"I have, my dear Gerald, travelled with you through your mortifying difficulties, and am proud of my son—proud of his integrity, talents, prudence, and, above all, his appearing superior to that passion of common minds, revenge; I must own, fully provoked to it by ——'s conduct. I hope, however, they may soon have to seek you, not you them. Perhaps, after all, it may have been as well that we did not know at the time what you were to endure on your first outset. We should in that case have been advising you to come out here, which perhaps would have been turning your back on that fame and fortune which I hope will one day reward your laudable perseverance and industry. When the very intention you mention of paying us a visit delights me so much, what should I feel if Providence should have in reserve for me the blessing of once again embracing my Gerald?"
Gerald united in himself the leading characteristics of both parents in a remarkable degree. His love of home forms the constant theme of his letters, while his attachment to country and delicate moral sense may properly be said to have tinged every page of his prose, and inspired every line of his poetry. His brothers and sisters, eight in number, were equally worthy of such progenitors, and of the author of The Collegians; the former becoming distinguished members of the liberal professions, and the latter, in most instances, adopting the habits and worthily fulfilling the duties of a religious life.
When the young Gerald was about seven years old, his father, abandoning business in Limerick, removed some miles from that city, and settled on a farm pleasantly situated near the confluence of the little river Oavaan and the Shannon. Here the future novelist and poet spent ten of the happiest years of his life. Surrounded on all sides by scenery the most picturesque, wood, mountain, lake, and river, his youthful imagination, so susceptible of impressions of physical as well as moral beauty, found ample scope. Reserved in manner even with his playmates, he was wont to shun their society, and wander alone for hours through the fields or by the riverside, his gun or fishing-rod unused, and his whole being drinking in the beauties of the ever-varying landscape, or gazing wonderingly on the distant "lovely hills of Clare," the boundary of his world. His love for the supernatural and his fondness for fairy lore were early developed in this sylvan retreat, where every ruin had its tragic history, every graveyard its especial ghost, and every rath and cairn its appropriate legend. How far such constant communings with nature had a tendency to disqualify him for the stern battle of life which he was destined afterward to wage with such varying fortune, we cannot undertake to say; but doubtless often, when in poverty and exile, the recollection of those years so tranquilly and innocently spent must have brightened many a solitary hour, and it is certain that to this early development of a taste for moral beauty we are indebted for some of the most vivid and truthful of his word-paintings.
But his mind was not altogether occupied in contemplation. His education, begun in Limerick, was assiduously continued in the country under the direction of a visiting tutor and the older members of his family, until at an early age he had mastered not only the rudiments of the French language, but had acquired a comparatively extensive and accurate knowledge of the English classics. He was especially fond of poetry, and was accustomed, even when a child, to copy out passages from Goldsmith and Moore; and his application to his studies of all kinds was so intense that he is described by his relatives as being invariably in the habit of sitting at his meals with a book open before him, and two or three in reserve ready to his hand. Goldsmith's Animated Nature was one of his favorite books, and he endeavored to turn it to practical account by copying its illustrations, and rearing with his own hand numbers of the little song-birds to be so plentifully found in the neighborhood. In the year 1814, we find him for a short time at the school of a Mr. O'Brien, in Limerick, deep in the fascinating pages of Horace, Ovid, and Virgil, the latter of whom, as might be expected, was his favorite poet, and so earnestly did he explore this, to him, new mine of poesy that he is said to have attained a remarkable proficiency in the Latin tongue at an age when other children are but imperfectly acquainted with their vernacular. Though soon deprived of the valuable supervision of Mr. O'Brien, he continued his readings of the classics for several years at a neighboring school, and in maturer years evinced in conversation and composition a decided preference for this branch of his early studies.
