanan Liath, or Seanan the Hoary, the patron saint of the parish.

                                                                       P.




A FAIR-DAY IN NORMANDY,

BY MARTIN DOYLE.


Having a strong desire to procure some of the small compact Norman
draught horses for my farm-work, I ventured last year to visit Normandy,
for the purpose of making the desired selections. I took with me a young
friend, who had been partly educated in France, as my interpreter with
the French horse-dealers, and to arrange every particular for me during
my intended hasty intercourse with the foreigners. But previously we went
for passports to the office in Poland-street, where the Consul filled
up the documents without ever looking at our faces, and I believe very
incorrectly as to portraiture. “Your profession?” inquired he in French,
as he was scribbling down the length of my nose, the colour of my hair
and eyes, &c. “Homme de lettres,” responded my companion for me. I nodded
my head in acquiescence, without knowing anything about the matter; but
I was quite satisfied when my friend explained it afterwards to me, and
assured me that Lord Brougham, when Lord Chancellor, had from sheer
modesty sunk his rank and other artificial honours on going to Paris, and
simply designated himself as “Avocat, et homme de lettres.” “Does not
all the world,” said my companion, “know perfectly well that you are, in
the first place, one of the props of the Irish Penny Journal?” “Enough,”
said I, somewhat tickled by the reference to Lord Brougham; “be it as you
please--though I think that, as a farmer going to France merely to buy
horses, I might as well have been written down under the useful character
of ‘agriculturist.’” My passport, however, was by this time in my pocket,
and any alteration in it was out of the question.

I had ascertained that a fair would be held on a particular day at
Falaise, and having time enough to make a long journey by land, and much
curiosity to see Calais, I determined to go there: we reached that port
early in the day.

“Well, then, I am in France,” said I, as we landed from the steamer
on the pier; “here I am, actually on the Continent, looking at French
soldiers, who won’t shoot me, stab me, nor take me prisoner, and on
fishwomen, with kerchiefs tastily arranged on their heads, large
ear-rings, and brown faces, and hearing a language altogether strange to
me.” After staring about me there for half a day, and eating a very nice
dinner in a very grand hotel, fitted up as if there was never any winter
in that part of France, we moved onwards in a most extraordinary kind of
coach: such a lumbering machine!--less than an entire troop of cavalry
appeared to me insufficient to move its prodigious wheels; yet five
miserable-looking horses, with dirty half rotten harness, were compelled
to pull it along towards Boulogne at the rate of more than four miles an
hour.

I know not how it happened--perhaps it was fatigue--possibly a dose of
claret, which caused me to fall asleep in the cuppy[1] soon after I had
passed the barriers of Calais. Be this as it may, while I was dreaming
of home, there was a sudden stop, which aroused me. I could have sworn
at the moment that I was upon a dreary part of the road between Wexford
and Dungarvan; for, besides the general features of the locality, I saw
on the door of a very Irish-like looking public-house, these words--“John
Cullen sells beer and brandy.” “Where am I?” said I to myself; “surely
not in France.” The matter was explained to me. There are several
hundred families of English manufacturers, principally from Nottingham,
employed at their trade in Calais and its vicinity; and John Cullen, who
says he is a Yorkshireman, and has certainly been for more than twenty
years established where he now is, and has married a Frenchwoman, finds
it his interest to brew good beer, and to keep a public-house for the
entertainment of his neighbours and the operatives of Calais, although
the town is three miles distant. But at the moment I was fully impressed
with the notion that John Cullen and his house were in the barony of
Bargy, or in that of Forth.

As the horses at this place were not disposed to run away with the
diligence, and the conductor had no indisposition to a glass of brandy,
I contrived to enter John Cullen’s house, which certainly has nothing
English about it, and asked for the landlord, who soon appeared--an
apparently thoroughbred Irishman, and with a fry of half-bred youngsters
at his heels, speaking the oddest jargon that ever man heard. At first I
hoped that it might have been the old dialect of the barony of Forth, but
I was grievously disappointed. Though John Cullen brews very good beer,
which he sends regularly into Calais, and sells very fair brandy, it
would be no harm, from what I could learn, if Father Mathew could spare
time to make a morning visit to his neighbourhood.

The greater part of the way from Calais to Boulogne is bleak, open, and
ill drained, and altogether more of a snipe-shooting country than a
farmer would desire to see, with a good deal of wheat, however, here and
there, but not in the regularly formed ridges which I had seen in England.

We reached Boulogne that night, and fixed ourselves quietly in an English
kind of hotel, after having been well tormented, before we were fairly
housed, by emissaries from half a dozen establishments, pressing us in
French, English, and German, to patronise their respective employers.
We started at five o’clock the next morning from a coach-office very
like one of our own in its arrangement of desks, clerks, way-bills, and
weighing machines.

On _some_ parts of my journey, as we receded from the coast, the drill
husbandry, the garden-like culture, and the open country entirely under
tillage, resembled portions of England, especially in those districts
where the rural population is confined to villages very distant from each
other, and concealed from the road. The French peasants are very early
risers; I saw many of them at their various labours at four o’clock in
the morning; some women at that hour were leading cows by a string--three
very frequently connected together--or a few wretched-looking sheep, to
pasture on the margin of the road. The dresses of these people, and the
appearance of the sheep, in those spots, informed me very unmistakeably
that I was no longer in England. Sometimes, however, an entire flock of
sheep met our observation. One of these, under the care of a shepherd,
and two dogs which showed remarkable sagacity, we particularly noticed.
The sheep, when I caught the first view of them, were huddled together
in a fallow field, looking wistfully at, but not presuming to touch, a
compartment of luxuriant clover within a few feet of them. The shepherd,
leaving one of the dogs with the flock, and having the other at his
heels, paced off a square of ten or twelve yards, slightly marking the
limits with his foot; he then made a signal to the sentry dog, which at
once allowed the sheep to pass on to the clover, while the other dog
perambulated the prescribed limits, and prevented them from encroaching a
single foot.

