Mr. Max Beerbohm, in his delightful essay on Hosts and Guests, declared that ‘In life or literature there has been no better host than Old Wardle.’ It is an affirmation that does him credit, and I, for one, would not readily tilt against this or any other judgment of his. Nevertheless, I have just discovered a man who, considered simply as a host, seems to me greater than even Old Wardle himself. Life has a knack of over-reaching letters, and so it chances that my candidate is no mere character of fiction, dispensing the vast but insubstantial hospitality born of a novelist’s flow of fancy and ink, but one who was a real—a very real—person in his day. And I account him the greatest of hosts because he dedicated his life to the business, or rather to the noble service, of hospitality: he seems to have had no other passion in life, no other motive for living, apart from this desire to entertain his friends as friends should be entertained; he aimed at perfection and achieved it, and so remains the host unblemished, immaculate, a luminous ideal. Once out of the brutish state, man is a hospitable creature; his records are crowded with instances of unsparing bounty, of prodigal feasts and fortunes squandered upon entertainment: the table groans through the ages. But neither legend nor history shows us the fellow of him whom I praise. Even in the most magnificent figures of hospitality there is some flaw; emperor or oligarch, merchant-prince or baron, not one but shows some motive outside pure benevolence, some speck of pride, some touch of self-seeking. He alone is unspotted, hospitality incarnate, the perfect host, whose story I have lately read in an old volume that is a gallery of strange forgotten figures. There, it is true, he appears only as a man of whims, an eccentric, an oddity in a collection of oddities; but it takes time for a man to come into his own. But though nearly two hundred years have gone over his grave, Mr. Mathew of Thomastown, for such was his designation, shall take his true place yet as the pattern of hosts and the idol of all who go out as guests.

Mathew, whose Christian name has not come down to us, was an Irish gentleman who inherited a large estate at Thomastown, in the county of Tipperary, a patrimony that was worth some eight thousand a year. This was a good income even in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In Ireland, where things were cheaper, it was almost princely. No sooner had Mathew taken over his estate than he determined to build a large mansion, after a design of his own, for the special purpose of entertaining, and to surround it with grounds, laid out in the newly adopted mode of English gardening and comprising some 1500 acres of his best land. This meant an enormous outlay, and so, in order to avoid incurring any debt on the estate, he did what few other Irish gentlemen of his or any other day have done—he deliberately cut down his own expenditure. For seven years (how these significant numbers crop up!) he retired to the Continent and lived on six hundred a year, while the remainder of his income was used to carry out his great scheme, or, if you like, to nurture his most glorious hobby-horse. Already, you see, he plainly shows himself no ordinary man. His great plan, his long view, his voluntary exile—these things mark him off from the common run of men. He was a man with a purpose, with a vision that kept his feet travelling along one straight road. Most men of this type, men with a purpose, have looked to vastly different ends; their purpose has been to gain as much power, to obtain as much of other people’s money, as possible; on the other hand, the end that he proposed was the spending of money on other people. Irish gentlemen of his day were, of course, hospitable and generous to the point of eccentricity, but then they differed from him in having no vision to which they shaped their destiny. They were capable of spending all, and more than all, their incomes on entertaining, but they were certainly not capable of doing what Mathew did, of living for seven years on less than a twelfth part of their incomes for the sake of future hospitality. It is clear that Mathew had qualities that are rarely combined in one person; he could not only dream, plan, and try to shape his destiny, he could also afford to wait; and people who have ideas and can afford to wait are very seldom found either in his day or since, particularly in the county of Tipperary. He was a great man, and we cannot know too much about him.

