Ban——, October 17th, 1828.

Beloved Julia,

Since yesterday I have been an inhabitant of a pretty Gothic cottage at the foot of a mountain. From one of my windows I see fertile fields: from the other, wood, lake, and rocks. The master of the house is Mr. O’R——’s brother, who possesses besides this charming residence a very pretty wife, to whom I pay my court a little, for the gentlemen drink and hunt too much for my taste. The family estate would have naturally devolved on my whimsical friend; but as he was always rather a wild bird, who from his boyhood had a strong propensity for whiskey-punch and a joyous life, his father, having the disposal of it, left it to his youngest son. The brothers are nevertheless the best possible friends; and the light-hearted kindly nature of the eldest finds no wormwood in the wine which he drinks at his brother’s table; while on the other side, the younger respects the poverty of his kind-hearted and amusing elder, (who gets regularly drunk every evening,) and lets him want for nothing. Such a connexion does honour to both, the more, because at the fathers death the lawyers were of opinion that the will might have been set aside. Both have doubtless acted with as much wisdom as kindness to leave it uncontested, and thus keep the oyster for themselves.

We passed the whole day in rambling about these magnificent mountain-paths. Others went out snipe-shooting, after which we sat at the dinner table till 2 o’clock in the morning. Very soon after the dessert was served, the ladies, as usual, left us: and now the drinking began in earnest. Coffee was brought very late; on the heels of which followed a stimulating ‘souper’ of ‘devils’ of all sorts,[144] raw oysters and pickles. This formed the prelude to potheen punch, of which several drank from twelve to sixteen large tumblers, whilst O’R—— kept the whole company ‘in a roar of laughter’ by his inexhaustible wit and mad tricks. Besides this, every man was forced to sing a song: I among the rest, a German one, of which nobody understood a word, but all were very politely delighted. At two, I retired; but all the others staid. As my chamber was unfortunately directly over them, it was long before I could sleep for their noise and laughter.

October 18th.

You will wonder at the somewhat coarse and low life I led here, and to say the truth I wonder at it myself; but it is ‘genuine,’ that is to say, perfectly natural to these people, and nothing assumed; and that has ever a charm of its own, at least for me. Besides, the lady of the house is really charming, lively and graceful as a French-woman, with a foot like a zephyr.

This morning we hunted hares, and many a bold leap was taken. In the evening they produced the most celebrated piper of Ireland, Keans Fitzpatrick, called the King of the Pipers, having been honoured with the approbation of ‘His most gracious Majesty King George the Fourth.’ Indeed, the melodies which the blind minstrel draws from his strange instrument are often as surprising as they are beautiful, and his skill is equal to his highly polished and noble air. These pipers, who are almost all blind, derive their origin from remote antiquity. They are gradually fading away, for all that is old must vanish from the earth.

October 19th.

In the course of the day we met two men of very suspicious appearance in a wood. My companion very cooly pointed them out to me as notorious robbers, who had managed, partly by cunning, partly by the general terror they inspired, to preserve their liberty;—another proof how defective is the government and how entirely perverted are all the relations and sentiments of society; two things by which Ireland is specially characterized. Both of these men, who called themselves farmers because they rented a little bit of potatoe-field were of a singularly striking and national aspect. The one, a slender man of about forty, handsome, with a wild but imposing physiognomy, was a highly picturesque figure, even in his rags. Contempt of all danger was impressed upon his noble brow;—indifference in all disgrace played scornfully about his audacious mouth. His history confirmed the language of his features. He wore three or four military medals, which he had gained in the wars in Spain and France. In consequence of repeated proofs of his remarkable courage he had been raised to the rank of a non-commissioned officer, from which his disorderly conduct soon caused him to be degraded: he had then served a second time, again distinguished himself, and again for the same reasons as before been disgraced, though not convicted of any capital offence.—He is now strongly suspected of being the leader of the band of robbers who infest the Galtees, and have committed several murders. His companion was in external appearance the complete reverse of him; he was, for an Irish farmer, unusually well clad, that is to say, in whole clothes; sixty years old, short and thick-set, and in his whole aspect almost like a Quaker. In his sanctified countenance, however, lurked such an expression of cunning and of pitiless determination, that he appeared to me much more terrible than the other. He was prosecuted two years ago for forging bank-notes; and was very nearly convicted, when he was rescued from the gallows by a dexterous lawyer to whom he entrusted his case. With tears of gratitude he put fifty pounds into the hand of his deliverer, lamenting most pathetically that he could not requite him better. The advocate was satisfied with his success, and put the notes into his pocket-book. What was his indignation at finding that Paddy had paid him in the very notes from the consequences of the manufacture of which he had just saved him! When the Irish take a bad turn, (and the only wonder is that they do not all do so,) they are the most dangerous people in the world; their most prominent qualities—courage, levity, and cunning,—are but too efficient in enabling them to dare every thing and to effect much.

