“I dined to-day at the Salopian with Dr. Maginn. He is a most remarkable fellow. His flow of ideas is incredibly quick, and his articulation so rapid, that it is difficult to follow him. He is altogether a person of vast acuteness, celerity of apprehension, and indefatigable activity both of body and mind. His is about my own height; but I could allow him an inch round the chest. His forehead is very finely developed, his organ of language and ideality large, and his reasoning faculties excellent. His hair is quite gray, although he does not look more than forty. I imagined he was much older looking, and that he wore a wig. While conversing his eye is never a moment at rest: in fact his whole body is in motion, and he keeps scrawling grotesque figures upon the paper before him, and rubbing them out again as fast as he draws them. He and Gifford are, as you know, joint editors of the Standard.”
The Dublin
University
Magazine, 1844.
“Well does the writer of this notice recollect the feelings with which he first wended to the residence of his late friend. He was then but a mere boy, fresh from the university.... He went, and was shown upstairs; the doctor was not at home, but was momentarily expected.... Suddenly, when his heart almost sank within him, a light step was heard ascending the stairs—it could not be a man’s foot—no, it was too delicate for that; it must, certainly, be the nursery-maid. The step was arrested at the door, a brief interval, and Maginn entered. The spell vanished like lightning, and the visitor took heart in a moment. No formal-looking personage, in customary suit of solemn black, stood before him, but a slight, boyish, careless figure, with a blue eye, the mildest ever seen—hair, not exactly white, but of a sunned snow colour—an easy, familiar smile—and a countenance that you would be more inclined to laugh with than feel terror from. He bounded across the room with a most unscholar-like eagerness, and warmly welcomed the visitor, asking him a thousand questions, and putting him at ease with himself in a moment. Then, taking his arm, both sallied forth into the street, where, for a long time, the visitor was in doubt whether it was Maginn to whom he was really talking as familiarly as if he were his brother, or whether the whole was a dream. And such, indeed, was the impression generally made on the minds of all strangers—but, as in the present case, it was dispelled instantly the living original appeared. Then was to be seen the kindness and gentleness of heart which tinged every word and gesture with sweetness; the suavity and mildness, so strongly the reverse of what was to be expected from the most galling satirest of the day; the openness of soul and countenance, that disarmed even the bitterest of his opponents; the utter absence of anything like prejudice and bigotry from him the ablest and most devoted champion of the Church and State. No pedantry in his language, no stateliness of style, no forced metaphors, no inappropriate anecdote, no overweening confidence—all easy, simple, agreeable, and unzoned.”
FRANCIS MAHONY
(Father Prout)
1805-1866
The works of
Father Prout.
“Stooping his short and spare but thick-set figure as he walked, wearing his ill-brushed hat upon the extreme back of his head, clothed in the slovenliest way in a semi-clerical dress of the shabbiest character, he sauntered by with his right arm habitually clasped behind him in his left hand,—altogether presenting to view so distinctly the appearance of a member of one of the mendicant orders, that upon one occasion, in the Rue de Rivoli, an intimate friend of his found it impossible to resist the impulse of slipping a sou into the open palm of his right hand, with the apologetic remark, ‘You do look so like a beggar.’ Apart, however, from his threadbare garb and shambling gait, there were personal traits of character about him which caught the attention almost at a glance, and piqued the curiosity of even the least observant wayfarer. The ‘roguish Hibernian mouth,’ noted in his regard by Mr. Gruneisen, and the gray piercing eyes, that looked up at you so keenly over his spectacles, won your interest in him even upon a first introduction. From the mocking lips soon afterwards, if you fell into conversation with him, came the ‘loud snappish laugh,’ with which, as Mr. Blanchard Jerrold remarks, the Father so frequently evinced his appreciation of a casual witticism—uproarious fits of merriment signalising at other moments one of his own ironical successes, outbursts of fun followed during his later years by the racking cough with which he was too often then tormented.”
Blanchard
Jerrold’s Final
Reliques of
Father Prout.
“The Rev. Francis Mahony, or Father Prout, trudging along the Boulevards with his arms clasped behind him, his nose in the air, his hat worn as French caricaturists insist all Englishmen wear hat or cap; his quick, clear, deep-seeking eye wandering sharply to the right or left, and sarcasm—not of the sourest kind—playing like Jack-o’-lantern in the corners of his mouth, Father Prout was as much a character of the French capital as the learned Armenian of the Imperial Library only a few years ago.... It was difficult to meet Father Prout. He was an odd, uncomfortable, uncertain man. His moods changed like April skies. Light little thoughts were busy in his brain, lively and frisking as ‘troutlets in a pool.’ He was impatient of interruption, and shambled forward talking in an undertone to himself, with now and then a bubble or two of laughter, or one short sharp laugh almost like a bark, like that of the marksman when the arrow quivers in the bull’s-eye. He would pass you with a nod that meant ‘Hold off—not to-day!’... He was very impatient if any injudicious friend or passing acquaintance (who took him to be usually as accessible as any flâneur on the macadam), thrust himself forward and would have his hand and agree with him that it was a fine day, but would possibly rain shortly. A sharp answer, and an unceremonious plunge forward without bow or good-day, would put an end to the interruption. Of course the Father was called a bear by shallow-pates who could not see that there was something extra in the little man talking to himself and shuffling, with his hands behind him, through the fines fleurs and grandes dames of the Italian Boulevard.”