As I do not mean to trouble the reader with all the details of my
journey, I need only say that I reached in safety the very heart of
Normandy; and on the way, while admiring the woods, rivers, meadows, and
undulating scenery through which we passed, I perceived a resemblance to
the county of Wicklow, and many other well-wooded and fertile parts of
Ireland.

I had been unable to reach Falaise the night before the fair, but I was
there in time for an early breakfast; and certainly this breakfast was
of an extraordinary kind. We had broth well thickened with vegetables;
the bouilli from which the juices had been extracted made its appearance
as a matter of course, and the whole company took a bit of it. Then came
the liver of a sheep fried in oil, a dish of white beans well mashed and
buttered, cheese, cider, and (though last not least appropriately to the
breakfast table) coffee and boiled milk, with eggs and bread and butter.
Many of the company, including some lady-like looking females, dipped
their well-buttered bread into their coffee, and swallowed it in this
nasty greasy manner with great apparent relish, and several of the party
pocketed the lumps or sugar which they did not use with their coffee.
But every country has its own fashions; and if people are here put upon
an allowance in the article of sugar, and pay for a fixed quantity, why
should they not take away that for which they pay, if they please?

I hastened away from the breakfast table to the place where the fair
was held, and was surprised at the similarity of the scene before me to
those which I have so often witnessed at home. It had nothing of the
English character, excepting some wooden drinking-booths and caravans
for showmen; there were no smart-looking horse-jockeys, no well-dressed
grooms, not a white smock-frock, a laced buskin, a well-trimmed bonnet,
nor a neatly appointed tax-cart or gig in view; but a crowd of men
generally dressed in blue jackets and trousers and glazed hats, among
whom were interspersed some wearing the blue blouse, and a cloth cap
or red worsted nightcap, and a great number of women in their striped
woollens, and high white linen or muslin coifs--nay some of these (on
the heads of the rich farmers’ wives) were of lace, and worth scores
of pounds sterling. The whole assemblage (combining with it groups of
country fellows mounted on hardy ponies, with here and there a woman
_en croupe_, or independently on a pad, with bags behind and before
her, kicking away at the ribs of their horses with their heavy sabots)
reminded me of what we see on a market-day in several parts of Ireland.
Then, to render the similitude more striking, there were the clamour
and jargon of persons buying and selling; and now and then a half
drunken fellow singing in the lightness of his heart, or very noisy in
argument; but generally courteous, and _never_ daring to strike a blow,
and a pedlar selling beads and almanacks amidst a din of oaths and
imprecations, and the embarrassments occasioned by the movements of a
team of four bullocks and three little horses in single file, dragging
each other along with a huge tonneau of cider for the refreshment of the
thirsty crowd, on a two-wheeled waggon, in the rear. We had passed this
rude and very dirty vehicle, when the roll of a drum startled me. Thinks
I to myself, “war is about to commence in earnest,” but it was only the
preliminary flourish of a drummer, who immediately afterwards read out
a notice that a celebrated dentist was about to appear in his voiture,
for the purpose of relieving sufferers from those ailments which, alas!
are incidental to us in every stage of life. Having raised his hat from
respect to the majesty of the sovereign people, he moved off to an
adjacent street, while the great operator himself appeared at hand in a
showy kind of cab drawn by two horses (one in the shafts and the other in
the outrigger style), with a tawdrily dressed postilion to guide them.
Being in haste to reach the open square where the horse fair was held, I
had little time for witnessing the operations of the tooth-drawer, who
was flourishing his case of instruments in a most attractive way. When he
had trapped his victim, he blew a long loud blast upon a horn to intimate
that he was going to operate before the crowd, and after keeping the
sufferer in an agony of suspense and nervousness, he pulled out one or
more teeth with a _large nail_ (sometimes a screw) in the twinkling of an
eye, and with a degree of dexterity which I had conceived impossible. I
was afterwards told that he had several patients in succession, from whom
as they sat backwards in the cab, within view of hundreds of spectators,
he extracted teeth at the rate of sixpence each. This practitioner,
however, was not without a rival: another dentist was mounted on a high,
raw-boned horse, with his case of instruments, and some physic for
curing the rheumatism, in a leathern portmanteau strapped upon the pommel
of his saddle: his dress was of a military character--his coat being
braided like an undress frock; his bridle and saddle of the cavalry form;
his headpiece, a forage cap; and his boots and spurs like those of a
dragoon in the days of the Duke of Marlborough; a _coronet_ hung from his
saddle-bow; and whenever the other dentist sounded his bugle, this man
blew from beneath the overhanging cover of thick hair on his upper lip, a
longer and a louder strain. But the peculiarity of his style of operating
was really striking: instead of dismounting and removing the tooth, he
remained steadily in his saddle, examined the mouths of the patients who
presented themselves for relief, and from his vantage ground pulled or
rather pushed out the diseased grinder. While I was looking on, he poked
out three with a hooked nail for one sous, saying, successively, as he
drew them in a few seconds (as my companion translated his expressions
for me), “Here’s a long one; here’s a longer; and here’s the longest of
all.”

A quack doctor in a huge caravan drawn by four horses, appeared next, and
apparently with much profitable practice, among the dupes who crowded
about him to read his puffs and buy his physic. A pedlar in another
part of the _place_ where the crowd was considerable, without coat or
waistcoat (the wind was at north-east), and labouring very hard with his
hands and lungs, was disposing of coloured cotton handkerchiefs by a sort
of auction form. He took a piece from a lot of the same pattern, tied it
round his waist or on his head as an indication that the handkerchiefs
he was about to put up for sale were of the same sort, and then named
a price, lowering the amount, perhaps, from twenty to fourteen sous,
until he heard such an amount bid as satisfied him; then with the
rapidity of a conjuror he flung the article to the bidder. Another and
another purchaser followed as fast as he could unfold and throw the
handkerchiefs at their faces, stopping occasionally for a few seconds to
receive payments from many customers; then he opened a fresh lot, and
thus perpetually exhibited varieties, selling all the time at a rate of
rapidity which I had never seen equalled, and which could only occur
where every individual in the little crowd is strictly honest.

Little bags of silver and copper were, in the open booths, carelessly
slipped into unlocked boxes, from which any clever rogue might easily
have helped himself; but such an occurrence is almost unknown in the
provincial parts of France. These latter exhibitions were certainly
neither English nor Irish.