Oct. 21st.

I had so often laid the hospitality of these worthy squires under contribution, that I was obliged ‘en conscience’ to make some return. I therefore invited them all to dine with me before my departure. In the morning I gave a cock-fight, ‘car il faut hurler avec les loups;’ then a concert of the great piper; then we had a ride; and lastly ‘grand festin, grand chÈre, et bon feu.’ During our ride we came to a spot at which a magistrate named Baker was shot three years ago. He was a man exactly in the stile of the Bailiffs (AmtmÄner) in Ifflands’s Plays; only, alas! there was no noble character to thwart and counteract him. The day before his death, in discharging a man whom he had imprisoned for six weeks on a charge of suspected revolutionary practices, he publicly said, “Last month I sent you word that I wanted to speak to you;—you would not come. I have given you this little lesson for it, which I hope will make you more complying in future: if not, in six weeks more you shall swing; of that you may rest assured!” The county was at that time under ‘martial law,’ in consequence of some disturbances; and almost unlimited power was given to the local authorities, whose insolence and atrocity therefore knew no bounds. The immediate cause of Baker’s death was of a kind which deprives one of all pity for him. He was indebted £500 to a dairyman, partly for articles supplied to his household, partly for money he had borrowed. This he had promised to pay as soon as the man found a suitable match for his daughter, whose portion the money was to be. In a few years this took place, and the dairyman humbly entreated to be paid. Baker, however, continually put him off under various pretences; and finding he could obtain nothing but vain promises, the poor fellow at length threatened him with an action, and set off for Cork to consult a lawyer. Taking advantage of his absence, Baker appeared the next day at his house, followed by a detachment of soldiers, and with infernal hypocrisy asked his wife, then pregnant of her seventh child, whether she knew of any concealed arms, and told her that her husband was strongly accused of having secreted some. The woman answered without fear or hesitation, that she was sure no such thing existed in her house; that her husband would never have any thing to do with such plots; as Mr. Baker himself, who was an old acquaintance, well knew. “Take care what you say,” said Baker; “for if any thing is found after you have denied it, you are subject to transportation for life.” The woman persisted in her denial “Well, then, at your peril be it,” said he. “Soldiers, search the house thoroughly, and bring me word what you find.” They found nothing; but a second search being made, under Baker’s own superintendance, a loaded pistol was produced by some man, who pretended to have found it under some straw; into which it was always suspected Baker himself had just thrust it. The woman was immediately dragged away, and being regarded as convicted by the presence of the corpus delicti, was, after a short trial, sentenced to transportation. In a few days her husband returned, and moved heaven and earth to obtain her pardon. In vain did he entreat that at least he might be suffered to go to Botany Bay instead of his unhappy wife, the pregnant mother of six children. He offered to give Baker the £500. But this fiend remained inexorable, jeeringly reminding the despairing husband “that he wanted the money to portion off his daughter, who,” he added, “might now keep house for him, if after the consequences of the search he had still any house to keep. That he need not trouble himself about his wife’s travelling expenses, for that the Government would generously provide for them.” The law had its course; the poor woman was transported, and is perhaps now at Port Jackson. The husband, made furious by despair, and joined by her brothers and two other men, shortly after avenged her, by Baker’s cruel death. They fell upon him in the open fields, hunted him like a wild beast, and killed him slowly by a number of shots. All were taken and hanged.