At the end of his seven years’ exile he returned to Dublin and spent some time there, probably to meet as many good fellows as he could before settling in the country and beginning his noble career as host. He must have had a good many adventures at home and abroad, but only one has come down to us, and that happened during his stay in Dublin. The story is worth telling because it shows him in another light. At that time, towards the end of Queen Anne’s reign, party feeling was at its height; Whigs and Tories had just been bitterly divided about the Peace, and the question of who was to be Anne’s successor was widening the rift between parties. As usual, Dublin was a storm-centre; blows were following words more closely than ever, and gentlemen were calling each other out every day. News of this delectable state of affairs in Dublin reached the ears of two fighting men in London, Major Pack and Captain Creed, who thought it a good opportunity to try their skill in fence among the Irish, and so set out for Dublin in search of adventures. Determined to go to the fountain-head of honour, they made inquiry in the Dublin coffee-houses for the best swordsmen, and learned that a gentleman lately arrived from France was accounted one of the best in Europe. This was no other than our friend Mathew. Major Pack, who was clearly no Bobadil, resolved to take the first opportunity of picking a quarrel. Seeing Mathew carried along the street in his chair one day, the fire-eating major, after the manner of his kind, deliberately jostled the fore-chairman. Mathew, however, being a quiet fellow for all his swordsmanship, gave the major the benefit of the doubt and took no notice of the incident. But, unfortunately for himself, Pack boasted of the affair in a public coffee-house, giving it out that Mathew had not the spirit to ask for an explanation. A friend of Mathew’s, Macnamara by name and one of the best fencers in Ireland, happened to be present, and he promptly took up the quarrel, told the major that his friend Mathew would certainly have chastised him had he observed the affront, and promised, on his absent friend’s behalf, a speedy meeting if that was what the major was wanting. The upshot of it was that within a few hours’ time, in a private room in a tavern, four Christian gentlemen were busily engaged in trying to let each other’s blood out. Four—because the seconds, Macnamara and Captain Creed, could not allow themselves to be mere spectators, and so fell to work with their principals. The fight, which should cut some figure in the annals of the duel, was long and bloody. But though the two English officers fought with great obstinacy, they were clearly out-matched, and finally were so exhausted from the wounds they had received that they were compelled to admit defeat.

Here Mathew’s biographer, after describing the combat, tells us of a singular circumstance, which is best related in his own words. ‘Upon this occasion,’ he writes, ‘Mathew gave a remarkable proof of the perfect composure of his mind during the action. Creed had fallen first, on which Pack exclaimed: “Ah, poor Creed, are you gone?” “Yes,” replied Mathew, with the utmost calmness, “and you shall instantly pack after him,” at the same time making a home thrust quite through his body, which threw him to the ground. This was the more remarkable as he was never known in his life, either before or after, to have aimed at a pun.’ Bravo, Mathew! Had you never been the greatest of hosts, had you never attained such skill with the sword, yet we could have made shift to send you down to posterity as ‘Single-Pun Mathew.’ I am not sure, however, that our chronicler is right when he gives us this as an example of Mathew’s perfect composure of mind. Surely this solitary pun, this lonely but splendid star, was due to the temporary absence of that perfect composure of his mind; a momentary feeling of elation crashed through his lifelong habit of avoiding puns, and out the thing flashed. On this incident alone one could build up a very pretty defence of those Shakespearian puns which appear to be the bane of so many worthy persons’ admiration for the poet. But Major Pack and Captain Creed are still bleeding on the tavern floor—we must return to them. The surgeons, finding it impossible to have them moved, had beds brought into the room, where the two officers lay for many weeks. At first their lives were despaired of, but being stout fellows, they contrived to astonish everybody by recovering. It is pleasant to relate that their most constant visitors were Mathew and his friend Macnamara, that all four were soon on the best of terms, and that Pack and Creed were completely cured of their fire-eating propensities. We can safely leave them to rejoin their regiments, and turn to Mathew in his greatest rÔle, Mathew as host.

