The author, with a partiality to his own countrymen which we know not how to censure, has drawn the character of an Irishman as one possessed of qualities which he had rather imprudently denied to the other persons of the drama—English, Scotch, Welsh, and French. This circumstance gave offence, and before the conclusion of the piece the clamour became too great for anything to be heard. It was, therefore, laid aside.
No name seems to have been more popular with the pit and galleries, and the admiration of his countrymen for him showed itself in odd ways. Kemble somewhere describes an Irishman at Drury Lane indignantly claiming one of Shakespeare's plays for McNally: and when a spectator, duly challenged, replied that he did not want to dispute the point with him, his tormentor said, still trying to foster a quarrel, 'but perhaps you don't believe me?' Again the man received a polite assurance which seemed quite satisfactory; but five minutes later 'Pat,' observing Kemble whispering to a companion, came over in an attitude still more menacing—'Maybe your friend doesn't believe that the play is written by Leonard McNally?' and to avoid a scene both were glad to decamp. Those were the days when the voice of national predilection made itself heard and felt in dramatic criticism. Home scored a success with 'Douglas:' 'and where be your Wully Shakespeare noo?' was shrieked by some clannish Scots that night. McNally's friends regretted more than once that he ever left London. A book called 'Five Hundred Celebrated Authors of Great Britain now living' was published here in 1788,[456] and it is amusing to find McNally's name included with those of Burke, Gibbon, Walpole, Crabbe, Burns, Cowper, De Lolme and Mackenzie, who at the close of a century were helping to educate the minds which were to adorn its successor.
One day Lord Loughborough, finding McNally ill prepared in a case which came before the Court, advised him to abandon the Muses and study Blackstone; but the cacoëthes scribendi burned too strongly within him to relinquish more cultured pursuits. His 'Sentimental Excursions to Windsor' appeared, and on rejoining the Irish Bar he produced 'The Irish Justice of the Peace,' for which 2,500l. was paid by Hugh Fitzpatrick, the Catholic publisher; 'but it contained so much bad law,' writes Charles Phillips, 'that it proved a treasure not to the J. P's., but to the country attorneys.' Sadly soon the former had practical experience of a writ; and Michael Staunton told me, that if McNally's law points often served culprits, they hanged as many more.[457] 'In Dublin,' records a contemporary scribe,[458] 'he has now very considerable law business.'
'He had a shrill, full, good bar voice,' writes Barrington, in bestowing other praise. Sir Jonah occupied the judgment seat, and was famous for his power of discerning character; but, although he impugns the good name of many men, he does not distrust McNally. According to Barrington, 'Mac' was 'good-natured, hospitable, and talented.'[459] It is to be feared that hospitality with the popular barrister was but a means to an end. 'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly. McNally, in some of his letters to the Government when requesting money, urges as an extra reason the necessity of entertaining friends in order to get at new information.
Without money [he writes] it is impossible to do what is expected. Those Spartans wish to live like Athenians in matters of eating and drinking. They live so among each other, and without ability to entertain I cannot live with them, and without living with them I cannot learn from them.[460]
McNally knew human nature quite as well as Bishop South, who says of the bacchanal that his 'heart floats upon his lips, and his inmost thoughts proclaim and write themselves upon his forehead;' and he adds that, just 'as a liar ought to have a good memory, so a person of guilt ought to be also a person of great sobriety.'[461] McNally's dinner in honour of unfortunate 'Parson Jackson' and of the man who shadowed him to the grave, suggests that it was not the only occasion when death sat at the table.
In midsummer 1798 the clangour of battle filled the air. 'Fear prevails, and all jovial intercourse has ceased, so far as my experience goes,'[462] he writes; but when hostilities ceased, amenities were renewed.
After he had ceased to produce 'masques' at Covent Garden, and entered on his new career of a barrister and a spy, one great effort of his energetic life was to divert suspicion and puzzle posterity. He saw the wisdom of the proverb, 'Show me your company,' and thus he had a double object to gain by cultivating touch with patriotic men. In 1790 he was admitted a Freeman for—as the address to him said—his services to his country. In 1802 he published 'The Rules of Evidence, or Pleas of the Crown.' It is dedicated to John Philpot Curran, 'from an affectionate attachment,' writes McNally,
and from a proud wish to make known to posterity that a reciprocal and an uninterrupted amity subsisted between the Author and the man whose transcendent genius and philosophic mind soar above all competition—whose honest and intrepid heart was never influenced in the Senate, nor intimidated at the Bar, from exerting, with zeal, independence, and spirit, his love to his country and his duty to his client.