The Glories Of Ireland Part 26

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), born in Dublin, the son of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother whose name was Nagle, was educated first at a Quaker school in Ballitore, Co. Kildare, and afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin. He became a law student in London, but he did not eventually adopt the law as a profession. He brought out in 1756 a _Vindication of Natural Society_, in which he so skilfully imitated the style and the paradoxical reasoning of Bolingbroke that many were deceived into the belief that the _Vindication_ was a posthumously published production of the viscount's pen. In the following year Burke published in his own name _A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_, which attracted widespread attention, was translated into German and French, and brought its author into touch with all the leading literary men of London. He was instrumental with Dodsley the publisher in starting the _Annual Register_ in 1759, and for close on thirty years he continued to supply it with the "Survey of Events."

He entered public life in 1760 by accompanying "Single-Speech"

Hamilton to Dublin when the latter was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. In 1765 he was made private secretary to the prime minister, the Marquis of Rockingham, and, as member for Wendover, entered parliament, where he speedily made a name for himself. During Lord North's long tenure of office (1770-1782) Burke was one of the minority and opposed the splendid force of his genius to the corruption, extravagance, and mal-administration of the government.

To this period belong, in addition to lesser works, his great speeches _On American Taxation_ (1774) and _On Conciliation with America_ (1775), as well as his spirited _Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol_ (1777). He had been elected member of parliament for Bristol in 1774, but he lost his seat in 1780 because he had advocated the relaxation of the restrictions on the trade of Ireland with Great Britain and of the penal laws against Catholics. In the second administration of Rockingham (1782) and in that of Portland (1783) he was paymaster of the forces, a position which he lost on the downfall of the Whigs in the latter year, and he never again held public office. His speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings in 1788 is universally and justly ranked as a masterpiece of eloquence. When the French Revolution broke out, he opposed it with might and main. His _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790) had an enormous circulation, reached an eleventh edition inside of a year, was read all over the continent as well as in the British Isles, and helped materially not only to keep England steady in the crisis, but also to incite the other powers to continue their resistance to French aggression. He continued his campaign in _Thoughts on French Affairs_ and _Letters on a Regicide Peace_. He was given two pensions in 1794, and would have been raised to the peerage as Lord Beaconsfield, had not the succession to the t.i.tle been cut off by the premature death of his only son. He himself died in 1797 and was buried at Beaconsfield, where, as far back as 1768, he had purchased a small estate.

As an orator and a deep political thinker, Burke holds a foremost place among those of all time who distinguished themselves in the British parliament. His keen intellect, his powerful imagination, his sympathy with the fallen, the downtrodden, and the oppressed, and his matchless power of utterance of the thoughts that were in him have made an impression that can never be effaced. His wise and statesman-like views on questions affecting the colonies ought to endear him to all Americans, although, if his counsels had been hearkened to, it is probable that the separation from the mother country would not have occurred as soon as it did. For his native land he used his best endeavors when and how he could, and although, as her defender, he was faced by obloquy as well as by the loss of that parliamentary position which was as dear to him as the breath of his nostrils, he did not flinch or shrink from supporting her material and spiritual interests in his own generous, manly, whole-hearted way. Trinity College, Dublin, has done well in placing his statue at her outer gates as representing the greatest Irishman of his generation.

A political a.s.sociate of Burke's for many years was Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816). Of Co. Cavan descent, Sheridan was born in Dublin, and was educated partly in his native city and partly at Harrow, and the remainder of his life was spent in England. He was distinguished first as a playwright and afterwards as a parliamentary orator. In 1775 his comedy, _The Rivals_, was produced at Covent Garden Theatre; his farce, _St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant_, and his comic opera, _The Duenna_, were staged in the same year. His greatest comedy, _The School for Scandal_, was acted at Drury Lane Theatre in 1777, and it was followed in 1779 by _The Critic_. His last dramatic composition was the tragedy, _Pizarro_, produced in 1799. Elected to parliament in 1780, Sheridan was made under-secretary for foreign affairs in the Rockingham administration of 1782, and in 1783 he was secretary to the treasury in the Coalition Ministry. He sprang into repute as a brilliant orator during the impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1787-1794. His speech on the Begums of Oude was one of the greatest ever delivered within the walls of the British parliament. In 1806, on the return of the Whigs to power, he was appointed treasurer in the navy. In 1812 his long parliamentary career came to a close when he was defeated for the borough of Westminster. He died in 1816, and was honored with a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey.