He had stayed long enough in Dublin to gather about him a circle of excellent friends, and so he determined to retire to his estate at Thomastown and begin his great work. All his plans had been put into execution, and everything was ready. And now you shall discover what manner of host he was. But first let me ask you to consider, in strict private, your own trials as a guest; think of the visits you have made that you began in high hopes and cut short in utter weariness; remember the tribulations that only the guest, modest, sanguine, wistful, long-suffering, can know, those thorns thick-set about the rose of hospitality; enumerate the things that have made you invent appointments to get away and tell lies innumerable to avoid returning; consider what might have made your stay in Jones’ house a pleasant memory and your good friend Brown a better host; and when you have done all this, you will be more apt to appraise Mathew at his true worth.

His house had accommodation for forty guests and their servants, and each guest had every convenience to hand in his own suite of rooms. If he wished, a guest could take his meals in his own apartment, ordering what he wanted from the kitchen and, if he felt inclined, inviting other guests to dine with him. If he wanted society, he could go to the common dining-room, where a ‘daily ordinary’—as they called it then—was kept. Here there was none of the customary ceremony; the host took his place anywhere; all ideas of rank and precedence were laid aside; they were all good fellows together. This dining-room must have been like nothing that we have known in a private house; it comes nearer to a restaurant, but a restaurant somewhere in the Happy Isles, a restaurant of men’s dreams, where the company is select and small, the fare choice, the waiters quick and obliging and innocent of tip-hunting, and, not least, one where there is nothing to pay. This was the day of the coffee-house, and Mathew had one of his largest rooms fitted up to resemble one of these places, upon which contemporary civilisation seemed to be dependent. It had all the features of the City coffee-house, such as Will’s, the haunt of Dryden, or Button’s, beloved of Addison; there were barmaids and waiters, ready to supply refreshments at all hours of the day; and chess-boards, backgammon tables, newspapers, pamphlets, and what not. But more wonderful still, the mansion contained not only a coffee-house, but a tavern! Oh, noble Mathew! One could, of course, take a glass in one’s own room or the coffee-house, or split a bottle in the dining-room—there was no restriction; still, for the sake of the jolly Pantagruelian fellows among his guests, Mathew set up a tavern. There, attended by a ‘waiter in a blue apron’ (then the fashion in taverns), they could give their orders without restraint, and fuddle and roar it after supper without fear of disturbing the more sedate members of the house-party.

There were plenty of games at Thomastown, but no gamesters, for the only restriction we hear of in the place refers, wisely enough, to gambling. It was the sportsman’s paradise. There were two billiard tables and a bowling green; fishing-tackle of all kinds and various guns; a pack of buckhounds, another of foxhounds, and yet another of harriers, and twenty hunters in the stable for the use of those guests who had not their own. We hear nothing of a library, but perhaps because it is taken for granted. I hope so. Mathew, I am certain, was no Squire Western, but a man given not to devouring books, but at least to delicate bouts of reading; no student or ‘wit,’ but one, as the fashion then was, with a gentlemanly taste for letters. I like to think that there was a library, perhaps immediately above the coffee-house, where one could range among the tall folios and now and then come upon a ‘kind-hearted play-book,’ and also have the pleasure of taking down one or two things strange to one, new books, something by CrÉbillon or Le Sage, Prior’s poems or the brand-new work by Mr. Pope, The Rape of the Lock. Nor do we hear anything of music, but this, too, we may surely take for granted. In all this changing company of Irish gentlemen there must have been more than a few musicians, and somewhere on the premises a clavichord or spinet and a viol or two for them to play. One would like to think that a select company, before adjourning to the ‘tavern’ after supper, could listen to something in the strain of Stay, Shepherd or Whither runneth my Sweetheart? a song by Dr. Blow or something from one of Mr. Purcell’s operas, and perhaps even a sonata by Corelli or one of Couperin’s suites, which had once set our host Mathew tapping his feet when he was in France. These are perhaps idle fancies, but we are not to be denied them, and they are not too idle to complete the picture.