It would afford no interest to any of my readers to inform them of the
number of horses which I purchased, nor of the prices which I paid, nor
of the arrangements which I made for sending them to Liverpool. It is
enough to tell them that out of the many strings of horses which had been
conducted to the fair in the English way by ropes from the head to the
tail, and the tail to the head, in succession, and were now drawn up in
rank and file under the shade of a wall for inspection, I bought some of
those which were most free from the characteristic defects of the Norman
horses, and had them safely stabled.

I returned to the scene of gaiety and confusion. There was a young woman
there, bare-headed, but decently dressed in the main, playing upon a
violin, while her male partner blew a terrible blast upon a bugle at
intervals, at the conclusion of each, announcing a grand spectacle for
the evening. The female had given a finishing scrape, and in a moment
was on the ground, flat upon her back, but fortunately without injury
to herself or her fiddle. I looked about and perceived the cause of the
disaster: a horse had been pressed forward very rudely through the crowd,
with a calf dangling from each of his sides, and one of these coming into
violent contact with the fair musician, had thrown her down.

The mode by which those wretched animals had been conveyed to the fair
was truly horrible. The four legs of each being bound, a rope connecting
the poor creatures together by their tortured limbs was passed over the
back of the horse, keeping them _in equilibrio_, and with the heads
hanging downwards in agony, while the ligatures confining the legs by
which they were suspended were impressed, by the weight of the body
below, into the very bone! Oh, for a Humane Society in France to prevent
such monstrous cruelty, taking for their motto the sentiment of her
own Montaigne: “even theology enjoins kindness to brute animals; and
considering that the same Master has given us our dwelling-place with
them, and that they like ourselves are of his family, we should have a
_fellow feeling_ for them!”

Attracted by a concourse of children in another spot, I soon found myself
standing close to an old woman who was dealing out small thin cakes in
a curious kind of manner. Before her was placed what appeared to be a
small round table, but with an index, which, after being set in motion
by a boy, stopped suddenly, and pointed like the hand of a clock to one
of twelve numbers described in a circle. The perpetual invitation was,
“Play, play! twelve cakes for a halfpenny;” and the little urchins,
preferring the chance of twelve cakes for a halfpenny to the certainty
of perhaps only three or four from a regular vender elsewhere, came up
in rapid succession and with eager eyes to the game. Joy sparkled in
the countenance of the juvenile speculator if the hand pointed to a
high number; disappointment lowered upon his brow if a unit or two was
the number which fortune assigned to him, while the hearty laugh of the
spectators increased the acrimony of his temper.

I tried my own luck, and had one cake for my share, to the unrestrained
delight of the little folk.

“Cakes for a halfpenny!” said I to myself. “What a good subject for a
moral reflection!”

Here we have the seeds of gambling sown at an early season in the lively
soil, and the systematic culture of this baneful and vivacious principle
subsequently ensures its establishment in the human heart through the
length and breadth of the land; it finds its congenial bed every where,
from the child of the poorest mechanic to the grey-headed gamester in
the polished societies of higher life. The avaricious principle thus
precociously introduced into the youthful heart among the many natural
weeds which are but too ready to spring up there, has its own distinctive
fruits; and though it may be urged by those who think not deeply on the
effects of early impressions on the ductile mind of childhood, that the
disappointment which the little gamester experiences in his play of
“twelve cakes for a halfpenny” counterbalances (as a trial of temper) the
evils arising on the other hand from success in his object, this defence
is really untenable in its general points.

In the little party before me I saw the willing and prepared pupils of
a higher order of play--of rouge-et-noir, and hazard, and ecarté--by
which so many of our own countrymen are infatuated, and sometimes ruined,
when they take up their residence in France, heedless of the value of
that time and those opportunities for the right use of which they are
responsible to the bountiful Giver of them.

We now entered a low kind of café, in which the next scene of the serious
drama of “twelve cakes for a sous” was exhibited. In one room was a
billiard-table, at which two common-looking fellows were playing, at
the rate of threepence an hour for the tables, for a cup of coffee and
a glass of brandy. In a corner sat a bloated, half-drunken looking old
man in a blouse and nightcap, while his bustling wife discharged all the
labours of the establishment.

In walked a burly-looking customer, who ordered a glass of brandy for
himself, and another for the landlord Nicole. Immediately afterwards--and
this was a daily practice with old Nicole--a game of cards was proposed,
which terminated in favour of the customer, who walked off scot free.

In several instances the old man played in this way--double or quits with
his customers--for the amount of coffee, wine, cider, or brandy, consumed
in his company (he himself copiously partaking of all), and no one seemed
without some play for it, to pay for what he had ordered. At several
tables there were many parties playing in this way at different rates;
and certainly if some of them had seen the contortions of their faces in
a mirror, they would have been disgusted with a vice which so agitates
the human frame, and unfits for every wise and rational pursuit.

Having only played “spoil-five” and “five-and-forty” in my youth,
I neither understood nor wished to learn the game which was played
around me. My young friend and I went to our hotel, and there found the
chambermaid and the waiter, while they were awaiting our arrival, playing
ecarté together on the dinner table for the amount of their morning’s
gratuities. “Twelve cakes for a halfpenny!” said I to myself again.

It only remains for me to tell how I got back to England.

I had reached Havre, by the beautiful Seine from Rouen, in the evening,
without any particular adventure, and gone to an hotel kept by an
Englishman, just as a waiter was cursing an unlucky boy, who had broken
a wine-glass, in true English style. I heartily regretted that I had not
gone to a French house, in which, if the waiter had cursed for a month in
his own language, I should not have understood him.

An accident had happened to the regular steamer for London, and there
appeared no chance of my getting off for three days; I was in despair,
especially as my horses had preceded me from another port, and I wished
to be in Liverpool contemporaneously with their arrival there.