To give an idea as to how Sheridan's oratorical powers impressed his contemporaries, it is perhaps enough to repeat what Burke said of his second speech against Warren Hastings, namely, that it was "the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united of which there is any record or tradition", and to add that when, after three hours of impa.s.sioned pleading, he brought his first speech against Hastings to an end, the effect produced was so great that it was agreed to adjourn the house immediately and defer the final decision until the members should be in a less excited mood. As a dramatist Sheridan is second in popularity to Shakespeare alone. _The School for Scandal_ and _The Rivals_ are as fresh and as eagerly welcomed today as they were a hundred and forty years ago. Like Burke, he was true to the land of his birth and his oppressed Catholic fellow-countrymen. Almost his last words in the house of commons were these: "Be just to Ireland. I will never give my vote to any administration that opposes the question of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation."

Sheridan belonged to a family that was exceptionally distinguished in English literature. Among those who preceded him as litterateurs were his grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Sheridan, D.D.; his father, Thomas Sheridan; and his mother, Frances Sheridan. Rev. Dr. Sheridan (1684-1738), the friend and confidant of Dean Swift, kept a fashionable school in Dublin, edited the _Satires_ of Persius in 1728, wrote a treatise on _The Art of Punning_, and figures largely in Swift's correspondence. Thomas Sheridan (1721-1788) was at first an actor of considerable reputation, both in Dublin and in London; was next a teacher of elocution; and finally came forward with an improved system of education, in which oratory was to have a conspicuous part. In this connection he published an elaborate _Plan of Education_ in 1769, but his ideas, some of which are in accord with modern practice, were not taken up, He also compiled a p.r.o.nouncing _Dictionary of the English Language_, with a prosodic grammar, and in 1784 published an entertaining _Life of Swift_.

Frances Sheridan (1724-1766), wife of Thomas and mother of Richard Brinsley, who as Frances Chamberlaine had been known as a poetess, wrote after her marriage two plays, _The Discovery_ and _The Dupe_, and two novels, _The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph_, which was a great success and was translated by the Abbe Prevost into French, and _The History of Nourjahad_, an Oriental tale. In 1775 the singular spectacle was presented of the son's play running at Covent Garden while the mother's was being acted at Drury Lane.

Among Sheridan's descendants who earned a niche in the temple of literary fame were his grand-daughters, the Countess of Dufferin (1807-1867) and the Hon. Mrs. Norton, afterwards Lady Stirling Maxwell (1808-1877), and his great-grandson, the first Marquis of Dufferin and Ava (1826-1902). Lady Dufferin's _Lament of the Irish Emigrant_ ("I'm sittin' on the style, Mary") has moved the hearts and brought tears to the eyes of countless thousands since it was published more than fifty years ago.

Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818), born in Dublin, was the son of a clergyman of like name who attained some literary eminence as the translator of Horace and as a political writer. After filling various important government positions, Philip Francis, the son, was in 1773 made a member of the Council of Bengal, where his relations with the governor-general, Warren Hastings, were of an extremely strained character, amounting at times almost to a public scandal. He returned to England in 1781, entered parliament, made a name as a speaker, took part in the impeachment of Hastings, and composed numerous political pamphlets. He is generally supposed to have been the writer of the celebrated _Letters of Junius_, which appeared at intervals in the _Public Advertiser_ between January 21, 1769, and January 21, 1772. These letters are distinguished for their polished style, their power of invective, their galling sarcasm, their knowledge of state secrets, and their unparalleled boldness. Every prominent man connected with the government was attacked: even the king himself was not spared. As revised by their pseudonymous writer in a reprint made in 1772, they number 70; a later edition, in 1812, contained 113 more. Their authorship has been the subject of much controversy, nor is the question yet finally settled. In his _Essay on Warren Hastings_, written in 1841, Macaulay went to considerable trouble to prove, by the c.u.mulative method, that Francis was the writer, and since then that opinion has been generally, but not universally, maintained.

