My Mother returned to England in the spring of 1801, and presently passed over to Ireland. Of the period, somewhat more than a year, which elapsed before her next visit to the Continent, I find few memoranda, and fewer still which need to be published. I make an extract or two.
Aug. 11, 1801.—Arrived at Mr. Alcock’s, Wilton, near Enniscorthy, an uncle of mine by marriage, and a worthy, valuable man. I find the Rebellion is the prominent object in the minds of his family, as it is, more or less, of most who have passed through it. It is their principal epoch, and seems to have divided time into two grand divisions, unmarked by any lesser periods; before, and after, the Rebellion. The first of these seems to resemble Paradise before the Fall. They had then good servants, fine flowers, fine fruit, fine horses, good beer, and plenty of barm—that indispensable requisite in rural economy. Since that period of perfect felicity, the servants have been unmanageable, the horses restive, the beer sour, the barm uncome-at-able, and all things scarce and dear. Great part of the evils complained of are undoubtedly felt; some are imaginary, and some arise from causes which are not so important or so pleasant to put forward as the word Rebellion.
Aug. 13.—Went to visit my farms near Gorey, accompanied by Mr. Alcock. Mr. B——, my principal tenant, though a rich and thriving farmer, lives in a state of dirt which really shocked me. He attributed some part of it to the Rebellion—of the rest he seemed unconscious. His wife seems dawdling, indolent, and, like most of the lower and middling Irish, oppressed by either a real or affected melancholy. That it is sometimes the last, particularly in the presence of those they consider their superiors, my own observation has convinced me. A variety of causes operate to produce this effect. The chief of these seems to be an idea that the higher class have a sort of jealousy of the prosperity of their inferiors, and a fear, in some cases too well founded, that the increasing opulence and happiness of the tenant will excite unreasonable and disproportioned exactions on the part of the landlord. Mr. B. invited me to dinner, offering ‘to kill a sheep in a crack.’
Oct. 31.—The latter part of the month I have passed with Mr. and Mrs. C——. They are good people from instinct and habit, and they have lived in the country, a situation most favourable to characters such as theirs.
Nov. 12-17.—From Mr. C——’s came to Castleton on a visit to Mr. Cox. From Mr. Benjamin Cox, brother to the master of the house, I have received great instruction on a subject to which I had hitherto devoted so little time or thought, that I was perhaps more ignorant of it than of any other with which females are supposed to be conversant. He has talked to me of religion, of the God who created, the Saviour who redeemed, the Spirit who sanctifies; without affectation, without parade, he introduces this important topic; and, though lowly and meek to a degree I have seldom witnessed, no raillery or opposition ever drives him from his stronghold, or induces him to give up the defence of the saving truths of Christianity. His practice and his theory are in perfect harmony, and his life an excellent comment on his creed. Charitable to the extent of not only relieving, but seeking, objects of distress with whom to share his entire income—generous even to bestowing one-third of his fortune at three-and-twenty on a brother richer than himself; self-denying, humble, contented, devoted to retirement, not from incapacity to shine in the world or to enjoy its pleasures, but from an opinion that retirement is, with certain exceptions, favourable to virtue. This opinion has enabled him to conquer all those inducements to quit an obscure and monotonous life that arise from a pleasing appearance, an attractive address, a voice the most harmonious and persuasive, considerable knowledge, and favourable prospects of advancement and preferment in any profession he might have chosen. The Church alone, he declares, would have suited him; but from that he is excluded by the Thirty-nine Articles, to all of which he thinks he cannot conscientiously subscribe.
I will abandon for once a rule which I have laid down for myself in the present volume, which is, to let the writer pourtray herself, and to introduce no other portraiture, my own or others; and I will here quote some words of Mrs. Leadbeater,[34] one of my mother’s most honoured friends, and with whom she maintained the most frequent correspondence, describing the beginnings of an acquaintance which presently ripened into a friendship, only to be interrupted by death, and ever esteemed by my mother a signal blessing of her life. They occur in the Annals of Ballitore, a work which Mrs. Leadbeater left behind her in manuscript, and which, when published, as I believe it is on the point of being, will be found to contain, with other matters of interest, a very vivid description of social life in Ireland during the time of the Rebellion. The reader will easily understand that, had I felt at liberty to touch the passage, one or two words might not have remained exactly as they are, and altogether I would gladly have set the whole at a somewhat lower key of admiration; but I must leave it as I find it. These are Mrs. Leadbeater’s words:—
‘The inn on the high road from Dublin to Cork was completed, and was let to Thomas Glaizebrook. It attained a goodly reputation. One night, just as we were retiring to rest, a messenger came down from the landlord to say that a lady had arrived late, that the house was full to overflowing, and there was no room for her to take refreshment in, that she sate on the settle in the kitchen reading, waiting until she could obtain an apartment; that she would be glad of the meanest bed in the house, being much fatigued; could we be so kind as to assist our tenant in this strait? My husband went up at once for her, and brought her down in a carriage here, when we found from her attendants that she was a person of much consequence. She retired to rest, after expressing grateful thanks, and we thought would pass away with the morrow. But not so. Her servants told us that she had an estate in the neighbourhood, that she had appointed her agent to meet her at Ballitore inn, proposing to take her tenants from under the middleman to her own protection;—that she had been ten years the widow of a Colonel, and had one son. I had seen but little of her the night before; when she entered my parlour the next day, I was greatly struck with her personal appearance. My heart entirely acquits me of being influenced by what I had heard of her rank and fortune. Far more prepossessing than these were the soft lustre of her beautiful black eyes, and the sweetness of her fascinating smile; her dress was simply elegant, and her fine dark hair, dressed according to the present fashion, in rows of curls over one another in front, appeared to me to be as becoming as it was new. These particulars are not important, except to myself; to me they are inexpressibly dear, because they retrace the first impressions made on me by this most charming woman, who afterwards gratified me by her friendship. Melesina St. George, such was the name of the lovely stranger, spent two weeks in our house. She asked permission, in the most engaging manner, to remain here rather than return to the inn. Providence had been liberal in granting to her talents and dispositions calculated for the improvement and happiness of all around her, while her meekness and humility prevented the restraint of her superiority being felt, without taking from the dignity of her character. I was surprised and affected when I beheld her seated on one of the kitchen chairs in the scullery, for coolness, hearing a tribe of little children of her tenants sing out their lessons to her. I wished for her picture drawn in this situation, and for its companion I would choose Edmund Burke making pills for the poor. It was with difficulty I prevailed upon her to bring her little school into our parlour, because, as she said, she would not bring them into her own. Admiring her method of instructing, I told her she would make an excellent schoolmistress; she modestly replied, with her enchanting smile, not an excellent one, but she had no dislike to the employment, and had contemplated it as a means of subsistence when the Rebellion threatened to deprive her of her property. She came to Ballitore again, and had apartments at the inn, where she entertained us with kind, polite attention, and amused her leisure with taking sketches of the views from thence with a pen and ink, not having her pencils, &c. &c., with her, thus cheerfully entertaining herself with what was attainable.’
The following letter is the firstfruits of a correspondence which continued for a quarter of a century.