In the course of the night I was informed that a steam-vessel had just
arrived in Havre from Gibraltar, with some of the Braganza family on
their way to Paris, and that she was going on to London at day-break. I
tucked up my portmanteau under my arm, and my young friend and I sallied
out to the part of the quay where the steamer lay, in profound darkness
and the most perfect silence. “Qui vive?” said a watchman, as he put
his lantern to my face and a hand upon my throat, while I was advancing
to the gangboard. My companion explained; and as I had the prudence to
give a franc to the watchman, he lighted us carefully to the side of the
vessel.

Down we groped our way to the cabin; all was darkness there, and every
one on board was asleep. The vessel was so full that the steward and
his wife were lying on the floor (in a heavy slumber), and directly in
my way. I spoke: no one answered. I caught the stewardess by the nose,
and could not conceive what it was that I had in my hand. She screamed,
and gave her husband a smart blow on the head, thinking that he was the
assailant. “Pordonnez,” said I, trying to speak civilly in French, and
supposing they could not understand English. “Who the deuce is there?”
roared out the steward. “Oh, English,” said I to myself. I explained,
and slipped a five-franc piece into the man’s hand, and apologized at
the same time to his wife for having pulled her nose instead of the
bell-handle.

“The captain is asleep,” said he, “but I shall awake him.” “Good fellow,”
said I.

My interpreter and I followed him, and the captain, who had heard the
bustle, opened his cabin door. I repeated the purport of my unseasonable
visit, telling him, by way of a clincher, that the Irish Penny Journal,
to which I contributed by far the best articles (“and which,” said I,
“you of course take for the gratification of your passengers”), could not
flourish during my absence from home.

“Come on board, both of you,” said he, “if you like, but don’t bother me
with any more talk at this unseasonable hour of the night.”

“An Irishman!” thought I to myself.

He banged the door, and I suppose was instantly asleep again.

I was soon in the same condition, and did not awake until we had made
considerable progress with the very next tide towards London.

[1] Mr Doyle probably means the coupée.--EDITOR.




ORIGIN AND MEANINGS OF IRISH FAMILY NAMES.

BY JOHN O’DONOVAN.

Sixth Article.


In my last article I gave examples of the process now in progress in
the several provinces of Ireland among the people generally in changing
their original names into names apparently English or Scottish: there
are others in Ireland among the genteeler classes who have changed
their old Milesian names in such a manner as to give them a French or
Spanish appearance; and the adopters of these names _now_ wish to be
deemed as of French or Spanish origin (any thing but Irish!) These,
it is true, are few in number, but some of them are respectable; and
their effort at concealing their origin is not to be recommended. We
shall therefore exhibit a few instances of this mode of rendering Irish
names _respectable-looking_ by giving them a foreign aspect, which the
bearers cannot by any effort give their own faces. The most remarkable
of these changes has been made by the family of O’Dorcy, in the west of
the county of Galway, who have assumed not only the name of D’Arcy, but
also the arms of the D’Arcys of England. But it is well known that the
D’Arcys of Galway are all descended from James Reagh Darcy, of Galway,
merchant, whose pedigree I know to be traced by Duald Mac Firbis, not to
the D’Arcys of Meath, who are of Anglo-Norman origin, but to the Milesian
O’Dorcys of West Connaught, who were the ancient chiefs of Partree, a
well-known territory extending from the lakes of Lough Mask and Lough
Carra, westwards, in the direction of Croaghpatrick.

The next instance of this kind of change which I shall adduce, is found
in the adjacent county of Mayo, where a gentleman of the ancient and
celebrated family of O’Malley wishes all his friends to call him not
O’Malley, for that is Irish, but De Maillet; but though his friends
condescend sometimes to call him by this name, they can scarcely refrain
from laughter while pronouncing it, for they know very well that he
descends from Owen O’Malley, the father of the famous heroine Grania
Wael, and chief of Umallia or the Owles, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

The third instance I have met with of this false Irish vanity is in the
far-famed Thomond, where a gentleman of the O’Malronies has followed the
plebeian corruption of that name, by which it is metamorphosed to Moroni,
by which he affects to pass as one not of Irish but of Spanish descent;
but he cannot prevent his neighbours from calling him _O’Murruana_ when
they speak the native language, for by a strange corruption in that part
of Ireland, where the Irish language is in most other instances very
correctly pronounced, when the prefix _maol_ is followed by _r_, the _l_
is itself pronounced _r_, as in the instance under consideration, and
in O’Mulryan, a well-known name in Munster, which they now pronounce
O’Murryan. Thus an accidental corruption in the pronunciation of a
consonant is taken advantage of to metamorphose a famous old Irish name
into a Spanish one. It is indeed most lamentable to see the native Irish
think so little of their names and of their _own natural country_.

I have many other instances of this audacious kind of change of surnames
at hand, but I refrain from enlarging on them, from the apprehension of
exceeding my limits without being enabled to bring this subject to a
close in the stipulated space. A few others, however, are necessary to
be exhibited to public scorn. The next instance, then, which has come
under my notice, is in the province of Connaught, where the family of
O’Mulaville have all changed their name to Lavelle, and where those who
know nothing of the history of that family are beginning to think that
they are of French descent. But it is the constant tradition in the
county of Mayo that they are of Danish origin, and that they have been
located in Iarowle since the ninth century. Of this name was the late
Editor of the Freeman’s Journal: a man of great abilities and extensive
learning, who among other ancient languages had acquired a profound
knowledge of his own native dialect. This name is scotticised Mac Paul in
the province of Ulster.

Another name which some people are apt to take for a French or
Anglo-Norman name, is Delany, as if it were De Lani; but the Irish origin
of this family cannot be questioned, for the name is called O’Dulainé in
the original language, and the family were originally located at the foot
of Slieve Bloom in Upper Ossory. Another instance is found in the change
of O’Dowling to DuLaing, but this is seldom made, and never by any but
people of no consequence.

Some individuals of the name of Magunshinan, or Magilsinan, upon leaving
their original localities in Cavan and Meath, have assumed, some the name
of Nugent, and others that of Gilson. Of this family was Charles Gilson,
the founder and endower of the public school of Old Castle, a man of
great benevolence, who found it convenient on his removal to London to
shorten his name to Gilson.