Isaac Bickerstaffe (c. 1735-c. 1812) was an Irishman, whose name, strange to say, had no connection with the _nom de guerre_ of the same style under which Swift had masqueraded in his outrageously satirical attacks on Partridge the almanac maker, or with the more celebrated imaginary Isaac Bickerstaffe under cover of whose personality Steele conducted the _Tatler_. The real Bickerstaffe was a prolific playwright. His best known pieces are _The Sultan_, _The Maid of the Mill_, _Lionel and Clarissa_, and _Love in a Village_. In the last-mentioned occurs the famous song, beginning "We all love a pretty girl--under the rose."

William Drennan (1754-1820), who has been called the Tyrtaeus of the United Irishmen, was the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, was born in Belfast, and was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, taking a medical degree from the latter. He practised his profession in the north of Ireland. When the Irish Volunteers were established, Drennan entered heart and soul into the movement. Removing to Dublin in 1789, he a.s.sociated with Tone and other revolutionary spirits, and became one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen, the first statement of whose objects was the product of his pen. His _Letters of Orellana_ helped materially to enlist the men of Ulster in the ranks of the Society. He also wrote a series of stirring lyrics which, voicing as they did the general sentiment in Ireland at the time, became extremely popular and had a widespread effect. These were afterwards (1815) collected under the t.i.tle of _Fugitive Pieces_. All his political hopes being blasted with the failure of the rebellion of 1798 and of Emmet's insurrection in 1803, Drennan returned in 1807 to Belfast and there founded the _Belfast Magazine_.

"The Wake of William Orr", a series of n.o.ble and affecting stanzas commemorating the judicial murder of a young Presbyterian Irish patriot in 1798, is one of his best known pieces. He also celebrated the ill-fated brothers Sheares. His song "Erin" was considered by Moore to be one of the most perfect of modern songs. It was in this piece that he fixed upon Ireland the t.i.tle of the Emerald Isle:

When Erin first rose from the dark swelling flood, G.o.d bless'd the green island, and saw it was good; The em'rald of Europe, it sparkled and shone-- In the ring of the world the most precious stone.

Mary Tighe (1772-1810), whose maiden name was Blachford, was born, the daughter of a clergyman, in Co. Wicklow. She contracted an unhappy marriage with her cousin who represented Kilkenny in the Irish house of commons. By all accounts she was of great beauty and numerous accomplishments. She wrote many poems: her best, and best known, is _Psyche, or the Legend of Love_, an adaptation of the story of Cupid and Psyche from the _Golden a.s.s_ of Apuleius. The metre she employed in this piece was the Spenserian stanza, which she handled with great power, freedom, and melody. _Psyche_, which first appeared in 1795, had a wonderful vogue, running rapidly through edition after edition. Among others to whom it appealed and who were influenced by it was Keats. Mrs. Tighe's talent drew from Moore a delicate compliment in "Tell me the witching tale again"; and in "The Grave of a Poetess" and "I stood where the life of song lay low", Mrs. Hemans bewailed her untimely death.

Edmund Malone (1741-1813), the son of an Irish judge, was born in Dublin and studied at Trinity College. He was called to the Irish bar in 1767, but coming into a fortune, he abandoned his profession and gave himself over to literary work. In 1790 he brought out an edition of Shakespeare which was deservedly praised for its learning and research. His critical ac.u.men led him to doubt the genuineness of Chatterton's _Rowley Poems_, and he was one of the first to expose Ireland's Shakespearean forgeries in 1796. Among other services to literature he wrote a _Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds_ and edited Dryden. He also left a quant.i.ty of materials afterwards utilized for the "Variorum Shakespeare" by James Boswell the younger in 1821.

