“Yes, my lord,” said O’Farrell, “we were very numerous; but so many of us have been lately hanged for sheep-stealing, that the name is getting rather scarce in that county!”
This was quite conclusive: his lordship said no more; and (so far as respect for a new chancellor admitted) we got into our own line of conversation, without his assistance. His lordship, by degrees, began to understand some jokes a few minutes after they were uttered. An occasional smile discovered his enlightenment; and, at the breaking up, I really think his impression was, that we were a pleasant, though not very comprehensible race, possessing at a dinner-table much more good-fellowship than special-pleading; and that he would have a good many of his old notions to get rid of before he could completely cotton to so dissimilar a body:—but he was extremely polite. Chief Justice Downs, and a few more of our high, cold sticklers for “decorum,” were quite uneasy at this skirmishing: yet I doubt if Lord Redesdale liked them at all the better before the end of the entertainment.
I never met a cold-blooded ostentatious man of office, whom I did not feel pleasure in mortifying: an affectation of sang-froid is necessary neither to true dignity nor importance; on the contrary, it generally betrays the absence of both, and of many amiable qualities into the bargain.
I never saw Lord Redesdale more puzzled than at one of Plunkett’s best jeux d’esprits. A cause was argued in Chancery, wherein the plaintiff prayed that the defendant should be restrained from suing him on certain bills of exchange, as they were nothing but kites.—“Kites!” exclaimed Lord Redesdale:—“Kites, Mr. Plunkett! Kites never could amount to the value of those securities! I don’t understand this statement at all, Mr. Plunkett.”
“It is not to be expected that you should, my lord,” answered Plunkett: “in England and in Ireland, kites are quite different things. In England, the wind raises the kites; but in Ireland, the kites raise the wind!”
“I do not feel any way better informed yet, Mr. Plunkett,” said the matter-of-fact chancellor.
“Well, my lord, I’ll explain the thing without mentioning those birds of prey:”—and therewith he elucidated the difficulty.
Lord Redesdale never could pronounce the name of Mr. Colclough (a suitor in the Chancery court). It was extremely amusing to hear how he laboured to get it off his tongue, but quite in vain! Callcloff was his nearest effort. I often wished I could recommend him to try his dog-teeth.—His lordship was considered by the Irish bar a very good lawyer. They punned on his title, as he had singularly assumed one so apropos to his habits: they pronounced it Reads-a-deal. But his lordship’s extraordinary passion for talking, added Talks-a-deal to his appellation. He was told of both sobriquets, but did not understand punning; and perhaps he was right.
On the discussion of the Catholic bill, in 1792, Lord Westmoreland, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, certainly did not approve of the precipitate measures wished for by his secretary, Major Hobart (afterwards Earl of Buckinghamshire). I had the honour of distinctly knowing the sentiments of both, and clearly saw the shades of difference which existed between them, but which, of course, I had not the presumption to notice. I felt convinced that both were my friends, and was desirous, if possible, to run counter to neither.
I never had disputed the political right of the Catholics theoretically: but I had been bred up amongst Williamites, and had imbibed (without very well understanding their bearing) strong Protestant principles; and hence I deemed it wisest neither to speak nor vote upon the subject at that period; and, in fact, I never did.