Other individuals of Irish name and origin, upon settling in London and
other parts of England, have changed their surnames altogether, as the
ancestor of the present Baron of Lower Tabley, whose name was Sir Peter
Byrne, but who was obliged to change his name to Leycester, to conform
to the will of his maternal grandfather, who had bequeathed him large
estates in England, on condition of his dropping his Irish name and
adopting that of the testator. He is the most distinguished man of the
O’Byrne race now living, and we regret that his Irish origin is entirely
disguised in his present name of Warren. He descends from Daniel, the
second son of Loughlin Duff of Ballintlea, in the county of Wicklow, a
chief of great distinction, and is related to the Byrnes of Fallybeg,
near Stradbally, in the Queen’s County, who descended from the first
son of this Loughlin--a fact with which his lordship is altogether
unacquainted; and the writer of these remarks has often regretted that
his lordship has not been made acquainted with this fact, as it might be
in his power to serve the sons of the late venerable Laurence Byrne of
Fallybeg.

Other changes have been made in Irish surnames by abbreviation; but
though we regret this, we are not willing to condemn it altogether,
especially when the changes are made for the purpose of rendering such
names easy of pronunciation in the mouths of magistrates and lawyers, who
could not, in many cases, bring their organs of speech to pronounce them
in their original Irish form. Of these we could give a long list, but we
shall content ourselves with a selection.

In the province of Connaught the name Mac Eochy has been shortened to
M’Keogh, and latterly to Keogh; O’Mulconry to Conry and Conroy. In
Ossory, Mac Gillapatrick has been manufactured into Fitzpatrick. In the
county of Galway, and throughout the province of Connaught generally,
Mac Gillakelly has been manufactured into Kilkelly; O’Mullally to Lally;
Mac Gillakenny, to Kilkenny; Mac Gillamurry, to Kilmurry; Mac Gilladuff
to Kilduff; Mac Geraghty, to Geraghty and Gearty; Mac Phaudeen, to
Patten; O’Houlahan, to Nolan. This last change is not to be excused, for
it entirely disguises the origin of the family; and we would therefore
recommend the Nolans of the county of Galway to reject their false name,
and re-assume that of O’Houlahan. This family were removed from Munster
into Connaught by Oliver Cromwell, under the name of O’Houlahan, and they
have therefore no just right to assume the name of another Irish family
to whom they bear no relation whatsoever. The real Nolans of Ireland
are of Leinster origin, and were the ancient chiefs of the barony of
Forth, in the now county of Carlow, anciently called Foharta Fea, where
they are still numerous; but the Connaught Nolans are not Nolans at all,
but O’Houlahans, and are a family who bore the dignity of chieftains in
ancient times, though it happens, that, not knowing their history, or
taking a dislike to the sound of the name, they have, with questionable
propriety, assumed the name of a Leinster family, which seems to sound
somewhat better in modern ears. In the province of Ulster, the name Mac
Gillaroe has been shortened to Gilroy and Kilroy; Mac Gillabride, to
Mac Bride; Mac Gillacuskly, to Cuskly, and impertinently to Cosgrove
and even Costello! Mac Gilla-Finnen, to Linden and Leonard; Mac Gennis,
to Ennis and Guinness; Mac Blosky, to Mac Closky. In Munster the noble
name of Mac Carthy (or, as it is pronounced in the original Irish, Maw
Caurhă) has dwindled to Carty (a vile change!); O’Mulryan, to O’Ryan and
Ryan; Mac Gilla-Synan, to Shannon; Mac Gillaboy, to Mac Evoy, &c. &c.
In Leinster, all the O’s and Macs have been rejected; and though a few
of them are to be met there now, in consequence of the influx of poor
strangers of late into that province, it is certain that there is not
a single instance in which the O’ or Mac has been retained by any of
the aboriginal inhabitants of that province, I mean the _ancient Irish_
Leinster, not including Meath. The most distinguished of these was Mac
Murrogh, but there is not a single individual of that name now living in
Leinster; the descendants of Donnell Mac Murrogh Cavanagh, who, although
illegitimate, became by far the most distinguished branch of that great
family, having all changed their surnames to Cavanagh, and the other
branches having, as the present writer has strong reasons to believe,
changed it to Murphy. The writer has come to this latter conclusion from
having ascertained that in the territory of the Murrows, in the county
of Wexford, once the country of a great and powerful sept of the Mac
Murroghs, the greater number of the inhabitants, who are perhaps the
finest race of men in Ireland, are now called Murphy. He has therefore
come to the conclusion, and he hopes not too hastily, that the Murphys
of this territory are all Mac Murroghs. At the same time, however, he is
well aware that the name generally anglicised Murphy is not Mac Murrogh,
but O’Murchoo, which was that of a branch or offshoot of the regal family
of Leinster, who became chiefs of the country of Hy-Felimy, and whose
chief seat was at Tullow, in the now county of Carlow. The writer is well
aware that the Murphys of the county of Carlow and Kilkenny are of this
latter family, but he cannot get rid of the conviction that the Murphys
of the Murrowes, in the east of the county of Wexford, are Mac Murroghs.
On the subject of the difference between these two families, we find the
learned Roderic O’Flaherty thus criticising Peter Walsh towards the close
of the seventeenth century:--

“An O’ or a Mac is prefixed in Irish surnames to the proper names of
some of their ancestors, intimating that they were the sons, grandsons,
or posterity of the person whose name they adopted; but it was not
proper to use one name promiscuously in the place of another, as he
writes O’Murphy, king of Leinster, instead of Mac Murphy, or rather Mac
Murchadh; but the family of O’Murchadha, which in English is Murphy, is
very different from and inferior to this family.”--Ogygia, Part III, cap.
xxvii.

There are also some few instances to be met with, in which the O’ has
been changed to Mac, and _vice versa_, as in the remarkable instance
of O’Melaghlin, chief of the Southern Hy-Niall race, to Mac Loughlin;
also in those instances in which O’Duvyerma has been changed to Mac
Dermot, O’Donoghy to Mac Donogh, O’Knavin to Mac Nevin, O’Heraghty to Mac
Geraghty, and a few others.

