Philip Tisdall, in “Baratariana,” gives the following humorous description of Hutchinson: “He is jealous of me, and as peevish as an old maid. I love to tease him. I endeavour to put him on as odious ground as I can in parliament, and then I am the first to complain to him that Government should expose their servants to so much obloquy without occasion. I magnify to him the favours and confidence I receive from Government, and my correspondence with Rigby, which nettles him to the heart. He is too finical for Lord Townshend, who makes very good sport of him. One day he dined at the Castle, and when the company broke up, Lord Townshend, who pretended to be more in liquor than he was, threw his arms about his neck and cried out, ‘My dear Tisdall, my sheet anchor, my whole dependence! don’t let little Hutchinson come near me; keep him off, my dear friend; keep him off—he’s damned tiresome.’ At other times His Excellency makes formal appointments to dine at Palmerston[15] at a distant day. The Prime Serjeant invites all the officers of State; Mrs. Hutchinson is in a flurry; they send to me for my cook; and after a fortnight’s bustle, when dinner is half spoiled, His Excellency sends an excuse, and dines with any common acquaintance that he happens to meet in strolling about the streets that morning. This g’emman has a pretty method enough of expressing himself, indeed, but in points of law there are better opinions. My friend, the late Primate, who knew men, said, that the Prime Serjeant was the only person he had ever met with who got ready money, in effect, for every vote he gave in parliament. He has got among the rest the reversion of my Secretary’s office; but I think I shall outlive him.”[16]
Another note in “Baratariana” records that Tisdall, whose Government salaries exceeded £5,000 a year, had also a reversion of the Alnager’s place, with its £1,000 a year, on the death of Hutchinson; and this mutuality of Reversions, no doubt, accounts for the warm affection that subsisted between Hutchinson and Tisdall. Blacquiere got the Alnagership as the price of the Provostship, as before mentioned. Besides the Alnagership Hutchinson was obliged also to resign the Prime Serjeancy, which was given to Dennis; but even in regard of emolument the Provostship was well worth these two sacrifices, the united income of which was only £1,300. He retained his sinecure of £1,800 a year, and the State Secretaryship, and he was further compensated by the sinecure office of Searcher of the Port of Strangford, with a patented salary of £1,000 a year for his own life and the lives of his two elder sons. He had thus altogether, besides his lucrative practice at the Bar and his own estate, about £6,000 a year, together with the Provost’s House, while his eldest son was Commissioner of Accounts, with £500 a year, and with the reversion of the Second Remembrancership of the Exchequer, worth £800 a year, and his second son had a troop of dragoons.[17]
“Pranceriana” derives its title from “Prancer,” or “Jack Prance,” the nickname which was given to the Provost,
“Restorer of the art of dancing,
And mighty prototype of prancing,”
from his effort to establish in the College a riding and dancing-school, in imitation of the Oxford schools.
“Each college duty shall be done in dance,
And hopeful students shall not walk, but prance.”
The articles were originally published in the Hibernian Journal and Freeman’s Journal,[18] and the two volumes, which appeared in 1776, were announced as “A collection of fugitive pieces published since the appointment of the present Provost.” The collection was dedicated to “J-n H-y H-n, Doctor of Laws, P.T.C., late Major in the Fourth Regiment of Horse, Representative in the late and present Parliament of the city of Cork, one of his Majesty’s Counsel at Law, Reversionary Remembrancer of the Exchequer, Secretary of State, one of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, and Searcher, Packer, and Gauger of the Port of Strangford.”[19]
It attacks the Provost all round with every asperity; it mocks his want of learning by calling him “the Potosi of Erudition;” it makes fun of his riding and dancing-schools; and it ridicules his boasted college reforms.
Alluding to his efforts to banish card-playing there is the rhyme—
“You bag and baggage made them pack
Old Whist, and Slam that Saucy jack,
Ombre, Quadrille, Pope Joan, Piquet,
And Brag and Cribbage—cursed set.”