Bernal Osborne was what, in more heroic times than these, was known as a “diner-out”—that is to say, a man who was asked to dinner entirely on account of the sparkle of his conversation. Nowadays the sparkle is the monopoly of the champagne. The very last of the “diners-out” was Father Healy of Bray, in County Wicklow. For some years before his death, that wittiest of Irishmen was invited to London during the season, and was to be met night after night at the tables of the leaders of Society. He was a wit of parts, and the curious thing about him was that he never for a moment supposed that he owed his acceptance in Society to his wit and humour. He always believed that the great ones of the earth inviting him to their tables were anxious to ascertain his views on Irish politics. Dining one night at the table of Lord Ardilaun, he met a prelate of the Church of England. Healy by no means appreciated the tone of easy condescension adopted by the Bishop. His lordship was patronizing, and Healy bitterly resented anything of the kind. He bided his time. It came, as all things do to him who knows how—and how long—to wait.
“I’ve lived sixty years in this wicked world,” at length said the Bishop, smiling and expansive, “and I have never yet been able to see the difference between a good Catholic and a good Protestant.”
“Faith, me lord,” answered Healy, “you won’t be sixty seconds in the next before you’ll know all about it!”
Dowse is a name utterly forgotten by the present generation. Yet Dowse afforded a great deal of occupation to the pressmen of his day in reporting his sayings. He was a rough-looking Irishman, red-headed and rotund. Originally, as a boy, he had herded goats about the mountains near Dungannon. He contrived, however, to get an education, read for the Irish Bar, was duly called, became Solicitor-General for Ireland, and, in the fulness of time, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He was famous for his “bulls,” and when in the House of Commons succeeded in introducing one at least before which those of Sir Boyle Roche are simply negligible. A question was put to him, while he was Solicitor-General, respecting certain religious riots that had broken out in Londonderry. Dowse explained that the riots had been occasioned by the ceremony connected with the “shutting of the gates.”
“And that,” he continued, “is an anniversary that takes place twice a year in Derry!”
Bernal Osborne has been, I confess, rather irrelevantly introduced into this chapter, for I never knew him. But I had the honour of knowing Baron Dowse. And I enjoyed the still greater privilege of dining at the table of Father Healy, to whom I was introduced by Mr. John Gunn, of the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. Healy was one of the handsomest as Dowse was one of the ugliest of men.
The illustration of the science of humour on the judicial bench is now the province of ermined jokers. Perhaps nothing could give a more vivid idea of the decadence of the bench in this respect than a comparison of the Ally Sloperian japes of certain living judges with the polished shafts of the late Lord Justice Bowen. Lord Bowen’s was the true Attic salt. And because he knew its quality, he never offered it to either the groundlings or the gallery. The reappearance of his shafts—bright and polished as they were—only caused him to shudder, even when followed in the newspaper by the reportorial “(laughter).” To some of our Judges, the constant appearance in the columns of their jokes, followed by “laughter” in brackets, would appear to be a chief end of their existence. Indeed, a Judge, quite recently dead, has occasionally supplied me, what time I sat in an editorial chair, with little impromptus which he has let off in the course of the day. For verily all is vanity.
Two examples of Lord Bowen’s wit may be recorded here. Bowen was a Liberal in politics, but, like a great many other thinking men, he deserted his party when Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill. Tackled by one who regarded him as guilty of political apostasy, and challenged as to his then opinion of Mr. Gladstone, he replied, in those mincing, modulated tones which he had acquired at Balliol:
“Mr. Gladstone’s is one of the greatest and most complex minds of our time. He possesses all the apostolic fervour of St. Paul with all the moral obliquity of Ananias.”
On the occasion of the Jubilee of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, the Judges met to decide on an address from their body to be presented to their Sovereign. A draft was submitted by one of their number. It commenced with the words: