“A harlequin provost, cognomine prancer;
A duellist, scribbler, a fop, and a dancer;
A lawyer, prime sergeant, and judge of assizes;
A parliament man, and a stamper of friezes;
A councillor privy; a cavalry major;
A searcher and packer, comptroller and gauger;
A speecher, a critic, prescriber of rules;
A founder of fencing and ’questrian schools.
If various employments can give a man knowledge,
Then who knows so much as the head of the College?
******
The Seniors and Juniors in this are agreed,
As a Consul of Rome was Caligula’s steed;
They very much fear that if Prancer was dead
Sir John would appoint a Jackass in his stead.”
(Halliday Collection)
This book also is a collection of fugitive pieces, and it is dedicated to “Sir John Blacquiere, Knight of the Bath, Alnager of all Ireland, and Bailiff of the Phœnix Park.” There is not a copy in the College Library. The Royal Irish Academy copies have the excellent woodcuts. In an autograph note to his own copy of the book, Dr. Stock, F.T.C.D., afterwards Bishop of Killala, says that the engravings were made by his brother, Mr. Frederick Stock, who kept a woollen draper’s shop in Dame-street. He states that the printer, Michael Mills, was forced from his house by a party of college lads, who conveyed him to the College, and there pumped on him; and that the late Prime Serjeant Browne, then a student, had a share in the outrage. Dr. Stock gives the key to the “Poetica,” viz.—Moderator, Prancer, and Hipparchus = the Provost; Dr. Pomposo and Mendex = Dr. Leland; Matthew Ben Sadi and Dr. Dilemma = Dr. Forsayeth; Billy Bib = Dr. Hales; and Bezabel Black-letter = Michael Mills. A copy of the extract is in the possession of Mr. Traynor, Bookseller, Essex-quay.
[20] “Pranceriana Pœtica” says that the Provost multiplied the composition premiums as means of bribery. It gives one of the Provost’s advertisements (1777): “Any student may be a candidate for all, or for any more of the said premiums!”
[21] In Sir Bernard de Gomme’s map of the city and harbour of Dublin, in 1673, given in Mr. Prendergast’s edition of “The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin,” p. 229, the college park is marked as set out in paddocks. Dr. Stubbs says that the park was thrown into its present champaign form, laid out, and planted in the year 1722, as appears from “Winstanley’s Poems,” vol. i., p. 269. Dublin: 1742.
[22] Other persons also were satirised occasionally in “Pranceriana,” as, for instance, Philip Tisdall in the following description:—“He was a man formed by nature, and fashioned by long practice, for all manner of court intrigue. His stature was low, so as to excite neither envy nor observation; his countenance dismal, his public manners grave, and his address humble. But as in public he covered his prostitution by a solemnity of carriage, so in private he endeavoured to captivate by convivial humour, and to discountenance all public virtue by the exercise of a perpetual, and sometimes not unsuccessful, irony. To these qualifications he added an extraordinary magnificence of living.(1) His table was furnished with everything that splendour could suggest, or luxury could conceive, and his position and policy united to solicit a multitude of guests. To his house, then, resorted all those who wished through him to obtain, or learn from him to enjoy, without remorse, those public endowments which are the purchase of public infidelity.” Tisdall was depicted in “Baratariana” also. In the pungent rhyme on “The rejection of the Altered Money Bill,” in 1772, we have—
“The next that stepped forward was innocent Phil,
Who said ‘that in things of the kind he’d no skill,
But yet that he thought it a mighty good bill,’
Which nobody can deny.”
And again, in “A list of the Pack,” we have—
“Lo, Tisdall, whose looks would make honest men start,
Who hangs out in his face the black sign of his heart;
If you thought him no devil his aim he would miss,
For he would, if he could, appear worse than he is.
Then kick out these rascally knaves, boys;
Freemen we will be to our graves, boys;
Better be dead than be slaves, boys;
A coffin or freedom for me.”
Philip Tisdall enjoyed a long tenure of very distinguished success. He was educated at Sheridan’s celebrated school in Capel-street, and thence entered Trinity College as a fellow-commoner in 1718. His Matriculation is:—“1718, Nov. 11th. Philip Tisdel. Soc. Com. Educatus Dub. Mag. Sheridan. (Tutor) Mr. Delany.” He took his B.A. in the spring commencements of 1722, the shortened three-and-a-half years’ academic course, as exemplified in the case of Grattan and Fitzgibbon [see [note D]], being a fellow-commoner’s privilege. In 1739, Tisdall was elected simultaneously M.P. for Armagh and for the University. He chose the latter, and succeeded in a parliamentary petition against Alexander Macaulay. He afterwards contested the seat successfully in 1761 against Mr. French, Lord Clonmel’s nominee; and in 1776 unsuccessfully against Provost Hutchinson’s second son. In 1741, Tisdall was promoted Third-Serjeant, in 1751 he was Solicitor-General, and from 1761 till his death he was Attorney-General. In 1761 he was presented by the City of Cork with its freedom in a silver box. The Solicitor-General Gore was, in consequence of some of Tisdall’s trimming, appointed over his head Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and soon after was created Lord Annaly. Tisdall was a very eminent lawyer, and although not at all an orator, he had great weight and influence in the House of Commons. He commenced political life as a patriot, and became the organ of the Junto. He was then, along with Pery and Hutchinson, bought by the corrupter, Lord Lieutenant Townshend. Tisdall’s house was in Chancery-lane, and his country villa was in Stillorgan. He died in 1777. He was son of Richard Tisdall, Registrar in Chancery, and succeeded his father in the office, 1744. Philip’s wife, Mary, had a pension of one hundred a year, and his brother Thomas was Registrar of the Court of Admiralty. In his will, made 1772, which is in the Public Record Office, he leaves a remembrance to his daughter, Elizabeth Morgan, “heretofore amply provided for.” The whole of his real and personal estate he leaves to his wife Mary. His daughter Elizabeth, by his wife Mary (Singleton), niece and co-heiress of Lord Chief Justice Singleton, was baptised in St. Bride’s Church. She was married to Colonel Morgan, of Cork Abbey, county Wicklow, and was grandmother to the late H. U. Tighe, Dean of Ardagh, and of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, and afterwards of Londonderry.—[Burke’s Landed Gentry, Art., “Tighe of Mitchelstown;” Life of Charlemont. Life of Shelbourne, Record Office, and S. Bride’s Register.]
(1) In the pre-Union times, when a home parliament secured the residence of our aristocracy and gentry, Dublin was famous for its fashion and hospitalities. Primate Stone maintained a lordly style at Leixlip Castle; while, as we read in “Mrs. Delany’s Letters,” Bishop Clayton at St. Woolstons, close by, and in St. Stephen’s-green, kept up an equal grandeur. His house in the Green had a front like Devonshire House, and was magnifique. Mrs. Clayton’s coach, with six flouncing Flanders mares, was not “out-looked by any equipage except the Duke of Dorset’s, for she would not be outshone by her neighbours, a thing not easily done here.” The Delanys entertained Viceroyalty at Delville, fed their own deer, and went about in a coach-and-six. Luke Gardiner’s (Lord Mountjoy) house in the Phœnix Park was the head-quarters of fashionable life(a); and Hussey Burgh drove his coach-and-six, with outriders. The wealthy wool, linen, silk, &c., mercers, of Bride-street and Golden-lane, kept good style and equipages also, as appears by their wills in the Public Record Office.