These latter changes are not calculated to disguise the _Irish origin_ of
the families who have made them, but they are still to be regretted, as
they tend to disguise the origin, race, and locality of the respective
families, and we should therefore like to see the original names restored.

Similar changes have been made in the family names among the Welsh, as
Ap-John into Jones, Ap-Richard into Prichard and Richards, Ap-Owen into
Owens, Ap-Robert into Probert and Roberts, Ap-Gwillim into Williams, &c.
&c.

Having thus treated of the alterations the Irish have made in their
surnames, or family names, for the purpose of making them appear English,
I shall next proceed to point out the changes which they have likewise
made in their Christian or baptism names, for the same purpose. Many of
their original names they have altogether rejected, as not immediately
reducible to any modern English forms; but others they have retained,
though they have altered them in such a manner as to make them appear
English. The writer could furnish from the authentic Irish annals and
pedigrees a long list of proper names of men which were in use in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, and which have been for a long time laid aside;
but the limits of this Journal would not afford room for such a list:
he must therefore content himself by pointing out the original forms of
such names as have been retained in an anglicised shape. These changes
in the Christian names have been made, not only by those families who
have adopted English surnames, but also by those who have retained the
Milesian O’s and Macs; but these families have assumed that the English
forms which they have given this class of names are perfectly correct.
This was assumed to be true so early as the year 1689, in which we find
Sir Richard Cox writing on the subject as follows:--

“The Christian names of the Irish are as in England; Aodh _i. e._ Hugh,
Mahoone _i. e._ Matthew, Teige _i. e._ Timothy, Dermond _i. e._ Jeremy,
Cnogher _i. e._ Cornelius, Cormac _i. e._ Charles, Art _i. e._ Arthur,
Donal _i. e._ Daniel, Goron _i. e._ Jeofry, Magheesh _i. e._ Moses.”

Now, I absolutely deny that these names are identical, though I
acknowledge that they are at present universally received and used as
such. In the first place, the name _Aodh_, which has been metamorphosed
to Hugh, is not synonymous with it, for the name Aodh signifies _fire_,
but _Hugh_, which has been borrowed from the Saxon, signifies _high_ or
_lofty_. Since, then, they bear not the same meaning, and are not made
up of the same letters, in what, may it be asked, does their identity
consist? It is quite obvious that they have nothing in common with
each other. In the second place, Mahon, or, as Sir Richard Cox writes
it, Mahoone, is not Matthew; for if we believe Spenser and some Irish
glossographists, Mahon signifies a _bear_; and if they be correct, it
cannot be identical, synonymous, or cognate with the Scriptural name
Matthew, which does not signify a _bear_, but a _gift_, or a _present_.
In the third instance, the Irish name Teige, which according to all the
Irish glossaries signifies _a poet_, is not synonymous with Timothy,
which means _the God-fearing_, and therefore is not identical or cognate
with it; and I therefore doubt that the Irish people have any right to
change Teige into Timothy. It was first anglicised Thady, and the writer
is acquainted with individuals who have rendered it Thaddæus, Theophilus,
and Theodosius.

In the fourth instance, Dermod, or, as Sir Richard Cox writes it,
Dermond, is not identical with Jeremy, nor is it synonymous or even
cognate with it. On this name, which was first very incorrectly
anglicised Darby, the learned Dr O’Brien writes as follows:--“_Diarmaid_,
the proper name of several great princes of the old Irish. This name
[which had its origin in Pagan times] is a compound of _Dia_, god, and
_armaid_, the genitive plural of the Irish word _arm_, Latin _arma_,
_armorum_, so that _Dia-armaid_ literally signifies the same as _Deus
armorum_, the god of arms. Such is the exalted origin of this Irish name,
which does not screen it from being at times a subject of ridicule to
some of our pretty gentlemen of the modern English taste.”

It must, however, in candour be acknowledged that this is not the meaning
of the name Dermod, and that Dr O’Brien invented this explanation to
gain what he considered respectability for a name common in his own
illustrious family, and which was considered vulgar by the fashionable
people of the period at which he wrote. We have the authority of the
Irish glossaries to show that _Diarmaid_, which was adopted at a remote
period of Irish history, as the proper name of a man, signifies a
freeman; and though this meaning does not sound as lofty as the _Deus
armorum_ of Dr O’Brien, still it is sufficiently respectable to show
that Dermod is not a barbarous name, and that the Irish people need
not be ashamed of it; but they will be ashamed of every Irish name in
despite of all that can be said, as the writer has very strong grounds
for asserting. The reason is obvious--because they have lost their
nationality.

In the fifth instance, Concovar, or, as Sir Richard Cox writes it,
Cnogher, is not identical, synonymous, or even cognate with Cornelius;
for though it has been customary with some families to latinize it to
Cornelius, still we know from the radices of both names that they bear
not the slightest analogy to each other, for the Irish name is compounded
of _Conn_, strength, and _Cobhair_, aid, assistance; while the Latin
Cornelius is differently compounded. It is, then, evident that there is
no reason for changing the Irish Concovar or Conor to Cornelius, except a
fancied resemblance between the sounds of both; but this resemblance is
very remote indeed.

In the sixth instance, the name Cormac has nothing whatsoever to do with
Charles (which means _noble-spirited_), for it is explained by all the
glossographers as signifying “Son of the Chariot,” and it is added, “that
it was first given as a sobriquet, in the first century, to a Lagenian
prince who happened to be born in a chariot while his mother was going
on a journey, but that it afterwards became honourable as the name of
many great personages in Ireland.” After the accession of Charles the
First, however, to the throne, many Irish families of distinction changed
Cormac to Charles, in order to add dignity to the name by making it the
same with that of the sovereign--a practice which has been very generally
followed ever since.

In the seventh instance, Sir Richard is probably correct. I do not deny
that Art may be synonymous with Arthur; indeed I am of opinion that
they are both words of the same original family of language, for the
Irish word _Art_ signifies _noble_, and if we can rely on the British
etymologists, Arthur bears much of a similar meaning in the Gomraeg or
Old British.

