[590] Historical Review of the State of Ireland, by Francis Plowden, ii. 104.
[591] Lecky, vi. 369.
[592] Irish Parliamentary Register, iv. 227.
[593] 'For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade,' we know on the authority of Irish song, and the judge was baptised 'Louis' apparently in compliment to the French king, described as 'the assertor of American liberty.' The bias of the Perrins was always democratic, and the judge himself had been the attached friend of Robert Emmet, whom he embraced in the dock. The conduct of 'P. the Scholar' (T.C.D.) at this time is noticed by Archbishop Magee, then a fellow, in a letter printed in Plunket's Life. The judge's brother, Mark Perrin, rector of Athenry, in a letter to me, states that on the night Emmet was sentenced to death, Louis Perrin came home to their house at Chapelizod, bathed in tears. In that picturesque part of the 'Strawberry Beds,' where one can cross the Liffey by a ferry, access is gained to the old churchyard of Palmerstown, in which, partly smothered in weeds and fallen leaves, may be traced the epitaph of Judge Perrin's father. When Brougham declared in 1828 'The Schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him armed with his Primer against the Soldier in full military array,' he used the idea in a higher sense than could apply to M. Perrin and his 'Grammar,' who, unobtrusive as he seems to have been, caused some disquietude to Lord Clare, a man of all others the most difficult to perturb.
[594] 'I disclaim anonymous productions.'—Postscript to his Miscellaneous Tracts. (Dublin, 1781.)
[595] Buckley says that this proposition was made to O'Leary in Dublin (Life, p. [354]).
[596] As service of a political or diplomatic sort might possibly be inferred from this paragraph, I thought it just to O'Leary to see the book from which 'Shamado' quotes. The incident is described by Mrs. Bellamy in the Apology for her Life, ii. 246-7 (Dublin ed. 1785). She complains that the remains of Count Haslang were not treated with due respect; and that a new chaplain, who had been assigned to the Bavarian ambassador, behaved towards 'the chaplains and domestics of the late count with unmanly arrogance ... had it not been for the timely arrival of that justly respected luminary Father O'Leary.' Her account is not very clear. In what year Haslang's death occurred is not mentioned; but the Gentleman's Magazine of the time throws in a few dates and facts. Count Haslang died at Golden Square, London, on May 29, 1783, after an embassy of forty-two years (liii. 454). George II. had formed an attachment for him in Hanover, and brought him to London. Haslang's son was Prime Minister of Bavaria, while his father, during a crisis in its history, filled the post of ambassador to England. On June 5, 1783, a solemn dirge, attended by all the corps diplomatique in London, was sung in Warwick Street (R.C.) Chapel; but 'owing to a dispute at the grave [in old St. Pancras] several of the ambassadors returned home without supporting the pall.' The dispute, which is not explained, at last obliged the Anglican chaplain to read the burial service over the deceased envoy of a Catholic power.
O'Leary, in finally adjusting the difficulties, may have discharged a diplomatic mission inspired from Downing Street. Mrs. Bellamy alludes to insults offered even to the domestics of Count Haslang. How serious it was to insult even a servant of the Bavarian ambassador is shown by the Gentleman's Magazine, xxv. 232-3. In 1755, we learn that 'T. Randall, late an officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex, pursuant to his sentence for arresting a servant of Count Haslang, was brought from Newgate before his Excellency's house in Golden Square, having on his breast a paper proclaiming that he had been adjudged by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and the Chief Justices to be a violator of the laws of nations, and a disturber of the public repose, and stands convicted thereof.' Randall was carried back to Newgate.
Mrs. Bellamy, in vaguely alluding to insults offered even to Count Haslang's domestics, doubtless includes herself, for Haslang describes her as his 'housekeeper' (Life, ii. 104). This woman, the natural daughter of Lord Tyrawley, ambassador at Lisbon, was introduced into society by his sister; became a very influential person, and shared the confidence of Fox and other Whig lights. O'Leary, she describes (ii. 8): '... who, with unaffected piety, is blest with that innocent chearfulness which, joined to his brilliant wit and sound understanding, makes him the admired darling of all who have the happiness of knowing him.'
Count Haslang's house in Golden Square has been, since 1789, the presbytery of Warwick Street R. C. Chapel; and its transfer to parochial uses dates also from that year.