But Mathew’s great glory comes not so much from the lavishness of his hospitality, in which, of course, he has been often surpassed, though perhaps by none of equal means, as from the spirit in which that hospitality was given, from his own conduct as host. When he showed each new guest over the house, he always told him: ‘This is your castle; here you are to command as absolutely as in your own house.’ We have all heard some such words as these, but Mathew really meant what he said. As we have seen, a guest could dine or sup where he pleased; there was no ceremony at the table, and Mathew took his place anywhere. In fact, he made a point of mixing with his guests as one of themselves, and neither invited nor expected compliments and thanks. Without good organisation his scheme would have ruined him in a very short time: but he had some faithful stewards and had so contrived his system of domestic economy that there was no possibility of the waste and thieving common in most large establishments then and since. He himself, it seems, superintended everything, even the daily accounts, and did it early in the morning before his guests were afoot. The house was always full, but we are told that there was never any confusion or disorder. Mathew himself sometimes went away for several days at a time, but everything went smoothly in his absence. He was fortunate enough, it appears, to have solved the ‘servant problem,’ which, if we may believe Swift and other contemporary writers, was very pressing at that time, and it says something for his luck or wisdom that the idle, drunken, lying rogues of servants, so familiar to readers of contemporary memoirs and so on, were entirely absent from the house at Thomastown. And this mention of servants brings us to our hero’s master-stroke. ‘Mr. Mathew,’ our authority tells us, ‘was the first that put an end to the inhospitable custom of giving vales to servants, by making a suitable addition to their wages; at the same time assuring them that if they took any afterwards they should be discharged with disgrace; and to prevent the temptation, the guests were informed that he would consider it as the highest affront if any offer of that sort were made.’ After that, to dwell longer on his rare virtues as a host would be to paint the lily. Who will dare now to contest the claim I have made for him? Oh, peerless Mathew!

Of the excellent persons who enjoyed such famous hospitality we know little, with the exception of two to be noticed hereafter. But they seem to have been all of one sex. In the short sketch of Mathew’s career that I have plundered so freely, I can find no record of any ladies among the guests. Nor is there any mention of a Mrs. Mathew, which is not surprising, for woman, who knits up the social fabric and keeps civilisation intact, does not favour these noble experiments, these staggering ideals, these gigantic whims; she puts the golden hobby-horse between the shafts or at the end of a towing-line. As a husband and family man Mathew would have been admirable and still the very soul of hospitality, but, you may depend upon it, he would never have carried out his astonishing scheme, never have had his coffee-house and tavern and what not at Thomastown, never have come down to us as one of the most delightful eccentrics of his age. As it was, the life at Thomastown was a purely masculine affair, as remote from femininity as that of a monastery or a college, and better than either, where men not desperately in love could ‘fleet the time carelessly,’ away from their ladies’ eyes.[A] It is fortunate that we do know the names of at least two of those lucky gentlemen who stayed with Mathew, and that one of them happens to be a great man, a man who might be called a ‘hard case’ so far as guests are concerned, a man with a capacity for being displeased that had not its equal in Europe, whose enjoyment may reasonably be taken as the very acid test of Mathew’s scheme—no other than Dean Swift. Yes, we are told that the great Dean himself rode down to Tipperary and spent some time at Thomastown. The fact is not recorded, so far as I know, in any of his numerous biographies; I have taken it on trust from the old volume that contains Mathew himself. Like many other stories, if it is not true it ought to be. But I see no reason to doubt it.