John O'Keeffe (1747-1833), a Dublin man, was at first an art student, but soon became an actor, and then developed into a playwright. His pen was most prolific; he published a collection of over fifty pieces in 1798. His plays are mostly comic operas or farces, and some of them had great success. Lingo, the schoolmaster in _The Agreeable Surprise_, is a very amusing character. _The Positive Man, The Son-in-Law, Wild Oats, Love in a Camp_, and _The Poor Soldier_ are among his compositions. His songs are well known, such as "I am a friar of orders grey", and there are few schoolboys who have not sooner or later made the acquaintance of his "Amo, amas, I loved a la.s.s". For the last fifty-two years of his life O'Keeffe was blind, an affliction which he bore with unfailing cheerfulness. In 1826 he was given a pension of one hundred guineas a year from the king's privy purse.

George Canning (1770-1827), prime minister of England, properly belongs here, for, although born in London, he was a member of an Irish family long settled at Garvagh in Co. Derry. Entering parliament on the side of Pitt in 1796, he was made secretary of the navy in 1804 and in 1812 secretary of State for foreign affairs. He became prime minister in 1827, but died within six months, leaving a record for scarcely surpa.s.sed eloquence. In addition to his speeches, he is known in literature for his contributions to the _Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner_, which ran its satirical and energetic career for eight months (November, 1797-July, 1798.) Some of the best things that appeared in this ultra-conservative organ were from Canning's pen. Few there are who have not laughed at his _Loves of the Triangles_, in which he caricatured Erasmus Darwin's _Loves of the Plants_; at _The Needy Knife-Grinder_; or at the song of Rogero in _The Rovers_, with its comic refrain of the

U-- niversity of Gottingen.

Like most of the great Anglo-Irishmen of his time, Canning favored Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. It is interesting to note that it was a letter of Canning's that led to the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine.

Henry Grattan (1746-1820), the hero of Grattan's parliament, was born in Dublin and studied at Trinity College. His history belongs to that of his country. Suffice it here to say that not only did he by great eloquence and real statesmanship secure a free parliament for Ireland In 1782, but also that he fought energetically, if unavailingly, against the abolition of that parliament in 1800, and that thenceforward he devoted his abilities to promoting the cause of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. Dying in London, he was honored by being buried in Westminster Abbey. In an age of great orators he stands out among the very foremost. His speeches have become cla.s.sics, and are constantly quoted.

Another brilliant Irish orator, as well as an eminent wit, of this period, was John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), who, born at Newmarket, Co. Cork, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, achieved a wonderful success at the Irish bar. He defended with rare insight, eloquence, and patriotism those who were accused of complicity in the rebellion of 1798. As a member of Grattan's parliament, he voiced the most liberal principles, and, though a Protestant himself, he worked hard in the Catholic cause. He held the great office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland from 1806 to 1814. The memory of few Irish orators, wits, or patriots is greener today than that of Curran. His daughter Sarah, whose fate is so inextricably blended with that of the ill-starred Robert Emmet, has been rendered immortal by Moore in his beautiful song, "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps".

Mary Wollstonecraft G.o.dwin (1759-1797), the first advocate of the rights of women, though born in London, was of Irish extraction. Into the details of her extraordinary and chequered career it is not possible, or necessary, here to enter. Her published works include _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_ (1787); _Answer to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1791); _Vindication of the Rights of Women_ (1792); and an unfinished _Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution_ (Vol. I., 1794). Having in August, 1797, borne to her husband, William G.o.dwin, a daughter who afterwards became Sh.e.l.ley's second wife, Mary G.o.dwin died in the following month. Whatever her faults--and they were perhaps not greater than her misfortunes--she had something of the divine touch of genius, and, in a different environment, might easily have left some great literary memento which the world would not willingly let die.

Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849), though born at Blackbourton in England, belonged to a family which had been settled in different parts of Ireland and finally at Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford, for nearly two hundred years. She was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817), who was distinguished for his inventions, for his eccentricity, and for his varied matrimonial experiences, and who himself figures in literature as the author of _Memoirs_, posthumously published in 1820, and as the partner with his daughter in _Practical Education_ (1798) and in an _Essay on Irish Bulls_ (1802). Maria had a busy literary career and was before the public for fifty-two years from 1795 to 1847. She wrote _Moral Tales; Popular Tales; Tales from Fashionable Life_; and _Harrington_; but she is now best remembered for her three masterpieces dealing with Irish life and conditions, namely, _Castle Rackrent_ (1800); _The Absentee_ (1812); and _Ormond_ (1817). By these works she inspired Scott, as he himself tells us, to attempt for his own country something "of the same kind with that which she had so fortunately achieved for Ireland", and in a later day she inspired Turgenief to do similarly for Russia. She excels in wit and pathos and gives a true and vivid presentation of the times and conditions as she viewed them.

Andrew Cherry (1763-1821), born in Limerick, became an actor, a theatrical manager, and a playwright. He wrote nine or ten plays, several of which were moderately successful. The one that is now remembered is _The Soldier's Daughter_. Some of his songs, such as "The Bay of Biscay", "Tom Moody, the Whipper-in", and, especially, "The Green Little Shamrock of Ireland", bid fair to be immortal.

Other Irish song-writers were Thomas Duffet (fl. 1676), author of "Come all you pale lovers"; Arthur Dawson (1700?-1775), author of "b.u.mpers, Squire Jones"; George Ogle (1742-1814), author of "Molly Asth.o.r.e"; Richard Alfred Millikin (1767-1815), author of the grotesque "Groves of Blarney"; Edward Lysaght (1763-1811), author of "Our Ireland", "The Gallant Man who led the van Of the Irish Volunteers", and "Kate of Garnavilla"; George Nugent Reynolds (1770?-1802), author of "Kathleen O'More"; Thomas Dermody (1775-1802), author of the collection of poems and songs known as _The Harp of Erin_; James Orr (1770-1816), author of "The Irishman"; Henry Brereton Code (d. 1830), author of "The Sprig of Shillelah"; Charles Wolfe (1791-1823), author of "If I had thought thou couldst have died", and of "The Burial of Sir John Moore"; and Charles Dawson Shanly (1811-1875), author of "Kitty of Coleraine".

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), born in Dublin, educated at Trinity College, and called to the Irish bar in 1789, fills a large s.p.a.ce in the history of his country from 1790 to his death in 1798. Intrepid, daring, and resourceful, he was one of the most dangerous of the enemies to English domination in Ireland that arose at any time during the troubled relations between the two countries. Taken prisoner on board a French ship of the line bound for Ireland on a mission of freedom, he committed suicide in prison rather than submit to the ignominy of being hanged to which he had been condemned. He sleeps his last sleep in Bodenstown churchyard, in that county of Kildare to which he was connected by many ties. His grave is still the Mecca of many a pilgrimage, and the corner-stone of a statue to his memory has been laid for some years on a commanding site in the city of his birth. He is known in literature for his _Journals_ and his _Autobiography_, both containing sad, but inspiring, reading for the Irishman of today.

Here this rapid survey of Irish writers of English must close. To tell in any sort of appropriate detail the story of the English literature of Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would require a separate volume--a volume which is now under way and will, it is hoped, be speedily forthcoming. There is all the less need to attempt the agreeable task here, because in other portions of this book much more than pa.s.sing reference is made to the chief Irish authors who, in the last hundred and fifteen years, have distinguished themselves and shed l.u.s.tre on their country. During that period Irish poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists, historians, biographers, humorists, critics, and scholars have fully held their own both in the quant.i.ty and the quality of the work produced, and have left an impression of power and personality, of graceful style and vivifying imagination, that in itself const.i.tutes, and must for ever const.i.tute, one of the distinctive Glories of Ireland.

REFERENCES:

Irish Literature (10 vols., New York, 1904); Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature (3 vols., Philadelphia and London, 1902-1904); Dictionary of National Biography; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Cambridge History of English Literature; D'Alton: History of Ireland (London, 1910); Lennox: Early Printing in Ireland (Washington, 1909), Addison and the Modern Essay (Washington, 1912), Lessons in English Literature (21st edition, Baltimore, 1913); Macaulay: Essays, History of England; Brown: A Reader's Guide to Irish Fiction (London, 1910), A Guide to Books on Ireland (Dublin, 1912).