Tales of horror like this were formerly of daily occurrence in this unhappy land, and even now have not entirely ceased. That such a contrast should exist between England and Ireland, and under the same Government too; that it should be suffered to endure for centuries, is indeed afflicting to every philanthropic mind. Unbridled bigotry, and rapacity unwilling to disgorge any part of its former prey, are the causes;—six millions of human beings the victims.

I have nothing remarkable to relate concerning my dinner-party: it was like its predecessors, and lasted far too long.

It was formerly the custom to give parties, of which the sole and avowed object was desperate drinking,—a fashion which is comparatively fallen into disuse. It was a common thing for a man to lock himself into a room with a hogshead of wine and some jolly companions, and not to leave it till the last drop was emptied. Barrington mentions such a party in his memoirs. It was given in a shooting lodge, in which the wall had been covered with mortar only the day before, and was of course still wet. Here the company were locked in with a pipe of claret, just arrived from France; and when some of them who had tumbled against the wall, awoke in the morning from their night’s debauch, they found themselves so thoroughly identified with it that they were obliged to be cut away, some with the loss of their clothes and others of their hair.

After my guests had exhausted their store of anecdotes, which were not precisely of a kind to entertain you with, they resorted to all sorts of practical jokes and ‘tours de force.’ One of these was quite new to me. It is an experiment which any body may try, and it struck me as curious enough. The wildest and fiercest game-cock may be rendered motionless, and compelled to lie in deathlike stillness as long as you please, by simply laying him on a table, with his beak close to a white line drawn across it. Nothing is necessary but first to draw this line with chalk, then to take the cock in your hands and lay him on the table with his beak turned towards it. You press him down, and there he will lie as if bound by some spell; his beak stretched out, and his eyes immoveably fixed on the white line, till you take him away. The experiment must be tried by candlelight.

‘VoilÀ de grandes bagatelles, mais À la guerre comme À la guerre.’

Oct. 22d.

As Fitzpatrick the piper, whom I had sent for to my party yesterday, was still in the town, I had him come to play ‘privatim’ in my room while I breakfasted, and observed his instrument more accurately. It is, as you know, peculiar to Ireland, and contains a strange mixture of ancient and modern times. The primitive simple bagpipe is blended with the flute, the oboe, and some tones of the organ and of the bassoon: altogether it forms a strange but pretty complete concert. The small and elegant bellows which are connected with it are fastened to the left arm by means of a riband, and the leathern tube communicating between them and the bag lies across the body; while the hands play on an upright pipe with holes like a flageolet, which forms the end of the instrument, and is connected with four or five others joined together like a colossal Pan’s pipe. During the performance, the right arm moves incessantly backwards and forwards on the body, in order to fill the bellows. The opening of a valve brings out a deep humming sound, which forms an ‘unisono’ accompaniment to the air. By this agitation of his whole body, while his fingers were busied on the pipes I have described, Fitzpatrick produced tones which no other instrument could give out. The sight, in which you must picture to yourself the handsome old man with his fine head of snow-white hair, is most original and striking; it is, if I may say so, tragi-comic. His bagpipe was very splendidly adorned, the pipes were of ebony ornamented with silver, the riband embroidered, and the bag covered with flame-coloured silk fringed with silver.

I begged him to play me the oldest Irish airs; wild compositions, which generally begin with a plaintive and melancholy strain like the songs of the Slavonic nations, but end with a jig, the national dance, or with a martial air. One of these melodies gave the lively representation of a fox-hunt, another seemed to me borrowed from the Hunters’ Chorus in the FreischÜtz; it was five hundred years older. ‘Les beaux esprits se rencontrent dans tous les Âges.’

After playing some time, the venerable piper suddenly stopped, and said smiling, with singular grace, “It must be already well known to you, noble Sir, that the Irish bagpipe yields no good tones when sober: it requires the evening, or the stillness of night, joyous company, and the delicious fragrance of steaming whiskey-punch. Permit me, therefore, to take my leave.”

I offered such a present as I thought worthy of this fine old man, whose image will always float before me as a true representative of Irish nationality.

With Fitzpatrick I take my leave of you, dearest Julia, to set out on my return to Dublin, whence I calculate on despatching my next letter to you.

Your faithful L——.