Jonah Barrington - Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)

After having enacted with éclat all the parts in the various scenes usually performed on that great theatre, he at length found, that the place was not much cheaper than sweet Glinsk, or any old principality of his own dear country. He therefore resolved to change the scene for a more diverting and cheerful one; and by way of a finish , came over to Paris, where any species of ruin may be completed with a taste, ease, and despatch unknown in our boorish country.

The baronet brought over three or four thousand pounds in his fob, just (as he told me) to try, by way of comparison, how long that quantity of the dross would last in Paris 9 9 Last year, the son of a very great man in England came over to Paris with a considerable sum in his pocket for the very same purpose. The first thing he did was gravely to ask his banker (an excellent and sensible man), “How long six thousand pounds would last him in Paris?” The reply was a true and correct one, “If you play, three days; if you don’t, six weeks.” – on which point his curiosity was promptly satisfied: – “Frascati” and the “Salon des Etrangers,” by a due application of spotted bones, coloured pasteboard, and painted whirligigs, under the superintendence of the Marquis de Livere, informed him at the termination of a short novitiate, that nearly the last of his “Empereurs” had been securely vested in the custody of the said Marquis de Livere.

Though this seemed, primâ facie , rather inconvenient , yet the baronet’s dashing establishment did not immediately suffer diminution, until his valet’s repeated answer, pas chez lui , began to alarm the crew of grooms, goddesses, led captains, &c.

Misfortune (and he began to fancy this was very like one) seldom delays long to fill up the place of ready money when that quits a gentleman’s service: and it now seemed disposed to attach itself to the baronet in another way. Madam Pandora’s box appeared to fly open, and a host of bodily ills beset Sir John, who, having but indifferent nerves, was quite thrown on his back.

Such was the hapless situation of Sir John Burke, while exercising his portion of the virtue of patience, in waiting for remittances – a period of suspense particularly disagreeable to travellers abroad – every post-day being pretty certain to carry off the appetite ; which circumstance, to be sure, may be sometimes considered convenient enough.

Families from the interior of Hibernia are peculiarly subject to that suspense; and where their Irish agent happens to be an old confidential solicitor , or a very dear friend , or a near relation of the family , the attack is frequently acute. An instance, indeed, occurred lately, wherein the miscarriage of an Irish letter actually caused the very same accident to a new-married lady!

The baronet, however, bore up well; and being extremely good-humoured, the surliest créanciers in Paris could not find in their hearts for some time to be angry with him; and so, most unreasonably left him to be angry with himself, which is a thousand times more tormenting to a man, because sans intermission.

At length, some of his most pressing friends, who a short time before had considered it their highest honour to enjoy the pratique of Monsieur le Chevalier, began to show symptoms of losing temper; – as smoke generally forebodes the generation of fire, something like a blaze seemed likely to burst forth; and as the baronet most emphatically said to me – “The d – d duns, like a flock of jack snipes, were eternally thrusting their long bills

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Two Dublin aldermen lately made baronets; one by his Majesty on his landing in Ireland (Alderman King); and the other by the Marquess of Wellesley on his debarkation (Alderman James), being the first public functionary he met. The Marquess would fain have knighted him; but being taken by surprise, he conferred the same honour which Aldermen Stammer and King had previously received.

There are now four baronets amongst that hard-going corporation.

Every lord mayor of Dublin becomes judge of a “Court of Conscience” for twelve months after the expiration of his mayoralty; each decree costing a shilling; many of the causes are of the most comical description; but never would there have arisen so great a judge as Sancho Panza of Barataria, from presiding in our Court of Conscience.

I cannot omit stating, that Sir William, when lord mayor, gave the most numerous, brilliant, and complete masquerade ever seen in Dublin, or, I believe, any where else. There were fourteen or fifteen hundred persons, and I am sure not more than one hundred dominoes; every body went in character, and every person tried to keep up the character he adopted. Ireland, of all places in the world, is, perhaps, best adapted to a masquerade, as every Irishman is highly amused when he can get an opportunity of assuming, by way of freak, any new character.

It was the custom for the mob, on those occasions, to stop every carriage, and demand of each person, “What’s your character?” I was dreadfully tired of them in the street on the night in question; but fairly put into good-humour by the jeu d’esprit of a mob-man, who opened the carriage-door. After I had satisfied him as to character, he desired to know, where I was going? “Shut the door,” said I. “Ah, but where are you going?” I was vexed. “I’m going to the Devil ,” said I. “Ough, then, God send you safe!” replied the blackguard.

This was the first instance I recollect of pertinacity conquering privilege.

In these times it may not, perhaps, be fully credited when I tell – that four of my father’s sons carried his body themselves to the grave: that his eldest son was in a state bordering on actual distraction at his death; and in the enthusiastic paroxysms of affection which we all felt for our beloved parent at that cruel separation, I do even now firmly believe there was not one of us who would not, on the impulse of the moment, have sprung into, and supplanted him in his grave, to have restored him to animation. But we were all a family of nature and of heart, and decided enemies to worldly objects.

I never saw a young woman brought into the dissecting-room but my blood ran cold, and I was immediately set a-moralising. The old song of “Death and the Lady” is a better lecture for the fair sex than all the sermons that ever were preached, including Mr. Fordyce’s. ’Tis a pity that song is not melodised for the use of the fashionables during their campaigns in London.

A massacre of the Irish at a place called Mullymart, in the county of Kildare, which is spoken of by Casaubon in his Britannia as a thing prophesied: the prophesy did actually take effect; and it is, altogether, one of the most remarkable traditionary tales of that country.