With respect to the eighth instance given by Sir Richard Cox, I have
no hesitation in asserting that the Irish proper name Domhnall, which
was originally anglicised Donnell and Donald, is not the same with the
Scriptural name Daniel, which means _God is judge_. I am at least certain
that the ancient Irish glossographers never viewed it as such, for they
always wrote it _Domhnall_, and understood it to mean a great or proud
chieftain. This explanation may, however, be possibly incorrect; but the
_m_ in the first syllable shows that the name is formed from a root very
different from that from which the Scriptural name Daniel is derived.

With respect to the names Goron (which is but a mistake for Searoon),
Jeofry, and Magheesh, Moses, the two last instances furnished by Sir
Richard Cox, they were never borne by the ancient Irish, but were
borrowed from the Anglo-Normans, and therefore I have nothing to do with
them in this place. What I have said is sufficient to show that the
Christian names borne by the ancient Irish are not identical, synonymous,
or even cognate with those substituted for them in the time of Sir
Richard Cox.

       *       *       *       *       *

The most valuable part of every man’s education is that which he receives
from himself, especially when the active energy of his character makes
ample amends for the want of a more finished course of study.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Would you know this boy to be my son from his resemblance to me?” asked
a gentleman. Mr Curran replied, “Yes, sir; the maker’s name is stamped
upon the _blade_.”




ELEGIAC STANZAS

ON A SON AND DAUGHTER.


    In Merrion, by Eblana’s bay,
      They sleep beneath a spreading tree;
    No voices from the public way
      Shall break their deep tranquillity.

    Clontarf may bloom, and gloomy Howth
      Behold the white sail passing by,
    But never shall the spring-time growth
      Or stately bark delight their eye.

    Clontarf may live, a magic name,
      To call up recollections dear--
    But never shall great Brian’s fame
      Delight the sleeper’s heedless ear.

    They fell, ere reason’s dawn arose--
      They, sinless, felt affliction’s rod;
    Oh, who can tell their wordless woes
      Before they reached the throne of God?

    What being o’er the cradle leans,
      Where innocence in anguish lies;
    Writhing in its untold pains--
      That feels not awful thoughts arise!

    ’Tis dreadful eloquence to all
      Whose hearts are not of marble stone--
    Such eloquence as could not fall
      E’en from the tongue of Massillon.

    Their ills are o’er--a father’s cares--
      A mother’s throes--a mother’s fears--
    A wily world with all its snares,
      Shall ne’er begloom their joyless years.

    They sleep in Merrion by the bay,
      From passions, care, and sorrow free;
    No voices from the public way
      Shall break their deep tranquillity.

                                             T.




TESTIMONIALS.


Every one who has had any thing to do with the filling up of appointments
for which there has been any competition, must have been struck--taking
the testimonials of candidates as criteria to judge by--with the immense
amount of talent and integrity that is in the market, and available often
for the merest trifle in the shape of annual salary. In truth, judging
by such documents as those just alluded to, one would think that it is
the able and deserving alone that are exposed to the necessity of seeking
for employment. At any rate, it is certain that all who do apply for
vacant situations are without exception persons of surpassing ability
and incorruptible integrity--flowers of the flock, pinks of talent,
and paragons of virtue. How such exemplary persons come to be out of
employment, we cannot tell; but there they are.

The number of testimonials which one of these worthies will produce when
he has once made a dead set at an appointment, is no less remarkable than
the warmth of the strain in which they are written. Heaven knows where
they get them all! but the number is sometimes really amazing, a hatful,
for instance, being a very ordinary quantity. We once saw a candidate for
an appointment followed by a porter who carried his testimonials, and a
pretty smart load for the man they seemed to be. The weight, we may add,
of this gentleman’s recommendations, as well it might carried the day.

In the case of regular situation-hunters of a certain class, gentlemen
who are constantly on the look-out for openings, who make a point of
trying for every thing of the kind that offers, and who yet, somehow or
other, never succeed, it may be observed that their testimonials have for
the most part an air of considerable antiquity about them, that they are
in general a good deal soiled, and have the appearance of having been
much handled, and long in the possession of the very deserving persons to
whose character and abilities they bear reference. This seems rather a
marked feature in the case of such documents as those alluded to. How it
should happen, we do not know; but you seldom see a fresh, clean, newly
written testimonial in the possession of a professed situation-hunter.
They are all venerable-looking documents, with something of a musty smell
about them, as if they had long been associated in the pocket with cheese
crumbs and half-burnt cigars.

A gentleman of the class to which we just now particularly refer,
generally carries his budget of testimonials about with him, and is
ready to produce them at a moment’s notice. Not knowing how soon or
suddenly he may hear of something eligible, he is thus always in a state
of preparation for such chances as fortune may throw in his way. It is
commendable foresight.

As regards the general style of testimonials, meaning particularly that
extreme warmth of eulogium for which these documents are for the most
part remarkable, it is perhaps in the case of aspirants for literary
situations that we find it in its greatest intensity. It is in these
cases we make the astounding discovery that the amount of literary
talent known is really nothing to that which is unknown; that in fact
the brightest of those geniuses who are basking in the sunshine of
popular favour, and reaping fame and fortune from a world’s applause, is
a mere rushlight compared to hundreds whom an adverse fate has doomed
to obscurity, of whose merits the same untoward destiny has kept the
world in utter ignorance. As proof of this, we submit to the reader
the testimonials of a couple of candidates for the editorship of a
certain provincial paper, with which, along with two or three others,
we had a proprietary connexion. There were in all one hundred and
twenty applicants, and each had somewhere about a score of different
testimonials, bearing witness to the brilliancy of his talents and the
immaculateness of his character. We, the proprietors, had thus, as the
reader will readily believe, a pretty job of it. One hundred and twenty
candidates, with each, taking an average, 20 letters of recommendation;
20 times 120--2,400 letters to read!

