The boy approached, and, to my amazement, addressed us in Latin, begging with all the vehement eloquence of an Irish mendicant, for some money to buy ink and paper. We gave him a trifle, and the priest desired him to go on to the castle, where he would get his breakfast, and that on his return he would give him some books into the bargain.
The boy, who solicited in Latin, expressed his gratitude in Irish; and we trotted on.
“Such,” said Father John, “formerly was the frequent origin of our Roman Catholic priests This is a character unknown to you in England, and is called here ‘a poor scholar.’ If a boy is too indolent to work and his parents too poor to support him, or, which is more frequently the case, if he discovers some natural talents, or, as they call it, takes to his learning, and that they have not the means to forward his improvement, he then becomes by profession a poor scholar, and continues to receive both his mental and bodily food at the expense of the community at large.
“With a leathern satchel on his back, containing his portable library, he sometimes travels not only through his own province, but frequently over the greater part of the kingdom. * No door is shut against the poor scholar, who, it is supposed, at a future day may be invested with the apostolic key of Heaven. The priest or schoolmaster of every parish through which he passes, receives him for a few days into his barefooted seminary, and teaches him bad Latin and worse English; while the most opulent of his schoolfellows eagerly seize on the young peripatetic philosopher and provide him with maintenance and lodging; and if he is a boy of talent or humour (a gift always prized by the naturally laughter-loving Milesians) they will struggle for the pleasure of his society.
* It has been justly said, that, “nature is invariable in
her operations; and that the principles of a polished people
will influence even their latest posterity.” And the ancient
state of letters in Ireland, may be traced in the love of
learning and talent even still existing among the inferior
class of the Irish to this day. On this point it is observed
by Mr. Smith, in his History of Kerry, “that it is well
known that classical reading extends itself even to a fault,
among the lower and poorer kind of people in this country,
[Munster,] many of whom have greater knowledge in this way
than some of the better sort in other places. He elsewhere
observes, that Greek is taught in the mountainous parts of
the province. And Mr. O’Halloran asserts, that classical
reading has most adherents in those retired parts of the
kingdom where strangers had least access, and that as good
classical scholars were found in most parts of Connaught, as
in any part of Europe.
“Having thus had the seeds of dependence sown irradically in his mind, and furnished his perisatetic studies, he returns to his native home, and with an empty satchel to his back, goes about raising contributions on the pious charity of his poor compatriots: each contributes some necessary article of dress, and assists to fill a little purse, until completely equipped; and, for the first time in his life, covered from head to foot, the divine embryo sets out for some sea-port, where he embarks for the colleges of Douay or St. Omer’s; and having begged himself, in forma pauperis, through all the necessary rules and discipline of the seminary, he returns to his own country, and becomes the minister of salvation to those whose generous contributions enable him to assume the sacred profession. *
* The French Revolution, and the foundation of the Catholic
college at Maynooth, has put a stop to these pious
emigrations.
“Such is the man by whom the minds opinions, and even actions of the people are often influenced; and, if man is but a creature of education and habit, I leave you to draw the inference. But this is but one class of priesthood, and its description rather applicable to twenty or thirty years back than to the present day. The other two may be divided into the sons of tradesmen and farmers, and the younger sons of Catholic gentry.
“Of the latter order am I; and the interest of my friends on my return from the continent procured me what was deemed the best parish in the diocese. But the good and the evil attendant on every situation in life, is rather to be estimated by the feelings and sensibility of the objects whom they affect, than by their own intrinsic nature. It was in vain I endeavoured to accommodate my mind to the mode of life into which I had been forced by my friends. It was in vain I endeavoured to assimilate my spirit to that species of exertion necessary to be made for my livelihood.
“To owe my subsistence to the precarious generosity of those wretches, whose every gift to me must be the result of a sensible deprivation to themselves; be obliged to extort (even from the altar where I presided as the minister of the Most High) the trivial contributions for my support, in a language which, however appropriate to the understandings of my auditors, sunk me in my own esteem to the last degree of self-degradation; or to receive from the religious affection of my flock such voluntary benefactions as, under the pressure of scarcity and want, their rigid economy to themselves enabled them to make to the pastor whom they revered. * In a word, after three years miserable dependence on those for whose poverty and wretchedness my heart bled, I threw up my situation, and became chaplain to the Prince of Inismore, on a stipend sufficient for my little wants, and have lived with him for thirty years, on such terms as you have witnessed for these three weeks back.