In 1820, the delightful family circle at Fairy Lawn was broken up. Mr. Griffin, senior, his wife and several of their older children, emigrated to this country, and settled near Binghamton, in the State of New York. Gerald, with one older brother and two younger sisters, was left under the protection of the oldest remaining brother, Dr. William Griffin, then a practising physician in Adare, a pretty village a few miles from Limerick. The separation from the two beings he loved best on earth was a sad calamity for the affectionate lad; but hope, that star which always shone brightly for him no matter how cloudy the horizon, consoled him for what he believed to be only a temporary bereavement. "Gerald," says one of his sisters in a letter to America, "has a biscuit from your sea store, which he says he will produce at the first meal we eat together in Susquehanna." The change of residence had one advantage, however; for while it did not interfere with his home studies, or even with his rambles in search of fresh scenery and old traditions, it gave him an opportunity of often visiting the city, and forming the acquaintance of young men of congenial tastes, principal among whom was John Banim, one of the authors of the celebrated Tales of the O'Hara Family. He became also a frequent attendant at such theatrical performances as the place at that time afforded, and even contributed reports, sketches, verses, and leading articles to the local journals, which, if they were not very profitable or widely known, "obliged him," he tells us, "to write with quickness, and without much study." But the young man had already drunk too deeply of the unpolluted waters of English and Latin lore to be satisfied with the superficial nothings of provincial journalism, or to relish the crudities of the dramatic pieces with which the wandering players were then accustomed to regale the unsophisticated people of second-class cities. The modern drama seemed to him flimsy in its construction, and, if not positively immoral, certainly in tendency falling far short of its legitimate object, which, as the great dramatist tells us, "is and was to hold the mirror up to nature," etc. He reflected seriously on the possibility of its reformation, and, like a true reformer, zealously set to work to accomplish this desirable purpose, encouraged no doubt by the applause which greeted the appearance of his young countryman's Damon and Pythias. He wrote about this time three or four plays, none of which were ever presented to the public; and of the names and plots of all but one we are ignorant. That was called Aquire, and being a production of considerable merit, judging from the favorable opinion of it expressed by Banim and other theatrical critics to whose inspection it was confidentially submitted, would very probably have met with success on the stage had not the author's over-sensitiveness induced him to withdraw it altogether, after endeavoring two or three times to procure its representation. His next step was to leave Ireland for a wider sphere of action; but it was only after repeated and urgent solicitation, and upon reading over this drama, which seemed to contain many excellences, that his brother and guardian, Dr. Griffin, consented to gratify his longing to visit London, where he felt he would have unlimited scope to develop his idea of reform. The consent gained, Gerald left home for the first time, radiant with hope and confident of success.
A youthful aspirant for literary honors could not have made his début at a more unpropitious time. London was then, as now, the great maelstrom which drew into its vortex most of the enterprise and genius of the three kingdoms, and, alas! proved the grave of too many overwrought and unappreciated minds. The fame of Byron, Moore, and a host of contemporary poets was then in its zenith, and the refulgence of their genius eclipsed the light of all lesser stars which might have shone brightly in any other atmosphere. The stage was so completely neglected or debased that the legitimate drama had given place to spectacular frivolities, and hundreds of plays of merit were offered every year to the London managers only to be rejected. The wonderful success of Sir Walter Scott as a novelist had produced a crowd of plagiarists, as inferior in ability as they were formidable in prolixity, who had filled the shelves of the booksellers with the veriest trash, and satiated ad nauseam the public taste for romance. Even the field of Irish fiction was apparently fully occupied. Maria Edgeworth's justly admired tales were in every household, and the stronger and brighter imagination of Banim had already plumed its pinions, and tried its first flight with marked success. The era of patronage, when the great and wealthy of the land esteemed it a privilege to throw the ægis of their protection over the artist and man of letters, had passed away, perhaps happily, for ever, and that of Bulwer and Dickens, Thackeray and Lever had not arrived; men whose magic pens seem to have realized the alchemist's dream, and turned every thing they touched into gold. It was well for the young adventurer that these difficulties did not at once present themselves, or, if discerned at all, it was through that enchanting halo with which youth surrounds the future.
On Gerald's arrival in London, his first step was to procure respectable lodgings; his next to place in the hands of some person connected with the stage, but whose name has not transpired, a copy of one of his plays for criticism and acceptance. This person, though the only one to whom the friendless lad was able to procure an introduction, took the piece with warm professions of friendship, and promised it his early consideration; but, after retaining it for some three months, sent it back, "wrapped up in an old newspaper," without a word of comment, explanation, or apology. The interval was one of painful suspense for the aspiring writer, somewhat relieved by the genial and unselfish kindness of Banim, whose residence in London he soon discovered. Although having had but a slight acquaintance with Gerald, and being himself very few years his senior, and still on the threshold of fame, John Banim, to his immortal credit be it said, extended to his junior countryman the hospitality of his house, and, what was much more grateful, the sunshine of his genial conversation and the refuge of his cheerful fireside. He went even further: with a total absence of professional jealousy, he took Aquire, read it over carefully, commended its best passages, pointed out the errors to be erased, the superabundant metaphor and mere poetic imagery to be pruned, and used all his efforts to procure its representation. Gerald was deeply grateful. "What would I have done," he writes to his brother, "if I had not found Banim? I should never be tired of talking about and thinking of Banim." It was at the suggestion of this invaluable friend that, in the early part of the following year, he wrote Gisippus, and many of its most striking scenes owe something to the matured judgment of the author of Damon and Pythias. This play, written, as he tells us, on little slips of paper in coffee-houses, though one of great merit, for originality of conception, dignity of language, and startling incidents, was not acted till two years after the author's death; and when Macready at length introduced it to the public, it was received with great favor, and still, to use a theatrical phrase, "keeps the boards."
