TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Dublin, Dec., 1807.
I send your map, though late, and Corinne. Do not you think d’Erfeuil drawn with uncommon skill, and in point of character, the best of the book? It is a slight sketch, but, as far as it goes, perfect. Oswald and Corinne are ‘beauteous monsters’ like Darwin’s rose-nightingale; and are made to exhibit qualities, to commit actions, not merely opposite and unnatural, but contradictory. No man could unite such weakness and such energy; and, with such superabundance of the former, he would never attach any woman whatever. No woman could be pedantic, disserting, ambitious of the public applause of the mob, and emulating the tricks of a mountebank, with the character and feelings she is represented to possess, wherever her affections are engaged. Besides, I am provoked all through with the absolute necessity of changing their dress, and giving him the petticoat and her the Scotch plaid.
Among my Mother’s papers I have found the notes which she took of more than one of Kirwan’s sermons; but immense, and, I believe, deserved, as was his reputation as a preacher,—I do not say as a divine, for his statements of Christian doctrine are most inadequate and defective—these, like everything of his which has seen the light of day since his death, are quite insufficient to explain to the reader the marvellous effects which his eloquence produced on those who actually heard it. More interesting than these is the following sketch of his character as a sacred orator. It leaves on me the impression of having been prepared for publication; but I am ignorant whether it has been published or not. It may be needful to observe that the posthumous volume of Kirwan’s sermons was not published till many years later, in 1814. I do not know when this sketch was written; but as Kirwan had died during the writer’s absence in France, in 1805, I think very probably soon after her return to Ireland, and I place it here.
Kirwan, in the language of Grattan, ‘disturbed the repose of the pulpit, and discovered a mine of charity in the breasts of his countrymen with which the owners were unacquainted.’ He taught the passions to move at the command of Virtue; his eloquence could with equal facility melt and subdue, or animate and inflame, terrify the libertine in his mid career, or relax the purse-strings of the usurer. Time seemed concentrated to a point while his lightnings flashed or his thunders rolled; and when he ended, a sensation of regret and privation preceded the vivid and animating glow of high and just applause. In his charitable discourses (most difficult branch of pulpit oratory), he never failed to discover some untrodden path; and the tears and gifts of his hearers bore equal testimony to his power. Year after year has he pleaded the cause of the same institutions with increasing effect, and still surprised his audience with new motives for their liberality. He had the art of discovering analogies new but not fantastical, unexpected but not overstrained, between the passing events of the times and the necessary subjects of his discourse; and from these events he often deduced arguments the most forcible, or imaged scenes the most pathetic. When his thoughts were condensed, their brevity was never affected, and, when most expanded, lost none of their force; for, if he repeated the same idea in hope to impress it more firmly on a popular audience, he dressed it in such vivid colours and such breadth of light and shade, that his repetition had all the charm of novelty. His hearers were often reminded of Burke, often of Grattan; for, though he disdained all imitation, apparent similarity to great models must arise from variety of excellence. His eloquence appeared like inspiration, yet his sermons were not, in fact, extemporaneous. It is said that he wrote them, like Pope, on scraps of paper, committed them to memory, and then—for Genius is ever careless of her Sybil leaves—condemned them to the flames. Perhaps he feared their being less admired when read in the closet than from the pulpit. Was this an excess of modesty, or of vanity? Whatever may have been the cause, deeply is the effect regretted by all his hearers, and great the loss to the morals and literature of his country.
I have seldom seen him in mixed society. He was serious, silent, and reserved; and, when he did speak, his remarks were occasionally tinctured with somewhat of sharpness and severity. The affection of his amiable wife, and his habit, when absent, of writing to her daily, give a most favourable impression of his domestic character.
Sir Francis Hutchinson, of whose virtues the following lines contain a slight record, was an uncle of my father’s by marriage. He died full of years and full of good works, at the close of the year 1807. The death of his wife, to which there will be found references a little further on, was only divided from his by about three months.