Swift’s friend, Dr. Sheridan, had charge of Mathew’s nephew for a time, and not unnaturally became one of the welcome guests at Thomastown. Through him Swift heard a great deal about the place, and, after a time, wanted to find out for himself how much truth there was in these reports of marvels, which seemed to him a monstrous tissue of exaggeration. Mathew, hearing of this through Sheridan, despatched a polite note to Swift, requesting the honour of a visit, in company with Sheridan, when the latter should have his next school vacation. Swift, though a little dubious, accepted the invitation, and some little time afterwards set out for Thomastown with Sheridan and a near relation of Mathew’s. The three of them rode all day through miry lanes and at length reached one of the wretched wayside hovels that passed then for inns in Ireland. Here they were to spend the night. Swift, who was very fastidious (did he not once complain of ‘dirty sheets’ and get in return a rebuke that is—or should be—historic?), began already to regret the adventure. But they had not been in the inn more than a few minutes when a magnificent coach-and-six thundered up to the door. It had been sent by Mathew to carry them the remainder of the journey to Thomastown, and contained a delectable supply of food, wine, and other liquors. Swift, we are told, ‘was highly pleased with this uncommon mark of attention paid him, and the coach proved particularly acceptable as he had been a good deal fatigued with his day’s journey.’ And an entertaining ride it must have been, too, with the Dean in good spirits, little Dr. Sheridan chuckling over the impromptu supper, and one and all rolling through the night on the road to Tipperary.

When they came within sight of the house, Swift was astonished at its size, and cried: ‘What, in the name of heaven, can be the use of such a vast building?’

‘Why, Mr. Dean,’ returned Mathew’s relative, ‘there are no less than forty apartments for guests in that house, and all of them probably occupied at this time, except what are reserved for us.’

Swift was down in the dumps in a moment. You could not expect the author of Gulliver to relish his fellow-humans in a lump. Sticking his head out of the window, he called to the coachman and told him to drive back to Dublin, as he could not think of mixing with such a crowd. Then, luckily for himself, as it turned out, he saw that the affair had gone too far to be thus lightly abandoned. ‘Well,’ he declared gloomily, ‘there is no remedy; I must submit; but I have lost a fortnight of my life.’ He had not; but how many fortnights in that long unhappy life of his might not he have lost and yet only gained thereby, perhaps won some little touch of heart’s ease?

He was received at the door by Mathew, who conducted him to his room, made the usual speech about the customs of the house, and then retired, leaving Swift, still gloomily submissive and not a little incredulous, to his dour meditations. Shortly afterwards, however, the cook appeared with his bill of fare, and the butler with his wine list, ready to receive orders. ‘And is all this really so?’ Swift demanded of his two companions; ‘and may I command here as in my own house?’ Dr. Sheridan and his friend assured him that he might, that the host desired all his guests to suit their own inclinations without the least restraint. ‘Well then,’ cried Swift, ‘I invite you and Dr. Sheridan to be my guests while I stay, for I think I shall scarcely be tempted to mix with the mob below.’

Now listen to our historian, for we hasten to the climax:

There is something almost startling in the naÏvetÉ of our historian’s observation that ‘such an address ... could not fail of being pleasing.’ Pleasing indeed! Hearty praise in public from Jonathan Swift was worth all that seven years’ sacrifice.

After that, we are told, all constraint vanished. Swift, as we know, could be the very prince of good fellows in his best days and when the mood was on; and now he entered readily into the life of the place, devised all manner of jests, and kept Thomastown in a roar. Never, we are told, were there such days and nights at Thomastown; and those of us who have more than a superficial acquaintance with Swift can readily believe it. Soon, all too soon, came the time when Sheridan had to return to his school. But Swift was not allowed to depart with his friend; the whole company entreated him to remain; even Mathew himself for once broke through his rule of never soliciting a guest to stay; and the upshot of it was that the great man stayed on, and finally, in place of that wasted fortnight, spent four months, four happy months, as the guest of Thomastown. Thus, though we know so little of Mathew’s guests, at least we do know this: he sheltered beneath his roof for more than a hundred nights one of the greatest intellects of his time; he was enabled to give some little time of rest and forgetfulness, snatched, as it were, before the coming of a dreadful darkness, to one of the greatest and most unhappy spirits known to our literature. That, surely, was no little thing. Nor did it lack recompense. I have said that Mathew, this eccentric personage, this king of hosts, was not without greatness, not yet suitably acknowledged. But I was wrong. For whatever he did, if the tale holds true, the world repaid him in full, the thanks of all guests to this greatest of hosts have long ago been given their voice, and the debt is cleared. For was he not praised by Swift?

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