I will now proceed to lay before the reader a brief but more general sketch of the state of Irish society at the period of my youth, reminding him of the principle which I have before assumed; namely, that of considering anecdotes, bon-mots, and the like, valuable only as they tend to exemplify interesting facts relative to history or manners: many such I have inserted in these fragments; and as I have been careful throughout to avoid mere inventions, my reader need not, by any means, reserve their perusal for the study of his travelling carriage.
Miss Edgeworth, in her admirable sketch of Castle Rackrent, gives a tolerably faithful picture of the Irish character under the combination of circumstances which she has selected; and the account that I am about to give may serve as an elucidation of the habits and manners of Irish country society about the period Miss Edgeworth alludes to, and somewhat later—with which she could not be so well acquainted.
In those days, the common people ideally separated the gentry of the country into three classes, and treated each class according to the relative degree of respect to which they considered it entitled.
They generally divided them thus:
1. Half-mounted gentlemen.
2. Gentlemen every inch of them.
3. Gentlemen to the back-bone.
The first-named class formed the only species of independent yeomanry then existing in Ireland. They were the descendants of the small grantees of Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, and King William III. by their confiscations; possessed about 200 or 300 acres of land each, in fee, from the Crown;[[32]] and were occasionally admitted into the society of better gentlemen—particularly hunters—living at other times amongst each other, with an intermixture of their own servants, with whom they were always on terms of intimacy. They generally had good clever horses, which could leap over any thing, but seldom felt the trimming-scissors or currycomb, unless they belonged to jockey gentlemen. The riders commonly wore buck-skin breeches, and boots well greased, (blacking was never used in the country,) and carried large thong whips heavily loaded with lead at the butt-end, so that they were always prepared either to horsewhip a man or knock his brains out, as circumstances might dictate. These half-mounted gentlemen exercised hereditarily the authority of keeping the ground clear at horse-races, hurlings, and all public meetings (as soldiers keep the lines at a review). Their business was to ride round the inside of the ground, which they generally did with becoming spirit, trampling over some, knocking down others, and slashing every body who encroached on the proper limits. Bones being but very seldom broken, and skulls still seldomer fractured, every body approved of their exertions, because all the by-standers gained thereby a full view of the sport which was going forward. A shout of merriment was always set up when a half-mounted gentleman knocked down an interloper; and some of the poets present, if they had an opportunity, roared out their verses[[33]] by way of a song to encourage the gentlemen.
[32]. Their ancestors had mostly been troopers in the English armies, and were mingled amongst the Irish to mend the breed. They however soon imbibed the peculiarities of the Irish character with an increased ability to procure all its gratifications. In country sports they were quite pre-eminent, except a few who took exclusively to farming and drinking.