But months passed wearily away in the strange city, and Gerald's hopes were as far as ever from fruition—months spent in fruitless efforts to obtain some sort of employment that would enable him to support himself, while he waited the pleasure of managers and danced attendance on theatrical committees. Again and again he applied for the position of reporter on the press, but was answered that the places were all filled. He might have become a police-news reporter, but he was told that it was "hardly reputable." He wrote for the literary weeklies, but was cheated by every one of them; he contributed to the larger magazines, and his articles were inserted; but when payment was requested, "there was so much shuffling and shabby work" that he left them in disgust; he commenced the study of Spanish, with a view to coöperate with Valentine Llanos in the translation of Spanish dramas; but Colburn and the other publishers told him that it was "entirely out of their line." At last he undertook with avidity to translate from the French a volume and a half of one of Prevot's works for two guineas—about ten and a half dollars. It is no wonder, then, that in the bitterness of his extremity he wrote to his sister, "If I could make a fortune by splitting matches, I think I would never put a word in print." Though practising the most rigid economy, the occasional remittances he received from his brother, many of them unsolicited, did not suffice for his ordinary wants; he was compelled to give up his first lodgings and seek others in a more obscure part of the city, and was even obliged to refuse the pressing invitations of his friend Banim to meet Doctor Maginn and other celebrities, at the house of the former, for want of proper apparel. "The fact is," he writes home at this time, "I am at present almost a complete prisoner. I wait until dusk every evening to creep from my mouse-hole, and snatch a little fresh air on the bridge close by."
Staggering under the weight of disappointment and poverty, he was yet to encounter the additional torture of ill health. Stooping constantly over his desk, he contracted an affection of the lungs, the unaccustomed dampness of a London fog had given him rheumatism, and he was occasionally attacked with violent palpitations of the heart, which endangered life itself. The joyous spirit which had soared like a bird beneath its native skies on the banks of the Shannon, drooped its wings in the heavy miasma of the Thames; fagging, unrequited labor made his days a burden and his nights sleepless; his wardrobe was so threadbare that for months at a time he would not stir abroad in the daylight, and consequently did not meet the face of an acquaintance, and his supply of food so meagre that he was often obliged to dispense with the commonest necessaries of life. Indeed, so reduced had he become in circumstances at this time that a friend of his relates that, having lost sight of him for several days, and apprehending the true cause of his absence, after long searching he discovered him in a veritable garret, and, though it was past midnight, still endeavoring to work on his manuscripts. But what must have been his astonishment when he wrung from Gerald the unwilling but unostentatious confession that he had been without food for three consecutive days? It is unnecessary to say that his immediate wants were supplied by the kind friend who had thus timely visited him, though not without some hesitation on the part of the recipient of the favor. Still, nothing could daunt his indomitable will, no misfortune could lessen the self-consciousness of his ability to achieve ultimate success, or break down his proud, too proud, spirit of personal independence. He might easily have obtained money from his relatives in Ireland; but he forebore to accept from them what his susceptibilities led him to suppose they could ill afford, and even his true friend Banim, upon incidentally discovering his situation and tendering him in the most delicate manner some pecuniary assistance, was met with a decided and not over courteous refusal. His enforced poverty likewise had a very injurious effect on his prospects as a dramatic author; for, unable to mingle on an equality with men connected with the stage, he lost all chance of personal intercourse with managers and critics, and finally conceived such a distaste for or indifference to his first affection, the drama, that he relinquished for ever the design of reforming the stage, the hope that had lain nearest to his heart and had prompted his self-imposed exile from his native country. Though few men loved literature more for its own sake, or are, fortunately generally called upon to offer more sacrifices at its shrine, the vital question with him had now become narrowed down to the very one of existence itself; for, to use his own expression, "he preferred death to failure."
Thus nearly two years passed away in London, and, sick at heart and enfeebled in body, he felt thousands and thousands of times, as he writes to his parents, that he could have lain down quietly and died at once, and been forgotten for ever. But in this his darkest hour a ray of hope unexpectedly crossed his gloomy path, and with all the hopefulness of a rejuvenated spirit he hailed it as the harbinger of a new and more prosperous epoch. A Mr. Foster, having accidentally become acquainted with his almost hopeless condition, procured him employment at fifty pounds a year as reader and corrector for a publisher, and his gifted countryman Maginn, immediately upon hearing of his reduced circumstances, obtained for him a situation on The Literary Gazette, which soon led to a profitable connection with other journals of a like character. To all these he contributed articles in prose and poetry on every imaginable topic, and displayed such an adaptability and versatility of talent that his services were not only well rewarded by their respective publishers, but very generally appreciated by the reading community. Many of the tales and sketches which at this time came from his pen were sent in and published anonymously, or simply signed "Joseph," his name in confirmation, so strictly did he endeavor to preserve his incognito, and trust to the intrinsic merits of his contributions for their acceptance. Though he wrote to his mother that by reason of his new employment he was enabled to pay off all the debts he owed at the close of the year 1825, his varied productions could not have been very remunerative, certainly not in proportion to the labor expended on them; for we find him during the next session of Parliament engaged as a reporter in the House of Commons.