In the present case we confine ourselves merely to one or two of the
most remarkable, although we cannot say that the difference between
any of them was very material. They were all in nearly one strain
of unqualified, and, as regarded their subjects, no doubt deserved
laudation. The testimonials were for the most part addressed to the
applicants themselves, as in the following case:

“Dear Sir--In reply to your letter stating that you meant to apply for
the editorship of a provincial paper, and requesting my testimony to your
competency for such an appointment, I have sincere pleasure in saying
that you possess, in an eminent degree, every qualification for it. Your
style of writing is singularly elegant, combining energy with ease, and
copiousness with concentration; nor is the delicacy and correctness of
your taste less remarkable than the force and beauty of your language.
But your literary achievements, my dear sir--achievements which, although
they have not yet, will certainly one day raise you to eminence--bear
much stronger testimony to your merits than any thing I can possibly
say in your behalf; and to these I would refer all who are interested
in ascertaining what your attainments are. As an editor of a paper,
you would be invaluable; and I assure you, they will not be little to
be envied who shall be so fortunate as to secure the aid of your able
services,” &c. &c. &c.

Well, this was one of the very first testimonials we happened to open,
and we thought we had found our man at the very outset, that it would be
unnecessary to go farther, and we congratulated ourselves accordingly.
We were delighted with our luck in having thus stumbled on such a genius
at the first move. It is true, we did not know exactly what to make of
the reference to the candidate’s literary achievements, what they were,
or where to look for them; for neither of these achievements, nor of the
candidate himself, had we ever heard before; but as the writer of the
letter was not unknown to us, we took it for granted that all was right.

What, however, was our surprise, what our perplexity, when, on proceeding
to the testimonials of the next candidate, we found that he was a
gentleman of still more splendid talents than the first; that, in short,
the light of the latter’s genius, compared to that of the former’s, was
but as the light of a lucifer match to the blaze of Mount Etna.

“Gentlemen,” said the first testimonial of this person’s we took up (we,
the proprietors, being addressed in this case), “Gentlemen, having learnt
that you are on the look-out for an editor for your paper, and learning
from Mr Josephus Julius Augustus Bridgeworth that he intends becoming a
candidate for that appointment, I at his request most cheerfully bear
testimony to his competency, I might say pre-eminent fitness, for the
situation in question. Mr Bridgeworth is a young man of the highest
literary attainments; indeed, I should not be going too far were I to
say that I know of no writer, ancient or modern, who at all approaches
him in force and beauty of style, or who surpasses him in originality of
thought and brilliancy of imagination: qualities which he has beautifully
and strikingly exhibited in his inimitable Essay on Bugs, which obtained
for him the gold prize-medal of the Royal Society of Entomologists,
and admission to that Society as an honorary member, with the right of
assuming the title of F. R. S. In fine, gentlemen, I would entreat of
you, as much for your own sakes as for that of my illustrious young
friend Mr Bridgeworth, not to let slip this opportunity--one that may
never occur again--of securing the services of one of the most talented
gentlemen of the day; one who, I feel well assured, will one day prove
not only an honour to his country, but an ornament to the age in which he
lives. With regard to Mr B.’s moral character, I have only to say that it
is every thing that is upright and honourable; that he is, in truth, not
more distinguished for the qualities of his head than of his heart.”

We have already said that the circumstance of finding in the bug essayist
a greater genius than in the candidate who preceded him, most grievously
perplexed us. It did. But what was this perplexity compared with that
by which we were confounded, when, on proceeding to look over the
testimonials of the other candidates, we found that the merits of every
new one we came to surpassed those of him who had gone before, and this
so invariably, that it became evident that we had drawn around us all
the talent and character of the country; that in fact all the talent and
character of the country was striving for the editorship of our paper.

Thus placed as it were in the midst of a perfect galaxy of genius, thus
surrounded by the best and brightest men of the age, we had, as will
readily be believed, great difficulty in making a choice. A choice,
however, we did at length make; fixing on the brightest of the brilliant
host by which we were mobbed. Need I tell the result? Need I say that
this luminary turned out, after all, but a farthing candle!--a very
ordinary sort of person. He did, indeed, well enough, but not better than
a thousand others could have done.

While on this subject of testimonials, let us add that we had once, with
one or two others, the bestowal of an appointment to a situation of
trust, and for which integrity was the chief requisite. We had in this,
as in the former case, an immense number of applicants, and, as in the
former case, each of these produced the most satisfactory testimonials.
We chose the most immaculate of these honest men--we appointed him. In
three weeks after, he decamped with £500 of his employer’s cash!

                                                                       C.

       *       *       *       *       *

FRIENDSHIP.--Friendship derives all its beauty and strength from the
qualities of the heart, or from a virtuous or lovely disposition; or
should these be wanting, some shadow of them must be present; it can
never dwell long in a bad heart or mean disposition. It is a passion
limited to the nobler part of the species, for it can never co-exist
with vice or dissimulation. Without virtue, or the supposition of it,
friendship is only a mercenary league, or a tie of interest, which must
of course dissolve when that interest decays, or subsists no longer. It
is a composition of the noblest passions of the mind. A just taste and
love of virtue, good sense, a thorough candour and benignity of heart,
and a generous sympathy of sentiment and affections, are the essential
ingredients of this nobler passion. When it originates from love, and
esteem is strengthened by habit, and mellowed by time, it yields infinite
pleasure, ever new and ever growing. It is the best support amongst the
numerous trials and vicissitudes of life, and gives a relish to most of
our engagements. What can be imagined more comfortable than to have a
friend to console us in afflictions, to advise with in doubtful cases,
and share our felicity? What firmer anchor is there for the mind, tossed
like a vessel on the tumultuous waves of contingencies, than this? It
exalts our nobler passions, and weakens our evil inclinations; it assists
us to run the race of virtue with a steady and undeviating course. From
loving, esteeming, and endeavouring to felicitate particular people, a
more general passion will arise for the whole of mankind. Confined to the
society of a few, we look upon them as the representatives of the many,
and from friendship learn to cultivate philanthropy.--_Sir H. Davy._

       *       *       *       *       *

HUMILITY.--An humble man is like a good tree; the more full of fruit the
branches are, the lower they bend themselves.

       *       *       *       *       *

No dust affects the eyes so much as gold dust.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the
    Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College
    Green, Dublin. Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster
    Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C.
    DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; JOHN MENZIES, Prince’s
    Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow.







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 51, JUNE 19, 1841 ***


    

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