“I begin another letter immediately on despatching its
predecessor, as much, I believe, by way of recording my own feelings and
adventures, as with a view to any amusement you may derive from the narration.
Two persons, as you know, exclusive of Mr
Curran, I was particularly desirous of seeing in Ireland,
Mr Grattan and the Countess of Mountcashel. This desire I have had a
reasonable opportunity of gratifying; and, in addition to this, have been a
spectator of a considerable portion of most interesting scenery, which was not
in my contemplation when I left England. I saw Mr Grattan,
for the first time in Ireland, at Mr Curran’s
country house, on Saturday the 12th of July, ten days after my arrival at
Dublin. He then dined with us, but it was a numerous company, that afforded me
very little opportunity of diving into his characteristic qualities. The next
day, however, we went over to Grattan’s own house,
where we arrived in the evening, and slept that and the succeeding night.
Mr Curran was obliged on Monday morning to go to
Dublin to attend the courts, in consequence of which I had
Grattan almost, though not entirely, to myself till
dinner-time, when Curran and another person, his
companion, returned from Dublin, about 18 English miles. The Sunday of this
week I had dined at Lady Mountcashel’s, about the
same distance from Dublin, and 4 miles from Grattan, in
company with
| 368 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“With this quantity of gratification I might have rested satisfied. No more than this obtruded itself on my acceptance. But I invited myself to a second and a third dinner with Lady Mountcashel, July 21 and 28, and a second at Grattan’s, July 29. On the 28th, Lady Mountcashel conducted me in her cabriole to the Devil’s Glen, 20 or 30 miles from Dublin, and infinitely the most stupendous scene I ever saw. You travel for at least a mile and a half surrounded by rocks and mountains, varied and magnificent in their form beyond all imagination, and with a current all the way at the bottom, encumbered with stones of astonishing dimensions, and terminating at the further end in a grand waterfall, which changes its direction two or three times in the descent. You are not here, as in a similar scene nearer Dublin, fettered and hemmed in by the too great nearness of the opposing rocks, but, while cut off, on the one hand, from the whole world, your soul has room to expand in its desert, and savour its divinity. My visit at Grattan’s, July 29, was peculiarly fortunate. I spent two mornings with him alone.
“And now let me recollect with what degree of kindness
and cordiality I have been received in this country. No one has been ignorant
who I was; to no one in that sense have I needed an introduction; and by none,
so far as I know, have I been received with an unfavourable prepossession. Yet,
believe me, I feel no atom intoxicated by the kindness of this people. I am not
aware that I have been received with distinguishing or inordinate favour,
except by a few. The good opinion of Joseph Cooper
Walker, an Irish antiquarian, seems to have been marked with
sufficient explicitness. Hugh Hamilton,
whom I conceive to be the most
| LADY MOUNTCASHEL. | 369 |
“Lady Mountcashel
is a singular character: a democrat and a republican in all their sternness,
yet with no ordinary portion either of understanding or good nature. If any of
our comic writers were to fall in her company, the infallible consequence would
be her being gibbetted in a play. She is uncommonly tall and brawny, with bad
teeth, white eyes, and a handsome countenance. She
| 370 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Monday, July 14, was rendered memorable here by the execution of Jemmy O’Brien, a notorious informer, for murder. He had been accustomed, I am told, to sell warrants of imprisonment on suspicion of treasonable practices for 2 s. 6d. a-piece. Persons came out of the country 30 and 40 miles barefoot to enjoy the spectacle of his exit. One exclaimed, he was the death of my husband, and another, my two brothers were brought to the gallows by his instrumentality. An individual stationed himself on the highest pinnacle in the neighbourhood, that the whole population, however remote, might join in one shout of deafening and unbounded rapture the moment the scaffold sunk from under him. For the rapture, however, you will observe that they were partially indebted to the apprehension which both he and they entertained to the last moment, that the government would interfere with a pardon. When his execution was completed, his body was for a few moments in the hands of the populace, and they tore away fingers and toes with the utmost greediness, to preserve as precious relics of their antipathy and revenge.
“I am exceedingly offended with Mrs Elwes for her fiction, equally wilful and malicious, of a quarrel between me and Mrs Robinson. There is not a shadow of foundation for it. I was somewhat displeased with her (Mrs R.) the last time I saw her for her copious vein of vulgar abuse against a quondam, most despicable friend of hers, and endeavoured in vain to stop it, but I scarcely imagined she was even sensible of the degree of pain and displeasure she inspired.
“And now what shall I say for my poor little girls? I
hope they have not forgot me. I think of them every day, and should be glad, if
the wind was more favourable, to blow them a kiss a piece from Dublin to the
Polygon. I have seen Mr Grattan’s
little girls and Lady Mountcashel’s
little girls, and they are very nice children, but I have seen none that I love
half so well or
| LETTER FROM WALES. | 371 |
